Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 23 - Chapter 3.7

7

“Sorry for the wait. Please, go ahead and eat,” I said, having transferred the cooked pasta onto a big wooden plate, added a bit of reten oil on top, and then placed it atop a stand. Instantly, hands reached out to scoop up the pasta.

The women were lending a hand to the men who were trying it for the first time and having difficulty. The Sudra and Deen clans had served it for dinner already, and the women from the other clans had sampled it plenty of times, so they were well acquainted with how to eat it.

“Hmm... Dunking it in the broth makes it so slippery it’s impossible to keep a hold of it,” I heard someone say with a sigh as I added fresh pasta to the pot. Looking in that direction, I found a Liddo man seriously struggling to eat while holding a wooden dish. And so, though it was a little presumptuous of me, I ended up giving him a quick lesson.

“When that happens, you should shovel it up like this. Then you can slurp it down along with the broth.”

“Slurp it down...?”

It seemed a lot of folks were having trouble wrapping their heads around the idea of slurping noodles, so I had Saris Ran Fou handle the fresh giba bone soup for a bit while I provided a demonstration.

Bringing my mouth close to my own wooden dish, I gathered up some pasta using a wooden spoon with three prongs cut into the end and slurped it down. The cuts in the spoon were deep, so it looked more like a rounded fork than anything else.

It might have seemed like a rude, childish way to eat, but for soup and noodle dishes, it was the only option if all you had was a fork. I could sense that I would need to do a lot more to introduce people to chopsticks before I started seriously experimenting with giba bone ramen.

Still, this stuff was already very good. The rich giba bone soup paired well with the springiness of the fresh pasta. It had a powerful flavor, thanks to the giba marrow that had been dissolved in it, and with the savoriness of the giba meat and seaweed stock layered on top, the end result was a really solid dish. Then you had the fatty char siu meat that had been simmered for hours until it became incredibly tender. The tino, nenon, and nanaar also did a fantastic job of adding some color to the whitish soup.

“Ah, this is delicious!” the man remarked with a beaming smile after he had finally succeeded at slurping the soup.

In the meantime, the pasta on the big plate had visibly dwindled away. Even after we decided to go all out and prepare a full hundred servings, I’m still amazed by how popular it is. A hundred servings at a hundred grams each meant we had made roughly ten kilos of pasta. We had been preparing it one kilo at a time, and now we only had around three kilos remaining.

“Asuta, do you still have some of that dish left?!” a voice suddenly shouted out, causing me to jump a little in surprise. When I turned to see who had spoken, I found two especially large men standing there: Radd Liddo and Geol Zaza. “The youngest son of the Zaza still hasn’t eaten any, so I brought him over here to have some!”

Looking closely, I noticed that Radd Liddo’s burly arm was wrapped around Geol Zaza’s thick neck. The Zaza hunter was furrowing his brow in annoyance, but he seemed resigned to his fate.

“Yeah. We still have thirty servings left. The next batch will be ready soon, so hold on for just a moment.”

I scooped up a load of pasta with a wire mesh, and once the water had mostly drained off, I dumped it out onto a big plate. Then I added the reten oil to prevent the noodles from sticking before placing the plate on the stand.

“Go ahead. You should start by getting either giba bone broth or tarapa meat sauce.”

“You’ve gotta go with the giba bone broth, naturally! The tarapa’s pretty tasty too, but you absolutely have to try that broth!” Radd Liddo said with a hearty laugh as he dragged Geol Zaza over to the giba bone soup. It was becoming more and more apparent to me that this man was every bit as boisterous as Dan Rutim. Radd Liddo was a subordinate of the Zaza, while Dan Rutim was a subordinate of the Ruu, but if they ever had a chance to drink together, I was sure they’d get along incredibly well.

Ah, but the Ruu and Suun clans were locked in a feud until pretty recently. Still, Dan Rutim seemed friendly enough toward Deek Dom, so I bet the two of them would become great friends now, I thought to myself as I prepared more fresh pasta. But then another group approached us: Jiza, Reina, and Rimee Ruu. Rimee Ruu had a firm grasp on her big brother’s hand, which looked really cute to me.

“I see you’ve been working hard, Asuta. Could we trouble you for another serving of this dish?” Reina Ruu asked.

“Yeah, of course. You only got half a serving before, so take as much as you please,” I replied.

“See?” Reina Ruu remarked as she turned toward Jiza Ruu. “Asuta says so too. There’s no need to hold back.”

“But as guests, we shouldn’t eat too much. After all, this banquet is meant for the members of the six clans who live around here.”

“That’s not true at all! If it wasn’t okay, Asuta would tell you!” Rimee Ruu energetically chimed in as she tugged on her brother’s arm. There was a fifteen-year age gap between them, and he probably weighed around three times as much as she did.

“That’s right. You don’t have to hold back. At the very least, it wouldn’t be overeating to have the same amount you did before.”

Jiza Ruu didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Actually, we planned things out to make sure we prepared enough food to satisfy everyone. If our important guests had to hold back from eating their fill, we’d consider that to be a big failure on our part.”

“It’s not that I’m holding back,” Jiza Ruu said.

But then on each side of him his sisters shouted, “Hey!”

“Jiza, I know you wanted more! You liked it just as much as you like giba cutlets, right?” Rimee Ruu said.

“That’s right. Sheera Ruu and I aren’t able to make giba bone soup yet, so who knows when you’ll be able to have it next,” Reina Ruu added.

Jiza Ruu’s emotions remained hidden behind his narrowed eyes, and he stayed silent. As I stirred the swirling pasta in the pot, I shot a smile at him.

“It would be a shame if Reina and Rimee Ruu weren’t able to have any because you wanted to restrain yourself. And if you really want to completely fulfill your duty as an observer, shouldn’t sampling our food be a part of that?”

It was then that Radd Liddo and Geol Zaza returned from the neighboring stove, where they had been served broth.

“Ah, if it isn’t the eldest son of the Ruu! I was just about to have the youngest son of the Zaza give this stuff a try! Why don’t you two eat together and share in your joy and surprise?!”

Jiza Ruu turned toward them with his head tilted perplexedly. “You seem to have drunk quite a bit in the short time since I last saw you, youngest son of the Zaza.”

“Well, despite his size, he’s a surprisingly weak drinker.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just a bottomless pit,” Geol Zaza grumbled. I hadn’t picked up on it before, but apparently he was drunk. Now that they mentioned it, his footing did look a bit unsteady. And he was glaring at me from under the hood of his pelt.

“All right, let me try this dish you’re so proud of. I’ve been hearing a lot of big talk about it, so it must be extremely good, right?”

Radd Liddo was the one talking big, but it was no lie that I was proud of the dish. And so, I told him to “Go ahead,” as I indicated the pasta on the large plate.

Geol Zaza snorted and thrust a three-pronged spoon into the mountain of pasta. However, the freshly boiled pasta was slick and slipped right through it.

“Oh, you’re supposed to wrap it around like this,” Rimee Ruu said, helping him to secure the pasta, only for Geol Zaza to regard her suspiciously.

“What’s your deal? You’re being awfully familiar there, kid.”

“Well, you suck at this,” Rimee Ruu shot back with a smile, her hand still over Geol Zaza’s rough fingers. Geol Zaza continued to frown, looking back and forth between her smiling face and the mass of pasta wrapped around the end of the spoon. “Now go ahead and dip it in the broth, and then eat it. It’s way tastier with lots of broth stuck to it!”

Geol Zaza silently did just that.

“Oh, it fell in! When that happens, you have to scoop it back up with the spoon like this.”

“You’re not just being overly familiar, you’re really loud too!” Then Geol Zaza started slurping down the pasta, looking like it was taking an almost desperate effort to get it into his mouth, but as he assessed the warm broth, an expression of total confusion and wonderment began to spread across his face. “What in the world is this broth...?”

“It’s a soup made by boiling giba bones. We also used some relatively pricey ingredients like tau oil and dried seaweed on top of that.”

“Giba bones...? You can use giba bones in cooking?”

“Yes. We used bones from the legs and back this time. I know the northern clans use skulls and ribs as helmets and accessories, but there shouldn’t be any issue with using leg and back bones in our cooking, right?”

Geol Zaza just kept on silently slurping away at the pasta. Naturally, Radd Liddo looked incredibly satisfied standing there next to him.

After looking up at the two of them for another moment, Rimee Ruu tugged on Jiza Ruu’s hand once more. With a sigh, her older brother relented, causing her to leap into the air and shout, “Yay!” And so, the members of the Ruu clan finally accepted their own helpings of giba bone soup and pasta.

Of course, since the other attendees hadn’t just been sitting and watching while that little discussion had been taking place, the pasta had continued to vanish at the same rate as before. I was finally down to the last ten servings.

“We only have a little of this left! If there’s anyone who hasn’t tried it yet, please give it a shot!” I shouted out, causing another bustling crowd of people to start pushing their way over to us. However, it seemed that everyone had indeed already eaten some, but even so, their eyes were shining with joy and anticipation. It was an incredibly moving sight for me and the other chefs manning the stoves.

“Oh, by the way, where’s Ai Fa?” Rimee Ruu asked me as she finished off her portion.

“I saw her over that way a little while ago. But I haven’t seen her since then.”

“Hmm... Isn’t it weird for her not to be near you?”

Her words made my heart skip a beat, but I simply smiled at her and replied, “That’s true. Still, there are a lot of people here. She’s probably just being kept busy by folks who don’t get many chances to talk to her.”

“I see. I guess that’s all right, then,” Rimee Ruu said, her eyes narrowing happily as she smiled. If she was this pleased about it, then I figured I could be glad that Ai Fa was forming bonds with so many different people too. The fact that I was still feeling some hesitation deep down even so probably had to be because I had seen her talking with Jou Ran.

Good grief. Am I seriously that small-minded?

It had been kind of a shock for my heart when Ai Fa had called Darmu Ruu cute the other day. I knew what sort of person my clan head was, so I shouldn’t have felt so shaken up over something like that... And yet, it still felt like an ill omen.

After that, the members of the Ruu clan, Geol Zaza, and Radd Liddo all disappeared from my view as they were practically shoved out of the way by the crowd pushing its way in.

While I was talking to the people now in front of me and sharing in the joy of the day, I also looked for Ai Fa whenever I had a chance. However, I didn’t catch sight of her again before the final ten servings finished cooking.

But with that, my work was now finished. I glanced around, and my eyes met Yun Sudra’s, as if she had been waiting for me to look in her direction.

“Good job, Asuta. Once the pasta’s all gone, we should move the tarapa and soup pots over to where the poitan is, right?”

“Ah, yeah. They’re probably just about out of okonomiyaki batter, so I’m pretty sure that stove will be available for you to use by then.”

“Got it. We can have another woman help us with that when the time comes, so you should go enjoy the banquet, Asuta.”

“Right, thanks.” I bowed my head to Yun Sudra, put out the stove’s flame, and stepped away.

I avoided the crowd and started a sweep of the plaza’s perimeter, but I didn’t spy Ai Fa anywhere, so then I walked over toward the bonfire where I had last seen her, and found a young man and woman talking pretty intimately there. The woman was wearing banquet attire. I had no way of knowing whether they had already been in love before this or if they had fallen for one another tonight, but they were so close to each other that I had to assume they were planning on getting married. I swiftly continued along the outer edge of the plaza, watching them out of the corner of my eye.

My heart was beating oddly fast. I didn’t think Ai Fa would receive any marriage proposals tonight, right after she had shown how strong of a hunter she was, and even if she did, she would never accept them. I knew that very well, and yet I still felt really out of sorts.

Once I had walked roughly halfway around the plaza, a voice called out, “Asuta,” from the darkness beside me. When I turned to look, I found Ai Fa standing there, looking kind of sad somehow. She was standing just outside of the light from the bonfire, leaning up against the wall of an empty house as she quietly stared at me.

“So this is where you were, Ai Fa,” I said as I instantly rushed over to her side, and then I glanced around at the darkness surrounding us.

“What’s making you so restless?”

“Oh, I thought there might be someone here with you.”

“There is not. The Liddo clan head kept encouraging me to drink, and it’s left me a little intoxicated. I’m cooling off over here while it passes.”

“I see...” It was true that she looked a bit listless, but nothing seemed off about her otherwise. As she stood there in the darkness, I could see her blue eyes gleaming calmly. “Still, should you really be all the way over her by yourself in the middle of a banquet?” I said.

“I was just talking with the Sudra clan head and Cheem Sudra a short while ago. Before that, I had women chasing me all over the place,” Ai Fa said as she slowly sat down. “I’m a little tired from all that talking, so I’m going to rest here a bit longer before I go back out to continue strengthening my ties with the others.”

“Got it.” I sat down beside her, turning my head to stare at the side of her face. “Ai Fa, you were talking to Jou Ran earlier, right?”

My clan head looked at me with a puzzled expression.

Staring straight back into her eyes, I said, “To be honest, seeing you two like that made me a little concerned. Not that I noticed anything weird while you were talking to him, but... How should I put it...? I feel like I don’t have a very good grasp of what kind of person Jou Ran is.”

“Neither do I,” Ai Fa said, her chin resting on her hand, and her arm propped up on her knee. She frowned ever so slightly. “Well, the same could be said of most people here. Which is only natural, since I have not spoken much with the majority of them...but out of all of them, Jou Ran might be the most difficult to pin down.”

“Oh, you think so too?” I asked with my heart pounding. “It seemed like you were speaking to him for quite a while. What were you talking about? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Ai Fa furrowed her brow and rustled her hair with her open hand. “He declared that he is fond of me, as a woman.”

“Huh?!”

“However, he said that because he is still the less skilled hunter between us, he would not ask me to marry. But if he ever surpasses me in strength, he intends to do just that. That was the only untoward matter he brought up.”

“S-So how did you reply, Ai Fa?”

My clan head’s frown deepened when I asked her that.

“Do we really need to discuss this?”

“Well, I think I can probably guess...but I’m still curious about exactly what you said.”

Ai Fa rustled her hair once more, then switched from resting her chin on her palm to wrapping her arms around her knees. Half of her face was hidden behind her slender arms, but her gaze was pointed straight ahead. “I said that even if Jou Ran were to grow stronger than me, I had no intention of accepting any marriage proposal,” she eventually answered quietly. “I have chosen to live my life as a hunter, therefore I am never going to take a husband. And...”

“Hmm?”

“On the off chance...that I do lose my strength as a hunter and am forced to live as a woman...I have already decided who my partner will be.”

I felt as if I had taken a blow directly on my heart. Even here in the dark, I could see a bit of redness around Ai Fa’s eyes.

“That is how you answered Yun Sudra’s feelings, correct?” she said.

“Y-Yeah, but...”

“When one side expresses their true feelings, it is only polite to respond in kind. I found your answer to be an appropriate one, and so I decided to respond in kind.”

“I see.”

As I desperately held back the raging emotions I felt inside, my eyes remained fixed on the side of my clan head’s face.

But then she suddenly shouted, “What are you staring for?!”

“Oh... I’m surprised you noticed, considering you’re not looking at me.”

“What hunter wouldn’t notice something staring at them from so close?! Just stop looking at me already!”

“O-Okay, got it.”

I forcefully tore my gaze away from Ai Fa, turning it back toward the plaza. The crowd was still enjoying the banquet, illuminated by the bonfires and ritual flame. At least seventy percent of the food must have been gone at this point, but the event was still in full swing. Everyone was cheerfully chatting, pouring fruit wine for one another, and chowing down on the remaining food.

“The women will begin dancing soon,” Ai Fa said after a while. Listening to her voice now, she seemed to be as calm as usual. “Which might lead to new bonds of blood being forged. Of course, that’s to be expected of Fou and Ran, or the Deen and Liddo, since they’re already related to each other, but it would be quite natural for the Sudra to join in as well.”

“Yeah. And if that happens, it’ll make this group festival of the hunt all worth it.”

“However, we will not be brought into that circle... At least, not as long as you hold on to your futile feelings and refuse to marry another woman.”

“Yeah. Or you could end up with a man from another clan and— Ow, ow, ow!” Before I could even finish what I was saying, Ai Fa pinched my cheek. “That hurts! What the heck?! We were just speaking hypothetically, right?!”

“There’s no point in musing about hypotheticals that will absolutely never come to pass.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no way I’d marry some other woman either,” I shot back as I rubbed my aching cheek. “Giba will fly before I marry any woman other than— Gah, I get it! Cut me a break already!”

“Hmph! Regardless, we won’t be forming blood ties with any of them.”

“Right. I do feel a little awkward about that, but if you stop and think about it, the Deen and Liddo wouldn’t form blood ties with the Fou or Sudra lightly either, so maybe we don’t need to worry about it too much after all,” I said earnestly. “Besides, I think it’d be good for the people of the forest’s edge to be friendlier with each other, even if they don’t have direct blood ties, which is why I came up with the idea of having a festival of the hunt for everyone to enjoy together.”

“Indeed.”

“We have a whole lot of friends. Too many to even count. And I’m proud to be able to say that they’re all very important to me.”

“Quite so,” Ai Fa said with a satisfied nod. Her precious friends Saris Ran Fou and Rimee Ruu were somewhere over there in the light. We didn’t have any relatives, so we understood better than anyone how valuable such bonds were.

“Well then, should we start heading back? I know Rimee Ruu wanted to talk to you, Ai Fa,” I said, moving to stand.

However, Ai Fa grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me back down. “Wait. I’m still tired. Unlike you, I’m not accustomed to interacting with large crowds of people.”

“Ah, right. Then, how about we stay here and rest a bit longer?”

“I agree. The night is long, so there is no need to rush.”

The hand she was gripping my wrist with started timidly moving down toward my fingers. She was hesitating, perhaps wondering if I would permit her to do what she wanted. I went ahead and gently grabbed her hand, and she squeezed mine back with similar strength, seeming relieved.

“That victor’s crown really suits you, Ai Fa.”

“Hmm?”

“Again, congratulations. I’m prouder than anyone that you were one of the winners.”

“Oh? I believe I already heard something similar earlier in the evening.”

“Well, I wanted to apologize for not cheering you on during the final match. It was dizzying, trying to keep up with your movements, so I found myself unable to speak.”

Ai Fa broke out in a smile. “I’m not going to criticize you for that, you know.”

“Huh? That sounds pretty different from what you were saying when we talked about this before.”

“That was a different matter entirely. I could tell just by looking at your face how happy you were that I was crowned the victor of the combat competition.”

“I see. I guess it’s all good, then.”

We continued to stare ahead at the scenery before us, feeling each other’s warmth through our hands. There was no problem with us spending just a few more minutes alone together, right? And as for everyone over in the firelight who was important to us, we could share in their happiness later. The warmth we shared was all we needed to confirm for each other just how blessed we felt to have been here to experience this dazzlingly brilliant day.