Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4: The Day of Dawn

1

Our morning in the Daleim lands began just as quickly as they did at the forest’s edge.

Everyone was already out of bed by the time the sky had started to brighten, and by the time the first rays of sunlight were streaming in through the windows, things were already in full swing. It turned out the residents of the Daleim lands were every bit as hardworking as the people of the forest’s edge.

“All right, we’re heading out into the fields now. Good luck with your own work, Asuta,” Dora called out after washing his face with water from a jug. “Even if it is a holiday, we can’t just fool around like the folks from town. We’ve got to work hard until the sun hits its peak, and then we’ll come check out your stalls.”

“Right. I’ll be waiting.”

Naturally, we had no time for fooling around either. After getting dressed, we gave a courteous farewell to everyone from Dora’s family and then departed the Daleim lands.

Once we had reached the highway, we were able to run our totos at full speed. Dan Rutim and Rimee Ruu rode atop Mim Cha, while the rest of us were in Gilulu’s wagon. A ten-minute ride down the stone-paved road later, we arrived in the post town, where we started by borrowing our stalls. It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since sunrise yet, but Milano Mas still greeted us the same as always.

“Even if it is a holiday, I can’t sleep late if our inn has customers. The only ones fooling around are the street vendors.”

Still, as one might expect with it being so early on the morning of a holiday, it was terribly quiet in the post town. There were few enough people on the road that you could easily count them on your hands. It was definitely a fresh, new way of seeing the town for those of us who had only seen the place when it was hectic and lively.

As we advanced down the street with our three stalls, an even more unfamiliar sight came into view: the stall area with no stalls set up in it. We had passed this way rather early in the day once before, back when we went on our trip to Dabagg, but that time there were already a few stalls set up along the way with a fair number of passersby. Now, it was completely empty.

The area of bare ground that had been cleared out for the stalls really was quite an expanse, and without any stalls, houses, or inns around, there was no reason for anyone else to pass through. Normally, there would be a fair number of folks who got up early because they were going out on some kind of trip, but there wouldn’t be many travelers leaving Genos during the revival festival, so the scene before us was utterly deserted.

“Hey, if this is how things are going to be, will anyone even notice us roasting the giba?” Lala Ruu asked while pushing one of the stalls.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. Around the upper fifth hour, the castle will be distributing kimyuus meat and fruit wine, and there will be people setting up stalls to grill it. It’s a gift from the lord of Genos, as are the cooks’ wages.”

“Oh? That’s quite generous of him. So each time there’s one of those special holidays, they give out meat and wine like that?”

“That’s right. It’s a once-a-year festival, so the duke must want to show off Genos’s strength and prosperity to both the residents and travelers. And if a gesture like that ends up drawing more people to Genos, it could actually make the town richer as a result.”

“Oh yeah?” Lala Ruu replied with a shrug. “I thought it was a waste for us to give out giba meat for free, but we can’t let the nobles beat us if that’s what they’re planning.”

“Yeah. When the Ruu clan has a banquet at their settlement for their subordinate clans, they use their own coins to pay for all the food, right? Just think of it as something like that.”

As we talked, our assigned space came into view at the northern end of the stall area. Naturally, the Gamley Troupe’s tent was also deathly silent.

“All right, let’s get started.”

First up was getting the giba meat ready. We set down our three wooden boxes on the stalls’ work surfaces, and pulled out the giba that had been pickled in pico leaves.

These were young giba with the fur burned off their pelts. Three of them, each around forty to fifty centimeters long, weighing roughly thirty kilos with their blood and organs removed. After scraping out the pico leaves we had packed inside their abdomens as well, we borrowed the assistance of the hunters to stick metal skewers from their throats down through their rears.

Next, we rubbed salt into them all over and packed their stomachs with vegetables in the way we had previously devised. The vegetables included aria, nenon, tino, chatchi, ma pula, and ma gigo. Once we had that done, we loosely sewed the stomachs together using fibaha vines, and then it was finally time to set them up on their stands.

Since it was forbidden to light fires on the ground, we were using the stalls instead. After removing the work surfaces with their holes that we normally used to hold pots in place, we suspended the giba above the flames. We stacked up some gray bricks we had purchased from the castle town by way of Yang on either side of the braziers, then placed the ends of the skewers on top of them, with the whole setup being around my chest height.

After that, we just had to drive some U-shaped iron stakes into the bricks so that the skewers wouldn’t slide loose, and we were good to go. The last thing we did was bend the ends of the skewers to make them easier to turn and wrap them in cloth so we could hold them safely.

“All right, are the fires looking okay?”

“Yeah, they seem fine.”

The insides of the braziers were glowing red with the charcoal we had purchased from Mikel. With all the setup finished, we got to cooking.

“Now we just need to keep turning it so the meat doesn’t burn, right?”

“Yeah, and add more charcoal as you go so the flame doesn’t get too weak.”

Rimee Ruu, Lala Ruu, and Toor Deen were each entrusted with a single giba, while I was overseeing the whole operation. From an outsider’s perspective, the sight of us just roasting these whole giba in this empty space would probably be pretty surreal.

“Hmm, it sure is tranquil,” Dan Rutim said with a big yawn. “If nobody’s going to come by for a while, mind if I take a quick nap?”

“Go right ahead. You can take it easy until midday.”

Our trip to Dabagg had already proven that even if he fell asleep, he’d still react faster than any of us if an emergency were to arise. Dan Rutim sat down cross-legged with his back up against the tree Mim Cha was tied to, and in just a few seconds, he was already snoring.

“Everyone else can get some rest too, if you want. It was rough getting up so early today, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm? Now that I’m awake, I can’t get back to sleep that easily. And since it’s a break period right now, I don’t exactly have a lot of ways to even get tired,” Ludo Ruu said.

Now that I thought about it, Ludo Ruu had always been the type of guy to get up early. Shin Ruu didn’t look especially sleepy either as he chatted with Lala Ruu.

“Yesterday was so much fun! So we’re heading to Dora’s house again three days from now? I really hope I’m chosen again...” Lala Ruu remarked.

“Hmm. But didn’t Asuta say that different people should be chosen to head to the Daleim lands so that more of us could get to know them?” Shin Ruu asked, looking my way.

“That’s right,” I said, turning toward him as well. “But at the same time, I feel like we make a stronger bond if we visited with the same people, so it’s a real tough call.”

“Yeah! Rimee and I got along best with Tara, so leaving us on duty would be for the best, wouldn’t it?” Lala Ruu said. However, she quickly looked over at Toor Deen in a fluster. “Oh, but I’m not saying I think you should be taken out of the running. Please don’t take this the wrong way, all right?”

“Okay,” Toor Deen replied with a tender smile. Looking back, there had been a bond between those two ever since the clan head meeting. I could sense that even if she acted reserved, Toor Deen was definitely fond of Lala Ruu. “If Reina Ruu or Yun Sudra want to participate, I’d be fine with yielding my spot to them. And I can help out in the morning like this even if I don’t get to stay at Dora’s place...”

“Yeah, it isn’t like this is our last chance! Even without the festival, as long as we’re on a break period, it should be okay to go visit them.”

“Huh? But...wouldn’t that depend on how Dora’s family feels about it?”

“They were happy to have us! But we probably shouldn’t be imposing on them all the time, so we should invite some of them to the forest’s edge again too.”

“Yeah! I’d love to have Tara stay at the Ruu house this time!” Rimee Ruu chimed in, causing things to get even more lively. At this rate, even though this monotonous task would take several hours, it seems like we would be able to endure it just fine. That was what I was thinking about as I checked the strength of everyone’s flames, when Ai Fa suddenly called out, “Asuta.” Following her gaze, I noticed a small black and scarlet figure approaching in the pale morning light.

“My, you guys from the forest’s edge sure did get here early.” It was Pino the acrobat. With the scarlet sleeves of her haori fluttering as she walked, she came and stood in front of us.

“And you’re roasting whole giba? How truly grand.”

“Yeah. We heard that whole roast kimyuus were given away on holidays, so we wanted to do the same with giba.”

“Excellent! I hope that you’ll share some with us as well,” Pino said, stifling a yawn as she spoke. She had an odd mixture of innocence and sensuality about her, and remained just as mysterious as always.

As it was Shin Ruu’s first time meeting her, he was currently staring at her, looking kind of amazed. After shooting him a glare out of the corner of her eye, Lala Ruu turned Pino’s way.

“You’re up rather early yourself. Aren’t you forbidden from doing business during the day too?”

“Oh right, they do have a rule like that in place. Well, even if it’s taboo to earn money, we can still liven things up with our flutes and drums.” Then, Pino’s pitch-black eyes looked over toward me. “By the way, are you going to come see our nighttime performance as planned today?”

“That’s right. It’s our first time running the stalls at night, so our schedule still isn’t completely determined, but I believe we should be able to.”

“Glad to hear it. And we’ll use the time we have between performances to buy some of your cooking. I’ll see you again once those are all roasted.”

With that comment, Pino went and fluttered away.

“Hmm. She doesn’t seem to be a bad person, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s suspicious,” Lala Ruu bluntly stated, and then she glared once more at Shin Ruu. “So, how long are you going to keep staring blankly like that? What, is she your type or something?”

“I wasn’t staring blankly. I was just caught off guard by how peculiar she was. And besides, I could never feel that way about someone from town...”

“Hmph, really?” Lala Ruu shot back, clearly miffed. As someone who didn’t look all that different in terms of age, it seemed she couldn’t turn a blind eye toward Pino.

At any rate, the whole roast giba were cooking steadily. The surface gradually started browning nicely, as the fat that dripped down onto the braziers crackled. Soon enough, they’d start giving off quite an appetizing aroma.

However, there weren’t any passersby for the time being, and the empty town remained terribly quiet.

The silence was only broken roughly three hours later, when the sundial I had brought along was just about reaching the upper fifth hour. It was then that a group came by with some carts.

“Whoa, that’s amazing! You really are roasting whole giba!” One of them was Yumi from The Westerly Wind. After some morning greetings, she energetically continued. “Still, they’re awfully small. Are these young ones?”

“Yeah. If they were bigger, it would take too long to roast them.”

After that, other people started steadily filling in the open spaces with stalls at regular intervals, shooting us nervous looks as they approached. They must have been tasked with running stalls for the whole roast kimyuus. Naturally, they were all westerners.

“Mmm, what a great smell! If you only have three of them, I’m sure they’ll run out in no time, though,” Yumi said.

“I’ll be disappointed if we have leftovers, but I’d be perfectly happy if they do go quickly. I’m starting to get a bit worried about how few people are around...”

“You’ve got no need to worry. Once the sun hits its peak and the kimyuus are roasted, you’ll get swarms of hungry folks wandering this way!”

There was someone tugging on Yumi’s arm from behind as she cheerfully smiled at me. It was her friend, who had been helping her run the stall for The Westerly Wind. She looked to be around the same age as Yumi, and as I recalled, her name was Luia.

“Hmm? What is it?”

The girl seemed more timid than Yumi. With her eyes fixed on us, she quietly whispered something.

“Ah, I see,” Yumi remarked in an even more amused voice.

“Is something wrong, Yumi?”

“Nah, not really. She just wants to say hi to those guys over there too,” Yumi replied as they walked over to Lala Ruu’s stall. “Hey there, Lala Ruu. You’re working hard this morning.”

“Yeah... You too.” The two of them should have been fairly close by now, but the third Ruu daughter still looked rather displeased, perhaps because of some lingering feelings about what happened earlier.

Then, Yumi’s gaze swiftly shifted from Lala to Shin Ruu.

“Hey, you’ve been coming to the post town for a while now, right? I’m Yumi. What’s your name?”

“I am Shin Ruu...”

“Oh, you’re a member of the Ruu clan too? So, are you Ludo Ruu’s big brother?”

“Ludo Ruu is the son of my father’s older brother.”

“Oh, I see,” Yumi replied with a smile, then pointed behind her with her thumb. “This girl here is Luia. Hopefully we’ll all keep on seeing one another.”

“Hmm?” Shin Ruu questioned with a tilt of his head, his gaze shifting toward Yumi’s friend. Half hidden behind Yumi’s back, Luia’s cheeks had turned red.

Shin Ruu didn’t seem to have grasped the situation at all, but Lala Ruu’s red head of hair seemed to be bristling next to him. Was it the glow of the flames in the brazier that were making her look like she was burning?

“Yumi, could I talk to you for a moment?” Immediately seeing straight through this dangerous situation, I hurriedly beckoned to Yumi. Taking care that her friend wouldn’t overhear, I explained the delicate relationship between Lala and Shin Ruu as precisely as possible.

“Hmm? I don’t think Luia has any particularly strong feelings for the people of the forest’s edge. She just wants to get closer to that Shin Ruu guy because he’s so handsome.”

“Even so, the people of the forest’s edge can be awfully exacting, so I’m just trying to make sure this doesn’t lead to any awkward issues down the line.”

“I see. In that case, I’ll try to indirectly hint to her later that she should give up on him.”

The whole time we were whispering to each other, that Luia girl was passionately staring at Shin Ruu.

Just a few months ago, someone from Genos falling for a person of the forest’s edge would have been utterly inconceivable. Perhaps it was simply a sign of how much the relationship between both sides had been improving...but considering the time when Reina Ruu turned down Leeheim from the house of Saturas, it could definitely lead to some friction. Shin Ruu had Lala Ruu to think about as well, so this wasn’t a welcome situation for anyone.

It’s true that Shin Ruu seems even more mellow than even Ludo Ruu or Rau Lea. I guess that makes him more approachable for townsfolk.

Now that I thought about it, Ai Fa had been hit on by that ridiculous minstrel just the other day, so I couldn’t help but sympathize with how Lala Ruu was feeling.

While that was going on, we started seeing more and more people out on the road. Since the other stalls were still empty, ours attracted plenty of attention.

“Ooh, so this is a giba? It’s smaller than I expected.”

“It must be a young one. Otherwise, westerners would never be so afraid of the things.”

Those comments had been made by some people from Jagar. Even so, most westerners probably hadn’t actually seen a giba either. The beasts tended to avoid humans, and the only time they’d come near a settlement would be to raid their fields at night, so there were a whole lot of people in the crowd who looked curious when they saw us.

Though they were few in number, some westerners were terrified enough to outright flee in terror. Even if these were young giba with their horns and tusks removed, they were still pretty frightening. I just hoped that I could do something to lessen that fear at least a little.

To most people, giba were dangerous and harmful pests. However, it wasn’t as if they were monsters. Their meat was delicious, and you wouldn’t grow horns from eating it, nor would your skin turn darker. Just like the people of the forest’s edge weren’t unreasonable barbarians, giba weren’t living natural disasters either. They were just animals, and I wanted to convey that fact to the people of Genos.

Soon, the sundial finally hit the upper fifth hour, and a cheer arose from the crowd. There were now carriages approaching from the north.

They were being led by a member of the ducal guard, clad in white armor. Though it wasn’t Melfried—the leader of the organization—the slightly less showy tassels on his helmet caused me to figure he was probably a company or platoon commander.

“Citizens of the post town, and guests to fair Genos! The sun god’s downfall and revival approaches at last, coming just ten days from now!” the officer stated in a clear voice, rousing the crowd even further. “Today, to celebrate the day of dawn, Duke Marstein Genos offers you this food and drink! Take this kimyuus meat and mamaria wine and celebrate the sun god’s revival!”

The doors of the carriages filling the road were then opened, and a large number of wooden boxes and casks were brought out. Workers lined up the casks of fruit wine, and the boxes packed with kimyuus meat were distributed to the people waiting at the stalls. The members of the crowd who were interested in the fruit wine seemed to have brought their own cups.

“To the sun god!” the crowd cheered in unison as their drinks were poured one after another. With a sidelong glance at the jubilation, the group from the castle solemnly proceeded to the south. They must have been heading to distribute meat and wine over at the inn area as well. It would be hard to cook enough to feed the whole town with the stalls alone, so they’d be making use of the kitchens at the inns as well.

“Hmm. Offering fruit wine in the middle of the day? That’s really something,” Dan Rutim remarked as he returned to the stalls, seemingly having been awoken by the commotion.

“Would you like to go get some too, Dan Rutim? I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem for your guard work if you did.” That had also been proven back at the clan head meeting and during our trip to Dabagg.

“Naturally, I’d be perfectly fine even if I did drink a little, but I’m not fond of the idea of being given something without paying for it.”

“Is that so? But we’re offering giba meat for free too, so I’d say that puts us in the same boat,” I replied.

Dan Rutim’s eyes sparkled as he said, “Really? Now that you mentioned it, you’re completely right! If we’re offering up three whole giba, then there’s no reason not to drink as much fruit wine as we like!”

And so, Dan Rutim took a deep wooden plate I offered him and headed off merrily toward the street.

The settlement at the forest’s edge was part of the Genos domain as well, at least on paper. It shouldn’t have been any issue for the people of the forest’s edge to partake in the fruit wine offered by the lord of the land, but I still felt it would be rather rare for one of them to cross that line like Dan Rutim was doing now.

Some folks looked taken aback by the former Rutim clan head charging in like that, but he was soon handed his fruit wine with a smile. The southerners in particular showed no fear of his large figure, and happily clinked their drinking vessels with his.

“Sorry, but I’m going to step away for a moment,” I stated, taking a glance over at the street and moving over to Yumi’s stall. Naturally, Ai Fa followed along, and we peeked in on how they were doing.

“Oh? What is it, Asuta?”

“I was just interested in seeing how a whole roast kimyuus was handled.”

Just like with our giba, the kimyuus had been pierced all the way through on metal skewers and then cooked. However, they were only around the size of a rabbit or a chicken, so the kimyuus stalls were roasting three of them at a time.

The kimyuus had been cleaned, with their heads and feathers removed. It might not have technically been a whole roast without their heads, but considering that the wings—which were attached to the bird’s neck—were sold for a high price, it made sense that they wouldn’t be given away like this. In lieu of that, the kimyuus had been delivered with their skin still on the meat.

“I see. Kimyuus with skin sounds like quite a feast.”

“Right? We poor folk only ever get to eat the stuff at times like this!”

Just like with karon, kimyuus pelts were used in leatherwork. Their meat had a light flavor all throughout, like chicken tenders, so with the skin removed and not much fat to speak of, it was seriously bland. But when whole-roasted with skin on, it was worthy of being called a fine feast.

Few people in the post town used charcoal regularly, so the air around the stalls was quickly becoming thick with smoke. It was like they were smoking the meat rather than roasting it. But there was a refreshing smell mixed in, so they must have been burning some sort of herb like lilo too.

“Ours will be fully cooked by the time the sun hits its peak! Will your giba be ready in time?”

“Yeah, probably. At the very least, we shouldn’t be too late.”

“I’m looking forward to it! Can we have some too?”

As we were talking, a wagon approached from the south. At first I thought the group from before had returned, but it was a covered wagon rather than a carriage—the one belonging to the Ruu clan, which was pulled by Ruuruu.

“Sorry for being late. We finally finished our work at home.”

They were the reinforcements for our stalls. The group included Reina and Sheera Ruu, as well as Sufira Zaza, acting as an observer. However, the hunters accompanying them really surprised me. Rau Lea was a common enough sight, but Jiza Ruu and Gazraan Rutim were also there.

“Th-This is the first time you’ve come out here like this, isn’t it, Jiza Ruu?”

“Yes. Our clan head, Donda, ordered me to come observe the state of the post town,” Jiza Ruu calmly stated, and it was just as impossible as always to read how he was feeling from his calm expression. “I will be accompanying you tonight as well. Nothing has changed with Rimee and Lala, has it?”

“No, of course not.”

Though this was quite a surprise, it was a good one. As the heir of one of the leading clan heads, Jiza Ruu valued the laws of the forest’s edge above all else, and now he had finally come to observe the post town. I figured I’d have to introduce him to Yumi, but when I glanced around, I found her already smiling and talking to Gazraan Rutim.

“It’s been a while, Gazraan Rutim! Are you doing all right?”

“Yes. And I’m glad to find you looking well too, Yumi.”

Before I knew it, I kind of ended up staring at them blankly.

“U-Um, the two of you know each other?”

Gazraan Rutim started to respond, but Yumi beat him to it. “We sure do. When that noble girl abducted you, the people of the forest’s edge all came to the post town, right? We met back then!”

“Indeed. Yumi guided me around the backstreets of the post town.”

It was quite a shock to learn that these two people I was so close to already knew one another. They looked to be quite happy to be reunited, at that.

“This is my first time meeting you, though. You look like you must be a very impressive hunter, from what I can tell,” Yumi remarked as she looked over at Jiza Ruu. Despite being flustered, I jumped in to play my part.

“Yumi, this is the eldest son of the main Ruu house, Jiza Ruu. Jiza Ruu, this is the daughter of the owners of an inn called The Westerly Wind, Yumi. She’s visited the Ruu settlement before too.”

Jiza Ruu silently nodded at Yumi. With his narrow eyes fixed on her, Yumi flashed him a grin, showing the whites of her teeth.

“If you’re from the main Ruu house, then you’re Rimee and Ludo Ruu’s big brother, right? You really don’t look very much alike.”

It was hard to tell if he was disagreeing or not, but Jiza Ruu nodded once more before moving on, bringing their wagon over to the stall where his siblings were waiting.

Yumi sighed as she watched him go. “Even though he was smiling, that guy was seriously intense. Still, I guess it makes perfect sense, considering who his father is.”

“Yeah. But I’d say the second son, Darmu Ruu, is the one who most resembles their father.”

“Darmu Ruu’s that guy who was sitting next to his father and keeping a close eye on us when we visited the forest’s edge, right? They really did seem a lot alike!”

I found Yumi’s bluntness to be really reassuring. I felt like I really could say the rift between Genos and the forest’s edge had been bridged for the first time, if she was able to accept not only sociable men like Ludo Ruu and Gazraan Rutim, but even hunters like Jiza and Darmu Ruu, not to mention Gulaf Zaza and Deek Dom.

With that thought running through my head, I went ahead and headed back to my post alongside Ai Fa.