Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 3.5

Intermission: Days at the Forest’s Edge

In the settlement at the forest’s edge, they got rolling early. They woke as soon as the sun was up, and then before long they set about their work for the morning. The contents of that work varied, but when I didn’t have any other impending task, I started off by cleaning up after the dinner from the night before.

I’d throw the utensils and tools we used into the pot, along with any cloth that had been dirtied by fat or whatever, and then head off.

Why didn’t I clean everything up last night, you may ask? Well, even though this land had been cleared by human hands, there was still a very real possibility of running into dangerous wild animals if you went out at night.

Giba were cautious by nature, so they were rare, but if they were starving then they would intrude into a human settlement. When that happened they would break through the people of the forest edge’s settlement, and then go on to attack the fields of the Genos domain that lay to the west.

Aside from giba, there were also the mundt that were said to rummage through carrion, massive mice known as giiz, and all sorts of poisonous snakes and lizards. There fortunately weren’t any large carnivores that would prey on humans prowling around, but if any of those things bit you, you could end up catching a serious illness that would be hard to treat.

And so, cleaning up after dinner was a task for the morning. The place where everyone took care of that was the nearest source of water to where they lived. And in the case of Ai Fa’s house, that was a small branch off the Lanto river that was about a 10-minute walk away. It was a meagre stream that flowed between rugged rocks. Honestly, it was more like some water trickling from rocks than a proper tributary or anything.

That was where I washed the pot and utensils. The tool for the task was sort of like a scrubbing brush made by drying out giba fur until it grew stiff. Both the pot and utensils were all greasy from the fat, but the short little hairs did a surprisingly good job of getting everything nice and clean.

I also washed the cloth that had gotten dirty with fat at the same time. When I had the time to spare, I squeezed in doing the laundry then, too.

Oh, and when the water jug was running low, I made sure to refill it.

The metal pot and water jug were both heavy, so when I needed to carry them, I used a tool called a “pulling board.” It was a large board with fur affixed to the back of it, so when you rubbed some solidified fat onto it, it made a real helpful tool for transporting things. Then you would use a rope made of vines tied together in order to fix your luggage in place atop the board and have another rope attached to it that went over your shoulder, which you pulled in order to drag it along.

By rubbing fat on it you lowered the amount of friction, making it feel like it weighed half of what it actually did. But if I filled the water jug up to full it weighed 100 kilos or so, so it was still pretty rough.

Anyway, whenever I occasionally ran into someone from another house there, it was always a woman. The majority of them were middle-aged women who looked far hardier than me, but there were also some old ladies and young women now and again, too. They may have used pulling boards too, but none of them looked like they were having a hard time. In other words, I was the one who looked like he had it roughest.

Naturally, it was my beloved landlady who was the one to say, “What a terribly weak man you are.”

By the way, this was my one chance to meet people from other households up close and personal, but just as expected, essentially no one wanted anything to do with Ai Fa. There were some who would occasionally offer a greeting, but they didn’t want any further contact than that, and neither did she. That was what it meant to earn the anger of the Suun clan, who led the people of the forest’s edge.

Plus, it seemed pretty clear that the appearance of a pale guy in a white chef’s outfit or a t-shirt had only earned her more doubtful gazes. Nobody came outright and said it, though. Everyone just stood at a distance and stared at the stranger that was always by Ai Fa’s side, but nobody would meet my gaze.

This is a digression, but they all wore the same sort of beautiful cloths as Ai Fa. They had a chic coloring to them that emphasized dark greens and reddish browns, perhaps so they wouldn’t stand out in the forest, but they had complex designs that wrapped all around that I’d have to call really ethnic and fashionable.

The married women wore one long cloth that wrapped around them, covering all the way from their chests down to their knees. The unwed women, meanwhile, just hid their chests and waists, like Ai Fa did.

Perhaps naturally, none of the other women walked around wearing a cloak or weilding a massive sword, but even Ai Fa only had a knife on her when she wasn’t heading out into the forest. And there were certainly plenty of women who walked around with a blade of that size. Even if you weren’t out hunting giba, a knife was still a versatile tool that could help when collecting herbs or cutting through vines.

Anyway, it seemed that all of the people of the forest’s edge really did have dark skin. The color of their hair and eyes differed, but the most common seemed to be light brown hair and blue eyes. There were also people with black or red hair, or even blonde like Ai Fa, and though I couldn’t judge too well because they wouldn’t come close, I think I saw black and reddish-brown eyes, too.

Not a one of them had skin like mine, though.

At any rate, once I finished my work at the stream, my next task was done indoors. Which is to say, I went about my daily routine of taking care of my old man’s knife. I checked the cutting edge and handle, and if needed I took care of repairs. The whetstones in this world were a rugged, shiny black, and reminded me of obsidian.

Once that was done, I headed for the pantry to check over the ingredients. I also made sure the aria and poitan were doing alright, but naturally the giba meat was the primary concern. I thoroughly stirred around the surrounding pico leaves, making sure all the while that none of the meat had gone bad. The moisture in the meat transferred into the pico leaves, so if you didn’t stir it around at least once a day, they would apparently lose their effectiveness at preserving and sterilizing food.

At the same time, I also cut the necessary amount off of the jerky that was buried the same way as the fresh meat, as it was finally time for breakfast. While chewing on the slimy rubber-esque meat, I headed off towards the forest.

My goal was to gather firewood and herbs, as well as wash myself off.

By that time of day, the sun was always out in full force.

In other words, that first morning after I came to stay with Ai Fa, she got up before dawn to take care of her various chores, made sure the preparations for heading out into the forest early in the morning were complete, and then smacked me awake. I couldn’t help but feel incredibly embarrassed thinking how I was half asleep even then, and then went and did something incredibly blockheaded on top of that. But whenever I went and apologized for it further, she would kick me in the leg. I think it had happened three times by now, and it seriously hurt every time.

At any rate, I headed off towards the forest.

The first step was heading off towards the downstream portion of the Lanto river to bathe. Yes, bathe...

The one-two punch of being attacked by that giant madarama snake and a giba had left me with some serious trauma, but my beloved benefactor simply shot this frail visitor from another world a cold glare and said, “Things like that only happen incredibly rarely.”

Well, it was true though that the madarama and giba were mortal enemies, and those massive serpents taking over the mountain was the only reason that the giba had chosen to live at the forest’s edge instead. If those madarama appeared frequently at the foot of the mountain, then the giba would either run even further away, or there would be a drastic drop in their population.

In other words, a madarama coming down to the foot of the mountain was a very unusual occurrence. Its feet... er, scales, must have slipped and sent it tumbling down into the river, and it got washed on downstream. That thing was such a pain...

After having such a stimulating mental debate with myself, I finally had my fill of bathing.

The average temperature around here was about 30 degrees Celsius, so it really did feel nice. I had never been a morning bather, but that was partially because I didn’t need to use it as a time to relax for a moment back then.

This is yet another digression, but I’d like to note for the record that after that first day, I didn’t break any more taboos kept by the people of the forest’s edge. I swear on my life. I’ll seriously never do anything like that ever again.

After finishing up my bath, I set about gathering herbs. The main thing that we needed were pico leaves.

Pico leaves served as a preservative, but as they sucked more and more moisture out of meat, their effectiveness dropped. Even if you made sure to stir them each and every day, they would be completely useless within a month tops.

The meat storage space measured out at two meters by two meters by 30 centimeters. Since it was necessary to gather enough pico leaves to fill that at least once a month, I needed to make sure to grab a decent amount each and every day.

The pico leaves running out meant that the meat was done for, too. That would have a rather serious and direct impact on our ability to keep on living, so I carefully calculated out my daily quota, and if I ever failed to meet it, that became a priority for me for next time.

Once that was done with, I focused on gathering up some grigee fruits and lilo leaves. The grigee fruit was used for warding off harmful insects. In order to protect themselves from the poisonous insects and snakes that lived in the forest, the people of the forest’s edge all wore bracelets made out of them. That would get in the way of my cooking, though, so I wore mine around my neck instead. They were also important for spreading out around your house to lower the risk of anything creeping in through the windows at night, so I needed to make sure to gather some for that purpose periodically, too.

Lilo leaves, meanwhile, were herbs that were used when making jerky. They weren’t used in as great a quantity as pico leaves, but they were still important to have around.

By the way, these lilo leaves actually turned out to be one of the sources of Ai Fa’s tantalizing aroma. It was this kind of cool and refreshing smell that seemed like it would be good for aromatherapy, but it also blended smoothly with the overpowering meat and fat smells. What a truly wonderful herb...

However, I decided not to mention that point to Ai Fa. It would probably just lead to me getting kicked again, after all.

After I was done with those, the last thing that I needed to gather was firewood. I looked around for fallen branches that seemed like they would serve that purpose, and then used the vines that grew in the area to tie them up. If I failed to gather up the proper amount, then I’d go ahead and pluck a sapling and bring it back home to dry it out.

Oh, and around here, there were squall-like rains a couple times a day. They were completely unpredictable, so it wasn’t all that rare for my carefully gathered firewood to end up getting soaked. But I didn’t let that get me down, and just kept on gathering. It was important to keep the sort of mindset where you could just say, “Well if it gets wet, it gets wet, and then I’ll just have to dry it out later.” Plus, gathering up this firewood was an important task, since I’d been using more of it than usual in my cooking.

Though I suppose there was no such thing as an unimportant task when it came to the field of work I was tackling. I said that gathering pico leaves was the most important task and it took priority, but if I didn’t carry out everything, we wouldn’t have what we needed to live. Washing our utensils, gathering water, sharpening my blade, monitoring the pantry, gathering herbs and firewood, hunting down giba... All of that was done so that we could keep on living. If any of that was lacking, it would all come tumbling down.

I worked in order to live. Putting in a full day’s work made it so that I could live another day longer.

That was the lifestyle of the people of the forest’s edge, which must have been why they didn’t have time for thinking about things like improving the quality of their meals.

You could eat giba meat, aria, and poitan as long as you cooked them. Any preparation further than that was unnecessary. You ate in order to live. Just like all other work, it was just a means to stay alive. There didn’t need to be any pleasure involved in the process, and taste simply didn’t matter.

If you didn’t eat you died, so you ate. That was all there was to it.

That may have been the proper way for an animal to be, in a manner of speaking.

Ai Fa’s giba stew and my giba soup couldn’t have had much of a difference in terms of nutritional value. In that case, the shorter and easier process really may have been the “right” answer in this world.

I came from a different world entirely, though. I was a foreigner who came from a place where we knew that food was meant to be enjoyed. And so, I had no choice but to do things my way.

My battle in this different world was only just getting started.