Chronicles of The Hardships of Komachi in The Sengoku Era

p sense of smell, as Shizuko put one mushroom after the other in her basket.
In the blink of an eye, the small basket in her hands was filled and she transferred them to the basket she shouldered, carefully stacking them inside.
Shizuko gathered all the mushrooms in the surroundings, leaving only the small ones and the poisonous ones behind.

“Next is Maitake, and Matsutake after that.
We can take care of the Shiitake last.“

Without even leaving Aya the time to interject, Shizuko reshouldered her basket and headed for the next place.
Aya followed her in a hurry, but keeping up with Shizuko who was familiar with this mountain was the best she could do.
She barely had the breathing room to ask any questions.
Aya finally realized that Shizuko had reduced her speed out of concern for her physical condition when they were ascending the mountain.

“Here we are, the Maitake hunting grounds.
And I already found one!”

Aya thought that she could take a short break after they had arrived, but having found a Maitake, Shizuko ran off.
As she didn’t exactly have the energy to run around anymore, and it wasn’t a distance where she would lose sight of Shizuko, Aya wiped the sweat off from her forehead and moistened her parched throat with water from the bamboo canteen on her waist.
The slightly cool water felt very good to her heated body.

“This should be around 10 kg now.
Ah, there’s another one! This year really is a great year!”

Neglecting Aya who was leaning against a tree, Shizuko dedicated herself to collecting Maitake.

After harvesting the different kinds of Shimeji, the Maitake, and the Matsutake mushrooms their baskets were full, so they decided to descend the mountain.
Shizuko thought that leaving the Shiitake for another time would be fine, but Aya insisted on wanting to see them, so the two girls climbed the mountain a second time.
And after a few minutes, they reached the Shiitake cultivation area Shizuko had made.

“Looks like they grew this year–”

Said Shizuko while posing as though she was looking into the distance.
In contrast, Aya held her breath as she beheld the scenery before her.

They didn’t cover the whole field of view, but a large quantity of Shiitake were growing here.
This much could easily be sold for a fortune.
Yet Shizuko was simply happy that she had succeeded in growing Shiitake.
Aya couldn’t feel the slightest bit of greed from her.

“(This is…) I really do have to report it to the lord at this amount.”

“Huh? You do? Because of something like Shiitake?”

At this reply, Aya released an extremely tired sigh, intentionally obvious enough for Shizuko to notice.

In the end, they harvested all the Shiitake and returned home, where Shizuko immediately wanted to fry some and eat them.
Aya stopped this with all her might, and they turned all mushrooms without bug bites into dried Shiitake.
By drying them in the sun, the Shiitake lost their vitamin B, but in return gained ten times the amount of vitamin D.
In addition, this increases the amount of Umami components in them, improving their flavor, and thus making dried Shiitake superior to fresh ones.

“But honestly, are Shiitake that expensive?”

Still doubtful of the value of the Shiitake mushrooms, Shizuko asked Aya while they were steadily processing them.
Aya stopped working, letting out a small sigh, and started speaking while looking at the Shiitake which were arranged in the drying basket.

“I do not know the details either, but I have heard that an amount of 15 Kan (approximately 56.25 kg) would allow one to buy a castle.”

“Then this much should allow you to buy a really big house, right? Well, cleaning it would be a hassle, so I wouldn’t want that though.”

“…..If you could hire a large amount of people, would you build a large mansion?”

“Huh? If it’s too big, I wouldn’t be able to use all of it.
I’m fine with the house I have now.”

Aya had tried to gauge the depth of Shizuko’s greed with this hypothetical conversation, but to her surprise, she was met with a lack of said greed far surpassing her expectations.

Harvesting the bounties of fall wasn’t a task completed in just one or two days.
One needed to go into the mountains several days, gathering whatever was the current target and then taking measures to preserve the results.
To top it off, the targeted items changed on a daily basis.

She collected many bounties of fall such as both sweet and sour wild persimmons, chestnuts still in their prickly hulls, dug up japanese yam3, as well as abundantly lying around acorns.
She also harvested other fruits besides persimmons, but as they couldn’t be preserved, she mainly ate them as a snack while collecting the rest.

“Let’s quickly turn these sour persimmons into dried persimmons.”

In front of a simmering pot, Shizuko peeled the skin off of sour persimmons.
After peeling them, she tied a thread to their stem and passed them through the boiling water for around 5 seconds.
With this process finished, she tied the strings to a drying rack she had prepared in advance, taking care that the persimmons wouldn’t touch each other.

Although the number of persimmons was a measly 30, Shizuko’s skillful handling had even surprised Aya. 

“This looks fine.
They should be ready in around 40 days.”

Looking at the host of items laid out to dry such as the persimmons and Shiitake mushrooms, a content smile rose to Shizuko’s lips.

“Fall really is bountiful, right?”

“….Indeed.
Incidentally, Shizuko-sama, you appear to be knowledgeable on the topic of mushrooms.
Might I inquire where you have come to know of this?”

While taking care to make it blend into the conversation as natural as possible, Aya posed this question to Shizuko who was checking the items laid out for drying.
Aya did this to avoid having her true intentions seen through, but unfortunately, Shizuko was a bit airheaded, so she didn’t have the slightest idea that Aya’s question might have had a hidden meaning.

“Huh? Well, one of my relatives is a mushroom scholar.
“Mushrooms are really interesting, Shizuko!” he’d say while excitedly teaching me bits and pieces about them.”

“Is that so.”

“The place where I used to live suffered from population aging.
That might have been why everyone wanted to find a successor.
So I was taught quite a lot of stuff.
Since I was taught from a young age, I managed to get enrolled into an agricultural high school directly under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“Agri, Agriculture, Forestry? Agricultural… high school? En, enroll?”

Aya couldn’t understand the meaning of the latter half of Shizuko’s words at all, leaving her with the fact that Shizuko’s broad knowledge was the result of the people of her village imparting their wisdom onto her out of a desire for a successor.
In short, Aya thought, Shizuko was the collection of that village’s knowledge.

(A village possessing technology this advanced….
I have never heard of such a thing)

“Alright, we’re finished.
It’ll get cold soon, so let’s return back inside.”

“….As you wish.”

She had tried to find out more about Shizuko’s background, but instead, the mystery had only deepened, leaving Aya puzzled.

field mustard, Brassica rapa subsp.
oleifera  In order: Lyophyllum shiimeji, Hypsizygus tessellatus (brown beech or brown clamshell mushroom), Lyophyllum Fumosum, Pholiota microspora, and Tricholoma matsutake.  Dioscorea japonica