5
“Right, well it’s not a very easy story to digest. But I guess we should get this pain out of the way, huh?” I replied. Ai Fa gave a “hmph” and sat down beside the stove, one leg upright with the other crossed behind it. It was a truly manly pose; rather unfitting for such a scantily clad woman.
“You mind if I make myself a little more comfortable, too...?” I asked. After getting a small nod, I loosened the strings of my apron.
The temperature around here was probably about the same as it was in early summer back in Japan. And with the stove lit, that meant it was starting to feel pretty hot in this room. Still, now that I’d taken off my apron and exposed the t-shirt underneath, the night air blowing in through the windows was feeling real refreshing.
“What a strange outfit you have on... I’ve never seen anyone dress like that, even in town.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that makes sense. And I mean, this is my first time seeing anyone dressed like you, too.”
I took a seat too atop the stiff fur rug, directly across from Ai Fa.
“So, what do you want to ask me? To be honest, I don’t really get what happened myself, though, so I don’t know how good of an explanation I’ll be able to offer.”
“Where did you come from?”
That was the second time she’d asked me that question. I suppose we wouldn’t get anywhere if I just answered that I was from the Chiba prefecture in Japan again...
In the dim light, I stared straight into Ai Fa’s wildcat-like eyes and said, “Ai Fa... You saved my life, and invited me into your home. I had nowhere to go, but you took me in and treated me kindly, which I’m just so, so grateful for. That’s the absolute truth.”
Ai Fa tilted her head as if to say “and?”
“So I want to tell you everything. And then you can make your decision afterwards.”
And so, I ended up telling her the whole of what had happened to me, even though I didn’t understand it myself.
I told her that I lived for 17 years in a relatively peaceful country. That one day tragedy struck, and I ended up leaping into a fire. That I thought I had died, only to wake up in that forest before as if none of that had ever happened. And that this place was a lot like the world I had come from, but seemed fundamentally different somehow.
“I suppose there’s still the possibility that I just got flung to some unknown part of my own world. But that wouldn’t solve the biggest issue of how I’m alive and kicking when I was supposed to be dead. Too much stuff just doesn’t match up...” I admitted, voicing the doubts that had been swirling around inside. “For example, take the words we’re talking right now. You’ve never even heard of Japan, right?”
“I don’t know it.”
“Right, that point alone is utterly incomprehensible to me. I mean, back in my world it’d be unthinkable for someone who didn’t know of Japan to speak Japanese so fluently. So how exactly is it that we’re able to converse so smoothly like this?”
Ai Fa just sat there in silence.
“So, it’s not just you people of the forest’s edge living in this world, right? There’s also that ‘city of stone’ and ‘Western Kingdom,’ yeah? About how big are they?”
“I have no business with the city of stone. I’ve only ever gone as far as the town on the outside of the stone walls in order to sell giba horns and tusks. Anything else I could tell you would be more hearsay,” Ai Fa quietly responded after a bit of contemplating. “I’ve heard... that Duke Genos rules over thousands within the stone walls, and the citizens ruled by the Western Kingdom of Selva outnumber the very stars...”
“Hmm... Yeah, that’s pretty big... Do you know what sort of god the people in the city of stone worship, and stuff like that?”
Ai Fa shot me back a dubious look in response. “Obviously the people of the nation of Selva worship the western god, Selva. There are four great kingdoms on the Amusehorn continent, each with their own principal deity. Without the divine protection of the gods, the people of Amusehorn could not exist. After all, a man without a god is little more than a beast... You’re not trying to tell me you don’t even know that much, are you?”
“Unfortunately, that’s the case. I’ve never heard of any continents, kingdoms, or gods that went by those names in my life,” I said with an awkward smile as I scratched my towel-wrapped head. “There was still a slim chance that maybe I was dense enough to never have heard of a tribe of 500 hunters or that there were boars out there with horns, but... there’s just no way. Looks like I’ve got my answer there.”
Well, I figured that possibility was a real longshot from the start and had pretty much given up on it, so it wasn’t exactly much of a shock at this point. Still, it did mean acknowledging that there wasn’t even a smidgen of a chance left that I’d ever see Reina or my old man ever again.
I looked straight into Ai Fa’s beautiful blue eyes and stated, “Let me voice my present conclusion... Be it through a godly whim or whatever, I was sent here from another world. And maybe it’s the work of some unseen force that we can communicate, too.”
“...”
“Whether it’s the distant past, the far off future, a parallel world that evolved differently, or just one in some different dimension... At any rate, this isn’t the world where I was born and raised.”
“...”
“I’m a visitor from a different world,” I awkwardly forced out as my shoulders drooped. “Either that, or I’m just a giant idiot who hit his head or something and started thinking all that was the case. Those are the only two ideas I’ve got...”
“So you admit that you’re crazy...?”
“Not in the least. To me, those 17 years I’ve lived are everything I’ve got. If all that is just a lie, then where does that leave me?” I forced out while holding back a sigh. That was all I could say on the matter. “Just to be sure, there aren’t any other people like me out there, are there? Like if all people who died in my world were reborn here...”
“As if such a stupid thing could be true.”
“Yeah... I mean, if that were how things worked, this world would be absolutely overflowing with the dead.”
I copied Ai Fa by lifting up one knee, then rested my chin on it.
“Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say. I leave it up to you to decide what to do with me.”
“...Understood.”
Ai Fa shot me one last glance and then gradually stood up.
“...Well then, it’s about time.”
“Hmm?”
“The meat should be just about ready.”
With that, Ai Fa took off the stone weight and the lid to the pot, causing white steam to billow forth.
“Man, that smells tasty!”
I stood up myself and excitedly peered over Ai Fa’s shoulder into the pot. The water and bits of meat were positively dancing about in its rounded bottom. And the steam was impressive, but so was the way that it was foaming up. It was like someone had thrown soap in there or something...
“...Hey, food is important too, naturally, but are we seriously done talking?”
That question earned me a glare from up close and personal.
“You’re a visitor from another world. Either that, or a crazy person who thinks so. I understand all that.”
“So you believe my crazy story?”
“...At the very least, I can tell that you aren’t trying to deceive me.”
Ai Fa suddenly averted her gaze, reached down and picked up the onion-esque vegetable by her feet, then started to chop it up while still holding it in her hand. And though the inside was every bit as vivid green as the outside, it really was otherwise just like an onion.
First Ai Fa peeled off the thin, dry outer layer and chucked it into the pot. She then followed that up by simply slicing the vegetable in two and throwing the chunks in as well.
“You’re not some massive liar. In other words, you’re probably just crazy.”
Splash, sploosh.
She threw in around five or six of the pseudo-onions in total.
While gazing at that sight, like some sort of boiling pot out of hell, I muttered, “Thank you...”
“What are you thanking me for? Are you somehow happy to have me call you a madman?”
“Yeah. Or at least, it’s better than being called a big fat liar. I mean, it means you believe what I said, more or less.”
“I really don’t understand you...” Ai Fa said, sounding a little ticked.
Next up, she grabbed one of those cream-colored pseudo-potatoes. She didn’t even peel the skin off this time, instead just giving it a single slice through the center and then plunking it on into the pot.
The pot itself was pretty darn deep, but the foam was bubbling up to the rim.
As she stirred the concoction with what looked like a thick wooden pestle, Ai Fa shot me another hostile glare.
“So, what do you intend to do next?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“I mean, how do you plan on living your life from here on out? Are you going to look for a way back to your old world?”
“I don’t know... I mean, even if there is a way back to my old world, it may just throw me right back into the middle of that inferno. And if that was the case, I’d just be going back to get immediately burnt to a crisp.”
If there was a chance I could get my old man’s knife back to him, maybe it’d be worth risking my life. But if I ended up as a pile of ashes, so would the knife.
“Well anyway, I still haven’t got it all figured out just yet. And hey, it may not have anything to do with what I want, and I may just suddenly get dragged back to my old world. At any rate, I’ve got no clue what caused this crazy phenomenon in the first place, so pretty much nothing else that could happen would surprise me at this point.”
“I see...”
“If you’re regretting having picked up such a pain in the butt, then just go ahead and say it. I’ll leave here right away if I have to. The climate around here seems pretty well suited for camping outdoors, fortunately...”
“If you spend the night outside, the giba will trample you to death and the mundt will ravage your corpse. By morning, only your bones would remain,” Ai Fa bluntly stated in response. “And on top of that, Diga Suun saw you and me together. You’re clueless about even things like the fours great gods, and if you go and unwittingly break some sort of serious taboo, the responsibility will fall squarely on me.”
“Huh? But that’s not...”
“For the time being, make sure not to leave my sight,” Ai Fa warned me in a rather displeased-sounding voice as she stirred the boiling pot, looking just like a witch out of a fairy tale. “At the bare minimum, I’ll pound the basics of this world and the laws of the forest’s edge into that head of yours. After that, you can go ahead and die in a ditch for all I care.”
“Got it. Seriously, thank you Ai Fa...”
“Hey! Why are you bowing your head like that?! Do you like being told to die in a ditch or something?!”
“I mean, it’s better than being told to get the hell out,” I replied, taking care to make sure I didn’t sound overly serious. On top of that, I also took a step back from Ai Fa. I somehow got the feeling that I’d end up unable to stop myself from hugging her if I kept looking at her from so close. I was just that concerned about my future. I was despairing just that greatly from having lost it all. And Ai Fa had been the one to tell me to stay with her, and say that I was no liar.
Even though I was stuck shouldering this ridiculous fate, I was seriously eternally grateful that the first person I met in this world was this kind, stubborn woman.
“It’s done cooking...” Ai Fa muttered, still sounding a bit angry as she turned her back to me.
This time she went through the middle door, and when she came back, she had two sets of deep bowls and something that looked akin to Chinese soup spoons, plus an elliptical ladle. Naturally, all of these were wooden.
Ai Fa used the ladle to scoop up the contents of the pot, which was now pure white inside thanks to all the steam and foam, then poured it into one of the bowls and handed it to me without saying a word.
“Thanks.”
I may have been full of emotion, but my stomach was still running on empty. And so, I happily accepted it, then took a seat down on the fur.
As Ai Fa prepared her own portion, I excitedly observed the contents of my bowl. It was a thick, white soup that looked just like clam chowder, but it had the distinctive smell of boar stew. And here and there across the white surface, I spied brown chunks of meat and green vegetables. The bits of the pseudo-onion looked to be just about the right size, but the pseudo-potato was nowhere to be seen. Had it seriously gone and disintegrated in such a short period of time? Now that I think of it, the broth was actually the same sort of cream color those pseudo-potatoes had been...
Well, they may look alike, but they aren’t actually onions and potatoes. Just what exactly do they taste like, though...?
I was a little concerned by the fact that she hadn’t skimmed off any of the scum despite how much had bubbled up, but well, when in Rome... And I mean, while so-called “scum” can be an off-flavor that ruins a dish, it also can be a real bundle of flavor too. It wouldn’t be right to say it was the sort of thing you should always be sure to get rid of.
And besides, this place must have its own cooking methods. It would be awful presumptuous for someone from another world like me to butt in.
While I was thinking through all of that, Ai Fa also took a seat.
“Why aren’t you eating? Did you decide that you really aren’t willing to eat giba after all?”
“Not at all. It’s just the custom in my world that everybody should eat together. And this looks absolutely delicious, seriously!”
After shrugging her shoulders and looking like she didn’t care in the least, Ai Fa muttered something under her breath, then started eating. With that, I said “thanks for the meal!” and took my wooden spoon in hand.
I scooped up the brown chunks of meat and white soup together, kicking off my first dinner in this new world.
I brought the spoon to my mouth, giving thanks to the abundance of this world and Ai Fa for cooking the meal. And then, I screamed out, “Gross!”
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