It was when Baron Lizton was absentmindedly gazing at the alley outside the tavern, having consumed three or four glasses of beer and a greasy pie.
Small children were seen playing in the alley. Among them, a woman who appeared to be the mother of one child approached and handed the child a small stick.
The child who received the stick paused for a moment and, as if it were a familiar routine, put the end of the well-trimmed wooden stick into their mouth and rubbed it against their teeth to clean them.
At that moment, dozens of thoughts raced through Baron Lizton's mind as he watched the scene.
Except for a few races on the continent, most races clean their teeth. This is likely because the pain from blackened, rotten teeth does not discriminate based on race, social status, age, or youth.
Baron Lizton also uses a small silver toothpick that he carries with him to remove pieces of meat stuck between his teeth after every meal. Additionally, sage grows in the garden of the baron's mansion for the purpose of tooth cleaning.
Every morning and evening, the baron places tooth powder, or 'tooth remedy' as it is called, purchased from a wandering peddler from Ves-Dinas, onto a sage leaf picked from the garden. He then carefully brings it to his mouth, supporting the sage leaf and the powder on it with his index and middle fingers, and rubs it against the surface of his teeth and gums to clean them.
One day, he had asked the peddler who regularly brought tooth powder to the baron's mansion about the ingredients used in the powder. At that time, he didn't know he would end up making tooth powder himself, but the baron was grateful to his past self for being curious that day and tried to vividly recall the vague memory.
He could remember that the wandering peddler had told him it was completed by finely grinding dried cloves, cinnamon, rosemary powder, and oyster shells, then adding ground seeds of an undisclosed fruit.
Thus began the baron's journey in Chalais to create a tooth powder that anyone on the continent could use and would want to use.
*****
The first place Baron Lizton headed to was the Great Library of Ves-Dinas. There, he spent half of his time researching the formulations of tooth powders made in various parts of the continent, and the other half experimenting on his own teeth and gums with tooth powders he made himself using small amounts of ingredients purchased from perfumers, spice merchants, and general stores within Ves-Dinas.
It couldn't just be a combination that smells good, doesn't taste bad, and eliminates the unpleasantness of leftover food in the mouth (although there might be those who enjoy the lingering taste of food stuck between their teeth...).
It had to be a combination of products that could be produced in Chalais, and it had to be an excellent product that would sell better than any other tooth powder on the continent, which made the process even more arduous.
After several seasons had passed, Baron Lizton stood in front of a cart loaded with small wooden boxes. The small wooden boxes on the cart were engraved with a relief of Baron Lizton with his mouth wide open as if breathing fire. Inside the small boxes, which were small enough to hold in one hand and inscribed with the words 'Breath of Chalais', were the fruits of the efforts of many people in Chalais and the baron himself.
The first thing Baron Lizton did upon returning to Chalais to produce the tooth powder in these small boxes was to cultivate various crops with the villagers that would be used in the formulation of the tooth powder.
Among those crops, the first to be started was the cultivation of Dragon Mint, the most important crop for producing 'Breath of Chalais'.
Dragon Mint. A plant with a powerful taste and aroma that, when a single small leaf is held in the mouth, makes even plain water feel as refreshingly cool as ice from a winter mountain and provides a pleasant sensation of clearing a stuffy nose. Inspired by the fact that people who enjoy alcohol drink tea brewed with Dragon Mint leaves to overcome hangovers, it is used as the main ingredient for flavor and aroma, occupying the largest proportion in the formulation of 'Breath of Chalais'.
This plant survives cold winters well and is resistant to pests and diseases, with no issues in growth and leaf yield. However, it has two fatal drawbacks that make large-scale cultivation nearly impossible, making it a very finicky plant.
First, it depletes the soil's fertility more than any other crop on the continent, making it difficult to grow every year without magical means of soil restoration. Second, cultivating Dragon Mint requires an enormous amount of water. Since it is a plant rarely found growing in wetlands, cultivating it on a large scale requires an unimaginable amount of water.
To solve the second of these two problems, they had to create special fields for Dragon Mint by digging the fields below ground level and filling them with water, creating a form where water and soil coexist.
The lack of soil fertility was solved by bringing in two additional mages to Chalais, in addition to the mages already present. As for the large amount of water continuously needed for the Dragon Mint fields, there was a huge lake that supplied water to Chalais' many barley and wheat fields, so once the field design was devised, it was not a significant problem.
The second most abundant ingredient in 'Breath of Chalais' is powdered duck eggshells. Since Chalais is not a village located near the sea but rather inland, it was difficult to obtain oyster shells, so duck eggshells were used as a substitute.
Just as the tooth powder in Ves-Dinas contains finely ground oyster shell powder, 'Breath of Chalais' contains finely ground duck eggshell powder.
Since there was an abundance of grain in Chalais to feed the ducks, there was no problem in raising hundreds or even thousands of ducks.
The millers working at the windmills in Chalais were instrumental in grinding the duck eggshells so finely that they would scatter in the slightest breeze. They even built new windmills specifically for grinding eggshells, and thus the production of eggshell powder for the tooth powder began. Thereafter, the cultivation of various other spices also began, and the production of 'Breath of Chalais' started in earnest.
The popularity of 'Breath of Chalais', created by Baron Lizton, was so tremendous that it even surprised the baron himself who had produced it.
The powerful refreshment that washes away the stuffiness in the mouth and the amazing dental efficacy that smoothly polishes the surface of the teeth. The fame of 'Breath of Chalais' spread throughout the kingdom in a short time, and the entire village of Chalais was devoted to the production of tooth powder. Five more windmills were built to continuously grind duck eggshells, the ingredient for the tooth powder, into powder. Even though the fields were expanded to the point where the scent of Dragon Mint mixed with the wind blowing from the outskirts of Chalais, making one's eyes water, it was still not enough to meet the increasing demand.
Thus, over time, Baron Lizton acquired abundant wealth. Even though he shared a fairly generous portion of the money from the sales of 'Breath of Chalais' with the villagers involved in its production, the small mansion where the baron resided had turned into a grand castle, and the small village of Chalais was no longer just a small barony on the outskirts of the kingdom but had transformed into a large city.
Having obtained more than enough gold coins to live the life he desired, the Toothpowder Baron, Baron Lizton, extended his exceptional business acumen not to Chalais but to the Mavenn Gateway Fortress. It was not insatiable greed or endless desire. Something… something else failed to fully satisfy the baron's heart.
Unlike before, the baron's intention to earn money to spend on a comfortable and pleasant life had changed in essence. He had reached a point where he found joy in earning itself rather than in earning to spend. It was probably one of the outcomes that arose in the process of searching for something unfulfilled in his heart.
Simply pondering ways to earn more gold and silver coins, and realizing those pondered ideas to manifest them in this world, was how Baron Lizton found joy in life.
Having leased the Mavenn Gateway Fortress from the House Norend for a long period of 500 years, Baron Lizton spent a vast amount of gold coins on extensive repairs and renovations of the fortress.
The collapsed walls were rebuilt, and the creaking furniture that barely maintained its shape was replaced with new furniture. Thus, the ruin that had been fed gold coins regained its former appearance. However, the use of those gold coins was not to restore the Mavenn Gateway Fortress to its former military purpose but, realizing that there was no small village around the Mavenn Gateway Fortress, which is the entrance to Rensillore, where merchants or travelers could rest, he began to renovate the various buildings and rooms within the fortress with the aim of creating an inn called the Gateway Tavern.
Thus reborn, the Mavenn Gateway Tavern now served as a place where countless people heading to the various cities of Rensillore could rest their weary legs from walking rough mountain and forest paths and soothe their sore hips and thighs from riding horses.
Inside the brightly lit spacious room of the Mavenn Gateway Tavern, which had become famous through word of mouth, the tables and chairs were filled with people enjoying delicious beer made from barley grown in Chalais, forgetting the fatigue of the day and relishing a pleasant end to their day.
The former stables where warhorses were kept now housed horses that pulled carriages and those that had carried travelers on long journeys, and the rooms where soldiers guarding the gateway used to rest had been transformed into guest rooms for the tavern's customers.
The warehouse that used to be filled with the smell of iron from spears, shields, helmets, armor, and arrows neatly stored in wooden barrels had been transformed into a pantry storing fragrant cheese, dried meat, onions, and various spices.
Thus, the place where the Toothpowder Baron's second money-making plan had successfully taken root. In the room of the former gateway garrison commander, located at the highest point of this Mavenn Gateway Tavern, Baron Lizton could be seen looking down through the window at the numerous people coming to the tavern and the many carriages parked in the tavern's stables, with an expression that went beyond satisfaction to ecstasy.
"Hmm. Today, there are particularly many knights visiting as guests. Are they knights participating in the Grand Tournament in Ves-Dinas?"
After finally seeing the figures of Leben and Leska, knights with unique shoulder armor, passing through the gateway, the baron turned his body towards the inside of the room, where a large wooden desk held scrolls of paper and several books.
"By the way, that knight earlier definitely had a familiar face that I had seen before… Well, I'll remember who it is in time. Now, shall I review the plan again?"
After stretching his arms long towards the ceiling of the room, the baron picked up his pen again and began to busily write something on the paper.