Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 3.4

4

Several hours later, when the sun was starting to shift from its peak, an unexpected disturbance suddenly popped up in the kitchen. Before I even noticed, a small silhouette had slipped in through the door that had been left open for ventilation.

“Hey there! How’s it going, chef?!”

“Gah, you scared me! L-Ludo Ruu, why do you look like that...?”

It was undoubtedly Ludo Ruu, who was supposed to have headed out into the forest. But they weren’t supposed to be back until around sunset, and besides... Ludo Ruu’s whole body was painted red with blood. His yellow-brown hair, giba cloak, slender face, arms, and legs were all crimson. And with his blood soaked face, the youth shot me a grin, his eyes still alight with the flames of a hunter.

“This all belongs to giba and other people. I don’t have even a scratch on me! Don’t go throwing away your concern on me, chef.”

“Other people...? Whose?”

“Ryada Ruu, from one of the branch families. He may be done for... A giba plunged its horn deep into his leg. Even if he lives, he won’t be heading out into the forest anymore.”

My face had probably gone completely pale. Seeing that, Ludo Ruu sneered like a beast.

“I told you, stop throwing away your concern already! That had nothing to do with the request you made! Normally giba don’t travel in packs, but three of them came at us all at once, which is when one of them got Ryada Ruu. My bow broke too and I thought I was about to die, so I slashed its throat with this. It died in an instant, so I wasn’t able to bloodlet it.”

“I see...” was all I could think to say in response.

When I glanced their way, I saw that the two women helping me out were looking at their family member with incredibly still expressions. That was probably down to a mix of joy that Ludo Ruu was alright, but also pity for their relative’s misfortune. But at any rate, they had far more resolution than me, and I could see the great strength of their people in their calmness.

With a disinterested, “Hmph!” Ludo Ruu wiped his bloody cheek with the back of his hand. “Well, thanks to that, we got ahold of plenty of tusks and horns. And we needed to carry Ryada Ruu and the giba back home, so five of us headed back early. I know it’s the abundant part of the cycle right now, but there are just way too many giba! Asuta, the Fa house is a bit further north, right? How’s the forest around there lately?”

It would seem that I had finally returned to being “Asuta” rather than “chef.”

He must’ve been pretty worked up, but now his beastly hunter’s eyes were steadily shifting back to those of his usual cheeky self.

“R-Right... Well, I don’t really know how things are out in the forest, but I definitely get the feeling that Ai Fa has been catching them a lot more frequently. Um... In these past 10 days, she’s already taken down four of them.”

“Huh?”

“Eh?”

“The Fa clan doesn’t have any other relatives or retainers, right? So what sort of joke are you trying to tell, claiming she took down four in 10 days?”

“Hmm? Did I mess up my calculations. We returned from the Ruu house on that day, and then the next day we started building the stoves... Yeah, maybe it was 12 or 13 days, actually. But it was four giba.”

“What’s the difference?!” Ludo quipped back with some serious force.

Still, she caught three in a row starting the day after we made that outdoor stove, and then a few days later she added another on top, so I couldn’t have been all that far off.

“Asuta, are you being serious? You can’t surround them all on your own, so the only option to hunt them would be waiting for one to fall into a trap, or running into angry ones like we did today, right? So there’s no way she could ever catch four in ten days.”

“No, it was more 12 or 13—”

“Like I said, what’s the difference?! She couldn’t be using sacrificial hunting, could she?”

The boy’s unusually heavy tone was causing me to feel really uneasy.

“L-Ludo Ruu, what’s that ‘sacrificial hunting’ thing? It’s not a taboo at the forest’s edge, is it?”

“No, it’s just an old way of doing things that nobody uses anymore. If you’re worried about it, you should ask your clan head directly.”

Got it. I’ll definitely do that, for sure.

It was then that Sati Lea Ruu called out, “Ludo Ruu,” in a calm voice. One of the young boy’s eyebrows raised up as he turned around.

“Oh, you’re back already? What happened to Ryada Ruu?”

Apparently at some point, a number of men had appeared on the other side of the doorway where Ludo Ruu was standing. The smallest, youngest looking of them stepped forward before Ludo Ruu.

“My father Ryada is just barely clinging to life. However, it would seem that the muscles in his leg have been severed. There’s no way he will ever set foot in the forest ever again.”

“Hmm. So from tomorrow on, you’re the head of your house, Shin Ruu?”

“Yes. I’ll take over for my father,” replied the boy who looked to be about Ludo Ruu’s age. In other words, he seemed like he was younger than I was.

His long hair was dark brown, nearly black, and his eyes were a deep brown too. The expression on his face was a bit more mature than Ludo Ruu, but there wasn’t much difference between them in terms of physique.

While looking like he was almost peering into the boy’s face from the side, Ludo Ruu said, “Hey, why are you looking so unconcerned? You’ve got to feed a family of five all on your own now, right? You’re teetering over the edge of a cliff, aren’t you?”

“It’s no problem. In another two years my younger brother will be grown... But I’d like to ask you to lend me your strength until then.”

“We’re family till then and beyond, aren’t we?” Ludo Ruu said, thrusting away his shoulders like he was angry. With that, an awkward smile crossed the boy named Shin Ruu’s face.

“It’s thanks to you that my father Ryada still has his life, Ludo Ruu. I take pride in the fact that we are kin.”

“Hey, don’t go saying crap like that! It’s irritating!”

“More importantly, Asuta of the Fa clan...”

“Huh? Yes?”

“We have brought one giba. It was the only one of the three that we believe we successfully managed to bloodlet. Donda Ruu told us that we should follow your orders as to what to do next.”

With that, Ludo Ruu suddenly leapt up.

“Hold on a minute! I can’t keep on working looking like this! I’ll go wash up first, so just hold on!” he said while cruelly pushing Shin Ruu out of the way and looking back towards me. “Listen, don’t start without me! If you do, I’m going to send everyone here flying!”

With that, the bloodsoaked boy took off running. The remaining boy and men, meanwhile, stared at me from outside the building.

“Um, could I ask you to do the basic preparations for skinning the pelts, then? I’ll hurry on over after I clean up here.”

“...Understood.”

“Well then, I’ll show you the way,” Sati Lea Ruu said.

Then, left all alone with me again, Lala Ruu let out a sigh after having been silent for so long.

“So Ryada Ruu got done in by a giba too, huh? Now Ryada’s house just has women and kids, so Shin Ruu’s going to have it really rough...”

“...How are those folks related to you, exactly?”

“Hmm? Ryada is Papa Donda’s youngest brother. Aside from Shin there’s his mother and two older sisters, and then his tiny little brother, so he’s the only one left in that house who can hunt giba,” she replied in an earnest tone with a sort of meek look on her face. She must have really been concerned about what would become of that Shin Ruu boy.

“He would be smart to either have one of his sisters take a husband already, or to have the whole family be absorbed by another one. There’s no way it’ll be possible to take care of a family of five at 16 years old.”

This didn’t seem like the sort of problem an outsider like me should be butting in on. But still, I wanted to believe that if he had family like Ludo and Lala Ruu so nearby, that boy with the calm, quiet look on his face wouldn’t end up crushed by some horrible fate.

“Well then, I’m going to start heading over. It may take a while, so could I have you bake the poitan for tonight or something in the meanwhile?”

“What about this stuff?”

The fruits of my two hours of experimentation were seated atop the log that served as my work station, some still steaming, some not. What Lala Ruu was pointing to was a poitan-based broth combining all sort of vegetables, with the gigo at the center.

To be honest... over half of the stuff I’d made wasn’t exactly usable.

“Hmm. You should heat up and dry out anything that came out too nasty, and use it as the base for some baked poitan. I mean, we can’t just chuck it.”

The taste wouldn’t change much in the baking process, but in my mind it’d be easier to eat when it was more solid like that.

“You sure are something. I’ve never seen anyone treat food like trash the way that you did before.”

“I’ll admit that I’m still half-baked, but don’t say I’m treating it like trash! I swear that I’ll swallow it down properly!”

I tried to keep any of the dangerous-looking combinations down to a size where it’d just amount to two bites for each of the three of us, so I hadn’t expected to end up with excess. But the cause was Lala Ruu refusing to try it when I looked like I was about to faint in agony, so I figured we were both at fault here. Should I try to introduce rock-paper-scissors to the forest’s edge...?

“Still, thanks to you I’ve got the foundation down, so I just need one more push. I can keep on counting on you, right?”

“Hmph!” Lala Ruu snorted and looked away as I headed off to the giba dissection room next to the pantry. After greeting Sati Lea Ruu and switching places with her, I stepped inside.

“Ooh... This sure is a big one, isn’t it?”

There was a 90 kilo class giba dangling from a ceiling beam. It must have been as long as an adult woman was tall. It had some splendidly curved horns and tusks, marking it as a male giba. They must have already washed it down, as its blackish brown fur was sopping wet.

I had only ever peered into this dissection room from outside before, but it was a barren space with nothing but blades large and small and rope made from vines hanging from the walls. Well, there was a single stove meant for heating up a small pot, but there wasn’t even a single other furnishing of note to be found.

The four men standing there just quietly stared back at me. The group was made up of Shin Ruu, an older man, and two gentlemen in their prime. Aside from Shin Ruu they all looked solidly built, and they waited there silently for me to speak.

“Good work, everybody. Well then... Let’s start by peeling the pelt. Ludo Ruu should make it back before long, and then we can set about the dissection.”

One of the men nodded, then drew a thick knife from his hip.

“Hold on. Could you leave peeling the pelt to me?” Shin Ruu asked. “My father Ryada won’t be able to move for a good long while. During that time, I will need take care of peeling the pelts all on my own. I of course know the process, but I would like to learn first-hand now how exhausting it is.”

The man who had drawn his knife turned back to look at the older gentleman. The older fellow gave a single nod, and the man resheathed his blade.

“You have my thanks,” Shin Ruu said, drawing his own knife. “Asuta of the Fa clan, is it alright if I skin the pelt in the same manner as we have up until now?”

“Hmm... Could I ask you to try to leave as much of the fat attached to the meat as possible? I don’t mind if it’s just enough that you don’t injure the pelt, though.”

“Understood.”

The giba was dangling from a rope tied around its right hind leg.

Shin Ruu skillfully inserted his blade and slowly, carefully cut down from the groin to just below the neck. Then, he made paths down each of the legs and cut around the ankles right before the hooves. In terms of preparations, there wasn’t much difference from what I had done.

Seeing how he had hot water prepared to dissolve off the fat too, I realized that even if folks came from different cultures, they’d likely arrive at the same conclusions about how to skin an animal. And if it hadn’t been for the abnormal speed at which the giba multiplied, and they were just hunting them for meat, I’m sure the people of the forest’s edge would have thought up ways to make them taste good, too.

In the forest to the south where they once lived they only ate lizards and bugs, and here at Morga Forest they hunted for horns and tusks, and to protect the safety of the fields. Now, though, their meat cuisine was suddenly advancing. When I realized that resulted from some guy from another world bringing his opinion that “you’re happier eating tasty food” into the matter, though, a bit of a chill ran down my spine.

There wasn’t anybody out there who could tell me for certain that what I was doing was right, and that it was wonderful. Was it really alright for some pathetic little chef in training to be influencing the cuisine of a settlement numbering 500 strong?

If it isn’t, then just throw me back into that fire, alright?

Otherwise, I had no choice but to keep on living like this. If I had to kill my feelings and just slurp down that gross poitan stew while doing nothing but gathering herbs and firewood, well... That wouldn’t be me living my life at all. I would live on in this world as myself, alongside Ai Fa, who told me that my cooking was delicious, that she loved it, and that she didn’t want me to disappear.

As those thoughts ran through my head, Shin Ruu steadily peeled back the giba’s pelt, revealing the glistening white underneath.

He may have been young, but he was still a man of the forest’s edge. There was no way I could possibly match the speed at which he worked with my measly arm strength.

Before I realized it, Ludo Ruu was standing by my side, arms crossed as he watched over his family member working away.

He was almost done with the limbs, but the real work was still to come. After all, he was up against a 90 kilo monster. I’d be getting off light if I managed to finish that in 2-3 hours. And even with the arm strength of a man of the forest’s edge, it would certainly be no light task.

Even so, we all sat there silently, nobody making a peep or trying to leave their seat, as the boy who would be the head of his house from tomorrow on sweated and worked away at the giba.