Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 29 - Chapter 6.1

Group Performance: The Past and the Future

1

Raielfam Sudra cried out in his sleep, suffering from a nightmare. It was the kind of awful dream that could cause even a hunter like him to feel as if his soul was being eaten by worms, making him want to scream out in anguish. All of the countless people he had seen perish over the course of his life were surrounding him with deathly pale faces.

He saw his mother and father among them.

His older brother and younger sister were there as well.

The heads of branch houses and subordinate clans also appeared.

Even the criminal he had killed with his own hands was there.

And...the young children that he had lost.

Forgive me... Please, forgive me... I didn’t want to lose any of you... Raielfam Sudra pleaded, tears flowing from his eyes.

However, not a single one of them resented the man. They just looked at him with sad, regretful gazes, and that caused Raielfam Sudra more grief and despair than anything else possibly could have.

I will come join you soon... So please, forgive me... Forgive me for failing to save you...

And with that, Raielfam Sudra awoke.

He found himself unable to shake off the lingering terror for some time. He was sweaty all over. His heart was pounding intensely against his ribs, and he could feel the veins on his temples throbbing.

But eventually, his flickering vision managed to focus, and he saw the familiar beams and underside of the roof above him. Raielfam Sudra gave a heavy sigh.

Just a dream, huh?

After wiping the cold sweat from his brow with the palm of his hand, he turned to look to his side at the other half of the bedding he was lying in. However, no one was there.

An unspeakable sense of unease washed over Raielfam Sudra as he shot to his feet.

He stumbled over to the door of his bedroom and opened it with trembling fingers. As the room beyond came into view, a gentle voice greeted him. “My, are you finally awake? I was starting to think that I might need to wake you up myself.” Raielfam Sudra’s wife Li Sudra was seated there in the middle of the main hall, weaving a basket. The man felt relieved from the bottom of his heart to see her, breathing another deep sigh.

“What’s the matter? You look as if you’re feeling unwell,” she continued.

“It’s nothing. Is it just you here, Li?”

“Yes. Everyone else is out drying pico leaves and chopping firewood. They’re right outside of the house, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Raielfam Sudra knelt down next to his wife and gently grabbed her hand.

Li Sudra’s eyes narrowed and she smiled. “What is it, really? Both I and the child inside me are doing just fine.”

“I know... I really do.”

Raielfam Sudra placed his other hand atop his wife’s stomach. Her once slender stomach had swelled up to an almost unbelievable degree. Though this was the third time that she had been pregnant, it was easily the biggest her belly had ever become.

“It will be another half a month, or perhaps twenty days, until our child inside of me is born. I can hardly wait.”

“Agreed.”

Taking care not to use too much strength, Raielfam Sudra stroked his wife’s stomach. And as he did, she picked a cloth scrap up off the floor and used it to wipe his cheek.

“You worked up quite a sweat, didn’t you? Don’t you think you should go wash up soon?” Li Sudra said with a relaxed smile. This was the first time that she had ever looked so thoroughly relaxed while she was pregnant. Up until now, behind her joy over being with child, there had always been an undercurrent of worry within her about whether their baby would survive long enough to grow up.

Li Sudra’s calm smile wiped away the last remnants of the nightmare that had been lingering in Raielfam Sudra’s heart. He rose to his feet after giving his wife’s hand one more tight squeeze.

“All right, I’ll head over to the Lanto River. Make sure not to push yourself, okay, Li?”

“Yes, I know.”

After giving her a big nod, Raielfam Sudra exited the house, allowing his normal everyday routine to begin.

A little later on, Raielfam Sudra headed to the Suun settlement alongside three other men. The Sudra had made arrangements with the other clans so that they could use a wagon for the trip whenever they went there. This was no problem, since they only went once every five or six days at the most.

As they rode the wagon north, they each ate a meal considerately prepared for them by the women, which consisted of grilled meat and vegetables between pieces of baked poitan.

“This is even better than usual, isn’t it?” one of the men said quietly. And indeed, it was exceptionally delicious. The meat and vegetables had been cooked to a nice color and were all moist and tender inside. Plus, the woman had added some herbs for extra flavor. If the men hadn’t been about to go out and hunt, they would have quite happily asked for more until they were completely full.

“You know, they made these using those oven things the guest at the Ruu settlement taught us how to build,” the youngest of the group, Cheem Sudra, chimed in.

The man who had spoken up first turned toward him with a grin. “Sounds like you know a lot about this stuff. Did your wife tell you that?”

“So what if she did? Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. I’m just jealous of how close you two are.”

Cheem Sudra furrowed his brow and looked annoyed for a moment, but then he simply popped the rest of his meal into his mouth, which seemed to make his anger abate a bit.

After listening to the exchange between the two of them, Raielfam Sudra moved from where he was sitting to a spot closer to the driver’s seat.

“I’m mostly done eating, so I’ll take over the driving for the rest of the trip. You fill your stomach as well in the meantime.”

The totos continued to run forward as the former driver headed back into the wagon and Raielfam Sudra took over the reins. Then he retrieved some jerky from his hip pocket.

Even if they were able to eat proper meals during the day too, it was important for them not to completely do away with their old habit of eating jerky... Asuta of the Fa clan, who had introduced delicious food to the forest’s edge, had told Raielfam Sudra that. The reason he had given was that hunters needed to maintain strong teeth and jaws so that they would always be able to chew even the toughest meat.

There had been plenty of other cases where Asuta had given a little extra advice when unveiling new dishes. “You should avoid using too much salt, sugar, or tau oil, dishes that contain lots of fat should be accompanied by plenty of vegetables or sour stuff, it’s important to watch out for spoilage when eating giba innards...” He really did go on and on, like a mother warning her child.

Asuta’s always taking care to make sure his presence doesn’t harm the forest’s edge in any way, Raielfam Sudra thought as he took another bite of jerky. It was the same kind of jerky that they had always made, not the giba bacon that was sold in the castle town. But it had been made with bloodlet meat and prepared with proper knowledge of how to use herbs, which was enough to make it a good bit tastier.

“By the way, clan head, about the dried meats...” Cheem Sudra called out from the back. “Not this kind of jerky, but the bacon and sausage that gets sold to the castle town. The Gaaz clan took up that job, didn’t they?”

“Yes, since the Fou are selling fresh meat at the market now. The Ruu believe that it wouldn’t be proper to have one clan handle all that work, and I’d say they’re right.”

“I’m glad to hear it. It seems like it would be too much work for the women from the Fou, Ran, and Sudra to handle on their own.”

“Oh? Are you worried about your wife?”

Naturally, that statement had come from the man from before, not Raielfam Sudra. He was to take a wife from the Ran eventually, but that had only been decided on after the festival of the hunt, so perhaps he was jealous of how quickly Cheem Sudra had gotten married. Still, in a way, his teasing was a sign of what peaceful and healthy lives the Sudra clan now lived.

Not that long ago, they had all been devoid of any hope that they would ever be able to get married or have children, and had simply been waiting for the end to come. But then they had suddenly found themselves no longer needing to worry about starvation, and they had formed blood ties with the Fou as well, so those options were once again available to them. It was hard to imagine anything that could make them happier than that.

And it’s all thanks to the Fa clan. I am unbelievably grateful to both Asuta and Ai Fa, Raielfam Sudra thought to himself as they arrived at the Suun settlement. After circling the wagon around the massive old ritual hall, he spotted a crowd in front of the main house. The other hunters had already gathered.

“Our apologies for the wait,” Raielfam Sudra called out from the driver’s seat, causing a massive figure to turn toward him.

“It isn’t as if you all are late. Looking at the sun, it still doesn’t seem to have hit its peak.”

He was a Jeen hunter who had come from the northern settlement. Like the hunters of the Zaza clan, the Jeen wore giba cloaks with hoods that covered their heads, so there was no mistaking them. As he got down from the driver’s seat and freed the totos from the wagon, Raielfam Sudra glanced around at the hunters gathered there.

“There seem to be a lot of you here today. Or am I just imagining things?”

“You aren’t. We brought along two hunters from the Havira and two from the Dana today. I hope you are okay with that; I know this is rather sudden.”

As the Jeen hunter said that, four hunters stepped forward. The Havira and Dana were subordinate clans of the Zaza. However, unlike the hunters of the north, they didn’t wear pelts or skulls over their heads, and their builds seemed to be all over the place, with some of them being tall and skinny and others short and stout.

“I don’t mind at all, though I would still like to know the reason. I believe we should have plenty of hunters here between the Jeen, Suun, and Sudra.”

“It isn’t a matter of numbers. They wish to learn how to use hunting dogs as well. We’ve been working on that at the northern settlement, but we only have a single hunting dog, so our progress is slow.”

“Ah, I see.” The Ruu clan lent one of the hunting dogs they had purchased to each of the parent clans. The Zaza, however, had six subordinate clans, so it made sense that they would be having difficulty. “In that case, I would like to extend this opportunity to the Deen and Liddo hunters as well. The Liddo clan head in particular has seemed terribly eager to try using hunting dogs.”

“Very well. But first, we shall begin with the Havira and Dana who we have here today.”

With that, a Suun hunter stepped forward from the rear of the crowd with their incredibly precious hunting dog.

“We are terribly sorry for taking charge of a hunting dog when other subordinate clans do not have one. Should we hand this dog over to the Zaza or Sauti, since they have so many subordinate clans beneath them?”

“There’s no need to get so carried away there. That dog ultimately belongs to the Ruu clan, so it’s up to them to determine where it ends up,” the Jeen hunter said.

“But as fellow leading clans, if the Zaza and Sauti raise an objection...”

“If they had an issue with how the Ruu clan is doing things, they would have said so at the start. Since they didn’t say a word, that means the other leading clan heads are in agreement with Donda Ruu,” the Jeen hunter continued, glaring at the Suun hunter out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, the fact that a hunting dog was placed in your care is the only reason we have been able to train with one so frequently. If you go and bring that kind of thing up on your own and the Sauti decide to take this dog for themselves, we’ll be the ones who suffer for it.”

“I see,” the Suun hunter said, his eyes narrowing as he smiled. He was the oldest son of what was now the main Suun house, and was still inexperienced as a hunter, but over the past few months, his demeanor seemed to have grown noticeably more dignified. “You may be right. I suppose this has allowed all of you from the Jeen and the Sudra to have a chance to work with this dog as well, even if it’s only once every few days.”

“Right,” Raielfam Sudra interjected. “Our parent clan, the Fou, were also allotted a hunting dog, but with just the one, we do not get many opportunities to interact with the animal, so I appreciate this opportunity as well.”

The Suun hunter nodded at him with a friendly look on his face. “Understood. Well then, what shall we do today? Will we be splitting into two groups?”

“No, with this many of us, it would be more appropriate to go with three groups,” the Jeen hunter said. “Also, I would like to have the Havira and Dana in different groups, so they can each have some time with the dog separately.”

“In that case, we’ll have to divide the dog’s time between the groups... Shall we meet up somewhere when the sun is halfway set?”

“Yes, I suppose that would be the only option. If only we had two hunting dogs here... Honestly, I would like to have three,” the Jeen hunter muttered in displeasure, causing Raielfam Sudra to look up at him, the man being over a head taller than the short hunter.

“It sounds like you’ve come to recognize the value of hunting dogs at the northern settlement as well.”

“Hmm? Of course we do. If we only had the coins, we would gladly purchase several of them.”

“I see,” Raielfam Sudra replied. A single hunting dog cost sixty-five white coins, so even if the northern clans did indeed catch as many giba as the Ruu, it would not be easy for them to scrape together such a sum.

However, the Fou clan had already made arrangements with the Ruu to purchase hunting dogs of their own. For the past several months, the Fou and their subordinate clans had been assisting the Fa with their work, and selling meat meant for cooking. And now that they were selling jerky, sausage, and even fresh meat in town, they likely had more coins than anyone other than the Fa and Ruu.

Preparing fresh meat and selling it in town earned them twenty-four white coins every ten days. In just one month, that would add up to more than enough to purchase a hunting dog. And they had a fair amount of money saved up by this point, so it was only natural that they would ask to purchase some dogs for themselves this soon.

But until the next clan head meeting concludes, we won’t know if things are going to remain as they are, or if the Zaza, Beim, and Ravitz are going to overturn some or all of the changes that have happened. Insisting that the Fa are correct in their actions here and now will do nothing but earn me animosity, though, Raielfam Sudra thought, and so he held his tongue. At any rate, there were less than two months until the clan head meeting. He decided that it would be best not to stir things up before then.

“Well then, shall we get going? Since the Sudra only have four members here, you should split up into groups of two as always.”

“Understood. Cheem, come with me.”

Since he had taken a bride, Cheem Sudra was now the head of a branch house, but Raielfam Sudra had no intention of changing how he referred to the boy at this point. Having overcome so much hardship, his eight clan members would remain family until their souls returned to the forest.

The hunters from the five clans split up into three groups as planned. Raielfam and Cheem Sudra’s group also included two hunters from the Jeen, two from the Havira, and three from the Suun, plus the hunting dog. The nine hunters spread out and advanced into the forest, with the Suun hunter and the dog being front and center. The two Sudra hunters took up the rightmost position in the group, which put them far enough away that they could barely see the lead Suun hunter in the middle.

The fruits of the forest are still plentiful here. This really is an abundant area.

The Sudra hunting grounds were quite meager. With only four hunters to their name, it had always been a struggle to find and take down the few giba that appeared there... Or at least, that was how things had been until they had formed ties with the Fa several months ago.

It’s still hard to believe that the Suun hunters were actually as weak as we used to be. Learning that they’re all essentially hunters in training was quite a shock, Raielfam Sudra thought to himself right before the hunter at the head of the group stopped and raised his right arm. Glancing in his direction, Raielfam Sudra saw the hunting dog heading to the right, toward where the Sudra were. It would seem that it had not taken long for the dog’s sharp ears and nose to detect a giba.

Raielfam Sudra stopped as well, waiting for the hunters stationed to the left to advance in a curve to encircle their target. But then, the dog kicked off and started running. The giba had moved before they could get into formation.

The Jeen hunter pointed off to the right in the direction the giba was moving, indicating that they were to corner the beast over there. There weren’t any pitfall traps set up in the area, so they would have to use their blades and bows to take the giba down.

Raielfam and Cheem Sudra took off in the direction that the Jeen hunter had pointed toward. They were closer to the giba than the other hunters, and they were also the swiftest runners in the group, so it would be their task to bring down the beast. Raielfam Sudra read the terrain as they ran, searching for an ideal spot for them to lie in wait.

Eventually, he found a clearing surrounded by dense forest, and he blew a grass whistle. Cheem Sudra leaped into the thicket, while Raielfam Sudra scaled a tree and settled down on a suitable branch, nocking an arrow and blowing the grass whistle in his mouth once more.

For a while after that, he didn’t sense anything, until finally, he heard the hunting dog howl.

As he estimated the direction that the sound had come from, Raielfam Sudra pulled his bow taut, and before long, a massive giba leaped into the clearing, driven by the dog’s barking.

At that very moment, Raielfam Sudra let his arrow fly, and Cheem Sudra did the same from a different direction.

The clan head’s projectile struck the giba in the neck, while the younger hunter’s hit it in the base of its back leg. The beast’s body spasmed, and it fell to the ground.

After shooting two more arrows into its unguarded neck, Raielfam gave another brief signal with the grass whistle before hopping down from the tree. Once on the ground, he hung his bow over his shoulder and drew his blade. The giba was writhing about on the ground in pain. Though it no longer seemed to have the strength to stand, it showed no signs that it was about to breathe its last either. The beast was rather large—it probably weighed more than Raielfam and Cheem Sudra put together.

“We can’t get near it like this. Should we fire more arrows into it?” Cheem Sudra asked as he stepped out of the thicket.

However, Raielfam Sudra shook his head and answered, “No. The Jeen hunters are here, so there is no need to waste arrows. But it may use the last of its strength to attack us, so keep your guard up.”

“Understood.”

The pair kept their blades at the ready as they waited for their fellow hunters to appear.

Before long, the foliage rustled, and the hunting dog peeked its head out.

“Ooh, you got it? No, wait, you haven’t finished it off yet, huh?”

Seven hunters soon appeared from behind the dog. And as he looked down at the massive, raging giba, Raielfam Sudra nodded and said, “Correct. To finish it on our own, we would need to fire arrows in it until it stopped flailing, but that would ruin both the meat and the pelt, so we’d like to leave striking the final blow to you.”

“Very well,” a Jeen hunter replied, and they approached the giba without the slightest fear. There was nothing more frightening than an injured giba, but it wasn’t pride that made them unafraid. It was confidence.

The giba let out a tremendous bellow and turned to face the Jeen hunters. Then it used the last of its strength to leap at them, only for one of the hunters to swing a sword down on it from head-on.

The sound of a skull shattering filled the air, and the Jeen hunters swiftly turned to the side as they moved to avoid the beast. The giba coated in blackish-brown fur collapsed to the ground face-first, its back twitching.

With that, the three hunters from the Suun hurriedly stepped forward and rolled the beast’s massive body onto its side. After quickly slashing its throat, they tied its rear legs together with straw rope. Then they tossed the other end of that rope over the branch where Raielfam Sudra had been hiding and hoisted the giba’s massive body up together.

Blood came gushing out of the beast’s throat. Aside from the neck and right hind leg where it had been shot with arrows, the meat and pelt from the beast would be in fine condition.

“If we hang it from this high of a branch, the mundt won’t try to snatch it. It would take too long to return to the settlement each and every time, so let’s keep on circling around the hunting grounds instead.”

Raielfam Sudra was in agreement with that statement from the Jeen hunter.

Then the Havira hunters stepped forward, having simply been watching the proceedings up until that point.

“The way you operate is very impressive. I never would’ve guessed that this is a gathering of hunters from different clans.”

“Well, this group has been working together ever since the gold month,” a Jeen hunter bluntly replied. “And our specialties are so varied it’s almost funny. Considering how to most efficiently use our strengths helped us to determine our roles.”

“No doubt. I was shocked by how fast the Sudra hunters moved. And those arrows... One severed the tendons in its rear leg, while the other struck a vital point in its neck. The other two arrows also pierced deeply. They may well have been enough to take the giba’s life all on their own,” the slender young Havira hunter remarked as he stared at Raielfam and Cheem Sudra with a look of admiration. “I’ve always known that the northern hunters were strong, but the skill you displayed here was shocking... And you Sudra are the smallest of all the clans aside from the Fa, are you not?”

“Indeed. We accepted a bride from the Fou the other day, but there are still only ten of us in total.”

“Until you formed ties with the Fou, you didn’t have any branch houses or subordinate clans, correct? It’s amazing that you managed to become so strong under those conditions,” the Havira hunter said with an amused smile before turning his gaze toward the Jeen hunters. “If they possessed such strength, shouldn’t the Zaza have welcomed them as a subordinate clan? It seems like a real shame, especially considering the fact that they’re located close to the Deen and Liddo.”

“The Sudra approved of the Fa clan’s actions before anyone else at the last clan head meeting... And I am certain neither side will yield until the path forward is determined at the next meeting. There’s no way we could have formed blood ties with them under these circumstances,” the Jeen hunter grumbled with a sour look on his face.

“I see,” the Havira hunter replied with a shrug. “Well, whether it’s the Fa or the Sudra, I feel ashamed for having looked down on clans with few members. You truly are fine hunters.”

“We’re not all that special. And we certainly don’t measure up to the Fa,” Raielfam Sudra calmly replied. Those were his earnest, unexaggerated feelings. There really wasn’t anything unique about the Sudra. They had simply managed to claw their way back from the brink thanks to the Fa clan. Raielfam Sudra would never think poorly of his clan members, but he considered himself to be a small, insignificant man. No matter what anyone else might say, that was what he firmly believed.