By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 3

Chapter 6 Episode 3: Breakfast at the Fishing Village and the Forgotten Gift

The next morning, I was woken up in the distinctly pre-dawn darkness by some sort of sound. I forced myself to go through the bare minimum morning routine in the biting cold. We were very close to the lake, after all.

I soon discovered that the sound which had woken me up was coming from the kitchen.

“Good morning,” I called.

“Oh! Good morning.”

“Did we wake you?”

May and her mother were cooking in the kitchen under the light of a small candle and the stove flame itself. “I slept soundly, since I went to bed so early. Can I help with breakfast?”

“Oh, my. I wish my little knuckleheads would take a page out of your book.”

“Since you’re offering... Do you know where the well is?” May asked. “If you do, can you fill this urn with water?”

The urn was as tall as I was, and very wide. I did know where the well was, but instead of that...

“Water.”

“Wait... You can use magic, Ryoma?”

“Yes. I realized we barely spoke yesterday over dinner, so I forgot to mention it... How’s that?”

“That’s plenty of water. Now, can you grind this up, using these?” She handed me a mortar and pestle, along with...

“Wasabi?” The ingredient looked exactly like wasabi, except it was yellow.

“Wasabi? Is that what you call horice in your homeland? You called water spiders ‘crabs’ yesterday too.”

The name “horice” triggered my pool of herbal knowledge. It grew in shallow and clear rivers or dirt, and had a unique spiciness to it. It had potent antibacterial properties, and could also be used to clear one’s digestive system. It wasn’t exactly the same, but close enough.

“I think they’re very similar plants. How much do you need?”

“The whole thing, pretty much. We’re going to add it to the soup.”

“Got it!”

I began the task, now that I knew the source of the spice in last night’s soup. I plucked the leaves, then quickly rinsed and minced the root before throwing it in the mortar. After crushing the whole thing, I started getting in there and grinding it with the pestle. I kept grinding up the considerable quantity of the spice, enjoying the powerful, rejuvenating scent...

“Do you ever use this spice on raw fish?” I asked.

“I know a few people who do, but raw fish can have little nasties in them that do a number on your stomach. Not the best idea, especially at this time of the year.”

I couldn’t say I wasn’t disappointed, but I knew better than to go against the advice of a local. She implied that we wouldn’t need to worry about parasites in cooked or processed fish, so I would gladly have my fill of those while I was here...

Suddenly, I remembered—I hadn’t yet given them the gift I intended to share the day before.

“A gift? For us?” their mother asked.

“Yes. Excuse me for a moment.”

I returned to my room and used Dimension Home. Navigating the space, which was now larger than a school gym, I stepped towards the living space of the recently familiarized clever chickens. One of them noticed me and cawed loudly, prompting the black chick to emerge from the huddled flock.

Good morning, Boss! Up bright and early today?

“Morning, Kohaku. I know it’s earlier than usual, but can you get me today’s supply?”

No problem. Already took care of it.

This one was the lone advanced species and leader of the flock. Kohaku the genius chicken bootlickingly rubbed its wings together as he hopped over to the row of baskets, each lined with cloth and two of them piled high with eggs.

“Okay. This’ll do for today... Once I check them over, I’ll get you your food.”

Yes, sir! We’ll be waiting by the food box. By now, Kohaku didn’t have a shred of the pompous behavior he had originally exhibited at our first meeting.

I carefully lifted the egg-filled basket and carried it to the slimes’ living space. Instructing the cleaner slime, now bigger from merging, to wash the day’s batch of eggs, I checked them over for any cracks. I noted how clever chickens weren’t too attached to their eggs; this was illustrated by how they piled the eggs two baskets high instead of evenly distributing them. Well, they only acted like that when it came to the unfertilized eggs meant for use as decoys, obviously. Watching the big cleaner slime carefully take egg after egg into its outstretched, tentacle-like appendages and squeezing it out the other end into a different basket, I couldn’t help but let out a satisfied exhale.

The clever chickens and I had formed a working relationship by now, but the same could not be said of when I first took them in... There were no complaints about the feed, since I had prepared the same food their former owner had prepared, the recipe of which was relayed to me through the Saionji company employee who was tasked with feeding the chickens while they were held in the warehouse. The problem seemed to be with their living space; when we were discussing their free-range location in the abandoned mine, they kept demanding conditions with complete disregard to how reasonable they were. Maybe it was my fault for signing a familiar contract with all of them to streamline our communication.

In the end, we settled on having them live in the Dimension Home for a while, because it was “cold outside.” Since I was preparing their food anyway, they apparently preferred lounging around in the warm indoors over hunting for worms and other bugs on their own. There were a few calls for me to travel somewhere warm and let them roam, and for me to travel through the year like a migratory bird for their comfort. Those suggestions were taken into consideration, and promptly denied. Even in the Dimension Home, they had complained about the disparity in living spaces between them and their predecessors—the limour birds and slimes.

But now, the clever chickens seemed to have formed a hierarchy of sorts; I was at the top, followed by the limour birds, then the slimes, then Kohaku (their leader), and finally themselves. In fact, I had made a great effort to ensure that they would commit their social standing to memory. I lost count of how many times I had to push them back in their corner with a wave of slimes in an effort to make the chickens see them as superior. They had never messed with the limour birds that much; maybe they put a lot of stock in the ability to fly. However, they had initially seen the slimes as not particularly tasty prey. Getting them to change that view was not an easy process. They finally shut up after I held a one-on-one test of strength with champions from each group, and the clever chicken champion got owned by a sticky slime wielding a stick... If that hadn’t done the trick, it would’ve been “to the cage or the butcher’s block” for them, to coin a phrase.

The aforementioned champion was beaten thoroughly enough to demand a respite from laying eggs, so I patched it up thoroughly with healing magic before denying the request for time off.

Truth be told, I had grown a sense of respect for Kohaku, who had kept that flock in check as a months-old chick, and I still relied on him to keep them in line. Regrettably, the clever chickens and I seemed to be less compatible personality-wise when it came to our familiar contracts, so our communication was a bit fuzzy at times.

I had spoken to a branch manager of the Tamer’s Guild about this matter, and he informed me that it was hardly rare for communication with one’s familiars to be difficult, and that my experience of talking to and giving commands to my familiars effortlessly was highly uncommon. He added that many tamers would employ the carrot-and-stick tactic, training their familiars like animals. They were living creatures, after all, so I guess it made sense that there would be some difficulty when it came to working with them.

I probably didn’t have much difficulty because my only familiars were intelligent limour birds, which were compatible with me, and slimes, which were considered one of the easiest creatures to tame. Working with the clever chicken had the potential to be a valuable experience for me, especially with Kohaku as our mediator and the huge upside of getting baskets full of fresh eggs five times a week. Speaking of eggs, some of the poison and acid slimes showed interest in them...

The big cleaner slime touched my leg, letting me know that all of the eggs had been washed while I was lost in my own thoughts.

“Good work,” I said.

I counted fifty-two eggs left intact, and eight cracked ones. Then, I appraised a few of the eggs, and found they were fit for consumption. I gave the cracked eggs to some slimes that showed interest in them, and gathered up the rest.

Finally, I went to pour feed into the clever chickens’ food box.

How were they? Kohaku asked.

“Out of sixty in total, eight were cracked.”

Drats... I’ll have to tell them not to pile them up so high.

“Still a lot better than when we were starting out, at least.”

My contract with the clever chickens stated that they would give me sixty eggs a day, five days a week. Twenty out of the flock of twenty-six were old enough to lay eggs, so that came out to three eggs per chicken.

“I can let a few cracked eggs slide, but I can’t be lenient about the chicks’ hygiene.”

No problems there, boss. There’s been no complaints about having scavengers clean our nests and cleaners bathing us every day. I wouldn’t take that from anyone anyway. Plus, I haven’t forgotten about raising our young.

The hygiene routine was there to keep the Dimension Home clean and disease-free; the limour birds underwent the same process every day. When it came to raising their young, well, they were the next generation. I couldn’t do anything about how mature the clever chickens were, but Kohaku and the other five chicks had a future ahead of them. They could be entitled at times, but not nearly as much as the mature chickens. For better or worse, they were a blank state. I wanted to believe that they were redeemable as long as they received proper education.

“Keep it up, please. I’ll help out as much as I can.”

I’m putting my heart and soul into it. I need more allies around here, Kohaku assured me, resolution kindling in his eyes.

With my basket of fresh eggs, I left the Dimension Home to return to the kitchen.

■ ■ ■

Breakfast was ready. On the menu this morning was the same horice soup as last night. This soup was a versatile staple like miso soup was in Japan, so the soup today included leftover crab meat from last night and my eggs. In addition, we had some sort of thinly baked bread made from—much to my surprise—the familiar grainspear grass I used to frequently eat back in the forest. On the side, we had a dish that resembled pickled radish.

Since people started their mornings early in fishing villages, they usually had a bowl of soup they could quickly consume paired with something filling.

“Oh? What’s this feast we’re having?”

“Where did you get bird eggs from?”

“Ryoma brought them out for us. Apparently he’s keeping chickens using space magic.”

“He even helped us cook this morning while you dimwits were sawing logs.”

Kai and Kei paid no mind to their sister’s comment, but seemed entranced by the soup. I was glad my contribution was so appreciated.

“Thanks...” their father muttered. It didn’t register to me what he had said until we made eye contact.

“Oh, you’re very welcome,” I answered.

He simply took his bowl and started on his breakfast. Did he have low blood pressure or something? I could hardly believe this was the same man I saw last night.

“Don’t mind him,” his wife explained. “You’d think my husband was almost mute if he didn’t drink... ‘Food,’ ‘booze,’ and ‘bed’ make up the gist of his vocabulary when he’s sober.”

“I see.” I thought I heard that mentioned last night, but I didn’t think it was this extreme.

“He’s not mad or anything. Now eat up, Ryoma,” she concluded and plated me a mountain of grainspear grass bread.

Seeing that their father had started eating, his children started eating their own food. I followed suit...

Delicious. The grainspear grass bread had a unique aftertaste, but it didn’t bother me after I soaked it in the spiced soup. In fact, it gave the bread a good kick to it. There was something about the soup, though... A sense of nostalgia, like I was on the brink of remembering something.

“What’s the matter? Is the soup not to your liking?” Kei’s mother asked, concerned.

“Oh, no, it’s excellent. I was just thinking... I feel like I’ve tasted something like this before, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

Time for breakfast seemed to be running out, so I decided to clear my plate before dwelling on the thought any further; I had some catching up to do as everyone in the family ate pretty fast. I was going to start dealing with mad salamanders, after all, and I didn’t want to do that on an empty stomach!