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“R-Reina Ruu? What in the world are you doing?”
Reina Ruu was currently on top of me, still clad in her banquet attire. She was practically clinging to my chest, and was staring at my face with a terribly brooding look in her eyes.
“Asuta...” she started, forcing the words a bit out through her small yet sensual lips. “Asuta, I want to make a request of you...”
“A-A request?”
“Please, become a member of the Ruu clan.”
The look in her blue eyes was completely serious as she stared at me from up close and personal.
“Leave the Fa house, and join the Ruu... Become part of our family, please.”
“W-What are you saying, all of the sudden? There’s no way Donda and Jiza Ruu would ever accept that, right?”
“I’ll convince my father. As for Jiza... If I just talk to him, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
I most certainly did not think that was the case.
Actually, I didn’t even want that to start with.
“What brought this on? I have no idea what you’re thinking, Reina Ruu.”
“I want to be with you, Asuta! I want to welcome you as one of us! That’s not strange at all, for members of a clan that has lost strength to join another. We people of the forest’s edge have survived by coming together in that way.”
With that, Reina Ruu gripped my t-shirt tight.
“I’m sure my father has already acknowledged your strength. And if the clan head decides it, then even Jiza won’t be able to oppose. So I just need to take the time to convince him!”
“I can’t do that. Leaving Ai Fa all on her own and joining the Ruu clan... There’s no way I could do something like that, right?”
What sort of face was I making then, I wonder?
Reina Ruu knitted her brows, looking pained.
“I’ve also told Ai Fa how I felt. It doesn’t have to be Darmu. There are plenty of unmarried men in the branch families. If she just set aside her blade, and firmed up her resolve to marry... I mean, father clearly saw quite a lot in Ai Fa, to have offered to have her marry into the main family. Normally it would be unthinkable to make such an offer to a family like the Fa, without so much as any relatives left...”
“But Ai Fa refused, didn’t she?”
Had she been discussing something like that with Ai Fa right in the middle of the banquet?
Since the door was closed, the clamor of the banquet sounded distant.
And... my heart filled with something akin to sadness.
“...Even so, I want to be with you, Asuta.”
Reina Ruu buried her face in my chest.
“Ai Fa is strong. So strong that it’s scary. I was unable to move Ai Fa’s heart. But... I’m sure that Ai Fa could live on her own. She’s strong enough for that.”
“That may be so.”
In actuality, Ai Fa had lived for two years all on her own. And if she hadn’t run into me, she surely would have kept on living like that.
But...
The two of us did meet.
“Ai Fa is a hunter. Rather than birthing children, she chose to hunt giba and eventually perish in the forest. But in that case... There was no point in her welcoming a man like you into her family, right? The Fa bloodline will end with Ai Fa. In that case, you should join the Ruu and—”
“Reina Ruu,” I said, grabbing hold of her smooth shoulders. “I understand full well how you feel. Thank you for worrying so much about my future. But... I can’t.”
Reina Ruu looked taken aback.
While watching large tears well up in her blue eyes, I said, “I have no intention of leaving the Fa clan. Even if Ai Fa would be fine with it, I wouldn’t be. So... I’m sorry.”
“But... why? Even the obstinate men of the branch families have recognized your strength. If I can just have time to convince Jiza, then the whole Ruu clan will—”
“I’m very fond of everyone here, too. But even so, I want to stay together with Ai Fa.”
I pushed Reina Ruu off of me as gently as I could, and then sat up.
Reina Ruu was left crouching down near my knees, and soon the tears started to flow.
“I’m really sorry... And thank you.”
Reina Ruu stood up, still sobbing.
But then, with a strong light in her teary eyes, she looked straight at me one last time.
“...I’m not giving up.”
With those words, she ran out the door.
The door was left wide open, so the excited clamor of the banquet came streaming in once again.
My body felt heavy like it was coated in mud, but even so I picked myself up off the ground.
Was that... the right way to deal with Reina Ruu?
Welcoming an outsider like me into the family, and living together with me...
If I had been picked up by Reina Ruu instead of Ai Fa, just how joyful might my life have been?
But still, even so... The one I met back then was Ai Fa.
I could no longer even imagine a future where Ai Fa and I lived separate lives.
After hitting myself in the temple two or three times, I walked towards the meat storage.
However, I suddenly stopped in place once again.
From the other side of the door, I heard a shrill woman’s shriek.
Was it Reina Ruu?
No wait, it was actually several women.
Had some sort of accident occurred?
Maybe one of the men finally grew enraged by the constant strange dishes, like the spare ribs and hamburgers?
As my thoughts raced, I went flying out of the pantry.
I ran past the side of the house and the stage, finally stepping foot in the plaza.
There was a strange clamor in the air.
Now, a strange negativity had blanketed the banquet, so smothering that it made the joyous uproar from before seem like a lie.
Everyone was looking the opposite direction of the stage, towards the entrance of the plaza.
Had the Lea clan or someone gotten angry and left?
I weaved my way through the crowd, taking as much care as I could to not bump into others, and eventually popped out next to the ceremonial fire in the plaza’s center.
What I saw there was hard to believe.
What’s going on...?
For the moment, I couldn’t even comprehend what I was looking at. Just what had occurred to result in this scene? It boggled my mind just trying to figure that out.
The stove closest to the exit had collapsed. The hamburgers and vegetable stir-fry that had been sat atop it were now scattered all over the ground. And...
There was a massive, dead giba with its head thrust into that collapsed stove.
It sure was a big one. Probably around 100 kilos.
Still, it looked to be a rather old giba, didn’t it? Its coat was in poor shape, and one of its horns was broken.
Not to mention the several wooden spears that had been stabbed into its thick torso.
Its blackish-brown pelt had been stained with a great deal of blood, and the smell was tremendous.
To top it all off, the flames from the stove hadn’t completely gone out, so they were now smoldering the fur from the giba’s head.
The smells of a wild giba, its blood, and the burning fur... It was as if an evil presence had started filling the plaza, sullying the blessings of this night.
Did the giba charge into the stove, and then the men finished it off?
But wait, I had heard that regardless of how ferocious or cowardly a giba may be, they would run away when they saw people as long as they weren’t already up super close.
I simply couldn’t imagine that this giba had approached the plaza when more than 100 people were there, and then charged head first into the brightly burning stove of its own volition.
Even though I was mostly just standing there stupefied, I soon learned that my thinking was correct.
There was a flat plank underneath the giba’s corpse. And that plank had handholds made with vines attached to it, too. In other words, it was a pulling board, meant for carrying things like metal pots and water jugs.
The giba hadn’t died here. It was transported here as a corpse, and thrown into the stove.
In a deliberate, malicious act perpetrated by...
“What’s all this? It’s a joyous occasion, but everyone’s gone all quiet, huh?”
It was a man’s voice, dripping with ill intent. An ever so slightly high pitched one, from a young man.
The voice was deep yet sluggish and slightly lisping, and I sort of felt like I recognized it from somewhere.
I slowly lifted my gaze, and found three men standing on the other side of the smoldering black smoke.
One was a large young man. His blackish-brown hair was cut short, his eyes were blue, and despite his large build, he was actually surprisingly lacking in unique traits.
The second was another young man, smaller than the first. He may have been short but he had a firmly muscled body and a square face, calling to mind a lion dog statue. His hair was loose and disheveled, and his eyes that shone like those of a stray mutt were the same color as those of the man beside him.
And then the last man was even more massive than Donda Ruu and Dan Rutim, looking like a blimp made of flesh. His height looked to be around two meters tall, but how much must he have weighed? I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear it was 200 kilos. His face, arms, hips, and legs all swelled out, to a degree that he looked like he would move quicker by rolling around than walking.
His forehead retracted heavily, and his dark, shaggy hair curled up around his ears. That caused him to look rather old, but then there was something oddly babyish about his bulging face, which I couldn’t help but find eerie.
It was definitely my first time meeting this flesh balloon, but I recognized the other two.
Diga Suun, the heir to the main Suun house who I met only once nearly a month ago.
And Doddo Suun, the second son of the main Suun house, whose bad side I got on just seven days ago.
They were most assuredly men of the Suun clan, who led the people of the forest’s edge.
“Where are the clan heads...? Are Dan of the Rutim and Donda of the Ruu hiding somewhere? We men of the main Suun house came out of our way to visit this celebration, but the clan heads aren’t even going to greet us?”
Diga Suun’s raised voice carried an offensive odor throughout the plaza. In all likelihood, they were drunk. At the very least, the pair I was familiar with were holding fruit wine containers.
“What, did you not like our blessing? You can’t have some sort of issue with a giba this big, right? And it even has three tusks and horns, all told. It’s a gift from the Suun main house’s oldest son Diga Suun, second son Doddo Suun, and youngest son Mida Suun. Now gratefully accept it, Rutim.”
Youngest... Did he just say youngest? So he meant that fleshy blimp was the youngest out of the group? Even though the eldest, Diga Suun, didn’t look like he had even hit 20?
No wait, that all didn’t matter right now.
I took a look around, tightly clenching my fists.
The women were frightened, and the men were angry.
All of the men had the look of hunters in their eyes, and seemed ready to draw their blades from their hips as soon as the excuse presented itself.
That only made sense, though. Their family’s banquet was being defiled, after all.
There was no way that such proud hunters would forgive such scum barging into the banquet like this just because their clan ruled their people.
But with that said, nobody was making a move.
The men there were just silently raging, grinding their teeth so much it was almost audible and clenching their fists so tight it seemed like they were about to start bleeding.
I had heard that pointing a blade against the Suun clan would mean causing a conflict that would split the forest’s edge in two, and perhaps even lead to the destruction of all those living there.
And so, they wouldn’t make a move?
Were Donda Ruu and Dan Rutim just silently raging somewhere in this plaza, too?
I couldn’t just stay silent, though.
Plus, I strongly felt it made sense for me to be the one to stand up, as I didn’t belong to the Ruu or Rutim.
I detoured around the giba corpse and now faced the men head on, rather than through the flames.
Instantly, two of the three turned my way with flames in their eyes. Those flames were tepid, though.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?!” I angrily yelled.
The flames in their eyes raged even more viciously.
“I didn’t hear anything about even more guests showing up! I only prepared enough food for the 100 people of the Ruu, Rutim, and their family! Nobody told me I would need to deal with such sudden arrivals!”
“Damn outsider... You foreigner from the Fa house!”
Diga Suun took one step forward.
He naturally had a blade dangling from his hip, but he was still far enough that he wouldn’t reach me even with a leap... probably.
“What’s the meaning of this, inviting this outsider to your banquet but not even so much as asking our Suun clan to attend?! The Min clan was under the Suun 80 years ago, to begin with! You can’t tell me we’re not qualified to be here when this outsider is standing here! Ruu! Rutim!”
“Please discuss that matter with the heads of the Ruu and Rutim clans! I’m here because I was paid a fee by the Rutim clan to man the stove for this banquet! And I don’t care who you are, I won’t let anyone interfere with my work!”
I handed the initiative over to Dan Rutim and them.
These scum had gone astray, but I hoped that by hitting them with sound reasoning, I could shift things in my favor. That was what I was calculating in the back of my mind... But to be honest, I just threw out what I was really feeling. The anger in the depths of my stomach had risen up and come out my mouth in the form of words.
I thrust a finger towards the unfortunate giba corpse laying there.
“Clean this giba up right away, please! We’ll talk after that! Do you really think you can eat giba while staring at one’s corpse? Can you eat giba stew while smelling the stench of its blood? As the one charged with this banquet’s stove, I cannot accept that! Please, remove that giba from this plaza right away!”
“You brat...!”
“After that, if the clan heads allow it, I’ll prepare food for you all, too! But the food that you wrecked can’t be remade tonight! If you intend to interfere with my work even further, then I’ll have to demand reimbursement from the Suun clan!”
Diga Suun kept on trembling.
Behind him, Doddo Suun drew his blade.
Several of the women started shrieking.
“You would draw your blade at a banquet, you fool?!” a voice like steel shouted, bringing the women’s shrieking to a sudden halt.
The voice was full of anger and pride, and had several times more force behind it than those of myself or those fools from the Suun clan.
It was Ai Fa’s voice, and it reverberated through the air.
“My clan member Asuta and myself are here at this banquet as the result of a deal with the eldest son of the main Rutim house, Gazraan Rutim! There’s no reason for anyone to find fault with that! I have to leave it up to the head of the Rutim to decide how to deal with you... But if you point your blade at a member of the Fa clan, I will show you no mercy!”
Ai Fa firmly stepped forward out of the dim shadows.
She resolutely stared at the intruders with eyes ablaze, her head held high... and she was dressed in beautiful banquet attire.
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