Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 22 - Chapter 4.5

Intermezzo: After the Banquet

After the Ruu clan’s friendship banquet had come to a close, Mikel and several of the other male visitors were led to the place where they’d be spending the night—the branch family house where Jeeda and Bartha were staying. Bartha was going to be sleeping in a different house so that the men could all stay here. The group included Jeeda—naturally, since this was his home—Asuta of the forest’s edge, and the men who were visiting as guests: Mikel, Roy, Dora, and Dora’s two sons.

“Come on, get it together. If you can’t walk on your own two legs, we’ll have to roll you across the floor.”

Dora’s sons were basically carrying their father’s large frame between them. Dora had participated in a drinking contest with hunters from the forest’s edge, and as a result he had ended up completely and utterly smashed.

“Watch your footing. You’ll be sleeping over here,” Jeeda said, advancing into the main hall with a candlestick in hand, and the group quickly spotted where the bedding had been laid out.

“Wow. This is pretty spacious. You and your mother have been living here on your own, Jeeda?” one of Dora’s sons asked while pulling his father into the hall.

After sitting the candlestick down by a window, Jeeda nodded and gave a blunt reply of, “Yeah. Apparently, a Ruu branch family used to live here. But their numbers decreased enough that they started living with another of the branch houses.”

“Giba hunting is so dangerous that not many of their men survive to an old age, from what I’m told. The people of the forest’s edge put their lives on the line constantly in order to protect our fields,” one of Dora’s sons quietly said while laying his father down atop the bedding. Dora’s face was bright red, and within just a couple moments he was happily snoring away. “Our father’s been really happy about being able to grow closer to them like this. And we feel the same way, of course.”

“I’ve helped out with giba hunting too, but I’m really just a guest... You should say that to a person of the forest’s edge instead,” Jeeda said, his bestial golden eyes shifting over toward Asuta.

Asuta rustled his black hair, laughed, and replied, “Ah, no, I certainly consider myself a full-fledged person of the forest’s edge, but I’m a chef, not a hunter. They’re the ones you should be telling that to... And anyway, I think you’ve already done a good enough job of letting them know how you feel tonight and during the revival festival.”

“Yeah. I really am glad to have had the opportunity to speak with so many people of the forest’s edge.”

Asuta and the vegetable seller’s boys were sharing satisfied smiles with each other as Mikel watched them from a few steps away. He had heard that the people of the post town and the Daleim lands had been reforging their relationship with the people of the forest’s edge over the past year... However, as a former resident of the castle town who currently lived in the Turan lands, that was a rather distant matter for him.

This is no place for an outsider like me to come barging in, Mikel thought to himself, his gaze then turning toward the figure next to him—the young chef from the castle town, Roy, who was just standing there idly. This kid must be feeling the same way...

Roy had only come here because of his curiosity as a chef. It was only natural that he was even more out of place than Mikel.

“All right, tonight was a lot of fun, but we should be getting to sleep now.” The vegetable seller’s sons then lay down on their bedding. They had enjoyed about as much fruit wine as their father, and had probably been having a hard time trying to stay awake.

After watching them lie down, Asuta turned back toward the rest of the group with a bashful smile. “Seems they were pretty tired. Would you all like to get to sleep too?”

“Hmm? What else is there to do, other than sleep?” Mikel said.

“Well, it’s just that I didn’t get to talk to you much during the banquet...so it feels like a bit of a waste to go to sleep now.”

“Hmph,” Roy snorted. “With how spirited that banquet was, I’m still not tired at all. But we just saw each other yesterday, so I’m sure you’re sick of talking to me.”

“Not really. I haven’t talked to you enough yet either, Roy.”

As they were chatting, Asuta and Roy sat down cross-legged on their bedding. Jeeda was seated up against the wall, tilting his head a bit as he regarded the two of them.

“You aren’t going to sleep yet? Then I guess I can leave the candle burning for a while longer.”

“Thanks. We’ll make sure to put out the fire, so you don’t need to force yourself to stay up, Jeeda.”

“I see. So you’re saying you have nothing to talk to me about?”

“Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it that way,” Asuta shot back with a laugh, only for Jeeda to turn away with an indignant grunt. It seemed he wanted to talk with Asuta too.

Seriously, what a weird kid... Mikel thought as he crossed his legs too.

It had been five months now since Mikel had met Asuta. A merchant from the east named Shumiral who belonged to a group called the Silver Vase had told him to talk to someone named Asuta of the Fa clan about the crimes of the house of Turan... That was what had brought them together.

Mikel had been driven from the castle town because he had opposed the former head of the house of Turan, Cyclaeus. Since he had refused to let the house of Turan hire him, their goons had severed the muscles in Mikel’s right arm so that he could no longer work as a chef, and then he had been banished from the castle town along with his very young daughter, Myme.

From that day forward, Mikel had taken to drowning his sorrows in wine. With his right arm not working properly, his future had been stolen from him. If it weren’t for Myme, he mostly likely would have returned his own soul to the western god before long. After spending five years in that slovenly state, though, Mikel met Asuta.

Asuta was still a young chef. Apparently, he had come from overseas, and while many of his cooking techniques resembled Mikel’s own, they were all wildly unorthodox. But when Mikel tasted Asuta’s cooking, something that had been smoldering inside of him all this time was at last reignited.

And that’s not all... Mikel thought, glaring at Asuta’s smiling face from the side.

Asuta was a singularly strange kid. He was usually incredibly kind and even a bit silly, but at times he could be remarkably keen. Asuta had a way of affecting Mikel’s emotions, and not just with his cooking abilities, but with his personality as well.

“And then you told Jeeda where the Turan manor was, right Mikel?” Asuta suddenly said, turning toward Mikel.

Mikel hadn’t really been listening, so he furrowed his brow and said, “Hmm? What are you going on about? What’s this about the Turan manor?”

“Huh? You weren’t listening? We were talking about when I was kidnapped by Lefreya,” Asuta replied with a smile. “Thanks to you telling Jeeda the location, Ai Fa and the others were able to come up with a plan to get me back. I owe both of you big-time.”

“All that happened was, he asked me a question and I answered it. He seemed like he’d draw his blade on me if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, after all.”

“I was obsessed with my hatred of the nobles back then. I’ve always felt sorry for treating you that way when you did nothing wrong,” Jeeda said, his eyebrows drooping. Though he could be unsociable and overly intense like so many hunters were, at his core he was an earnest and straightforward kid. Otherwise, the people of the forest’s edge would never have welcomed him in as a guest.

“Heh, looks like you’re just surrounded by benefactors. That must be nice. I’m ashamed to say that I was on the wrong side in that story, though,” Roy said in an unhappy tone.

Mikel sensed the meaning behind his words, but Asuta smiled and added an explanation anyway. “You see, Roy was working at the Turan manor back then. He was tasked with watching over me in the kitchen.”

“Yeah. So I was one of your hated enemies.”

“That’s not true at all. You hadn’t even heard about the issues between the people of the forest’s edge and the house of Turan at the time.”

Roy ruffled his curly hair and turned away awkwardly. He was a good kid at his core too. And though he had an appropriate amount of pride for a resident of the castle town, he was also firm in his convictions. It was impossible to imagine a chef from the city of stone coming all the way to the forest’s edge to study their cooking otherwise.

Thinking about it that way, as odd as Asuta was, it was possible that Jeeda and Roy were both just as strange. They all had a vibrant enthusiasm and vitality about them, which was almost blinding to someone as old and worn down as Mikel.

Youths like them brimming with strength are the ones who will carve out the path to this world’s future...

Despite being so young, Asuta was a chef who possessed incredible skill. And he wasn’t just skilled. His talents were bolstered even further by the incredible passion he had for his cooking. The people of the forest’s edge, folks from the post town, and even the nobles of the castle town were all equally charmed by the food he made.

As for Roy, Mikel wasn’t in any position to know very much about him. It had been five years now since the two of them had worked in the same restaurant, and back then Roy had been a literal kid in training, so he hadn’t left any strong impression on Mikel.

But in those five years, before he had even reached the age of twenty, Roy had grown skilled enough to catch Cyclaeus’s eye just as Mikel had, and had been invited to work for the house of Turan. And that was proof that he possessed incredible tenacity to go along with his great skill.

Then you had Jeeda, who was honest and dauntless enough to be mistaken for a person of the forest’s edge. The hunters here owed their skill and spirit to their unique environment, but he had been born the son of a bandit, and though he had temporarily been overtaken by his hatred of the nobility, he had managed to return to his true and proper self. His calm and composed nature despite his young age was surely the result of the extraordinary hardships he had faced throughout his life.

Myme’s sure to live a good and healthy life, surrounded by folks like them, Mikel thought to himself.

Then Asuta called out to him with a carefree smile, “At any rate, fate sure is a mysterious thing. We all used to be connected to the house of Turan in radically different ways, and yet here we are, spending the night together.”

Mikel was taken by some sort of deep, mysterious emotion, but he just shook his head. “No... There’s no need to include an old-timer like me in that. My role is over. There’s nothing left of me but cinders.”

Silence fell in the dimly lit room.

However, that silence was soon shattered by the loud voices of the three youths.

“What are you saying? You’re not an old-timer, Mikel!”

“That’s right. We’re just kids who barely come up to your ankles!”

“You’ve been a great father to Myme. There’s no reason for you to put yourself down like that.”

Three sets of eyes stared at Mikel, each filled with their own emotions. Feeling warmed by their gazes, Mikel snorted back, “Hmph. What’s wrong with calling an old-timer what he is? I see no reason I should have to listen to the babbling of a bunch of kids less than half my age.”

After looking puzzled for a moment, a bright smile broke out on Asuta’s face. “Right. That’s what makes you who you are, Mikel. I hope you’ll be willing to keep guiding us flawed novices in the future.”

“You’re all so noisy,” Mikel grumbled back, lying down on his bedding.

His own daughter, Myme, was younger than anyone here. He intended to continue watching over her for a long time, and he’d surely end up doing the same for them too.

And so, with his heart still full of difficult emotions, Mikel closed his eyes.