"Eh? Really!?"

"Yeah, take a look at this page."

Dolph showed me the page he had open in the plant encyclopedia. I'm the type who gets nauseous reading in a moving vehicle, but a quick glance should be fine.

The encyclopedia contains information about plants found within a certain range from the location where I purchased it, along with pictures. The plant labeled as Belmarcon looks somewhat white, slightly round, and elongated, with green leaves sprouting from the top.

In terms of the original world, it's like a cross between a daikon radish and a turnip.

"Let’s see… It says you can grill the Belmarcon over low heat, then finely chop it, steep it in hot water, and boil down the extracted liquid into a powder that can be used as a sweet seasoning… That definitely sounds like something you could use as sugar."

The encyclopedia not only lists the plant’s name and photo, but also its effects and usage—like being a material for potions. Just like the monster encyclopedia, its usefulness is incredible, so in Al-Flare, we’ve been copying and publishing parts of it through the Adventurer’s Guild.

As for the monster encyclopedia, we share everything. But with the plant one, some entries could be misused for things like poisoning, so we carefully sift through the contents with Guild Master Rizac and Vice Guild Master Patrice, extracting only the beneficial information.

This Belmarcon wasn't listed in the plant encyclopedia I bought in Al-Flare, so it probably doesn’t grow around there.

"Does anyone here know about this plant called Belmarcon?"

I personally don’t know it, but maybe it's a well-known sugar source in this region.

"...I don’t know it."

"I’m sorry, I haven’t seen it either."

"I don’t know it."

Seems like Lilia, Ms. Berna, and Ms. Ferry don’t know this Belmarcon plant either. It’s not that famous, apparently.

"I know it! It’s a vegetable that grows around here. I think it did taste a little sweet, but it was being sold at a normal price in the market."

"Oh, really? Thanks, Lange."

Looks like Lange, who accepts requests not only in Al-Flare but in nearby villages and towns too, knows about Belmarcon.

A sweet vegetable... It might be something like sugar beets in the original world. If I remember right, sugar beets are a crop grown in places like Hokkaido.

When it comes to sugar sources, sugarcane is famous, but a lot of sugar is actually made from sugar beets. I don’t really know the detailed production process, but if we follow what's written in this plant encyclopedia, we might be able to make sugar from this.

"...If Belmarcon can really be obtained cheaply and turned into sugar, we might be able to bring down the current high sugar prices."

"Ehh!? That’s amazing!"

"Yeah, while spices have gotten a lot cheaper, sugar is still expensive. It’d be fantastic if it became more affordable!"

As Fia and Lilia said, if sugar could be produced more cheaply than current methods, that would definitely be an amazing discovery.

"...It certainly is amazing, but I imagine there are a lot of things we’ll have to consider too."

"Yeah, I agree with you, Angel. It’s a great discovery, no doubt, but there’s probably a lot we need to investigate as well."

In the original world, this could be celebrated with a simple “what a great discovery,” but in this world, such information has to be handled carefully. Just like when we first sold compasses—convenient tools and information come with proportional risks.

Still, unlike when I first arrived in this world, I’m not all alone anymore. I have a lot of reliable people with me, so I’m sure we can make this work in a positive direction.

"First things first, we’ll need to try making sugar from this Belmarcon. If it’s a local vegetable, it might be sold at the market in the town of Eibra, where we’re headed. Let’s look for it there and check the price too."

If it’s a local vegetable sold in the market, chances are it’ll be available in Eibra too. I’d like to buy some and test whether sugar can actually be made from it. I’d also like to compare its production cost, flavor, and time with currently sold sugar.

And we should probably look into which businesses are currently producing and selling sugar. If a single merchant is monopolizing the sugar market, I can already feel the headaches coming.

Well, if it turns out one shop is artificially inflating prices, I won’t hesitate to anonymously leak the info to other merchants. Sugar is widely used in cooking, so it would really help if it became more accessible. In any case, time to do some investigating.