Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 4 - Chapter 4.2

2

“Hmm! I see!” was about all I could think to say.

Naturally, the townsfolk must have been used to this guerrilla style rainfall, too. As soon as the rain started to come down, folks all either took off running down the road or took cover under the nearby trees, so I think the damage must have been minimal.

And it really was impressive how the old-timer with the accessory shop next to us immediately gathered up the cloth and his goods and took off running into the woods to our rear.

Then, when the rain ended, everyone started popping back up with looks that said “good grief” on their faces... But at least here at the upper tip, the number of passersby had noticeably dropped.

Looking to the left of the stall, south down the road, the crowd seemed to have revived to what it had been beforehand. But over here where there were few people looking to shop to begin with, everybody seemed to have run off somewhere, and it was completely quiet and deserted.

“There’s nobody left, huh...?”

“Well, it’s a literal calamity from the heavens, so there’s not exactly anything we can do about it. And besides, the real fight was always going to be from when the sun hit its peak onwards, so for now let’s take it easy and recharge our spirits.”

Thanks to Vina Ruu’s quick actions, none of the firewood got wet. No water got into the pot, either. We hadn’t taken any critical damage, so now was the time to focus on turning things around.

“So we’re going to stand here the whole time till the crowds pick up when the sun hits its peak...?”

“That’s right. Waiting is part of the job, too.”

“I feel bad somehow, being paid so much just for doing this...”

“You’re looking at it all wrong. Even putting aside carrying everything, I never would have managed stirring the pot and adding the firewood and everything all on my own. Plus, we’re only just getting started.”

With that said, though, it would still be around two hours till the sun hit its peak. It really would feel pretty empty, just managing the fire in the meantime. Perhaps now would be a good time to secure the extra firewood, but it just didn’t feel like the best idea to do so right after the rain. I felt like if I just waited an hour or two the fallen branches would dry out, and I could just gather them then.

In other words, I just wasn’t motivated.

“Hmm... Do you feel like just chatting a bit?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Who do you get along with in your family, Vina Ruu?”

“Is that really an interesting topic...?”

“It is to me, at least.”

Vina Ruu gave a small sigh, starting to fiddle with the tips of her chestnut-colored hair.

“I suppose the ones I have the most lively conversations with are Rimee and Ludo... Oh, but it’s the most fun being with Darmu.”

“Ah, Darmu Ruu?”

“Yes... He can be untalkative and angry about stuff... but it’s cute seeing him get all mad, too.”

“H-Hold on a second! Now that I think of it, you were older than him, right?”

“Yes, but just by a year...”

Now that I thought about it, I had been thinking of the boys and girls separately, so I hadn’t really considered who was older overall. But well, I guess the order between Vina and Darmu Ruu was the only one that had been fuzzy, anyway.

I made a mental note of the fact that Darmu Ruu was 19, one year younger than Vina Ruu.

“By the way, how old is Jiza Ruu?”

“Jiza is 23.”

“Ooh, that’s surprisingly young! And Rimee Ruu was eight, right? So... a 15 year difference! That’s quite an age gap!”

“Really? Well, some people have children at the age of 15, so I suppose it’s as much as the gap between parent and child, in a way...”

Vina Ruu cast me a listless sidelong glance.

“Hey... Do you really find all this interesting...?”

Well, at least to me it was pretty interesting.

Maybe since they spent most of their days running around working, dealing with such excess tedium was pretty rough for the people of the forest’s edge.

“I want to hear something about you, Asuta...”

“Huh? But I mean, I shouldn’t have much of interest to bring up, either.”

“I want to hear about the country where you were born...”

I held my tongue for a moment, then stared at the red tarapa sauce and said, “Sorry. I don’t exactly want to talk about where I came from... It’s a bit of a rough topic for me.”

“Oh, but why...?”

“...I suddenly disappeared, so I can’t help but worry about if my old man is doing alright or not.”

After a moment of silence, Vina Ruu quietly whispered, “I’m sorry...”

This was making for a pretty gloomy mood...

But then...

“Asuta!” a voice energetically called out, and a little savior came running our way down the road, splashing in puddles as she went. It was Tara.

“You really opened a shop! That’s amazing!” she said, placing her hands on the stall’s counter and looking up at me.

The young girl also shot a slightly timid smile at Vina Ruu, who was standing next to me. Naturally, the older girl couldn’t help but give a wide grin back.

“There’s a really nice tarapa smell! Is that from your giba cooking?”

“That’s right. I wonder if you’ll like it.”

“I want to try it! I’ll take one, please!”

“Ah, but these are big enough for adults, so one costs two red coins.”

“Really? Then I’ll go ask my dad for some money!”

“Ah, hold on! It’d be bad if you ended up not liking it, so try a taste first. Vina Ruu, there’s another wooden plate in that bag, so could you get it for me?”

As I called that out, I looked into the pot. There were mini burgers in there, meant for sampling.

They were already a size smaller than the ones I was selling, and then I chopped one in half inside the pot and scooped it out onto the plate. Next, I cut off about 30% of that, then finally pulled out my secret weapons, toothpicks made by shaving down small grigee branches, and stuck one in it.

“Here you go.”

When I held out the plate to her, Tara looked dumbfounded.

“...What about the money?”

“Back in my country, some people would offer samples like this to customers before they bought. I already got permission from the old-timer from the inn who runs this area, so go ahead and give it a try.”

“Ooh... Thank you! I really ‘preciate it!”

Then, without so much as a hint of hesitation, Tara picked up the toothpick and tossed the little chunk of hamburger into her mouth.

“...What do you think?”

I was seriously nervous right now.

For the most part, my cooking had earned rave reviews from the people of the forest’s edge. But aside from the ever mysterious Kamyua Yoshu, this would be the first time seeing whether or not my flavorings and techniques would work when it came to folks from the city of stone, who were more familiar with the concept of cooking.

Tara... had frozen in place, the toothpick still hanging out of her mouth. And she was staring straight at me, her eyes opened wide in shock.

“What is this...?” she managed to squeeze out, sounding utterly dumbfounded.

And then... her little yellowish-brown face exploded with joy.

“It’s tasty! Super amazingly tasty, Asuta!”

I honestly felt like my knees were about to give out on me. This was seriously bad for my heart.

But well... Now, I’d finally cleared the first challenge before me.

“This is so amazing! I want to eat more! I’ll go get some money from my dad!”

“Ah, hold on! If it’s alright, I’d like to have Dora try some too. He’d feel more comfortable handing over the money then, right? Um, I don’t have too many of those little wooden needles, so do you mind if I reuse that one?”

“That’s fine!” Tara said with a big nod, then stuck another piece of meat with the toothpick and took off running back to her father, holding it aloft like it was the Olympic torch.

Dora’s stall was close enough that I could just barely make out its leather roof from here.

“That certainly went well, didn’t it, Asuta...?”

“Yeah! I’m so glad! Aah, now the light of hope is finally shining down on us! If I can put up a fight with this flavor, then it’s just down to how many people we can get to taste it!”

“That sounds like the hardest part, though...”

“It’s fine! That’s what we have the samples for! Once more people start coming by, we’ll start handing these out, mainly to folks from the south and the east!”

Though with all that said, I had only cooked two mini burgers to serve as samples. The smallest number of parts I could reasonably split them into was six, so I would have 12 to hand out in total.

Still, if sales weren’t going all that well, then I intended to use some of the patties meant for sales as samples, too. At any rate, the key point right now was to try to get even one person more to taste giba meat. In fact, even if all I managed to do today was hand out samples, I wouldn’t be upset about it.

“Asuta... I’m not all that comfortable with townsfolk talking to me...”

“Hmm? Ah, I’ll handle that part! I just need you to handle watching the fire.”

“No, that’s part of the job, so I want to do it, but... You won’t get angry if I don’t do it well at first, will you...?”

Apparently, the people of the forest’s edge were even more serious when it came to work than I was.

There were still few people around, but I started to feel things get livelier bit by bit.

It was then that Tara came splish-splashing up to us again.

“Dad said it was tasty, too! He was all surprised, like, ‘What is this?!’”

Then she held out some coins. They were dulled red coins... and there were four of them?

“Two please! One for me, and one for my dad!”

Full disclosure, I felt a bit like I was about to cry.

I certainly had been paid a good bit for that banquet, but when I had a customer saying my food was delicious and paying me for it... Well, there’s no way that wouldn’t hit my tear ducts hard, right?

It would probably hurt my reputation if I cried here and now, though, so I just replied, “Thanks for your business!” and got to chopping up tino and aria. I then placed them atop a poitan, added a patty soaked in plenty of tarapa sauce, then topped it off with another poitan.

“Here, thanks for waiting! It can spill out easily, so hold it sideways like this while eating it, alright?”

“Yeah! Thanks! It looks super tasty!”

I’m the one who should be saying thanks, here.

At any rate, I handed the completed burgers to Tara and accepted her money.

Four red coins... My shop’s very first sale.

“...You said you need to sell one more just to cover what you’re paying me, right? Will this business really work out...?”

“It will! Well, you could say she only bought it because we know each other, but still, it gives me a lot of hope that our first customer was a Genos resident!”

“Really? Oh, Asuta, there...” Vina Ruu grabbed the fabric by my waist again.

Looking up, there was a man walking our way from the north clad in traveling attire, and he was looking dubiously between our stall and Tara’s back as she ran away.

The hood on his cloak covered a lot of his face, but from what I could see his skin was quite dark. He must have been from the Eastern Kingdom of Sym.

Thinking this may be a chance for a sale, I reached for the wooden plate. However, the man went and briskly approached the stall even quicker.

As he came closer, he pushed back his leather hood, which had a few raindrops still clinging to it.

His eyes and hair were black, and his skin was several shades darker than the westerners. Yes, he was indeed from Sym.

I found his features to be pretty unfamiliar. He had raised, narrow eyes, and a thin nose and lips. He was real tall, but also rather slender. His long, black hair was tied up behind his neck, and there were accessories with beautifully colored stones around his neck and wrists. It was hard to tell exactly how old he may be, but well, I figured it was fair to call him a youth.

Anyway, that youth from the Eastern Kingdom was standing in front of our stall and looking at the symbols on the sign, still appearing dubious.

Then, he pointed towards the pot and questioned, “Giba?”

“Yes. It’s a meat dish made with giba. If you’d like, please go ahead and give the taste a try.”

As I said that I stuck a new toothpick into the last chunk on the wooden plate, and the youth tilted his head while looking puzzled.

It was then that Vina Ruu whispered, “Asuta... This person is from Sym, so he may not be too familiar with the language of the west, right...?”

“Huh?! The languages differ by country between the four great kingdoms?”

“The east and the north have different languages. You didn’t even know that much, Asuta...?”

I had no idea whatsoever.

Then, if I had awoken in the north or the east, we wouldn’t have been able to communicate at all? Or was it just that some unseen act of god was helping to take care of that inconvenience?

Well, this was no time to be worrying over such things, especially since doing so wasn’t going to help me arrive at a solution. Right now, I had to figure out how to get this curious gentleman to give the sample a try.

“Asuta, could you get some fresh meat on that plate? And another of those wooden needles, too...?”

“Huh? Ah, right!”

I scooped out the other half of the mini burger from the pot, then divided it into three atop the wooden plate.

Vina Ruu gave a nod, then came out the back of the stall and circled around till she was standing beside the youth. She smiled at him to lower his guard at least a bit, then elegantly popped one of the samples into her mouth.

Next, she held out the plate a bit towards the youth, and he held his hand over it. He stared at Vina Ruu, as if trying to figure her out.

Vina Ruu gave another smile and a little nod, and the youth finally picked up the toothpick. Then he suddenly tossed all three remaining hamburger pieces in his mouth.

After he finished chewing, he gave a big, satisfied nod, entwined his fingers in a strange manner, and bowed to me and Vina Ruu. He pulled his hood back up and left with a light and easy stride.

After a few seconds of silence, Vina Ruu whispered, “Sorry...” extremely quietly.

“Not at all! That was splendid work, getting him to eat it! And I’d guess the concept of samples doesn’t exist here in the post town, so something like that happening makes sense,” I loudly declared, as if I was trying to encourage myself, too, but Vina Ruu just staggered and grabbed hold of the stall’s pillar.

“...I wish I were dead...”

It turned out Vina was surprisingly weak-willed. But still, this was no time to be paying attention to stuff like that.

“It’s fine! We still have one patty left for samples! And the real fight starts after the sun hits its peak! Let’s give it our all, alright?!”

“What’s the matter, Asuta?” Tara asked, suddenly standing back in front of the stall.

“Oh, it’s nothing. How were the giba burgers?”

“They’re called giba burgers? They were super tasty! Hey, are you going to be running this shop every day now?”

“Yeah, at least for the next ten days. After that, it’ll depend on how much we can sell in that time.”

“Hooray! Then I’ll be coming every day, too! Plus Dad also said he wanted to eat it every day! It really, really surprised him!”

“Thanks. Hearing that you two were that happy with them makes me glad, too.”

If Tara and her dad really did order one each every day, that would add up to 20 in total. Since my minimum requirement for success over these ten days was 60, that was some seriously appreciated support.

“Asuta...” Vina Ruu suddenly called out again, this time with a somehow slightly different tone in her voice.

“What is it?” I asked, turning around, only to immediately notice the oddity myself.

“Wah...” Tara weakly yelped, then hid in the shadow of the stall.

There was a whole group hurriedly approaching our way from the bustling south.

“W-What is it?”

The cloaked group had gone and surrounded our stall.

Tara was quivering a bit as she clung to my legs. Meanwhile, Vina Ruu had moved in close to my side and gently grabbed onto the sheath for the knife dangling from her waist.

There were seven men standing there, all tall and with their faces hidden by the hoods on their cloaks. However, the visible lower halves of their faces all showed very dark skin.

The guy in the middle said, “Giba,” and pushed through his comrades to come to the front. When he pulled back his hood, I saw that it was the same slender faced Sym youth who had eaten all the hamburger samples before.

“W-What is it? Do you have some sort of problem with our shop?” I asked, even though I knew it was pointless doing so.

Then, the youth pointed to the pot like he’d done before and muttered, “Giba,” again.

“That’s right, giba. What about it?”

“Giba. Red. One. Two. Three?”

“...What?” I questioned, tilting my head. The youth then reached into his cloak, looking just a bit troubled.

Vina Ruu was pulling firmly on my arm, but what he pulled out was just a dull red coin.

“Giba. Red. One. Two. Three?”

When I still didn’t respond, the youth looked sad and asked, “...White?”

“No! It’s red! Red! Two!”

The youth gave a nod, then pulled out a second red coin and placed them on the counter. Then, he stared at my face.

“...Vina Ruu, could you handle the stirring?”

I had carelessly stopped stirring, so I handed the spatula over to Vina Ruu, then hurriedly set about dicing aria.

Before long I had finished a new giba burger, which I handed to the youth and said, “Here you go.”

The youth gave a big nod and accepted the burger.

Seeing that, I hesitantly reached out for the coins... and fortunately, nobody seemed to find any fault with that.

Looks like he really was just a customer. I was seriously glad for that.

What was with the other guys just standing around and surrounding the stall, though?

“Asuta...”

“I-It’s alright, Tara. They’re just customers... I think.”

Meanwhile, the youth just kept on stuffing his cheeks with the giba burger.

At first he was eating it with just one hand, but when he noticed that the tarapa sauce was about to leak out the other side, he readjusted his grip so he was holding it with both hands. Then, he started chewing away again.

How should I put it...? It wasn’t like he felt especially cold or anything, just that his expression was utterly unchanging. It... wasn’t quite enough that I’d call it creepy, but it did have me ill at ease.

Anyway, before long he finished the giba burger, then brought his fingers together in that strange way again and quietly bowed his head. Then, he nodded to his comrades as well.

The surrounding men (all of whom were also quite slender) each nodded back, then their hands started searching around inside their cloaks. With a clunk, clunk, clunk a row of red coins was laid out atop my counter. There were 12 coins in total, enough for each of the six men.

I just silently diced up aria and prepared one giba burger after another. Whenever I held out a completed dish dark fingers reached out and gently accepted it.

And not a word was said.

I was totally silent, and so were they. Even Vina Ruu and Tara weren’t saying anything.

Minutes later, the giba burgers had all disappeared into their stomachs, while I had 14 coins in my hands, including the two from the first youth.

With their hoods still raised, the six men brought their fingers together just like the youth had, bowed their heads to me, and then departed.

“Wow, your cooking sure is popular, Asuta!”

“Gah, you surprised me there!”

Before I had even realized it, a certain scrawny blond fellow had casually popped up beside the stall and called out to me.

It went without saying that I meant Kamyua Yoshu.

“W-W-Where did you pop up from? Please stop doing stuff that’s so bad for my heart!”

“I didn’t want to interfere with your business, so I was just quietly watching over you from the shadow of the trees the whole time. You didn’t notice me?”

I really did want to slug the old-timer when he played dumb like that.

Vina Ruu was also shooting a sidelong glare in the direction of Kamyua Yoshu’s smile, without any of her usual seductiveness.

The only one who actually looked happy here was Tara.

“Mister Kamyua! Hey, Asuta’s giba burgers are really, really tasty!”

“Yes, this certainly does look good. You even used tarapa? It was already delicious with just aria and tino, but with this, I can’t stop myself from drooling.”

As always, his tone was super friendly yet also somehow flaky.

“What was with those people just now...?”

“Hmm? They were travelers from the Eastern Kingdom of Sym, right? They were a rather large group, so I wonder if they were part of some large merchant group or something?”

“...You didn’t have anything to do with them, did you?”

“What do you mean? Are you suggesting I hired them in order to improve your shop’s reputation?”

Kamyua Yoshu smiled and shrugged his shoulders under his long cloak.

“If I was trying a plan like that, I would have gone for a more effective performance! And besides, it wouldn’t work at all in the first place when there’s nobody around like right now, yeah? I mean, just take a look about. Nobody even noticed that you sold seven meals at once.”

That was certainly true. Even if anyone was watching from the bustling south, at that distance they just would’ve seen a group in leather cloaks surround the stall and then leave shortly after.

The old-timer selling accessories next to us was staring and looking utterly flabbergasted, though.

“There are a lot of folks like that amongst people of the east. It’s less that they’re unsociable, and more that they plunge on forwards not caring what the people around them think, I suppose... But they also tend to think it rude to act emotionally towards others. If you talk to them you’ll generally find them pretty pleasant, but regrettably, they often can’t speak much of the western language.”

“I see...”

“Well, with that said, people from the east vary a good bit, too. There are also plenty who are a bit more versed in western customs than that. But you’ll naturally come to understand all that if you run a shop here in this post town.”

After saying that, Kamyua Yoshu started rustling around in his cloak.

“Now then, will you sell me some of your cooking, too, Asuta? I’ll take two, to cover Leito.”

“Ah, you see... I’ll actually be out of supplies once I make one more.”

“Huh? Tara bought two, and those folks from the east bought seven, so you’ve only sold just nine, right? So why are you out already?”

Just how long had this old-timer been spying on us?

This guy really was a first for me, with the way that he just seemed more and more sketchy the more that I interacted with him.

“I wasn’t expecting much in the way of sales for the first day, so I only prepared enough for ten meals. After all, the cost of ingredients is nothing to sneeze at.”

“That’s a shame! There’s no way ten of your meals would be enough, right?! And you had this big of a pot, but you only brought enough for ten?! Leito and I were looking forward to your cooking, so this sure is a let down!”

“My deepest apologies. I have leftover samples, so shall I throw that in? And I did bake extra poitan just to be safe, too.”

“Yeah! At any rate, sell it to me! I don’t want some other customer beating me to the punch!”

That slightly panicked look on his face actually made him appear a bit less sketchy than usual.

The way that he weaved in expressions like that just made the guy even harder to pin down, though.

At any rate, I made up the last patty and the mini burger meant for samples into giba burgers, then handed them over to Kamyua in exchange for two coins. The mini burger was on the house, naturally.

“Thanks! Now I can try this out along with Leito! He’s in The Kimyuus’s Tail, so I’ll let you know what we thought later!”

With that, Kamyua promptly took off.

Feeling strangely at a loss, I turned and looked at Vina Ruu.

“Um... It looks like we’re done with work for today.”

“Right. Should I go ahead and put out the flame...?”

“Yeah, please do.”

This was what was meant when people said they felt dumbstruck, huh?

At any rate, the first day of our fight in the post town ended not just before the sun hit its peak, but before even an hour had passed.