5
“W-What do you guys want?! This is western territory! You planning on starting something here?!” the man yelled, finally raising his voice for the first time.
The cloaked group, meanwhile, just wrapped around the man and the stall to half encircle the place.
And there were quite clearly more of them today than there had been yesterday.
“...We have no plan, to cause trouble,” one of the group said, shocking me by using the language of the west, albeit a touch awkwardly.
“We came, to buy, giba meat. We’ll wait, our turn.”
As he said that, the hood of the man’s cloak flipped back.
His skin was quite dark, and he had raised, narrow eyes, as well as a thin nose and lips.
Yes, his facial features were a lot like those of the youth from yesterday... but his hair was silver like Granny Jiba’s. And yet, he looked young. His hair wasn’t the result of old age, but rather he was just born that way.
“We will wait, our turn. We will have, ten, please.”
“W-What, are you all soft in the head? I can’t exactly imagine you’re sane if you want to pay for that disgusting meat. It’s like just throwing your money straight into the stove. Just let the people of the forest’s edge eat that crap. I can’t imagine it would make you all get any darker skinned, but still, it’ll just ruin your mood to eat awful meat like that, right?”
The silver-haired youth tilted his head, looking confused.
“I, still haven’t, eaten it. But, my allies, seven of them, ate it yesterday. They all, said, it was delicious. That is why, we ten, came here... Ten, please.”
“...Right. Thanks for your business!”
With that, I set about dicing up tino and aria, still feeling a little shaken up at hearing giba meat face such slander.
And in the meantime, my ten customers started silently clanking their coins down on my counter.
“I can’t believe this. So you folks from Sym don’t know what good meat tastes like, either? Because that crap’s not fit for normal humans to eat. If you want meat, then you should eat kimyuus or karon or something.”
It was some rather extreme interference with my business, but he still wasn’t raising his voice as he said it, and my customers from Sym didn’t seem to be paying him any heed, so it was nothing for me to worry about.
At any rate, I kept on working away at the ten giba burgers.
I handed the first of them over to the silver-haired youth, who sure enough silently ate it with a blank expression, gave a big nod, then turned to face the man from the south.
“Giba, tastes good. For two red, I am satisfied.”
“That’s just crazy talk. What the hell’s wrong with your tongue? Hey, everyone, get over here!” the man loudly yelled out.
With that, a new group came on over, all of them pale-skinned.
The cloaked group all smoothly clustered together, seemingly to make room for the newcomers. However, they kept munching away at their giba burgers all the while.
“What is it, Pops? Feels a little tense over here,” a young Jagar fellow from the new group asked in a bit of a coarse tone. Sure enough, the youth had dark brown hair, green eyes, and a short yet well built physique.
It seemed that in general, folks from Jagar weren’t built all that big. There were now eight people from Jagar gathered here including the first man, but only one or two of them looked like they may be taller than me. But all of them had sturdy physiques and rather fierce looking faces. Their hair colors and ages varied, but the majority of them had scraggly hair on their heads.
“Just look at them. They say that giba meat of all things is delicious and are eating it up. I had a bit too, but it wasn’t anything worth paying coins for. Did folks from Sym always have no taste?” There was a restlessness to his voice. It seemed he really was well and truly mad at this point.
“Pops, you ate giba meat? There’s no way that tasted good, right?” the youth from Jagar questioned, glancing over us and grabbing the man by his thick arm. “...Plus, it’s best not to get involved with the people of the forest’s edge. They’re even more trouble than guys from Sym. If you cause too much of a fuss, who knows what’ll happen to you later, right?”
“Nothing I’m saying is wrong. They’re the ones in the wrong. And if you think I’m lying, then you all try it, too.”
“I’ve got no interest in eating damn giba meat.”
“Enough already, just try it. Hey you, feed them your giba meat.”
It was an extremely heavy-handed demand... but it was also a precious opportunity. There were a lot of folks from Jagar around town, but if they didn’t like giba meat by nature, that would be a real serious issue.
These giba burgers were ultimately just a curveball. I had figured that even if their unique texture turned out to be a problem, I could always recover by offering some simple grilled meat dishes instead.
But this guy they’d been calling “Pops” had a problem with the taste of the giba meat itself. And that was in spite of the fact that I had used the rather strong tarapa sauce alongside it, too.
Was that down to the general tastes of folks from Jagar, or just Pops’s personal opinion? No matter what abusive language may come my way as a result, I couldn’t let this chance to give out samples and find the answer slip by me.
And so, I scooped out a mini burger from the pot onto the plate, then split it up into six parts. Five parts from the first sample were still sitting there too. I placed the plate atop the counter, held out enough toothpicks for everyone, and said, “Please, go ahead.”
Three of the group who looked to be on the older side went first and reached out without any hesitation.
Then, Pops chimed in and said, “Hey, you all try it too,” pushing the younger folks forward. And so, they started grabbing toothpicks, too.
By the way, the cloaked group had all finished their giba burgers in the meantime, but for some reason they didn’t leave, even though they didn’t look overly interested and were just standing there silently.
“Well? It’s gross, right?” Pops questioned, crossing his arms while looking over his allies.
As for the other men... Their expressions all seriously varied.
“If it’s gross, then come out and say it.”
Only two out of the group responded to him.
One of the old-timers said, “It’s bad,” and one of the younger crowd followed up with, “It isn’t especially good.”
“Just the two of you?” Pops replied, his eyes opening wide in shock.
It sort of reminded me of a look I had seen from Donda Ruu in days past.
“What about the rest of you? You’re not going to say it’s good, are you?”
“...It’s not bad,” one of the older men replied, while one of the youths agreed, “It’s decently tasty.”
That left the biggest of the old-timers, the youth who looked even younger than me, and the young guy with the coarse tongue who spoke earlier, all of whom were standing there looking dumbfounded.
“...It’s delicious,” that last youth muttered.
“W-What the...? Is this really giba meat?”
“Yes. It’s genuine giba meat, not karon or kimyuus.”
I was still feeling pretty darn on edge inside, but even so, I replied with a smile.
“The cost for one is two red coins. You can place an order, if you’d like.”
“Two red coins, huh...?” the large old-timer pondered, then pushed his way past the younger men.
His body was nice and filled out, and he looked to have a good number of years under his belt. Certainly, he didn’t look any less fierce than Pops.
That man said, “I’ll have one,” and offered me his coins.
“Thank you! Please hold on just a moment.”
“Aldas! You’re seriously paying for this awful crap?”
The man called Aldas turned and faced Pops with a look of annoyance on his face.
“Pops, if it wasn’t to your taste, then it wasn’t, but don’t go shouting about it in front of the shop like that. You know if the guards come they’ll haul you away, right?”
“B-But...”
“You may not like it, but to me it’s delicious enough to die for. Stuff like that varies from person to person. It’s nothing to cause such a fuss about.”
It varies from person to person...
Right, giba meat had a quirkiness to it. It was just down to my personal tastes, thinking it was more delicious than beef, pork, or kimyuus meat. So with this many people around, it wasn’t strange at all for some of them to not like it.
I had already assumed that much. And yet, I had felt something boiling and simmering up inside me even so. That was proof that I still had a ways to go as a chef.
“Hey, one for me, too,” the youngest looking of the Jagar group, who had been standing there kind of flabbergasted, chimed in and held out his coins.
“Thank you!” I replied while handing a completed burger to my first customer, then another of the men stepped forward, saying, “That looks pretty good.” It had been the youth who had called it “decently tasty.”
“I’ll have one too, kid.”
“Right! Thank you!”
“M-M-Me too!” the youth who had been talking down on my cooking at the start called out, making up his mind and holding out his coins.
Among the seven of them... No wait, eight including Pops, now four of them had made a purchase.
Half of these people had acknowledged my cooking.
While feeling a tinge of disappointment, I solemnly accepted that result.
So it had altogether good reception from the people of the east, but was about 50-50 amongst the folks from the south, huh? I suppose maybe the types of flavors you like really does vary based on the country you’re born in...
As that thought ran through my head, I diced up some more tino and aria.
In the meantime, that large Aldas fellow who made the first purchase exclaimed, “Man, that was good!” in admiration. His stern, stone-like face was overflowing with earnest surprise and joy. “So giba meat was this delicious? Just who was it that said giba was hard and stinky? Because I definitely like this stuff, even over karon.”
When I glanced over, I saw that guy called Pops who seemed like the group’s leader scratching his head and wearing a real sour expression on his face.
“This tarapa is fantastic, too. That sourness hits just right. And what’s this vegetable mixed with the tino?”
“That’s raw aria, thinly diced.”
“Raw aria?! Oh, yes, that slight bite to it goes so well with this meat. Man, it’s making me feel like I wanna chug down some fruit wine or something.”
“That’s for sure. Hey, we didn’t see you in the afternoon yesterday, so do you not stay open till that time of day?”
“Yes. It takes some time to get back home to the forest’s edge, so we close up in the early afternoon.”
“That’s a shame. I’d love to buy two of these instead of paying the inn four coins for dinner.”
These folks from the south all had fierce looking faces when they were staying silent, but unlike the group from the east, they also showed extremely varied expressions.
And when I saw them loudly proclaiming how delicious my food was, it tugged my heart in all sorts of different directions, too.
“Man, that was good! Hey, are you going to be out here at this time again tomorrow?”
“Yes. At least for now, I intend to stay open for another nine days.”
“That so? We’re here in town till the end of next month, so we’ll come here every day for a meal.”
“Thank you! I’ll be awaiting your next visit.”
With that, the men from the south started to disperse.
Pops was still standing there with a sour look on his face, but Aldas gave him a light jab on the shoulder.
“Come on, let’s get going, Pops. It’s about time for work, right?”
And yet, Pops shot me a scary look and said, “Hey. That tarapa was good, so use kimyuus or karon instead of giba. If you did, I’d pay you some coins, too.”
“...I’m sorry. Right now, I don’t have any plans to use any meat but giba. But eventually, I do plan to start selling other dishes using it...”
“No matter what you make, the giba meat will ruin it,” the old-timer muttered, then he left.
Then, I glanced over and saw that the group in the cloaks still hadn’t budged so much as an inch.
However, the silver-haired youth at the head of the group then slowly approached.
“Saying giba meat, is bad, is strange. To me, it’s very tasty.”
“Thank you very much. If you’d like, then I’d love to have you stop by again sometime.”
“We’ll come, tomorrow. Once nine days, are over, will you stop, doing this shop?”
“No. If it looks like I can continue, then I’d like to keep on doing so.”
“It would make me happy, if you kept doing it. We’ll come, each day. We are here, for all of the blue month.”
The blue month... That must have meant next month, right?
I believe Kamyua said his job started on the 15th of next month, so I figured the month must have been just about to turn over.
“I am, the head of the, merchant group ‘Silver Vase,’ Shumiral Zi Sadumtino.”
“Huh?”
“I am, Shumiral Zi Sadumtino. What, is your name?”
“Ah... I’m Asuta of the Fa clan.”
“Asuta. Thank you. We’ll come back, tomorrow.”
With that, the group from Sym also departed.
“That was... amazing. We just sold 14 at once...?” Vina Ruu, who had been silently stirring the contents of the pot the whole time, suddenly chimed in for the first time in a while. “That just leaves six, right...? At this rate, we’ll probably sell them all, won’t we?”
“That’s right. I’m super happy about it.”
“And yet you look like you’re feeling many other things besides happiness... Why?”
“Ah, well... I mean, I guess I’m just frustrated about being told giba meat was gross after all. That’s the first time I’ve had something like that happen since Donda Ruu called my hamburgers poison.”
“I think the person saying that is the strange one in this case, though... My father just didn’t like the softness of the hamburgers, but those men were saying the giba meat itself didn’t taste good. There must be something wrong with their tongues...”
“That’s not true. Tastes just vary from person to person.”
Through my showdown with Donda Ruu, I had been reminded of that completely obvious fact.
And I’m sure the fact that my cooking earned a generally positive reception from the people of the forest’s edge and the folks from Sym was of course influenced by what they had eaten up till then, too.
I knew all that. I really did, but... Even so, that sense of defeat whirling around in my chest still wouldn’t subside.
Maybe that wasn’t even my pride as a chef, but just my childish frustration at having someone badmouth something I liked.
In that case, I should just shut those feelings away deep inside. But still... The people of the south were supposed to have less prejudice than those from the west, but they were the ones to say the giba meat wasn’t good. I’ve got to keep that fact firmly in mind as I plan how to move forward.
“Ah... Asuta, it’s that man who sells the vegetables.”
“Huh?” I questioned, looking up to find Dora and Tara coming our way from the south.
I shot them a slightly relieved smile, but then went “Huh?” and tilted my head.
There were two unfamiliar men following behind the father and daughter. They both had yellowish-brown skin and looked to be around Dora’s age. And they had the same sort of majorly strained smiles on their faces as the old-timer did when I first met him.
“Hey there, Asuta. How are things going?”
“Thanks for asking. Today’s going well. I mean, we’ve already sold 14.”
“Huh?! Then you’ll be out soon?”
“We have six left. There’s still plenty of time left till the sun hits its peak, so I’m certainly happy about it.”
“I see. I’m glad to hear it. Um... I’d like to have these two try those sample things, if that’s alright.”
The faces of those two men were now twitching in front of me and Vina Ruu.
“Of course. I’d appreciate that, myself, but... Who are these men?”
“They’re old acquaintances of mine. One sells cloth, and the other pots.”
“Ah! Are you the guy I bought this pot from?”
“Th-That’s right. I-I’m surprised you remember.”
Most men in their prime here in Genos were well built, so a scrawny guy like this really left an impression.
“These guys wouldn’t believe me even when I told them giba meat is delicious, so I dragged them here. So can you let them have a taste?”
“Naturally! Hold on just a moment. I’ll heat them back up for you.”
There were exactly two samples left on the plate, so I soaked them in the piping hot sauce, then placed them back on the plate.
The men from the pot and cloth shops exchanged a look, forcing smiles but looking like they were about to cry.
Tara watched the meat out of the corner of her eye as she tugged on her father’s arm.
“Dad, I’m hungry...”
“Ah, right. Asuta, could we order one from you in the meantime?”
“Thank you. It really does make me glad, hearing that the two of you are so fond of them.”
“I’m glad too, to have met folks like you from the forest’s edge.”
As he said that, he glanced over at Vina Ruu.
Vina Ruu smiled back, looking a bit troubled.
“We’re all citizens of the west, but for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to think of the people of the forest’s edge as my brethren. Even now, when I see any of those terrifying men, I just freeze in place, but... But even so, I really am glad to know that there are folks like you among them, too.”
As Dora accepted the giba burger, he gave a bright smile.
“Come by my shop again sometime. I’d like to have you eat some of the aria I’ve grown.”
“Yes, well, I’ll be sure to tell my family that, too...”
With a happy smile on his face, Dora bit into the giba burger.
“Ah... This giba burger thing really is delicious. I’m seriously happy knowing the vegetables I grew are being used in such wonderful cooking.”
“No, it’s because the ingredients themselves are delicious in the first place that I was able to make such a tasty dish. I’ll keep on counting on you for delicious aria and tarapa, Dora.”
“I can proudly take on that task, at least.”
With that, Dora turned to face his two friends.
“So, how long do you two plan on staying huddled up like that? You already left your shops and came all the way here, so at least give it a try.”
“W-We were forcefully dragged here, though,” the pot seller grumbled, but even so he still reached out for a sample. Though he trembled a bit, he picked up the toothpick, worked up his nerves, and tossed the little chunk of meat into his mouth.
“H-How is it?” the cloth seller asked, tugging on his friend’s arm.
“...It’s good. Seriously, it’s such a mysterious taste...”
“Ah, it’s made by finely chopping up meat and then balling it back up. So it might make for a bit of an unusual texture.”
The pot seller’s eyes seriously started to drift about. Then, he made up his mind and dug around in his clothing around his chest using those slender fingers of his.
“I-I’ll have one too! I won’t quite understand it if I don’t eat a bit more.”
“Right, thank you!”
“H-Hey, are you serious...?”
With that, the cloth seller grabbed a toothpick, too.
“Whoa, this is just plain tasty, isn’t it?!” he exclaimed, his eyes opening wide in shock as he peered into the pot. “This is really giba meat...? And man, this tarapa is really good, too!”
“Of course. I grew that tarapa, after all,” Dora chimed in, puffing his chest up with pride.
“W-What are you getting a big head over?” the cloth seller replied with a weak chuckle. Then he turned to me and said, “A-Alright, I’ll have one too! U-Um, it won’t make me grow horns or turn my skin all dark, will it...?”
“You believe in those superstitions? I’ve never seen a person of the forest’s edge with horns, and according to my grandmother they look the same as they did when they first came here from the southern forest.”
“I-I know that! Alright, give me one!”
“Thank you,” I said earnestly from the depths of my heart.
Yes, I really did have a ways to go, seeing as I was shaken by every little thing, whether I was getting all depressed from someone saying my cooking tasted bad or feeling happy when someone said it was good.
But at any rate, my fight was still only just getting started.
From tomorrow on, I would prepare 40 giba burgers.
And if it looks like those will sell out too, then I may have to start thinking of unveiling a new dish even sooner than I had planned.
Yes, I had a whole ton of things to consider.
Anyway, Kamyua Yoshu showed up out of nowhere like a ghost again and ordered one each for him and Leito, so once again we ended up completely selling out in less than an hour.
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