Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 27 - Chapter 3.2

2

It was now nighttime, and Ai Fa was in a great mood yet again. The reason for that was obvious: Our hunting dog Brave had once more proven to be extremely helpful to her at her job.

The lessons the Ruu clan had been providing wrapped up two days prior, so starting yesterday, Ai Fa had been heading out into the forest with only Brave accompanying her. Hunting with Ludo Ruu and the Fou and Sudra hunters hadn’t been as stressful for her as working with the Ravitz had been, but it was no surprise to me that she seemed to prefer the freedom of acting on her own. Of course, Brave was an exception to that.

“I took down two giba again today thanks to Brave. Even though I failed at bloodletting one of them, it was still a very good result,” Ai Fa remarked as she vigorously devoured the dinner I had prepared. Brave was down by the door to the house, gnawing on a massive giba thigh bone. He had already finished the big pile of meat we had given to him on a plate. Though it was meat that hadn’t been properly bloodlet, he didn’t seem to have any problem with eating it. “It’s starting to seem like the mundt are going to starve, with so little rotten meat for them to eat. In the last year, the amount we’ve been leaving behind in the forest has fallen dramatically.”

“Yeah. I’ve been a little worried that it might be impacting the ecosystem.”

“Ecosystem...?”

“I mean that it’s just as you said. If there’s any chance that this could cause starving mundt to start attacking people, that’d be really bad, wouldn’t it?”

“Starving mundt would head deeper into the forest rather than toward our settlement. When we’re out hunting, we can’t go so deep into the forest that we wouldn’t be able to make it home within half a day, so there are undoubtedly countless giba corpses there.”

Mundt were scavengers that were too weak to hunt giba themselves. When I really thought about it, though, I realized that before the people of the forest’s edge moved here eighty years ago, the mundt would have only had giba that died of natural causes to eat. In that case, when the people of the forest’s edge had started discarding the meat they didn’t need eighty years ago, they had probably started overfeeding the mundt.

“So then, maybe the way things are now is actually more natural? Hmm, it’s hard to say for sure. Maybe it’s best to just leave everything to the will of the forest.”

“That’s right. We people of the forest’s edge, the giba, and the mundt are all children of the forest,” Ai Fa agreed, slurping down some giba soup. Then she shot me a rather dubious look. “I can’t help but notice that you’re still looking rather disheartened. Are you worried about Yun Sudra, perhaps?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, this time it isn’t something we can treat as someone else’s problem, is it?”

“Oh? I turned down Jou Ran’s marriage proposal as soon as he made it, and Yun Sudra never actually proposed to you at all. Of course, it upsets me as well when I think about how Yun Sudra must feel. But even so, this is ultimately a matter between the Ran and the Sudra.”

Viewed through the lens of the values and ethics of the forest’s edge, it was definitely sensible to think that way. Even so, I couldn’t simply write it off as not being our problem that easily.

“Well, it’s really eating at me, especially because we don’t know what really happened. Why in the world did Yun Sudra slap Jou Ran?”

“I do not know. Jou Ran must have done something terribly improper, I suppose.”

“You think so? He didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d do something like that, though.”

“I wouldn’t know. All I can say about him is that he must be a weird person, to want someone like me as a wife.”

I felt that I definitely had grounds to raise an objection against that. “Well, putting me aside, Darmu Ruu, Rau Lea, and several men from the Gaaz and Ratsu have all asked you to marry them, haven’t they? I don’t think you can say that every single one of them is weird.”

“Don’t go dredging up such old and tired stories.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Ai Fa placed a hand on the floor, leaned forward, and slapped me, causing my cheek to go a bit red.

“At any rate, Jou Ran seemed somewhat foolish to me. It isn’t impossible for me to imagine him saying something that goes against the customs of the forest’s edge and angering Yun Sudra. And he did acknowledge that he was at fault, did he not?”

“Yeah, apparently.”

“Then he must have been in the wrong. The Fou and Ran will simply have to trust and accept his words for what they are and let go of their ill will.”

Still, it definitely seemed to go against the customs of the forest’s edge for Yun Sudra to slap a man from another clan and then refuse to explain why. Was Jou Ran covering for Yun Sudra, perhaps? I figured that must’ve been what the Ran and Fou were thinking, and that was what had led to the current discord.

Now that I think about it, there was a lot of cheering for Jou Ran back during the festival of the hunt. He’s highly skilled as a hunter, has good looks, and is young and unmarried to boot. I’m sure he must be pretty popular among the Fou and Ran clans. I could see why Yun Sudra was facing such harsh treatment from them if that was the case.

I sighed heavily, right before someone knocked on our front door.

“I am Jou Ran of the Ran clan. Is the clan head Ai Fa home?”

I almost dropped my plate when I heard that.

Ai Fa’s expression instantly turned displeased, and she scratched her head. “Does he not know proper manners? I mean, showing up in the middle of dinner.”

She walked over to the door, stroking the heads of the confused Brave and Gilulu as she passed them before removing the bolt.

“I’m sorry for stopping by so late, but there’s something I wish to discuss with you, Ai Fa. May I come in?” Jou Ran asked.

“We’re in the middle of eating dinner.”

“Oh, you were still eating? My apologies.” This was the first time I had heard Jou Ran’s voice in a good while. Though he lived nearby, I didn’t have many chances to interact with men from other clans. “Would you mind if I wait around until you are done eating? If I go home now and come back here later, it will only cause even more confusion for everyone.”

“You’re free to wait, but where do you intend to do so?”

“Anywhere would be fine. If I’m in the way, I’ll wait outside.”

Ai Fa rustled her hair once more, then said, “Come in” and stepped back.

Jou Ran stepped inside with a bow. “Thank you. And I see your hunting dog is eating as well. That’s a splendid giba bone.” He smiled at Brave as he unstrapped his sandals. Our dog simply continued to chew his bone, his tail wagging happily. “Well then, pardon me... Oh, hello Asuta. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has, Jou Ran.”

After handing his blade to Ai Fa, Jou Ran stepped into the main room of the house. He was a fairly tall young man, with a rather handsome face and straight hair that came down to his shoulders. He also had a rather calming aura about him, which was a bit rare at the forest’s edge. If I recalled correctly, he was currently sixteen years old.

“Well then, I will wait here. Please, don’t mind me and continue with your dinner.”

“We will hardly be able to ignore you if you’ll be sitting right over there. Just hurry up and say what you came here to say. We’ll continue eating as you do,” Ai Fa replied with open annoyance, returning to her original position and sitting cross-legged. As she had declared she would, she immediately resumed eating her meal.

Jou Ran had sat diagonally behind me, so I shifted in order to be able to see him. He was also sitting cross-legged, with his back completely straight. His expression was composed, but it somehow looked like he was always just about to smile. “All right. I’m sorry for intruding on your meal, but I’ll begin. You already heard about me from Yun Sudra, correct?”

“Indeed. You did something wrong, and Yun Sudra slapped you,” Ai Fa stated.

“Yes. From what I heard, the Fou and Ran women refused to speak to Yun Sudra this morning. Is that true, Asuta?”

“Yeah. Or at the very least, things seemed really awkward between them.”

“I knew it. I’m the one at fault, but since we haven’t explained that properly, everyone is pulling away from Yun Sudra. I’m afraid I’ve wronged her very badly.” Jou Ran placed his fists on the floor and leaned forward a bit. “Ai Fa, my intention is to reveal everything to my relatives soon. Would you allow that?”

“Why in the world would you need my permission?”

“Well, it involves both me and you.”

With that, things grew a bit more tense. After swallowing a bit of cold shabu-shabu meat, Ai Fa shot Jou Ran a glare.

“That’s odd. I can’t remember there being much of anything connecting you and me.”

“That’s true. What I did was truly foolish, and I regret angering Yun Sudra that way from the depths of my heart. That’s why I want to let everyone know that she did nothing wrong.”

“That’s enough of a preamble. What exactly did you do to Yun Sudra?”

“Well...I told Yun Sudra how I fell for you, Ai Fa, and that I still haven’t been able to cast aside those feelings.”

That was hardly unexpected, yet it was still shocking to hear. In particular, I couldn’t just laugh off the fact that he said he still had feelings for my clan head.

“And that upset Yun Sudra enough for her to hit you?” Ai Fa asked, looking incredibly annoyed.

“No,” Jou Ran replied, shaking his head. “What I said next was where I truly went astray. I...asked Yun Sudra if she would cooperate with me so that we could both see our true desires fulfilled.”

“Your true desires?”

“Yes. Yun Sudra has feelings for you, does she not, Asuta?”

This time, I almost flipped my plate over. “H-Hold on a moment! Where did you hear that from? I can’t imagine Yun Sudra would have brought it up herself.”

“She didn’t. But I overheard the women of my clan gossiping about it. They said that she must have been holding back her feelings so that she wouldn’t cause you trouble.”

I felt as if I was going to faint.

And then, Ai Fa angrily interjected, “Hey. So you’re saying you asked Yun Sudra to work with you to fulfill those desires?”

“Yes.”

“Your duty as a member of the Ran was to welcome Yun Sudra as your bride, was it not? And yet that was what you said to her instead?”

“Yes. It was extremely foolish of me.”

“Foolish doesn’t even begin to cover it! What were you thinking?!” Ai Fa demanded, slamming her fist into the floor hard enough to make her soup shake. “The forest’s edge would never permit such a thing! You deserve to be smacked over the head for what you’ve done, and not just once or twice! If it were permitted, I would strike you across the face myself!”

“I regret my actions. Even I want to hit the man I was when I said those things,” Jou Ran replied. He had been sitting up straight, but now his shoulders slumped down. “When my clan head told me to determine whether Yun Sudra would make a fitting partner, I strayed from the proper path. I thought it might have been the forest’s guidance that I was paired with a woman with feelings for Asuta when I had fallen for you, Ai Fa. I was completely enamored with that foolish notion.”

“How could you possibly believe that was legitimate guidance?! Are you trying to sully the name of our mother forest?!”

“I’m sorry. When Yun Sudra slapped my cheek, I realized just how foolish I had been. Even I can’t understand how I could’ve thought such a thing now.”

Jou Ran was a fine young hunter taller than I was, but at that point he was so dejected that he looked like a puppy getting soaked in the rain. However, that did nothing to quell Ai Fa’s rage.

“I can’t even believe that someone like you is a fellow person of the forest’s edge! My apologies to the Ran clan, but I haven’t been this outraged at one of our people since Diga and Doddo, and all the villainous things they did!”

“I know. I regret it with all that I am.”

“There’s no point in telling me that! You should be apologizing to Yun Sudra and the heads of the Sudra and Ran clans!”

“A-Ai Fa, I get how you feel, but let’s try to calm down a little,” I said.

My clan head was positively furious, like a cat with its fur standing up. Her blue eyes were filled with a blazing light, and it felt as if she might punch Jou Ran at any moment.

I hurriedly kept talking. “So, you want to tell everyone what happened, Jou Ran? And since that would mean revealing your feelings for Ai Fa, you’re asking for her permission?”

“Yes. And I don’t believe I’ll be able to properly convey the tale without also revealing Yun Sudra’s feelings for you, Asuta.”

That was probably true. Still, never mind me; what about Yun Sudra? She had been keeping this almost entirely to herself, even if it meant making things awkward between her and the members of the Fou and Ran.

“But the Ran women already know how Yun Sudra feels, so I don’t believe that will be an issue. That’s why I decided the most important thing I needed to do was to get permission from the two of you,” Jou Ran explained.

“Hold on! You shouldn’t treat Yun Sudra’s feelings as a secondary concern!” I shouted as I felt another angry rant coming from Ai Fa. “Besides, there’s no need to worry about our permission. On our side, all that happened was that Ai Fa and I couldn’t reciprocate your or Yun Sudra’s feelings, so there’s nothing for us to feel embarrassed about no matter who hears about this. But it’s different for Yun Sudra.”

“Perhaps. But the Ran women already realized, so I’m sure the Sudra and Fou women did as well.”

“There’s a big difference between speculating without proof and actually knowing something,” I countered. “Besides, why didn’t you just open up about this yesterday?”

“Well...because Yun Sudra insisted we shouldn’t tell anyone.”

“See! You should respect her feelings! You should talk it over with Yun Sudra and then decide together whether or not to tell everyone.”

“Yes... I suppose you may be right.”

What a vague response. Ai Fa, meanwhile, was still half standing with a look of rage on her face.

“It seems I’ll need to hit him a couple times before he’ll come to his senses,” she said. “It won’t damage our relationship with the Ran as long as we explain the circumstances.”

“H-Hey, calm down. If he needs to be hit, then leave that to the Ran clan head.”

Jou Ran stared at Ai Fa with a terribly sad look in his eyes.

“So I angered you that badly, Ai Fa?”

“That attitude of yours is the thing I can’t stand most of all! You should be thinking of Yun Sudra’s feelings first and foremost, not mine! If you have time to study my expression, then you should spend it apologizing to her over and over again!”

“I see. I’m sure you must be thoroughly sick of my lack of tact,” Jou Ran said, firmly shutting his eyes before staring back up at my clan head with a resolved look. “Ai Fa, I would like to make a single request of you.”

“Silence! I have no interest in hearing any request from the likes of you!”

“Nonetheless, I still have to ask. I cannot cast aside my feelings for you on my own, so would you tell me just one thing, to help me try?” Jou Ran asked firmly, even with all of Ai Fa’s rage bearing down on him. “Who exactly is it that you have feelings for?”

“What?”

“The night of the festival of the hunt I told you I wanted to take you as my bride, and you responded that you already had feelings for someone. You said that even if you lost your strength as a hunter and had to live as a woman, you already knew who your partner would be. I’d like you to tell me who you meant.”

Even though I was sitting, I felt as if I was about to tumble over. Naturally, Ai Fa had told me what she had said to Jou Ran that very same night, but it seemed he didn’t have the foggiest idea who Ai Fa had been referring to.

“I’m certain that any man who has earned your approval must be a hunter I could never hope to compete with. If you would just tell me his name, I’m sure that I’ll be able to recognize how vast the gap between us is, and then I think I’ll finally be able to cast aside this foolish fixation.”

Ai Fa didn’t say a word.

“Is he a Ruu clan hunter? Or perhaps someone from the north? You have ties with many different clans, so...”

“Silence!” Ai Fa interrupted, cutting Jou Ran off. Her shoulders were trembling with rage by this point. “Why should I have to do anything to soothe your feelings?! All I have to say to you is that I would never, ever, in all of eternity wish to marry a complete fool like you! Cast aside that fixation with your own strength! If you can’t, then you have no right to call yourself a person of the forest’s edge!”

Jou Ran shrank back in the face of Ai Fa’s intensity. But then he seemed to rebound a bit, and he lowered himself into a deep bow. “Understood. I am ashamed of my own ignorance. From now on, I will work as hard as I can to live as a man of the forest’s edge should.”

“I don’t give a damn about that! If you’re done, then hurry up and leave!”

“Understood. I’ll be off. And I’ll try to talk to Yun Sudra first thing tomorrow morning,” Jou Ran said, standing and bowing once more. “Excuse me. Oh, and could you return my blade?”

Ai Fa immediately tossed his sword to him, with a fair amount of force behind it, and the Ran hunter calmly caught it.

“Let me say before I leave...my actions have been extremely foolish, but they were mine alone, so I hope that you will continue to interact with the rest of the Ran as you have in the past.”

With that, Jou Ran removed the bolt on our front door himself and exited the Fa house. Ai Fa immediately stomped over to replace the bolt, and then stood there for a while with her shoulders heaving up and down. Unsurprisingly, Brave and Gilulu were staring up at her in confusion.

“Well, that was really something. Jou Ran actually turned out to be a much weirder guy than I expected him to be,” I noted.

“Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it! I’m questioning if he was even truly born here at the forest’s edge!” Ai Fa angrily growled. Her back was to me, though, so I couldn’t see the expression on her face.

“At any rate, I guess there’s nothing more to be done except to wait for him to talk it out with Yun Sudra. If that doesn’t settle things, I’ll talk to Yun Sudra too and try to help her handle this however she feels is best,” I said.

“Good. Yun Sudra’s feelings should be prioritized above all else.”

“Yeah. And I’d also like to make sure the relationship between the Sudra and the Ran doesn’t sour.” After letting my head droop a bit from exhaustion, I called out to Ai Fa again. “So, how about we finish our dinner? It’s gotten cold, but I don’t want to let it go to waste.”

“Right...” Ai Fa quietly replied before finally returning to the main hall.

When she sat back down, though, I quickly noticed something. “Huh? What’s the matter, Ai Fa? Your face is bright red. In fact, I think it’s even worse than it was before!”

My clan head did not respond.

“I get that you’re upset. But Jou Ran is gone, so you can calm down a bit now. It’s not good for you to let your blood pressure get too high.”

“I’m not especially angry,” Ai Fa replied, pushing her remaining meat and vegetable stir-fry around a bit. Then the bottom half of her face disappeared behind her plate, though she did continue to stare at me over it. “But hearing someone else take my words about who I have feelings for and repeat them back to me like that... It made me feel strangely out of sorts.”

Was she referring to the part about how she already knew who she would marry? I was unable to stop a blush from spreading across my face at the thought of that.

“B-But that’s already been settled, hasn’t it? We told each other how we felt a while ago.”

“You say that, but your own face is turning red, is it not?”

“Y-You just got me worked up too.”

“You’re thrusting the responsibility onto me? How heartless,” Ai Fa said with her plate still guarding her face as she shot me a reproachful look. “So, how do you feel now?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“We haven’t had many chances to talk lately, but...do you still feel the same way?”

“Y-Yeah, of course. Do I look like I’ve had a change of heart or something?”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

I wondered if I should use my plate to hide my face too.

I seriously hadn’t expected the sparks from this particular incident to come flying toward the Fa clan the way they had. Still, the thing I needed to be most worried about was the tension between Jou Ran and Yun Sudra. Jou Ran had turned out to be a lot more troublesome than I had ever expected, but all I could do was hope and pray that he would work things out properly with Yun Sudra in the morning.