Chapter Title: Delicious Tuna
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It had been a really long time since the whole family had gathered for a meal.
Baron Ark Pellow was someone who placed great importance on the daily family dinner.
There was even a plaque on one wall of the dining hall that read [Family meals bring harmony to the home], showing his obsession with family dinners.
In Jeron's opinion, forced family meals didn't necessarily bring harmony to the home, but the Pellow family was fairly cheerful in its own way, so it did create some positive synergy.
Baron Ark's body had recovered enough that he could now move on his own.
Unfortunately, the arrow had struck his right arm, causing considerable inconvenience, but fortunately, the baron was ambidextrous.
He held his sword in his right hand, but it didn't seem to cause any major issues in daily life.
"Uhahaha, thanks to the goddess's grace, the family is gathered together for a meal—how grateful I am."
"It's truly fortunate. If Father hadn't been there, I shudder to think what might have happened."
"It wasn't my time to die yet. I heard about what you did while I was away. You managed the territory splendidly, and your military strategy was flawless. There's no issue at all with you inheriting the lord's position."
"..."
Jeron broke out in a cold sweat.
No, once his body recovered, shouldn't he take over managing the territory?
Jeron was already on the verge of burnout from overwork.
Even for a small territory with a population of 30,000, in a medieval setting where administrative systems and social networks were underdeveloped, it wasn't an exaggeration to say the lord handled almost everything.
Leading such a primitive culture was exhausting enough, and piling on overwork would lead to baldness in his twenties.
Just like the current Baron Ark Pellow.
"Ah, Father, you can't retire yet. I still have much to learn."
"Learn what? I inherited the territory at seventeen and managed it. I'm old now and need to prepare for my final days. Living in a cottage with your mother would be enough."
"Then we couldn't have family dinners."
"Hm? What are you talking about? You and your sibling can come to the cottage."
The man who was serious about rice, Ark Pellow.
But for Jeron, meals were nothing but agonizing times.
Here, food was merely a means to shove down sustenance to stay alive—nothing to savor.
So much so that when Jeron first encountered food in this world, he had given up on gastronomy entirely.
Almost the same menu every day.
Today, it was mystery steamed meat, along with watery soup, wine, and bread—that was it.
Even this bread masquerading as a staple was problematic.
The flour wasn't finely ground, leaving a gritty texture, and it was so hard and lacking in any bread-like quality that it might as well have been a rock.
He hadn't touched the meat due to the bloody smell, and already his stomach felt queasy.
No wonder they started drinking wine from age five.
Having gone to Earth once, Jeron could no longer endure this torture disguised as meals, so he prepared his secret weapon.
At Jeron's command, the butler brought out a special dish.
The round hunk of meat on the large plate was none other than canned tuna.
The territory had a large lake used as a water source, so fish dishes weren't absent, but they mostly made pies, which didn't suit his taste at all.
When Jeron opened a can of tuna brought from Earth and tasted it, he felt his long-dormant taste buds going wild.
That sensation he had completely forgotten after reincarnating.
Canned tuna was a masterpiece born from countless experiments by Earth's megacorporations, mobilizing even researchers.
Before his previous Earth's destruction, tuna was just a simple ingredient, but living here made it a delicacy beyond compare.
"What is this?"
"It's a fish that the Young Lord caught."
"It looks so unappetizing."
"..."
Visually, isn't the fish pie worse?
How much better did processed canned tuna with all the flesh filleted look compared to bread with fish heads sticking out?
From the start, how could people in this era even judge taste?
"Still, considering the effort you put into catching it, please try a bite."
"Well, if you caught it, I should try it even if it doesn't look tasty."
The family members absentmindedly speared some tuna with their forks and put it in their mouths.
"Cough, cough!"
"Gasp!"
"O-Onii-chan, what on earth is this?"
Everyone clutched their aching hearts.
In a word, they were shocked.
Then, like turtles hiding in a gale, they buried their faces in the plates and devoured it ravenously.
Table manners were completely ignored.
Baron Ark even seemed ready to lick the tuna juice off the plate.
But mindful of decorum, he grabbed bread and scraped the plate so fiercely it nearly wore through.
The whole family reacted the same way.
The corner of Jeron's mouth twitched.
To people who had lived taking the rotten medieval food culture for granted, the taste of canned tuna—researched and released competitively by Earth's megacorporations—could only be shocking.
"What in the world is this? I've never heard of fish this delicious in my life."
"Right! It's been ages since my mouth had such a treat."
"Onii-chan, is there more?"
Everyone was clamoring.
When Jeron shook his head, they all looked deflated.
They probably wouldn't eat properly for a while.
After tasting canned tuna, all the world's food would seem like garbage.
On ruined Earth, tuna wasn't available every day. Occasionally, if luck was good, he'd find one, and it became a special treat.
Finding a few cans, including tuna, on the second floor of that pharmacy this time was truly lucky.
With everyone eyeing him expectantly for an explanation, Jeron made something up.
"While fishing today, a golden carp got hooked. I scaled and prepared it right there, cooked it, and brought it back."
"Ooh, the Guardian Dragon must have blessed us."
"I've taken up fishing as a hobby lately, so if I catch more golden carp occasionally, I'll bring them."
"I hope you catch a lot. If we sold this to the county seat, how much profit would it bring?"
"Unfortunately, not in that quantity."
Jeron had thought of that too.
He still hadn't gotten over the shock from back then. The problem was the limited quantity.
If sold, it would be a massive hit, no doubt.
People would line up no matter the price, and it might even be presented to the king, leading to a dedicated fishing unit.
But the amount was only enough to occasionally share as a family treat, which was a great pity.
The Pellow family weren't big talkers at meals, but today was different.
The conversation bloomed around the tuna, and it even solidified Baron Ark Pellow's plan to build a cottage by the lake.
***
"To think the impact of mere tuna would be this huge."
Jeron felt like thanking the family's Guardian Dragon once again.
When he learned there were limits on items brought from Earth, he had inwardly cursed the lizard hatchling, but he now realized that Earth items could have enormous ripple effects.
Earth was at least a thousand years more advanced than here.
Even after its destruction, the legacy remained.
If he searched well, there would surely be many items with massive impacts across society.
Today's tuna incident made that crystal clear to Jeron.
Finding an unlooted large supermarket would be a jackpot.
He couldn't loot an entire Earth forge or bring back a truckload, but even this much demonstrated tremendous power.
Before tonight's Earth expedition, Jeron opened the Mana Heart Method manual.
The manual itself wasn't thick; he could memorize it in a week, but practicing it seemed extremely difficult.
[Feeling mana is the starting point. Most people sense mana's existence with a master's help. If you can't feel mana by any method, you have no qualification to be a mage. To describe the author's sensation, mana is warm yet cool, prickling yet squishy.]
"..."
As Jeron memorized the manual, he even suspected the count of scamming him.
It was full of vague, pie-in-the-sky talk and enigmatic sentences.
The manual had the power to turn even sane people into dyslexics.
Anyway.
Interpreting it somehow, mana permeated the atmosphere, and feeling it was the first step. The second was drawing it in using mental energy.
At this point, he wondered if he should just give up on the heart method entirely.
Jeron had no master, mages were rare in the kingdom, and even Count Hanes, who had copied the manual, claimed only to have grasped magic's basics.
"Still, I can't give up."
It was a hard-won heart method.
The content was arcane, full of metaphors needing interpretation, but the book itself wasn't fake.
In an era where magic was declining.
Count Hanes knew that, which was why he handed over the manual willingly.
Jeron thought the Golden Key might be the key to unraveling mana's secrets.
To summarize:
1. The Golden Key is definitely charged by magic power.
2. While moving on Earth and focusing on the Golden Key, he might sense mana flowing.
For now, there was no method. He could only watch carefully.
Jeron set aside the heart method manual and opened the portal.
The interior of the forge warehouse came into view.
He had organized the forge's items to scrape together as much as possible, but if he'd known about the weight limit earlier, he never would have gone through such pointless toil.
Splash!
His body passed through the portal as smoothly as slipping through water.
The somewhat chilly air.
Since the warehouse was safe, Jeron closed his eyes for a moment to sense the surrounding energy.
It was said most mana on the Karen Continent was depleted, so he wondered if Earth might have more remaining.
"..."
Of course, if it were that easy, magic as a discipline wouldn't have declined.
You can't fill your belly on the first bite.
While focusing on the Golden Key, Jeron scanned the warehouse interior.
One thing he confirmed clearly from the deal with the count:
Earthlings' aesthetics differed completely from those of the Karen Continent.
Grandpa jewelers' dragon rings were treated as mere heirlooms and sold cheap. In contrast, ordinary jewelry didn't fetch high prices.
So, he decided to look for something equally rustic and flashy.
This was a rural forge, serving farmer grandpas and grannies, so it was possible.
After rummaging through the warehouse for a long time, Jeron found a pile of tools messily stacked in what seemed like a secret compartment.
It was full of broken tools, and it looked like the forge owner had failed at making something—half-broken sickles, shovel blades, hoes, and the like were scattered about.
In that junk pile, a dagger so tacky it was painful to look at caught Jeron's eye.
"Ha, it really was here?"