Greenhouse-Grown Sugarcane

[Outside the Tier-Groups: Sun Garden]

Among the Library-City Dungeon's facilities is one that is not built into the dungeon tower proper: a greenhouse-with-library, or perhaps a library-with-greenhouse, summoned from Hokkaidō. The original over in the otherworld grows plants that can't be cultivated in Hokkaidō, but since living things aren't summoned along with a replication summoning, here the interior is nothing but bare soil.

At present it grows the tropical plants that came bundled with study materials and the like, but plants not usually propagated by seed, such as bananas and sugarcane, or whose seeds can't be stored for long, haven't been obtained. In short, there are no tropical crops one could expect any real demand for.

"Comrade Director of Books, from Awa, it was tōkibi, I believe…"

"Echizen-ya, karakibi is maize, you know."

"No, sa-tōkibi… I've obtained sugarcane." Satōkibi.

The fuel merchant Echizen-ya produced a finger-thick, bamboo-like plant. Its variety differed from the sugarcane common in the otherworld, and it was a fair bit thinner; this was the bamboo-sugarcane (chikutō) found in Awa.

"I'd love to say we'll propagate this in the greenhouse and mass-produce sugar. But greenhouse-equipped libraries are hardly thick on the ground, and we can't fabricate one from this world's materials either, so we'll grow only a very small amount of sugar."

The warming sheds that exist in this world too are made of thin paper, so they're weak against wind and rain and must be carried indoors on windy days; they're useful only for protecting seedlings or thereabouts.

"Erm, couldn't you make one with that 'dungeon structure' of yours?"

"Dungeon structure can only be made of things simple in composition and structure, and there's a margin of error in the dimensions. Fitting frame and glass together at precisely matched sizes, the way this greenhouse is… I see."

"Eh?"

"Dungeon structure is highly durable, so there's no need for a frame at all. I'll set to work mass-producing sugar at once."

"Mass-producing… sugar?"

"Yes. Sugarcane is planted at the end of summer or the start of autumn, cultivated for a little over a year, and harvested in winter. Echizen-ya, please gather up every scrap of sugarcane you can lay hands on, with all speed. By next winter we should be able to produce sugar."

In fact, in Awa it is planted in spring and harvested at the start of winter.

"Sugar will sell for as much as we can make. What's more, sugar is muddled as to whether it's medicine, grain, or confectionery, and the merchant who handles it is ill-defined, so there's ample room for me to stick my nose in. Our lord the Daikan of Iruma will take away some portion, but for the rest I'd dearly like to conclude an exclusive contract."

"If demand is sufficient, we could blanket the place in sugar, like Saipan… but we can't very well neglect our food supply, of course."

Though smaller in scale than Taiwan, the sugar industry is the backbone of Saipan and Tinian. By contrast, neighboring Guam has high labor costs, and since its former suzerain, America, can produce sugar in great quantity at home, agriculture there isn't especially flourishing.

[Core Room]

"Dungeon structure is highly durable, so if we make the ceiling a single sheet of plate glass, we can build a greenhouse. That's the gist. In practice we'll also need to let air in and out, but we can make an opening mechanism by sliding half the roof and stacking it atop the other half. Of course, rather than making the whole roof two enormous sheets of glass, we'll divide it into many sections, so that each movable panel can be shifted with ease."

"So we collect glass cups and the like to make the glass, then."

"No, the desert sand will do for material. Dungeon structure can only be made of simple compositions, but glass is simple silicon dioxide. Pack sand together as it is and it becomes a pillar; extract only the silicon dioxide and it becomes glass."

Ordinary plate glass contains sodium and calcium. What Marie was about to make was quartz glass, but since it was dungeon structure, that posed no problem.

"And with that we'll grow sugarcane in the greenhouse."

"Yes. Sugar is a precious commodity, only ever grown in small quantities in Awa. I'll begin trial cultivation at once, and arrange to build a greenhouse for any village that wants one."