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Soap was the first thing that
came to mind after I began implementing the toilets.
In this village, people use
knives and their hands for meals, except for soup. There is an option to
popularize the use of forks, but they will think it is too cumbersome and it will
not spread easily.
Then they came up with the
idea of keeping their hands clean so that they can eat meals that require the
use of their hands.
For the time being, we have
made it known that they should wash their hands thoroughly, but they will
probably find it troublesome. However, if we gave them soap, they would
probably become interested in something unusual and start using it.
The quickest way to start
something troublesome is to get them interested in it.
I decided to start making soap
based on such a simple plan.
Soap should be made from oil
and caustic soda.
As for the raw material, I
confirmed that there was cooking oil in this village.
The problem was caustic soda.
I have heard that the method of
using lye made from ashes, which is often heard of, does not work very well.
The only way to extract lye
from ash is to soak them in water, but I suspect that if the amount is not
known, too much or too little lye water may be extracted, causing the soap to
not harden properly.
So, I started thinking about
whether there is an alternative material to caustic soda.
Caustic soda is characterized
by its strong alkalinity. Lime is the easiest alkali to come up with.
And the houses in this village
are made of plaster. As I recall, the raw material for plaster is slaked lime.
Slaked lime is calcium
hydroxide, so when dissolved in water it becomes highly alkaline. I thought
that this would help.
Then I remembered how to make
slaked lime.
(Isn’t there a lime kiln for
slaked lime? Where could I find one?) (Zack)
The question that came to mind
quickly disappeared.
Then I remembered how to make
soap. To be honest, my knowledge of how to make soap was limited to what I had
seen shown on TV a long time ago. In other words, it is no exaggeration to say
that I have very little knowledge.
I only know that the oil used
as the raw material was vegetable oil, and I don’t remember any important
information about the method of using lye, such as the quantity and the amount
of time to leave the oil in the lye.
I knew in general that “caustic
soda = sodium hydroxide” was used, but I had no idea how to make some from “slaked
lime = calcium hydroxide”.
(I guess I’ll just have to try
it out a few times through trial and error.) (Zack)
The first step is to obtain
oil, and I found out by looking for some.
In this village, animal fats
are relatively abundant, but vegetable oils are scarce.
One possible reason for this
could be that oil is not used as fuel for lamps.
Here, a safe and low operating
cost lamp called a Lighting Magic Tool is widespread. In addition, the price of
the magic tool itself is relatively low, and lights that pose a risk of fire
are rarely used.
Lard, which is pig fat, and tallow,
which is beef fat, are by-products of meat production, but vegetable oil was
only available in the form of oil from nuts such as walnuts, which was used as a
food seasoning.
(It will be quite the cost to
get some in liters per order. Well, it’s not that it’s impossible, so I’ll just
look for it slowly.) (Zack)
I had two “Lifelines”.
One was that the
yellow-flowered grass along the river might be a cruciferous plant, and the
other was that there might be acorns or camellias or other nuts.
To solve this, I decided to
talk to Sharon’s father, Guy Jakes, a former adventurer, and forest expert.
I will explain about acorns – chinkapin,
oak fruit, and camellia flowers. [T/N: Castanopsis, commonly called
chinquapin or chinkapin, is a genus of evergreen trees belonging to the beech
family, Fagaceae. From Wiki-sensei.]
“I’ve never seen similar
flowers, but the berries are plentiful in the forest. But there is a problem.”
(Zack)
I have never seen camellia
flowers. I remember hearing that camellias came to Europe from Japan.
And there seems to be a
problem with acorns, too.
“They are hard to spot
now because they are buried under fallen leaves, and the forest is home to
boars and large rodent monsters that eat them, so it would be dangerous to go
out and get them.” (Zack)
Guy, who knows the forest
well, was not in favor of this work, which takes a long time and over a wide
area in the forest.
As for the other cruciferous
grass, it turned out that, as I predicted, the seeds would yield oil, but the
quantity was too small to be of any use.
(I’m sure there were various
plants that could yield oil, such as sesame and grape seeds, but not here, or
if there were, the quantity was too small. Even if I forced people to collect
acorns, I don’t know how much oil we could get from them…) (Zack)
So, I went back to the beginning
and reevaluated my plans.
(Why should I stick to vegetable
oil in the first place? Can’t I make it with lard or tallow? I’ll give
it a try first, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll give up.) (Zack)
I asked my father and
Nicholas, who was now completely in charge of me, to get me some lard or tallow
and slaked lime, the raw material for plaster.
“I suppose you’ll receive them
soon, but what are you going to do with them?” (Matt)
“I’m going to make something
called soap.” (Zack)
When I said this, they were
both surprised at the same time and said, “Soap? Can you make something
that expensive?”
I asked them about the
details, and they told me that soap is made in the southern part of the Caelum
Empire, near the imperial capital, and that it is so expensive that it is
normally used only by nobles, moreover senior nobles above the rank of count.
Naturally, it is not sold in
this remote area.
The price of one silver coin
in the commercial city of Aurella, in other words, was more than 10 Crona.
(10 C is about 10,000 yen… I
remember there are soaps in Japan that cost several thousand yen a piece. It is
certainly not for daily use. Of course…) (Zack)
The main unit of currency in
this world is called “Crona,” and one (C) Crona is one small silver
coin, which is roughly equivalent to one thousand yen in terms of value. The
auxiliary unit is the Eere, and a hundred (e) equals one (C).
The coins’ values are: 1 platinum
(1,000 Crona), 1 large gold (500 Crona), 1 gold (100 Crona), 1 half gold (50 Crona),
1 silver (10 Crona), 1 half silver (5 Crona), 1 small silver (1 Crona), 1 large
copper (50 Eere), 1 half copper (10 Eere), 1 small copper (1 Eere), but I have
never received any pocket money, so I have actually not seen the actual coins.
I have never seen the actual coins because I have never received one.
When I heard that story, I
thought that if I made soap poorly, it would be awkward.
(If it is such a high-quality
product, or if a similar product appears on the market, it will be thoroughly
investigated. If I did something wrong, it could bring disaster to this village
and my secret might be discovered…) (Zack)
Just when I was about to give
up, I realize that there may be a way to prevent interference in this village
because of its origins and geographical conditions.
(Wait a minute. The
distribution route here goes through the City-State Union. If we can draw in
the City-State Union… for example, by disclosing the soap manufacturing method,
we should be able to crush the suppliers in the Imperial City before we are
crushed. The only difference in quality is in the distribution of products, so
if we give them a few hints, the merchants in the City-State Union, with their
ingenuity, will make better products…) (Zack)
The City-State Union is a
coalition of autonomous city-states centered in the commercial city of Aurella.
I decided to make only what is
used in the village for the time being, and if it works out to some extent, I will
sell the manufacturing method to the merchants without making it a specialty
product.
(I don’t want to make a
constant profit from soap. It’s better to spread the soap when it becomes
profitable to some extent… I’m sorry to the manufacturers in the imperial
capital, but I’ll ask them to sacrifice for the sake of spreading the soap.)
(Zack)
My father looks at my silence
suspiciously, as if he senses my lack of confidence.
“I don’t know if I can do
it right, but I think it will probably be okay.” (Zack)
Even after I said that my
father and Nicholas were still not convinced and seemed to be half-convinced.
The next day, I decided to
make soap at Nicholas’s house.
After trying it out, I
realized that what I had in mind was liken to counting my chicks before they
hatch.
Making soap was more difficult
than I had expected.
At first, all I could produce
was a weird, mushy, or sticky object, and more than a month had already passed
since I started development in mid-June, but I could not complete a solid one that
could be called soap. Or rather, I can’t find out how long it takes for it to
solidify at all.
As far as I remember, it
should have hardened after about a week or two of standing, but I can’t seem to
make anything that looks like it.
It seemed to take a long time,
so I tried several patterns with small quantities of different amounts of lime,
lye, and oil, as well as different lengths of heating.
(I thought it was about a
week. Maybe I’m misremembering. Or does it have to be vegetable oil? That would
cost too much, and I guess we’ll just have to take the longer path…) (Zack)
I’ll instruct Nicholas and his
wife Kate not to throw out anything that doesn’t solidify and to keep good
records.
I leave Nicholas’s house,
which has turned into a dubious laboratory, pretending I didn’t see the
disastrous state of their house.
(Soap making might take a year
or so. Let’s take it easy…) (Zack)
With that in mind, I returned
to the mansion to put my efforts into another project.
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