Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 18 - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3: The Lord of the Forest

1

Our first night at the Sauti settlement had come to a close without any problems.

We got up alongside the rising of the sun, cleaned the tableware and cooking implements used for last night’s dinner, gathered firewood and pico leaves, and set about getting things ready for doing business.

The Ruu clan’s group departed early to return to their settlement. Splitting up like this would normally have complicated the process, but the route we were going to have to take to the post town went through the Ruu settlement anyway, so there was no issue with them heading there first. Our two groups separated, planning to join back up later.

Meanwhile, it was crunch time for the Fa clan group. Toor Deen, Yamiru Lea, Yun Sudra, Lem Dom, and myself needed to work with the Sauti and Vela women to prepare 140 poitan wraps, 120 giba manju, and 30 giba cutlet sandwiches. Since we were leaving the cooking for the inns up to the Ruu clan, we couldn’t exactly ask them for help with this too.

The only part we managed to complete yesterday was cutting the meat and preparing the sauce for the poitan wraps. Plus, aside from finishing that up, we needed to bake enough poitan for several days in one go, and it all had to be done in a mere two hours.

“Well then, like we planned yesterday, Toor Deen and Yun Sudra, can you prepare the giba manju, and Lem Dom, can you bake the poitan? I’ll take care of the giba cutlet sandwiches, and I’ll ask you to help me, Yamiru Lea.”

Toor Deen and Lem Dom took part in this work every single day, so they formed small units with the Sauti women and gave them instructions. Yamiru Lea was the only one doing so for the first time, which is why I had her assist me, and we started off by frying the cutlets. Since it was only enough for thirty meals, it wasn’t much work at all.

Once that was finished, we joined up with Toor Deen’s group to work on the giba manju. Since we could only rely on the Sauti women for mincing the meat and cutting the vegetables, that left our more skilled hands to make the paste and form the fuwano dough.

Then, once things looked like they had progressed enough, I took the baked poitan from Lem Dom and completed the giba cutlet sandwiches. That meant adding the sauce to the cutlets once the oil dripped off, adding some shredded tino and the two pieces of baked poitan, then putting them all in a wooden box so they wouldn’t fall apart. The poitan wraps would be cooked on site before being sold, so they were ready as soon as the poitan were baked. We loaded it all into the wagon alongside the bags stuffed with meat and the containers of sauce.

We finished up by having everyone form the giba manju by wrapping fuwano around the paste. We were running right up against the time limit by that point.

Yamiru Lea gave a sigh as she loaded some completed giba manju into a steaming basket. “Your normal schedule had you cooking for the inns every other day on top of everything we just did, correct? It truly is difficult to even imagine.”

We usually met up with Yamiru Lea at the Ruu settlement, so this was the first time we had her help out with the prep work. I met her exhausted expression with a bright smile.

“The Fou, Ran, and Sudra clan members who usually help out are all accustomed to the work, so it isn’t too tough. And you can see how skilled Lem Dom is now too.”

“I’m sure there’s just as big of a commotion in the Ruu settlement every day as well. It’s fortunate that I didn’t get recruited.”

At any rate, the dishes were complete. After thanking Mil Fei Sauti for helping lead everyone, we hurriedly departed for the Ruu settlement.

Things seemed to have gone smoothly on their end too. However, since their main hunting force was absent, they ended up with less than half their usual number of giba yesterday. If this continued, the stock of innards would end up running out before long.

“Well, it should be possible to get ahold of those innards if we ask our subordinate clans. But still, I’ll be praying that my father and the others can finish the job safely as soon as possible,” Reina Ruu had said as we parted.

When we then arrived in the post town, business once again seemed nice and lively.

Fortunately, the number of customers we had wasn’t dropping off at all. Sure enough, the novelty didn’t seem to have worn off over the past two days. Rather, it was possible that the positive reputation we were still building up was drawing even more attention.

Still, Ama Min Rutim and Yun Sudra would both be working with us from the beginning of the day to the end, so that gave us plenty of leeway. Perhaps this was just the correct number of staff to have when business at the stalls was at a high point. I took some time to consider if it would be smart to stick with this lineup even after our duty at the Sauti settlement came to a close.

As all those thoughts were running through my head, the owner of The Great Southern Tree, Naudis, stopped by for the first time in a while.

“Hmm, this certainly is delicious. It seems that giba offal is every bit as good as ordinary meat.”

Apparently, there was a great deal of discussion about the outdoor restaurant at his inn, and so he came to check it out personally. I was able to step away from work for a bit, so I took a moment to thank him in place of the busy Sheera and Vina Ruu.

“Still, this dish comes from the Ruu clan, doesn’t it? Do you not plan to offer a soup dish at your stalls, Asuta?”

“Well, I’d like to expand the menu eventually. Though instead of another type of soup, I was thinking more of a dish that needs to be served up on a plate.”

That way, there wouldn’t be any clashing with the Ruu clan. Besides, if we also went with a dish that could come in half or full sizes, then it could be ordered alongside the soup. And that would expand the variety of options on our combined menu even further.

“Hmm. In that case, there’s something I’d like to request of you.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“If at all possible, I would like you to sell giba curry at your stalls as well.”

That was certainly an unexpected proposal. Though I did want to see how well curry sold with my own two eyes, it was already being offered at four inns, so I was worried that if I went too overboard with it there was a risk people could get sick of the dish.

“The giba curry is selling fairly well even at my inn. But, unsurprisingly, there’s no shortage of customers from the south who see it as a Sym dish and avoid it.”

“Right. So is it only your customers from the west ordering it?”

“Half of them are westerners, the other half easterners, and then just a few southerners, I’d say.”

“Ah, right. You’ve had some easterners visiting The Great Southern Tree for the giba cooking, haven’t you? Their numbers still haven’t dropped off even with so many inns offering giba meat now?”

“Well, not to boast, but out of all the places that serve giba meat, mine has the widest variety. The Sledgehammer in particular is a real small inn, so my place gets quite a few easterners who can’t make it in there.”

The Sledgehammer seemed to be flourishing in its own way too. And that was something I was very grateful to hear.

“Personally, though I have blood from Jagar, I’m still a citizen of the west who has devoted his very soul to Selva, so I have no intention of discriminating against any of my customers, even ones born in the east. But still, I want my inn to be a place of relaxation and refreshment for my customers from the south... Those are the customers I want to please the most with the dishes I serve.”

“Yes, I understand how you feel.”

“However, the giba curry just isn’t selling as well as the other giba dishes. After all, the majority of my customers from Jagar think that it’s a Sym dish. But it’s actually a dish from your home country that just uses a lot of herbs from Sym, correct?”

“That’s right. I believe customers born in Sym find it pretty unusual as well.”

“I think it would be good if it was better known around here that the dish came from you, a person of the forest’s edge and visitor from overseas,” Naudis said enthusiastically while slurping giba hot pot stew. “This dish uses tau oil and sugar from Jagar. But rather than being a Jagar dish, it comes from the forest’s edge. Your people are using ingredients from both Jagar and Sym, treating them equally. If all of this becomes more common knowledge, then it should change the way people see giba curry too, as a dish of the forest’s edge rather than Sym.”

“I see. It’s a way to change people’s thinking without saying anything directly, right?”

Naudis nodded in response to my smile.

I considered his proposal. “In that case, I’ll see what the other inn owners think and decide what to do from there. But the Ruu clan only just opened this restaurant, so I imagine we’ll at least wait till things calm down first.”

“Well, it’s not as if there’s any need for you to open another place right away. However, it’s not long till the sun god’s revival festival. And that’s not an opportunity that anyone who makes a living through sales can overlook, now is it?” Naudis solemnly stated. “This matter regarding the giba curry is ultimately just my own personal desire, so I leave the decision up to you. But even if that isn’t what you go with, I still believe you should expand your business. There simply isn’t going to be a better opportunity to let the world at large know how delicious giba truly is, after all.”

“Huh. That many people visit Genos for the revival festival?”

“Yes, that’s right. Even at a low estimate, I would say the number of customers to the stalls and inns should more than double. In fact, my place will be hiring people and running a stall just for the event.”

“More than double, huh?”

That was incredible. After all, our stalls from the forest’s edge were currently seeing between three and four hundred customers daily. And even though we had only just expanded the outdoor restaurant, if we had that many customers crowding the place, we would end up exceeding capacity again. With that in mind, we needed to expand the number of seats we had for at least the duration of the festival. And that might also mean the Fa clan could prepare a new dish in turn.

“Got it. That’s some valuable information. Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind while I’m trying to figure out the best path forward.”

“Ah, not at all. After all, we’ve been acquainted for several months now and I would like this relationship to continue, with both of us finding success together.”

Naudis was probably my most trusted business partner. Of course, I did have my emotional attachments to him and others, but even beyond that, I felt that he and I could trust and respect one another more when it came to business, even when compared to Milano Mas, Nail, or Yumi. Not that I was dissatisfied with that in any way. Rather, I was proud to have such a relationship with an experienced businessman like Naudis.

Naudis departed after that, and business carried on peacefully, if at a pretty fast clip, until wrapping up for the day.

◇

Once business was done for the day, we returned to the Sauti settlement.

As for the Ruu women, Reina and Lala Ruu swapped in for Sheera and Vina Ruu. To kick off our next round of work for the day, we went ahead and started preparing the food for the clans under the Sauti.

“Sorry, but could I ask you to do the prep work for the soup, Reina Ruu? Toor Deen should have a grasp on the amount needed.”

“Understood. Are you heading somewhere, Asuta?”

“I’ve got to borrow the outdoor stove to prepare the curry base to be sold.”

Currently, we were selling the curry base to four inns. All together, it only added up to around a hundred meals’ worth, but that still made for quite a bit each day.

Grinding and roasting the spices was something I generally had the women of nearby clans help out with, preparing a large amount at once. What I had to do today was take those and make the final curry base with them.

With Yamiru Lea as my cooking assistant, we started by chopping up the aria. Then we would sauté them in milk fat along with the spices, and finally add some fuwano. The process itself wasn’t tricky, but it still took a fair bit of effort to make enough for several days all at once.

As I heated up all those spices in an iron pot, women and children from the Sauti and Vela clans started gathering from all around. It was only natural that folks would be curious, considering the powerful aroma we were spreading through the air. I wanted to let them know that there was no need to worry, but since they were just staring from a distance, they weren’t quite close enough for my voice to reach.

“Asuta, just what is all this commotion about?” the elder Moga Sauti eventually called out.

As I added the fuwano to the spices and roughly stirred with a wooden spoon, I replied, “Ah, this is part of the preparations for our business. Sorry for being such a nuisance with the smell.”

“I wouldn’t say that it’s especially unpleasant...but it is indeed a powerful aroma, certainly. I’d imagine it would keep the lord of the forest away from the settlement without even the need for giba warding fruit,” Moga Sauti said with a smile, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“If you don’t mind, how about we serve this dish for dinner too at some point? We already unveiled it at a Rutim clan celebration, and it seemed to be fairly well received.”

“Hmm, how interesting. Are these perhaps herbs from Sym?”

“Yes. They were purchased from the castle town.”

“I see... Somehow, my body seems to crave that aroma,” Moga Sauti replied, starting to stare off into the distance. “You know, I’ve also had the thought that we Sauti must have lived together with totos in the olden days. After all, they feel so oddly familiar, and the men are all able to ride them without any difficulty. Perhaps that’s because of the blood from Sym sleeping inside of us.”

“Ah, you’re talking about how it’s said the people of the forest’s edge could have blood from both Sym and Jagar running through their veins? I’ve heard that apparently people from Sym are especially skilled at handling totos, yeah.”

“Indeed. And it seems that some amount of Sym words and customs remain here at the forest’s edge. The fact that those customs existed despite our home having been the black forest of Jagar may well be proof that we have Sym blood,” Moga Sauti said, his smile growing more and more clear. Somehow, that expression reminded me of Granny Jiba. “Though I have lived for seventy years, I don’t know anything of our time in the black forest. It burned down ten years before I was born, after all... Our ancestors were born of mixed Sym and Jagar blood in the black forest, and now we hunt giba on Selva land. Fate can be a truly strange thing, when you think about it.”

“Now that you mention it, it’s like you all tie Sym, Jagar, and Selva together. That’s my honest viewpoint, though I feel bad for Mahyudra getting left out,” I replied, recalling my conversation with Naudis from earlier in the day.

As he stared back at me, Moga Sauti once again smiled. “Up until just a few months ago, we had no ties with the citizens of any of the kingdoms. Both we and those other people avoided one another, breeding nothing but bad blood. But you helped to properly reforge those bonds, Asuta.”

“Right. And it wasn’t just thanks to me, but also to Donda Ruu, Gazraan Rutim, Ai Fa, and so many others.”

“But you were the first one to start tying them all together, Asuta.” Moga Sauti beckoned over the children watching from a distance, and placed his wrinkled hands atop their small heads. “And now, you’re also bringing our Sauti clan into that loop. I am truly grateful, from the bottom of my heart.”

“That’s because Dari Sauti decided to rely on clans like the Ruu and the Fa that he didn’t have blood ties to,” I replied to Moga Sauti with a smile as I transferred the completed curry base to a specially made large plate. “But it would make me glad if we’ve succeeded at becoming friends with the Sauti... I’ve got to get to work on dinner after this, so I hope you look forward to it, okay?”

That last bit was directed at the young children. And in response, they all smiled and nodded. “Yeah!”

Around two hours had passed since the hunters returned from the forest. Though the sun was pretty far west by this point, there was still nearly an hour left until sunset.

The hunters had been greeted with surprise and shouts of admiration. Though they hadn’t taken down the lord of the forest, they had instead returned triumphant with an abnormally large number of giba.

“We exhausted our strength hunting all these down, so we returned before encountering the lord. We’ll need to skin them now as well,” Ai Fa had told me while holding a giba that looked a fair bit heavier than she was. Between the eleven hunters, they were carrying six giba in total. That meant that everyone else was carrying them in pairs, tied to poles.

Still, according to their recounting, these were just the giba that they had successfully bloodlet without the pelt getting ruined, whereas for the others they just cut off the horns and tusks and discarded the rest.

“Then there’s the share that’s going to the Sauti branch houses and subordinate clans as well. It felt foolish to keep counting at some point, so I really couldn’t say how many giba we took down in total.”

“I counted them! We brought back eighteen giba, and tossed aside another thirteen!” Dan Rutim loudly chimed in. As the injury to his ankle still wasn’t fully healed, he was naturally empty handed. “Ugh, why did I have to get injured at a time like this! I want to swing my blade alongside my comrades!”

“Are you actually saying that just the eleven of you managed to hunt down thirty-one giba on your own?” Mil Fei Sauti muttered in amazement, having also come out to greet the hunters.

As he looked down at her, Donda Ruu replied in a displeased voice, “All we did was finish off the giba that the Sauti hunters directed our way. Between the sixteen Sauti hunters and our group of eleven, we were twenty-seven strong, so I can’t see anything to act so surprised over.”

“But less than ten of you hunters were swinging your blades, correct?”

“Even so, this is the result of everyone’s strength coming together. That’s precisely why we split the horns, tusks, pelts, and meat equally,” Donda Ruu answered, sounding somewhat annoyed. “Besides, no matter how much vitality we have, it would never be enough for us to keep hunting with these methods. If the lord of the forest doesn’t appear within a few days, our strength will run out. This is nothing to be celebrating about.”

As an outsider looking in, I thought they all seemed to be brimming with strength, but the burden on them had to be quite severe. No matter how efficient their hunting method might have been, twenty-seven hunters taking down thirty-one giba was an extraordinary haul.

On top of that, Ai Fa and Mida had been waiting deep within the trap-filled hunting grounds, and they ended up having to wield their blades against a horde of giba that came charging from an unexpected direction. Though sacrificial hunting was dangerous, as it made giba lose their sense, Mida was poor at chasing but good at handling the beasts head-on, so they were able to take several down without any significant risks.

“This is the first time I’ve ever hunted so many giba...” Mida said, his thick lower jaw trembling happily. Ai Fa also looked relieved that the sacrificial hunting she had chosen to use hadn’t led to any misfortune. As for me, I couldn’t help but feel awed at the thought of Ai Fa and Mida working together to intercept a swarm of giba.

As I was imagining that, Ai Fa stepped in next to me, only for someone else to come running over.

“Are you okay, Ai Fa?! There’s so much blood on you!”

When I heard that, I turned to look for the voice and found Yun Sudra clinging to my clan head. With a dubious furrowing of her brow, Ai Fa looked down upon the smaller girl’s pale face.

“It isn’t anything to worry about. This isn’t my blood, it’s the blood of the giba.”

“Ah, I see. My apologies. I guess I lost my composure there.” Yun Sudra placed a hand over her own chest and gave a big sigh. When she saw that, Ai Fa’s brow furrowed even deeper.

“Why were you so shaken up, Yun Sudra? You didn’t seem that disturbed when the members of the Ruu clan were injured yesterday.”

“Huh? Well, the Ruu and their subordinate clans are all fellow people of the forest’s edge, but the Fa and Sudra are friends, so I couldn’t help but feel shaken,” Yun Sudra replied, her cheeks turning noticeably red. “The thought of you being hurt makes me feel the same as I would if a member of the Sudra were injured, Ai Fa. And I will be praying that you can continue to safely carry out your work in the days to come.”

“I see... You are a kind person, Yun Sudra,” Ai Fa quietly replied.

“Oh, not at all,” Yun Sudra said back with a bashful smile.

As he glanced over out of the corner of his eye, Donda Ruu declared, “Time to tidy up these giba.”