Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 3.3

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After dinner had concluded, we were shown to our bedrooms. However, even with such a big house, it wasn’t as if Dora had a huge number of rooms to spare. The men and women were given one room each, with Tara’s bedding being brought into the women’s room.

“All right, I’m sure nothing will happen like back in Dabagg, but I can still trust you to take care of Rimee and everyone, right, Ai Fa?” Ludo Ruu called out to my clan head.

After that, everyone started heading into their separate rooms. The last ones left outside were Ai Fa and I, as we had planned between the two of us in advance.

With the moonlight streamed in through a window, I leaned up against a wooden wall. Ai Fa positioned herself next to me, and then breathed a little sigh.

“What a busy day it’s been.”

“Yeah. And it’s going to be even busier tomorrow.”

We would be handling the whole roast giba tomorrow morning, then in the early afternoon we would take care of preparing meals for the inns and stalls. At night, we would run our business, and if we had any strength left after that, we would stop by the Gamley Troupe’s tent. A fittingly hectic first day of the festival.

“So you’ll add the Beim woman to your work force at the stalls the day after tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

“In that case, tomorrow will be the last day I help out around the stall,” Ai Fa stated, a terribly calm look on her face.

I was probably wearing the exact same sort of expression.

“It’s been really great having you help out with the stalls. When you’re on a break period or whatever in the future, I’d love to have you do it again, at least so long as it doesn’t get in the way of your training.”

“I see...” Ai Fa said, smiling at me. “It is not as if I train all day every day, so I would be able to help out to some extent. And I actually found it surprisingly enjoyable...”

“I see. Glad to hear it.”

“Indeed. Well, I suppose it’s only natural I would feel that way, when you were standing beside me...” Ai Fa remarked with a wonderfully gentle look on her face.

Even now when she couldn’t properly train, I still didn’t think she had any excess fat on her or anything. But somehow, she seemed to look a bit more like a normal girl than she used to...

I had always found her to have more than enough womanly charm, but now that she had been distanced from her high-stress lifestyle as a hunter and been forbidden from muscle training, perhaps there had been some sort of shift in her hormone balance or something.

So if Ai Fa quit being a hunter entirely, would she eventually start dripping with pheromones like Vina Ruu?

I found it hard to picture her like that.

Anyway, Ai Fa would remain herself no matter her circumstances, but it was the awe-inspiringly strong hunter I knew that had charmed me.

I adored both the Ai Fa whose wildcat eyes blazed brightly as she faced everything life threw at her and the one who gently smiled at me now. That’s what I was thinking about as I stared back into her eyes.

“It will take ten more days to heal my wounds, and after that, another half a month for me to completely regain my strength as a hunter... I’ll face Lem Dom after that,” Ai Fa calmly stated, and then continued on, “It goes without saying, but I will be fighting her with everything I have.”

“Right. That’s the only thing you can do.”

“Indeed... Still, even if Lem Dom’s path to becoming a hunter is cut off, that would simply mean she will have to live as a woman of the forest’s edge. It’s hardly an unfortunate fate...” Ai Fa said, still wearing a gentle smile but now furrowing her brow and looking a bit pained. “It fills my heart with joy to be able to live as a hunter. But I’m sure I would be just as happy living a proper life as a woman as well...”

“Mmhmm.”

“I only started thinking that way after I met you,” Ai Fa said as she moved away from the wall. “No matter how things play out, Lem Dom will be able to live a happy life. That’s why I have no compunctions against taking that fool down.”

“That’s a pretty violent topic for a night like tonight, Ai Fa.”

With a dubious tilt of her head, my clan head turned around. “Well then, we should both go rest now. You need to recover from your exhaustion, Asuta.”

“Yeah. Goodnight, Ai Fa.”

And so, our busy day that only calmed down at the very end came to a mellow close. Tomorrow, the sun god’s revival festival would finally kick off. After Ai Fa and I exchanged one last glance, I opened the door to the bedroom where Ludo Ruu and the others were waiting.