Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 27 - Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2: For the Sake of a Far-Off Tomorrow

1

It was now the thirteenth of the vermilion month, the day after the match between Geol Zaza and Leiriss. The morning started like normal, with us heading to the post town to open our stalls, but when we stopped by the Ruu settlement along the way like we always did, we were surprised to find a bit of a commotion waiting for us there.

I drove the wagon into the plaza, wondering what exactly was going on. It looked to me like all the old folks and women from the branch houses had gathered together outside and were talking about something with one another. Some were drying pico leaves or tanning hides at the same time, but all were engaged in the conversation.

“What’s going on here? Is this about what happened yesterday?” I called out while tugging on Gilulu’s reins.

Yun Sudra, who was holding Fafa’s reins, tilted her head and replied, “I’m not sure.”

The news about the outcome of the previous day’s events had already made it around to the entire forest through the information network. I could easily imagine the stir it must’ve caused in the other clans, but it would be surprising to me if the members of the Ruu clan were still this animated about it, considering they had witnessed the event personally.

At any rate, once we made it over to the front of the main house, we noticed something else that was a bit out of sorts there. Specifically, there were two wagons waiting outside the house, even though the Fa were supposed to be the ones bringing two wagons today.

Had the members of the Ruu clan gotten the schedule confused due to the unexpected day off yesterday? I pondered that matter as I approached the house, only for someone truly unexpected to appear from the shadow of the wagons.

“Good morning, Asuta.”

“Hey, Shumiral! What in the world brings you here today?”

“Well, you see, yesterday afternoon, we received a report, from the castle town. The hunting dogs, from Jagar, have been delivered,” Shumiral replied while pulling back his leather hood.

“Oh, the hunting dogs?! That’s pretty quick. It hasn’t even been ten days since the end of the rainy season.”

“Yes. It takes, half a month, to a full month, to travel from, Jagar to Genos, so they must have left, ahead of time, aiming roughly for the end, of the rainy season.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. So you’ll be heading to town to evaluate them as planned, then?”

“Yes. I am the only one, who can assess the quality, of hunting dogs.”

Shumiral had previously bought six hunting dogs in the capital of Selva. He’d had a bit of difficulty convincing the merchant from Jagar who imported them to do business with him until he had converted to the western god. That had shocked and impressed the merchant so profoundly that he had quickly changed his tune and kindly offered Shumiral all kinds of advice about dogs to boot.

There were apparently ranks assigned to hunting dogs that indicated how thoroughly trained they were. The ones Shumiral had bought in the capital were of the top rank, and Donda Ruu had asked for more of the same for the people of the forest’s edge to buy, so it was important to have someone who could assess them, hence why Shumiral had been asked to determine the quality of the hunting dogs when they arrived.

“Still, that’s pretty rough, having to travel all the way over to the castle town. You’ll still have to go out and hunt later, after all.”

“Yes. But this is the first time, hunting dog merchants, have visited Genos, so they likely, will not want, to eat giba cooking, and will have, an aversion to, the people of the forest’s edge. They would surely, prefer to avoid coming, to the settlement.”

Well, there was nothing to be done about that. After all, many folks from Jagar still saw the people of the forest’s edge as traitors, so merchants who were visiting Genos for the first time wouldn’t know which areas were safe or who could be trusted, and would definitely be hesitant to do business with our people.

“Take care, okay? But I guess you’ve visited the castle town plenty of times in the past, so I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Right. It will not, be an issue,” Shumiral replied, and then he tilted his head a bit. “Asuta, have you been, looking forward to, the hunting dogs?”

“Huh? Yeah, of course! I’ve been thinking for a while that I would love for my clan head to have one. Why do you ask, though?”

“You just had, such a happy look, on your face.”

“Ah,” I replied with a nod, smiling even wider. “Well, yeah, I’m definitely glad that the hunting dogs have arrived, but right now, I’m mostly happy because I’m getting to talk to you, Shumiral, so I kinda started smiling without even noticing it.”

“But we met, yesterday as well.”

“Yeah. I feel lucky to have been able to see you two days in a row.”

To that, Shumiral gave a bashful smile. “Thank you. I am happy, to see you, as well, Asuta. We did not get, to talk much yesterday, after all.”

“True. Still, that’s no surprise, considering what was going on.”

The two of us continued to smile at each other. However, I then noticed someone peeking at us from inside the covered wagon.

“I see you two are getting along as smoothly as always.”

“H-Huh? Vina Ruu? What are you doing there?”

“What do you mean? We’re just getting ready to go to work.” Vina Ruu said, with the sides of her plump lips turning down. Then she huffed and looked away from us. However, her younger sister then popped up beside her.

“Hey, Asuta! Good luck with your work too!”

“Oh, you were in there too, Rimee Ruu? What work are you going to be doing?”

“Vina and I are heading to the castle town with Shumiral! The nobles of Genos want to feed the dog merchants something with giba in it!”

I was surprised to hear that, so I asked her for details and learned that the proposal had come from Polarth. He had come up with the idea because he thought it best to clear up any misconceptions or prejudices now, if we wanted the merchants to keep selling hunting dogs to the people of the forest’s edge.

“If it’s nobles offering it, the merchants won’t be able to turn down the food! And they asked us to man the stove!” Rimee Ruu continued.

“That’s a really big job, then. What sort of food are you planning on making?”

“We don’t have much time, so we made traip cream stew and chatchi mochi at home! We’ll be grilling some meat and baking poitan once we get there too!”

It was a very sudden proposal, and since Reina Ruu, Sheera Ruu, and I were all going to be busy in the post town today, that was how the job ended up falling into the laps of Vina and Rimee Ruu. Bartha and Ryada Ruu would be going as well to guard them, which was pretty much the standard way of doing things at this point.

At any rate, I thought it was pretty fortunate that Vina Ruu had ended up getting tasked with this. She was currently still sulking in the wagon and stealing glances at us here and there. Perhaps she was thinking it was unfair that Shumiral was only talking to me, but she was the one shyly keeping her distance from him in the wagon. I sighed mentally at how complex the heart of a young woman could be, then turned back toward Shumiral.

“Anyway, there sure are a lot of people out in the plaza today. Are they really that excited about the hunting dogs?” I asked.

“No, that is because of, a different matter. Yesterday, I borrowed Jidura and a wagon, to come here, with several members of the Rutim, joining me along the way.”

“Huh. Morun Rutim and Tsuvai are supposed to be working in the post town today. Is something else going on with them?”

“Yes. Morun Rutim, Tsuvai, Gazraan Rutim, Dan Rutim, and Oura rode along. Oura will be taking, Morun Rutim’s place,” Shumiral said.

“They’re switching their workers? Then what’s Morun Rutim... Actually, what did Gazraan and Dan Rutim come for?”

“They’re meeting with Papa Donda in the house. And from the sound of it, the topic of discussion is a pretty problematic one,” Vina Ruu said, looking away sulkily and heaving a pained sigh.

I tilted my head, but then Rimee Ruu chimed in too.

“You see, Morun Rutim says she wants to marry into the Dom clan! Isn’t that something else?! I was really surprised!”

Naturally, I was quite shocked too. In fact, this was as astonishing to me as Sufira Zaza’s feelings toward Leiriss had been.
 

“Apparently, Morun Rutim has had feelings for the head of the Dom clan for some time,” Reina Ruu explained on our way to the post town. She was riding in our wagon in order to provide me with an explanation, with Lala Ruu doing the same thing over in Fafa’s wagon. “Back during our conflict with that noble, Cyclaeus, the Dom clan head visited the Ruu settlement several times. Not as frequently as the Zaza clan head, but often enough that I remember him very clearly too. That man stands out quite a bit. And Morun Rutim fell for him at first sight. That’s why she volunteered to go when we were loaning women to the northern settlement.”

She was referring to the time when some of the Ruu’s women had stayed at the northern settlement in order to provide cooking lessons. In exchange, Sufira Zaza and Mei Jeen Zaza had come to stay at the Ruu settlement for a while too. That had been around the same time we had been planning our short trip to Dabagg around the end of the indigo month, over five months ago. “This goes without saying, but it’s pretty hard to imagine a marriage between the Rutim and the Dom actually happening. After all, the Rutim fall under the Ruu while the Dom are under the Zaza.”

“Right. They both fall under leading clans, and the two biggest clans at the forest’s edge at that. I definitely get how wild of an idea it is.”

“Yes. That’s why Morun Rutim didn’t open up about her feelings, even as they kept growing stronger. She felt that it would never be permitted, and nobody would be happy to hear about her attraction to him.”

“Yeah. She must have felt the same way as Sufira Zaza.”

Morun Rutim was probably finding it a lot harder for her to give up on her love than Sufira Zaza had. While Morun Rutim had been suppressing her feelings for much longer, falling for a noble had obviously been a lot more problematic compared to falling for another person of the forest’s edge.

“But when she saw Sufira Zaza and Leiriss yesterday, Morun Rutim changed her mind. She now thinks it would be wrong to give up without ever telling him how she feels. That’s how she explained herself to her family yesterday.”

“I see. So that’s why the clan head Gazraan Rutim and Dan Rutim are visiting Donda Ruu this morning. How did the two of them seem?”

“Well...it seems Dan Rutim wants to grant Morun Rutim’s wish.”

I couldn’t look over at Reina Ruu’s face since I was driving Gilulu’s wagon, but it was easy to picture how troubled she must have been. After all, it was only natural to find this troubling as a member of the main Ruu house. In fact, according to the traditional values of the forest’s edge, the best thing for Morun Rutim to have done would have been to cast aside her feelings without ever opening up about them.

“But the current clan head is Gazraan Rutim, right? What’s his opinion on all this?”

“I don’t know, but he seemed to have a lot to say to my father about the future of our people and the leading clans.”

“Hmm. I see.”

The more I heard, the more complicated this whole situation sounded. Forming blood ties was a huge deal at the forest’s edge. It meant having to treat all of your new relatives the same as your own family, which became more and more difficult the larger the clans in question were.

Currently, the Fou and Sudra were trying to establish blood ties between themselves. The Fou had a total of thirty-three people under them when their subordinates, the Ran, were included. The Sudra lacked any branch houses or subordinates, so they only had nine members. With numbers like that, it wouldn’t be all that difficult for everyone on both sides to interact. However, the Ruu had over a hundred relatives, and the Zaza had around that many as well. Furthermore, the clans were located quite far apart, so it would be nearly impossible for everyone to get to know one another. Truth be told, just looking at how things currently stood, the Deen and Liddo clans were located far enough away from their parent clan, the Zaza, that it was difficult for them to find opportunities to deepen their bonds, and they were currently searching for a convenient opportunity to do so.

On top of that, the Ruu and Zaza were both leading clans. If they established blood ties, that would be a serious deviation from the foundational principle Donda Ruu had laid down that the forest’s edge should be governed from many different points of view.

Besides, if they joined together, even deciding which one would be the parent clan was guaranteed to be a huge issue. Since Donda Ruu and Gulaf Zaza were both in charge of so many people already, neither could step aside easily.

And then there was the fact that there were only somewhere around five or six hundred people of the forest’s edge in total. If the Ruu and Zaza joined together, they would create a massive clan group with over two hundred members.

This actually is a big deal. I wonder how Donda Ruu and Gazraan Rutim are going to handle it.

While I was agonizing over that thought, we soon arrived at the post town. I brought the wagon to a stop, and Reina Ruu hopped down to the ground and smiled at me.

“At least for now, there’s nothing for us to do. We just have to focus on our own work.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” I conceded.

Reina Ruu gave a bow, then headed over to Ruuruu’s wagon.

From there, we split up into separate groups, one to pick up the stalls and another to deliver food to the inns. Shumiral parted ways with us at the same time, taking Jidura’s wagon and heading straight to the castle town.

I started walking down the main road through the post town, with Toor Deen and Lili Ravitz riding in the wagon. Today, I was tasked with transporting goods to The Great Southern Tree and The Westerly Wind. Our first stop was The Great Southern Tree, since it was closer.

“Thank you for coming by, Asuta. I’ve been eagerly waiting for you,” Naudis greeted us with a smile on his bearded face—one that was probably even wider than usual because today was the day for cubed giba meat stew. This dish was a special that I had agreed to provide on the first day after a day off, but I’d had to speed up the rotation by a few days due to the sudden break yesterday.

“Well then, here’s the cubed giba meat stew, and here’s the fresh meat.”

“Ah, yes. I’ll put it away now, just give me a moment, if you would please.”

He then transferred the stew into a series of pots in the kitchen, and the meat into jars filled with salt. I lent him a hand as well and took the opportunity to speak to him about a different matter.

“By the way, have you made a decision about continuing to use onda yet? I’d like to finalize an order soon.”

“Ah, yes. I discussed it with my wife, and we would have no problem buying three white coins’ worth on a daily basis.”

“I see. That’s great to hear. It sounds like you’ll be ordering the most out of all the inns I’ve got connections with.”

“Well, onda is an ingredient that originally came from Jagar, after all. Many of our customers from the south enjoy it, so we’re very grateful for the opportunity to keep serving onda even after the rainy season has ended.”

It seemed like I would be able to set up a reasonably stable contract for a regular order with Dora. That would allow me to expand my range of dishes, and Dora would earn greater profits, making for a real win-win.

“If we were to raise the question at a meeting, I’m sure a fair number of other inns would want to keep using onda too. You are planning to participate in the next inn meeting, aren’t you, Asuta?”

“Ah, yes. I kept deferring it during the rainy season, but I’d like to take part in the next one for sure.”

“I see. Well, the next meeting is actually set to be held here at The Great Southern Tree. Would you mind manning the stove for it?”

“Huh? You want to serve my cooking to a gathering of inn owners?”

“That’s right. If you want to sell even more giba meat, this is a perfect opportunity.”

I was naturally quite grateful to him for suggesting that.

Having put away the giba meat, Naudis shook the salt off his hands and looked at me with upturned eyes, saying, “By the way...you just want to sell giba meat now, correct? You don’t intend to offer your cooking at any more inns?”

“That’s right. The main reason I’ve been selling you my cooking is to show people how delicious giba meat can be, so I don’t think there’s any need to expand further on that front.”

I was only offering my cooking to The Great Southern Tree, The Sledgehammer, and The Kimyuus’s Tail. The Westerly Wind had only ever bought raw giba meat from us, and they had managed to achieve plenty of success cooking it on their own, which I hoped would serve as the model moving forward.

“I’m glad to hear that. I was worried about you taking on too much work...and of course, it’s beneficial to us in terms of our business as well.”

“I won’t forget the debt I owe you as the first one to buy my cooking, Naudis.”

It was kind of embarrassing, but my cooking was earning a pretty solid reputation among the inns for being able to satisfy even nobles from the castle town. Still, while I didn’t want to hold back on offering my skills, I also wanted to be careful not to take on too much of a burden in terms of work.

“Well then, I look forward to seeing you again for the next five days.”

“Right, and I hope you do good business again today.”

Next up was The Westerly Wind. I was only delivering fresh meat there, but even though they didn’t purchase my cooking, the amount of meat that they bought was about the same as what was in our deliveries to The Great Southern Tree. The inn was in a slum located down a short little side path off the main road. It was far enough out of the way to drastically decrease the flow of traffic. However, the large number of outlaws who lived in the area tended to sleep at least until after the sun hit its peak, so you could walk around the area without bodyguards in the morning.

“Oh, you’re on delivery duty today, Asuta? Thanks!” Yumi greeted me with a smile.

We delivered three days’ worth of meat to the inn at a time, and it wasn’t like the task always fell to me, so I probably only came to this area once every ten days. I frequently saw Yumi at the stalls, but occasions like this one were my only opportunities to strengthen my connection with the owners, Sams and Sill. I glanced around, searching for them, but Yumi—who was standing behind the reception desk that looked like a bar counter from a Western—was the only person around.

“You’re manning the shop alone today, Yumi?”

“Yeah. My dad’s out back chopping firewood, and my mom’s purchasing ingredients. There was a bit of a fight this morning, so she was late heading out.”

“Fighting? Were some outlaws going at it?”

“Nah, they’re all snoring up on the second floor in their rooms. This was something else entirely,” Yumi said, sticking out her tongue in a mischievous manner. “Well, I guess I can tell you, Asuta. You see, my dad’s been hounding me to find a husband. I’m seventeen now, so he’s being a real nag about it.”

Learning that there were even more arguments about marriage happening over here in town was giving me some complicated feelings. But, well, Yumi herself was smiling nonchalantly about it.

“Like I said before, I want to marry into the forest’s edge, but I can’t exactly come out and say that to my folks, you know? Having to keep dodging the topic has been a real hassle, though.”

“I see. Sounds rough.”

“Ugh, but I haven’t had any chance to spend time with men from the forest’s edge lately. I wonder when I’ll be able to head there next.”

“I’m not sure. Did you have less work to do around the inns during the rainy season? Dora and his people were so busy that we didn’t think there would be any point in bringing that kind of thing up with them.”

“Yeah, and it’s hard to stop by without any sort of pretext. Last time around, I was sort of able to jump on the bandwagon with the excitement from the revival festival. But I can’t just wait for the next one of those to come around,” Yumi complained. But then she suddenly clapped her hands together. “Now that I think about it, aren’t the Ruu going to have a festival soon? You don’t suppose I could get an invite to that, do you?”

“Well, festivals of the hunt are meant for relatives. I’ve been invited to the Ruu festival of the hunt before despite not having blood ties, but that was a special case.”

“I see. That’s a shame.”

I still didn’t know what stance I should have on this. I knew how hard it was for an outsider to marry into the forest’s edge thanks to Shumiral, so it was hard for me to offer her my support without having some major reservations.

In fact, I didn’t even know how serious Yumi was to begin with. If it just came down to a bit of vague admiration, it would probably be best for her to give up before she wasted too much effort. But on the other hand, Yumi had once hated the people of the forest’s edge, so it felt like quite the accomplishment for her to have come this far.

“Well, whatever! Even if I can’t come to the festival, I’ll try asking the folks from the Ruu clan if I can stop by in the near future! Telia Mas and Tara have been wanting to visit too!”

“Yeah. I’ll be praying for you to be allowed to.”

With that, I left The Westerly Wind. Not long after, as we were heading to the spot where we would be meeting back up with the group who were getting the stalls, Lili Ravitz called out from within the wagon, “Asuta, that girl wishes to marry into the forest’s edge?”

“Yeah, that’s what she says. I’m not sure how serious she is about it, though.”

“I see. If her feelings are merely superficial, it would be best for her to give up sooner rather than later.” Lili Ravitz, who looked kind of like a small Jizo statue, was from a clan that opposed the actions of the Fa, so it was no surprise that she’d be opposed to us having any unnecessary interactions with the townsfolk. “Yesterday, there was that whole commotion with the nobles of Genos, and now that Rutim girl has gone and created a ridiculous mess as well. It feels like it’s just been one thing after another—all of it about marriage—ever since the vermilion month started.”

“That’s true. I guess now that the season of rain is over, the season of love has begun, huh?” I replied, trying to sound as casual and unserious as possible.

As for the matter with Morun Rutim, there wasn’t much to do about it except wait for Donda Ruu to make his decision.