Two weeks later.
This is a jail and detention center in the basement of the castle.
Viscount Barom was in one of the cells.
“Nyaa— (I brought you something.)”
“Oh! Thank you, Grand Mage-sama.”
Viscount Barom was handed homemade cream puffs made by the elves.
It was created based on Yotsuba’s suggestion to make sweets since we can access sugar and ice.
When the elves saw the forest animals and magical beasts working on the cream puffs, they said they wanted to help, so we took them up on their offer.
I alchemically extracted the flavoring used for the fragrance from a tree nut.
It has a nice vanilla bean-like aroma.
But unfortunately, according to the [Appraisal], this nut is poisonous to cats, so I can’t eat it.
“This is it! The mellow milk cream, which sugar alone cannot produce, combines with the crispy pie crust to create an indescribable taste…”
Viscount Barom finishes eating his cream puff.
The guards look at him enviously.
“…Thank you for the food.
It will be a good product. This will sell well, won’t it?”
He answered the question I was about to ask even before I asked it.
Looks like he knew that it was not just a gift, but a sample.
As expected.
This is how I’ve been talking to Viscount Barom from time to time lately.
At first, it was to see how he was doing, but according to Viscount Barom, he is about to die of boredom.
I told him about the business stories I knew, such as the Omi merchant’s belief that the business is good for the seller, the buyer, and society.
His eyes lit up as he asked me to tell him more stories. I told him about Saikaku Ihara’s “Reckonings that Carry Men Through the World” and Konosuke Matsushita’s story, and so on.
He then asked me to look at a book in his parents’ home that heroes had written in the past.
Viscount Barom’s servants brought it to me and I read it.
In the book, there were descriptions of things they wanted to do in this world but failed to do, and things they wanted to make but could not make.
These included, for example, the construction of a sewage treatment plant and a syringe.
Although Viscount Barom tried to put some of the things in the book into action, he failed at every attempt.
The sewage system’s construction was especially halted because the ground collapsed, and the people in the area were unhappy with the project.
It was impossible to achieve great success right from the start.
Failures are commonplace, even in medicine experiments.
The next success can be achieved through the steady accumulation of data.
“So, Grand Mage-sama, how will this ‘weekly’ book sell?”
[It’s up to the editor and the writer, right?] I typed on the typewriter.
“I see. What about this ‘chocolate’ candy?”
[You can’t do that if you can’t find the cacao for the ingredients.]
“Hm…”
Since the sugar business monopoly is no longer possible, Viscount Barom is looking for a business that will provide a source of income, but he is having difficulty finding one.
If the paper manufacturing is going well, it sounds good, but he says the sharp drop in sugar income is hurting.
[I’ll ask someone I know if they have any ideas.]
“Really? Thank you!”
[Well, see you later.]
After another two weeks, Viscount Barom was released.
When Viscount Barom was released, I gave him a piece of paper describing a sewage treatment method that, for some reason, Yotsuba knew well.
There were also sugar candy recipes and spice seeds that he wanted.
Many years later, a large-scale sewage treatment plant was completed in the Viscount Barom territory, and it became the most odorless territory in the nation, but that was a long time in the future.
Brainwashing complete!