I Became a Food Developer in Another World

Chapter 39: Xylitol (1)

I spend most of my time in the tower.

As I create one processed food after another, my inventory grows and I inevitably need to manage it.

From being an ‘alchemist’ to create stocks, managing farms to supply raw materials, to developing new processed foods.

I was the one who organized the data analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of hop and grunt for Count Jandersen.

It wasn’t a difficult task.

I had done it before in college.

As a marketing major, I had the experience of analyzing various brands’ marketing cases and creating PPTs.

That experience was very helpful in my other life.

Of course, most of the work was handled by Trion and I was only doing the final review, so there was no pressure.

Most of all, it was rewarding for me.

“Well, that’s good.”

I nodded, sipping the Milkies I’d been studying in the Gold Tower.

It was still a far cry from the real thing, with its overly sweet flavor, but it tasted much better than before.

At first, it tasted bland, like fizzy milk.

“Do you like that?”

“No.”

I tilted my Milkies with my answer, and Aria, who had been talking to me, gave me a look of incredulity.

“If you don’t like it, why do you keep drinking it?”

“Because it’s good.”

The Gold Tower’s milky tea certainly tasted worse than the real thing but it was getting better, albeit slowly.

Watching it improve month after month was like raising a child, and I felt proud inside.

“It’s original, but is it that good?”

Shaking her head, Aria poured herself a Milkies.

“Well, if you add a little more sugar and increase the amount of milk, it’s tasty.”

Still, Aria frowned in disapproval.

“If only these lumps would go away.”

“You make a good point.

Aria had a point, as if she’d actually tasted the Milkies.

If I could only improve it, it would be just like the Milkies from my previous life.

“What about this one?”

“Umm, this one’s a little too……”

Aria sipped the grape drink I handed her and glanced at me in between her comments.

“Why do you keep feeding me, I’m getting fat.”

I’ve been feeding her a bunch of processed food and asking her to comment on it, not just today, but every day.

Her to-the-point assessment was so accurate that I couldn’t resist asking.

She said,

“I think they’ll be fine.”

“Like these?”

“Yeah.”

Aria looked at the processed food on the table, confused.

Ice cream wrapped in a tortilla, an unfiltered grape drink with grape skins, and an unidentifiable mass of dark chocolate mixed with milk.

These items seemed strange at first but having seen processed foods in my previous life, I knew the perfect form of these.

Corn ice cream, coco bongs, and Hershey’s chocolate…….

The world may be different, but people are the same, and I was being bombarded with products similar to those I had seen in my previous life.

Of course, there was still a long way to go, but I was happy to see it.

The ‘processed food’ culture has completely taken root in this world.

I can’t make all the processed foods myself, so the emergence of these creative products is something I welcome.

It’s been a little hobby of mine to listen to Aria’s impressions, add my own, pass them on to the makers, and see how they’ve improved over time.

In other words, I wasn’t just enjoying the flavors they had now, I was enjoying the ‘possibilities’ they would create in the future.

“You’ve got unique tastes anyway.”

Aria looked at me like I was some kind of weird foodie as I tasted the ‘milk dark chocolate’.

“So, what’s going on?”

I asked, looking back at Aria, who seemed to have something to say.

“I have a problem.”

“A problem?”

“Yes, a problem caused by all those processed foods you love so much.”

“?”

“People’s teeth are rotting.”

“Oh.”

*

The Otherworld, with its alchemy and magic, had a well-established concept of hygiene.

People knew that if they didn’t wash, they would not only smell bad, but they would get sick, and the church even listed cleanliness as the number one virtue for church members.

But there was one thing that was notoriously neglected, even by those who recognized the importance of cleanliness: brushing your teeth.

It wasn’t because they didn’t know that if you don’t brush your teeth, they will rot.

Otherworldly toothpaste was tasteless enough to cause them to neglect brushing their teeth even if they knew they were rotting.

…Correction.

It wasn’t just flavorless, it was “dirty” flavorless.

The toothpaste came in two formulations, a squeezable liquid and a powder, both of which had a gritty, nasty taste like chewing coal ash.

The horror of having to scrub every nook and cranny with a toothbrush made of animal bristles was indescribable.

At least the wizards were better off and could substitute ‘clean magic’.

So why am I telling you this story?

“They want you to make toothpaste taste good.”

“Who?”

“People.”

“…….”

I looked at her at a loss for words, and she looked like she understood.

“It’s crazy, but everyone wants us to make it, and the Ministry of Magic has requested it.”

The White Tower was a tower that had nothing to do with brushing teeth.

I made processed food, not ‘delicious toothpaste’.

Even if the Ministry of Magic asked me to, I would not be obligated to make a delicious toothpaste.

However, I would have a problem if my people’s teeth were rotting away.

My favorite ‘processed’ food would be banned.

‘No way.’

The thought of reverting to asceticism was horrifying.

“So the point is, all I need to do is make people brush their teeth?”

“I think so.”

“Call the Ministry of Magic, I’ll take it.”

It was a momentous occasion, upon which my future sustenance depended.

*

“Yi, the tooth collector!”

“Run away!”

“Aaaaaaah!”

Children scream and run away as a man appears in the street with an extractor in one hand and a sledgehammer in the other.

“Humph!”

“Ugh!”

The adults instinctively covered their mouths, and the passing young lady trembled like an aspen tree.

The man’s demeanor and appearance made him look like a medieval murderer, but he was actually a state-certified dentist.

He was a state-certified dentist who was grateful to protect the health of the people’s gums.

“Brace yourself, it’s going to hurt a bit, huh?”

“Aaaaaaah!”

The screams of the patient pinned to the wooden plank echoed through the streets as the dentist applied pressure.

Aria and I turned away, unable to bear to look at the sight.

When the screaming subsided, the dentist was pouring a potion into the patient’s mouth.

‘They say the reason dentists are so scary is because fear is imprinted in your genes for generations,’ I thought, ‘but this is real.’

The good news is that it doesn’t seem as dangerous as it did in my previous life, in the Middle Ages.

In this otherworld of magic and alchemy, dentistry was surprisingly on the safe side.

Aside from the pain during the procedure, the follow-up potion was effective.

“From now on, you must brush your teeth once a day. Do you understand?”

“Oh, okay.”

The pain was forgotten and the patient returned home but the children who had been dragged out by their parents were still shaking with fear.

“Hey, do I have to brush my teeth? Mommy doesn’t do it!”

“Shi, no……!”

At the front of the line, a dentist with a toothbrush made of animal hair was manually brushing the children’s teeth one by one.

He had to do this because if he didn’t, they wouldn’t want to brush their teeth, adult or child.

‘He’s doing a lot of work.’

Being a dentist in the other world was a laborious job, to say the least.

And yet, it was feared by the people, so it was a job that could not be done without a sense of duty.

“He must have had a hard time.”

Aria gave me a wistful look, as if she had the same idea.

“Then let’s help him.”

“How?”

I flicked Aria’s robe cap off her head, and then.

“Hamburger Sister!”

“Whoa, Sis, do that, do that!”

The kids’ faces lit up as if they’d seen a celebrity.

Hamburger Girl, was the nickname that had stuck to Aria after her crystal ball captured her eating burgers all over the Empire.

‘Are you crazy?’

Aria, who had cursed me with her eyes, opened her mouth as if she couldn’t speak.

“Awww-”

“Woah!”

“T, triple big burger!”

The children’s eyes lit up as they saw Aria’s hamburger pose up close, which they had only seen through a crystal ball.

“Thanks for helping us.”

Aria’s performance lifted the mood, and the dentist himself came over to thank her.

“I help when I can.”

Suddenly, the dentist’s eyes widened at the sight of me.

“Sage…!”

I put my index finger to my mouth to silence him, and he quickly shut up.

“Take this.”

“What is this?”

The dentist shook his head as he took the sack of white pieces.

“Hand them out to the patients at the end of the appointment, they’ll love them.”

“Hmm…”

“Rest assured, these are good for health.”

The hesitant dentist took the sack at my words.

Then, at the end of the appointment, the dentist handed out the white pieces in the bag.

“Hmmm, uh…?”

“Wow!”

The reaction was astonishing.

The children’s eyes glazed over, ready to burst into tears.

“What, what?! This is so refreshing!”

“It tastes like toothpaste!”

“It’s cool in the mouth!”

Adults exclaimed in unison.

In no time, the streets were filled with people in a frenzy of refreshment.

“One more, please!”

“Me too!”

“Can I get one if I brush my teeth?!”

The dentist, baffled by the feverish response, looked back at me with a surprised expression.

“What’s this……?”

“It’s called xylitol.”

The natural sweetener that turned Finland, a Nordic country, into the land of ‘xylitol.’

An alternative sugar that was created as a substitute for sugar, but was later discovered to be effective in preventing tooth decay.

What I handed over to the dentist was xylitol.