Chapter 2: The Genos Swordsmanship Tournament
1
It was now the twenty-fifth of the silver month, seven days after the contests of strength between Ai Fa and Lem Dom concluded. The castle’s swordsmanship tournament would take place today.
After discussing the matter, we had ultimately decided that we should indeed go to the tournament grounds and do business there. We had been told to expect more customers than usual for the day, so we prepared roughly a thousand meals—similar to the amount we had made for the day of dawn at the beginning of the sun god’s revival festival. The tournament grounds were much farther away than the area where we usually worked, so we needed to leave home more than two hours earlier than normal in order to arrive by half past the upper fourth hour.
Still, it seemed we would finish up work in three hours or so like usual, so it wasn’t all that much of a burden. We also planned to stay and watch to see how Shin Ruu and Geol Zaza did after we wrapped things up, and then return to the forest’s edge.
After all our preparations were finished, we headed to the Ruu settlement, where things seemed even more restless than usual. After stopping our wagon at the entrance to the plaza, I tilted my head and hurried over to the main house, where a crowd had gathered in front, including many women, children, and older folks from the branch houses.
“Good morning... Wow, you look really pretty today, Lala Ruu!”
“Oh, be quiet! I’m not putting on a show here!” Lala Ruu retorted, her face bright red as she stamped her feet with the crowd surrounding her.
She looked so beautiful, but I couldn’t help thinking that the way she was acting felt really at odds with her appearance. Her clothes were the kind of banquet attire that I had only seen once before, at Gazraan and Ama Min Rutim’s wedding. She was wearing an iridescent shawl that was even finer than the one she wore during business hours, and her body was adorned with all sorts of accessories, including metal and stone ones bought in town, as well as flowers and berries gathered from the forest’s edge. What stood out most of all, though, was the hair ornament above her ear, made from a large yellow flower.
“Oh, is that the one Shin Ruu gave you for your birthday?”
“Jeez! I told you to be quiet already!” Lala Ruu shot back with a slap that I just barely managed to dodge.
Mia Lea Ruu was standing beside her with a kind smile on her face. “Even when dressing up, you never seem to be able to act ladylike in the least... But it really does suit you well, Lala.”
Lala Ruu hung her head, still blushing. Her face was as red as her hair, which was hanging naturally rather than being put up in a ponytail. Her normal style made her seem kind of boyish, but now she looked a lot more feminine, fittingly so for a girl her age.
Apparently, the castle of Genos had sent out a suggestion that if a young woman was planning to attend, she should dress appropriately, in banquet attire. Lala Ruu had already had such attire, so here she was, all decked out in this gorgeous ensemble for the first time in a long while.
Looking at it in the light of day, it really was a splendid outfit. It was, of course, also lovely when illuminated by the light of a bonfire, but it possessed an entirely different sort of beauty when the sun was up. Perhaps that was why the people gathered around all seemed so pleased and impressed with her.
Maybe it wasn’t as elegant as the dresses noblewomen in the castle town wore. However, nobody would be able to wear this banquet attire better than the women of the forest’s edge did. And even if a silk dress would look great on her too, I was confident that this outfit wouldn’t come up short in the least.
“You’re all being too loud. Are you ready yet?” Donda Ruu asked as he slowly emerged from the house. Sluggishly following behind him was Ludo Ruu, who was holding back a yawn.
“Oh, it’s Asuta. Guess it’s time for us to head out, huh? I’ll drive, so let’s get going.”
Shin Ruu was the only person from the Ruu settlement participating in the swordsmanship tournament, but Marstein had invited Donda, Ludo, and Lala Ruu to attend as guests of honor. Donda Ruu was going in his capacity as a leading clan head, with Ludo Ruu as his attendant, and Lala Ruu... She was attending because Shin Ruu had insisted that he wouldn’t participate if she wasn’t watching.
I looked around, wondering where exactly Shin Ruu was, only to find that he was right there next to me. His gallant face was blushing ever so slightly as he glared at me.
“Asuta, could you please keep it down about how I gifted her that flower? It isn’t exactly normal at the Ruu settlement to give a flower to someone outside of your home.”
“Ah, sorry. Give it your all today, Shin Ruu.”
“I will.” The young hunter nodded at me, having shaken off my unnecessary comment and returned to his normal expression. Men of the forest’s edge only ever dressed up when they were grooms at their own weddings, so Donda and Ludo Ruu were still clad in their usual hunter’s cloaks.
“Well then, shall we head out?” a voice suddenly said from behind me.
I gave a start and let out a shriek. “Gyah! Y-You followed us over here too, Ai Fa? I thought for sure you would have remained with the wagon.”
“You are still just as careless as always...” she replied while kicking me in the leg, seeming a bit offended.
My beloved clan head would be accompanying us to help guard our stalls. In addition to her, we had four Sudra hunters waiting in the two wagons parked in front of the settlement. Though at some point there had been plans to bring guards from the Deen and Liddo as well, we had eventually decided that anyone we could get from the nearby clans would do. And since trying to get hunters from the Deen and Liddo to work in the post town meant asking Gulaf Zaza’s permission, as they fell under his clan, this was who we had ended up with. The Sudra men had already worked for us as guards back during Tei and Zattsu Suun’s attack, and the other members of their clan such as Yun Sudra had seemed quite proud that they had been given this task.
There were also going to be members of the other leading clans, the Zaza and Sauti, gathering at the tournament grounds. The fact that their fellow people of the forest’s edge would be participating in the tournament helped them make up their minds to accept the invitation from the nobles.
However, since the Zaza heir, Geol Zaza, was taking part in the tournament as a swordsman, Gulaf Zaza would not be able to attend. Instead, Sufira Zaza and another man from their clan would be going in his place. Also, since the Ruu and Sauti clan heads would be going personally—as they both happened to be injured and were currently taking time off work—they had decided that there was no need for all three of the leading clan heads to be there for an event that was mainly meant for entertainment.
From what we had heard, Dari Sauti would also be accompanied by another hunter. Excluding the two tournament participants, that would make for a group of seven in total. I didn’t know how the VIP seating in the arena was set up, but a crowd like that was going to create one hell of an intense atmosphere for the people around them.
“Just make sure you leave enough food for us to eat, okay?” Ludo Ruu remarked, leading the group as they loaded themselves into Jidura’s wagon. Sheera and Rimee Ruu were on duty today, and they were already standing by beside Ruuruu’s wagon.
“Good morning. Have you guys finished up all your preparations?”
“Yes. Reina Ruu’s group will be taking care of the cooking for the inns later, so there won’t be any issues with that. Once they’re done, they’ll wait for us to return, and then we’ll take care of delivering the meals.”
“Oh right, since all the wagons are already in use for today.”
Sheera Ruu bowed her head, looking rather apologetic. “Normally, we would be using Jidura’s wagon for that today. But because Shin Ruu’s group will be using it instead, we’ve created a bit of a problem for our business.”
“Oh no, that’s nothing to worry about. It’s just one day, so it’s really no big deal.”
Each day, we had thirteen chefs working in the post town, which required three wagons. That meant we were constantly making use of Gilulu and Ruuruu for transportation, while we alternated between using Jidura and Fafa each day as well.
Jidura and Fafa were totos that had been purchased for making shopping trips. If we borrowed both of them every day, they could only be used for shopping in the morning and around sunset. We had decided on this alternating schedule for the sake of fairness, but personally, I was starting to consider purchasing a new totos.
We ended up using all four wagons for our business in the post town during the revival festival too. The Fa and the Ruu both have way more money than we need now, so it wouldn’t hurt for us to each buy a new totos and wagon.
While I was thinking about that, I headed back to Gilulu’s wagon, accompanied by Ai Fa and Yamiru Lea.
“Asuta, will there be any space for me today, with the Sudra men riding along?”
“Yeah. We’re bringing along thirteen chefs and five guards, so if we squeeze six people in each wagon, we should just barely be okay.”
The five members of the Sudra clan and Toor Deen were packed into Fafa’s wagon, while in ours we had Ai Fa, Yamiru Lea, Fei Beim, the Gaaz and Ratsu women, and me. In Ruuruu’s wagon were Sheera Ruu, Rimee Ruu, Morun Rutim, Tsuvai, and...it should have been the Lea and Min women on duty for today.
“All right, let’s get going.”
With that, the four wagons departed from the Ruu settlement, heading for the tournament grounds. First we headed to the post town like always, where our drivers got down from their seats temporarily. That was because we weren’t allowed to run totos through town.
Though it was still early in the morning, the streets of the post town were already fairly crowded. There were more wagons than usual as well, undoubtedly all heading to the tournament grounds. As we passed by our outdoor restaurant, I checked and saw that it was undisturbed, with the ropes surrounding it still in place.
We then left the stall area and the territory of the post town in general, at which point we started our totos running again. Though there were a fair number of people out and about, the highway was ten meters wide, so driving our wagons quickly down the road was no issue.
Those who were traveling by foot walked along the center, while wagons drove on the left, and naturally that included our own. Even after we had traveled north for a while, I had still seen so few wagons coming south down the opposite lane that I could have counted them on one hand.
A few minutes later, we came to a T-shaped junction in the path. There was a side road heading west, connected to the main highway that ran from north to south. If we went down that way, we would reach the gates to the castle town, and traveling even farther in that direction would bring us to the familiar Daleim lands.
We passed it by, though, and just kept on heading north. There was a dense thicket on our right, while the stone walls protecting the castle town were on our left. The majestic sight of Mount Morga was visible beyond the thicket, which gradually grew denser as it stretched away from the road, eventually transitioning into full-on forest. I didn’t know its exact location, but the path that the Suun settlement and those around them used to reach town was supposed to be somewhere around here.
Before long, the stone wall took on a gentle curve that arced away from us, and in its place, a wooden fence came into view. It protected the Turan territory and was meant to ward off giba, but honestly, it was a lot cruder than I had been expecting. Well, it must have been pretty tough if it could stop a giba’s charge, but it looked quite old and had been damaged here and there. Since giba were unable to jump higher vertically than they were tall, it was actually shorter than a person. My angle of vision was higher than usual since I was up in the driver’s seat, so I took a peek beyond the fence to see how things looked.
For some reason, the town looked quite run-down. Honestly, it might have been more accurate to just call it a village instead. The houses were built more like the ones in the Daleim lands than the ones in the post town, and they were packed so densely that I couldn’t see any gaps between them. It almost looked as if the houses were holding each other up so that they didn’t collapse.
Mikel and Myme lived somewhere in that town. Myme had been devoting herself entirely to her cooking studies ever since the revival festival, and she still hadn’t resumed running her stall. I occasionally spotted her in the post town as a customer, but I couldn’t help but feel that I wanted to see the fruits of her research as soon as possible.
“It’s been some time. I last saw the Turan town several months ago,” Ai Fa said, leaning forward from behind me.
“Oh right, you’ve been here before. I’m sorry I made you worry so much that time.”
“Hmph,” my clan head snorted. Back when I had been abducted by Sanjura and Mussel, she had come here to search for me. It was possible that the reason she had come along as a guard today—even though she was able to hunt now—was because of the trauma from that event.
“In the Turan lands, there’s a large field in the center surrounded by these houses. It was as if they were built in order to protect it.”
“I see. That’s pretty different from how things are in the Daleim lands.”
“Indeed. And they had a large number of northerners working the field. I only saw them from a distance, but they were all men who were as massive as Ji Maam.”
Hearing her mention northerners, I thought back on my encounter with Eleo Chel right before the revival festival. Would he also be dispatched to clear a path through the forest’s edge during the rainy season? Incidentally, I had asked Diel to confirm if his message had been properly conveyed to Chiffon Chel, but I had yet to hear back.
Fate sure is a mysterious thing... I thought as I drove the wagon down the road.
After passing by the Turan lands, we were next greeted by a barren expanse spreading out far and wide in front of us. We had seen this before when we were traveling to Dabagg. However, this time the dense thicket remained there to our right for the whole trip, which felt kind of strange to me. The stone highway continued straight onward, with the thicket to the right and the barren land to the left, creating a very clear divide in coloration.
There was hardly any vegetation growing in that open expanse. The ground was yellow like a desert, and all there really was to see were some large rocks scattered around here and there. This was a fairly rainy region, yet the ground looked completely parched.
It was undoubtedly the result of cutting down trees for lumber in order to construct buildings all over Genos. But since the thicket on our right was connected to Mount Morga, they couldn’t lay a hand on it. So on one side I saw people’s greed and desire to build a wealthy society, and on the other I saw their fearfulness in the face of the threat posed by nature.
Tightly holding on to the emotions I felt in my chest, I drove the wagon onward, and after roughly thirty minutes more, our destination finally came into view: the tournament grounds, which were normally used as a training area.
It appeared before us suddenly in the barren land off to the left—a yellowing stone wall with a large crowd gathered in front. There were a lot more passersby around too, now that we were getting close to it.
“What a massive structure. Why did they build something like this so far from town?”
“Well, it seems to be quite old. This barren wasteland might have still been full of green back then.”
The stone wall was steadily growing nearer as I was speaking with Ai Fa. Once we had closed the gap to just about fifty meters, the wagons in the front came to a stop. There were a large number of guards in front of the building, stopping the wagons from advancing. It seemed they were holding inspections there, and sending people in different directions based on why they had come. There were around twenty wagons in line at the moment.
Some of those wagons simply dropped off the people they were carrying inside and then did a U-turn to head back south down the road. They must have been something like taxi cabs. The trip out here only took around thirty minutes in a wagon, but that would be an hour on foot. If someone had a bit of money to spare, it was only natural that they would want to use it to make the journey a little easier. Half of the remaining wagons continued onward, while the other half turned their totos toward the wasteland off to the left.
There were already dozens of wagons stopped over that way. That must have been a parking area for those who came in their own wagons to watch the event. Some of the wagons had people sitting in their driver’s seats stifling yawns, and in various places there were small groups standing around next to a wagon chatting with each other, so I figured they were responsible for managing their own vehicles.
Those wagons that continued onward down the highway passed alongside the massive arena, then disappeared off into the barren expanse to the left. That must have been where the spaces for selling snacks were located.
While I was observing everything that was going on, our turn rolled around. Gilulu’s wagon was the one in the front of the line, so I turned to face the guard running the inspections.
“Okay, step down from the driver’s seat... Ah, so you lot decided to show up after all.” The guard awaiting me there was Marth. He was a young guard we frequently saw patrolling around the post town, and if I remembered correctly, he held the rank of platoon commander.
“Hey. So, you’re on duty here today?”
“Hmph. Things are more lively here than in the post town today, so there’s no helping it.” For events like this, they were required to work even harder than usual to keep the peace. I felt a little bad for him, but at the same time, I had to wonder if some people thought the same thing about us. “How many spaces will you need? Each space costs five red coins.”
“Okay. Well, in that case, we’d like to take five.”
I went ahead and paid the amount for the Ruu clan as well, and was handed five wooden tags in exchange.
“Hang those on the front of your stalls. Once you’re done working, you can just throw them away.”
There wasn’t anything special about the wooden tags, but the crest of Genos was clearly engraved in the center, and there were comparatively simple characters branded carefully underneath it. Maybe they had written today’s date on them, so that they couldn’t be reused next year.
“Oh, and we have a participant in the tournament and some guests of honor in one of our wagons, so where should they go?”
“Ah, the wagons for honored guests are lined up inside under our care. Hey, we’ve got some guests of honor here!”
With that shout from Marth, another guard came running forward.
“See ya,” Ludo Ruu remarked with a wink, and then Jidura’s wagon started moving off in a different direction as we continued down the highway.
The giant arena was now about ten meters to our left. However, I still didn’t have much of a sense of how it was set up, even at this distance. From here, all I could see was the yellowed stone wall, which was around five meters tall.
The wall stretched around the arena in a circle, and it probably had a diameter of over a hundred meters. Did they really need that much space when they were using it as a training ground? It was so big that it looked like you could easily fit a whole baseball stadium inside.
As we went along the side of the arena, an incredible sight soon came into view. Behind the structure, I saw what looked like over a thousand people already gathered there. It was almost as if all of the lively energy of the post town had been transplanted there.
And as if to break up the endless expanse of empty wilderness, there were a ton of brick workstations for selling snacks arranged in a line stretching off to the west, perpendicular to the highway. A number of them were already open for business. It wouldn’t have been possible to drag our stalls all the way out here, so we would be doing business out of these spaces as well.
The setup was quite extravagant, considering they were only used once a year. To start with, they had leather canopies overhead supported by wooden pillars, just like in our outdoor restaurant space. They were probably the only part of the setup that had to be installed for the tournament. After all, if they were left out here the whole year round, they’d definitely end up getting stolen.
Under the canopies were workstations made of brick. Looking at them from the front, I couldn’t see any gaps between them as they stretched out endlessly off to the side of the road, and they came up to around waist height. People were placing metal pots and trays on top of the work surfaces, so it must have been possible to light a fire inside them.
In a way, these were like stationary stalls. Or perhaps you could call it one huge kitchen constructed in a line. Personally, it made me think of a bunch of barbecues all lined up.
“This is quite a sight. For now, let’s go ahead and look for some open spaces.”
We moved around to the rear of the workstations and drove our wagons off the highway and onto the barren land. Naturally, there were quite a few wagons already parked back there, and I could see one or two totos attached to each wagon stretching their long necks upward.
With the totos watching us, we continued to the west. Already, almost thirty of the workstations were set up and selling food. Along the way, we saw an especially fine carriage with the crest of the house of Daleim on it. Naturally, Yang was also here doing business.
However, Yang and his assistants seemed to have their hands full dealing with customers. I decided it would be best to wait till after we were done with work to greet him, and we continued onward. Each workstation was around one and a half meters wide, so by the time we finally found our spots, we had walked roughly fifty meters.
“Okay, let’s go with these ones here.” I called out.
But then I heard someone shout, “Asuta!” in the distance. My gaze darted about, until I spotted some girls ten or so empty spaces down the line. They were pretty isolated and were only getting a handful of customers, but that was only natural when they had so much space between themselves and everyone else.
I tilted my head as we approached. “Hey there, Yumi. Why did you set up in such a deserted spot?”
“For you all, of course! You couldn’t even figure that out?” Yumi, daughter of the owners of The Westerly Wind, and her friend Luia were running an okonomiyaki stall there. They had run a stall during the revival festival as well. They were close to the end of the long line of workstations, with only five spaces left beyond them. “You’re planning on selling five types of dishes today, right? In that case, go ahead and use these workstations!”
“Ah. Normally, we’re at the northern extreme, but today we’re going to be at the westernmost point? Why should we set up so far out of the way on a day like this?”
“You really don’t get it? You’re surprisingly dense, Asuta!” Yumi said with a hearty grin as she flipped over the batter that was cooking on her tray. “There’s no seating today, right? If you open up shop in the middle of that crowd, your plates and spoons could end up running away on you. But with all this open space right beside you, you’ll have a much easier time keeping an eye on things.”
“Oh, I see. I hadn’t thought about that. I really should have come here before now and given this place a preliminary inspection.”
“Heh heh. Well, now you can do business without any issues, so it should be just fine,” Yumi said, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“And it’s all because of you, Yumi. Thanks so much,” I replied. It was completely heartfelt too.
“No problem!” she shot back with a real look of satisfaction.
With that, we were ready for business. We parked our wagons and temporarily released Gilulu and the other totos before using their reins to tie them back up to their vehicles. There weren’t any trees in the area, so we’d have to bring them some food after work.
There were round holes in the top of the workstations, so we started by placing our pots and trays over them. Like I figured, the inside was hollow and designed for lighting a fire within. With a setup like this, I would be able to manage the flames the same way I did with the stoves back home or at the stalls. While I was adding firewood and charcoal to our workstations, Yun Sudra and the others brought over the water jugs for washing our used tableware.
“Asuta, what would you like us to do as your guards?” the Sudra clan head, Raielfam Sudra, approached me and asked while watching over us as we worked.
“Well, just having one or two of you around the stalls should be plenty. Once we open for business, there’s gonna be a lot going on over there with the customers, though, so if you could keep an eye on the women collecting the tableware, that would be a huge help.”
“I see. In that case, we shall leave two back here and have the other three head out front. Where do you plan to be, Ai Fa?”
“If at all possible, I would like to remain with the stalls.”
“Then I’ll leave Cheem here. Do you think you could tell him what to do, Ai Fa? Cheem is small and only fifteen years old, but he does his work as a hunter very well even so.”
Raielfam Sudra was a little guy himself, less than 150 centimeters tall. He had a deeply wrinkled face, and a slender torso and limbs. He was the smallest adult hunter that I knew of. However, he was one of the first people to have endorsed the Fa clan’s actions, and I also owed him my life. He had been the one to cut down Tei Suun in the post town when the old criminal had gone into a frenzy, so to Ai Fa and me, he was the person we trusted most out of all the members of the nearby clans.
The hunters of the Sudra all seemed to be small and slender, which could probably be attributed to the impoverished lives they had lived for so long. Raielfam Sudra introduced us to Cheem Sudra, a young hunter who came in at less than 160 centimeters tall. Despite his short stature, he had a very earnest look in his eyes that really left an impression on me.
“Yun Sudra and two chefs from the Ruu will be working out front. If you have any questions about the work the members of the Ruu clan are doing, Sheera Ruu over there will be able to give you an answer,” Ai Fa explained.
“Understood. All right, we’ll be counting on you, Cheem,” Raielfam Sudra said.
The three Sudra hunters aside from Cheem Sudra all approached Sheera Ruu. It seemed she would be gathering and washing the plates personally, along with a Lea woman.
Today, the Ruu clan had prepared giba offal stew and myamuu giba. As for the Fa, we had made giba curry, poitan wraps, and a brand new daily special: giba and beans.
Giba and beans utilized our newly acquired tau beans in place of white kidney beans, and was made with tarapa sauce. The sauce was sweet and mellow, and didn’t use any myamuu.
My usual tarapa sauce was modeled after an Italian style, but giba and beans was based on pork and beans, which was an American dish. It had left a strong impression on me during my elementary school days, so I had recreated it, aiming to make something a little cheaper.
The stocks of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce I had prepared seemed like they would go bad soon, so I made full use of them here. For the giba meat, I had picked rib and thigh meat, and the vegetables were our usual combination of aria, nenon, and chatchi.
As we heated the food up in our pots, we found ourselves attracting a crowd even though we weren’t even open yet. Toor Deen was in charge of the giba curry, which had started to give off a powerful aroma that was really getting people interested. In the slot next to ours, Yumi had a great big grin on her face.
I see. That’s why Yumi asked about our menu yesterday. Her business skills are as sharp as ever. Of course, that was a big part of her charm, in my opinion.
As we continued with our preparations, around half of the ten remaining open slots filled up. That still left seven or eight meters of open space, but the aroma of the giba curry could cross that distance no problem.
“Asuta, isn’t it about time I started making my dish too?” Yamiru Lea called out from the space on my other side. For today, we had given up on the giba manju, which took a while to prepare, and devoted our efforts to cooking meat for the poitan wraps.
“Yeah, I’m almost ready, so go ahead. Could you let Tsuvai know too?”
Tsuvai was in charge of the myamuu giba. The giba curry, giba offal stew, and giba and beans were all just about heated up.
“So you guys did decide to come out here? But you still aren’t done getting ready yet?” a familiar young western boy called out, stepping forward from the crowd along with another boy. They were Yumi’s friends and were well-known for getting up to mischief.
“We’ll be ready shortly. Did you all come to watch the tournament?”
“Yeah. We don’t get to see exciting shows like this very often.”
“We borrowed my family’s wagon without asking to get here, so I’m gonna get chewed out real bad when I get back home.”
They both laughed in a pretty crude way. Still, they had been at the party in the Daleim lands on the day of the downfall, so I felt like I knew them fairly well at this point.
“By the way, there are a ton of folks from out of town here, and they were real shocked when they heard what sort of food this is.”
“You mean the giba curry, right? Now that you mention it, it looks like there’s a lot of customers from the west gathered around.”
“Yeah. Guys from Sym don’t seem too interested in the tournament. I mean, the stories say they use poison instead of swords.”
It was true that not only were there a lot of westerners, but there also seemed to be remarkably few easterners. Running the numbers in my head, I estimated that the crowd was around eighty percent westerners and twenty percent southerners, with only a few easterners here and there.
“Well, we would need two separate flames to make pasta, so we went with curry today. But if we aren’t going to see many customers from the east, then maybe that was a bit of a mistake.”
“Nah, that’s not it at all. Everyone’s surprised by the smell of that dish. And you don’t have a sign up today, so some folks might buy it without even knowing it’s giba meat,” one of the boys remarked with a chuckle and a mischievous grin. “Still, as long as it tastes good, I can’t see how anyone could complain. But we can’t stick around for too long, ’cuz the tournament’s gonna start, so could you hurry up and open for business?”
“Right,” I said, and looked down the line of workstations toward Morun Rutim, who was located the farthest away. She was in charge of the giba offal stew, and she waved back to me with a smile.
“Okay, we’re going to go ahead and open now.”
After we handed over some food to those boys, more customers came pouring in. Some of them started subjecting Toor Deen to a barrage of questions about the curry, and when she explained that it was a giba dish using herbs from Sym, every last one of them looked really surprised.
We sure are getting a lot of first-time customers. This might be a good opportunity to let more people know about giba cooking.
We were selling meals just as quickly as we usually did first thing in the morning. And perhaps because they all were eagerly awaiting the start of the tournament, our customers didn’t linger for long. Even when they bought dishes that required plates, most of them swiftly ate their food while standing and then immediately returned their tableware to the stall.
“It’s starting to look like keeping up with the dishwashing is going to be a bit of a problem. Could you go help out with that, Fei Beim?”
“Understood.”
Apparently having the same idea I’d had, Rimee Ruu also switched from helping Morun Rutim to assisting out front.
The customers kept on crowding around. This was now beyond the normal morning rush. It was more like the kind of traffic we saw at the height of the revival festival. Even though we had prepared a thousand meals, it was possible that we might sell out before the sun hit its peak. But right when I was starting to get concerned about that a thunderous noise rose up in the distance.
It had come from the south, from the direction of the arena, and seemed to be the sound of drums or something being banged. As soon as they heard that sound, the entire crowd started rushing over in that direction.
The tournament was starting. The customers who were still using our plates began frantically wolfing down the rest of their meals, and everyone else took off running toward the arena with poitan wraps and myamuu giba gripped in their hands. With that, the crowd, which had been packed in so tightly that there was nowhere left to stand, just straight-up vanished, leaving only the guards who were on patrol in the area.
“What a giant racket. Do they really all like this tournament that much?” Toor Deen muttered, looking dumbfounded.
“Well, that is why they came here... I wonder what’s going on over there.”
The preliminary qualifiers came first and would last for the rest of the morning. From now until the sun hit its peak, dozens or even hundreds of swordsmen would be demonstrating their skills as the audience watched. How were things going to go for Shin Ruu and Geol Zaza once the competition began? I couldn’t help but wonder about that as we all just stood there behind our workstations.
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