I Became a Food Developer in Another World

Chapter 3: There’s No Coke in This World (3)

“Ehhhh, ehhhhh.”

Ranya has been like that lately.

It was a side effect of making so much money from Coke.

Whenever Ranya looked at the amount of money in the Tower bank account, she laughed hysterically.

Even if she was having a bad day, seeing the money in her bank account would make her smile like a sunflower.

Even when she went to bed, she would fall asleep with the account on her bedside table.

It was like a good luck charm, and she never took it off her body.

I don’t know what she would do if she lost it.

I’m sure she’ll take care of her things, since she’s a master wizard.

“Ooh, now we can get wands too!”

I smirked at Ranya’s simple happiness.

‘I did make a lot of money.’

The otherworldly cola has been a hit since its launch.

The idea of a carbonated beverage was unimaginably refreshing to the otherworlders, who had never thought of drinking carbonated beverages.

Of course, sales were slow in the first few days due to the negative perception of carbonation, but that was short-lived.

Coke was able to tackle the negative perception of carbonation head-on and quickly won over the taste buds of the rest of the world.

There was even a myth that a glass of cola after a meal was good for your health.

In the capital, young and old alike enjoyed Coke, and even nobles from the periphery who heard the rumors tried to procure Coke through their connections in the capital to try it.

These attempts were thwarted by the fact that the merchants, who had a limited supply, sold only one bottle of cola per person per day.

Due to the endless popularity of cola, the magic world raised suspicions that the White Magic Tower was manufacturing drugs.

The Cardinals even argued among themselves about whether it was a drug or not.

Coke has had a profound impact on society, regardless of religion, culture, or politics.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the world’s beverage culture is divided into pre- and post-cola.

Of course, not all of these changes were caused by Coke alone.

“As you said, we lowered the price of Coke to 10 silver and sold it.”

Ten silver is a price that even a commoner could easily afford for one drink a day.

Considering the value of the cola, it was not enough but the cola was selling for 10 silver.

“That must have been a lot to ask, but thank you for listening.”

“No, we’re just grateful to the wizard who invented Coke.”

The middle-aged man with the grave face looked at me with respect.

“You’re the one who lowered the price of cola, even at the expense of profit.”

The middle-aged man was none other than Count Trion, the head of the upper echelons of Trion, who was responsible for the distribution of Coke.

And as Count Trion said, I gave up some of my profits to lower the price of cola.

In a world where it was customary for the supplier to take 70% of the sale, I would only take 30%, less than half.

I demanded that the rest be taken by them so that the price of cola could be reduced

Count Trion must have sensed that, because he gave up a little of his own profit.

It was behind the scenes that cola became a drink that everyone could enjoy, noble and commoner alike.

“But are you sure you don’t mind taking only thirty percent of the price?”

“As long as the cola is sold at a price that everyone can afford, I don’t mind.”

“Very well, then I will keep the price of the coke at 10 silver, as you wish.”

“Yes, please do so.”

Count Trion looked at me the way you look at a great man in a biography of a great man.

But I hadn’t refused to take the money out of some great spirit of self-sacrifice, as he seemed to think.

It was out of a very personal desire to have something to eat.

In order for something to be edible, there has to be a culture in which it is edible, right?

I knew of such a culture.

‘Processed food culture!’

The crystallization of modern chemistry that has led to the dopamine addiction of modern humans on Earth in the 21st century.

All I wanted was for that processed food culture to spread to the rest of the world.

I just put Coke as the vanguard of that processed food culture.

‘It’s all about the money. I’ll make it again.’

Coke wasn’t the only modern processed food that was alive and well in my head.

If I could make just one of them, I’d be sitting on a fortune, so money is not the problem but the lack of culture.

If cola was expensive, it would have become a luxury for the upper class without becoming a culture.

Culture only blossoms when it spreads, even if it was a ‘counterfeit’ made by alchemy and magic, not modern science.

‘As long as it tastes the same, it’s good enough.’

Creation begins with imitation, right?

Who knows, maybe one day science will improve and we’ll have the real thing.

That was far in the future and not my concern.

For now, I just need to enjoy this alchemical creation.

“Count, I’ll have a Coke, please.”

“Very well.”

“And one for Ciel, my lord.”

“Yes!”

“Yes.”

“”Cheers!””

Yum, this is good.

I think I’ll buy some now.

The launch of Coke wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

We received dozens of threatening letters a week, demanding that we share our Coke recipe.

There were love letters from other tower masters, fan letters, and even a marriage proposal from a nobleman I didn’t even know.

Of course, I ignored them all and used them as kindling for the fire.

In short, I feel like I’ve experienced everything I’ve ever wanted to experience since I started living in this world.

But the hardest thing was making cola.

‘Ugh, it’s horrible to think about it again.’

At first, all the mages of the White Tower, including myself and Ranya, had to cling to the coke brewery with the deadly orders for thousands of colas flooding in every day

We couldn’t tell if it was the coke factory or the tower.

─Ahhhhh!

─Oh, help me…….

─I am Coke, I am Coke, I am…….

The screams coming from the tower were so loud that the security forces were called out because residents reported that the White Tower was conducting human experiments.

Of course, this was all in the first week of the cola’s launch, and by now, with additional alchemists in charge of manufacturing, everyone was relaxed.

“This is what life is like.”

I sat in the garden and enjoyed the leisure of Coke.

Now it was just a matter of relaxing and savoring the results.

I was leaning back on the bench and counting the passing clouds when I heard a voice.

“Senior! Something’s wrong!”

A girl with short black hair ran over.

“What’s wrong?”

“The recipe for cola was stolen!”

The girl who spoke without pausing to catch her breath was Aria, Ranya’s third disciple.

“One of the alchemists working at the factory must have been a spy for the competition!”

Hmm, is it that time of year already?

“Leave them alone.”

“Yes……?”

Aria blinked wide-eyed.

She looked like she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

I smirked, thinking the reaction was cute.

“What, you don’t think so?”

“You worked so hard to create this cola, and I’d be so upset if another top stole it from you that I wouldn’t be able to sleep!”

Aria puffed up her cheeks like a hamster in frustration at my lukewarm response.

“You have to do something! Are you just going to stand by and watch it get taken away from you?”

“They can’t take it away.”

“What?”

“There’s no point in stealing it, it’s the ‘stock’ that counts.”

I picked up the stock, which looked like brown sugar, from the table.

-Chiiii……

I dropped the stock into the sparkling water, and the bubbles bubbled up to form a cola.

‘This is amazing.’

This mysterious “stock” was the key to alchemy.

The secret of cola was contained in this ‘cola stock’.

“I mean they stole the stock!”

Aria stomped her foot.

That’s because it was a frequent occurrence to analyze the contents of stolen stock and steal the results.

That was why stocks were supposed to be kept under tight security.

“I want you to analyze it.”

“The stock?”

I held out a pile of stock in a bowl on the table, and Aria took it, puzzled.

Aria’s eyes widened in confusion as she used her scan magic to analyze the stock.

“Senior, is this……?”

“It doesn’t work?”

“Yes, the magic doesn’t work. How did this happen?”

“The Tower Lord put a lock on it.”

“!”

Stock is a vulnerable substance.

This is why alchemists are the most sensitive to its leakage but who are we?

Ranya it’s an archmage, one of only ten in a continent full of wizards.

She has analyzed the coke stock and placed a lock on it so that no one can see its contents.

Just like Coca-Cola’s secret ingredient ‘Merchandise 7X’, which cannot be analyzed by modern science.

Alchemists could try to analyze the Coke stock with a hundred blades, but in vain.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before, I didn’t even know about it and was surprised.”

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

Aria’s face brightened at the mention of Ranya’s magic.

Ranya was an otaku who only collected practical magic that didn’t cost money, yes, because she was a dead man walking when it came to practical magic.

No one but Ranya herself would be able to unlock the secrets of the Cola Stock.

“But what about the other stuff besides the stock? There’s a lot of stuff you put in there.”

“I can’t help it.”

In addition to the cola stock, the cola was infused with artificial carbonation, lime, cinnamon, and other locally sourced ingredients as much as possible.

But there was nothing to stop them from leaking out.

‘I don’t want to stop it.’

In fact, I welcomed the leakage of cola.

My goal was to bring a processed food culture to this world and diversify the food supply.

Of course, it’s not going to be easy, but…….

‘It’s not like I’m developing it.’

The people who stole it will do that.

I’d just enjoy the beverages they invented.

“Tell them not to worry too much about managing the cola stock.”

“…What? Is that okay?”

“They won’t be able to make anything with it.”

What’s the point of stealing stock that you can’t analyze?

They’ll just waste their time.

“Are you really a demon?”

Aria stuck her tongue out. But then she nodded in approval.

“Okay, I’ll make it easier for them to steal it.”

“?”

Didn’t I say that?

“I don’t think I’m the devil.

I was dumbfounded by the answer, but Aria had already left.

‘…Well, whatever.’

They’re the ones who stole it, not me, so I shrugged it off.

Just like that, the Cola Stock was on display for anyone to steal.

It was the competitors who stole it that got upset.

“We don’t know what’s in the cola stock! Someone put a lock on it!”

“A lock on the stock, what kind of nonsense is that?”

“You’re not going to unlock it? Why don’t you unlock it first? Don’t you realize we’re all going to starve to death?”

“Ew! If you can’t solve it, develop it from scratch!”

And just like that, the first month’s sales of the cola sold at the top of Trion were released while competitors were scrambling to develop sodas.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh……”

When Ranya saw the numbers on the sales sheet, she wrung her hands and muttered the same words over and over again, as if the machine was broken.

“Senior, are you sure this is the right number?”

“It’s correct.”

“Oh my god…….”

Aria stared blankly at the sales slip.

The second disciples, Zion and Ciel, watching from the sidelines, were also speechless.

They had never seen a unit like this before.

The profits we made before weren’t even worth three shots of blood compared to this.

“Yu, Yu, how much is this?”

“Half a million gold.”

-Kwadang.

Ranya flipped back.

Half a million gold was Cola’s first month’s sales profit.