Episode 34: Tales from Our Seniors
“The soup is weak. But the ingredients are decent. Not much meat, though.”
“It’s just the rationed meal, what can you do? Isn’t it nice that there’s even bread? And look! It’s this big, you know?”
“This isn’t enough for me. I wonder if there’s any prey around.”
“I don’t think any Monsters would approach this line.”
“Fufu, I’ve prepared properly!”
Brenda had a smug look on her face, but that wasn’t the case.
“Eh? What’s with that face?”
“You shouldn’t dip into your reserves from the very first night, you know?”
Mira-san said.
“Eh? Eh?”
Brenda was perplexed.
“If it’s something that doesn’t keep well, you should eat it first. But you wouldn’t bring something like that, would you?”
“O-of course not!”
“You have to save those things for later.”
This wasn’t a standardized modern army. You never knew when you might not get another meal. If you could conserve your own supplies, you should.
“I can see a Forest a little ways off. If we go there, there might be something.”
“It’d be nice if it was a Forest with something worth eating.”
“I’m honestly not good at hunting in Forests. I’ll leave it to someone who can do it. Looks like a few people are heading there anyway, so it should be fine to go, right?”
“It might be a good idea to get permission first.”
“Then I’ll leave that to you. I’ll go with… let’s see. Brenda.”
“Me!? I don’t mind, but…”
“Am I no good?”
“It’s our first time meeting. I don’t trust you enough to leave my stuff with you yet, do I?”
I had marked the location in case it disappeared, but well, that was true.
“…Understood, I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Hmph! Expect something big!”
“I wonder if there’s anything big?”
““There probably isn’t.””
“What’s with you guys!”
“Well, the town’s close by.”
Even if you shout like that, what’s not there isn’t there.
“Lampress Bird. I managed to hunt two of them. And a Bat Snake. I made sure to properly drain the blood from the Lampress Bird. The snake is freshly caught.”
“Ooh.”
Lampress Birds were Monster birds that lived in Forests with tall trees. Bat Snakes were, as the name suggested, snakes with bat wings. Both were edible Monsters without any Poison. I was surprised they brought back such proper prey.
“Ugh, how plain.”
“Hmm?”
“Because we just found a Nest and attacked it.”
“Hunting is usually like that.”
“That’s right. You did that when you were a low-rank Adventurer, right?”
“Yeah, but…”
“More importantly, about the butchering… can anyone do it?”
The adults shook their heads.
“I’m not good with small stuff like this. The amount of edible parts decreases.”
The big guy who didn’t shake his head apparently wasn’t good at it.
“Then I’ll do it. I’ll borrow some tools.”
“Oh, please do. What do you need?”
“A cutting board big enough for these guys, and, let’s see. Do you have any pots?”
“I do.”
“…Grams, why do you have so many pots when you can’t even butcher things yourself?”
And they were huge, too.
“Because I can do it for big prey. And to leave it to someone who can.”
He didn’t have to say it with such confidence.
“Well, whatever, there’s firewood too. I’ll make a Kamado Stove. Do you have a frying pan?”
“I do.”
“Lend it to me.”
This one’s huge too.
For now, two Kamado Stoves. I’ll use Telekinesis Magic to raise the ground and shape it. Since it’s dirt, I need to harden it a bit.
“Earth Magic, huh?”
“Nope, non-attribute. I’m not good with elemental magic.”
“Is that so?”
While talking, I used Telekinesis on the Lampress Bird with its head already removed, squeezing out more blood.
I threw them into the holes I made when I built the Kamado Stove.
“Do you need the feathers?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t need ’em.”
“Can you use them for something?”
“For fletching arrows. Well, only the big ones, though.”
“Don’t need ’em, huh.”
“Then I’ll throw them away. Or rather, can I throw away everything except the edible parts?”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s fine.”
The two who brought back the prey nodded, so I decided to throw them away.
“Roger that. Oh, someone light the firewood. I’m going to heat up the pot.”
“Aye aye. I’ll light the fire.”
“Do you need water?”
“I’ll take it from my Magic Water Bottle, so it’s fine.”
I showed them the bamboo cylinder water bottle hanging from my waist.
“You don’t have to worry about the amount? You have quite a bit.”
“I have an acquaintance who will make them as long as I provide the materials.”
That would be Grandma. Of course, it was less compared to this one made with a Magic Core.
“Those are quite expensive, aren’t they?”
“It’s user-registered, so only I can use it.”
“That’s not what I meant! And introduce me to the person who can make them!”
“Well, preparing the materials would be difficult.”
When asking Grandma, I needed a high-purity Water attribute Magic Stone that was the size of this bamboo cylinder. In other words, a small A-rank Water attribute Monster. They mostly lived underwater, so defeating them was difficult.
“If you run out of water along the way, let me know. I’ll provide it.”
“…That would be helpful.”
““We have something similar, so we’re fine.””
“Well, there’s a limit to the amount, but it seems okay for now.”
“Gunuunuunu.”
While talking, I continued to butcher the prey. I peeled the skin off the Lampress Bird that I had taken apart on the cutting board, and scraped the meat off the bones.
I secretly put the thickest bones of the Lampress Bird into a cloth bag that I had cast a cleaning magic on with my portable lamp, after cracking them by hitting the bones against each other. The same for the second one. I put the bones into the boiling pot to make broth.
“That’s fast. And you’re floating a lot of things.”
“It’s Telekinesis Magic. It’s convenient for doing work all at once.”
“O-okay.”
“As expected of someone Iserina-sama has her eye on.”
“Hmph.”
“…I’m hungry.”
One person’s vocabulary was starting to decline. I should hurry since I didn’t have much time.
“Should I grill the snake?”
It would be troublesome to take out the bones to put it in the soup. They could handle it themselves.
“Delicious.”
“Haguhaguhaguhaguhaguhagu.”
“What is this taste? Where did it come from?”
“Ah, I did add some extra seasoning.”
“It’s delicious.”
The bread was hard, so I soaked it in the soup while eating.
Apparently, there was still some of the rationed soup left, so I took it, dumped it into the pot, added water to increase the volume, and added thinly sliced and lightly grilled Lampress Bird meat, along with a stick-shaped solid seasoning (consommé flavor) and salt.
The Bat Snake was grilled with salt. Raise-san took over from me halfway through, so I left the seasoning to him.
All the garbage from the butchering was in the ground. The Kamado Stove had already been dismantled.
“As expected, meat that hasn’t been aged doesn’t have much flavor.”
“Well, that’s impossible since it’s freshly caught. It wouldn’t matter if it was a Monster with a higher concentration of magic essence, though.”
“Aging?”
“What’s that?”
“Who knows…”
“Could it be that no one except Raise-san cooks?”
The two women nodded.
“I can at least grill.”
“How wild.”
Grams probably liked to roast everything whole.
“Um, Mira-san too?”
“Don’t say it.”
Her husband stopped her.
“But it’s delicious. It would go well with alcohol.”
“It would.”
“Are you a Chef instead of an Adventurer?”
“Indeed, you can easily cook in such a short amount of time.”
Butchering is more difficult, you know?
“Are you all from the Royal Capital? I’m from the countryside, the son of a hunter, so I was taught this stuff a lot.”
They were convinced by those words. It was quite convenient.
“I’m from the south. But I’m interested in this aging thing. What is it?”
Hmm, I said it, but I don’t know the details from a systematic point of view.
“Dried Meat has a strong flavor, right? It’s that.”
“!”
“I see!”
“I understand!”
“Well, is that explanation okay…”
“It’s fine as long as it gets the message across.”
They seemed to understand, so it was fine.
“Theft, huh. Why do they do it when they’ll get caught?”
“In a place like this, the Knights Order’s superiors decide the punishment. It’ll either be whipping or being sent to the front lines. Well, they probably won’t be killed.”
The third day of travel. Apparently, there was a theft incident.
Or rather, it seemed to have been happening regularly, but today was the first time it reached my ears.
“We have to be careful after all.”
“It’s a pain, though. It sometimes happens even with Guild joint requests.”
“We never take on joint requests with this many people.”
“Well, the scale is completely different between the country and the Guild, isn’t it?”
I wondered if Brenda had ever taken on a joint request.
“The one I took on before was, let’s see, the Stun Manta one. It was near the Royal Capital, so it was a day trip.”
“Something happened, didn’t it? I heard about it after it was over, but that was also a national project, wasn’t it?”
It seemed Mira-san had heard about it.
“This is completely different from that time. I thought joint requests at the Guild were like that.”
Raise-san smiled a little at my words.
“Joint requests led by the Guild are often requests that are more financially rewarding.”
“Eh? Is that so?”
“Joint requests are when the country, the Lord, or the Knights Order want manpower and put out money. Sometimes, great nobles are recruiting. There are many Dungeon cases.”
“There are many Dungeon cases…”
Raise-san explained.
“It’s the job of the Lord and the local nobles. The Dungeons in the lands they manage belong to them. Dungeons appear suddenly, so many nobles issue requests as soon as one is found. And Dungeon cases that tend to be large in scale are mostly joint requests.”
“Well, they can’t just leave them alone, can they?”
If a flood were to occur, even ordinary villages and towns could be easily destroyed.
“Then there are the joint requests for Dungeons that have been successfully brought under control. Some nobles have their own exclusive units… but thinning out the Monsters inside, or investigating abnormal occurrences, can become large-scale, so the Guild often makes it a joint request.”
“I was once scouted for an exclusive unit. I passed, though.”
Recruiting is apparently thriving.
“In contrast, Guild-led joint requests are often issued because the Guild can see a large profit even if they have to send people.”
“Have you ever taken one?”
“A few times. When a herd of Jewel Unicorns was found, it was especially lucrative.”
“Oh, they come in herds?”
Their rank as Monsters is quite high, you know? They’re fast and good at magic.
“They were indeed a dangerous bunch. That’s why the Guild gathered people and made it a joint request. If the Guild leads the request, those who belong to the Guild won’t touch it unless they accept the request. It becomes easier to monopolize the profits. In the case of Jewel Unicorns, their horns sell for a high price. They’re originally strong Monsters, so their materials don’t easily flow into the market. The Guild can decide the price as they like.”
“That sounds profitable.”
The purchase price was high, after all.
“But there were quite a few injured and dead.”
“High risk, high return. Recovery types like me can just wait and get a share, which is nice, but if the vanguard isn’t solid, it can be a waste of time.”
“Come to think of it, there was a time when the vanguard was almost completely wiped out.”
“Wiped out in a joint operation…?”
The damage must have been terrible.
“Hmm, they’re taking him away. Looks like he’s being sent to the front lines.”
“The ones taking him are having a hard time too.”
Three groups of soldiers, looking like soldiers on horseback, are leading the way. A man with his hands tied is being dragged along at about running speed. It might be for show.
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I am applying for Kakuyomu Con 10.
I’ve heard rumors that following the work and ☆ reviews seem to affect the ranking, so I’d like those. Please.