Chapter 3: Visitors to the Forest’s Edge

1

At last, the day had arrived. It was the twenty-first of the black month, when we would be welcoming Mikel and Myme to the forest’s edge as guests.

Before all that, though, we had to safely conclude our business in the post town. At any rate, I went ahead and suppressed my excitement as best I could as I carried out the day’s work.

We did happen to have a somewhat unusual customer right after we finished with the initial morning rush when we opened. Which is to say, it was the first time in a while the head chef for the house of Daleim, Yang, had visited our stalls.

“It’s been some time, Sir Asuta.”

“Yeah, long time no see, Yang. What business brings you here today?”

Yang was an older man than even Mikel, and a skinny one at that. Though he tended to act rather stiff, he had an unusual amount of passion when it came to cooking.

After giving a polite bow, Yang then gestured toward the two women standing behind him.

“I have new workers at my stalls who I wished to introduce to you, so I came to the post town a touch early.”

They were both young women with refined features fitting for residents of the castle town. One of them was a bit tall and seemed very earnest, while the other had a small build and a willful look about her. The former seemed to be around my age, while the later was probably around two or three years younger.

“This is Sheila, an attendant for Lord Polarth; and this is Nicola, who started working at the Daleim manor the other day.”

The older girl was Sheila, while the younger one was Nicola. They both bowed their heads, Sheila timidly and Nicola sulkily.

“I’m Asuta of the Fa clan, a person of the forest’s edge. Pleased to meet you both.”

That said, I didn’t know the names of anyone who had worked at Yang’s stall up till now, and I only ever stopped by when he was debuting a new dish. I couldn’t imagine us becoming particularly close from here on out either...but then Sheila spoke up and said something unexpected.

“Um, Sir Asuta...is your clan head Lady Ai Fa in good health?”

“Huh? How do you know Ai Fa’s name?”

“Well...the truth is, before Lord Polarth took Lady Ai Fa to the Turan manor to rescue you, at one point we had a chance to talk in the Daleim manor,” Sheila replied, her cheeks blushing red for some reason. “I’m certain Lady Ai Fa has no memory of my name or face...but every day, I pray to the four gods that she remains in good health.”

“Oh, really? Thank you for that.”

If she had a positive impression of Ai Fa, then that was a good thing.

At any rate though, I entrusted the stall to Yamiru Lea and then stepped over in front of Yang’s group.

“Oh, right, the thing is, today we invited Mikel and his daughter Myme to our house at the forest’s edge.”

“What’s this now? Why is Sir Mikel going to your house, Sir Asuta?”

“Um, it’d take a little too long to explain fully, but to sum it up, Myme has an interest in my cooking skills. And Mikel’s more just reluctantly accompanying her.”

“I see... So Sir Mikel is coming to your home...”

Yang was also someone who had known Mikel back when he was a chef. And there was this one occasion when the two of them had a chance meeting at my stall. Looking back on it, Yang had started opening up to me after that chance meeting.

“Sir Mikel was a truly splendid chef. He served for some time as the head chef of The Maiden in White, a small restaurant renowned for the high quality of its cooking,” Yang said with an uneasy sigh. “But then he met with such a fate just for catching Count Turan’s attention... How could anyone do something so brutal as to sever the muscles in a chef’s arm? I simply cannot fathom it.”

“I certainly agree with you there... Now that I think about it, just how long has it been since that terrible thing happened to him?”

“It was roughly five years ago now. At the time, I was confident that he was easily among the top three chefs in the castle town.”

Five years ago... Ever since then, Mikel had been driven out of the castle town and kept on living in the Turan lands making charcoal.

When I first met him at The Sledgehammer, Mikel had been dead drunk in the middle of the day. And then he shouted at me that if I wanted to live as a chef, I shouldn’t remain here in Genos. Just how had he felt, raising such a young daughter...? Someone my age could surely never even begin to imagine.

“If she happened to receive instruction from Sir Mikel, that girl must also be quite a skilled chef. Is she still young, though?”

“Yes, she’s apparently just ten years old.”

“Is that so? Perhaps Sir Mikel has started seriously attempting to raise his daughter as a chef now that the former head of the house of Turan has been judged. I certainly look forward to seeing how her future plays out.” Then with yet another pensive sigh, Yang bowed his head. “And I want to strive at my own work so that I will not fall behind. At any rate, my apologies for interrupting you during such a busy period.”

“Ah, not at all. Thanks for coming all this way.”

With that, I returned to the stall for the giba meat poitan wraps.

And as I did so, Rimee Ruu called out, “Hey, Asuta,” from the neighboring giba burger stall. “That was that chef from the castle town, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was Yang, the head chef for the house of Daleim. Apparently the girls with him are starting work at his stalls today.”

“I see. That girl kinda had a sad look on her face, didn’t she?”

“Huh? You mean the tall one?”

“No, the other smaller girl.”

Ultimately, Nicola hadn’t said so much as a single word.

I had just thought of her as being strong-willed, but it seemed that Rimee Ruu had a different impression. But, well, I was known to be a terrible judge of these things, so Rimee Ruu was probably right.

“Well, you never know what life may hold... Ah, sorry for shoving everything on you when things are so busy, Yamiru Lea.”

“I don’t especially mind. Three customers didn’t draw lots though, so could you remove that many?”

“Right, got it.”

Since there were the same number of losing sticks as total meals prepared, whenever customers didn’t draw a lot we had to remove that many. And currently, there seemed to be around half left of the special item, the giba cutlet sandwich, or about fifteen.

“Ah, it’s Tara! Yay, welcome!”

“Oh, Rimee Ruu! Long time no see!”

That exchange marked the arrival of Dora and his beloved daughter Tara.

Perhaps it went without saying, but when Rimee Ruu was granted permission to help with business in the post town, Tara was just as ecstatic as the girl herself. And so, she now stood between the stalls with a big grin on her face.

“I brought a basket since we’re buying a whole lot today! Um, we’ll take five poitan wraps, two each of the giba burgers and giba manju, and one myamuu giba!”

“Whoa, that really is a lot!”

“Yeah! On top of buying for me and dad, the cloth and pot sellers asked us to get them some since they were busy, and so did Granny Mishil and someone from one of the inns! And dad and the pot seller eat two poitan wraps each.”

“I see. Well, thanks a ton. And what should we do about the giba cutlet sandwich lots?”

“We’ll pull for all of them! I’m sure dad and the pot seller wanted two poitan wraps so they could draw twice.”

Even so, the odds of drawing a winner were roughly one in thirteen. And so, it was up to Tara’s luck to determine how many she could draw when pulling for ten meals.

“I hope you get a winner!” Rimee Ruu said with a smile as she held out the wooden sticks.

“For dad! For the pot seller!” Tara excitedly proclaimed as she pulled the lots one by one. It really was adorable how the corners of her eyes drooped whenever she took a look.

Still, she just didn’t seem to be pulling a winner. But at long last, Lady Luck finally smiled on Tara right at the end.

“For Granny Mishil!” she shouted as she pulled the tenth stick, which finally had a red mark on it. After staring dumbfounded, she leapt up in the air with a “Hooray!”

“That’s good. But it’s bad luck for you, isn’t it, Tara?”

“No! Granny Mishil likes the giba manju more than the oily giba cutlet sandwiches, so she said I could have it if she won!”

“Really?! Then I’m happy for you!” Rimee Ruu replied, now bouncing along.

It was just so adorable that I couldn’t help but break out in a smile.

“Well then, I’ll change out one of the poitan wraps for a giba cutlet sandwich. The price is now three red coins, so is that all right?”

“Yes, please!”

With that, I went ahead and made the four poitan wraps I was in charge of preparing. And as the other stalls finished up one dish after another, the woven basket Tara had prepared continued to fill up.

“Oh, right! Don’t you have to let Tara know about that thing, Asuta?” Rimee Ruu questioned, jogging my memory.

Tara then looked at me and Rimee Ruu in confusion. “You have something to tell me?”

“Yeah, the thing is, we actually have two acquaintances from Turan coming today to visit the settlement at the forest’s edge.”

“Ooh, really?! I’d sure love to go too...”

“You said something like that before, didn’t you? That’s why I wanted to make sure to let you know.” Tara just tilted her head, looking like she didn’t quite get it. “I mean, tensions were still high with the nobles back then, so we couldn’t invite you because it was too dangerous. But that was a month or so ago and circumstances have changed... Do you still want to come play at the forest’s edge, Tara?”

“Yeah! But mom and everyone said I can’t...”

“I see. Well, it’s no longer especially dangerous, but I suppose since there are still giba and mundt around, it’s not exactly the sort of place you can visit casually just to play,” I said, then I bent down and looked straight into Tara’s eyes. “But there’s no danger coming and going there in a wagon, and giba and mundt don’t show up around the Fa or Ruu houses during the day, so it really isn’t scary at all. That just leaves the question of whether your mom would be okay with sending you off, I’d say.”

“Yeah...”

“So I figured, why not try chipping away at her reluctance about whether you and Dora can come visit the settlement at the forest’s edge together at some point. I get the feeling the people of the forest’s edge and the townsfolk have started getting a lot friendlier with one another over this past month and change, so if we can all come to understand each other just a bit more, I’m sure you’ll be able to come play.”

“Right,” Tara nodded. There was an even firmer look of understanding shining in her eyes now than I had expected.

Up until just a few months ago, Tara had been one of those townsfolk who was terrified of the people of the forest’s edge. So it wasn’t like I couldn’t understand how the people close to her could be so concerned.

“Today’s visitors to the forest’s edge are actually a girl just a bit older than you and her father. Why not try telling your mom and dad about how folks like that are now able to visit the forest’s edge? That story’s sure to help them feel more at ease.”

“Yup, I will. Thanks for doing so much for me, Asuta.”

“Nah, it’s just that Rimee Ruu and I really want to invite you to the forest’s edge too. Right, Rimee Ruu?”

“Yeah! And I’d love to come play at your house too!”

A joyful smile spread on Tara’s face. “It really would be nice if that could happen.”

“It sure would.”

“Yup.”

“Uh-huh.”

The girls from the forest’s edge and post town were staring at one another, their eyes sparkling brightly.

Maybe what us grownups needed was to face one another head-on like that.

Kamyua Yoshu once said that it wasn’t particularly as if he wanted to see the hunters of the forest’s edge and the townsfolk coming together and joining hands...but I did. As someone who held folks from both of those groups close to my heart, I couldn’t imagine a better result.

2

As we started cleaning up after finishing our work with the stalls, Mikel and Myme showed up just as promised at the lower second hour.

“I look forward to working with you today, Asuta!” Myme declared, her flushed cheeks soon disappearing from view as she took a deep bow. In her slender hand she held some sort of huge leather container. The thing had a rectangular shape to it, and kinda reminded me of a suitcase. Though it appeared to be quite old, the hinges and handle were made of metal, so it was likely a pretty high-class item.

“Yeah, me too. Do you have your cooking tools in that container...?”

“Yes. My dad handed them down to me.”

The dad in question, Mikel, wore a seriously sour look on his face again today.

If they were to have a competition for the grumpiest face around, either Mikel here or Milano Mas would be nominated as this town’s candidate for sure. And it’d definitely make for an exciting match when Donda Ruu or Gulaf Zaza was nominated for the forest’s edge.

“Well then, could we have you hop into the wagon and wait? We still have to do our shopping and visit the money exchange. And Mikel, you come over here too.”

At my prompting, Mikel followed me off to the side.

Just what exactly did he think about his daughter saying she wanted to observe me cooking at the settlement at the forest’s edge? While he didn’t seem strongly opposed, he also didn’t appear all that happy about it either.

“So we’re heading to the Ruu clan’s settlement first?”

“Yeah. The Ruu are one of the leading clans of the forest’s edge. And they’ve all been looking forward to your arrival, Myme.”

“Right! I’ll try my hardest not to let them down!” Myme replied, her eyes filled with anticipation as she got into the wagon.

Just what sort of dish would Myme prepare with giba meat? My heart was beating like I was a young maiden in love just at the thought.

But at any rate, we made it safely to the Ruu settlement.

As far as I knew, only a small handful of townsfolk had ever set foot in the settlement at the forest’s edge. Kamyua Yoshu and his apprentice Leito, Shumiral who came as a guest of the Fa clan, and Jeeda and Bartha who were currently living at the Ruu settlement... They were all I could think of.

Aside from that, there were the two times, ten years ago and a few months back, we had merchant groups heading for Sym (or in the latter instance, people pretending to be one), but they didn’t set foot in the settlement and simply went to cut through the forest instead. Plus someone sneaked into the Zaza settlement where Zuuro Suun was being held, and Lefreya and Sanjura came to the entrance of the Ruu settlement to talk to me, but I figured those could be treated as exceptions.

At any rate, it was an undeniable fact that it was incredibly unusual for anyone from town to be invited to the settlement at the forest’s edge as guests.

Still, thanks to all that strife involving the house of Turan, Kamyua Yoshu and Leito had been continuously visiting, and currently Jeeda and Bartha were living here, so the folks at the Ruu settlement had surely built up a tolerance by this point. As I led the wagon into the plaza with the reins, there were women from the branch houses greeting us the same as always.

“We’ve arrived. Welcome to the Ruu settlement,” I declared as I stopped in front of the kitchen behind the main house.

When she stepped down from the wagon, Myme went, “Ooh...” as she looked all around. “Amazing... We really are in the middle of the forest.”

“Yeah. But there’s nothing around here for the giba to eat, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

It was around then that Mia Lea Ruu approached, wearing a smile. “Good work, Asuta... And to our visitors from town, welcome to the Ruu house. I’m the wife of the main house’s head, Donda Ruu, and my name is Mia Lea Ruu. I can’t say I’m all that well versed on speaking politely, but still, I gladly welcome you both.”

“P-Pleased to meet you! I’m Myme of Turan, and this is my father Mikel,” Myme said with a bow of her head, while Mikel just sort of absentmindedly tugged at his chin. And unsurprisingly, Mia Lea Ruu looked over the two of them with a smile.

“From what I can see, you don’t appear to have any weapons on you. But what’s in that big container? Ingredients? Or blades?”

“Ah, there are knives and spoons and the like in here to use in my cooking.”

“Then could you entrust that to me for just a moment while we go to the kitchen? At the forest’s edge, the custom is that guests need to enter a home without any blades on their person.”

While Ai Fa and I were granted exceptions, that was indeed the rule. But after looking uneasy for a moment, Myme handed the leather case to Mia Lea Ruu without a word.

“Thank you. You’re certainly a good girl, aren’t you? Well then, let me guide you to the kitchen... It’s over this way.”

Myme and Mikel headed off following Mia Lea Ruu’s directions. Meanwhile, we unloaded the luggage and set about cleaning the dirty trays and pans.

For today, the Ruu group consisted of Reina and Rimee Ruu, Tsuvai, and Morun Rutim. Since there had been a day in between, all the members were the same aside from Rimee Ruu.

Then there was the Fa group of me, Toor Deen, Yamiru Lea, and Li Sudra. When you added in Mia Lea and Sheera Ruu on top of that, it already made for a packed kitchen, so Bartha went ahead and passed on participating today.

“It’s finally time, isn’t it?” Reina Ruu murmured with a serious expression.

“I’ve been so excited for this!” Rimee Ruu said.

Then there was Toor Deen looking just a bit nervous, while everyone else seemed the same as always. In particular, Tsuvai and Yamiru Lea appeared to be totally uninterested.

“Well, first off we’ve got to handle the preparations for tomorrow, so please hold on for just a bit as we get that done.”

Myme’s passionate gaze followed me as I stepped into the kitchen.

However, her eyes weren’t locked on me. Instead, they were focused on the chunk of giba meat I carried out from the pantry.

“That’s giba meat, right?”

“Yeah, this is half of a female giba. Male giba are wilder and are harder to capture in good condition, so most of the meat we use in our business comes from females.”

I gently laid the dressed carcass that had been cleanly cut in half atop the work station. The ribs and spine and the like had all been removed, leaving behind a roughly twenty kilo chunk of meat. Since the legs were still attached, those had to be removed first. That job belonged to me and Toor Deen.

All the other women were already working away silently on their own tasks. And since this was daily work for us, they all knew what to do without needing me to hand out directions.

In the midst of all that, Myme’s gaze remained fixed solely on me.

“We’re cutting this up into parts now to make tomorrow morning’s work easier,” I explained as I sliced into the giba with my Jagar-made meat-cutting knife. “The taste and toughness of giba meat changes quite a bit depending on the part. The fat is spread throughout the back and chest, so it’s suited to being thinly sliced and fried, while the legs have more concentrated fat that makes them better suited to be used in soup or minced up.”

“I see. So what I’ve had from your stalls used back or chest meat, then?”

“Yeah, since we can’t really serve soup dishes at the stalls. Now that I think about it, have you ever handled karon torso meat before, Myme...? I don’t have experience with that, so I can’t really compare it to giba meat.”

“No, I’ve never used karon torso meat. All I’ve cooked with is karon leg meat and skinless kimyuus.”

That was about what I had expected. Nowadays you could purchase any ingredient as long as you had the coins, but karon torso and kimyuus with the skin still attached were quite expensive, so they still weren’t easily available.

But in that case, it meant that Myme had never once used properly fatty meat. I was just a bit worried if she would be able to properly prepare giba meat when I considered that.

Well, I’m sure she’ll be fine. I mean, Mikel trained her after all, I thought to myself as we finished up with the preparations. Everything really did seem to be flowing smoother day by day.

With that out of the way, it was the time for the study session with the members of the Ruu clan. The plan was for both Myme and I to show off our skills during this period, but unsurprisingly I ended up going first.

“Well then, how about we review making tino rolls for today? It’d be good to get this down pat, since I’m hoping to share the work for The Kimyuus’s Tail with the Ruu clan, starting in the next contract period.”

“Right. Thank you,” Sheera Ruu said with a dead-serious look in her eyes as she quietly bowed. And Reina Ruu did the same, not saying so much as a word.

It was no surprise that these two were more fired up than anyone by Myme’s presence. After all, they were the most passionate about improving their cooking skills out of the whole Ruu clan.

“This dish is one that I offer at the inns. It involved wrapping finely-minced giba meat in tino and then boiling it. And I use tarapa as the base for the broth’s flavor.”

“I see. So this is a different dish than those giba burgers you sell at your stalls?”

“Yeah. The steps to make them are a bit similar, but I’d say the dishes themselves are completely different.”

With that, we all set about making tino rolls, me to give Myme a sample to try, and everyone else for their own practice. Since the Ruu clan women had said they were planning on making extra to use for dinner, I turned to face Mia Lea Ruu, since she was in charge here.

“Er, this dish uses minced meat, so will Donda and Jiza Ruu be all right with it?”

“It’ll be fine. Tino rolls are those really juicy things, aren’t they? So it’s the same thing as sinking hamburger steak in soup, I’d say. Besides, even our clan head understands perfectly well how tasty minced meat can be by this point. After all, the taste is totally different between stuff like plain grilled or boiled meat and dishes like hamburger steak.”

“Oh really? Glad to hear it.”

“And anyway, lately we’ve been offering two or more different meat dishes as much as possible. So if we go with a thick steak for the other one, that should give his jaw and teeth enough of a workout, so he’ll be plenty satisfied and able to enjoy the dinner.”

Having been granted that permission, I set about making the tino rolls. Since the dish didn’t really use much in the way of new ingredients, I figured it would be well suited for Myme to taste test.

“Well then, first up comes prepping the ingredients. You finely mince up the giba thigh meat, along with any leftover scraps or bits still clinging to a bone that you might have lying around.”

“Right.”

“Once that’s done, you sprinkle on salt, pico leaves, and finely chopped myamuu, then knead it well until it feels nice and sticky. After that, you boil the tino in plenty of water, but you want to add salt to it first. You can use about one percent, er, one hundredth of the amount of water.”

“Why do you add salt to the water?”

“That helps keep the nutrients from escaping out of the vegetables, and also maintains color. Still, that was just the custom in my old country, so I don’t know how effective it is with tino. But it worked with any green vegetable back where I came from, at least.”

“You’re from overseas, aren’t you, Asuta?” Myme asked, her eyes brimming with curiosity. “The thought of meeting a chef born outside of this continent is enough to get me all excited by itself. I really do feel blessed to have run into a chef like you with so many unique techniques.”

“Ah ha ha, I’d consider it an honor if I managed to show you even a little.”

“No, really, by this point, you’ve already been an utterly irreplaceable influence in my life.”

Hearing that really did make me feel bashful. However, I was getting a pretty searing look from Reina Ruu at the same time. I didn’t know if it was due to the rivalry she felt toward Myme or what, but she had been shooting an intense glare for a while now. But I just endured that gaze and set about the next step.

“Once the tino’s boiled, you let it cool down enough that it won’t burn you and then cut away any tough core bits and the like. Then you use a wooden spoon to form the meat filling from before into a long rounded shape like so, placing it on top. Let’s go ahead and make these about the size we serve at the inn.”

It used around 120 grams of meat, and had a retail price of three red coins. And currently, it was the hottest seller at The Kimyuus’s Tail.

“Then you wrap the tino around the filling, and tie it with fibaha vines.”

“You tie up your dish with string?! I heard such methods were used in the castle town, but still...”

“Yup. If you don’t tie them together or use wooden skewers to hold them in place, the filling will all go spilling out.”

It took quite a bit of effort to investigate whether or not using these vines would have any negative impact on the dishes. Meanwhile, apparently in the castle town they had a type of string meant exclusively for cooking.

“Then, you place the bound ingredients in a pot, add some finely-sliced aria and nenon, and boil it all together with tarapa. For the broth, add water and fruit wine, along with just a bit of tau oil for flavor. Then you heat it slowly over a low flame, and all that’s left is tweaking the flavor at the end.”

At that point, we lit up all four stoves in the kitchen, so it didn’t take long for it to get rather hot in the room.

“Well, while that’s boiling we can have Myme— Gah!” I suddenly shouted before I could stop myself. That was because three faces had crept into the window right in front of me: Vina Ruu, Lala Ruu, and Bartha. “Wh-What are you three doing?”

“Huh...? We want to see the guest cook, of course...”

“That’s right! We can’t just leave things be after hearing how she may be a better chef than you, Asuta!”

“We won’t get in the way, so don’t mind us and just carry on with your work.”

It seemed that Bartha was completely blending in with the main Ruu house by this point. While that was certainly a good thing, it was also kinda bad for my nerves.

And meanwhile, Myme was looking my way with a troubled smile.

“That’s too much, saying I’m more skilled than you. Asuta, have you been telling people that?”

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it or anything.”

“I’m certain I’ll let everyone down, but I’ll try my hardest to make them smile instead,” Myme proclaimed as she placed the leather case atop the work station.

While her cheeks were turning red, there was a clear drive shining in her light brown eyes.

“Well then, I’d like to also begin cooking. Could you share just a bit of giba meat with me?”

3

“Which part of the giba will you use? Could I have you give them a taste test before cooking?” I asked, holding out the plate with the slices of meat I had prepared in advance toward Myme. It was a bite each of sirloin, rib meat, and thigh meat.

“Okay, if I grill them up and give them a try, that should help me grasp the pure taste of giba meat, I’d imagine.”

“You can borrow my handheld pot.”

Since all the stoves in the kitchen were occupied, Myme, Mikel, Mia Lea Ruu, and I went outside. Then, I pulled out a cooking tool from the wagon.

In this world it was called a handheld or single-handled pot, but back where I came from it was known as a frying pan. Naturally, this was a new cooking tool I had purchased from Diel along with a saucepan.

“Thank you. Well then, allow me to grill these up.”

Mia Lea Ruu lit up the outdoor stove, and before long those three pieces of meat were grilling away. And since all three cuts were plenty fatty, there was no need to worry about anything burning.

Meanwhile, Vina Ruu’s group of three had circled around and were now staring from the shadows along the wall.

“What are you all up to? You’ve at least finished your own work, haven’t you?” Mia Lea Ruu asked in an astounded tone.

“Of course,” Lala Ruu replied. “We’re all done with skinning pelts and drying out pico leaves. Vina and I rushed to get it finished together.”

“Then why not just come on out and observe normally? You’re going to worry our guests for no reason, sneaking around like that.”

And so, we got three additional spectators.

Still, Myme was already focused on the giba meat, so she paid them no heed.

“Just like with kimyuus meat, you should grill giba thoroughly enough that all the red goes away.”

“Right, understood.”

She then flipped over the three pieces of meat using the wooden spatula I had loaned her, revealing nicely grilled surfaces on each of them.

“These pieces of meat are so small, but they have so much fat on them.”

“Yeah. That alone should already tell you how it’s an even more wonderful ingredient than skinless kimyuus or karon leg meat, right?”

Myme nodded, moving the single-handled pot off the stove. Apparently her intention was to cook them the rest of the way using the residual heat.

“Once they’re done, you can move them over to this fresh plate.”

“Right, thank you.”

After just ten more seconds, Myme swiftly transferred the meat out of the pan. They really did look exquisitely grilled.

“Well then, allow me to give them a taste,” Myme said with a serious expression as she started by bringing the sirloin to her mouth.

Though it was a single bite’s worth, she only bit off half of it before returning the rest to the plate.

Rather than offering any impressions, she moved on to the rib and thigh meat, eating just half of each of those too.

“This... This really is high-quality meat. And is it preserved with pico leaves rather than salt?”

“Yeah. We can pick as many pico leaves as we want from the forest’s edge, so there’s no need to use salt for that. We only use it when we’re making jerky.”

“Oh, really?”

As she meticulously chewed the thigh meat that she had gone for last, Myme then held out the plate toward Mikel. Mikel had been as still and silent as a statue, and now he shot his daughter a quizzical look.

“What is it? There’s no need for me to test it, is there?”

“There may not be, but you’re interested in giba meat too, aren’t you?”

At that, Mikel silently accepted the plate.

Then, as her father carefully sampled the meat, Myme turned toward me.

“It was delicious. And there really was a change in toughness and taste based on the parts used too.”

“Yup. Differences in the distribution of fat can have a big impact on taste and texture. The fat concentrates around the edges of thigh meat, so the meat packed in the middle is denser and tougher, while the meat and fat are arranged in layers around the chest, making that cut the most tender. Then with the back, the fat is spread moderately throughout the meat, making it chewy but not overly tough.”

“Right. It really was a surprise that it was this tasty just from grilling it,” Myme replied, and then she suddenly tilted her head. “Now that I think about it, you’ve bought charcoal from dad before, haven’t you, Asuta? Sprinkling salt on top and grilling it over a charcoal fire should be plenty tasty too, I assume.”

“Yeah. I do a lot of charcoal grilling back home myself. But we always have customers coming and going at the stalls, so we need to cook the meat all at once on trays to keep up.”

“I see,” Myme murmured, placing her hand on her slender chin and thinking. “It feels like if you weren’t careful, a dish could easily end up tasting worse than just grilling the meat. That certainly makes for quite a difficult challenge.”

“Should I have prepared some karon or kimyuus meat after all?”

“No. I feel very honored to have the chance to cook such delicious meat,” Myme said with a smile so reassuring it was hard to think it was coming from a ten-year-old. “I’ve decided. I’ll use giba leg meat for my dish.”

“Got it. What about vegetables and seasonings?”

“Just salt and fruit wine will be plenty for seasonings. I don’t have any experience using tau oil or sugar, after all. And for the vegetables, could I have you share a bit of aria, chatchi, nenon, and poitan with me?”

“No problem. Go ahead and pick what you want out of our pantry,” Mia Lea replied, then led the way to the pantry next to the kitchen.

And when she stepped inside, Myme’s eyes positively sparkled as she exclaimed, “Ooh! This is amazing! There are so many vegetables! I’ve never seen such a splendid pantry before!”

“Hmm? I never expected to have someone from town praise our pantry.”

“My father and I live alone, and the citizens of Turan are all poor to begin with, so we’d never have the chance to purchase so many vegetables. You have a lot of family here in the Ruu clan though, don’t you?”

“Yup, including the baby, there are thirteen of us. And lately we’ve had two freeloaders on top of that every other day.”

The main house and Shin Ruu’s family took turns preparing dinner for Jeeda and Bartha.

“I can’t believe it! It’s like a dream!” Myme excitedly proclaimed as she started closely examining the various vegetables around the pantry.

As I watched her hurry all about, a voice called out from behind, “It’s just like when you first visited the Ruu house, Asuta.” When I turned to look, I found Rimee Ruu standing there between her sisters.

“What’s up? Did you need some vegetables or something?”

“No. It just seemed more fun over here, so we came to watch. There’s not really much left to do with our work anyway.”

While we were having that exchange, Myme had gathered up the vegetables she needed in a basket and came back over our way. Just as she had said, she had taken just one each of aria, chatchi, nenon, and poitan.

“Are you fine with so little? Asuta will pay for everything regardless, so just use what you want.”

“No, if I use vegetables I’m not accustomed to, I’ll ruin the flavor,” Myme replied, shooting a regretful look back at the shelves.

When she saw that, Rimee Ruu declared, “You really are just like Asuta used to be!”

In the past, this place had been like a treasure trove full of unfamiliar ingredients. But it hadn’t been long since I’d come to the forest’s edge at that point, and the only vegetables or grains I had laid eyes on were aria and poitan, so that was only natural.

And it seemed that Myme wasn’t all that familiar with various ingredients thanks to the poverty she had been living in. Even if she was the daughter of a renowned chef, you couldn’t exactly go buying high-class foodstuffs without the coins to purchase them.

Now that I think about it, Ai Fa had also told me how the residents of Turan seemed to be living in poverty.

I still hadn’t set foot in the Turan lands that stretched out to the north of the castle town. But back when I’d been kidnapped by Lefreya, Ai Fa had apparently visited there as part of her search.

Though the house of Turan possessed a vast fortune, they had built it by using slaves from the north. The fuwano and mamaria fields in Turan were all worked by those slaves, and thanks to that, no jobs were left there for the residents, who lived in poverty as a result.

Myme said before that she had never handled tau oil or sugar. She may have around the same level of knowledge about ingredients as I did back when I took charge of the Rutim banquet.

But Myme would definitely be able to make better dishes than I could back then. While I knew it was wrong to get my expectations up so high, I still couldn’t help but think that way.

With such thoughts running through my head, we returned to the kitchen, where Reina Ruu’s group all turned at once from the various dishes they were working on to face us.

“Toor Deen, thanks for manning the flame. Now then, Myme, could you show us your cooking skills?”

“Right. I’ll give it my all!”

After placing the ingredients she had carried over onto the workstation, Myme reached for her leather case. After she released the metal latch, we finally got to see what was inside.

The case’s insides were lined with a thick, soft-looking cloth material. It held three varieties of cooking knives, spoons and cups for measuring, and even what looked like a whisk and a ladle. It was a complete set of cooking tools, inherited from Mikel from when he worked as a chef in the castle town.

“Oh, you use knives from Sym too, Myme?” I asked as I spied a familiar swirling pattern on the handles of the knives.

“Yes!” she excitedly replied. “These tools are all far too nice for someone like me. I also have a set of knives from Jagar back home, but I brought these today since it was a special occasion.”

“Ooh. So what’s that thinnest one for?”

“This is a knife for cutting fish, or so I’ve been told. Of course, the only fish around Genos are all poisonous, so I’ve never had a chance to use it.”

I had already heard as much from Polarth back when we asked about catching wild birds. That was supposedly why I didn’t see any sort of seafood about the post town.

Still, even here in Genos there were surely opportunities to prepare fish in the castle town. And so I stole a glance over at Mikel, but there was nothing to be gleaned from his expression.

“And, well...I’m terribly sorry to ask, but could I have you be the one to cut the meat? If I were to cut meat I’m handling for the first time, that would just damage the flavor.”

“Got it. You wanted to use thigh meat, right? What sort of shape should I cut it into?”

“All right, could I have you cut it into as thick of a block as you can manage, like you did for the prep work before? I’ll leave the amount up to you, though.”

There were a total of ten chefs in the kitchen including myself, and now we had an additional three spectators in the corner. Adding in Myme and Mikel, that made for fifteen people in total. With that number in mind, I cut the giba thigh meat into a block just under two kilos.

“Thank you. Also, could I have a bottle of fruit wine and just a bit of salt?”

Those were already on another workstation, so Rimee Ruu held them out with a, “Here.”

“Thank you,” Myme smiled back as she accepted them.

Myme started off by tenderizing the block of meat by beating it with a pole, then she began rubbing in the crushed rock salt. Once she had done that base seasoning of the meat, she started slicing all of the vegetables except the poitan.

“Please, use this stove. We’ll heat everything back up later, so it’s fine,” Sheera Ruu said and she and Reina Ruu took off their pot.

“Thank you,” Myme replied with a bow, then asked for a new pot.

After adding the block of meat to the large metal pot, she carefully grilled the surface over a strong flame, which made for a pleasant crackling sound.

Once it was nice and browned all over, she added the vegetables: a whole aria, two-thirds of a chatchi, and three-fourths of a nenon.

After that all heated through, she finally added the fruit wine, going quite heavy on it so that two-thirds of the thick meat ended up soaking in it.

At that point, she placed a wooden board on top as a lid, then pulled out around half of the firewood in the stove. Her plan must have been to let it simmer over a low flame.

“She didn’t use any particularly unusual techniques, huh...?” Reina Ruu whispered into my ear.

“Right,” I nodded back, only for Sheera Ruu to come in close from the other side.

“Still, her style somehow reminded me of yours, Asuta. I never got that feeling when watching the inn owners cook, though...”

It was true that there wasn’t any showiness to the process Myme used, and a lot of it employed the same cooking techniques I was familiar with. She must have grilled the surface of the meat so that the juices wouldn’t escape, and she let it simmer over a low heat in order to soften up the meat. Rubbing in salt gave the meat a base seasoning, and beating it broke down the connective tissue, which was why I also did the same. Honestly, the only difference was how she cut the vegetables.

Myme was now leaning forward in front of the stove, watching the state of the flame intently. With an incredibly serious look on her face, she would occasionally add more firewood, but she never checked the contents of the pot.

Since there didn’t seem to be anything significant happening, Reina Ruu and the others resumed preparing dinner. Twenty minutes or so passed like that, and then around when the tino rolls would be finished, Myme finally stood up.

After removing the wooden board, she then scooped up the broth with a wooden ladle. After checking the taste, she turned toward Mia Lea Ruu.

“I’m sorry, but could I borrow an outdoor stove again?”

“Yeah, no worries.”

As I wondered just what she was going to do, Myme started using my frying pan to sauté a small amount of chatchi and nenon. Then, she returned to the kitchen and added them into the pot.

While she stirred the boiling fruit wine soup, she tasted it and added more salt bit by bit. Then she replaced the lid and let it sit over a low flame for an additional ten minutes, at which point she got back up.

A good bit of the fruit wine had evaporated, as now around half of the block of meat was exposed. As for the vegetables that had sunk down around it, Myme started crushing them with a wooden spoon. She had sliced them as thin as she did precisely for this step.

Once the vegetables turned into a paste and dissolved into the soup, she turned to the poitan still atop the workstation and started cutting it into thin slices. She then added those to the pot while stirring, stopping after she put in the fourth slice.

The soup had thickened somewhat now, and the color had turned a sort of creamy red. This was also a method I employed when I wanted to simply thicken up a dish. With the karon milk soup offered at The Kimyuus’s Tail and The Westerly Wind, I added poitan to make it more of a stew.

After giving the soup yet another taste test, Myme went ahead and stabbed a bit of meat with a wooden skewer to confirm how tender it was, and then she finally turned my way with a smile.

“Thank you for waiting. It’s all done now.”

“Huh? You’re not going to taste test the meat?”

“No. It’s my first time handling giba meat, so I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to do anything further even if I did give it a try.”

I didn’t know if it was pure resolve or what, but there wasn’t any hesitation whatsoever behind her smile.

Meanwhile, with a bit of a nervous look on their faces, Reina Ruu and the others started gathering around the pot.

“So it’s finished? You really did only use salt and fruit wine for seasoning.”

“That’s right. However, the taste of pico leaves had already seeped into the meat, so I get the feeling that there will be more flavor to the broth than in the food I make at home.”

“In that case, why don’t you give my dish a taste first?” I offered, scooping up a tino roll out of the pot. Though I had stopped the flame for a bit, I had relit it so that the rolls were now hot enough to eat. After using a wooden skewer to undo the vine binding it, I poured some pale orange soup over the top, then placed a plate in front of both Myme and Mikel.

“If you don’t mind, could you give it a try too, Mikel? Since this is a dish offered to the inns, you haven’t had it before, right?”

“Yeah, since I don’t go around wasting coins on dinner.”

In that case, either Myme or Mikel must have hit upon the idea of using poitan to add thickness all on their own. After all, they would have no way of knowing I used that method without eating food from the inns.

“What a wonderful aroma!” Myme proclaimed, her eyes sparkling bright. Meanwhile, the tino rolls prepared by everyone else were carried over in front of us, so that I could confirm how they turned out.

“Well then, time to give it a taste test!”

Myme and Mikel both grabbed their metal skewers. And as I watched out of the corner of my eye, I picked up my own homemade chopsticks.

There were no issues whatsoever with the tino rolls Reina Ruu and everyone had prepared. When I bit into the tino wrapping that had grown sweeter through thorough boiling, my mouth was filled with still-warm meat juices. And the taste of those juices was just right too. There would be no problem just offering these starting tomorrow at The Kimyuus’s Tail.

Back home, I used to make cabbage rolls with a mixture of ground beef and pork, but just like with the hamburger steak, this recipe seemed just as good as the original. My tongue was thoroughly accustomed to giba meat at this point, and even if it wasn’t, giba was just such a high-quality ingredient anyway.

Just like Mia Lea Ruu had said, minced meat had a flavor all its own. And if Donda Ruu could find that delicious now, then I really was grateful for that fact.

“Aah... This dish is also truly amazing. Just eating it is enough to make me smile,” Myme exclaimed, her eyes closed in bliss. As for Mikel, he was just silently chewing away. “Still, I’m bad at putting what I feel into words. Isn’t it a fantastic dish, dad?”

“Yeah.”

Myme prodded him further. “Isn’t expressing yourself one of your specialties? Why don’t you go ahead and describe this feeling in my place?”

“Folks all have different tongues, so there’s no guarantee we’re perceiving things the same way. Besides, there’s not much point in saying how delicious a dish is.”

“Jeez! You’re always picking apart my cooking left and right, though!”

After that, we went ahead and finished taste testing the tino rolls.

Now, it was finally time for Myme’s dish.

“Hmm, now that I think about it, isn’t the order we went in odd? With my dish coming after Asuta’s, that’ll just make the gap between them stand out all the more.”

“Nah, I figure it’ll be fine. Not that I have any proof.”

“It’s hard for a statement like that to put me at ease...” Myme retorted, grinning, but with some seriously mixed emotions on her face as she picked up her meat-cutting knife.

The giba thigh meat sat there atop the unlit stove, giving off steam as she smoothly cut into it. Though that was the toughest cut of giba, it looked to have been boiled until it was really tender.

There was a faint pink at the center of the cross-section, but after that much cooking, no doubt it was perfectly heated through. After slicing off enough of the long and narrow block of meat for everyone present, Myme looked up and said, “Please, go ahead. I’m not especially confident, but give it a try. This is the best possible giba meat dish I can make at present.”

Reina Ruu stood in front of the pot, while Rimee Ruu slid in next to her holding a ton of wooden plates. Using a wooden spoon, they poured a bit of the broth over the cuts of meat, then passed them around.

The block of meat had been a bit over two kilos, but split among fifteen people, that worked out to around 130 grams each. Well, that wouldn’t be enough to ruin my appetite for dinner even after trying the tino rolls, but I wasn’t used to small servings like this.

“All right, let’s give it a try.”

As I felt my heart pounding in my chest, I brought the broth-coated thigh meat to my mouth.

At first, I almost felt myself moan at how delicious the broth was, as the viscous liquid clung to my tongue. The base of the flavor came from the sweetness of fruit wine, which blended together in amazing synergy with the vegetables and fat.

Myme’s flavoring really was exquisite. The reason she went out of her way to add the chatchi and nenon must have been to perfect the taste. Those pasted vegetables helped bring forth a well-rounded flavor, and then everything was perfectly wrapped up with just the right amount of salt.

And then there was the giba meat. She had only boiled it for thirty minutes at most, so it wasn’t as if it was incredibly tender. Instead, just the fatty bits around the edges were all jiggly and soft, while the red meat portions had a firm chewiness left to them.

Ultimately, the texture seemed close to a roast. Even though the meat juices didn’t come gushing forth, it still had a nice pleasant chewiness to it. And the strong taste of the giba meat intermingled with the flavor of the sweet-smelling sauce as it rushed over the top of my tongue.

“Yup, this is yummy!” Rimee Ruu suddenly proclaimed loudly. There was a real look of joy shining away on her little face. “It’s really, really tasty! You’re so good at cooking, Myme!”

“Thank you,” the young chef replied with a smile. However, her expression looked somehow sad. “But the flaws in my dish really stand out after Asuta’s, right? I knew that going in, but it still makes me feel ashamed.”

“Huh, really? I just thought it was tasty.”

“But the taste from the pico leaves was really half-baked, and I wasn’t able to make full use of the delicious flavor from the giba fat. I really am sorry for having you all eat such a bungled dish.”

“Your standards certainly are high. Personally, I was shocked to find someone from town could cook such a delicious dish with giba meat,” Mia Lea Ruu retorted with a beaming smile.

At that, I glanced around to see what everyone else thought.

The majority were wearing seriously satisfied expressions. Setting aside folks who were hard to read like Yamiru Lea and Tsuvai, Bartha and Li Sudra were smiling, Vina Ruu wore a faint grin, and Lala Ruu looked a bit surprised.

Just three of the members of the group had their expressions frozen in place: Reina Ruu, Sheera Ruu, and Toor Deen.

“This is...” Sheera Ruu started to speak, only for Reina Ruu to interrupt.“It’s delicious. You’re still just ten years old, aren’t you, Myme of Turan? It really is worthy of praise, to be able to make such a delicious dish at such a young age.”

“Thank you,” Myme replied with another sad smile. “I really am grateful to hear that. And I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time today.”

Reina Ruu then averted her gaze away from Myme, firmly biting her lip. In likelihood, she...or rather, she, Toor Deen, and Sheera Ruu, had all realized just how amazing Myme was.

The young chef’s dish was delicious.

I didn’t believe the tino rolls we had eaten beforehand had been beaten definitively. And yet, today was the first time Myme had ever cooked with giba meat. On top of that, the only seasonings she used were salt and fruit wine. Aside from those, there was just the pico leaves left on the giba meat to add flavor.

As we were now, could we possibly make something that delicious with just salt and fruit wine?

Maybe the giba meat and tarapa stew I unveiled at the Rutim banquet could compete with it. But still, that dish used plenty of pico leaves, and it was made with full understanding of the flavor and quirks of giba meat. After all, I had come up with it when I had lived at the forest’s edge for around a month.

If this girl was able to use giba meat however she pleased for a month, just how grand of a dish would she end up making? And that went double for what would happen if she had free use of seasonings like tau oil, sugar, and pico leaves. Were Reina Ruu and the others thinking the same things I was?

At the very least, that was what was running through my head. And just imagining it was enough to cause blazing excitement to well up in me.

I couldn’t help but feel that Myme was even more amazing than I had previously thought.

4

“Huh? What’s going on, everybody?”

When we finished up our study session at the Ruu settlement and returned to the Fa house, we found six women there waiting for us. They came from the Fou, Ran, and Deen clans, as well as the Liddo clan that had been showing up lately. From that group, a middle-aged woman who I believed was one of the Ran was flashing us the whites of her teeth in a big grin.

“You even have to ask? Today’s the day you invited those guests from town, isn’t it? We figured we should all get together and welcome them.”

“Oh, really?” I replied, hopping down from the driver’s seat and disconnecting Gilulu from the wagon. As I did so, the rest of the riders also started getting out. That meant Myme, Mikel, Toor Deen, and Li Sudra. Li Sudra would usually be dropped off midway to head back to her own house, but today she accompanied us, saying she wanted to see what would happen next.

“Pleased to meet you, everyone from the forest’s edge. I’m Myme of Turan, and this is my dad Mikel,” Myme greeted with a deep bow, at which the women all gave their names in turn. The only ones I had memorized out of the group were Toor Deen’s aunt Jas Deen, and Ai Fa’s childhood friend, Saris Ran Fou.

They weren’t used to welcoming guests from town like the folks from the Ruu clan, so they were split between looks of deep curiosity and caution. But at the very least, the Ran woman from before gave Myme another smile.

“You’re going to be preparing dinner at the Fa house tonight too, right? We would all love to join you for a little taste test, if that would be all right.”

“Huh? You do too? Okay...I’ll give it my all!”

Myme had managed to fully recover on the way here.

Though she had been all dejected while we were preparing to leave the Ruu settlement, during the journey here she had roused herself and declared, “I’ll try to make a more proper dish at your house, Asuta!” That alone had been enough to cause me to tremble with excitement.

“Well then, could everyone please wait at the stove around back? And Myme and Mikel, could you step inside the house for now? I’ll show you to the pantry.”

There were just a bit under two hours left until sunset. Since I would only be preparing dinner for four, including our guests, it wouldn’t be any issue at all, but I still wanted to get to work on the soup dish as soon as possible.

“Oh, could I ask you to prepare the soup, Myme? Then while that’s heating up, I can introduce the other dishes.”

“All right, got it,” Myme replied, now wearing a serious look as she glanced around our pantry, which was truly modest compared to the one at the main Ruu house. Ultimately, what she picked out were aria, tino, nenon, myamuu...as well as fuwano flour and kimyuus egg.

“Hmm, so you’re finally using myamuu?”

“Huh? ‘Finally’?”

“Ah, it’s just that I’ve gotten a lot of use out of myamuu, but you haven’t used it at all until now.”

Myamuu was a potherb with a smell similar to garlic. After those early days when I only had salt for seasoning, I’d always found myamuu to be very reassuring to have.

“Myamuu has a strong aroma, so for me it’s quite difficult to bring it in harmony with everything else. It’s amazing how you can use it so splendidly.”

“Hmm, I get the feeling that it’s more that I rely too much on myamuu.”

“That’s not true at all! Because giba meat has such a strong flavor in and of itself, no doubt it pairs well with myamuu. But the aroma of the myamuu would overpower kimyuus or karon leg meat,” Myme said as she loaded her basket up with ingredients. Since I wanted leg meat again, I grabbed some and then showed our guests the way to the rear stove.

During last month’s break period, we had done a big renovation on the area around the stove. A leather roof stretched overhead, and off to the side of the stove was a large workstation. Those additions were necessary to do study sessions and prep work with a large number of people.

“For now, let’s boil the giba meat and get a stock.”

After filling a pot from the house with water, Myme started to boil several thin slices of thigh meat. But before long her eyes went wide when she saw how much scum started bubbling up.

“That’s so much scum! I didn’t notice at all before!”

“Yeah, because you were boiling it in fruit wine then. It didn’t give the food an off taste or anything though.”

“That’s true... But still, that may have been what ruined the flavor.”

With a serious look on her face, Myme diligently started scooping out the froth.

“This certainly is quite the crowd...” From out of the forest, Ai Fa spoke up as she moved over to join us, returning from the hunt carrying a huge giba.

At that, each of the women introduced themselves to my perplexed clan head. And then, her childhood friend Saris Ran Fou stepped forward.

“Welcome home, Ai Fa. You aren’t injured anywhere, are you?”

“I’m not... As you can see, I don’t have so much as a scratch on me.”

“I’m glad to hear that... Truly, I am grateful for the compassion of our mother forest,” Saris Ran Fou replied, joining her hands together in front of her chest in prayer. Ai Fa, meanwhile, scratched her head and looked like she didn’t know what to say.

“Saris Ran Fou, prayers like that should be reserved solely for family.”

“My apologies. But you’re every bit as important to me as family...”

The members of the Fou and Ran clans watched the two of them with warm gazes.

For a long time, Saris Ran Fou had cut herself off from Ai Fa. Even after the Suun were no longer a threat and their clans reforged their bonds, things had remained awkward between them. And that was because Saris Ran Fou had been unable to wipe away the guilt she felt toward Ai Fa.

However, that relationship ended up getting mended for an unexpected reason. Back when I was kidnapped by Lefreya, Saris Ran Fou had apparently barged into the Fa house to soothe my clan head’s overwhelming grief.

Now that things had finally been patched up after over two unfortunate years apart, Saris Ran Fou wore a truly blissful smile. Though she was the more mature and elegant of the pair, she paid no heed to who was watching as she moved very close to Ai Fa, which really warmed my heart to see.

Well, Ai Fa’s acting just as blunt as always, but I’m sure she’s every bit as happy inside to reconcile with her childhood friend, I thought, unwittingly breaking out in a smile. And then, with a slight blush on her face, Ai Fa kicked me in the leg.

“Umm, did I make some sort of careless blunder that earned me that?”

“Quiet, you.”

At that, Saris Ran Fou let out a quiet giggle.

And then, Myme loudly shouted, “Ah! It’s been some time! Um, do you remember me...?”

“Hmm?” Ai Fa muttered, shooting Myme a questioning look.

Still holding the scum-scooping ladle in her hand, Myme gave a bow.

“I’m Myme of Turan. I really am glad that you were able to find Asuta.”

“Are you...that girl I met in Turan, perhaps?”

“Yes!” Myme answered, her eyes sparkling.

I was the one left in shock here, though.

“Y-You two know each other? But how?”

“Well, I already informed you of how I searched the Turan territory back when you were kidnapped by that noble child, correct? It was then that I met this girl.”

This was another shocking new revelation for me. I had never imagined Ai Fa would have formed bonds not only with that maid Sheila from the house of Daleim, but even with Myme. It seemed that a whole lot happened with Ai Fa during that period, and not just the thing with Saris Ran Fou.

Paying no heed to my shock, Myme just kept on smiling.

“I’m so glad to hear you remember me.”

“You’re the only one who showed us any sympathy at all in Turan... I see, so you were Mikel of Turan’s daughter, then?” Ai Fa replied, sounding deeply moved as she looked back and forth between Myme and Mikel. “It seems if a parent has a good heart, their child will be raised well too. I’m overjoyed to welcome our savior Mikel and his daughter to the Fa house as guests.”

“Savior?” Myme questioned. Now she was the one left tilting her head.

Ai Fa didn’t seem like she was going to say anything further, and so I went ahead and explained in her place.

“The one who confirmed I was being held in the manor of Count Turan was a boy named Jeeda. And it was your father Mikel who told Jeeda where that manor was. That means I owe Mikel my life.”

“Huh?! You never told me about that, dad!”

“I didn’t do anything... I just answered the question I was asked,” Mikel grumbled with a sour look.

After jabbing him in the side with her elbow, Myme then shot Ai Fa a smile.

“Fate certainly can be mysterious. I was worried about you all this time. Back then, you just said you were looking for your comrade who was kidnapped by ruffians...but you’re Asuta’s family, aren’t you?”

“Indeed. I am the head of the Fa clan, Ai Fa.”

“Ai Fa of the Fa clan... I want to thank the western god over and over again for having been granted the chance to meet the two of you, Ai Fa and Asuta,” Myme said with a mature-looking expression.

And as she met that gaze head on, Ai Fa nodded back. “Right. Well then, I have my own work to take care of. But I’ll be looking forward to tonight’s dinner, Myme of Turan.”

“Right, I’ll give it my all! By the way...that’s a giba, isn’t it?! It really is amazing how you can hunt down such a huge beast!” Myme excitedly proclaimed, having regained her usual childish innocence as she stared at Ai Fa’s back. The giba my clan head was carrying had to weigh somewhere in the seventy- to eighty-kilo range.

Though Ai Fa was acting perfectly composed, there was a hint of sweat on her forehead. Even she had to be exhausted after taking down a giba that size and carrying it all the way back home.

“I can’t skin this beast next to the stove, so I’ll be carrying out my work over that way.”

“Right, you got this.”

Ai Fa nodded, then departed around the side of the house.

Mikel moved to follow her, only for Myme to question, “Where are you going?”

“I’ve seen you cook a thousand times, so I’ll go watch this giba skinning instead.”

“Huh?! You’d leave your own daughter while she’s working on such an important job?!”

“What part of this is ‘an important job’? It’s just all something you decided to do on your own,” Mikel bluntly replied before also leaving.

“Tch!” Myme clicked her tongue in annoyance, then she got back to scooping scum. And then, one of the Fou women called out to her.

“Hey, you’re going to be boiling the meat just like that for a while, right?”

“Huh? Ah, yes. I intend to let it boil thoroughly for the next half an hour to an hour.”

“In that case, I think I’ll go wash the innards or something. The Fa clan’s always helping us out, after all.”

With that, around half of the women took off. The ones who remained were Toor and Jas Deen, Li Sudra, and the Liddo woman.

“So Mikel didn’t tell you anything about me or the Fa clan, huh?” I called out.

“That’s right,” Myme replied with a nod as she added wood to the stove. “After Ai Fa visited our house I talked to dad about it that night, but he just said, ‘Don’t get involved with the people of the forest’s edge.’ I’ve only heard the rumors around town about that whole incident with the house of Turan too.”

“Is that so...? Now that I think about it, Mikel started buying meals for two after that whole commotion died down.”

“Right. I’m sure it was the house of Turan rather than the people of the forest’s edge that dad wanted me to have nothing to do with. But that’s only natural, considering what they did to him in the past.” After casting her gaze down for just a moment, Myme looked up with a smile. “But dad’s been helping out the people of the forest’s edge from the shadows, right? That thought makes me incredibly proud.”

“Yeah. Mikel’s a wonderful person.”

And the one who introduced us to Mikel was the leader of the Silver Vase merchant group from Sym, Shumiral. Then that led to me encountering Myme, so yeah, fate really did work in mysterious ways.

As we were having that relaxed chat, eventually the Ran woman returned in a hurry.

“Asuta, could you come with me for a bit? Or if you’re too busy, Toor Deen would be fine too.”

“Huh? What’s up?”

“That old man is saying some strange stuff. We don’t really get it, so could you come listen instead?”

Asking me was one thing, but why request Toor Deen? At any rate, I took along a somewhat uneasy-looking Toor Deen and joined up with Ai Fa and everyone.

“Ah, Asuta. And I see you came too, Toor Deen,” Ai Fa greeted with bloody hands, turning toward us. The way she looked didn’t suggest that this was anything particularly urgent, and so that calmed me down for the time being.

Mikel stood there stock still with the same sour expression on his face as always, while the women were shooting us troubled looks. And the giba was dangling from the tree with its naked white flesh exposed, a mountain of innards lying on the pelt stretched out atop the ground.

“What’s the issue here, Mikel?”

“It’s not really anything. I just questioned how they were handling the innards.”

“Ah, the handling of the innards?” I said. Toor Deen must have been summoned because she was seen as an expert at cooking them. “So what’s your question? After we wash out the giba innards, they do make for a pretty tasty ingredient.”

“I already heard that. But you don’t make the meat into sausages?”

“Sausages?”

“When I ate your cooking I remembered how even though finely mincing meat isn’t popular at all in Genos, they have dishes like that in Sym,” Mikel stated, sounding annoyed. “Just like with jerky, that method’s supposed to help preserve the meat. So when I heard innards go bad easily and need to be eaten within five days, I asked why not make them into sausages.”

“Well, I do have an interest in sausage, but I’ve never tried making any. Besides, if you’re focusing on preservation you’d still end up with something tough and dried out like jerky.”

“When you completely remove the moisture that causes stuff to rot, it’s only natural it’d be tough. But if you finely mince the meat, it’d be a lot easier to chew than normal jerky, right?”

“That’s true. But the people of the forest’s edge have such tough jaws and teeth that a lot of them don’t like their meat that soft.”

“Hmph... But wouldn’t travelers in town want dried sausage? I’ve heard plenty of travelers from Sym walk around with gyama sausages.”

I was left at a bit of a loss for words.

Mikel, meanwhile, just bluntly continued on.

“Now that I think about it, you’ve stopped selling jerky at your stalls, haven’t you? I guess you don’t need to anymore now that you’re making so much profit with your other dishes, eh?”

“N-No, like we discussed before, we ended up raising the price of meat in the ashen month, and after that the jerky stopped selling entirely. It’s no surprise we wouldn’t get any takers when it’s not much better than karon jerky but now costs one-and-a-half times as much.”

“That’s ridiculous. The jerky sold in the post town is made with karon leg meat, so you should be able to make something higher-quality with giba.”

“Hmm. Then, is there an issue with how we’re preparing it?”

After giving a small sigh, Mikel started scratching his head with his left hand.

“Where’s your smokehouse? There must be something off with it.”

“Er, we don’t have anything like that. At the forest’s edge, we hang it from a tree and smoke it over an open fire with lilo leaves.”

“Is your firewood from grigee trees...?”

“No, we don’t really have a specific type of firewood we use. Is grigee wood especially suited to smoking food?”

At that, Mikel let out a now clearly audible sigh. “Despite knowing all those different cooking techniques, you’re a complete amateur when it comes to smoking food?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda embarrassing,” I replied, leaning forward a bit in excitement. “You know all about it though, right, Mikel? Could you give me a bit of instruction on how it’s done?”

“Instruction...?”

“Yeah. To be honest, when I’ve been able to find time I’ve been experimenting with trying to make tasty jerky, but my progress has totally stalled. If you don’t want to, though, then...”

“Regardless of how I feel about it, if we start smoking at this point, the sun will end up setting. And I don’t really think you can make proper smoked meat without a smokehouse,” Mikel bluntly answered, only for a voice to chime in.

“Um...”

When I turned in shock to look, I found Li Sudra standing there behind me. I hadn’t noticed at all, but apparently she had come over with me and Toor Deen.

“Do you need to do something special to make a smokehouse? If you just need a free house, there are a number of them in the Sudra clan... When people don’t live in a house, it soon falls to ruin, so it would be nice to be able to put them to use instead.”

“If you’re talking about a finely-built wooden home like this one, that would be great for smoking food,” Mikel replied as he looked up at the Fa house. “But it’s too late for today. If you definitely want to try, then we’ll have to do it some other day.”

“You’ll come visit the settlement at the forest’s edge again?” I asked, filled with anticipation.

“If you really insist on it,” Mikel answered, furrowing his brow. “There’s one other thing I wanted to ask... Have you just been throwing away the giba’s head?”

“Huh? Yes, I don’t really know how to handle anything from the neck on up, so we’ve just been shaving the meat off the cheeks and then discarding the rest...”

“What a waste. The eyes, brain, and tongue of most animals are considered valuable,” Mikel said as he glanced all around the dangling naked flesh of the giba. “It certainly is odd to eat the entrails but not the head. And as for how to use them, as long as you heat them through, they at least shouldn’t give you the runs.”

“Then would it be fine to just boil it, skull and all?”

“As far as I know, the most common method with karon is to crack open the skull so that the brains are exposed and then boil it up. As for the tongue, you can just slice that off in advance and treat it like any other grilled dish.”

“Doesn’t the tongue require additional preparations? Er, I’m completely inexperienced, so I’m just guessing here...”

Mikel shot me a glare out of the corner of his eye.

“With karon tongue, you start by lightly boiling the surface, and then you cut off the tough skin. But if you’re dealing with a young karon, then the skin is tender too so you can just grill it as is. I don’t know anything about how it’d be with giba, though...”

I turned toward Ai Fa. After wiping the grime from her hands, she once again picked up her knife. “If it’s edible, then it certainly is a waste to just leave it for the mundt. Why not give it a try with this giba?”

“In that case, we’ll go ahead and wash out these innards. If we just leave them here forever, it’ll hurt their flavor,” the Ran woman said, turning toward Toor Deen with a smile. “You and Asuta should pay close attention to how he prepares the head. And then you can teach the rest of us later.”

“Right, understood.”

At that, the women left to wash the innards bundled up in the pelt.

Ai Fa started by dissecting everything below the neck and burying that in pico leaves in the pantry, and then she faced the head itself.

A sliding door was laid out on the floor of the main room in the house to be used as a cutting board, and the giba head sat atop it. Lately she had been cleanly skinning the head too, so the white bone and hypodermis sat there clearly exposed.

“Let’s start by cutting the tongue loose.”

As Mikel, Toor Deen, and I all watched, Ai Fa inspected the giba’s head.

“The tongue seems to be connected rather deep in the throat. Would it be quickest to remove the lower jaw, I wonder?” she mused aloud, pulling out a small blade which she slid into the joints of the jaw, then cracked it apart. That was the monstrous strength of a hunter for you.

Now that the giba’s tongue was exposed, Ai Fa cut it loose at its base.

“Hmm. Looking at it like this, it certainly is massive,” Ai Fa commented, picking up the light pink tongue with her fingers. It was long, thick, and slimy-looking. I figured it had to be around twenty centimeters or so in length. It had a rather grotesque appearance, but as an ingredient it looked like it’d be seriously delicious.

“The surface doesn’t seem especially tough. Can this just be eaten as is?”

“Well, why not try it like that this time, and if it seems like an issue, add that boiling and cutting step?”

“Right, so next is the brain? But a giba’s skull is tough, so a blade could actually break if you insert it carelessly...”

“If there’s any sort of seam in the skull, then you should be able to use that to open it up,” Mikel stated.

“Hmm,” Ai Fa murmured with a tilt of her head. Then, she started using her blade to cut away the hypodermis still clinging to the skull. “Yes, there is indeed a seam.”

Ai Fa pressed her knife up against the black seam running through the skull. And the blade appeared to slide on in with shocking ease. She twisted the knife and the giba skull split open with the sides separating from each other. My clan head then reached inside, and with a cracking sound she wrenched it completely apart.

“Considering how large the tongue was, the brain certainly is small,” Ai Fa stated, holding it out for us to see. Sure enough, there was a round little brain with a pale pink color on the inside of the right half of the skull. Though the giba it had come from had to be around eighty kilos in total, the brain was only around the size of a human fist.

“We should boil this, right? But what about the eyeballs?”

“With karon, you boil them along with the brain and bones. Since you can get stock from bone, it works out just fine,” Mikel explained.

“I see.”

After removing the horns and tusks, Ai Fa dropped that split skull into a pot.

“That concludes my work here. I leave the rest to you, Asuta.”

“Yeah. I’ve never even heard of dishes involving brains or eyeballs before, so I guess all I can do is boil them.” After ladling out some water, I went ahead and lit the stove. “For the time being, I guess I’ll add some lilo leaves to alleviate the smell at least a bit. Whoa, that’s a ton of scum...”

It was coming bubbling up at a tremendous rate, even more so than when boiling meat. I figured that was proof it was packed with both off flavors and delicious ones too.

“What will you do with the tongue? It seems rather substantial.”

“Let’s just try slicing it thin, sprinkling salt over it, and grilling it. It seems like it’s just the right amount to have everybody give it a try.”

I at least had experience with eating beef tongue before. And so, just imagining what giba tongue would taste like was enough to get me excited.

As I entrusted Ai Fa with manning the stove for the skull, I headed for the outdoor stove, where Myme greeted me with a smile.

“Ah, Asuta! So that’s giba tongue?! Just what does it taste like, I wonder...”

“I’m certainly looking forward to it too. Are you still working on the parboiling?”

“Yes. You told me that giba meat gets softer the more you boil it, so I wanted to try pushing it a bit further.”

It was just around then that the group who had been washing innards returned, so I decided to go ahead and give grilling the giba tongue a shot. And so, after setting steel meshes over the stove, I went a bit luxurious and used some charcoal.

“Ooh. Looking at it now, the tongue is just more meat, isn’t it?”

All the women present were currently staring at the sliced giba tongue. Each of the slices were a bit under a centimeter thick, and they sure looked seriously tasty. I had chopped off the unshapely bit at the base and added it to the pot with the skull, so what was here now looked just like the beef tongue you’d see on offer at a yakiniku place.

“Well then, let’s try grilling it up.”

I placed a slice of giba tongue on each of the meshes, and instantly the fat started dripping down onto the charcoal and making a sizzling sound.

By the time I had put down the tenth piece of meat, the first one had started turning a nice color. Still, they were around a centimeter thick each, so as I carefully heated them through and flipped them over in turn, the irresistible aroma of grilling meat and fat filled the air.

“I feel bad for everyone back home, that we’re getting such a wonderful experience all to ourselves again.”

“What’s wrong with that? This way, we can make the same thing for our families as soon as tomorrow if we want.”

Now that they mentioned it, around half of this group had also been present when we taste tested the offal. As one of the newcomers this time around, Saris Ran Fou was left blinking there in surprise.

“All right, time to eat. Could you grab that plate, Toor Deen?”

“Right, here you are.”

I laid out the grilled giba tongue atop the large wooden plate. Then, to finish it off, I sprinkled some sheel juice I had brought from the house over it.

“Go ahead, everybody. They’re hot, so be careful not to burn yourselves.”

After all the women present picked up a slice of giba tongue, I finally reached out for one myself. Since it was just freshly grilled, I swiftly tossed it into my mouth so I wouldn’t be burned by the fat.

The thick fattiness was counteracted by the sheel juice, making it perfectly tasty. And though it was thick, it had a more refreshing flavor than beef tongue, with a crispier texture. Plus, the flavor of the meat itself was stronger than with beef. I was already pretty full from my time at the Ruu settlement, but I still felt like I could eat several slices of it.

“Mikel, Myme, please go ahead and give it a try too.”

“Thank you!” Myme replied with a smile, while Mikel just grabbed the meat with a frown. “So tasty! It has yet another unique, wonderful flavor, unlike any normal meat!”

“Yeah. The fat and meat are blended together as one, so it makes for a different sort of texture than the other cuts, doesn’t it?”

I felt confident you wouldn’t need to remove the surface layer like with karon tongue.

It was such a delicious cut that could be prepared so easily, and yet we had been just discarding it out in the forest all this time. I was just as ashamed, if not more so, at my own thoughtlessness than I had been when I first tried cooking up innards.

And when we had finished taste testing the giba tongue, Myme loudly proclaimed, “All right! I’ll give it everything I’ve got to make a dish that’s just as good! I think it’s about time to move on to the next step!”

“Right. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Before that, I had to share this deliciousness with Ai Fa too. I moved to go do just that, but after a moment of thought I stopped myself and turned toward Saris Ran Fou instead.

“Umm, I have to watch Myme work, so could I have you bring this to Ai Fa?” I asked, holding out the plate. The woman seemed a bit taken off guard, but then she gave me a smile.

“All right. I’m sure Ai Fa must be getting rather anxious over in the house, after all.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”

With an even brighter smile than before, Saris Ran Fou took off running toward Ai Fa.

The two of them were always so busy that they never really had the time to take it easy and chat. So it would be good if they could rekindle their old friendship, even if they only had a moment while they enjoyed the rest of the giba tongue.

5

Roughly an hour had passed.

The sun was now hidden beyond the western horizon, and we had prepared everything for dinner at the Fa house right on schedule.

Naturally, the women from the other clans had all returned to their own homes, meaning it was now just us members of the Fa house and our two guests. We were seated at the head spots, while Myme and Mikel were seated in the lower ones, with tonight’s dinner laid out in front of us.

“It wouldn’t do to let this dinner you both prepared grow cold, so let’s go ahead and eat.”

Ai Fa and I then said the pre-meal chant that was customary at the forest’s edge, while Myme and Mikel just silently bowed their heads.

With that, dinner finally kicked off, but this was an even more satisfying meal than usual. On the menu was my meat dish and Myme’s soup dish, the baked poitan, and the boiled giba head.

Out of those, Ai Fa and I were naturally most focused on Myme’s soup dish.

“Hmm, it smells just as strong as Asuta’s myamuu giba,” Ai Fa stated, sounding deeply curious as she took the plate.

The other women had all given it a taste test before heading home, but I hadn’t gotten to try it yet. However, I had gotten to observe it being made from start to finish.

After boiling the giba thigh meat for such a long time, Myme first sautéed some finely-chopped myamuu and then paired it with giba meat stock. Then she finally added the vegetables and thoroughly boiled everything again. This time around, she thinly sliced the aria, cut the tino into chunks, and quartered the nenon, which was all fairly standard.

Then in the meantime, she baked the fuwano. After kneading it in water, she rolled it out flat at a thickness of around five millimeters, then cooked it up nice and crispy. She tore off bits a pinch at a time and added them to the pot, and when the fuwano softened she adjusted the flavor with salt and pico leaves. Perhaps Myme was putting the lesson from earlier to use in employing pico leaves for an additional seasoning.

Finally she added a beaten kimyuus egg and stirred it about, and once that was heated through, the dish was complete.

The fuwano floated up in the cloudy soup, and the yellow egg added a further accent to the dish. As for the aroma, that was primarily dominated by the myamuu.

There really wasn’t anything especially novel in the steps. Still, the method of adding torn chunks of fuwano to a soup was the same one Timalo had used, while Roy had added beaten egg to his dish, so I couldn’t help but be reminded of the castle town.

“Well then, time to dig in,” I said, shooting the rather nervous-looking Myme a smile as I scooped up some soup with a bit of fuwano and egg.

The giba fat had formed a film on top, which was shining away as it reflected the light from the candle. At last, I gently brought that captivating soup to my mouth.

The first thing that hit me was the powerful aroma from the myamuu flowing up through my nose. Then my mouth was filled with the herb’s sharp taste, the punch from the pico leaves, and the deliciousness of the giba meat.

Having absorbed the soup, the fuwano now had a pleasant squishy feel. And the kimyuus egg added a nice, smooth texture that was a bit more low-key.

Despite the powerful aroma, it really was a pretty mild flavor.

The sweetness of the giba fat and vegetables seeped into my tongue. And I was filled with an even greater sense of satisfaction as I ate some of the meat and vegetables.

“This is delicious,” I stated, earnestly feeling that way from the bottom of my heart. “It’s on a whole other level than the soup from earlier in the day. So much so that I’d really have to call it a proper full-fledged giba dish.”

“You’re exaggerating. The giba fat really was strong, so the flavor ended up a bit rough,” Myme stated, but her expression was shining bright. “But I believe I was able to make something tastier than when I use kimyuus or karon leg meat back home. That really goes to show the power of giba meat.”

At that, I turned to face my clan head, only to find her wearing an awfully serious look.

“What do you say, Ai Fa? Myme’s skills really are something else, aren’t they?”

“Yes, it’s delicious.”

“And yet you’re wearing quite the expression, aren’t you...?”

“No, it’s not as if I have any issues with the taste. It’s just...” Ai Fa replied and then stopped, her gaze wandering as she seemed to search for the words. “How should I put it...? I couldn’t help but think it was as if this was something you had prepared, Asuta... If I ate it without knowing otherwise, I might well have been confident in saying you had made it.”

“Ooh, really?”

“Indeed,” Ai Fa answered with just a bit of a frown. “I can understand the Ruu women and Toor Deen preparing dishes with similar flavors to yours, as you did teach them. But why do I feel the taste of this dish is so similar to something you would prepare?”

“Well, that’s probably because there were a lot of similarities in our cooking methods. I saw Roy cooking plenty of times at the Turan manor, but for better or worse, those techniques felt like they had come from another culture entirely. Compared to that, Myme’s cooking process seemed a lot more familiar.”

“Hmm...”

As she kept on eating, the uncertain expression remained fixed on my clan head’s face.

Maybe Ai Fa had been expecting something like the dishes Timalo had prepared. It did make sense to think that way, considering Myme had been instructed by Mikel, who had also been a chef in the castle town.

Having listened silently to the conversation between me and Ai Fa, Myme now gave a seriously embarrassed smile.

“It’s far greater of an honor than my cooking deserves, for it to be described as similar to Asuta’s dishes. I still haven’t succeeded at drawing out the delicious flavor of giba meat, after all.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all. This dish is very tasty, and the flavor feels perfected too.”

“No, I believe my dish was overwhelmed by the presence of the giba meat. To me, cooking with it felt like riding on the back of a wild totos.”

“Ooh, that’s an interesting simile,” I chimed in with an unwitting chuckle, causing Myme to break out in a bashful grin.

“That’s why I think you’re amazing for being able to ride it so smoothly, Asuta. Thinking about it, since I haven’t had anything but kimyuus and karon leg meat to work with until now, it’s like I’ve only ever ridden a well behaved totos walking leisurely along flat ground.”

“Honestly, I think you’re amazing for being able to make such delicious dishes with meat as bland as karon legs and skinless kimyuus.”

My words caused Myme to freeze in place.

“Then do you perhaps have trouble handling karon leg meat and skinless kimyuus, Asuta?”

“That’s right. To be blunt, I’m not confident I could make anything tastier than you can with those meats.”

“Ah, so that’s why you have such an opinion of me...?” Myme replied, her eyes shining bright in understanding. “I definitely get that. So bland meats and strongly flavorful ones each need their own techniques and experience to handle. I had thought it strange how you kept on talking so highly of me... But you weren’t especially trying to flatter me or anything, were you?”

“I don’t think I ever use empty flattery when it comes to cooking.”

“If you’ve been earnestly praising someone like me, then that really is something to be proud of...” Myme said, and then seemed to hug her own body. “Thank you. I’m so happy it’s making me feel all choked up for some reason.”

“Now that’s overblowing things. Why don’t you just give my dish a try instead?”

“Right, thank you for the meal.”

Myme reached out and grabbed the plate with the meat dish, her eyes shining bright.

It was a new recipe I was currently experimenting with, based on twice-cooked pork. I started by boiling giba rib meat, then sauteed it with aria, tino, and pula. For flavoring I went with a tau oil base, to which I added sugar, myamuu, chitt seeds, and ramanpa nuts.

Since I didn’t have anything resembling the Chinese chili paste needed for seasoning twice-cooked pork, it was made in a rather Japanese style, but I was still pretty confident when it came to the flavor.

And when she bit into the dish, Myme let out a wistful sigh.

“Eating something as delicious as this really shatters my hard-earned confidence. Does this sweetness come from that seasoning from Jagar called sugar?”

“Yeah. The ability to use sugar instantly expanded the breadth of flavors I can achieve.”

“But no matter how wonderful the seasoning may be, if you don’t know how to use it you’ll just ruin the flavor. That was what my dad taught me.” At that, Myme stole a glance at her father, but the man just kept on silently eating his meal. “So it makes me even more amazed at your skills that you can use it so well. I truly am impressed.”

“There was stuff like sugar and tau oil back in my home country, so I’m just used to having them around, is all. The chefs in the castle town all probably know how to use seasonings like that better than I do.”

“No. If you were the same as the chefs from the castle town, I don’t think dad would have had me eat your cooking.” Myme had a gentle look in her eyes as she stared at her father. “In the past, I had asked him if I could try food from the castle town, even just once. I know I must have lived there up until I was five, but unfortunately I can hardly remember anything from back then at all.”

Personally, all I could remember of the time before I entered elementary school was vague recollections of playing with friends at home or in the park.

“But dad said there was nothing at all to learn from the chefs there. He always said the majority of chefs didn’t know how to properly use the great number of ingredients available to them, and that it was like they were just being dragged along by wild totos.”

“Hmm, I see...”

“So I started my training by seeing how good I could make my dishes using just salt, vegetables, and meat. By keeping not just stuff like tau oil and chitt seeds but even herbs and myamuu to an absolute minimum, dad taught me to put the flavor of my ingredients to full use. How much of each ingredient did I need, and how long should I be cooking it for with how strong of a flame...? That’s what I practiced for four years.”

Four years... That certainly was quite some time.

My old man was a chef too, but he hadn’t started training me to cook at quite such a young age.

“Just a month or so ago, dad brought your cooking back home, and then he permitted me to start using fruit wine for flavoring.”

Upon hearing that, I shot Mikel a surprised look. However, the man just kept on eating with a frown.

“You meant I should aim for being a chef like Asuta, right? I think you see your old self in Asuta’s cooking, dad.”

Was that the case? If the basic principles behind my cooking and Mikel’s were similar to start with, then that could explain why I had no trouble whatsoever seeing Myme’s dishes as delicious.

Still, Mikel hadn’t said so much as a word. Instead, he was just shooting me and Myme disgruntled glares.

“Seems you two are more interested in talking than eating. And just how long do you intend to leave that pot boiling for,” Mikel finally interjected, referring to the boiling giba head. It had been left atop the stove, and was being kept warm on the lowest flame possible. “If you keep it over the flame too long, the brain and eyeballs will go and dissolve on you. And maybe that would be a fine dish in and of itself, but it wouldn’t exactly be good for testing them as ingredients.”

“That’s true. In that case, let’s go ahead and give them a shot.” If Mikel didn’t want to chat, then I didn’t see a need to force him. And so I just said that with a nod and a smile before heading over to the stove.

Besides, I was looking forward to trying these out too. And so I did my best to calm my rapidly-beating heart as I removed the board serving as a lid.

Instantly, the room was enveloped in a vivid meaty smell.

Ultimately I had decided to add salt, tau oil, and chitt seeds to the giba head soup. I made the decision because it seemed like the brain and eyeballs would have every bit as strong of a scent as dishes made with innards, so I made those additions for some flavor and aroma.

“As far as soups go, it seems like it managed to make a real high-quality stock. But how are the fillings, I wonder?”

“How should I know? And let me just say in advance, there’s no guarantee the eyes and brain’ll be tasty.”

“Huh? R-Really? But before, you said...”

“Brains and eyeballs are valued highly in the castle town. But they’re prized as delicacies for their rarity, not their flavor. If it was something everyone would find delicious, it wouldn’t be called a delicacy in the first place.”

However, the giba tongue ended up being as tasty as torso meat. And the people of the forest’s edge had a real favorable reception toward giba hearts and the like too. So I had raised my expectations at least a little in regard to the eyeballs and brain.

“Hmm, we can’t really split the eyeballs, so should we take charge of taste testing them, Ai Fa?”

“Indeed, since we cannot go feeding things we’ve never even tried to our guests.”

Ai Fa didn’t seem stirred in the least.

Back when we were first trying the innards dishes, the people of the forest’s edge didn’t especially show reluctance or revulsion. To them, the brain and eyeballs and innards were all just more of the forest’s blessings. So as long as they tasted fine, there was no reason at all to avoid them.

Meanwhile, I might just have become even more of a chicken since I had come to live here at the forest’s edge. Heart, liver, and intestines were one thing, but as far as I knew, eating eyeballs and brains wasn’t exactly all that common back in my old world.

Still, even so, I had no intention of running from this dish. Donda Ruu used to call giba torso ‘mundt feed,’ while Jas Deen had said innards seemed like they would taste bad. I had urged everybody to eat them even then, so I couldn’t exactly let myself get cold feet now.

“All right, then let’s start with the eyeballs.”

Using metal skewers, I dragged up half of the skull that had sunk down into the pot. The chunks of meat and fat had pretty much all sloughed off, leaving just a white skull along with eyeballs that had gone the same color.

“By the way, I wonder how Deek Dom is doing...”

“Hmm? Why are you bringing him up all of a sudden?”

“I mean, he just suddenly came to mind when I looked at the giba skull. All the hunters in the Dom clan wear them on their heads, right?”

“You certainly have some strange thoughts in the middle of dinner...” Ai Fa also used metal skewers to pull up the other half of the skull, then with no hesitation at all she shoved a wooden spoon into the eye socket and popped out the eyeball. “Hmm, what an odd shape,” she murmured, and then just tossed it into her mouth like it was nothing.

“W-Well? How is it?”

“Hrmm... It has a bit of an unusual taste,” Ai Fa replied, slightly furrowing her brow. “The flavor is light, but the scent is harsh. It has an even odder smell than giba meat that hasn’t been bled... I’m sure you will be able to come up with a superior way of preparing it with experience.”

“I-I see. So the taste didn’t turn out to be all that satisfying, huh?”

“If I was satisfied with this, it would be like denying the worth of the dishes you usually make.”

The more I heard, the more my cowardice reared its head.

But at this point, there was no turning back. If this was a dish that needed improving, then that was all the more reason I needed to confirm that with my own tongue. So I firmed up my resolve and just went for it, shoving the eyeball into my mouth.

“Hrngh...”

“Hey, don’t go making such strange noises, you fool.”

“Oh, er, well... It’s true that this is definitely a bit lacking in terms of seasoning.”

Despite how thoroughly I had boiled it, I could still feel that raw animalistic stench filling my mouth. The texture was sorta squishy but also sorta tough... Honestly, it was a bit hard to describe.

With a ladle I scooped up some broth so I could gulp it down together with the eyeball I had been chewing.

“Ugh, that was rough. That’s the first time eating giba has caused me to break out in a cold sweat.”

“Really? Aside from the stench, I didn’t have any particular issues with the taste.”

“Yeah, I guess I just don’t have much experience when it comes to eating eyeballs. The next chance I get, I think I’ll try using plenty of myamuu and tarapa to add a strong smell and taste of their own.”

“Well then, next is the brain,” Ai Fa said, flipping over the skull. Apparently the brain was buried there in the half she had.

After breaking away the bits of bone that made an indent at the base, Ai Fa was able to completely expose it. And the giba’s brain had also boiled up moist and white.

“Will you have some too, Myme and Mikel?”

The answer to that question was yes. Apparently I was the most timid when it came to trying new things.

At any rate, I went ahead and moved the brain over to a flat dish and sliced it into four parts, but since there wasn’t any stench to it, this one wasn’t that hard to eat. The taste was like the tender cod milt I had eaten one time back home.

“This is delicious. But I think I can see why it’s called a delicacy too.”

“It’s at least as good as karon...”

It seemed our guests didn’t have any complaints.

“And the broth is tasty too! I can sense a bit of stench about it, but I’m sure you can prepare it even tastier than this, right Asuta?”

“That’s true. I’ll try a couple different things later.”

“How amazing. To think you can use not just the meat but even the brain, eyes, and innards as ingredients... It makes me quite envious, considering only very limited cuts of kimyuus and karon are sold in the post town,” Myme said as she pecked at another bite of what was left of her pseudo-twice-cooked pork. “What sort of taste do karon torso and kimyuus wings have, I wonder? Just thinking about it is enough to get my heart pounding.”

“That’s for sure. I’ve only ever had them in dishes with some seriously complex flavoring myself, so I can’t really say I know a thing about karon torso either. I’ve gotten to do a little taste test of kimyuus wings before though.”

“They must be quite tasty, seeing how the folks from the castle town buy them all up. But at least for now, I just can’t imagine there being a more delicious meat out there than giba,” Myme remarked with a cherubic smile. “Still, working with kimyuus and karon leg meat is all I can handle now. Even if it’s like riding on the back of a well-tamed totos, you can still fall to the ground if you’re not careful, so I’ll keep my guard up and just keep on trying my best.”

I almost reflexively responded, but held myself back.

Meanwhile, Mikel just kept on eating what was left on his plate with a look of feigned disinterest.

And so, the dinner we had invited Myme and Mikel to headed toward a nice, peaceful conclusion.