5
On the following day, the twelfth of the gold month, Myme came with us to the post town. I figured it would have been perfectly fine for her to rest for at least one day, but she didn’t seem willing to allow herself to take time off, so early that morning she had prepared fifty meals without anyone’s assistance.
“I got the ingredients from the Ruu clan, so if this food doesn’t sell, I won’t be able to show my face around here anymore,” Myme declared with a resolute look, but naturally, there was no way such a sad outcome would happen. The citizens of Genos were thrilled to see her reopening for business.
The dish she went with was the unusual viscous stew made with karon milk that she had first sold during the revival festival, where it had always proved to be such a hit that it always sold out right away.
“As terrible as the crime that brought you to us was, I’m so glad that you and your father are staying at the Ruu settlement. It’ll give us another chance to see your skills up close and personal,” Reina Ruu said during a break between work. The expression on her face was just as determined as Myme’s was. “Once your break period is over, you’ll be holding study sessions at the Ruu settlement again, right, Asuta? If Myme and Mikel attend, them being there should help everyone improve even faster. I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Right. What happened to them was horrible, but there is a saying that every cloud has a silver lining.”
Toor Deen and Yun Sudra were also relieved when they heard what the plan was for Myme and Mikel. If things kept going as they were and Myme’s father could recover a bit more, the young chef would be back to smiling again in no time. With so many warm and welcoming faces among the Ruu clan, I was sure their hearts would soon be healed just like his wounds.
“Robbing someone like that is just awful! You did lock your door, right?” Yumi asked Myme when she stopped by as a customer.
As she stirred the contents of her pot so they wouldn’t burn, Myme nodded back and replied, “Yes. It was late at night, so we had our door locked and bolted. But they broke the lattices on our kitchen window and forced their way in.”
“Wow... Sounds like the Turan lands are pretty dangerous too. If that happened at our place, my old man would have beaten that lot to a pulp, though,” Yumi declared, reaching out and patting Myme on the shoulder. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to earn a mountain of coins again in no time! Actually, why don’t you just go ahead and become people of the forest’s edge? Then nobody will mess with you ever again!”
Myme smiled back at Yumi bashfully, but she didn’t respond. I assumed she thought she shouldn’t say anything about that while her father wasn’t around. As for Yumi, she probably wasn’t being serious and had only said that to cheer Myme up.
But I have to wonder about Mikel’s plan to send Myme off to the castle town on her own... Was he already planning to do that, even before this happened?
There were no true restaurants here in the post town or the Turan lands, only dining halls at inns, and stalls that sold snacks, often run by those same inns. Of course, Myme was skilled enough to make a living off of running a stall alone, but if she was aiming to achieve greater heights as a chef, she would eventually have to move to the castle town or another town entirely. With her talent, she would have no problem making it as a chef in the castle town.
Well, that’s not exactly the sort of thing I should be butting in to. I doubt Mikel wants to hand Myme over to some restaurant while she’s still so young anyway.
After that, Dora and Tara showed up and talked to Myme as well. She had also spoken with Telia Mas this morning when she went to borrow her stall, so everyone who was closely connected to her knew what was going on at this point.
And in the meantime, some other folks who Myme wasn’t especially well acquainted with also showed up: Diel, the daughter of a metalwork trader from the south; her attendant, Labis; and the eastern star reader, Arishuna.
“Welcome. It’s rare for the three of you to show up together.”
“Hey, we just ran into each other on our way out of the gates! And she followed us even when I told her not to!”
“There is, no helping that, as we were heading, to the same, destination.”
As always, they were complete opposites, one lively and the other perfectly calm. After shooting a threatening glare at Arishuna, Diel’s bright emerald-green eyes turned my way.
“There’s a lovely smell drifting through the air again today! What kind of dish is this?”
“This is a giba belly stew. For the broth, we used tau oil, sugar, and keru root.”
“Ooh, keru root! So you’ve finally started using it?” Crossing her arms, Diel glanced out of the corner of her eye at Arishuna, wearing a daring grin. As it happened, tau oil, sugar, and keru root all came from Jagar.
The dish was a take on the giba char siu that had been so popular during the festival of the hunt. Actually, it might have been more accurate to describe it as being halfway between cubed giba meat stew and char siu. At any rate, it had blocks of rib meat tied with strings that had been cooking in the stew since morning.
When serving it to a customer, I transferred aria, tino, and nenon that had been simmering in a different pot to a dish, then sliced off a bit of meat to add on top, along with plenty of broth. For a bit of an accent, I also gave each dish a pinch of chitt seeds. With the tender boiled rib meat, it made for a really good meal all on its own.
“Well then, I’ll take a plate of that! What else should I have, though?”
“How about trying that dish? I’m sure you’ve never had it before, Diel.” Naturally, I was referring to Myme’s cooking. Diel hadn’t really been able to leave the castle town during the revival festival, so I figured this had to be the first time she had seen Myme’s stall.
“Hmm? That little kid isn’t a person of the forest’s edge, is she?”
“No, she’s a resident of Genos, but she is connected to our people.”
“Oh? So you’re not the only weirdo like that out there, Asuta?” As Diel peered over at Myme’s stall, Arishuna leaned her neck forward beside her. “Hey, could you not get so close to me?” she said.
“But I am, interested as well.”
Diel acted unfriendly, but from my point of view as an onlooker, I thought they made a great duo. They seemed to have quite a lot in common, despite the nations of the south and east being enemies.
Myme shot them a puzzled look. “Welcome. You can order some if you like. It costs two red coins.”
“It doesn’t look like just one would be enough to fill you up on its own, does it? Okay, let’s go ahead and give it a try. Coin please, Labis.”
Labis held out a white coin, which Myme accepted with a “Thank you,” and then handed him back his change. Then she grabbed one of the skewers peeking out from the pot, wrapped a piece of poitan around the meat and vegetables covered in stew, and finally slid the wooden skewer out of them.
“Mmm, what a great smell! This is giba meat too, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It uses giba belly and leg meat.”
Diel bit into the poitan, and as she started chewing, her eyes grew visibly wider. “Delicious! I didn’t think there could be anyone other than Asuta capable of making food this good here in the post town!”
“I’m glad it’s to your liking,” Myme said, smiling a bit. In the past, she would have been grinning as brightly as Diel was after hearing that. It felt like she had grown a lot more mature in a short period of time.
“Well then, may I have some, as well?” Arishuna said while holding out her own coins, causing Diel’s expression to quickly shift once again.
“What, were you waiting to hear my impressions first? You’re a sneaky one, aren’t you?!”
“I had, no such intentions. But it is, a fact, that your, satisfied smile, drew my interest, all the more.”
“Hmph! So you say!”
Myme let a little giggle slip out as she watched that exchange between Diel and Arishuna. Regardless of how the two of them felt, it really was quite amusing to see them bouncing off each other. For me, it brought to mind a Pomeranian yapping at a graceful Siamese cat.
“It certainly is, delicious... I am, surprised.”
“Hey, that’s what I said! Ugh, you’re so annoying...” With that, Diel scarfed down the rest of her portion before turning back to me. “All right, I’ll have your cooking next, Asuta! By the way, I’ve heard that you’ll be attending the house of Daleim’s upcoming dance party.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan, more or less. We haven’t received the official invitation yet, though.”
We had discussed the matter with Donda Ruu yesterday. He was leaning toward letting us attend, assuming there was no clear reason to turn down such a request from the nobles. It hadn’t been decided yet who would attend from the leading clans, but I had been singled out by Polarth, so it was essentially set in stone that I would be there.
“I see. I’m really on the fence about it. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to get to taste your cooking there...”
“Oh, you were invited too, Diel?”
“Yeah. I know their second son pretty well at this point, after all! Still, I don’t get many chances to take it easy and chat with you, so I guess I’ll be there.”
“Good. It’ll be much easier for me to relax if there are lots of familiar faces in attendance. By the way, will you have a gentleman accompanying you to the event?”
“Oh yeah, it’d be a hassle to have some fishy noble approach me, so I’ll be bringing Labis,” Diel replied, but then she shot me a glare. “What about you, Asuta? Are you going to bring that hunter woman with the nasty look in her eyes?”
“That’s a new one, hearing her called a ‘hunter woman.’ But yeah, that’s the plan.”
When Ai Fa had heard the condition Polarth had laid out, she sighed and said, “Then I suppose I will have no choice but to entrust my blade to them.” Apparently, the idea of waiting outside the event hall never even entered her head.
“You were invited too, weren’t you? Why do I keep running into you everywhere I go?!” Diel was saying.
“That is, most likely, because we both, have ties to Polarth. It is only natural, we would attend, the same banquets, with the same nobles.” Apparently, Arishuna had already made up her mind to attend. But it seemed she had been invited as a star reader rather than a guest of honor.
“So, I guess the next time we see each other could be at the dance party. But I’ll definitely come out here again if I can find the time!” Diel said, and with that, she and Arishuna moved over to the restaurant space with their dishes.
As we watched them leave, Myme called out, “Asuta, were those people from the castle town?”
“Yeah. As you saw, though, they’re from the south and east, so officially they’re guests invited to stay in the castle town.”
“I see... I guess with your level of skill, it makes sense that you would know a lot of people there.” Myme’s eyes dropped down to stare at her boiling pot. Her unusual reaction naturally caused me to worry.
“I’d say you’re surpassing me in terms of skill already, Myme. Everyone had a ton of praise for you before. Even Varkas. So there’s no denying how good you are.”
“Not really. Varkas also said that one cannot be called an excellent chef if they can only make one dish. I only know how to use a handful of ingredients, so I’m still nothing but a chef in training.” Myme bit her lip a bit, and then after staying silent for a moment, she quietly muttered, “I’m still so new at this. And...I don’t want to leave my father.”
It was impossible to miss the sadness dripping from her voice. It really reminded me that Myme was still just an eleven-year-old girl.
“That’s only natural. I was seventeen when I was separated from my family, but I still wish I could have trained under my old man a lot more. My business may be doing well, but I’ve been fumbling my way through each day I face.”
“I guess.”
“And Mikel was one of the top two chefs in all of Genos. Staying close to him is the best way for you to improve. Donda Ruu also said that there’s no need for you guys to leave the forest’s edge immediately once Mikel’s leg is healed.”
“Right,” Myme said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she firmly stirred the contents of her pot. It looked like she had managed to keep herself from crying.
I don’t want to butt in to someone else’s business, but... Even so, I couldn’t possibly accept fate tearing such a close father and daughter pair apart, and since the people of the forest’s edge valued blood ties so highly, they would surely agree with me.
No matter how close two people might be, the time when they would have to say goodbye would come eventually. But that was all the more reason to keep resisting the inevitable for as long as possible. I couldn’t help but feel that way.
Ultimately, the day’s work came to a close without any serious commotion. Naturally, Myme had sold all of the food she had prepared, and now she was finishing her cleanup with a heavy sigh.
“Good work, Myme. Looks like you didn’t need to worry about having leftovers after all. Not that I ever really thought that you might.”
“Yes, thank you. It’s all because of your help, everyone.” Myme then sent me a terribly apologetic look. “Also, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Asuta... Could I ask you to wait a bit longer for me to pay you back for the medicine from yesterday? I need to repay the Ruu clan for the ingredients I used, and I also need money to prepare for business tomorrow...”
“You can do that whenever, no problem. It can wait until you have plenty of funds to spare.”
“But normally, I would need to repay you right away.”
“You don’t have to act like we’re strangers, Myme. If you were in my position, would you demand that I pay you back immediately?”
Myme shut her eyes tightly to stop her tears from falling, then once again said, “Thank you.”
At that point, Reina Ruu approached and said, “Good work, everyone. Myme, it looks like fifty meals wasn’t enough, wouldn’t you say? If you need help to prepare more, feel free to let us know whenever.”
“Huh? But I can’t burden you all like that.”
“It wouldn’t be a burden, it would be a job request. We’ve been paying people to help with work for a while now,” Reina Ruu replied with a soothing smile. “Still, the details can wait until we return to the settlement. I’m sure you want to hurry back to Mikel, right?”
And so, we headed straight back to the Ruu settlement. We still needed to go to the Ravitz settlement to give lessons, though, so we couldn’t stay for long. Even so, we did stop by Bartha’s house to make sure that Mikel had stabilized before we left to do our next job.
“Well then, see you tomorrow. Make sure not to wear yourself out too much,” I said.
“Of course. Thank you so much for everything,” Myme told me.
After saying farewell to Myme and the members of the Ruu clan, we set out once more down the path through the forest’s edge.
Before long, Yun Sudra called out to me.
“That Myme is an amazing girl. She does all of her work well, despite how young she is.”
“Yeah. At this rate, it may not be long before we see her usual energetic self again. There’s no way I would’ve been able to handle the situation she’s in even half as well at the age of eleven.”
“The same goes for me. I’ve been growing more and more fond of the girl.”
I felt exactly the same way. It was because of the kind of people Myme and Mikel were that Ai Fa and Donda Ruu had extended a helping hand to them without the slightest hesitation. They were undoubtedly just the sort of folks who could strike a chord with the strict yet purehearted people of the forest’s edge.
“Mikel was driven from the city of stone because of that wicked noble, Cyclaeus, wasn’t he? Shouldn’t the nobles agree to let him live there again if you explain the circumstances?”
“Hmm. If Mikel could still work as a chef, that would probably work out. But as things stand, he just can’t make enough money to live there. And I can’t imagine him asking the nobles for their patronage so he can do so.”
“I see... Well, I’m glad that they were willing to rely on us people of the forest’s edge instead of the nobles.”
Once again, I completely agreed. Mikel was stubborn and didn’t let his emotions show often, but he had relied on the people of the forest’s edge without any hesitation, which made me incredibly happy to see.
Mikel, Myme, Bartha, and Jeeda all had their destinies thrown off course because of Cyclaeus and Zattsu Suun. That might have made Donda Ruu even less willing to turn a blind eye toward their struggles.
Thinking back, this might have been more fallout from what Cyclaeus and the others wrought. But as they say, fortune and misfortune are linked. They’re two sides of the same coin, and can gather together and intertwine like a braided rope. I prayed from the depths of my heart that after facing such suffering, Myme and Mikel would be met with even more happiness and joy in turn. Even looking at my own case, after losing the entire life that I had lived for seventeen years, I had still found so much happiness.
It was possible that great tragedy and misfortune was still lurking in our future. Even so, we had no choice but to keep on living, trusting that happiness would be waiting there for us on the other side. At least, that was how I saw it.
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