Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 18 - Chapter 2.3

3

We finished the preparations for the next day’s business incredibly fast.

The Ruu clan had left the majority of that work up to the group staying behind, and on my end all I really had to do was cut up meat, so we didn’t need that much time. Though we spent over an hour loading everything at the Ruu settlement and coming here, it all worked out since this was the time we usually allotted for our study sessions. Consequently, there were still three hours left until sunset.

Then, when it was finally time to cook dinner, one of the women summoned by Moga Sauti, who looked young yet also dignified, stepped forward and bowed her head.

“I am truly grateful to all of you for sharing your strength with the Sauti. I am in charge of the women in the settlement, and I am Dari Sauti’s wife, Mil Fei Sauti.”

“I’m Asuta of the Fa clan. I’ll be helping to man the stove for a bit starting today.”

Just like Dari Sauti, she looked to be somewhere in her mid twenties. Her dark-brown hair wasn’t especially long and was pulled back tightly into a bun. She seemed like a rather strong-willed woman.

Behind her stood six women from the Sauti and Vela clans. They were a mix of all ages, and the only common point between them was the gloomy expressions they wore. Even the especially stout-hearted women of the forest’s edge could lose their strength when faced with a tragedy such as this. It was the first time since the clan head meeting that I had seen people of the forest’s edge looking so listless.

Out of the group, only Mil Fei Sauti was wearing an undaunted expression.

“So what should we do? If at all possible, I would like to feed the men who are injured first.”

“Right. It’ll be difficult for them to get tough food down, won’t it?”

“Yes. Especially for the two who are heavily injured—they don’t even have the strength needed to chew baked poitan and can only sip down broth... Our injured hunters are all currently gathered in one of the Vela houses, so I would like to prepare food for all of them at once.”

“There are seven injured hunters, right? Got it. Then we’ll start off by boiling giba meat. Sheera Ruu, could you go ahead and do what I asked you before?”

“Yes, understood.”

With that, Sheera Ruu started cutting up the giba meat and adding it to a boiling pot. As she helped out with that task, Mil Fei Sauti called out, “Excuse me, but...this is food for the injured men, isn’t it? No matter how soft you boil it, I don’t think they’ll be able to swallow giba meat.”

“Right. This is just to make a stock. We’ll move the boiled meat to our portions later. The plan is to make it a little easier to eat and also full of nutrition, so please don’t worry on that front.”

“I see. My apologies for the impertinent remark.”

While the meat was boiling, we diced up some aria, chatchi, and nenon into pieces roughly one centimeter wide. When I added them to the pot, Mil Fei Sauti again interjected, “Um, did you bring those vegetables with you? I don’t believe we had any chatchi or nenon here.”

“Yes, we bought them on the way back today.”

“Then we have to pay you for them...”

“No, I needed them for my work, so don’t worry about it.” Mil Fei Sauti dubiously furrowed her brow, but I just shot her a smile. “Moga Sauti asked me to comfort and give life back to the Sauti through my cooking, and I accepted that task. Besides, I’ve heard the Sauti aren’t as well off as the Ruu, so you can’t buy too many different ingredients.”

“Yes, that’s certainly true.”

“Then isn’t it only natural for me to provide ingredients personally in order to fulfill my agreement with Moga Sauti? I don’t believe I could carry out my task with just what you have in the Sauti pantry alone, so this is simply what has to be done.”

Mil Fei Sauti narrowed her eyes halfway and shot me a chilly glare. “That sounds like sophistry to me. In the end, aren’t you just taking pity on how poor we Sauti are?”

“I wasn’t trying to. I just want to do my job.”

As one of the three largest and most powerful clans at the forest’s edge, the Sauti naturally weren’t so bad off. But that was ultimately just relative to the smaller clans. Compared to the Ruu and the similarly powerful northern settlement, the Sauti were living quite modestly.

Since clans like the Sudra and Fou were selling giba meat through the Fa clan now, they were doing pretty well. Otherwise they would never be able to buy ingredients like tau oil and sugar. Plus, recently we had started trying to periodically purchase meat from clans that were a bit farther away, like the Gaaz and Rattsu. Thanks to that, the small clans who supported the Fa clan’s business were earning more money than the neutral Sauti at present.

From what I heard, there were only two or three types of vegetables in addition to aria and poitan in the Sauti pantry. It would be difficult to make the sort of cooking Moga Sauti requested with just that, and considering how they would be facing even greater poverty for a while due to how many of their hunters were injured, I really didn’t want to go demanding coins for purchasing ingredients.

Of course, it was possible to cook delicious dishes with even just a pinch of salt. But everyone from the Sauti clan had been so beaten down that it was only natural to want to give them something a bit more luxurious.

“At any rate, this was all an agreement made with Dari and Moga Sauti, so if you have any issues, I think you should bring them up with those two.”

“Very well...” Mil Fei Sauti replied with pursed lips. Dari Sauti was a very calm, gentle man, while his wife gave off quite the harsh impression in comparison.

“Well then, we still have some time left until the meat will be done boiling, so how about we get to work on the other dishes? You already boiled down the poitan, right?”

“Yes. We do three days’ worth all at once here in the settlement...though since we’ll be using so many today, we’ll have to do it again tomorrow.”

“Then you guys should keep handling the poitan. After all, it would take up a lot of time, boiling them down after getting back from work.”

After that, we worked for a while on the ordinary soup dish and the side dishes.

For the soup, we went with a simple giba soup using tau oil. Around when that was mostly finished, we had a nice firm stock for the injured hunters. After moving the thoroughly boiled giba meat over to the other soup, it was time to work on the final preparations. “Now then,” I said. “We’ll be adding skim milk and fuwano, then a bit of tau oil and sugar as special ingredients, plus some fried minced giba meat.”

“Skim milk?”

“It’s milk with the fat removed. There’s lots of nutrients in milk.”

“True. That’s only natural, considering milk is meant for raising children.”

As I weakened the flame on the stove, I added in the skim milk, and then turned toward Mil Fei Sauti.

“By the way, does the main Sauti house have an heir?”

“Yes, though he is still only ten.”

“Huh?! Ten years old?!”

“Yes. I married Dari at the age of fifteen and gave birth at sixteen. My younger children are seven and four.”

So that would mean Mil Fei Sauti was only twenty-six. That was a woman of the forest’s edge for you, having three children already at that age. It certainly explained the aura of dignity about her.

“All right, this should be completely done now. Would you mind giving it a taste test?”

At any rate, the dish was done. It was a karon milk soup with fuwano flour added for thickness.

The aria, nenon, and chatchi were all boiled to be tender enough that they didn’t need to be chewed. Since we got the stock from the giba meat and added fragrant minced meat as well, I expected its flavor to be abundant. We used fuwano rather than poitan for thickness because it would give it a smoother feel in the mouth.

Plus, between the meat, vegetables, carbohydrates, and karon milk, it would surely provide plenty of nourishment. At the very least, it would probably go down easier than if I had used lots of herbs from Sym that they weren’t accustomed to. And if it still turned out to be too heavy, I was prepared to improvise a different soup that would go down easy with my secret weapons: seaweed and smoked fish.

After having just a small spoonful, Mil Fei Sauti let out a wistful sigh. “This certainly is delicious... And I can sense plenty of the giba’s strength from it.”

“Right. The Sauti learned how to make minced meat from the Rutim, right? Adding it to soup can make it easier for sick or injured folks to eat,” I replied, feeling relieved by Mil Fei Sauti’s reaction. “Back in my home country the custom was to refrain from giving meat to people who were in a weakened state. But for the people of the forest’s edge, eating giba seems to give you the most strength in body and spirit, so I went with this dish.”

That was a thought I had arrived at through my experience cooking for Granny Jiba in the past. And when we were talking about hunters, they would probably have an even stronger desire for giba meat.

Mil Fei Sauti stared at my face for a while, then called over the women who had their hands free to carry the pot. It seemed she had acknowledged the dish as being suitable for the injured hunters.

“By the way, has Lem Dom been over with the injured hunters this whole time?”

“Yes. She has quite a frightening appearance, but she’s been admirably diligent in looking after the men.”

“I see. Glad to hear it. Now then, it’s finally time for the main dish, so—” I started to say, only to suddenly be cut off by women shrieking outside.

After freezing up for just a moment, we hurried out of the kitchen.

The women carrying the pot were frozen in place. Before them stood the reason for their surprised shrieking: the elite hunters with whom I was so incredibly familiar.

“Are you okay, Ai Fa?!”

“What are you making a fuss about? I’m not even injured,” Ai Fa said, her hunter’s eyes blazing bright. Still, she looked so awful that it reminded me of the day I first met Lem Dom. Her whole body was coated in dirt and her beautiful hair was disheveled.

Over half of the group was just as filthy as Ai Fa. And furthermore, two of them were injured: Darmu Ruu and Rau Lea.

“What? My injuries are nothing serious,” Darmu Ruu stated, an even more violent look on his face than usual. There was a gray cloth wrapped around his left arm, and his vest was bloodied around the chest.

“Neither are mine! This is just to be on the safe side!” Rau Lea whined as Mida held him in a bridal carry. There was cloth wrapped around his head, and his long blond hair was dripping with blood.

“The lord of the forest charged us while we were setting up traps! It really was as massive as they said!” Dan Rutim chimed in while leaning on his cane, his eyes burning bright too. “My father Raa and I noticed it quickly enough for us to fully prepare to face it, and yet we still ended up like this! If it weren’t for Darmu Ruu and Rau Lea pushing themselves so hard, we would have had several more folks injured so badly they would never recover!”

“Are the Sauti and Vela men all right?” Mil Fei Sauti asked, her voice now lacking the calm from before as she stepped forward.

“Yes,” Donda Ruu replied. I could feel his hunter’s spirit radiating from his entire body. The reason the women shrieked earlier might have been because they were faced with the extraordinary intensity of these hunters of the forest’s edge. “At the very least, no one on their end was more injured than these two. They should all be returning home shortly.”

“I see... I cannot thank you enough for lending our Sauti clan your strength,” Mil Fei Sauti said, bringing her hands together and giving a deep bow. Standing beside her, I wiped the sweat from my brow.

The only ones who weren’t filthy were Dan Rutim, Raa Rutim, Jeeda, and Bartha. As Dan and Raa Rutim were in charge of searching while Jeeda and Bartha handled the bows, they must not have faced the lord of the forest directly. But everyone else was absolutely coated in dirt, Donda Ruu foremost among them. Though I couldn’t spy any injuries on the others, they were probably coated in scratches and bruises beneath their cloaks.

Even when the beast was faced with such elite hunters, this was still the end result. Though Ai Fa had denied it, that massive giba really was a monster.

“Asuta, hurry up and get dinner ready for us! I’ve got to stuff myself to make up for all the blood I lost!” Rau Lea wailed from Mida’s arms. “And tomorrow, we’ll take down that cursed lord without fail! I won’t let it end like this, damn it!”

◇

The sun was about half set by the time we had finished preparing the dinner Rau Lea had demanded.

I and some of the others had been invited to the main Sauti house. Adding up all the guest hunters and chefs, our group totaled nineteen, with around half of them staying here and the other half splitting off and heading to the house of Dari Sauti’s younger brother.

There were six members of the main Sauti house: the head, Dari Sauti; his wife, Mil Fei Sauti; his grandfather’s younger brother and the clan’s elder, Moga Sauti; and three children.

As for us guests, the hunters included Donda Ruu, Darmu Ruu, Ludo Ruu, Mida, and Ai Fa, and the chefs consisted of me, Sheera Ruu, Vina Ruu, and Toor Deen.

“I’m truly grateful for your efforts. Were it not for all of you, our Sauti clan would have surely lost a great many more hunters,” Dari Sauti stated from the head of the group before dinner. Though he didn’t seem as worked up as yesterday, he looked to be in an even worse state physically. He had a laceration on his head and a fractured left arm, and was apparently still relying on herbs to numb the pain and reduce his fever. “I also cannot help but be impressed anew by how dauntless you Ruu hunters are. It was truly amazing how you were able to face the lord of the forest head-on and not suffer serious injuries.”

“Yeah, that was one heck of a giba. Absolutely crazy. No matter how much we slashed at it, it didn’t seem to care at all and just kept on charging us. It even shrugged off a blow to the head from Mida’s club,” Ludo Ruu chimed in as he fidgeted restlessly. “There really are all sorts of things I’d like to discuss, but could we save it for after we eat? We’re all starving here!”

“Of course. My apologies. Well then, let us regain our strength through the meal that the chefs all worked so hard to prepare.”

With that, Dari Sauti gave the premeal chant, which everyone repeated.

Once that was done, Ludo Ruu scooped up a plate and said, “Now, it’s time to dig in! It’s so awesome that you made giba cutlets for us tonight, Asuta!”

“Uh-huh. Back in my home country, we had a custom of eating cutlets when facing a serious competition because their name is the same as our word for winning.”

“Sounds like a great custom to me!”

And so, the main dish for tonight had ended up being giba cutlets. Since the plan had been for their actual hunt to begin tomorrow, I had chosen this dish with that superstition in mind.

We also made a giba soup with tau oil, and we went with a shredded tino, aria, and pula salad with dressing. For the sides, there was also some boiled spinach-like nanaar, and a potato salad-esque dish made from chatchi.

“But you already ate the soup that was prepared in advance, didn’t you? Can you really eat such a heavy meal?” Mil Fei Sauti asked, shooting her husband a firm look.

“Of course,” Dari Sauti replied, smiling for the first time in a while. “Ever since I ate that odd style of giba cutlets in the castle town, I’ve been wanting to try the normal kind as soon as I could find a chance. If I let this opportunity pass by, the regret would slow my healing process, for sure.”

“My,” Mil Fei Sauti replied while furrowing her brow, but she didn’t end up saying anything further.

As for the other hunters, they were all silently chowing down. While I was also keeping my mouth working, I looked around at the members of the Sauti clan, and saw the eyes of the young children shoot open wide as they ate giba cutlets for the first time. They whispered to one another as they moved on to the soup and pecked at the appetizers, their small faces all filled with mirth. Meanwhile, Moga Sauti’s eyes narrowed as he watched over them.

“What’s going on here?! This chatchi salad is totally different from what I ate before!” Ludo Ruu loudly called out, causing me to look back over his way.

“Ah, I switched out the mamaria vinegar in the mayonnaise for the stuff from Banarm. It looks a bit different from before too, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit redder than before! And really, really good!” Ludo Ruu sure did seem to love chatchi, judging by the way he was eagerly stuffing his cheeks with chatchi salad. He shot a smile at the young children sitting across from him. “Aren’t you all going to have some too? If you wait too long, I’ll eat it all up before you get the chance.”

“Huh? Y-Yeah...”

“Asuta and the others make some real delicious food, you know. You should all eat as much as you want and grow up to be great hunters like Dari Sauti.”

The young children looked bashful, but they gave shy smiles nonetheless. Though many of the hunters gathered here were the silent type, thanks to Ludo Ruu the atmosphere wasn’t becoming awkward.

As I was thinking about that, I heard a concerned, “Hey...” from Vina Ruu on my left. “I know that you’re hungry, but shouldn’t you eat a bit slower?”

Apparently those words had been directed at Mida, who was right across from her.

As the large youth gulped down the giba cutlets he had been shoveling into his mouth, he replied, “Hmm... But I’m just so happy. I haven’t eaten Asuta’s cooking for a long time...”

“Oh, my, so the food prepared by us women in the Ruu clan isn’t enough to satisfy you after all? How sad...”

“That’s not what I meant...”

“Oh? In that case, what did you mean?”

Since they both had a tendency to speak slowly, their conversation went at a pretty leisurely pace. I chuckled a bit, and Vina Ruu shot me a glance out of the corner of her eyes.

“What...? Is there something stuck to my face, perhaps...?” she asked.

“No. I was just noticing how you’re able to talk with Mida normally now,” I whispered back so that Mida wouldn’t hear. In the past, just coming face to face with him was enough to cause her to feel faint. Of course, they had been seeing each other a lot more since Mida had become a member of the Ruu clan, so that over-the-top reaction must have naturally softened. However, I hadn’t had a chance before now to see her acting quite so friendly toward him.

Vina Ruu gave a shrug of her seductive shoulders, then whispered into my ear with warm breath, “We’ve lived together for months now, so of course I’ve grown used to him... And besides, Mida’s lost quite a bit of excess weight, hasn’t he?”

“That’s true,” I replied, but when I stole a glance over at Mida I still thought he looked abnormally huge. He had seemed a bit down up until the start of dinner over the fact that Yamiru Lea and Tsuvai were eating elsewhere, but now he looked downright blissful.

Even if Mida was still just a hunter in training, he was apparently chosen for the elite unit because of his monstrous strength. And from what I could tell, he seemed to be quite happy about that too.

“By the way, Dari Sauti, I actually have a proposal,” I went ahead and called out, figuring it seemed like a suitable time to do so.

Dari Sauti had portioned off a small amount of giba cutlets to really savor, but he calmly looked my way and replied, “What is it?”

“This may go against the customs of the forest’s edge a little, so I think you should consult with Donda Ruu, but...could we deliver food to the other clans under you as well, starting tomorrow?”

“The other clans? You mean for those who aren’t injured?”

“Yes. I know that customs state the chefs and members of a house are to eat dinner together in the same place. But today we prepared food for everyone in the Sauti and Vela clans and had them eat in their own houses, so I figured maybe it would also be okay to deliver food to the other clans.”

“But besides the Vela, we Sauti also have the Don, Fei, Dada, and Tamur under us, with a total of thirty-five people among those four clans. Can you truly prepare food for all of them?”

“If we’re just talking soup, then it wouldn’t be difficult at all. We can have each house cook up their own meat and poitan, then we would just provide a soup dish full of nourishment. What do you think?”

Dari Sauti furrowed his brow, looking somehow pained.

“But we Sauti no longer have the strength needed to ever repay such a debt...”

“There’s no need to repay anything. Just, if another clan runs into trouble down the line, I’d be glad if you would lend them a hand in turn,” I said, looking at Dari Sauti and Donda Ruu. “Didn’t Gazraan Rutim already say that the people of the forest’s edge shouldn’t just value blood ties, but show greater care and affection for all their comrades? If the folks from the Don, the Fei, and all the rest are hurt and suffering just like everyone from the Sauti and Vela clans, then I’d like to lend them at least a bit of strength. And that’s not just my opinion. All eight of us chefs who came here think the same way...”

“We just agreed to the proposal you came up with, though...” Vina Ruu chimed in with another seductive shrug of her shoulders.

As he glanced over out of the corner of his eye, Donda Ruu snorted, “Hmph.”

“Chefs are to entrust their lives to those who eat their food, and vice versa... The custom of eating in the same place is meant to show that resolve. As long as no one makes light of that, it shouldn’t earn the forest’s anger regardless of where one eats,” Moga Sauti stated, turning his calm gaze toward Dari Sauti.

Dari Sauti firmly shut his eyes, then placed his right fist on the floor. “Our Sauti clan does not doubt the intentions of the Fa or Ruu in the least. As head of my clan, I place the lives of my people in the hands of your chefs.”