Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 28 - Chapter 1.2

2

Time passed by in a flash after that, until the lower fifth hour rolled around. Having finished with our cooking, we went ahead and moved to the dining hall where the meeting was going to be held.

There was still an hour left until sunset, so there weren’t any customers around, but I quickly spotted a big cluster of inn owners already sitting in the back. The dining hall looked like it was probably able to fit seventy to eighty people if they were really packed in, but currently there were only around thirty people present.

We headed over to them with Naudis at the front of our group, and the chatter suddenly stopped.

A figure seated in the corner raised a hand and called out, “Hey.” It was Milano Mas of The Kimyuus’s Tail, sitting alone at a table for six. “You sure are late. Did you finish with the cooking?”

“Yes, it’s done,” I said “Thank you so much for inviting us to today’s meeting.”

“There’s no need for you to keep bowing to me over and over like that. We’ve been waiting for you lot, so hurry up and take your seats.”

Apparently, we were the last ones to arrive. After grabbing some chairs from an empty table, we all sat around the same table as Milano Mas.

Naudis bowed with a smile before walking over to the back wall. He sat down in an empty chair, and the person seated next to him stood up in turn.

“This is everyone, isn’t it? It looks like we’re right on time.”

He was a broad-shouldered man who looked to be in his mid-forties. His hair and eyes were dark brown, while his skin was pale. He had a friendly, cheerful expression on his face that made me think he probably specialized in customer service.

I vaguely remembered the man. He was the owner of Tanto’s Blessing where Yang helped out, and his name was Tapas. From what I had heard, he was in charge of running these meetings. Or in other words, he was the head of the firm.

“Thank you for coming today in spite of your busy schedules. We shall now begin our regular meeting for the yellow month. But before that, I would like to introduce the individuals who are participating in this meeting for the first time.”

Milano Mas nodded and stood up. “I’m sure you’ve already heard about this, but the people of the forest’s edge I lend stalls to will be participating today. Some among their tribe have committed crimes in town, but those responsible have already been punished, so I hope you’ll treat them as fellow citizens of Genos rather than prejudging them.”

He glanced at us, and we also stood up.

“My name is Asuta of the Fa clan, and I run snack stalls. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

“I’m Reina Ruu of the Ruu clan. This is my younger sister Rimee Ruu and a member of one of our subordinate clans, Tsuvai Rutim. And our attendants here are Ludo and Shin Ruu,” Reina Ruu quietly added, and Rimee Ruu bowed her head.

The crowd silently looked us over. They had supposedly been informed in advance, so none of them should have been surprised to see us. And yet, most of them wore expressions full of misgivings.

There was one girl seated some distance away from our table who waved her hand at us, though. It was Yumi of The Westerly Wind, and next to her sat her father Sams—the owner of the inn—who had a stern look on his face. When she’d heard we would be participating in this meeting, Yumi had asked her dad to let her come along.

In the distance, I also spied Nail from The Sledgehammer. His face was the last one in the crowd that was familiar to us. Feeling more than a little nervous, we sat back down, as did Milano Mas.

“All of you are well aware by now that their stalls have been doing incredibly well,” Tapas said before taking a seat as well. “And like me, they have been tasked by the noble houses of Saturas and Daleim to find ways to make use of all the new ingredients we now have. I’m sure most of the people here have visited their stalls at least once in order to see for yourselves what their cooking tastes like. It goes without saying that they’ve been putting in a tremendous amount of effort to help our post town thrive. Though we are competitors looking to steal customers from one another, we are also all engaged in the same business in the same town, so I am asking you to be open to working with our colleagues from the forest’s edge.”

That introduction brought the meeting to a slow and quiet start.

First up came a report about some information the nobles had provided, but there was nothing particularly noteworthy in its contents. It was mostly just an update about all the different foodstuffs that would be coming in from Sym, Jagar, the western capital of Algrad, and various other towns in Selva in the near future, which the nobles wanted everyone here to try to put to good use.

There had also been a gang of bandits captured near Genos, a case where some travelers got into a fight at an inn and there had been injuries, a criminal who had been whipped for trying to steal totos... Honestly, it was a whole bunch of violent stuff, but then Tapas said something that really caught my attention.

“In the upcoming green month, a construction group from Jagar will once again be visiting to conduct building repairs. Please determine exactly what repairs your inns are in need of by the end of this month.”

I was pretty excited to hear that, even if nobody else was. The construction group from Jagar he was referring to was Pops Balan’s group. But Reina Ruu barely knew them, since she had only started working at the stalls around the end of the blue month, and Rimee Ruu and Tsuvai Rutim had never met them at all.

So Pops and his crew are finally returning to Genos. I’ll have to steel myself, or else I’ll probably end up crying again.

And there was one more matter of interest: The new path carved through the settlement at the forest’s edge was going to become usable soon. That had to mean that the merchant group that had been assigned to assess the route—the Black Flight Feathers from Sym—would be returning to Genos before too much longer.

Thinking back, when they had left Genos in the silver month, I had been told that they would be back three months later at the earliest, and four months or so had passed since then. Some sort of message about their return must have arrived in Genos recently.

“When the Black Flight Feathers return from Sym using the new path, that will prove its safety, and Genos will undoubtedly find itself hosting more easterners than ever before.”

“That’s certainly good to hear. I’ll be praying to the western god for everything to go smoothly for them,” a calm voice chimed in from the table beside us. It had come from an older woman with dark skin whose unique appearance had immediately caught my eye. There weren’t many women here to begin with, and her skin marked her as likely being of mixed blood from Sym and Selva. She had gray hair, brown eyes, and a general appearance that made her look like a kind person.

It was a little hard to judge her height because she was sitting, but she looked quite thin. She was wearing a long, flowing robe and lots of accessories, in a style I had very much come to associate with Sym.

“Yes, your inn, The Ramuria Coil, is the first one that comes to mind for most easterners. Did the members of the Black Flight Feathers stay at your place last time, Jizeh?” Tapas asked.

The older woman, Jizeh, gave a gentle smile and replied, “No, they always stay in the castle town from what I’ve heard. They’re all fine people, of such good character that even the nobles of Genos think well of them.”

“I see. But your inn serves Sym cuisine good enough to measure up to anything in the castle town, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, certainly not. A lot of our customers leave to go elsewhere when dinnertime rolls around lately. They must be coming here to The Great Southern Tree, or perhaps to The Kimyuu’s Tail, looking for giba meat,” Jizeh replied, her smile turning toward us. “Which is why I’d like to ask...if our friends from the forest’s edge would be willing to sell giba meat to my inn as well?”

“Ah. Let’s put those discussions off until later. There’s one more thing I’d like to bring up first,” Tapas interjected, retaining his perfectly calm demeanor. “This is about the proposal the owner of The Kimyuus’s Tail recently made. Apparently, he has been continuing to order onda from a vegetable seller in the Daleim lands even now that the rainy season has ended. And so, you wished to ask if any of the other inns would like to keep serving onda as well, correct?”

“Yeah. At present, there are four inns buying onda. That’s enough for them to agree to continue selling us the stuff, but I’m sure they’d be happy to have more business,” Milano Mas stated, making the other inn owners start murmuring among themselves. He glanced around the room at each of them, and then snorted, “Hmph. As you’ve probably figured out, the four inns I’m talking about are the ones that are already buying giba meat, and this idea to keep using onda was raised by the people of the forest’s edge. But regardless of whether any of you lot decide to get in on this, they won’t be getting any profit from it. The only thing you need to think about is whether your inn’s cooking would benefit from having onda.”

That caused even more murmuring.

As the one in charge, Tapas lightly cleared his throat and said, “Well then, this seems like the right time to move on to the topic of giba meat. Like with the onda, I believe The Kimyuus’s Tail has a proposal on that front.”

“Yes, we do. Though I’ll be having these guys explain it themselves.”

With that prompt from Milano Mas, I nodded and said, “Sure. I definitely appreciate the offer we just got from the lady at the table next to us, but we actually wanted to ask everyone if you would like to start ordering giba meat. It’s a bit on the expensive side, but I’ve heard that more inns and stalls are starting to use pricey karon torso meat, so I would appreciate it if you would give it some thought.”

The murmuring in the room was growing quite a bit louder now.

One of the voices speaking up belonged to the owner of The Ramuria Coil, Jizeh. “If you’re willing to sell giba meat, I’m glad to hear it. How much does it cost, exactly?”

“Well, like with karon, the price varies based on the cut. The cheapest cut is leg meat, which will cost five and a half red coins for enough to serve four people. The most expensive is chest meat, which costs ten red coins for the same amount.”

“I see. That means it’s two to three times as expensive as kimyuus meat, yes? It certainly isn’t cheap... However, it sounds like it’s still cheaper than karon torso.”

“Yeah, it is. The castle town said that we should set our prices at a level similar to that of karon meat, so that’s the price range we’re allowed to sell giba at.”

Then another voice called out, “I wanted to ask...you’re talking about selling giba meat, not your cooking, right?”

“That’s correct. We’re currently selling giba cooking to three inns, but we believe that taking on any more jobs like that would be too much of a workload for us.”

“Three of them? Don’t you sell giba cooking to four inns?”

“We sell cooking to The Kimyuus’s Tail, The Great Southern Tree, and The Sledgehammer, but we only sell raw meat to The Westerly Wind.”

“That’s right,” Yumi chimed in. “We pride ourselves on our cheap prices, so if we did buy cooking from them, we probably wouldn’t be able to get it to sell. That’s why we only buy giba meat and do the cooking ourselves.”

“Hey, if you can’t keep quiet, I’m gonna send you home,” Sams said with a glare, but Yumi simply shrugged, looking totally unconcerned.

“What’s the problem? I only spoke the truth, didn’t I? We only get broke outlaws and eccentric easterners at our place, so even if we were to serve their giba cooking like the other inns do, it wouldn’t bring us many more customers.”

The other attendees started huddling together in groups to discuss the matter. It appeared that most of the inns had only sent one person, unlike The Westerly Wind, but when it came to making a decision as big as this one, they all felt the need to talk it over with someone first.

I noticed Jizeh smiling again, looking like she was about to say something, but before she could, someone called out from a different direction, “I see. I was wondering why you’d invite people of the forest’s edge to this meeting. So this is what you were aiming for, eh?” It had come from another woman, a middle-aged one with a raspy voice. “You already earn a fortune every day selling your giba cooking at your stalls and to inns, but it’s still not enough? What a greedy bunch.”

When I looked over at her, I found that she was a large woman who was sitting haughtily in her chair. She looked like she probably weighed at least one and a half times as much as Jizeh. She had curly dark-brown hair that came down to her shoulders, and her brown eyes were full of hostility. Her skin was a tanned color, and her upper arms looked thicker than mine.

“Hey, why’re you calling people greedy just because they brought up a business offer? Stop nitpicking already,” Milano Mas harshly chimed in.

“Hmph,” the woman snorted. “You despised the people of the forest’s edge not that long ago, but now you’ve fallen low enough to become their underling. And to think, I used to feel bad for you.”

“Getting sympathy from you is more annoying than comforting. If your unreasonable mudslinging is the only thing you have to add to the conversation, maybe you should keep your mouth shut.”

“Oh? I wonder, which one of us is really being unreasonable here? I’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to use our meetings as a tool to push your own business interests.”

At that point, even Tapas seemed fed up with the woman, and he turned to look directly at her. “You are being pointlessly disruptive with your comments, Lema Geit. If you have an issue with procuring giba meat from the people of the forest’s edge, all you need to do is not buy any yourself.”

“I’d never buy that garbage even if you begged me to. Why should I have to help the people of the forest’s edge make a profit?” the woman said, utterly undaunted.

Milano Mas clicked his tongue, looking annoyed. “Hey, you don’t have to pay any attention to her,” he told me. “She’s just had a grudge against the people of the forest’s edge since forever ago.”

“I see. Is she an inn owner as well?”

“Yeah. She runs The Arow Bud, the second-largest inn in the post town after Tanto’s Blessing. The Geits are all ridiculously stubborn.”

Thinking back, this was only the third time I had encountered a westerner with a true last name, after Milano Mas’s family and Shilly Rou. That meant she must have been a descendant of the independent settlers who had been here before the house of Genos had been sent to this region.

“I’m sure after this, you’re planning on bringing out some of that giba cooking we’ve all heard so much about, aren’t you? How predictable. I’m amazed you can do something that shameless,” Lema Geit continued, causing Naudis to stand up with an uncharacteristically angry look on his face.

“Lema Geit, I’m the one who suggested serving a meal with giba meat tonight. I’d like you to stop slandering the people of the forest’s edge by calling them greedy, shameless, or anything else like that.”

“Hmph. Are you also one of their underlings? The people of the forest’s edge are nothing but a group of outlaws, and anyone who supports them may as well be one too.”

“Give it a break already. The criminals who broke our laws have all been judged. Only stubborn folks like you are still complaining about it at this point,” Milano Mas retorted, his tone growing harsher.

However, Lema Geit still didn’t back down. “All the criminals have been judged, you say? I can’t help but find that odd. From what I’ve heard, the former leading clan head alone ended up having to take the blame for all of their crimes, while the rest of the criminals got acquitted.”

“Two of the criminals were executed as well, and they were the only ones who had harmed anybody.”

“What nonsense. You’re talking about some old geezers who were going to kick the bucket any day. But what about those young ruffians who were always running wild in town? They were set free without being punished at all, weren’t they?”

Milano Mas raised a suspicious eyebrow as Lema Geit’s thick lips twisted upward into a hateful grin.

“I’ve had an expensive stall smashed by those ruffians, you know. And that monstrously huge fellow is still living it up at the forest’s edge even now, isn’t he? To have caused so much damage and receive no punishment for it is utterly ridiculous.”

I gulped and looked over at Tsuvai Rutim, who was seated beside me. Her big eyes were blazing with animosity as she glared at Lema Geit.

“Didn’t you settle the matter in return for the money you needed to buy a new stall, though?” Milano Mas asked a fair bit less forcefully than the last time he’d spoken.

“Hmph,” Lema Geit snorted. “When folks from the castle town order you to drop something, you don’t get to keep complaining after that. Your wife’s brother was killed, and you were forced to suffer in silence with no ability to object to how things were handled, were you not?”

“Are you saying that the value of a stall is equal to the value of a life?”

“Well, the guy who was using that stall almost died too. That monster of a man smashed his stall right in front of him, and he got so scared he wet himself. If things had gone a little differently, he could’ve been crushed along with the stall.”

The people around us shared concerned looks with one another. Even Milano Mas held his tongue with a deep frown on his face.

“In the end, the people of the forest’s edge have been living it up however they please because the nobles have taken a liking to them. They’ve simply taken a step up from brownnosing the house of Turan to brownnosing the house of Genos. How could you ever trust a group of people who act like that? I’d sully my soul if I ate giba meat.”

“Hey!” Tsuvai Rutim shrilly called out as she rose to her feet in a fury. “I tried being patient, but you just won’t stop running your mouth! Do you have any idea what you’re talking about when you say we’re living it up with no punishment?! Huh?!”

“Tsuvai Rutim, stop,” Reina Ruu chided, but Tsuvai Rutim ignored her and kept on wailing.

“That ‘monster of a man’ you’re complaining about had his ties to his family severed and had to be taken in by another clan! Why don’t you try using your shabby excuse for a brain to consider how harsh of a punishment that really is?!”

“What was that? You’re a noisy brat, aren’t you? What’s all this about family ties?”

“I’m telling you that all of the members of the main Suun house who committed those crimes were properly punished! Even you folks in the post town should know that!”

That certainly was true. But it was possible that folks outside of the people of the forest’s edge wouldn’t understand how serious their punishment had really been. And sure enough, Lema Geit just kept on jeering at Tsuvai Rutim, seemingly not listening to her argument at all.

“Those criminals weren’t whipped or driven out of Genos, and are living carefree lives now, aren’t they? How is that a punishment? I don’t recall so much as a single one of them bowing down and apologizing to me.”

“You think that being whipped is more painful than having your ties with your family severed?!”

“I’ve got no clue. It’s not like I did anything to earn such a punishment in the first place, after all,” Lema Geit replied, lifting up one eyebrow with a sneer.

Tsuvai Rutim, meanwhile, looked furious, with her slender shoulders trembling violently.

“That’s enough, Lema Geit. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up again?” Tapas asked, fed up. “No matter what objections you might have had, you accepted the payment offered to you as compensation. If you truly weren’t satisfied, you should have sent it back. It goes against the laws of Genos to keep publicly complaining like this after you’ve accepted an offer of reconciliation, even if you believe it was insincere.”

“Hmph. I guess I can see how you’d think that way, considering how fond you are of having the nobles’ attention, Tapas.”

“Duke Marstein Genos officially proclaimed that all of the criminals from the house of Turan and the forest’s edge had been judged. Do you truly think it’s appropriate to make claims to the contrary?”

Lema Geit turned away, her large body swaying a bit. Tapas gave a single sigh before turning toward Tsuvai Rutim.

“Please return to your seat as well, Tsuvai...Rutim, was it? Your anger may be just, but there’s no point in arguing about this here.”

Tsuvai Rutim continued to glare at Lema Geit, ignoring his request.

Ludo Ruu had watched that whole exchange in silence, but now he called out, “Hey, sit down already. If you’re not okay with this, then we can talk about it later.”

“Shut up!” Tsuvai Rutim shouted before turning around and running off. As she did, Shin Ruu swiftly stood up and followed after her. The two of them disappeared from the dining hall in a matter of moments, leaving Ludo Ruu to bring his hands together behind his head and say, “Ugh, sorry for all the commotion. Tsuvai Rutim falls under the Ruu clan, so as a member of her parent clan, allow me to apologize for her rudeness.”

“O-Oh, of course... Well then, may we continue the meeting?”

“Of course. You can just forget about those two for now,” Ludo Ruu replied, and then he looked over at us. “Hey, don’t go running around on your own, okay? There’s only one me here, after all.”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. However, I couldn’t help but be worried about Tsuvai Rutim. Reina and Rimee Ruu were also staring sadly at the dining hall’s exit.

Needless to say, the “mountain of a man” Lema Geit had referred to was Mida Ruu. Quite some time back, there had been talk around the forest’s edge of him occasionally throwing fits and smashing stalls in the post town.

Back then, Mida Ruu was only interested in delicious food and didn’t think about the trouble he caused other people at all. His family even had to chain him up so he wouldn’t head into town on his own. It’s hard to even imagine that at this point.

Just two days ago, Mida Ruu had finally been acknowledged as having a proper spirit and had been given his clan name. Hearing Lema Geit disparaging him at a time like this must’ve been too much for Tsuvai Rutim to let slide.

She knows all too well how painful the punishment of having your family ties severed truly is.

As the meeting resumed, I found my thoughts returning to Tsuvai Rutim constantly, a bittersweet feeling filling my heart.

A long time passed, but the young girl did not return to the dining hall.