Chapter 2: The Deen Clan Chef

1

It was morning as Toor Deen hurried down a path at the forest’s edge.

Well, to be more precise, it was actually before dawn. The sun still hadn’t yet appeared from beyond the forest, and the world was awash in a dim bluish grey. She had actually wanted to take care of her business last night, but thanks to a strong rebuke from her clan member Jas Deen, she eagerly awaited daybreak to go flying out of the house.

As she ran along gasping for breath, her destination finally came into view. It was a small wooden house, isolated from the ones around it... The Fa house, home to Ai Fa the female hunter and the foreign chef Asuta.

While she wiped the sweat from her brow, Toor Deen stopped and stood in front of the door. Then just as she was about to knock, her natural timidness started showing itself.

Won’t I be causing trouble for them, showing up at this time of day...?

She had visited this place because there was something that she wanted to tell Asuta. But while the news was greatly important to Toor Deen herself, it was hard to say how significant it would be for the members of the Fa clan.

Thanks to her hesitation, Toor Deen instead ended up circling around to the side of the house.

Are they already awake...? As long as they aren’t asleep, then I shouldn’t be imposing too much... she thought as she cautiously peered in through the window. That was quite impolite in and of itself, but she figured it was much better than knocking without knowing what things were like inside.

Between the wooden lattice, she could spy the inside of the room, where it was even dimmer than it was outside. The giba pelt spread out on the floor, the stove, the pot, the water jug...and the pair of figures huddled close together as they slept.

When she saw that, Toor Deen hurriedly ducked her head and squatted down on the ground.

Huh...? Why are they sleeping in the main hall?

She had finally managed to get her heartbeat under control, but now it was starting to run wild again.

Asuta and Ai Fa had fallen asleep right in the middle of the house’s front room. And if Toor Deen hadn’t seen wrong, Ai Fa had been tightly hugging Asuta’s left arm and resting her head on his shoulder.

Th-They aren’t married, right? So why are they sleeping all huddled together like that...?

Suddenly, Toor Deen realized her cheeks had grown warm. She felt like she had seen something she wasn’t supposed to.

Did I just see wrong...? It is pretty dark inside... Toor Deen thought as she timidly stood back up and once again brought her face in close to the window.

And when she did so, she found blue eyes with a very firm light in them staring back from beyond the lattice.

“Aah!” Toor Deen shrieked as she fell on her bottom. And those blue eyes followed that unbecoming display without so much as blinking.

“You’re that girl from the Deen clan, are you not? What brings you here at this time of day?”

It was Ai Fa. Up until just a moment ago she had been peacefully sleeping away, but now she was staring directly at Toor Deen.

“What’s up? Is there someone outside the window?” a voice called out with a yawn, and before long Asuta appeared next to Ai Fa. “Oh, so it was you, Toor Deen. What’s going on?”

His voice was just as calm and kind as always. But even so, Toor Deen was unable to raise herself to her feet for a while yet.

◇

“I sensed a presence outside the window, so I went to look and found this girl peering inside the house,” Ai Fa matter-of-factly stated, sitting there cross-legged with one knee up in the air. “Well, I assumed it wasn’t anyone who meant us harm because she hadn’t been trying to hide her breathing, but still, it was a bit of a surprise.”

Ai Fa might have claimed as much, but Toor Deen had definitely been about a million times more shocked.

As he sat there beside Ai Fa, Asuta gave an astounded chuckle.

“You sure are one reliable clan head. I didn’t sense her in the slightest. And you must have been surprised too, right, Toor Deen?”

“N-No... I’m really sorry for so rudely peering inside your house...”

Currently, they were in the main hall of the Fa house. Since she seemed to have some sort of business with them, Ai Fa and Asuta had invited Toor Deen inside. And as she sensed the gaze of the totos balled up by the entrance on her back, the young girl could feel herself shrinking in on herself.

“So, what brings you here so early in the morning? Do you have some sort of urgent business with us?”

“Y-Yes... Y-You see, um...a Liddo woman will soon be marrying into the Jeen clan...” Toor Deen replied, her head hanging way down as she looked up at the pair between her bangs.

When she said that, Asuta tilted his head and responded, “The Jeen are one of the northern clans, aren’t they? And the Liddo and Deen are relatives, so both fall under the Zaza, huh?”

“T-That’s right. The Liddo and Deen are the southernmost clans under the Zaza... They were relatives even before exchanging blood ties with the Suun.”

“Yeah, I heard about that just a little while ago. Still, there’s quite a distance between here and the northern settlement.”

“That’s true... And it’s why up until now the Deen and Liddo only had ties with the Suun, hardly interacting at all with the other northern clans... Now that the Suun clan are gone, there are no blood ties left at all, which made it necessary to form new bonds with the north.”

“Ooh, so that’s why that Liddo woman is marrying into the Jeen?”

“Yes... The Jeen clan had dispatched a number of young men to instruct the branch families remaining at the Suun settlement on how to hunt...and apparently the Liddo woman was invited there too, which is how the matchmaking happened.”

“I see, so it was a result of matchmaking! If it led to a marriage proposal, then that sounds like a happy ending, right?” Asuta replied with a truly gentle smile, and then he tilted his head again. “Okay, so it’s definitely a joyful occasion for them, but why did you come to tell us about it?”

“Well, you see...” Toor Deen mumbled, shrinking further, “I was... No, we Deen women were asked to man the stove for the wedding banquet...”

“Hmm?” Asuta nodded along only for his eyes to suddenly shoot open wide. “Huh? But the Deen clan has been following my cooking instructions and using bloodlet giba meat, right? If they went and specifically asked the Deen to man the stove, then...”

“Yes. Gulaf Zaza, he said...that he was entrusting the Deen clan with manning the stove to determine just how much strength there was to be had from the cooking you brought to the forest’s edge, Asuta.”

“That’s amazing! They’ve given you such an important task!” Asuta exclaimed, his eyes sparkling as he leaned forward. When she saw that, the tension that had built up throughout Toor Deen’s body finally drained away.

“The news should also be delivered to the Ruu and Sauti clans today. I wanted to let you two know myself before that, and that’s why I ended up visiting at such an hour... I really am sorry.”

“You’ve got no need to apologize at all! That’s seriously amazing!” Asuta exclaimed, once again smiling. “And it really does make me happy that you thought to go out of your way to come visit us like this. Thanks, Toor Deen.”

“O-Oh, it was nothing...”

Those words alone were enough to make Toor Deen feel like her efforts had been worthwhile. They affected her so much that she found herself moved to tears, and so she hung her head even lower to hide that.

“Did you hear, Ai Fa? Gulaf Zaza of all people finally has that much of an interest in tasty food! This is seriously good news!”

“Indeed. That dinner to which Zuuro Suun and his former family were invited must have quite thoroughly displayed your strength to the man. That goes to show how impactful of a meal it really was,” Ai Fa calmly replied. Still, there was an obvious note of pride in Asuta mixed into her words. “Deen child, allow me to also offer my thanks for coming at the break of dawn to deliver the news.”

“A-Ah, it was nothing... There’s something I would also like to ask of you, Fa clan head Ai Fa...” Toor Deen said, placing a hand over the pounding left side of her chest. “We Deen women have been discussing just what sort of dish we should create, and, um...so that Asuta can judge if it seems like the proper one to go with...w-will you please allow me to cook dinner for the Fa clan tonight?!” she asked, her voice becoming unnecessarily loud at the end.

As the girl timidly raised her gaze...she found Ai Fa staring back with a far gentler look in her eyes than expected.

“I do not mind at all. In fact, I am terribly interested to see what sort of dish you Deen women will be making as well.”

◇

Toor Deen had come into this world as a member of a Suun branch house.

Her mother was the youngest sister of the Deen’s clan head, and she had married into the Suun clan.

At the time, the Suun had been the leading clan, so it should have been something to be proud of. However, the Suun had broken the taboos of the forest’s edge and become a clan bound by the sinister rules put in place by the former leading clan head Zattsu Suun.

Those rules had been established several years before the now ten-year-old Toor Deen was born. So for her, she had those secret demands driven into her for her whole life. The adults of the Suun settlement had constantly said that if other clans were to find out that secret, every last one of them would be scalped.

Why were the leading Suun clan the only ones forced to keep such a secret? It was to defeat the treacherous Ruu clan, and to gain the strength needed to keep the vicious northern clans firmly under control. Or at least, that was what Toor Deen had been told.

That was what was right. The Suun clan needed to lead the people of the forest’s edge down the proper path to the future. And so, for now they needed to keep that secret, no matter how painful it might be... The adults all said as much, with vacant looks in their eyes. Whenever the subordinate clans were invited to the settlement for a banquet or the like, they all looked so fierce and brimming with strength, while the members of the Suun clan seemed to have all spirit drained out of them.

But to Toor Deen, that was simply the way of the world. Her mother had been unable to bear such a life and passed away, leaving behind a young Toor Deen, but the girl wasn’t even permitted to grieve over that fact.

And then, Asuta and the Ruu women appeared.

On the night of the clan head meeting, the Suun clan’s secret was exposed. And with that, Toor Deen’s world came crumbling down.

Now, everyone would be scalped. Though that fact caused her to despair, Toor Deen still felt an indescribable sense of liberation even so.

She could go to her mother’s side, and she would no longer have to fear the gazes of other clans. With such thoughts in mind, Toor Deen was finally able to bawl her eyes out. She hadn’t had such an outburst of emotion since she was just a baby.

However, Toor Deen and her fellow clan members weren’t punished. The members of the main house were stripped of their clan names, but the members of the branch houses were permitted to join clans with which they had strong blood ties. And then, they were trusted to live proper lives as people of the forest’s edge in order to atone.

As a result, Toor Deen ended up joining the Deen clan along with her father. There, she began a new life, surrounded by a new family that was strict, yet kind.

Roughly two months had passed between then and now.

The Zaza clan who had taken over from the Suun as their parent clan now expressed doubts as to the Fa clan’s actions. However, though it took some doing, the Deen clan had gained permission to learn bloodletting and cooking techniques from Asuta. Would the Fa clan’s actions be medicine or a poison for the forest’s edge? The Deen were granted special permission to form ties with the Fa in order to determine just that.

And so, that led to the current state of things.

What had the Deen gained from the Fa clan? Gulaf Zaza, head of the Zaza who were now one of the new leading clans, had ordered them to show just that. If they screwed up, it could be like proving that the Fa clan was in the wrong. And so as she felt like she would be crushed by that pressure, Toor Deen resolved herself to prepare for the wedding banquet.

2

On that day, the thirteenth of the ashen month, Toor Deen once again visited the Fa house in the evening, pulling a board with a large pot and enough ingredients for three people behind her. However, when she got there she only found the clan head, Ai Fa.

“Ah, thank you for coming, Deen child.”

Ai Fa was on the side of the house, swinging her sword again and again. The Fa clan had entered into a break period yesterday just as the Deen had done, so she must have been getting in some training as a hunter. And as Ai Fa lowered her blade, she gently glanced at Toor Deen.

“Feel free to use the stove, firewood, and pots however you please. And I refilled the water jug this morning.”

“Th-Thank you. So Asuta still hasn’t returned from the post town yet...?”

“Indeed. He said he would not return today until just before the sun set.”

“Huh? Not until the sun’s setting?”

“Yes. Since he is leaving tonight’s dinner to you, he decided to spend as much time as possible giving cooking lessons in the Ruu settlement.”

Toor Deen was left at a loss for words.

And when she saw that, Ai Fa tilted her head.

“What is the matter? Could it perhaps be that you need Asuta’s assistance to prepare dinner?”

“N-No. If I asked for that, there wouldn’t be any point, so I intend to follow through on my own...”

Still, Toor Deen hadn’t ever talked much with Ai Fa before, which left her feeling more than a little daunted. But as the hunter sheathed her blade, she nodded to the young girl.

“Do not worry. If you need to carry anything heavy, I will lend you my aid. I manned the stove until Asuta joined my house, so I shouldn’t make any mistakes that would cause you trouble.”

“R-Right, thank you...”

“Will you be using the indoor stove or the outdoor one? I stocked both with firewood to be safe.”

“Oh, then I think I would like to use the outdoor stove.”

When Ai Fa guided her around behind the house, Toor Deen’s eyes widened a bit in shock.

There were two stoves behind the Fa house. A large leather roof stretched out above them, and next to them there were logs and wooden boards forming a workstation right up against the wall of the house.

Toor Deen had visited the Fa house just a few days prior to receive cooking lessons from Asuta, but there hadn’t been anything like this.

And when she noticed Toor Deen’s gaze, Ai Fa said, “Ah, right. For some time now Asuta and I have discussed the need to have a roof and workstation for the outdoor stoves. And since we finally entered this break period, we were able to make it happen.”

“B-But your break period only started yesterday, didn’t it? You were able to complete all this in just two days?”

“Indeed. I have not had much to keep me busy besides training,” Ai Fa replied as she knocked on the surface of the workstation. “It took a bit of time to join this stand together so that the logs were not slanted, but I do not believe aria or poitan will roll off of it. If you find it stable enough, feel free to use it.”

“R-Right, thank you.”

The height must have been adjusted to come up to around Asuta’s waist. That made it a bit high for Toor Deen, but it still seemed like it would make things easier than laying out a sheet on the ground to sit on while working.

“W-Well then, allow me to get started.”

As Ai Fa watched over her, Toor Deen placed the ingredients she had brought along with her onto the workstation. First up came the prep work for the soup dish.

“Hup,” she grunted as she lifted the pot to the stovetop.

Peering inside the pot, Ai Fa murmured, “Oh...? Are those giba entrails?”

“Yes. The Deen men took it down roughly two days ago. And it seems that entrails will last for around five days when preserved with pico leaves...”

“I see. You’re the one who taught Asuta how to handle entrails, aren’t you, Deen child?” Ai Fa remarked with a satisfied nod, her gaze remaining fixed on the pot. “Still, you seem to have quite the variety packed in here. Asuta separates the different types before grilling or boiling them, but for this dish you will be cooking them all together?”

“Y-Yes. I thought it would be best not to make the steps too complicated if I was planning on teaching them to the northern clans...”

Nearly all the edible innards was packed into the pot. From what Asuta had said, they would be the heart, liver, large and small intestines, stomach, rectum, uterus, lungs, kidneys, diaphragm, and so on. The Fa clan chef had been so kind as to teach her the name and purpose of each in the breaks during cooking lessons.

“To start with, I’ll use giba fat and lightly grill these...” Toor Deen explained as she worked, since Ai Fa seemed quite interested in what she was doing. It was rather embarrassing since it felt like she was imitating Asuta, but she also felt that as the Fa clan head, Ai Fa should also know the contents of the dish. “Then once it’s heated through to some degree, I’ll boil it in tarapa sauce.”

She had prepared that in advance back on her own stove. It had involved finely dicing aria and myamuu and then boiling those together with fruit wine and pico leaves to make the tarapa sauce. And now, Toor Deen transferred that into the pot from the leather bag Jas Deen had bought in the post town.

“Hmm... That seems to be the same way that Asuta makes boiled tarapa dishes.”

“R-Right... So, at this point I decided to try adding lilo leaves and chitt seeds.”

“Chitt seeds...?” Ai Fa’s eyes swiftly narrowed.

Seeing that, Toor Deen flinched and unwittingly stopped adding the lilo leaves and chitt seeds.

“S-Since many different giba innards have unique flavors to them, I wanted to add the strong aroma of lilo and chitt... Umm, is there some sort of concern with that?”

“No, of course not... But wouldn’t using too many unfamiliar ingredients in a dish meant for the simple folks up north be an issue? After all, those chitt seeds come from the Eastern Kingdom of Sym, do they not?”

“Y-Yes. But chitt seeds aren’t as rare or expensive as tau oil, so we use them regularly now in the Deen clan. I think the northern clans probably won’t be all that opposed to them...”

“I see. It seems you’ve thought this through carefully. My apologies for interrupting your work. Please, go ahead and resume,” Ai Fa replied, yet her brow still remained furrowed.

“Umm...are you perhaps not fond of chitt seeds, Ai Fa...?”

“That is not the case. However, when I first had them, it proved quite painful for me,” Ai Fa answered in a sulking tone. “Ever since, when I hear their name or smell them, I recall that experience. But do not worry, it’s not as if I hate dishes that use chitt seeds.”

“I-I see... That certainly sounds tough...”

The small red chitt seeds were a powerfully spicy ingredient. Still, as long as you didn’t mess up the amount, they could give a dish a suitable punch, just like with pico leaves. Nobody in the Deen clan disliked them at all, so it seemed quite unusual to Toor Deen that Ai Fa was making such a pained expression.

I certainly don’t think Asuta would mess up with the amounts... What in the world could have happened? the girl wondered as she stirred the contents of the pot.

The lilo leaves she added along with the chitt seeds were an herb used when making jerky. Asuta said it should be used when you want to suppress the taste of the meat, which was why Toor Deen decided to use it in her offal soup dish.

And as for the myamuu, she used more of it in the tarapa sauce than she did with other dishes. She figured that by adding such a thoroughly strong aroma to the dish, that should make it easier to handle for people eating giba innards for the first time.

“Then I just need to let it boil slowly over a low heat, and finally adjust the flavor with salt and pico leaves. In the meantime, I’d like to prepare the other dishes...”

“Right.”

“First up is the meatballs and the stir-fried vegetables.”

“So, meatballs rather than hamburger steak?”

“Yes. They take less effort than hamburger steak, so we make a lot of meatballs in the Deen clan.”

After mincing the organ meat, she then thoroughly kneaded it with salt and pico leaves. It was also possible to make them with poitan or fuwano flour, or even kimyuus egg, but this time around she didn’t add anything. If you kneaded them till they were nice and sticky at this stage, there wasn’t much risk of them crumbling.

“The stir-fried vegetable dish uses aria, tino, pula, and nenon.”

“Hmm, that certainly sounds luxurious.”

“Right. Since it’s a wedding banquet, such extravagance should be acceptable.”

Asuta had said that color was important too when it came to cooking. When you used ingredients like dark green pula and pale vermilion nenon, just frying them was enough to make for a gorgeous dish.

When Toor Deen started making the sauce to drizzle over the meatballs, Ai Fa called out to her again. “Deen child, now that I think about it, I have yet to learn your name. If you do not mind, could you tell me?”

“Huh...? I-I’m Toor Deen...”

“Toor Deen, is it? It’s a fine, gentle-sounding name.” As Ai Fa made that uncharacteristic statement, she walked over closer to the young chef. “Toor Deen, though you must not have had as much time to form a bond with Asuta as the Ruu women, you still seem to think highly of him.”

“Eh..?” Toor Deen almost tried to shrink away. But since she was boiling down the fruit wine sauce at the moment, she couldn’t do so. “I-It’s true that I respect Asuta... B-But those are my earnest feelings, and I don’t believe they’re anything to be ashamed of...”

“That’s true, of course. And that is precisely why I wanted to tell you this,” Ai Fa stated with a serious look, moving even closer. Toor Deen felt like her legs were on the verge of trembling.

However, the expression that then crossed Ai Fa’s face was a rather awkward smile.

“I’m proud to hear that Asuta is so precious to you. I would like to thank you for those kind feelings.”

“Huh...? What exactly are you talking about...?” Toor Deen asked, now utterly perplexed as she moved the sauce over to the plate of meatballs before it burned.

And as she looked at the girl, Ai Fa’s eyes just narrowed further as she smiled. “When Asuta was safely rescued from that noble manor and returned to the settlement, you shed tears of joy, did you not? It truly moved me to see that you were so earnestly worried about him.”

“Th-That was, I mean... My emotions just came bubbling up...”

The day after Asuta was saved from the noble manor, he was staying at the Ruu settlement, and he let Toor Deen and everyone else see he was okay. The young girl had broken down crying.

After Asuta was kidnapped by those fiends, nobody knew where he was for five whole days, which caused Toor Deen to worry so much that it seemed like it would tear her apart. And so, when she saw he was okay, she was so full of joy and relief that she clung to his chest and wept. Just remembering that was enough to cause Toor Deen to blush so hard she felt like her whole body was ablaze.

“It is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s Asuta’s fault for worrying you so much. So please, allow me to offer both an apology and thanks on behalf of my bungling clan member.”

“N-No, that’s...”

“And on top of that, your heartfelt wish to receive lessons from Asuta moved Gulaf Zaza’s heart in turn. Perhaps it is all thanks to the forest’s guidance,” Ai Fa stated, looking up at the sky as it steadily turned scarlet. “Well then, it seems the sun will be setting soon. I believe it would be best to finish up the rest of the cooking inside the house, but what do you say?”

“Y-Yes, I’ll go ahead and do just that,” Toor Deen replied, feeling more than a little surprised. She had never even dreamed that Ai Fa possessed such a warm, kind heart.

Of course, it wasn’t as if Toor Deen had believed Ai Fa was heartless either. Still, she had ignored the objections of everyone around her and chosen to live as a hunter despite being a woman. And so Toor Deen had expected her to be just as stoic as any man, with a heart that wouldn’t be easily moved.

And yet, she smiled like that at me of all people... That makes me really happy, somehow, Toor Deen thought to herself as she carried the completed dishes and the rest of the ingredients into the house.

Just then, she heard the sound of a wagon rolling closer.

3

“Hey there, Toor Deen. How’s the cooking going?” Asuta asked with a smile as he descended from his wagon in front of the house.

Toor Deen nodded back, her face still red from the conversation a moment ago. “Hello. I just have one more dish to finish. Did it go well today, Asuta?”

“Yep, sure did. Ah, Ai Fa, I’m back.”

“Right.”

Ai Fa was standing there in the doorway of the house with her arms crossed, staring at Asuta with an expression fitting for a clan head. And yet, in spite of the look on her face, there was a very gentle gaze to her eyes.

She must have been truly overjoyed that Asuta had safely returned. The conflict with the nobles might have been settled, but there was still some degree of danger to people of the forest’s edge heading into the post town.

“Well then, time for me to get started on that final dish,” Toor Deen declared, lighting the indoor stove while Asuta tidied up.

As the young chef transferred the giba lard she had brought from the Deen house into the pot, Ai Fa peered inside and commented, “Oh...? Is the final dish you’re preparing giba cutlets?”

“No, it would be difficult to prepare those with my level of skill, and that goes even more so for the women of the north. This is a simpler fried dish.”

Naturally, it was one that Asuta had taught her how to prepare. Though giba cutlets had apparently earned quite a high regard in the Ruu settlement, they were not only difficult to prepare, but also required a variety of ingredients. And that was why Asuta proposed this dish.

“What should I call it? Meunière-style shallow-fried giba, I guess?” Asuta had once mused.

The dish involved rubbing salt and pico leaves into flat slices of meat, covering them in fuwano or poitan flour, then frying them up in lard.

Steak and hamburger steak used just a bit of fat to grill. Cutlets and croquettes were immersed in heated oil to fry. Shallow frying was a method that fell somewhere between those two.

The meat was the cut from the back that Asuta called sirloin. It was initially about as thick as Toor Deen’s palm, and she then beat it with a wooden pole until it was about two-thirds that thickness. Asuta had said making it that thick would give it a proper chewiness and allow it to heat through quickly so it wouldn’t suck up excess oil.

Next, Toor Deen flavored it with salt and pico leaves, coated it in poitan flour, and then dipped it into the heated lard. The depth of the lard was enough so that the meat was left half-submerged.

The oil crackled pleasantly. The giba cutlets Asuta had once let her taste really were unbelievably delicious, but Toor Deen believed this shallow-fried meat was plenty tasty too.

“Ah, you’re frying? In that case, use this,” Asuta said, coming out of the pantry holding some sort of strange tool. It was like a flat board made by joining together thin metal rods, which left it with a lot of openings.

“This is called a wire mesh. If you place the fried meat on top of it, the excess oil will drip off.”

“Thank you. I’ll go ahead and use it, then.”

As she moved the cooked meat to the mesh, she added the next piece of meat to the pot. And by that point, Asuta was also standing next to the stove.

“Rounded pots are real inconvenient with how you have to cook the pieces one by one in when you’re shallow frying, right? So we’re planning on buying a saucepan for the Fa house.”

“A-A saucepan?”

“Yeah. It’s a type of pan with a flat bottom. You don’t see them that often in the post town, but they were more commonly used back in my home country.”

Just what sort of country had Asuta come from? After all, he claimed he was nothing but a chef-in-training there. Toor Deen couldn’t help but find that rather hard to believe, though.

“All right, that should do it. Sorry for making you wait.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for. And this is my first time eating your cooking, so I’m looking forward to it.”

When she heard those words, Toor Deen got a knot in her stomach, and her ears and cheeks felt hot.

But at any rate, the cooking was done. After transferring the meat to a wooden plate once the oil dripped off, she went ahead and laid everything out atop the carpet in the main hall. Giba offal soup, giba meatballs, stir fry using four different vegetables, and shallow-fried giba sirloin... Then when she added the poitan baked in the house, everything was ready.

For the shallow-fried meat, she also sprinkled the juice from a slice of sheel overtop. That sour fruit juice really paired well with the dish, which packed in the delicious flavor of the giba meat.

“We’ll also be preparing normal grilled meat on the day of the banquet too, but these are all of the more elaborate dishes we’ll be offering.”

“Yup, looks like a real extravagant lineup. It certainly doesn’t lose out to what I prepared for the Rutim banquet,” Asuta responded with a truly joyful grin.

As she placed her hand to her rapidly beating heart, Toor Deen took a seat.

It was already getting dark in the room, so Ai Fa went around and lit some candles, while Asuta clapped his hands together and offered thanks.

“We give thanks for the blessings of the forest, and offer our gratitude to Toor Deen, who manned the flame and gave us our life for this night... Thanks for the food.” With that, Asuta started off by reaching for the giba offal soup. “Ooh, so you used entrails in a tarapa stew? Looks tasty.”

Toor Deen clenched her fists and watched intently as Asuta brought the wooden spoon to his mouth. And then, his eyes opened wide, looking a little shocked.

“Those chitt seeds add just the right amount of punch. And this flavor...did you use lilo leaves?”

“Yes, that’s correct...”

“The lilo definitely pairs well with the tarapa, doesn’t it? It’s very tasty.”

Asuta was kind by nature, though, so that comment alone wasn’t enough to put Toor Deen at ease.

Meanwhile, Ai Fa slurped some soup with a frown.

“Ooh, so this is the heart, and this is skirt steak? It sure is nice getting to enjoy all these different textures, isn’t it, Ai Fa?”

“Indeed. And the proportion of chitt seeds used seems just right.”

“You sure are particular about chitt seeds, aren’t you? But I haven’t burned your mouth with them even once since then, have I?”

“Don’t make me remember! My tongue will start throbbing!” Ai Fa shouted with a frightening look. Still, considering how calm and composed she normally was, such an outburst of emotion really went to show just how much she had opened her heart to Asuta.

“Umm...are there any issues with how it tastes?”

“No, it’s delicious! It should make even folks eating offal for the first time more than happy,” Asuta replied as he scooped up a meatball. “Yup, no issues with these either. So you went with a no-frills fruit wine base for the sauce?”

Occasionally, Asuta used words that Toor Deen didn’t really get, which she figured must have come from his home country.

But at any rate, after that Asuta and Ai Fa feasted away just as vigorously as the Deen men did. They both had formidable appetites considering how thin they were. Toor Deen had actually been worried she had made a bit too much, but sure enough, everything ended up in their bellies.

“How was it...? I would like to hear your honest opinions on whether or not it was a meal fitting for a banquet,” Toor Deen questioned after somehow managing to finish off her own plate.

“Thanks for the meal,” Asuta stated in what seemed to be some unfamiliar chant, and then he crossed his arms and went, “Hmm... There was no issue at all with the flavor. To be perfectly honest, I never imagined you had polished your skills this much. After all, I haven’t really had a proper chance to give lessons to the members of the Deen and Fou clans.”

Even before he was kidnapped by that noble girl, Asuta had frequently stayed at the Ruu settlement, where he had apparently prepared food for the stalls and cooked dinner along with the women there.

On the other hand, Toor Deen and everyone else had only been able to get in a little training here and there by visiting the Fa house. Since it was the custom at the forest’s edge that you needed to prepare dinner for your house at your own stove, they had no choice but to bring the techniques learned from Asuta back home and try them out there.

“On top of that, it may be forward of me to say so, but I have some advice.”

“R-Right! Please, don’t hold back!”

“First off, you said before that you’d be offering grilled meat in addition to these dishes, but what about the soup?”

“The soup? I hadn’t come up with anything besides this tarapa dish...”

“I see. For the Rutim banquet I also prepared a tarapa stew, but that took a lot of time to prepare and plenty of ingredients, so I made a normal soup too,” Asuta stated, stroking his chin as he looked deep in thought. “This tarapa and offal soup feels pretty similar, I’d say. How many people will be attending the banquet?”

“R-Right, it should be around seventy or eighty, I believe.”

“It’ll be real tough preparing enough innards, then. The Deen clan is on a break, so who will be providing those and the meat?”

“Well, the plan is to have the Deen men go around to our related clans during the break period to teach them how to bloodlet and remove the innards. It should be clans that are closer than the ones up north, though.”

“I see. Well, even if you can get enough, I’d still say there’s no harm in preparing a normal soup too. A simple dish like that can help the flavors of everything else stand out, and soup can efficiently provide a nice helping of vegetables, so I’d recommend using plenty of aria and the like.”

“Right, got it.”

“And also...this is really getting nitpicky, but it might be good to mix in some poitan or fuwano flour with the sauce you drizzle over the meatballs. That should help it cling better to them.”

“Poitan or fuwano flour? Understood,” Toor Deen replied, carving Asuta’s words firmly into the back of her mind.

And as she did that, Asuta shot her a smile.

“Right, that’s all I have to say.”

“Huh?”

“I know you’re trying to avoid using unnecessary ingredients as much as possible with the meatballs, so it’s no big deal if you don’t do so. Just adding the simple soup dish should be plenty.”

“B-But isn’t anything else wrong...? Not just with the contents of the dishes, but with the flavoring and everything...?”

“Like I said before, there’s nothing wrong with the flavor. At present, I figure it’s worthy of a perfect score, right?” Asuta asked, shooting Ai Fa a questioning look.

“Indeed,” she nodded back. “I find these dishes even more delicious than what was presented at the Rutim banquet or the clan head meeting. It truly is surprising that you were able to prepare something on this level without Asuta’s assistance.”

“That’s right. You may not quite be at Reina Ruu’s current skill level, but considering how little instruction you received, this is a tremendous result.”

“Then... Then if I receive more of your instruction too, can I get even better?” Toor Deen asked, leaning forward without even thinking.

Asuta’s eyes opened wide in shock as he answered, “Y-Yeah, of course. You’re still only ten years old, so you should have plenty of room left to grow.”

“In that case... I really would like to learn more from you.”

She hadn’t planned on revealing that to Asuta until after the banquet. However, she simply hadn’t been able to hold in how she was feeling.

“You heard from Gulaf Zaza too, right, Asuta? My clan member Jas Deen asked him if the Deen clan could also help out with your business in the post town. If this banquet satisfies Gulaf Zaza, he should grant that request... Or at least, that’s what Jas Deen said.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. There was no time to discuss stuff like that until everything was settled with the nobles... But now that things have settled down, Gulaf Zaza is finally getting up off his backside, huh?”

“Yes... And Jas Deen said that’s why I’m being placed in charge of this banquet.”

“Huh? You’re only ten, but you’re being put in charge of the chefs?”

“That’s right. So if I can properly show the strength you bring to our people, then Gulaf Zaza and the clan heads under him should give their permission for me to help you out... Jas Deen said that if I want something, then I should be the one to see it through.” Suddenly, Toor Deen realized her body had started trembling. She clutched her knees to still herself. “So you see...if I really am successful with this job, then could...could I help out with your work too...?”

“Yeah, of course, Toor Deen,” Asuta replied with a gentle smile but a serious tone. “The truth is, we were actually just talking about expanding our staff. We’re already borrowing lots of folks from the Ruu and Rutim, and the Fou and Ran don’t have women to spare, so it’s been looking like our only options would be the Lea and the Min. But if you can join in, that’d be a huge help.”

“Really...?”

“Yeah. So make sure to give this banquet everything you’ve got, okay?”

Toor Deen felt like she was about to break down in tears.

And yet, this was no time for crying. After all, she still had work to do.

If she could manage to make the banquet a success, she could help Asuta with his stalls... And if that happened, then it would probably be okay for her to cry a bit.

With such thoughts running through her head, Toor Deen replied, “Thank you.”

At that, Asuta and Ai Fa both stared back at the young chef with more warmth than ever before.