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“Pico leaves grow alongside bodies of water in the forest. The best place for gathering them would be the area around the Lanto river, but the upper part of the river is the domain of the Suun clan and their related families, so we’ll be heading downstream.”
“Got it, captain!”
The plan was to retrace the path from last night and head into the forest.
Even though we had that whole big commotion that delayed us heading out, there wasn’t so much as a peep to be heard from the other houses in the settlement. Occasionally, I could spy a flickering silhouette, but not a soul came out as we passed on by.
“Hmph. Nobody would actually choose to head out into the forest first thing in the morning. This time of day is meant for various chores such as tanning furs and chopping firewood.”
“But you’re doing just that, aren’t you, captain?”
“Thanks to an added freeloader, I’ve been left uneasy about my firewood stockpile. I’d never normally head off into the forest this early.”
“So it’s this lowly private’s fault, then?! Your subordinate is truly, deeply ashamed!”
“If you don’t fix the way you’re talking right here and now, I’ll chop off that tongue of yours.”
“Got it. Sorry.”
Ai Fa still seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood, so I decided to behave myself for the time being.
What spread out before my eyes now was the sight of my very first morning in this alternate world. I couldn’t tell last night since it was so dark out, but the scenery around here really was something.
Mount Morga stood imposingly, piercing up through the misty sky. The peak spread out so wide in front of me that I couldn’t help but be impressed by the size of the thing.
Our destination right now, though, was deep in the forest.
Looking around this area that had been cleared out for the settlement, I saw that it was all covered in a verdant green. The air was crisp and clear, without a hint of the smell of exhaust. There were even birds fluttering about through the sky.
The beauty of nature was spread out all around me, as far as the eye could see.
The temperature didn’t seem to have risen too much just yet, as I was still feeling pretty comfortable in my long-sleeved chef uniform.
As my gaze returned to the nearby scenery, I spied morning dew shining on the bushes and shrubs all around. If this had been some sort of camping trip, I’m sure even I would’ve felt plenty satisfied.
“Hey. Now that I think of it, just what exactly is a pico leaf, anyway?” I asked as we approached the edge of the forest.
“It’s that thing that made you so happy you could cry,” Ai Fa replied, looking annoyed.
“Huh? You mean that spice? That’s a pretty cute name for it.”
“...Pico leaves lose their effectiveness in less than a month, so it’s important to build up a stockpile before then. After all, without pico leaves, meat won’t last two days before going bad. So if you don’t want to eat rotten meat, then work hard.”
“Got it... Hey, do you just gather those vegetables from last night from out in the wild, too?”
“I trade these in town in order to obtain aria and poitan,” Ai Fa responded as she pushed her way into the forest thicket, her necklace jangling as she went. “With the tusks and horns from one giba, I can get about ten days worth of aria and poitan. I suppose that will be five days with two of us... In other words, if I don’t hunt one every five days, we won’t have anything to eat but giba meat. We do have a little bit of leeway to do this now, though.”
“Hmm? But you’ve got such a splendid mountain right there. You should be able to get ahold of as much food as you need from there, right?”
“It is forbidden to pillage the abundant blessings of Mount Morga.”
“Huh?”
“If we disturb the mountain, then the starved giba will end up ransacking the fields of the Genos domain. We people of the forest’s edge are only permitted to gather herbs like pico and lilo, or the highly poisonous grigee fruit. In other words, the plants that the giba don’t eat.”
“Wait, who handed out that ‘permission’? Nobody should own the forests and mountains, right?”
“Mount Morga and the forest are both the territory of the Western Kingdom of Selva. 80 years ago, we people of the forest’s edge fled from the ravages of war, moving our settlement from the Southern Kingdom of Jagar to here. Since then, we have abided by the agreement to leave the mountain alone and only hunt giba, and the kingdom has granted us permission to live on this land in exchange.”
“What the heck? This mountain’s so big that there’s no way just taking a bit from it would cause the giba to starve.”
“That’s not true. Giba are only able to live at the base of the mountain. Giant madarama snakes and varb wolves that prey on giba live farther up the mountain, as well as fiendish savages. This forest’s edge at the base of the mountain is the only place my people and the giba can live.”
“Hmm...”
I could understand what she was saying, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy me.
The giba were driven to the base of the mountain as part of the struggle to survive. That was perfectly natural, but why should that mean that the people of the forest’s edge are only allowed to hunt them, all for the sake of strangers’ fields...? They were seriously getting the short end of the stick here.
The fact that I heard yesterday about them being mocked as “giba eaters” was also weighing heavily on me.
“We people of the forest’s edge are ultimately just people of foreign blood who fled from the Southern Kingdom, after all... We tossed aside the Southern God Jagar and dedicated our swords and souls to the Western God Selva. And yet to the people of the city of stone, we’re still outsiders rather than brethren,” Ai Fa muttered emotionlessly, having read what I was thinking.
“Outsiders... But you’ve been living here for 80 years, right? I can’t imagine you’d be punished for advocating for your rights a bit stronger...”
“Just as I don’t seek the protection of the Suun family, our people don’t seek the protection of the kingdom. And besides, hunting giba suits us more than plowing fields.”
“I see... Well, I suppose I’m far more of an ‘outsider’ than anyone, so it may not exactly be my place to talk...” The way I was speaking must have gotten on Ai Fa’s nerves, as she was shooting me a real glare. “Wait, I’m not trying to talk down on your way of living. It’s just that I’m not exactly fond of how the people from that city of stone do things.”
“Hmph. The city of stone would suit a pale man like you far better than the forest’s edge.”
As I shot a glare back at Ai Fa for her mean-spirited words, a thought suddenly hit me.
“Hold on a second. You said that you need a giba’s horns and tusks to feed one person for 10 days, right? So that means for a family of 10, they’ll need to hunt a giba each and every day... Hey wait, if the total population of the people of the forest’s edge is around 500, then that means your people hunt 50 giba a day in total?!”
Ai Fa tilted her head as if to say, “and?”
Hey, that’s not something to be brushing off so lightly!
“That means the people of the forest’s edge have been hunting 50 giba a day for 80 years now, right? So why haven’t the giba been wiped out by overhunting?”
“As if the giba could be wiped out. I hear that they’ve actually been multiplying over these past few years, and the damages to fields have only increased. The giba aren’t so few that we could hunt them all, and besides, the forest is unbelievably vast.”
“Oof... That’s a pretty crazy story...”
In that case, that Western Kingdom or whatever leaving such a huge task up to the people of the forest’s edge alone felt awful sloppy. And I couldn’t help but feel something unscrupulous behind the whole system where they could only hunt giba and couldn’t get ahold of other food.
They weren’t given permission to gather from the forest or farm, and could only hunt giba... So that was how things were. Add to that the way that they were ridiculed as ‘giba eaters,’ and it was just plain ridiculous.
“I’m telling you, though, that it’s forbidden for anyone to pillage the mountain’s blessings. And if you commit a taboo, then you have the scalp peeled from your head. If nothing else, make sure you pound that fact into your brain.”
“...Got it.”
Ai Fa suddenly stopped in place, then grabbed me by the collar.
“Hey, what’s with that attitude you’ve had for a bit now? If you have some sort of issue, then come out and say it clearly.”
“I’m telling you, I’m not mad at you all! I just don’t like the way that the kingdom and city folks and all them do things!”
Ai Fa’s eyes had been boiling with anger like last night’s giba stew, only for that heat to suddenly dissipate.
“Why is that? You’re not even one of us, so why would such a thing anger you?”
“I mean, it’s just the kind of thing that can’t help but tick you off when you think about it objectively, right? And it’s only natural for my empathy to fall with the people of the forest’s edge, since you’re the one who rescued me, Ai Fa.”
“You truly are a strange man...”
With that Ai Fa let go of my collar and started pushing onward once more.
“And besides, what you’re saying is wrong, too. It’s not as if we’re being forced to abide by the agreement at swordpoint. I don’t care for the folks from the city, but the fact that we maintain their peace is a point of pride for us. And if we were to leave this place, some other people would surely be forced to abandon their current jobs to fight the giba... As those who have pledged their blades to the Western God Selva, we are tasked with the role of bringing about part of the prosperity of the nation by hunting giba.”
“Right... Well, I can’t exactly say I completely get that, though, since I wasn’t born around the forest’s edge.”
“We take pride in our lives here. In addition to being our means of obtaining sustenance, these horns and tusks are also the symbol of our pride. So remember: It would be a shameless act to pillage the mountain and thus harm the kingdom as a result, as it would be like trampling all over that pride.”
“Got it. I don’t give a damn about what’s convenient for the kingdom, but if you say it’s to protect the pride of the people of the forest’s edge, then I understand and I’ll promise to be good.”
I half-forced myself to do so, but I was able to leave it at that for now.
As Ai Fa swiftly pushed her way forward through the foliage, she suddenly turned around and shot me a look.
“You truly are an unusual man, Asuta...”
Oddly enough, the displeasure from this morning seemed to have completely disappeared from Ai Fa’s gaze.
After around 10 more minutes of walking, the sun was no longer visible overhead, and we had reached our first destination: the Lanto river’s edge, where pico leaves grew.
The river’s width was around 5 meters. It was flowing about as slowly as you’d expect from hearing that it was downstream, and it actually looked like it was fairly deep, too. And the sunlight filtering through the trees reflected off the crystal clear water, making for a truly magnificent sight.
But rather than any proper grass and foliage, the area around the river was nothing but rugged rock faces.
When I turned around to ask Ai Fa if we were heading even further in, I found her starting to remove the fur cloak from her shoulders for some reason.
“I’m going to cleanse myself before we search for pico leaves.”
“Huh? ‘Cleanse’?”
“What? It’s rather uncomfortable to be walking around covered in giba oils and sweating.”
Her mood may have seemed like it had completely turned around, but Ai Fa’s default was still to be incredibly blunt. And as she explained that in her extremely curt tone, she handed me the cloak she had just taken off. Man, this thing sure has some heft to it... Looking closely at the inside, I noticed that there were a ton of small pockets sewn into it, full of things like berries and nuts I’d never seen before, iron needles, and bundles of leather straps. It must have weighed around 2 or 3 kilos in all.
“Take this, too,” Ai Fa said, taking off her fang and tusk necklace and passing it my way.
Your lowly servant has his hands full with your leather cloak though, princess...
“Bow your head,” she added, kicking me in the leg.
As I thought, You know, I would’ve done it even without the kick... and bent forward, I saw Ai Fa approaching me with her necklace spread wide. Oh man, she was close. Excluding a certain early morning incident that I couldn’t remember, this was probably as close as she’d ever gotten to me... And as I thought such questionable thoughts, my gaze drifted to the nape of her neck without even thinking about it. There were still distinct bluish-purple teeth marks on the left side of her slender neck.
You seriously couldn’t at least exercise a little restraint, past me?
The fragrance coming off this princess of mine seriously was to die for, though. And her face was so close... Her skin’s gorgeous, and her pink lips sure are sexy... Maybe this is some new sort of torture?
Ai Fa, meanwhile, had no idea of the idiotic thoughts floating around my head, and simply put the necklace around my neck and then swiftly pulled back.
“Alright... The giba should still mostly be asleep, but there are some oddballs amongst them that start prowling around early in the morning. If you sense a giba nearby, then call out to me immediately.”
“Got it. I just need to keep an eye on the forest, right?”
I thought I had hidden what I’d been thinking pretty well, but Ai Fa was glaring at my face with some seriously cold eyes.
“...Just to be safe, let me inform you that it’s a taboo to look upon the naked body of an unmarried woman.”
“Huh. So it’d be okay if it’s a married woman, then?”
“The only one permitted to view her in the nude would be her husband.”
Ah, I wish I hadn’t gone and said that. I got the feeling that the look in Ai Fa’s eyes had just gotten twice as chilly.
“Keep an eye out.”
“Got it.”
I searched for the biggest rock I could find, then put my back to it and started keeping an eye on the forest.
Still, she had entrusted me with the necklace she’d just described as the pride and fortune of the people of the forest’s edge, and I was trusted not to be a voyeur, so I couldn’t help but consider all this a pretty significant honor.
But man, I seriously had no idea what was going on in that girl’s head...
At first I thought she was more cautious than most people, but then she went and trusted me like it was nothing. And I was really impressed by how caring she was, but then she went and acted all cold.
I felt like she was a kind, caring person at her core, but I couldn’t deny that she was stubborn and prone to some serious mood swings.
But still, she’s also someone I know I can trust.
It was as those thoughts were running through my head that it happened: Ai Fa’s shrieking voice broke the calm silence of the riverbed.
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