3
We arrived back at the Ruu settlement right on schedule, at half past the lower second hour, where we discovered some sort of commotion going on. Off to one edge of the plaza there was a crowd, made up of women and children since the men were out right now.
As I wondered just what exactly was going on, I hopped down from the driver’s seat and approached while holding the reins...and when they sensed my presence the crowd parted, bringing a strange sight into view. It was Mida, lying down and holding a huge giba atop his stomach.
“Mida! What are you doing?!” Tsuvai shouted, leaping out of the Ruu wagon and dashing over. But Mida didn’t respond, as he just remained on the ground breathing heavily. “What’s going on here?! Somebody explain this!”
Three hunters stepped forward in front of the raging Tsuvai. Though they were hunters, they were all boys who were on the smaller side: Ludo and Shin Ruu, and the clan’s guest, Jeeda.
“It’s just what it looks like. After carrying the giba this far, he ran out of strength,” Ludo Ruu replied, joining his hands behind his head.
Tsuvai shot him a glare. “It looks to me like the giba is crushing him! Why isn’t anyone moving it?!”
“Because that’s Mida’s job. The three of us carried two huge giba ourselves, you know.”
“What does that matter?! And why is Mida carrying a giba to begin with?!”
“Mida is a hunter, starting today,” Shin Ruu calmly interjected. “But since he grew too tired to run even though the sun was still so high in the sky, he was tasked with carrying back the giba everyone had hunted down. If we help him out now, it’ll mean he was even more useless. Are you really okay with that?”
“But...!” Tsuvai wailed.
Then, Mida and the huge giba started to sway.
“Don’t worry... I’ll do my work...”
Now that he had sat up, I could see that Mida’s whole body was coated in sweat and dirt. And the giba he held had to be around eighty kilos, which made it bigger than I could lift on my own.
“Your strength ran out on you because you ran around recklessly. You’ve got to think ahead at least a little,” Ludo Ruu chastised.
“Right...”
“Can you really carry it? We’ve got to skin it and remove the guts before my old man and everyone else make it back, or there won’t be any point to us having come home first.”
“I’ll carry it... I’m gonna try real hard on my work too...”
Mida rose to his feet, his body trembling as he went.
As she watched him, Tsuvai snorted, “Hmph! If you’re okay now, then hurry up and carry it already. A big lump like you lying on the ground just gets in the way.”
“Yeah... Thanks, Tsuvai...”
“I didn’t do anything you should be thanking me for!” Tsuvai retorted while turning away in a huff, but she didn’t move from the spot. And Yamiru Lea was also quietly staring at Mida from behind me in the wagon.
The former members of the main Suun house were all striving their hardest to live properly as people of the forest’s edge in their new clans. They had to, considering Tsuvai and Yamiru Lea never manned the stove at all back when they belonged to the Suun clan.
By practicing, they were able to reach the point where they could help me out with the stalls, and Mida’s days of tough training had finally brought him to the point where he could hunt giba too. There must have been extraordinary emotions swirling about in Tsuvai and Yamiru Lea’s hearts. Even I couldn’t help but feel greatly moved by the sight of Mida mustering up all his strength to carry that giba.
As everyone watched over him, Mida staggered to the rear of the main house with the huge beast. And after breathing sighs of relief, we followed slowly after.
“Hey Asuta, Reina. Looks like you guys didn’t have any trouble today? Good work,” Ludo Ruu called out with a relaxed grin as he walked over to us.
As I stared at Mida’s rounded back, I nodded, “Yeah, we didn’t have any issues on our end. More importantly, Mida’s finally able to enter the forest, huh?”
“Yep, but he just ran around recklessly and wasn’t any help at all. He can’t hide his presence in the least, so he almost caused some giba to slip away.”
Despite his harsh critique, Ludo Ruu was acting as always. Shin Ruu and Jeeda were the same. They didn’t seem to want to blame Mida for what had happened. Still, they likely weren’t allowed to lend him any aid as more experienced hunters.
Shin Ruu turned to his cousin. “Well, it seems he didn’t do anything hunter-like in the past aside from dragging back the giba caught in traps around the Suun settlement. So maybe now that he’s finally able to head out into the forest, his excitement got the better of him.”
“Considering how ridiculously strong he is, Mida should eventually become a great hunter as long as he applies himself. There’s no need to rush.”
“That’s true. In fact, since he placed in the Ruu settlement’s contest of strength, it’d look bad if he didn’t become a fine hunter.”
While Ludo and Shin Ruu had that back and forth, Jeeda remained silent beside them. I went ahead and called out to him while pulling on Gilulu’s reins.
“It’s been a while since I last saw you, Jeeda. Is your shoulder injury all better?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem to be doing a great job hunting giba. I’m sure Bartha must be very proud.”
“You think?”
Like always, this boy with the unkempt red hair and yellow eyes wasn’t very talkative, and he acted like he was in a bad mood. He really did remind me of Darmu Ruu somehow. It might have been how neither of them spoke very much, but had a lot of intense emotions buried inside.
“Hey there, good work everyone. Did you make a killing again today?” Bartha called out, having been waiting for us behind the house. I noticed that she and her son didn’t greet each other, but maybe they already did earlier. “You’ll be working on the menu for the castle town again, right? Would I be getting in the way?”
“No, of course not.”
There were four days left until the welcome banquet. We were finally approaching the final stages of our training for the occasion.
“Well then, we’ll see you around. We’ve got to teach Mida how to skin a pelt and remove the innards, after all,” Ludo Ruu told me, and with that, he and the others left for the dissection room.
As for us, we set about handling our own work.
“Now that I think about it, the leading clan heads of the forest’s edge were invited to the welcome banquet too. Will Donda Ruu be attending as their representative?” I asked as we prepared to start working in the kitchen.
Reina Ruu was closest to me, and she answered, “No. He mentioned it either yesterday or the day before, but it looks like Dari Sauti will be the one attending. They thought about going with Gulaf Zaza because his clan happens to be in a break period, but Dari Sauti nominated himself instead. He said he could make time for it after work since the gathering’s in the early evening.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. My father has been eating the leftovers from our test dishes each day, so he’s already enjoyed them enough. Not to say that he liked all of them, of course.”
“I see. Well, that’s only natural, seeing as this food is meant for nobles. Though I hope that Dari Sauti won’t feel let down.”
Still, Donda Ruu had given his approval to our tireless experimentation here at the Ruu settlement. In a way, this was an act of diplomacy to retain proper relations between the nobles and the people of the forest’s edge. Though I hadn’t asked the leading clan heads their true intentions or anything, I figured that was what they were thinking when they so quickly approved of me taking the job.
I recalled Donda Ruu grumbling, “What a ridiculous ruler...” while wearing a brazen grin after the previous banquet. It was a daring smile that seemed to say he had found a worthy rival or something.
The nobles of Genos aren’t enemies to be defeated. For the people of the forest’s edge to keep living lives true to themselves, they have to somehow manage to form a relationship of mutual trust with the nobility.
As I was thinking that, an energetic voice proclaimed, “Sorry for the wait!” as a small girl dashed into the kitchen. It was Rimee Ruu, who had been off duty from her work in the post town today. “Thanks, Lala. I’ve finally got my work done here, so swap out with me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lala Ruu replied with a shrug of her shoulders, exiting the kitchen. It would cause some issues with their housework if I borrowed the aid of all the women from the main Ruu house, so Lala Ruu would be staying behind for this banquet. We worked things out so that after work in the post town wrapped up, she traded places in the kitchen with Rimee Ruu.
“Huh? You’re here too Vina? Do you need something?” I heard Lala Ruu ask from behind. When I turned around, I found Vina Ruu standing in the kitchen door, even though she was also set to stay home.
“Yeah... I have a bit of business with you, Asuta. But are you too busy right now...?”
“Me? No, I don’t mind.”
Having lined up the necessary ingredients atop my work station, I casually walked over to her.
Something seemed different about Vina Ruu, though. She was hanging her head a bit as her fingers fiddled with the tips of her chestnut-colored hair. And she was making a face like she was really anxious about something.
“What’s up? Is something wrong?”
“No... I wouldn’t particularly say that...” Vina Ruu replied, shrinking back as she did so.
Following after her, I exited the kitchen.
“Umm, you served the giba curry to the innkeepers today, didn’t you...? How was it received?”
“The giba curry? Well, it got pretty positive reviews for being such an unfamiliar dish, I’d say. Though for everyone aside from Nail, I figure they half saw it as a curiosity.”
“I see... But you consider it a completed dish, don’t you?”
“That’s right. I can’t imagine the base of the flavor changing without me encountering any new herbs. At this point, I figure the key point is how tasty it can be made using all the components other than the herbs.”
“The innkeepers will be handling everything but the herbs themselves, right?”
“Yup. Though of course I gave them advice on how to make it.”
I really couldn’t tell where this conversation was heading at all. And considering how Vina Ruu was fidgeting, her body shifting around as her eyes were cast down, she looked excessively sensual at the moment.
“Umm, this may be a bit of a strange question...but how do my skills measure up to the innkeepers?”
“Your skills? You mean as a chef? Hmm, let’s see... Well if I’m not mincing words, I’d say I figure you’re just about equal.” To be more precise, I’d say she was better than Telia Mas and Sill, but didn’t quite measure up to Nail and Naudis.
Even though Vina Ruu had been seen as below average at the Ruu settlement, she really had improved a lot over the past several months. If she kept up the rotation of participating in our study sessions once every three days, she was sure to eventually catch up to Nail and Naudis in terms of knowledge and techniques.
“I see... So I’ve come that far, then...”
“You have. I’m already asking Reina and Rimee Ruu to help out with the job in the castle town, so I can’t also ask for you or Lala Ruu, but it’s not as if that came down to an issue of skill level.”
Now, I had asked Toor Deen, Ama Min Rutim, and Morun Rutim to help out, and it was true that they might have been more skilled than Vina Ruu. Still, Toor Deen was the only one who really stood out in terms of talent, and I wouldn’t have had any issue swapping the eldest Ruu daughter in for either of the pair from the Rutim clan.
“I don’t care either way about the castle town, but...well...in that case, could I make delicious giba curry too?”
“Huh? Well, I’d say you should be able to make it just as good as the innkeepers. It’s the sort of dish where slipups don’t really stand out, so I can’t imagine there being a big, noticeable difference, at any rate.”
“Right...” Vina Ruu murmured, hanging her head even farther. The look on her face had grown more and more anxious, and her fingers had moved from fiddling with the tips of her hair to her necklace. The light pink accessory had come from Sym and was meant to ward off disasters.
It was then that things finally clicked for me. “Still, if you put in a bit of extra effort, you can definitely improve the flavor. Once the job in the castle town is over, how about I offer you some personal lessons?”
“Don’t worry about that... That wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you...”
“Oh, really? Well there’s still time, so even without me interfering, you should still naturally improve.”
“What do you mean ‘there’s still time’?”
That had been a definite slip of the tongue on my part. And I could spy an ever-so-faint blush on Vina Ruu’s face.
“Oh, nothing. Anyway, I’m sure you can make curry or anything else you want that tastes good.”
Vina Ruu drew in closer, a reproachful look in her eyes. But then, suddenly, a cheerful voice called out from beside us.
“Asuta, Vina, what are you doing? Are you done with work already?”
Vina Ruu cowered and let out a listless, “Aah!” Ludo Ruu was peeking his head out from the dissection room located beside the kitchen.
“L-Ludo... You were listening...?”
“Huh? I might have picked up some talk about giba curry. Was it something you didn’t want me to overhear?”
“N-No, it wasn’t anything like that...”
“Giba curry sure is tasty! I’ve really started to love it after all that taste testing! And I’m sure that Shumiral guy from Sym will be real happy when he makes it back to Genos too.”
Vina Ruu’s face went even redder, and she shot me and Ludo Ruu a glare before swiftly walking away. As we watched her leave, the youngest Ruu son snickered.
“Jeez, Vina sure can be childish, even if she is twenty. Guess that’s why she still hasn’t managed to get married.”
“That’s not true at all. I think it’s really good of her, how she’s trying to face her feelings head-on.” An obstinate blockhead like me might not have been the right person to say it, but that was how I honestly felt.
It had already been three months since Shumiral left Genos, so we were around the midpoint of his promise to return in half a year. I couldn’t help but wonder what that sincere, kind foreign friend of mine was thinking about right now as he traveled around.
Holding that thought close, I returned to the kitchen where everyone was waiting.
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