Chapter 4: The Rutim Banquet (Part 1)

1

Dawn broke, and the day arrived at last.

That is, the day of my first job, handling Gazraan Rutim and Ama Min’s wedding banquet.

“Hey... What, you’re up already?”

When I awoke in the vacant Ruu house, Ai Fa was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, doing up her long blonde hair with both hands.

“So you’re up as well? It’s still too early to start working. You can go ahead and sleep longer.”

“No, I’m the type that can’t go back to sleep once I’m up. And I don’t seem to be feeling tired at all, anyway,” I said while giving a stretch.

Sure seemed like a nice morning. And I was feeling great, too.

“The banquet will last till midnight. You won’t have any time to rest between midday and then, so you should sleep a little more now.”

Huh? She’s being unusually kind there, isn’t she? Was she worrying about me, because I took on this huge job?

At any rate, I sure was having a happy start to my day.

“It’s fine. It’ll be nothing compared to these last five days. After all, now I just need to put all the work I’ve done up till now into motion... Well, that may not be so simple to pull off, though.”

“In that case, you should save your strength. Just rest.”

Hmm? It was starting to feel a bit less like she was just worrying about me, somehow.

“Now that I think of it, aren’t you going to be helping me out today? So in that case, shouldn’t you not have anything to do if I’m not awake?”

Ai Fa didn’t say a word.

“Just where were you planning on heading this early in the morning?”

“...I intended to borrow their bath and cleanse myself before work,” she said, glaring at me with her wildcat-like eyes. “So you just stay asleep.”

“Um... Now that you’ve said that, there won’t be any more unfortunate accidents, right? And hey, do I really look like the sort of guy to repeat that sort of mistake again and again?”

No response.

“Do I?! That sure is disappointing! Alright... If I do something unforgivable and break that taboo again, then you can just follow the customs and take my eyes.”

“What use do I have for those...?”

I refrained from quipping back, “Then do you want me to marry you?” and just silently exited the house alongside Ai Fa.

Now that I thought of it, Ai Fa had intended to leave the Ruu settlement this morning and spend the time till tomorrow morning in her own house. She had said, “As a member of the Fa clan, I am not qualified to participate in a Rutim banquet,” or some such. But I responded, “That’s just ridiculous!” and had her assigned as one of my cooking assistants so that she stayed here.

I couldn’t even stand imagining Ai Fa all alone sipping her handmade giba stew, while Granny Jiba and Rimee Ruu were participating in the banquet.

When I asked Gazraan Rutim about the matter, he just said, “Do as you please, Asuta.” Actually, he had a bit of a dubious look on his face, as if to say he figured that had been the plan from the start. Gazraan Rutim was an innovator who planned to have someone who wasn’t even related to him man the stove for his wedding, so compared to him it was no surprise that Ai Fa would be quite a bit more stubborn and inflexible.

At first Ai Fa was hesitant, but when I passionately insisted, “Please, let me carry out my duty today too, as the one who mans the Fa clan’s stove,” she relented in the end.

And so, that was how we ended up walking side by side to the main Ruu house like this. We just leisurely strolled along through the main plaza, seeing how it was now completely set up for the banquet.

There were now 10 stoves in total set up in the plaza. They were just put together out of white stones, and seemed rather simple in their construction. With the way they were built, heat would escape here and there, so I wouldn’t be able to satisfactorily use different flame strengths, like I had practiced. And so, all the cooking was going to be done in advance in the kitchens of the various houses, and these stoves would just be used to keep everything warm.

There was already a massive wooden stage in front of the main Ruu house that was meant for the bride and groom, and the logs for the ceremonial fire were assembled in the center of the plaza. All of this had been set up by the Ruu women over the last few days.

The plaza was about half the size of a school’s grounds, but once there were 100 people here, it was sure to be plenty bustling and lively. I got excited just thinking about it, and that feeling was only growing stronger.

That many people would be eating my cooking. The thought made me feel proud... and also frightened.

I felt strange and my pulse started to race for a moment, but then I looked over at Ai Fa’s face and calmed back down.

Ai Fa’s expression was the same as always, never changing.

“Hmm... Is it alright if I say something a little weird?”

“I firmly refuse.”

“It really makes me feel at ease, being able to be with you all the time from the morning onward.”

“...Are you saying you want to follow me even to the bath?”

“No! Can we please just get away from that topic already?!”

Ai Fa shrugged her shoulders, which was rather unlike her.

“These five days have been special. Once tomorrow comes, we shall return to our former lifestyle.”

“Yeah. And I mean, I’m plenty happy about that, too.”

As Ai Fa glared at me, her face went ever so slightly red. Honestly, I was feeling pretty embarrassed too, but I still somehow felt like I won.

“But tomorrow that Kamyua Yoshu man shall be coming to visit, right?”

“Ah, now that you mention it, that’s right. Still, just what sort of nerves must that old guy have, to be willing to charge into the forest’s edge all on his own? Seriously, if he screwed up even slightly, Darmu Ruu would’ve cut him down.”

Ai Fa looked like she was thinking something.

“Hmm?”

“Darmu Ruu couldn’t defeat that man.”

Our conversation had somehow taken a rather violent turn so early in the morning.

As we were having this discussion, we detoured around the massive two meter high stage and arrived at the main Ruu house, where we ran into Granny Tito Min coming out of the entrance holding an axe.

“Oh, my, you’re rather early, Asuta and Ai Fa. The girls are all bathing, so feel free to join in if you like, Ai Fa.”

Ai Fa’s glare was drilling a hole through my cheek. I was about to insist, “I swear, I won’t come anywhere near you!” but Granny Tito Min was right there, so I couldn’t.

“You’re heading for the kitchen, right, Asuta? I’m heading out back too, so I’ll lead you there.”

“Thank you. So you’re chopping firewood this early in the day? Ah, sorry... It’s thanks to me burning up so much, isn’t it?”

“That’s for sure. It’s the first time we’ve ever had the firewood run out anywhere near this fast. I chop, and I chop, but I just can’t keep up.”

“I really am sorry.”

“I’m just kidding. It’s all for the sake of your delicious cooking, right?” she said with a wide, gentle grin.

My old man didn’t get along with his family, and my mom’s parents passed away young, so I didn’t have any memories of my grandparents. She was always bright and cheerful, but also had an incredibly composed dignity about her, so I thought that Granny Tito Min really must have been a splendid grandmother.

Granny Tito Min married Granny Jiba’s son and they had Donda Ruu, who then married Mia Lea and they had seven children, and then their eldest son, Jiza Ruu, married Sati Lea Ruu and Kota Ruu was born... In that way, the Ruu bloodline had carried on unbroken.

If the other six get married, I’d sure like to man the stove for their weddings like I am today.

Well, I was certain that dream would never become reality as long as Donda Ruu was clan head and Jiza Ruu was his heir. But over the past five days, I had grown close enough to the members of the Ruu clan that I couldn’t help but hold that dream.

“Well then, I shall borrow your bath,” Ai Fa said while shooting me one last glare, then walked away down the path surrounded by greenery.

I swore in my heart that that was no preface or omen, and I wouldn’t go anywhere near the bath until the women returned.

Knowing nothing of those thoughts of mine, Granny Tito Min said, “Go ahead and use them freely, as you please,” and opened up the doors to the kitchen, pantry, and dissection room.

The custom was a bit of a pain, but I needed to have someone from the house open up each of the doors first thing in the morning. That was how they did things in this settlement, as they didn’t use any locks.

Now then...

The banquet would start in the early evening. That meant I needed to finish all of the cooking before then, but there was only one task I needed to take care of at the moment: the preparations for the new dish I had perfected for today, giba meat and tarapa stew.

I had asked myself how to make poitan delicious as a liquid, and this was the answer I had reached. What I ultimately chose as my partner wasn’t the Japanese yam-esque gigo, but the tomato-like tarapa.

This dish took a good bit longer to cook than my others, so it wasn’t a bad idea to start early. Once I finished it I could just heat it back up for the main event, making it the most fitting dish to take care of first.

To start with, I carried the bag of aria I had set aside yesterday out of the pantry, then diced all of them. Of course, I intended to use them as a sort of pot herb, but it certainly wasn’t normal to be using this many at this step. But since there were going to be 100 people, that meant I needed to use fifty of them.

Even if it was just a wooden plate’s worth per person, I wanted everyone there to eat it. So with that thought in mind, I decided I needed to make four pots filled to the brim with the stuff.

And so, I single-mindedly did nothing but chop away at those pseudo-onions, the aria. I chopped and chopped and kept on chopping. If these had been real onions, I would’ve been crying up a storm by now. But aria didn’t sting the eyes, so I just kept chopping.

10 minutes later I had finished dicing them all, but then I realized something: I didn’t have any pots!

I see. The women were also cleaning up after last night’s dinner while they were bathing. I’d doubt my own sanity if I just said “Oh, so that was it!” and headed off towards the bath, though. But fortunately, I didn’t have to get anywhere near causing such a tragedy, as Reina Ruu soon showed up looking flustered, with wet hair and holding a pot.

“S-Sorry! When I heard that you were already cooking, I hurried up and washed a pot for you to use!”

“Thanks. You really saved me, Reina Ruu.”

Perhaps because she had been in the middle of her bath, her long black hair ran down her back rather than being done up in its usual braids, causing her to look sort of like a different person entirely and catching me off guard. And she was also in a single piece outfit like her mother, which was certainly fresh.

“Ah, s-sorry! I’ve let you see me in such an improper state...” Reina Ruu said, her face turning red even though she was actually showing less skin than usual.

“Um, once we’re done washing them all, we’ll get the rest to you soon, so...”

“Don’t worry. I won’t go anywhere near the bath, no matter what.”

Reina Ruu breathed a sigh of relief, then said, “Well then, excuse me,” and took off running.

I felt a little hurt to see how worried she had been, but at any rate, I lit the stove, heated up the pot, dropped in some giba fat, and then threw in the diced aria. Naturally, since I used fifty of them there was an awful lot, so it took five goes before I had them all fried up. I heated them up till they turned a yellowish brown, then added some fruit wine for flavoring at the end, and finally transferred them to a wooden plate once all the alcohol burned off.

Once I had repeated that process five times, it was time to move on to the meat.

I had 15 kilos each of both shoulder and thigh meat, adding up to 30 kilos in total. That was quite the quantity to handle, too. Anyway, I cut it all up into bite-sized pieces.

Around when I finished with that, another pot came tottering in, held by Rimee Ruu.

“Sorry for the wait! Everyone will bring the other two later!”

“Right, thanks.”

It looked like she had properly finished bathing. Her reddish brown hair looked nice and soft, but she was wearing her usual attire.

“You’re already preparing the stew? I’ll help out, too!”

“Ah, really? In that case, could you go get the tarapa? I believe there should have been eight fresh ones bought just yesterday.”

“Tarapa, right? Got it! Tehehe...”

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking how glad I am that you’re not a bad person.”

With that, Rimee Ruu took off running into the pantry.

Hmm?

Was she saying that because I was working away this early in the morning?

While thinking it’d be nice if that was what she meant, I started cooking the giba meat.

Just grilling it till it got a bit of color was plenty. I took advantage of the size of the pan and fried up chunks one after another, then secured them on wooden plates once they were done.

It was easy to say, but it was still 30 whole kilos of meat. In no time at all, the whole kitchen was filled with the overwhelming scent of meat and fat.

At any rate, next up was aria, this time meant as a proper ingredient rather than just flavoring. I used fifty for that too, and I just single-mindedly chopped away at them.

In the meantime, thanks to Rimee Ruu’s efforts I ended up with eight tarapa sitting on the stand next to me.

They were like tomatoes that were the size of pumpkins. It had a ribbed shape too, so it really was a lot like a pumpkin. But the color and taste were just like those of a tomato.

At any rate, this vegetable I had previously benched was being tasked with serving as the base for the dish’s flavor.

“That’s a whole lot of aria! Should I cut some too?”

“Ah, before that, I’d like to have you bring out the tino and chatchi. All the ones in bags, if you don’t mind.”

“Got it!”

It may have been early in the morning, but Rimee Ruu was already bursting with energy, earnestness, and adorableness. If she were my daughter or little sister or something, I’m sure she’d be the apple of my eye.

As that thought was running through my head, the remaining sisters and Ai Fa made it to the kitchen, carrying the other pots and utensils. It would seem that I made it through this ordeal without needing to have my eyeballs scooped out.

“Here, we brought them! Geez, my heart started pounding when I heard you had started cooking,” Lala Ruu whispered into my ear.

I gave Reina Ruu an ambiguous smile, since she really had dispatched everyone.

“So you didn’t come visit us today...?” Vina whispered into my ear. She would be beet red if it really happened, so seriously, what was she saying?

“We need to take turns with our mother and the rest, but once that’s over, we’ll come help you out.”

“Thank you, Lala Ruu.”

“They’ll be bathing next. You understand what I’m telling you, right?”

I do, from the depths of my heart.

And hey wait, just what sort of person do you think I am, exactly?

It was then that Rimee Ruu returned with a, “Gah, this is heavy!”

Tino were like slightly larger heads of lettuce, and there were six of them packed in the bag, but Rimee Ruu had managed to carry a metal pot on her own, so it really shouldn’t have been too heavy of a burden for her. It must have just been that it was too bulky and unwieldy to manage with her tiny body.

And man, did she ever look adorable.

“Asuta, sorry for the wait! All that’s left is the chatchi, right?”

“I’ll go get that. How about you help with the cutting, Rimee Ruu?” Ai Fa offered.

“Yeah!”

Ai Fa speedily headed into the pantry, while Rimee Ruu grabbed a knife meant for preparing vegetables from the wall.

The people of the forest’s edge sure were diligent learners. As soon as they grasped the process, things started moving forward incredibly smoothly.

“In that case, shall I leave the tino up to you, Rimee Ruu? You know how big they should be, right?”

“Yeah, bite sized!”

Rimee Ruu happily chopped away with her kitchen knife.

The three older girls put away the utensils and dishes, then exited out the door only for Ai Fa to return with the bag of chatchi in their place.

“This is the chatchi, right? What should I do now?”

“Ah, could you peel the skin off of those, then? You can just do it with your hands.”

Chatchi was a fruit that was like a yellow-skinned orange. When you peeled the skin, though, a slippery white sphere popped out. And so, when Ai Fa put some force into her efforts, sure enough, that slippery little sphere went flying.

After letting out a surprised, “Wah!” Ai Fa then proceeded to kick me in the leg.

“Why are you kicking me?!”

“Oh shut up...”

“Ahaha,” Rimee Ruu laughed.

Before I had even realized it, we were down to just the trio of me, Ai Fa, and Rimee Ruu. There was a nice calm feeling in the air, so I decided to let that unwarranted kick just slide on by.

“Once you’ve finished peeling them, please wash them in water until the sliminess is all gone.”

The chatchi was a new addition I had discovered in the pantry. It clearly looked to be a citrus fruit on the outside, but on the inside it was strikingly similar to a potato. And unlike the poitan which looked just like a potato, this had the exact same sort of taste and texture, too.

After Ai Fa washed them, I split them down the middle, and then chopped them up into roughly three-centimeter sized chunks.

With that, the preparations were finally complete.

Fifty aria, diced up and fried to use for flavoring.

Another fifty aria, cut into wedges.

30 chatchi and six tino, chopped into bite-sized pieces.

30 kilos of giba shoulder and thigh meat, with the surface grilled.

Finally, eight massive tomatoes, the tarapa.

I had to cook all this up before laying hands on that accursed poitan... Or put another way, I needed to use all of these different ingredients in order to conquer it.

This is the best I can manage, as I am now.

Poitan broth was sticky like flour dissolved in water, and was hard to get down.

Seriously, why was poitan such a pain?

My hypothesis was that it was down to a result of lack of seasonings to add flavor.

At the forest’s edge, people only used rock salt, pico leaves, and at most sometimes fruit wine for seasoning. And so, no matter what it just had a bland, mild flavor. I could make a fine stock out of meat and vegetables, but it would be difficult to neutralize the poitan’s peculiar taste with that alone.

It was then that the thought of a stew came to mind. After all, a stew often made use of the stickiness provided by flour.

With the ingredients on hand at the forest’s edge, though, a beef stew or cream stew would just be way too hard to make.

It was then that my attention turned to the strong vegetable taste of the tarapa.

The tarapa was more acidic than the tomatoes I was familiar with, but by using the aria as a pot herb, the fruit wine, and the black pepper-esque pico leaves, I was able to create a flavor that called to mind italian tomato sauce. And so, I decided to use this as a base to create a unique stew all my own.

To be honest, it was like an original combination of the Tsurumi Restaurant’s popular beef stew and tomato simmered hamburger dishes.

“Alright. Please light the remaining stoves, you two. Make it a strong flame, but not too strong.”

As I said that, I eyeballed it out and added about a fourth of the ingredients into each of the heated pots.

Aria in place of onion. Tino in place of cabbage. Chatchi in place of potato. Those were my three main tools.

Once the aria were nice and soft I added in the giba meat and a bottle of fruit wine, filling the kitchen with a sweet aroma. Once it was nice and boiling I scooped away the scum, then poured in plenty of water with a ladle.

I’d estimate that it filled about 80% of the pot.

After I added the water, I regulated it down to a low flame.

It needed two whole hours just to heat half of the total amount we needed.

There wasn’t any bouillon around, so my plan was to get a nice broth out of the ingredients themselves.

I managed to copy the same steps over three of the pots, but then I stopped at the last one.

“Ah, Rimee Ruu, I’m using this fruit wine for a different dish. Sorry, but could you swap it out for a different bottle?”

“Hmm? Huh? Now that you mention it, the container is sort of different.”

That was the container of fruit wine I had received from Kamyua Yoshu a few days ago. I thought I may have a use for it so I had Ai Fa bring it from the house three days ago, but its time to shine was still to come.

When I added in the fruit wine that Rimee Ruu brought me and finished up the final pot, we finally hit our first lull when we could take break.

We all wiped away some sweat, then walked over to the door to cool off.

I still had to scoop scum and occasionally add in some firewood, though, so I couldn’t go far.

“This is amazing. Now you’re using the poitan and even the tarapa. I’ve never seen a giba stew that uses so many vegetables at once before!”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, today is a celebration, so it’s something special.”

A mulligan stew using all sorts of ingredients, with the giba meat and vegetables that were said to be like a symbol of the life force they obtained from it... And the aria and poitan in particular were said to be indispensable in living a healthy life.

I’m sure that custom was born solely out of them being so cheap, but still... There was no need to pointlessly bend a tradition that had existed for 80 years now. Even if those ingredients were hard to stomach, you just had to cook them in a way that made them easy to eat.

I had also thought up the idea of heating the poitan up and then grilling it rather than boiling it, but it was possible that there were folks out there who would only eat it as a liquid, and would see it as nothing but an oddity when it was in solid form. I racked my brains over what to do for those people, but then Granny Jiba and Donda Ruu’s words that heating everything together was like a symbol of their life force gave me the revelation I needed to arrive at this giba meat and tarapa stew.

Currently, I was heating the meat and vegetables up according to the basic outline used for beef stew. Afterwards, I would use boiled tarapa’s flavor as a base to make a tarapa sauce. Then when I added the poitan, it would have the basic appearance of a stew.

Normally I would have fried flour up with butter to make a brown roux, but I couldn’t exactly pull that off here. I mean, I didn’t have any ingredients like butter to start with, and when I tried frying the floury poitan with giba fat, it just sputtered and burned and ended up totally useless.

But still, I was able to achieve that sticky texture just by throwing a raw poitan in, anyway. And that way was more in agreement with the concept of heating everything together.

I couldn’t help but worry if that was too simple of a method, but it turned out well. As long as I didn’t screw up the amount of poitan I added, it really did come out like a proper stew.

This was the result I had arrived at after wringing out every ounce of my ability for five days straight.

And it would serve as what we call the hors d’oeuvre. I’d set up the schedule with the familiar dish first to try to ease the doubts of the guests, even if it might only calm a few of them, before I brought out the more unusual dishes like hamburgers, spare ribs, and baked poitan afterwards.

God only knows what the result would be, though.

“Well, it’s not exactly my usual way of doing things, throwing around such expensive vegetables and making such an elaborate dish... But I decided it was alright because it’s such an important occasion.”

“It should be fine! I mean, it was super yummy! I think this stew may be my favorite out of all the stuff you taught me about, Asuta.”

“I see. Then I guess you’ll have to make it when your big sisters get married.”

“Huh?! You won’t be making it?!”

Rimee Ruu seemed to have taken a great enough blow that it was like I could see the word “stunned” floating over her head.

“No, but I mean, there’s no way that I’ll be allowed to man the stove for a Ruu wedding, right? You’ve really got to consider your dad’s disposition here.”

“Huh?! It’s fine! I mean...” Rimee Ruu started, her innocent little face brimming with the sort of mischief that was rare for her. “Didn’t you see papa Donda’s face after he ate that stew the day before yesterday? He went all ‘guh.’ ‘Guh!’”

“He sure did. I thought he was going to flip over the pot.”

“No, that was the sound of him being surprised at how tasty it was! I’m sure it was him almost letting ‘So good!’ slip out!”

“Really? I never even imagined that.”

“I’m super sure! I just know! So... when I get married, you’ve gotta make it, alright?”

That left me at a loss for words.

I stole a sideways glance, and saw that Ai Fa was just silently staring at the flickering flames of the stove.

As Rimee Ruu looked up at me with expectation sparkling in her eyes, I placed my hand on her little head and said, “Right... When that time comes, I’d definitely like to make it.”

At least if I remained in this world till that day came...

2

The three of us shared some light conversation while adding firewood now and again, and before too long, Lala and Reina Ruu returned.

“Hey, we brought pots!”

Just as Lala Ruu had said, they were each carrying a pot. They must have borrowed them from one of the branch families.

Unsurprisingly, this main house had the largest kitchen of the seven in the settlement, so I went ahead and designated it as my headquarters. However, they still only had four of the crucial pots and they were all soon taken up by my stew, so I decided to amass some of the pots and personnel from the branch families here.

Up until now I had been having the women of the branch families assist me in shifts, but for today the plan was to have them all help out. Actually, they should already have started baking poitan and chopping vegetables around now...

Which houses would prepare which dishes? How many pots and people would each house need to do that? Working backwards from those questions to create a schedule and assign shifts was the most bothersome part for me.

“What should we do with these pots? Were they for the tarapa going into the stew?”

“Ah, right, since we have enough people around now, should we go ahead and take care of that? Once we’re done with this, we’ll have it pretty easy until the sun hits its peak.”

I left the boiling to Ai Fa and Rimee Ruu, and then went outside with Lala Ruu to prepare the tomato, er, tarapa sauce.

We needed a tremendous amount of this stuff, too, but it was very simple to prepare. All I needed to do was take the diced aria I had fried first and then heat them up together with some thick slices of tarapa and fruit wine, and then finally conclude things by fine-tuning the taste with salt and pico leaves.

If I were being greedy, I would love having some garlic and basil on hand, but this sauce still earned passing marks. It took some time and effort to make it into a stew, but I’d also like to try pouring it over meat and heating it together with vegetables, and if those turned out well I could definitely see myself using them.

“How weird. To think that sour tarapa could turn into something this easy to eat...” Lala Ruu muttered while stirring the deep red, simmering tarapa so that it wouldn’t burn.

“It’s thanks to the sweetness from the fruit wine and the aria. I should have thought of it sooner...”

Lala Ruu seemed to have become a whole lot gentler over these past five days. The rough way she spoke was just down to her personality, but as long as she wasn’t getting hotheaded, she was actually a pretty earnest and adorable young girl.

“Ah, right, you hated tarapa, didn’t you, Lala Ruu?”

“Yeah. But now, I love it.”

That’s what I like to hear.

I had thought this girl seriously hated my guts, but now I was able to have such a nice, warm, nonchalant conversation with her.

It was then that I suddenly felt a disquieting gaze on my cheek, and I turned to look. I saw Reina Ruu with a sort of sad expression on her face, but she quickly looked away.

What was that about...? Wasn’t Ai Fa supposed to pretty much have a monopoly on shooting me an icy glare at times like this?

As those thoughts ran through my head, Ludo Ruu popped up while yawning.

“What, you’ve started already? Man, it’s sweltering out... Hey, Asuta, let’s go bathe. All the women are done, right?”

“Ah, no, I’m fine doing it later. I’ll be at a stopping point once I finish this off.”

“What’s the point of having three folks clinging around two stoves? Or are you saying you can’t manage anything without Asuta? The men are all already preparing giba, you know.”

“Shut up! You just want to go bathe, right? We don’t need Asuta at all!”

Why exactly did I have to get thrown under the bus, here?

“Go ahead. We’ll watch over the pots, so please go with him,” Reina Ruu said with a smile, though I could still spy some sadness in her gaze.

“Got it. Well then, I guess I’ll join you... Your mom and them really are done, aren’t they?”

“I can’t exactly have you marry into the family unless they’re unmarried, right?”

“No, but...”

“Dad and Jiza would just kill you dead, is all.”

“That’s what I mean! Did you confirm it?!”

“U-Um, we were able to come here because Sati Lea’s group had returned from bathing...” Reina Ruu said bashfully, her face turning a little red.

Ah, that’s no good. Looks like she really drew the short straw out of the group. I really should hurry along to the bath.

I called out to Ai Fa’s group inside, and then headed off with Ludo Ruu.

“Still, isn’t it kind of unusual for you to be inviting me to bathe, Ludo Ruu?”

“Hmm... Well, there’s sort of something I wanted to ask you about,” he said while walking as if he was throwing his legs out one after the other and pointing his pale eyes my way. “Did you talk to her about it yet?”

“It?”

“Sacrificial hunting.”

“Ah.”

Damn, I’d completely forgotten about that. How could I be so stupid?!

Of course, it had been because each and every day had been so very busy, but that was no excuse.

Ai Fa was hunting all on her own, but she was catching an excessive amount of giba. Ludo Ruu suggested that may be down to her using something called “sacrificial hunting,” and said that if I wanted to know more about it, I should ask Ai Fa directly.

Why had I gone and forgotten something so important? My own carelessness there was seriously making me want to scream.

With that said, though, I still didn’t have any clue just how important that may be. The term “sacrificial hunting” sounded ominous, and Ludo Ruu had a serious look on his face when he brought it up, but that was all I had to go on.

Now that it had come to this, I had no choice but to ask the person who had fanned the flames of my unease.

“Sorry, it completely slipped my mind... Hey, seriously, what is that sacrificial hunting thing?”

“If you haven’t asked, then don’t worry about it. You can just ask your clan head if you want to know.”

“No, but I mean, shouldn’t I be fine asking someone else about that? I mean, there’s going to always be someone by my side today.”

“It should be fine if the women hear though, right? I mean, they won’t understand anyway. Though it may be for the best if my dad doesn’t hear anything about it.”

“I won’t ask, then. I mean, I don’t feel like trying to keep Rimee Ruu quiet.”

I shot another sidelong glance, and saw a face staring back at me like he found this really tiresome.

“Guess there’s no helping it... Sacrificial hunting is an old technique that uses a giba summoning fruit. When you crush that fruit it spreads a smell that giba love through the air, and they come running. That’s all there is to it.”

“Hmm? It seems to have a rather exaggerated name then, doesn’t it?”

“...Apparently when giba sniff that scent, they become crazy ferocious. They’ll normally run away if they spy a person in the distance, but I hear they’ll intently come charging at someone with that smell about them.”

“Wha...?”

“It’s a hunting style that will ultimately sacrifice your very life, so it’s called ‘sacrificial hunting.’ If you hunt that way, no matter how much life force you may possess, it will never be enough, so I doubt there’s anyone who uses it nowadays.”

I was at a loss for words.

“So I’m sure Ai Fa can’t be doing it, either. Still, she sure is catching a crazy amount of giba... I just sort of want to ask her how she’s doing it all on her own.”

“That giba summoning fruit...”

“Hmm?”

“Does it have a sweet smell, like flowers?”

Ludo Ruu’s whole face now turned my way, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I’ve got no clue. I’ve never even seen one.”

“I see...”

That scent like sweet flowers that I had only ever smelled from Ai Fa... If it was from giba summoning fruit...

“Well, my dad hates people who throw away their lives, so if there was a hunter out there using giba summoning fruit, I’m sure he wouldn’t be happy about it.”

“Right...”

“I would respect them, though. If someone’s out there going that far to hunt giba, then I think that’s amazing. I mean, it may be really stupid, but it’s also super cool, so they’d definitely earn my respect.”

I couldn’t think of what to say.

“Hey, Asuta,” Ludo Ruu said, suddenly grabbing me by the collar. In an instant, the youth’s somewhat thin face was right before my eyes. “I’m saying, you should respect her too. If such a hunter exists, then you shouldn’t worry about her, but give her your respect.”

“...Got it.”

Ludo Ruu suddenly let go, then started leisurely walking forwards again.

I held back a sigh and scratched my head, towel and all.

It was around then that the doors blocking off the Ruu bathing area came into view.

“Ah, seems like it’s going to be a hot one again today...” Ludo Ruu said as he stepped beyond the doors. While thinking of Ai Fa waiting back in the kitchen, I followed after him.

And then, I almost let out an audible yelp.

“Oh, you were here already, Jiza, Darmu?”

Yes, his two older brothers were there. In a way, the pair were even harder to deal with than Donda Ruu.

Ludo Ruu paid them no heed, just tossing away his clothing until only his necklace was left.

There was a stream running through there, which would come up to my knees at most. It was rocky all around it, and in the rear was a rather tall cliff face, with forest up top casting shade down on the scene.

The two hunters were seated there, in the middle of wiping down their dark brown naked bodies with their palms and small cloths.

“Ooh, that’s cold!” Ludo Ruu yelled out excitedly after jumping in.

I wasn’t excited, though. No, not at all.

Jiza Ruu glanced over my way, and then silently resumed wiping himself down.

Darmu Ruu glared at me with flames in his eyes, but sure enough, he quietly got back to bathing, too.

Yeah, as if I could get excited under these circumstances.

But I also couldn’t just run away, so I grabbed hold of the clothing I was wearing. I took off the vest, t-shirt, and everything else, until I was left with just my necklace. And then, I sat myself downstream from the way their backs were facing.

“What’s with the scary face, Darmu?! Today’s a happy occasion, right?” Ludo Ruu asked, raising his right leg high out of the water. Then he brought it down hard, causing a large amount of water to rain down on Darmu Ruu’s head.

Oh man, I almost fainted, there.

Darmu Ruu temporarily froze in place, but then he resumed washing himself as if nothing had happened. The way that I couldn’t see his face from where I was sitting actually made it all the more frightening.

But still... Just what was with the bodies of the men of the forest’s edge?

I’d overworked myself quite a bit in this past month too, my fat getting replaced with muscle, meaning my weight went up despite my body tightening all around. I figured I was in the best shape of my life and had built up a pretty muscular body, but I still looked like a spindly dog that was wasting away when compared to them.

The differences had to start from our very skeletons. Their shoulders were wide, their chests bulky, and their limbs and necks were slender and well proportioned. And though the contours of their bodies were drawn in super tight, their back muscles were seriously impressive.

Everything was well-proportioned and uniform, so they even looked slim when wearing clothing, but ultimately they still had the necessary muscles firmly developed, and there wasn’t a bit of unnecessary fat to their bodies. Their bodies really did seem to be put together with the same sort of functional beauty that I sensed from Ai Fa.

Looking closely, their wrists were thick and their hands were large. And it wasn’t just that their fingers were long, as their palms were also big and thick. If we shook hands, they could probably easily crush mine in their grasp.

And again like Ai Fa, their dark skin had countless scars shining white across it.

Being stabbed by a giba could take your very life, so the majority of those probably just came naturally from moving through dense thickets and rocky areas.

This was what it meant to be a hunter of the forest’s edge.

“What are you spacing out for? Today’s a once in a lifetime big job for you, isn’t it?”

Another massive downpour accompanied those words.

Ludo Ruu dove down, right in front of me.

“Take your time and really cleanse your body properly! This is a real auspicious event for the Rutim, after all!”

“I-I know. You sure are energetic early in the morning, Ludo Ruu.”

“Hmm? Hehehe, yeah, you’re right! I mean, I can’t help but be after getting to eat delicious food each and every day! Right now, I feel like I could even lift up a giba with a single hand!” Ludo Ruu said with a laugh, seriously enjoying himself. That expression actually made him look adorable, like a little girl.

He had a honed body like that of a wild animal, but he was still at least shorter than me, and he didn’t have as robust of a physique as his elder brothers. I certainly didn’t think I could beat him in a contest of strength or anything, but I still felt relieved, somehow.

“The women from the main Ruu house should be fine, now. I’ve hardly lifted a hand for the last five nights of dinners, and they’ve gotten plenty of practice making hamburgers, so they should be able to keep on making delicious meals from tomorrow on.”

Ludo Ruu suddenly frowned.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Asuta, you’ve kind of been talking about if you weren’t around a lot lately. That makes me really mad.”

“Huh? No, but you see, I’m not exactly in a position to be manning the Ruu family stove so frequently. Isn’t it a good thing, if the women can make delicious food all on their own?”

“I know that! But that’s not what you mean, right?!”

He smacked the surface of the water with a splash, splash!

He really was childish.

“Asuta,” Jiza Ruu said, speaking up for the first time. “This is perfect. There is a matter that I wished to discuss with you.”

“Right. What is it?”

“...Are you going to meet with that Kamyua Yoshu man from the city of stone tomorrow?”

He turned the upper half of his robust body towards me, and looked at me with his thread-like eyes.

“Yeah. If he comes to visit, then I think I’ll end up seeing him.”

“I see... It is not as if entering into the forest’s edge is forbidden. There is an agreement with the lord of the Genos domain that they are not to step foot here without good reason, but that is more meant to prevent the people from the city from being exposed to danger. So even if that man comes again, we have no right to get in his way.”

“...Right.”

“However, I do not agree with people from the city meddling with the forest’s edge. As you can see just by looking at the Suun clan, the culture of the city can only corrupt our people.”

I couldn’t really answer that.

“Asuta, you also have the feel of a person from the city about you. I believe you should live in the city of stone... Is there anything wrong with my thinking?”

This was the first time Jiza Ruu had ever talked to me this directly.

Just how had he reacted to Gazraan Rutim’s decision to go against the traditions of the forest’s edge? To be honest, I couldn’t imagine it went any better than with Donda Ruu.

Naturally, those were the thoughts running through my head.

“I don’t know if you’re wrong or not. But... I like this settlement at the forest’s edge more than that post town.”

And so, that was the only way I could think to respond.

“I see,” Jiza Ruu responded, standing up. “Gazraan Rutim is a precious part of my family. I pray more strongly than anyone that this ceremony ends without incident.”

Then Jiza Ruu wiped himself down with a cloth hanging from a door, put on his clothing, and left.

“...Asuta, I’m amazed you could actually talk to Jiza when he was like that. I could never do it,” Ludo Ruu said, sounding a little sulky.

“Yeah, maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet how scary he really is. He’s seriously intense, but I guess I just don’t know quite how to be scared of him?”

“What’s that about? You know, Jiza’s even scarier to me than dad is... Hey, Darmu, why do you hate Asuta? He makes delicious food, and sometimes I don’t quite understand him, but he seems like a good guy, doesn’t he?”

I felt those words soak deep into my heart, but more importantly, I couldn’t help but be really amazed at how familiarly he was talking with Darmu Ruu. Well, they were brothers though, so maybe that was only natural.

Sure enough, Darmu Ruu didn’t respond or even look at me, and just left as Jiza Ruu had done.

“Hmm... You sure are hated, Asuta.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“Actually, when it comes to Darmu, it’s more like he’s afraid of you.”

“Huh? There’s no way! No matter how much I struggled, there’s no way I could ever beat him!”

“No man alive would ever lose to you... In a battle of strength, that is.” Then, Ludo Ruu sat cross-legged under the water and turned to face me. “It sure is strange. You’re so frail and weak-looking, but you’re not afraid of anyone. You looked even stronger than my dad at that celebratory banquet.”

“Ahaha. That’s a real honor to hear.”

“Your hand.”

“Hmm?”

“Show me your hand.”

“Hand?” I questioned, offering the palm of my right hand. Ludo Ruu placed his own palm on top of it.

“It’s so small, like a woman’s.”

I felt like the word “stunned” appeared over my head just then, like I was Rimee Ruu or something.

Ludo Ruu was supposed to be smaller than me, but his palm and fingers were a size bigger than mine. A year from now, he really may end up looking down on me from above. And when that thought crossed my mind, I felt catastrophically depressed.

Still, it really would make me happy if I really was still here at the forest’s edge a year from now.

3

Two hours passed without incident after that, and the four pots were nice and cooked. Roughly half the moisture had evaporated too, which was perfect.

Now, it was time to add in the tarapa sauce.

The inside of the pot was ever so slightly pink from the fruit wine, but in an instant the sauce turned the whole thing a deep red.

The aria had softened it, but the tarapa still had a strongly acidic smell, which soon filled the kitchen.

“Alright, now let’s add the poitan, too. Make sure you get the right amount, okay?”

We were adding 10 poitan per pot. Any more than that, and it would become too floury and ruin the texture.

We made cuts into the potato-esque poitan, then added them in one after another. And even with a low flame like this, they soon broke down and dissolved.

It really was a strange ingredient. It bore a resemblance to wheat flour, but it wasn’t as close as boar and giba meat, onion and aria, or tomato and tarapa. In other words, it was an ingredient I would never have tasted without coming here to this world.

There wasn’t anything exactly like it, and because of that I struggled and struggled with how to prepare it, and somehow I ended up feeling attached to it in the process.

As that thought ran through my head, the 10 poitan in my pot all dissolved without leaving a trace.

It had started off as a tomato red, but now it had shifted to something midway between pink and orange.

As I carefully stirred it, I fine tuned the taste with rock salt and pico leaves, and it was finally done.

It had cooked for two hours, so the chatchi ended up soft and crumbly all the way to the center. The tino and aria were so soft that you didn’t even need to chew, as they just melted in your mouth. And the giba meat... I had made it bite sized, but it didn’t have any toughness to it at all. The shoulder meat melted in your mouth, while the thigh meat just had a pleasing bit of chewiness left to it.

After tasting those various bits out, I combined them with the rather sour tarapa and bit down... and an exquisite deliciousness filled my mouth.

It certainly needed some time and effort, but it came out so well that it really may have been the peak of my current giba dishes.

Still, this wasn’t home cooking. It was an extravagant dish for a banquet.

Banquets are when you can partake in such luxurious dishes. And wedding banquets should overflow with as much joy as possible.

And if they needed the money to pull off such extravagance, the hunters had to be throwing themselves into their work with even more zeal than usual, right? Or at least, that was the concept I was working off of.

If my own efforts made it across to Gazraan Rutim and his family, that would be great.

“Alright, heat it for just a little longer, and then cut the flame. And I ask that each of you stir it so that it doesn’t burn.”

Ai Fa, Reina Ruu, Lala Ruu, and I each stood in front of one of the four stoves. And having been left out, Rimee Ruu just stood there staring straight at me. She wasn’t saying a word, but her big eyes were positively sparkling.

“Do you want to—”

“Taste test?! Yeah!”

She stole away the back half of my sentence, there.

I scooped up just a bit of the stew with a wooden spoon and lowered it down, where the adorable little girl was waiting with her mouth wide open. It seriously felt reminiscent of that night when I first met her, as I went ahead and moved the spoon on into her mouth.

“So... good...!” she mumbled, the food still filling her mouth.

Then, she started staring at me again.

Now that I think of it, she begged me for two bites back then, too.

Surely Rimee Ruu wouldn’t be greedy enough to demand a third bite, right? As I thought that I scooped up some thigh meat and chatchi this time around, only to get hit on the head from behind with a, “Hey! Don’t go spoiling that runt! There won’t be enough left for the banquet!”

“I won’t eat that much! Lala, you man-woman...”

“There, there...” I said, inserting the spoon into her wide open mouth.

Rimee Ruu’s expression practically melted as she bit down on the spoon, while Lala Ruu furrowed her brows.

“What the heck?! No fair! I’ve been holding back all this time!”

“Huh? You have been? As long as it’s just a taste test, it’s no problem giving you some. That’s the special privilege of those who man the stove, after all.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner?! Rimee, you runt, give me that spoon!”

“Hmm? What should I do, I wonder?”

As I watched over this little quarrel, actually finding it kind of adorable, there was a tug on the sleeve of my t-shirt. It was Reina Ruu, carefully stirring the pot next to mine, but also shooting me a bashful look.

“Ah, I mean... Go ahead?”

In an instant, Reina Ruu’s face was positively sparkling.

I was overcome by a cozy, homely feeling, somehow.

Still, we could only take it this easy for now. Once the sun hit its peak this place would become a battlefield, so surely it would be fine enjoying the pleasant atmosphere for the time being.

“Does this finish up the work for the morning?” Ai Fa asked, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“That’s right,” I replied with a nod, and then she waved over Rimee Ruu.

“Well then, I shall return home temporarily. Rimee Ruu, could I ask you to take my place?”

“Yeah! But what are you heading back for?”

“I need to stir up the meat in the pantry. If I leave it for even a day, the pico leaves will go bad.”

I see. She still had to stir things back home too, huh?

“Hold on. I’m going to be open after this too, so I’ll join you.”

“Why?” Ai Fa asked, tilting her head a bit. “I should be perfectly capable of handling the task on my own. You should rest up.”

After saying that, Ai Fa wasted no time leaving the kitchen.

“Hmm... Does Ai Fa hate us?” Lala Ruu suddenly asked.

“Of course not,” I replied, denying the notion. “It certainly doesn’t look that way to me. Ai Fa just takes some time to open up to people, I think.”

“But I’ve never seen Ai Fa have a real conversation with anyone but Rimee or Granny Jiba. Even if she doesn’t hate us, she sure doesn’t seem to have any interest in us, right?” said Lala Ruu, sulking a bit. Maybe she actually wanted to get along with Ai Fa.

“Well, but... You all know about the incident where she was invited to marry into your family two years ago, right? Thanks to that, her relationship with Donda Ruu got really awkward, and she made a habit of keeping her distance from the Ruu clan, so maybe she just can’t break that?”

“But you talk to us like normal.”

“Right, but I’m just an idiot.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Apparently that was an accepted fact.

“But still, papa Donda won’t be asking her to marry into the family at this point, right? And she’s already getting along with Rimee and Granny Jiba, so she shouldn’t have any reason to avoid us. So she really just must not have any interest in us.”

“No, I’m telling you... It just takes her time to warm up to people.”

“Did it take time for you? No wait, do you actually get along?”

“Hmm, that’s a tough one!”

Putting aside the matter of whether or not we got along well, I couldn’t recall ever having much trouble knowing how to deal with Ai Fa. It felt like from real early on, we started talking to each other without any need to hold back.

But even if we were living together now like it was only natural, the idea was supposed to be that she was just looking after me for a while to make sure I didn’t cause any trouble. And yet, after about a week of living with her, I declared that I wanted to take down Donda Ruu and leave him speechless. For Ai Fa, that should have been a massive pain. And yet, she possessed the same level of enmity I had towards Donda Ruu, or perhaps even more, due to the frustration born of the man insulting my cooking.

Despite appearances, Ai Fa’s emotions had some serious swings, so I hadn’t found it to be all that strange, but now that I thought of it, she never showed any proper emotions in front of most others.

And... Ai Fa said she didn’t want me to go away.

Hmm... Yeah, this is no good...

I was getting the feeling that my relationship with Ai Fa wasn’t something that could be explained to others. And besides, I would just feel like I was betraying Ai Fa if I talked about stuff like that while she wasn’t around.

And so, I bowed my head and told Lala Ruu, “Sorry. I really don’t know after all.”

Lala Ruu gave a “Tch!” and turned to face her elder sister, who was still standing at a stove diagonal from the young girl.

“What do you think, Reina? You’ve hardly talked to Ai Fa too, right?”

I thought she would be troubled being asked such a question, but she rather quickly responded, “I still think that it would be best for Ai Fa to marry into our clan, even now.”

She just smiled when Lala Ruu asked “Why?” to the unexpected response, then she turned and looked at me.

“I mean, Rimee and Granny Jiba adore her so much, so I’m sure she must be a splendid person... And besides, if that happens, the Fa clan will become part of the Ruu clan, right?”

Hmm... Yeah, I was left feeling bewildered again.

I was glad that she was opening up, but since she was my age, unlike Rimee and Lala Ruu, Reina Ruu may have actually been kind of tricky to deal with.

At the very least, I couldn’t just earnestly say “thanks” to that.

“I’m fine either way,” Rimee Ruu said cheerfully while trying her hardest to stir the contents of the pot with the stick entrusted to her by Ai Fa. “Even if they’re not family or under us, I still love Ai Fa and Asuta! It would be even nicer if their house was at least a little closer, though!”

This was why I adored Rimee Ruu.

I hoped that she could keep on smiling around Ai Fa forever.

“If you can get along with someone, then you’re bound to naturally do so eventually,” I said to Lala Ruu, cutting the conversation off in a neutral and inoffensive manner.

4

And then, the battle began.

The sun had passed its peak at last.

“Well then, we’ll be following the plan I discussed yesterday, so Tito Min Ruu’s group will be cutting meat, Reina Ruu’s group will be dicing aria, and Mia Lea Ruu’s group will be baking poitan.”

There were 11 women gathered in the main Ruu house, roughly half of the total women in the Ruu settlement. I asked those 11 women to split into three groups and each carry out their own tasks.

The group of five including Granny Tito Min and Vina Ruu were to cut the meat meant for the steak and hamburgers.

The group of four including Reina and Rimee Ruu were to dice the aria for the hamburgers.

Mia Lea and Lala Ruu were to just keep on baking poitan using the outdoor stoves.

Sati Lea Ruu was meeting with other women from the branch families with young children, to take turns watching them while baking poitan as well.

After all, there were going to be 100 people attending. Plus, many of the men ate double what the women did.

By my basic calculations, that meant we needed to prepare 150 people’s worth of meat and poitan.

There would be a reasonable amount of soup to eat too, but I didn’t know how the meat would end up getting divided, and I couldn’t allocate out the poitan in halves, either. And besides, I heard it was customary to put out so much food that it couldn’t all be eaten when it came to such banquets, so I decided not to count the amount used for the stew.

Even though the people of the forest’s edge lived poor yet honorable lives, banquets were still special occasions. In that case, I had to prepare as much as I could. That’s how I arrived at the figure of 150 people’s worth of food.

It would be 500 grams of meat for one person, so 75 kilos.

Poitan were two per person, so 300.

That was how much I decided to prepare.

Furthermore, I tasked the second biggest house after the main house with making a more modest new dish: stir-fried vegetables. And even disregarding the stew, this needed three aria per person, meaning it would use up 450.

The aria had shrunk quite a bit after being heated and then fried, and it sure didn’t seem like it would be all that appetizing all on its own. And so I chose some other vegetables that would fry up well, the cabbage-esque tino and bell pepper-like pula, and made up some stir-fried vegetables to accompany the steak and hamburgers.

But still, even if three aria of stir-fried vegetables per person was plenty, I was nervous about having the stew as the only dish of that sort, so I went ahead and added a soup using those same three vegetables and giba meat. For that, I just used around one aria per serving.

Of course, the soup used giba meat, and so did the meat dishes and stew, so all told I had to be using over 120 kilos.

By some basic calculations, that meant each woman would get 800 grams, while each man would have 1.6 kilograms of meat, which should be plenty, I thought.

And so, this was the complete menu:

–Giba steak (thigh, roast, spare rib)

–Giba hamburgers

–Tarapa and giba meat stew, with abundant vegetable blend

–Baked poitan with gigo mixed in

–Three-vegetable stir fry

–Giba soup with three vegetable varieties

That was what I ultimately settled on, having been entrusted with the stove for this wedding banquet.

The menu was already filled with rather heavy dishes, so I was thinking of adding cold giba shabu-shabu or something. But I somehow got the feeling that it may not be suited to a banquet for hunters, and when I asked the members of the Rutim clan about it, they said they preferred warm stuff to cold, so I figured this was good enough.

As a digression, I also proposed removing the rib meat from the bones, but Dan Rutim firmly stated, “You can’t!” in a full-force refusal. “Isn’t it tastier biting it right off the bone?!”

I was thinking it would be a real issue if anyone threw as much of a fit as Dan Rutim did on that night, but then he added, “If there’s any left over, I’ll eat it all!” so apparently that was an unnecessary concern.

Still, over these past five days, the people of the Ruu settlement had already come around to seeing giba torso as such fine meat that it would be a shame to just throw it away. The women from the branch families who studied under me and helped with my research all happily took the spare meat back to their families, where they succeeded in shattering the men’s preconceived notions.

And of course as representative of the reformists, Gazraan Rutim was doing much the same with the giba he caught, so there was no need to worry about the Rutim.

Plus, from the way that Ai Fa had no concept of torso meat being “mundt feed,” that must have been an opinion unique to powerful families like the Ruu and Rutim.

There were 100 people amongst the seven clans under the Ruu, but the only one on the same scale as the Ruu and Rutim was the Lea clan, while the Min and Maam had fallen quite a bit, and the Ririn and Muufa were smaller still. And so, I didn’t think there should be any problem there.

“If those Lea folks won’t eat it, then I will!” Dan Rutim shouted.

In other words, one per person may turn out not to be enough.

So as a result, I went with 150 spare ribs. That was the least I could do out of consideration for my client’s father.

Well, at any rate, by the time the sun hit its peak, the Ruu settlement was already shifting into a battlefield.

◇

“Asuta! We’re done dicing the aria!”

“Ooh, that was quick! Then this time, I’m counting on you to mince!”

“Mince! Got it!”

Rimee Ruu cut through the meat, her knife-handling in no way falling short of that of her mother and elder sisters.

This time around, I decided to go with 200 gram-sized hamburgers.

That made them plenty big enough to be eaten alongside steak, and besides, some of the men may avoid them. Right now the only sample I had to go on was the main Ruu house, and two of the four men there rejected it, so I had to be prepared for half of the men total to do the same.

And so, I came up with a new plan.

If someone didn’t like the soft meat of the hamburger, I hoped to win them back by giving them the suggestion to steep the grilled meat in soup.

That was one of the discoveries my experimentation led to.

On the second day of my experiments, I was firmly resolved to make hamburgers for dinner in order to fulfill my promise to Ai Fa, but I just didn’t feel right with the idea of splitting the menu between the men and the women.

Experimentation is experimentation, and dinner is dinner. And with dinner, I figured you really should have the whole family eating the same food.

What I came up with then was soup and hamburger.

Everyone was free to add their hamburger to their soup. Then I explained that if they did, it would crumble and they could eat it like that.

Even if they said they preferred tough meat, that only applied when they ate it on its own, as they had always eaten such crumbly meat that had been overcooked over a strong flame in their giba stew.

It was definitely something of a desperation measure, but none of the men of the main house raised any complaints.

When I gave it a try myself, I found the savoriness of the hamburger meat contributed to the soup, making for a rather nice flavor. And so, I decided using this method for the banquet made sense, too.

For the sake of the folks who wanted to eat the hamburger as is, I had prepared the fruit wine sauce to be added afterwards. I would be providing that during the banquet as well.

In this way, my menu for the banquet was steadily perfected through the dinners at the Ruu house.

Now then, let’s get back to the story at hand.

At the Fa house, I had to mix in a large amount of diced aria, but at the Ruu settlement there were plenty of pots, so I didn’t need to worry about where the aria went. And so, for the 200 gram hamburgers, I went with 1/4th of an aria per each. That was about the ratio that we used back at the Tsurumi Restaurant.

Now then, I was making 200 gram sized hamburgers for 100 people, and wanted to make 20 extra to account for screw ups in the cooking process, so that meant 30 diced aria.

“We’ll fry the aria here. Ai Fa, light up one of the stoves.”

Ai Fa nodded, then lit a fire in the nearest stove using lana leaves.

Ai Fa’s presence had become rather inconspicuous once the women had gathered, but she was still offering some serious support from the background. She couldn’t wield a kitchen knife as skillfully as the women I had taught, so she was mostly helping out with assorted tasks like this and carrying goods. Transporting massive amounts of food from the pantry, returning things there once they were prepared, carrying heavy pots, refilling water jugs... That was the sort of tiresome work Ai Fa was carrying out all on her own.

“Thank you. You’ve seriously been a huge help,” I stealthily whispered into her ear. Ai Fa tilted her head a bit, and then drew close to my ear, too.

“I believe that if food is to be served for a Rutim banquet, it should be created by those related to the clan. In that case, this role suits me best.”

I cocked my head a bit, then whispered into her ear once again, “That may be so, but I’m not related to them, right?”

With that Ai Fa tilted her head again, then drew closer once more.

“You’re just carrying out a job for which you were paid, are you not? Do not confuse your position for my own.”

As we repeated that back and forth, Rimee Ruu stopped enthusiastically preparing meat and turned to ask, “What are you guys whispering about?”

“Ah, it was a secret strategy meeting.”

“Huh?! No fair! I want to do it, too!”

“That was a lie. We were just chatting. The only reason we were whispering was so that we wouldn’t pester everyone else,” I said with a smile. Then, I met eyes with Reina Ruu, who was staring at me from the side.

Something really did seem off with her. I mean, she shouldn’t have any reason to be looking so miserable just because Ai Fa and I were talking a bit in secret.

I couldn’t help but feel a little gloomy as I spun some fat around the heated pot and then added the diced aria.

Reina Ruu really was a fine girl all around. She wasn’t two-faced. She was simply innocent, and kind, and a good learner. On top of that, she was blessed with stunning looks. To be honest, having such a charming, wonderful girl have such feelings of affection towards me was even harder than dealing with Vina Ruu coming on to me.

I had no intention of searching for a lover in this world, and if someone were to steal my heart even so... It wouldn’t be Reina or Vina Ruu. I was sure of that much.

“...Are you not adding any fruit wine?” Ai Fa asked, snapping me back to my senses.

“Gah, right! Sorry, Ai Fa, but—” I started, only for a container of fruit wine to be thrust in front of my face.

“That was the first time I saw you look like you were going to mess up cooking something,” Ai Fa whispered into my ear with a laugh as I hurriedly poured the fruit wine over the already golden brown aria.

Just what sort of face had I been making to get that sort of reaction?!

Before I could confirm that, Lala Ruu shouted, “Ai Fa, could I get some more poitan?!” and Ai Fa disappeared from view.

Damn! I must have looked lame there! I thought to myself as I transferred the fried aria to a bowl with a handmade flat spoon.

Then, when I looked up... I found Reina Ruu still shooting me a melancholy look as she continued to carefully prepare meat.