4
When we got back outside, the sun was still high in the sky, and the streets were still packed with people.
“You said you were planning on shopping, but what are you going to buy?”
“Right, I wanted to get a metal pot. And they should be selling some in those stalls, too.”
“A pot, is it? A big one?”
“Well, a decently sized one. About this big.”
I drew out a half sphere in the air, with a diameter of 60 centimeters and a depth of 30.
“That certainly seems like it would be heavy. In that case, is it alright if I lead you to Tara’s stall first? It’s at the far end of the area, after all.”
“Ah, right, um... Do you mind, Ai Fa?”
“Do as you please,” Ai Fa responded, her face remaining expressionless. However, I got the feeling that she was starting to look just a bit tired.
I was a bit concerned, so I whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Despite all this, my impression hasn’t changed. I don’t believe that man is trying to trick us, but how should I put it...? He feels like a complete and utter unknown.”
“I see,” I responded, satisfied with that answer.
I didn’t feel like Kamyua Yoshu was trying to trick us, either. He really did have strong feelings about the people of the forest’s edge.
Rather, it was more like it was making me feel ill at ease because he felt too strongly.
That old-timer’s not the only problem, either...
I puzzled over the matter in my head as young Leito led us along the stone highway.
Will opening a shop with giba cooking here in town really work out?
I just kept on walking forwards, my gaze focused on Ai Fa. It was true that not everyone showed openly negative feelings towards them, but it was a fact that the people of the forest’s edge were seen as heathens here in town.
Kamyua Yoshu carefreely stated that we should just start by targeting the travelers and folks who weren’t from the Genos domain, and then we’d be fine. But would it really be that simple?
If it was just a business failure, then all we would lose would be coins. But it would be a serious issue if our rash actions led to the gulf widening between the post town and the forest’s edge.
And even if Kamyua Yoshu wasn’t personally trying to trick us, it was still important to keep the possibility that he misjudged the situation in mind.
I’d really like a chance to ask the opinion of a neutral party from here in the post town, if at all possible...
As I troubled myself over that matter, we finally arrived in the area with all the stalls.
I spied a familiar woman making up manju for children waiting at her stall.
It seemed that this time just past when the sun hit its peak really was the time for a snack. I consciously looked around to observe, and found that all of the shops selling snacks in the area were positively packed with people.
I spied a young fellow biting into a white doughy substance wrapped around light-brown meat and green vegetables as he walked. Off to the side of the road were men drinking and eating what looked like a bird leg. And hearing some commotion, I glanced towards the source and found an outdoor eatery set up under a rather wide roof, where people happily chatted away while eating soup from wooden bowls.
“...What are you darting all about for?”
“Hmm, y’know... Investigating the market.”
I still didn’t know how all this would play out.
But if we wanted to make sure it ended up at the best possible result, then I figured it was smartest to gather as much information as possible.
And besides, I was probably the only person from the forest’s edge who could do such a thing, anyway.
I’m sure Kamyua never would’ve come up with a crazy idea like opening up a shop in the post town if there wasn’t someone like me at the forest’s edge.
For example, I’m sure the women of the Ruu clan could create a dish on the level of that salted meat dish from before with just a bit of practice.
However, it was hard to imagine a person of the forest’s edge starting up a business. Trading horns and tusks for coins, then using those to buy food... Sure, that was at least technically a proper form of business, but I doubt anyone from the forest’s edge saw it that way.
And besides, handing the fruits of their harvests over to a specialist in such matters was inherently different than dealing with some unspecified number of customers.
Naturally, if I can be of help in that way, then I’m ready to do so as much as possible.
If Ai Fa and Gazraan Rutim believed it to be the proper path, then I’d plunge forwards without hesitation.
So that they wouldn’t make a mistake in their decision, I decided to take in the sights and sounds that would be difficult for them to notice, and accurately convey that information to them.
“Ah, that’s the shop. Thank goodness. It looks like Tara is there too.”
I looked up with a “Hmm?” when Leito said that, and noticed we were at the edge of the booths.
Beyond that, the highway continued on through the vegetation, while on the left hand side, the stone walls surrounding the castle town could be seen in the distance.
As I thought to myself that we also came out about this far last time, a young girl’s voice called out from our left, “Ah! Asuta! You really brought him, Leito!”
It was Tara.
Today she was in an orange tube dress, and was waving at me from underneath the roof of a certain shop.
Yes, a certain shop.
It had a large cloth laid out atop the ground with the vegetables lined up on top of it, with the only structure to it being an unreliable-looking roof, making for an incredibly plain shop... And it was also the place where Ai Fa and I purchased aria and poitan before.
Next to the young girl was a large man with a bit of a belly on him, wearing a nervous smile.
I shared a look with Ai Fa, then moved forward alongside young Leito.
“It’s been a while, Asuta! Thanks so much for back then!”
“Ah, I didn’t do anything worthy of your thanks. Plus, you helped us out after that, too.”
“No! If you weren’t there, I would’ve been squished alongside my manju! So thank you!”
Tara’s dark brown hair reached down to her shoulders, and her similarly colored eyes sparkled brightly. She was an energetic girl who looked to be around eight years old.
Her father next to her certainly did have a similarly colored moustache and hair, and they both also had yellowish-brown skin.
It seemed like a pretty common color combination around the post town, so the resemblance hadn’t really stood out to me.
And actually, the people of the Ruu clan all had really varied hair and eye color, so I had been questioning how much was tied to genetics in this world, and so I hadn’t really taken notice at all.
At any rate, this was our second meeting.
The old-timer stood up, removed the white cloth wrapped around his hair, then bowed his bushy head (with a bit of white hair mixed in) to me and Ai Fa.
“U-U-Um, apparently, you saved Tara the other day... T-Thank you so much. I-I-I very much wanted to offer my gratitude, but, um, I had you come all the way out here...”
His plump face was positively dripping in cold sweat.
And yet, even though he was so afraid of the people of the forest’s edge, he still wanted to offer his thanks.
“No, it’s all fine. It looked like we were going to be dragged away by the guards, but then Tara testified on our behalf, and we were set free. We owe your daughter a lot too.”
“N-N-No, not at all...”
He was larger than the old-timer from the inn, and his face made him look pretty largehearted. Considering he had said he grew the aria himself, he must have spent half his time selling and half his time farming.
He was a trueborn Genos citizen, so maybe it was only natural that he held such fear of the people of the forest’s edge... But still, it was hard to bear seeing him looking like that in front of his daughter.
As for Tara, she had been staring in puzzlement for a while now.
“About your daughter being exposed to danger...” Ai Fa suddenly said.
“Gyah!” the old-timer squealed, grabbing hold of Tara’s shoulders and shrinking back.
Tara also seemed a little uneasy as she looked at Ai Fa.
“...The cause was me failing to exercise discretion when beating down a drunkard. I knew she was down below his feet, but I thought I needed to get the scoundrel about to draw his blade under control as soon as possible, so I hit him. If Asuta hadn’t hurried to aid her, she may have ended up pinned under the man and getting injured.”
Then, Ai Fa silently bowed her head.
“I was lacking in attentiveness. And for that, I would like to apologize.”
“N-N-No, that’s...”
“Sir, you don’t need to be so on edge. These folks aren’t as wild as you may be thinking. Just a short while ago they were being vulgarly heckled by drunks, but I’m the one who lost my cool first,” Leito interjected with a smile.
He lost his cool? It didn’t look that way to me...
“Also, Asuta here may be opening a stall near here. If that happens you’ll be neighbors, so I think it’s best to clear up any such concerns now.”
“Huh?! Asuta, you’re opening a shop?!”
Tara was actually the one to overreact, rather than her father.
“No, nothing’s decided just yet, but... If I do, it’ll be around here?”
“Yes. Things are already full along that stretch, after all. You would be a newcomer, so that would mean you’d start out here at this northern tip.”
“Hmm... So are you a newcomer too, old-timer?”
“Huh? N-No, I’ve already been here for 20 years. As you move closer to the bustling center, you have to hand over a greater gratuity to the folks managing things, so I just stayed out of all that.”
The old-timer was clearly flustered, but I could also tell that he was earnestly trying to steel his nerves.
He really didn’t seem like such a bad guy, at his core.
“I still don’t know if I really will be opening a shop, but if it does end up happening, I hope we become good neighbors. And I’ll be sure to stock up on ingredients from here if the time comes, too.”
“W-What sort of shop would you be opening?”
Ah, right. This may be a valuable chance to hear the opinion of a Genos resident completely unrelated to Kamyua Yoshu.
Well, in actuality Kamyua Yoshu may have deliberately set the stage for this chance too, but that would be thinking too badly of him, right?
At any rate, it was time to investigate.
“Actually, I was thinking of selling dishes made with giba meat... What do you think?”
The old-timer’s eyes went wide in shock.
“I-I don’t think... something like that would sell, right?”
Hmm...
He looked rather surprised, or should I say astounded, but I couldn’t say I felt any nasty feelings coming from him. But at least for now, it didn’t seem as if I was saying something like, “I want to open a shop serving tarantula cuisine in the middle of the shopping district.”
“I won’t be creeping out the people around me? Like, you don’t think, ‘Don’t try selling that crap near me!’ then?”
“T-That’s not really for us to decide... It’s just...”
“‘Just’?”
“I-It’d be a problem if it stunk.”
“It shouldn’t give off much of a smell. The stink of giba meat is something you would only notice when eating it, and besides, it wouldn’t be there even in that case when it’s prepared properly.”
“Giba are those bad animals that mess up fields, right? Are they yummy?” Tara asked, overflowing with curiosity.
Them being “bad” was just based on the way they inconvenienced us, and they weren’t at fault... But there’d be no point in trying to give such a lecture here and now.
“Who knows? I think it’s super delicious, but that’s just my personal preference. It’s certainly really quirky, so there may just be some folks out there who hate it.”
“Hmm... That’s amazing. I want to try it.”
“D-Don’t be ridiculous...” her father started saying, and then he looked away from us again.
“Sorry. We’re this far into the conversation, but I still haven’t given an introduction. I’m Asuta, and I’m being looked after by the Fa house at the forest’s edge. Ai Fa here is the clan head. If you don’t mind, could you tell us your name, too?”
“...M-My name’s Dora.”
Tara and Dora, huh? It was hard to say if that was easy to remember or not, but the name sure seemed to fit his rounded and almost cute appearance.
“Dora, is it? We’re still uncertain about whether or not we’ll open the shop. If we sold nothing at all and took a big loss that’d be a problem, and more importantly, it would feel inexcusable if we were to cause trouble for everyone here in the post town. So if it’s alright with you, could we hear your earnest opinion? Like if it’d be a problem for us to open a shop like that, or nobody would ever eat it. We’d like to have opinions to reference when making our decision.”
“I-It wouldn’t be a problem. As long as there are no strange smells, it’ll be fine. T-The only other thing... is fights could occur...” he said, mumbling and trailing off at the end there.
Still, he went and gave a proper answer.
He must have a pretty open and frank personality by nature. I sensed that back when I said the aria was rotten and he got angry, too.
“Fights, huh? If I open a shop, will there be folks from around town who will find fault with that?”
“F-Finding fault... with a person of the forest’s edge...”
He was seriously mumbling.
“What do you think? To be honest, there were folks coming after us in an inn just a bit ago, so that matter has me a bit concerned, to be honest.”
“R-Really? I can’t even imagine it.”
The old-timer sure seemed awful frightened of the people of the forest’s edge.
Meanwhile, I sensed nothing but contempt from those guys before.
I guess people really did vary, even when raised in the same environment, huh?
And Tara even said she’d like to try it.
For a while she’d been glancing over Ai Fa’s way, as if she was trying to figure out just what sort of person this scary looking lady was.
“Well then, what about the cooking itself? Do you think that you’d die before you ever want to eat giba meat?”
“I-I at least don’t want to eat it badly enough to pay for it. After all, folks say it’s tough and stinks. I don’t feel any need to go out of my way to confirm that.”
“If it was free, would you try it?”
“I-If I had to say...”
“You don’t think it’s disgusting or filthy?”
“G-Giba don’t scavenge up rotten meat like mundt and giiz, right? We hate giba because they target our fields, but that’s all there is to it.”
Then, he seemed to work up his nerves and looked towards Ai Fa.
“T-That’s why... I feel gratitude and respect to you all, risking your lives to take them down. B-But you... Y-You all... You eat those ferocious giba, and you’ve gained a terrifying strength. There are a lot of old folks who think that way, and...”
An emotion other than just fear flickered in his eyes. Could it... Could it be anger?
“...And in truth, the people of the forest’s edge really have done terrible things.”
Ai Fa just silently stared back at him.
The blood had drained from the old-timer’s yellowish-brown skin, and he started to tremble from fear.
“T-They’ve stolen crops, attacked travelers, and kidnapped girls from around town... I know not everyone from the forest’s edge is like that, but it’s a fact that folks like that do exist. In fact, that man you beat down by the roadside was like that, too, wasn’t he? And as long as folks like that exist...”
We won’t be able to see eye to eye.
That may have been how he intended to finish that sentence, but he didn’t voice it.
Ai Fa slowly, calmly shook her head side to side.
“I personally have nothing to be ashamed of... That’s all I wanted to say.”
So, she wasn’t going to deny it, huh?
Stealing crops, attacking travelers, and kidnapping girls from around town... They went that far, did they?
I was past just being angry, to such a degree that I was starting to feel overwhelmed.
How could there be such a huge difference between fellow people of the forest’s edge?
Ai Fa and Gazraan Rutim were cut from the same cloth, but they... How had they, the clan that was supposed to lead their people, fallen so far?
I truly, honestly, from the depths of my heart, just couldn’t understand it.
“There really are all sorts of people out there, both when it comes to townsfolk and people of the forest’s edge, right?”
I turned around in shock towards the source of that voice, only to find young Leito smiling back at me even now.
It drove in the fact once again that this boy really was Kamyua Yoshu’s apprentice.
“Now then, it’s about time that I headed back to Kamyua, but what will you two do?”
“Ah, we’ll be leaving too. We don’t want to interfere with your business any further... Thank you, Dora.”
“Not at all...”
“Well then, farewell. Asuta and Ai Fa, I’m greatly looking forward to your giba cooking, too, so please give it your all!” Leito left us with a nod.
Ultimately, my thoughts were still left a big disordered mess.
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