Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.3

3

After that, business continued very smoothly.

The flow of customers picked up again when the sun hit its peak, and though the outdoor restaurant had doubled in size, it was always at full capacity. We didn’t get in trouble with the guards again, but it was still plenty hectic.

Together with the Ruu clan, we had five different dishes on offer, and every last one of them sold at a good pace. Among them, the soup was very popular as a side order, and it seemed like over half the customers who came by ordered it, so we definitely didn’t have any regrets about the whopping three hundred servings we had prepared.

The giba steak sold just fine too. There was a bottleneck due to the fact that we couldn’t premake the dish, but apparently, as the most purely meaty dish we had served yet at the stalls, it had struck a chord with the customers. Though plenty of folks didn’t like the taste of it, including those from Jagar, there was always a line in front of the stall.

Then you had the giba curry. That dish did some serious work, pulling in customers from the east. On top of that, as the dish with the most powerful smell, it drew the greatest amount of attention. It had far and away the most customers asking to give it a taste test. And on top of that, since it was a dish already sold at an inn, there were plenty of repeat customers purchasing it.

“All right, I’d like to eat my fill of this stuff. Sell me some more poitan,” a customer from the west had requested. It seemed half a poitan wasn’t enough, considering the strong taste of the giba curry. But if we weren’t careful and increased the amount of poitan too much, it could fill people up and cause a decrease in the sales of other dishes. That made this a pivotal issue to consider.

For the customers from Jagar, we made sure to spread the information that this wasn’t a dish from Sym, but was instead created by me, that oddball everyone had heard about, who had come from outside the continent and moved to the forest’s edge. Since Sym and Jagar were enemy nations, it would be rather bad if it came to be thought of as a recipe from the eastern kingdom.

For our opening day, our consumer base for the giba curry was working out to about seventy percent easterners, twenty percent westerners, and ten percent southerners, so if that continued, I’d consider it good for a dish that used as many herbs as it did. Though the easterners were claiming the lion’s share, we had prepared two hundred small portions of giba curry, so if that ratio held and we sold out, that would still work out to twenty southerners ordering it. I’d call that a pretty good result for the first day.

Around thirty minutes after the sun hit its peak, Myme’s stall ended up closing shop. But, well, that was no surprise when she had only prepared thirty meals. Actually, I was shocked they lasted even that long.

“I’m sure it was just the fact that it was giba cooking that attracted attention, so it’s really all thanks to you guys.”

“That’s not true at all. I’m sure news of how delicious your cooking is will spread, and tomorrow you’ll have even more customers lining up than today.”

“That certainly would make me glad to see.”

At any rate, Myme looked relieved to have sold out. She must have been concerned about the huge losses she would face if she didn’t sell anything, just like I had been back on my first day. Myme and I had both opened for business using funds from our respective houses, and that made for quite a bit of pressure.

“I was thinking I’d like to add ten more meals for an even forty, starting tomorrow.”

“Well, the Ruu clan members and I wanted to buy some meals from you tomorrow. Could you prepare an additional ten meals or so on top of that?”

“Huh? You want to buy that many?”

“Yeah. Eating your cooking provides both a learning experience and an impetus to keep moving forward.”

“Thank you. In that case, I’ll make it fifty meals,” Myme said before heading back to her house in the Turan lands.

After seeing the young girl off, Bartha finished the purchases she needed to make and met up with the rest of the guards. Fitting seventeen people into only three wagons would be rather tight, so some of us would ride in her wagon too on the way to and from town.

Afterward, things progressed normally.

The first dish to sell out was the giba curry, shockingly enough.

It really was overwhelmingly popular with easterners, and there had also been a lot of customers asking for taste tests. Because of that, even though I had made a lot of extra curry to allow for samples, our sales ended up being three whole meals short of two hundred, and we had the same amount of baked poitan left over.

“It sure takes a lot of effort to wash the spoons for taste testing. And there seemed to be a number of customers who waited a bit and then came back for more samples again and again,” Toor Deen reported, as the one in charge of that stall.

Though samples were an indispensable tool to help spread the word about an unfamiliar taste like curry, it just took up too much time to offer them when the stalls were busy, and there was no guarantee there wouldn’t be more customers crude enough to take advantage of them during the festival. Perhaps it would be best to temporarily suspend all taste testing when the festival kicked off properly on the twenty-second.

Next to run out were the giba steaks. Though they took more time to prepare and didn’t have the quickest sales as a result, I had limited the amount I made, even though they were a new dish, and this was the outcome. That still meant selling a hundred of them, so those were perfectly acceptable results. I made a mental note that I would have to offer them again a number of times before the end of the revival festival.

After that, Ai Fa left the stall, and I moved on to helping out with the restaurant area.

The expanded seating area was bustling with activity, but we had an appropriate number of people working the area, so it wasn’t really an issue. The women working there for the first time today seemed quite struck by how lively it was, as well as how friendly the citizens of Genos were.

Of course, it wasn’t as if everyone in Genos had overcome their fear and distrust of the people of the forest’s edge. However, nearly everyone who visited our stalls had. Even with hunters hanging around with swords, nobody seemed particularly concerned about that fact. When Yumi stopped by in the afternoon, she had a friendly chat with Ludo Ruu over in the customer seating.

“Asuta, there’s something I’ve been thinking,” Ama Min Rutim called out from the giba hot pot stew stall. “Shouldn’t we have the northern clans and the Beim—those who are opposed to our doing business in the post town—see this sight? I’ve felt that way more and more ever since we added the chairs and tables to this space.”

“That’s true. I was already thinking of asking the Beim to help out with the stalls. Has Sufira Zaza’s group headed back to the northern settlement yet?”

“No, they’ll still be here for a while longer. It seems they intend to return together with Lem Dom.”

In that case, it was possible that it would be worth inviting Sufira Zaza’s group, even if it ended up being just to observe rather than help out. After all, I couldn’t help but feel the outdoor restaurant was doing a lot to help forge bonds between the people of the forest’s edge and the townsfolk of Genos.

Then, when there was just a little bit of time left till closing, the giba hot pot stew sold out. That just left the giba manju and myamuu giba.

Unsurprisingly, the new items had an edge in terms of sales. Even so, the giba manju and myamuu giba still sold a fair bit as well. In particular, I’d say the giba manju put up a good fight, not losing out to the newness of the giba steak despite being priced the same.

Closing time arrived at the lower second hour. We had just three servings of the giba manju and eight of the myamuu giba left over. That wasn’t even enough to be worth reselling to The Kimyuus’s Tail. And so, the giba manju went into the hunters’ bellies, while the uncooked myamuu giba would come back with us to the settlement.

In terms of total sales, they worked out to 300 of the giba hot pot stew, 197 of the giba curry, 132 of the myamuu giba, 117 of the giba manju, and 100 of the giba steak. The Fa clan earned 729.5 red coins, and the Ruu 648, making for a total of 1,377.5 coins.

It was such a haul that it would be difficult to lift without subdividing it, so naturally the women who were working with us for the first time today were stunned when they saw the scale of our earnings. My perception was that the red coins of this world held about the same value as 200 yen, so this worked out to around 275,500 yen in sales.

“No wonder you need guards watching over you! It wouldn’t be surprising at all for outsiders who aren’t afraid of us people of the forest’s edge to get some foul ideas at the sight of all those coins!” Dan Rutim remarked while stuffing his cheeks with a leftover giba manju. “There’s not really any point asking now, but how many giba is that money worth?”

“Well, if you include the pelt on top of the horns and tusks...it would be the equivalent of fifty-seven giba.”

“Fifty-seven giba’s worth of coins in just one day?! That really is something!”

“True... But now giba meat is a proper commodity to be sold as well. Even on the low end, a single giba would work out to two hundred red coins now, so thinking of it that way, our sales today would instead be worth around six or seven giba.”

“Giba meat is selling for that much? That’s quite the enormous fortune,” Rau Lea interjected, sounding astonished.

“Right. But at least for now, the only ones who will purchase the giba meat itself, rather than meals made with it, are Myme and the inns we have ties to. They’ll be increasing the amount they purchase during the revival festival, but normally we can only sell around three giba worth of meat.”

“So if we can sell even more of the stuff, it’ll bring prosperity to everyone at the forest’s edge, right?” Rau Lea replied with a nod, looking satisfied. “I finally get what the Fa clan is trying to do. You really did come up with an extraordinary idea there.”

“Y-You only just got it now? But didn’t we discuss it way back at the clan head meeting?”

That said, the value of meat hadn’t been set back then. And the wholesale price was still being decided even now. The castle was currently thinking that ultimately, it should settle around the same price as karon torso meat.

Karon torso meat cost over seven red coins for a kilo, even at merchant rates. Giba meat changed based on the cut, but it averaged at around five red coins.

The current thought was that the price of giba meat would eventually need to be brought to the same price as karon torso meat in order to prevent the nobles from buying it all up. Even though I had concerns that raising it so high would make it difficult to sell in the post town, it certainly would result in a great deal of wealth flowing in.

Polarth was working on a grandiose plan of his own, saying, “In that case, we just need to make the post town and the Daleim and Turan lands well off enough that they can buy it at that rate.”

“I see. I didn’t know giba meat was bringing in that much money either. That’s a lot more impressive than the reward money the castle pays out,” Ludo Ruu, who had been talking to Bartha, added in an amused tone. “That reward money is fifteen hundred red coins, yeah? I thought that was amazing at first, but they only pay it once every three months. You all made about that much in a single day, which is kind of unbelievable.”

“Yeah, but we also have to pay for our ingredients and everything too. In terms of pure profit, I doubt that we exceeded a thousand red coins.”

“That’s still really impressive. Well, not that I care about the reward money or anything, though.”

“Now that you mention it, the most recent reward money payment was given to the Sauti clan, right?”

Since the fall of the Suun clan, the reward money had only been paid out once, back in the black month. It had been decided that it would be given to any impoverished clans who needed it, but since no one had stepped forward to claim it, it was left untouched. Ultimately, the Sauti clan ended up requesting some of it to compensate for the great losses they suffered from fighting the lord of the forest.

“If a leading clan like the Sauti uses it first, then the other clans should feel a bit less ashamed to ask, hopefully,” Dari Sauti had stated.

In a meeting between the leading clan heads, it was decided that the Sauti would be provided five hundred red coins out of the reward money. They hoped to use that money to buy expensive medicine and nutritious food in order to regain their strength.

“Still, if there are coins to spare, they should be used to buy wagons and totos for other folks. Then everyone would find it easier to make purchases,” Ludo Ruu said casually, and I almost dropped the metal tray I was holding while cleaning up the stall.

“Th-That’s a great idea! You should definitely raise it with Donda Ruu!”

“Hmm? I just threw what I was thinking out there. Aren’t wagons seriously expensive?”

“The one we have here with the canopy cost twelve hundred red coins. The roofless wagons used by the Zaza and Sauti would be even cheaper than that. So, if they could make a leather canopy themselves to guard against rain, that would be a great investment.”

The journey to the post town to make purchases was definitely a big hassle for every clan. That was why I had bought a totos and wagon for the local clans, to make it easier on them so that they could have the time needed to help out with the smoking process.

If they could free up labor on that front, even the smaller clans would be able to devote the time needed for cooking better meals and making smoked foods. As the one who showed them the importance of not only more prosperous lives but also delicious food, that felt really significant to me.

“Well, if you really think so, I’ll go ahead and pass it along to my old man. The smaller clans are real stubborn and don’t seem to want to touch the reward money at all too...”

“Right, thanks.”

With that, we finally finished our cleanup. After putting a rope around the outdoor seating, we began our triumphant return to the forest’s edge.

After splitting off into groups to return the stalls, purchase ingredients, and exchange coins, we headed down the stone road. I ended up in a group with Toor Deen, Sheera Ruu, and Rimee Ruu, accompanied by Ai Fa and Ludo Ruu, and we headed to the stall run by Yang, the chef from the castle town.

Yang was the head chef of the house of Daleim, which Polarth belonged to. Just like us, he was working to promote the spread of new ingredients throughout the post town. And starting today, he was serving a new dish at his stall.

“Ah, Sir Asuta. I’m grateful to you for going out of your way to stop by,” Yang said with a polite bow of his head as we arrived at his stall at the southern end of the stall area. Assisting him was the Daleim house’s maid, Nicola. Though I had just seen both of them at the noblewomen’s tea party, I was still glad to find them looking well. “We were just about to close up shop, so I am glad that you made it in time.”

“That really is fortunate. How has your new dish been selling?”

“It has been going fairly well,” Yang answered with a gentle smile. “There are a great many other stalls utilizing new ingredients now, so I may not be drawing that much attention, but I would say it sold quite favorably for its first day.”

There had been a period of time when the air in the stall area had been heavy with the aroma of karon milk and milk fat, but now there were all sorts of scents drifting around. What stood out most were the stimulating smell of herbs from Sym and the fragrant scent of tau oil. Polarth and the house of Saturas had been working together in order to gradually introduce these novel ingredients to the post town.

Shops working with them, like Tanto’s Blessing, received lectures on how to use new ingredients properly. In order to not fall behind, all sorts of shops were seeking such a relationship at this point.

“Now I can finally start using karon back meat. Would you like to give it a taste?”

“Yes, of course.”

Yang nodded and signaled for Nicola to get started. With a sour look on her face, she scooped the contents of the pot out onto a round piece of poitan. It looked to be meat and vegetables boiled in a dark-orange broth. Then she pinched the poitan tightly together at the top, creating something that looked just like the kimyuus meat manju I had once eaten.

“One this size sells for two red coins. As that’s on the expensive side, we have leftovers, but once the festival starts there will be more people around and we’ll be able to sell out.”

It had a diameter of around ten centimeters. In terms of volume, that put it around the same size as the poitan wraps we sold. We priced ours at one and a half red coins, but if Yang’s recipe used karon torso meat, then it was inevitable that his would be more expensive.

Yang’s metal pot was partitioned into two parts, and one of them was nearly empty. That must have been the karon leg meat dish, which was able to sell out due to its cheap price.

Since I wasn’t especially hungry, I just purchased two orders to split among the four of us. As long as we split it before biting in, it was allowable to share a meal with people outside your family in that way.

“Well then, let’s dig in.”

The scent of the filling was a bit on the sweet side. The soup’s base seemed to be ground nenon, and there were also plenty of finely diced bits of meat and vegetables. I couldn’t smell any herbs at all in the dish, though. Since we hadn’t had any especially bad experiences with Yang’s cooking, we were all able to bite into it without any worries.

It really did have a sweet, gentle flavor. Had he used tau oil and sugar? If I had to say, I’d peg it as being a fairly Japanese-styled flavoring.

Karon was close to beef in terms of taste, and he had used back meat, so it was very tender. The vegetables seemed to be the taro-like ma gigo, the daikon-like sheema, and the shiitake-like mushroom.

“This is delicious, and it goes down easy too. I’m sure customers from Jagar would be very happy with it.”

“Yes, my intent was to make a Jagar-style dish this time around.”

Was this the result of him incorporating Myme and Reina Ruu’s opinions that complicated flavors weren’t well suited to the post town? At any rate, Yang was wearing a very calm smile.

“The seasonings and ingredients virtually all came from Jagar. It’s still my duty as a chef to consider how many ingredients from the west and east can be combined with it, but for now I’d like to work on that bit by bit.”

“Yeah, this feels like a fitting dish to sell in the post town.”

On top of that, a simple dish like this allowed Yang to show off his real abilities. Just as he had demonstrated at the noblewomen’s tea party, he seemed quite capable when it came to putting together delicate flavors.

I got the feeling that in the past he would have used that cinnamon-like herb in this dish, and I felt that the fact that he hadn’t this time was a sign of his resolve to mind his customers. A more complex seasoning would surely make folks in the castle town happier. But this was a dish aimed at the citizens of the post town, and Yang had adjusted his thinking to reflect that.

“I will stop by your shop tomorrow, Sir Asuta. By the way, how was the dish prepared by Sir Mikel’s daughter?”

“I think it turned out to be even more amazing than her last one. If she increases the number of portions she brings to maybe one or two hundred, it might even start to have an impact on our sales.”

“I see. I’m certainly looking forward to giving it a try,” he said with a smile that was mild-mannered but still had some real energy behind it. Myme’s cooking would surely leave a big impression on Yang too, and get him quietly fired up as well.

That got me wondering in the back of my head just what a certain other chef from the castle town—Roy—was up to. A while back, he had suffered a shock, not only from Myme’s cooking, but also from the growth shown by Reina and Sheera Ruu, and I hadn’t seen him at all since then.

“Well then, I’ll see you again tomorrow. Thanks for today.”

With that, we took off back down the road.

As we went, I asked the women, “So, what did you all think of Yang’s dish?”

“I believe it was his most delicious one yet. As you said, I was able to eat it very naturally,” Toor Deen replied.

“That’s true. But I believe the dishes made by that Naudis man are more to our tastes, since he uses giba meat,” Sheera Ruu added.

Beside them, Rimee Ruu had a bit of a serious look on her face. “That sweet from the castle town was really tasty. Don’t you think that guy could make something way better?”

“Well, folks in the castle town and post town want different flavors. Yang had only ever prepared food for people in the castle town before, which has presented all sorts of difficulties for him. But he said sweets were his greatest specialty, so that might have been why even those of us who aren’t fond of castle town-style dishes still liked it.”

Chefs like Mikel and Varkas would surely be skilled enough to overcome anyone’s personal preferences. And I figured that Yang had to be as skillful as they were when it came to making sweets.

“Well, we’ve got to worry more about ourselves than others. We’ll be really busy with our preparations, so let’s work hard heading into tomorrow.”

After I wrapped things up with that innocuous statement, we went to meet up with the others at The Kimyuus’s Tail.

But we only made it a few more steps before Ai Fa called out, “Hold on. Something concerning is coming this way. Move to the side of the road.”

“Huh? What’s going on?”

Her reaction was almost like the time when Kamyua Yoshu’s group had shown up with the captured Zattsu Suun, so it had me feeling seriously bewildered, but I wasn’t about to doubt Ai Fa’s senses. We promptly followed her instructions.

“Hmm? What’s that? It doesn’t seem like a fight or anything, but it sure does sound lively,” Ludo Ruu pondered, covering the others behind him.

It was around twenty seconds later when I finally noticed what he was talking about. The passersby also stopped and stared in amazement. There was a group marching in from the south, accompanied by fanfare. Surprised voices could be heard exclaiming “Ooh!” and “Aah!” None of them were outright shouting, but there was definitely a reason the visitors were causing such astonishment. I waited for the group to pass by, staring out at the street over Ai Fa’s shoulder...and sure enough, I ended up letting out a “Whoa” of my own.

It was a large troupe, with a number of wagons being pulled along behind them. The fanfare I had mentioned was quite literal, as they were steadily progressing down the street to the sound of flutes, drums, and what seemed to be some kind of string instruments.

The first thing to catch my eye was the head wagon. It was around two sizes bigger than the one we used and had a canopy, but it wasn’t pulled by totos. Rather, it was pulled along by a massive reptile that looked like a crocodile. Actually, I only thought that because of its size. Its body was shaped more like a typical lizard. It was almost like looking at a dinosaur. Including its long tail, it had to be at least three meters long. It had sand-colored scales densely coating its body and was slowly moving down the street on four legs. Its head was around the size of a horse’s, and it had reins and a bridle around its neck and in its mouth. It had a goofy face just like a lizard’s, but its size alone was enough to make it seem frightening. It was the king of all lizards, like a komodo dragon, but even bigger.

There were two of those huge lizards pulling the wagon, just like it would have been if they’d been totos. Holding their reins was a little old man with a pure-white head of hair.

It was forbidden to ride wagons through the post town, so the man was walking on the ground as he led the beasts. He was dressed in a worn-out black-and-gray-speckled robe, and gave an impression similar to a withered branch.

“Oh wow, it’s like a madarama snake went and grew legs,” Ludo Ruu commented, sounding deeply intrigued.

Fortunately, only that first wagon used those massive lizards. The other six were all pulled by two totos each. However, the folks holding their reins all had rather unusual appearances.

There was an incredibly large man.

A little guy with his face hidden behind a mask.

A bewitching and beautiful woman in an outfit made of some lightweight fabric, decorated with mysterious patterns.

And someone wearing old armor and a helmet, whose movements were stilted like a robot.

This mysterious group was slowly marching through the Genos post town while playing flutes and banging on drums.

It was almost as if I were daydreaming.

“Come one, come all! We are the Gamley Troupe! Have all of you in Genos been doing well while we were away?” a young girl’s voice sounded out clearly from high up, with enough force behind it to not be drowned out by all the instruments. It had come from the largest of the wagons, the one in the middle. There was a small girl seated up on the roof, tossing out bloodred flowers as she spoke. “We’ve stopped by once again this year, so let’s all have fun as we celebrate the sun god’s revival!”

That girl had a rather eccentric appearance too.

It was hard to tell since she was seated, but she seemed to be rather small. She had to be somewhere around Tsuvai’s height. She wore what looked like a brilliant scarlet haori and spoke almost as if she were singing.

Her hair was incredibly long and pitch-black, and the numerous braids she wore it in fluttered alongside her haori. Her skin was pale, her lips red, and I could even tell that she had big black eyes from this distance.

When she passed pretty close to us, I noticed her suddenly glance my way. Her lips rose into a crescent-shaped grin. Then, she gently tossed down a red flower.

The flower must have weighed hardly anything at all, but it shockingly almost landed right on top of my head. The instant before it touched my hair, though, Ai Fa swiftly snatched it.

“It doesn’t seem to be poisonous...” my clan head remarked before handing it to me. The flower had numerous overlapping petals, kind of like a crimson hydrangea.

With a wink, the girl faced forward again and rode on past us.

That was our first peculiar encounter with the Gamley Troupe, who had come to Genos in order to add some pizazz to the sun god’s revival festival.