by Hiro Ainana
I nodded. “I want you to tell me anything to do with the current situation in the Muno Barony.”
“I’m just a simple farmer. All I know is what goes on in our village and the ones nearby.”
“That’s good enough. I can offer you brown wolf meat in exchange for the information.”
I saw the two women hugging each other with joy through the cracks between Mia’s and Arisa’s fingers.
Just put some clothes on before you catch a cold, please.
What I learned from the chief about the village and the surrounding area was that things were in bad shape.
Since they’d had poor crops for the last three years, they’d depleted all the edible wild plants and tree nuts in the area, which caused the wildlife to retreat deep into the mountains, and, because of all the monsters, sending people out to forage farther away only led to casualties.
Most of the monsters around here were level 10 and up, so they were probably too strong to take down with farming tools.
“We sold some of the girls from the village to a slave trader early in the fall, so we were able to stock up for winter with that money, but…”
“Did some thieves show up or something?”
Judging from his hesitation, I guess it had something to do with the government, but I figured an indirect question would prompt him to explain more easily.
“No, most of the thieves around here are just penniless young folk from neighboring villages. They’re not so heartless as to steal our stores for winter.”
“Of course not!” one of the women interjected. “Those thieves are our best customers.”
“Unlike those soldiers in the fort, they even give you food afterward,” the other added.
So that was why they didn’t have the Starving status condition.
“I heard they were heading to the next territory over because there’s no one to steal from here.”
“Yeah, they said they were going to a far-off town ’cause of the recent fighting in the silver mines.”
I thanked the serf women for their report, then returned to my conversation with the chief.
“Was it monsters, then?”
“If that were the case, we’d have just given up and accepted it. But it was a tax collector… He took almost a third of our winter reserves, saying it was a wedding gift for the baron’s daughter.”
The village chief heaved a weighty sigh.
I don’t think 30 percent of the winter food stores for sixty people is a contribution for a wedding gift. It sounded more like a tax collector had taken an unofficial extra share to keep.
“You didn’t appeal or anything?”
“If we did, they’d demote the whole village to serfdom.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It’s true. Haven’t you heard about Tonza Village? They made the whole settlement into serfs, and now no one lives there.”
I searched the map for the name the chief had mentioned, and sure enough, all of the village’s former inhabitants were now slaving away in the vicinity of Muno City. So the story was true.
Even if you took into account that a hell demon was probably behind all this, it was a cruel predicament.
I was a bit curious now, so I pressed for more information.
“Do you know who the baron’s daughter is intended to marry?”
“According to that tax-collecting scoundrel, it’s some hero.”
A hero?
I searched the map, but there was nobody with the Hero title. This guy must be a fake.
“Say, village chief. How old might this baron’s daughter be?” Arisa leaned in and interrupted after listening to the conversation.
“I believe he has one nineteen-year-old and one twenty-four-year-old.”
“Is that so? Thank you. Pardon me for interrupting.”
Apparently satisfied by the chief’s reply, Arisa retreated into the horse-drawn carriage.
“I’m sure the fee he took was poppycock, but the part about her getting married is true,” he continued. “I heard it from another village chief, too.”
“I see. Thanks. I’ll get your payment together, so wait a moment, please.”
I climbed back into the cargo area of the carriage, then withdrew the wolf meat from Storage via the Garage Bag. Of course, touching raw meat would contaminate my hands, so I’d placed the pieces in waxed waterproof bags within Storage before taking them out.
Since there were about sixty villagers, two pounds for each person should be enough.
I removed two bales of rice, too, and set them down in front of the chief.
“O-oh? But this is so much…”
Peering into one of the bags over the chief’s shoulders, the two women shrieked with joy. The chief’s granddaughter was overwhelmed and celebrated by flailing her hands in a rather bizarre manner.
I decided to add two more bags of the same size.
The village chief toppled backward onto his rump in shock.
It might have been a bit more than necessary for the information, but I decided to treat it as a chance to get rid of some of my surplus stock.
Once we had started on our way again, I gave the reins back to Lulu and spoke to Arisa in the rear compartment. It turned out the other kids had been so quiet because the trio was fast asleep.
“Why did you ask about the baron’s daughter’s age earlier?”
“I wanted to find out whether the hero was real or not.”
I tilted my head in confusion. “How would that question help?”
“Remember how I told you that I’d met a hero before?”
I nodded, then grimaced at the recollection. Generally, I tried to keep the memory of being pushed down by a naked little girl buried in the deep, dark recesses of my mind.
“Why are you making a face?”
“Forget it. Just go on,” I brusquely prompted, so Arisa crept closer to me and plopped down.
“You see, that hero actually had a Lolita complex.”
“…What?”
I stared at Arisa in surprise.
She responded by closing her eyes and puckering her lips together in a kissy face, so I pinched her nose.
“Owie! Goodness, you could stand to be a bit nicer to me. Let’s see… I met Hayato Masaki, the hero, in the castle of my old homeland. When he saw me, he shouted in this weird voice, like, ‘Yes Lolita! No touching!’ Until a woman in his retinue smacked him.”
Arisa winced a little at the memory.
Who are you to judge? You’re the one going after a kid.
I almost muttered this aloud, but I resisted, since it would distract from the main issue.
“I see. So based on that, you know the hero must be fake?”
“That’s right. Want to hear more about him?”
“Eventually, but not right now.”
It was enough for the moment to know that there wasn’t a hero in this territory. Further information about this weirdo could wait until I had lots of time to kill.
In the evening, we passed another village and exchanged food supplies for information as we had with the first one.
We didn’t learn anything new this time, but since what they told us was similar to what we’d heard from the first village’s chief, it at least added credibility to his account.
I still had brown wolf and bear meat stores, but at the rate things were going, it’d run out before long.
Since the young serf women from the first village had mentioned eating monster meat, I decided to try sampling the hydra from this morning before dinner.
I took a round slab of meat out of Storage via the Garage Bag and placed it on top of the folding table.
Everyone else, who’d been preparing for camp, turned at the sound.
Tama and Pochi in particular were staring at the meat with great excitement.
“Master, is that by any chance…?”
“I don’t know if it’s edible, but I figured I’d try it once.”
Noticing
from the color that the meat was from the hydra, Liza was asking me with astonishment.
My “Analyze” skill had told me there wasn’t any poison, so I figured it should be fine. Just in case, I’d wash the blood out before cooking it.
Liza offered to cut it into smaller pieces for easier cooking, but she seemed to struggle with it.
“Is it hard?”
“Yes… I can scratch the surface of the skin, but I can’t quite cut through it.”
Wow, I bet I could use the skin to make pretty good armor or something, then.
I borrowed a knife from Lulu, who was practicing next to Liza, and used it to butcher the meat. Trying to force an ordinary kitchen knife through the skin would likely chip the blade, so instead I sliced off a test piece from around the hole of the esophagus.
Since the serf girls had said it was tasty, I decided to sample the rear leg of a grasshopper-type monster, too. This was one of the monsters I’d slaughtered with a halberd in the Cradle incident.
Its exoskeleton was harder than a crab’s shell, so I took a steel one-handed hatchet out of Storage and hacked off a four-inch piece.
I then chopped this in half lengthwise so it’d be easier to eat. Inside was fibrous black meat with green streaks from the tendons. I’d been hoping it would be white, like crab meat.
I sprinkled some salt onto the leg and the hydra meat, then arranged them on top of a wire mesh screen and set it over the fire. I went light on the seasoning because I wasn’t yet familiar with the flavor.
Lulu watched intently from off to the side, trying to memorize the technique. Her eagerness to learn was admirable.
Taking care to give Lulu as good a view as possible, I started cooking under everyone’s watchful eyes.
Once it was done, I transferred it to a dish with metal tongs I’d purchased in Sedum City.
First, it was time to try the small cut of hydra meat.
It was hard to eat it while Pochi and Tama gazed up at me with their mouths open wide, but I couldn’t give them any until I was sure it was safe.
Feeling a little guilty, I popped the hydra nugget into my mouth and chewed it.
This is actually really good.
It tasted like a cross between rabbit and poultry. The flavor was bland, like chicken, but also gamier than the light eel-like taste I’d sort of expected.
I preferred the rocket wolf, but if I came up with a good sauce and cooking method, this could certainly make a delicious meal.
I checked my log but didn’t see anything abnormal.
Next I picked up the leg. It looked like grilled crab, except for the color, but it smelled grassy, sort of like freshly cooked green onions.
I cut the meat into chunks the size of imitation crab.
Stabbing one onto my fork, I examined the color. Holding it up to the fire and inspecting it, I saw that cooking it had darkened the meat further. Putting it into my mouth took considerable courage.
Resolutely, I plunged it into my mouth—and it was like rubber.
The taste itself wasn’t that bad, but I couldn’t say it was delicious. The green streaks were strangely bitter, so it would probably be better to remove those before cooking.
It would work in a pinch, but I had no desire to add it to my regular diet.
Just to be sure, I checked the log again, but this was safe, too.
“Does everyone else want to try some?”
I didn’t really need to ask; I was met with a chorus of yeses, so I let everyone else have at it.
Arisa narrowed her eyes, Tama’s ears and tail stood up straight, and Pochi waved her hands and tail around happily.
“Mmm! I’m rather afraid to ask what kind of meat this is, but it’s delicious, so I’ll let it slide.”
“’liiish!”
“Meat is just the best, sir.”
Arisa, Tama, and Pochi gave the thumbs-up to the hydra meat, although Tama’s review was some strange word that Arisa had taught her. Most likely, she was trying to say delish.
“It really is delicious,” Liza commented. “What method of preparation would suit it best, I wonder?”
“Ahh…that was really good. It’s sort of like rabbit, so maybe a stew?” Lulu suggested.
“Skewers would be an excellent choice as well, I advise,” Nana added.
“Stew sounds excellent, too,” Liza said, “but since it’s so big, I think it might be nice to stuff it with vegetables and steam it.”
“Doesn’t that seem a bit too extravagant? It sounds like something you’d have at a festival feast.”
After downing the hydra meat and smacking their lips, the other three excitedly brainstormed different cooking methods.
Liza’s suggestion of steaming it sounded good to me. We had more than enough ingredients to spare, so I wanted to try it sometime. I’d have to request it from her later.
For now, it was more important to look after Mia, who was sitting alone outside the mosquito net looking cross.
Elves couldn’t eat meat, so I felt bad for her.
“Mrrr.”
“If you puff up your cheeks like that, they’ll never go back to normal.”
“Satou.”
I poked Mia’s inflated cheeks, then held out some dried fruits wrapped in a handkerchief.
I had dried them myself after I purchased the fruit in Sedum City.
Lulu had befriended the maid at the inn we’d stayed at and learned the recipe from her.
“Yum.”
“What do you think we should make with these?”
“Hmm.”
While carefully eating her snack with both hands to make it last as long as possible, Mia knotted her brow in contemplation.
I’d never been one for dried fruit, so all I could think of was putting it in yogurt or cereal. I passed to Mia the task of figuring out a recipe.
Next, we continued our taste test with the insect legs…
“Springyyy?”
“The meat man has a good mouthfeed, sir!”
“Yes, it has a very nice mouthfeel. If we could successfully deal with the bitterness, it would be even more delightful.”
The beastfolk girls enjoyed the texture of the insect meat, but it received a lukewarm reception from everyone else.
“We’d have to either cut around these hard streaks or slice it more thinly.”
“Ugh, gross! It might be better as ground meat, but the taste wouldn’t be worth all the effort.”
Lulu shuddered at the unpleasant flavor but considered possible cooking methods nonetheless. Arisa, too, offered suggestions for improvement as she wrinkled her nose.
“Master, I would like to rid my mouth of this taste, I entreat.”
Nana found the astringency particularly unpleasant and tugged on my arm with all the distress her unchanging expression could muster.
“We’ll have dinner soon, so you’ll have to wait till then.”
“Your instructions have been registered, I report.”
I handed Nana a glass of water as I chided her.
So the insect legs were a failure, but a 50 percent win was good enough for me. The hydra had been quite tasty, and if nobody had any stomachaches or anything in the morning, I figured we could start testing out the edibility of various monsters once a day.
At any rate, tonight’s main dish was a stew with copious vegetables and a rabbit we’d bought in Sedum City.
Lulu was on cooking duty tonight; her abilities had already started to surpass Liza’s, even though the Scalefolk girl had the “Cooking” skill. I was eagerly anticipating her future as a chef.
Leaving the others in charge of cleanup, I opened the map to check the situation around the camp.
I’d noticed earlier that an undead-type monster had popped up on my radar, so I examined the details. It probably wouldn’t come out in daylight, but it might start to encroach on us later in the night.
Along the main road were a few abandoned villages where more undead were prowling about: skeleton monste
rs with single-digit levels, ghosts around level 10, and wraiths approximately level 20.
As we always did before bedtime, I tossed some monster repellent powder onto the fire.
Apparently, the smoke from the powder worked on undead monsters, too: The ghost on my radar retreated to a certain distance away. After that, it made no attempts to approach.
Since our safety was secured, I glanced over to help with cleanup, only to find that they were just about finished.
“Do you need something, master?”
“Not really. You can just relax.”
Liza asked me as a representative for the group, so I assured her that they didn’t need to do anything else.
The advance guard—the beastfolk girls and Nana—started training in a field near the campsite with wooden swords and spears, while Arisa and Nana sat across from each other at the fire and began discussing ideas for spells I should invent.
Lulu changed into trousers and started doing some yoga-like exercises on a mat near the fire. Arisa had apparently taught her.
I thought stretching was a good idea, since there weren’t many opportunities for exercise while traveling by carriage. In fact, I wished Arisa and Mia would exercise once in a while, too.
Once everyone had set about their business, I sat near the mat and arranged my supplies for magic-tool crafting.
I was planning to make a kotatsu next, per Arisa’s request.
A kotatsu big enough for eight people wouldn’t fit into the Garage Bag, so I planned to make four two-person kotatsu that could be linked together.
Step one was briskly assembling the table portion with timber bought in Sedum City.
It was harder than the slatted wood frame I’d made before, but thanks to my “Woodworking” skill, the construction went surprisingly well.
I designed it so that the legs and the heater would be detachable.
Creating a safe heating element proved pretty difficult. I covered it with wire mesh so that clothes and such wouldn’t touch it, then installed a wooden frame so nobody would get burned on the hot mesh.
I’d originally bought the mesh for cooking meat and fish, but I had plenty to experiment with.
That should prevent any injuries. Then I envisioned Arisa or Pochi kicking the wooden frame, so I rounded the edges to ensure it wouldn’t hurt their feet.
