WE THREW A BARBECUE PARTY
Falfa was back to normal, and peace had returned to the house in the highlands for the first time in a while.
“All right, today will be my special salad. Please drizzle on some sesame dressing before eating it!”
Everyone energetically dug in to the vegetable salad Halkara made for breakfast.
Not counting my two daughters, who had been alive for only about fifty years, everyone in my family had ages in the triple digits. We were a long-lived family, but we also paid close attention to our health.
“Hmm… Vegetables are good for looks, but I do want to have a good portion of meat sometimes.”
“That’s where I agree with you, Laika.”
Both Laika and Flatorte were sounding very much like dragons.
“Sure, I can see how this wouldn’t fill up a dragon.”
“That’s correct, mistress. We dragons are what we are because we devour meat. This will just make me too skinny.”
It must’ve been especially draining for Flatorte, who was typically a bigger eater than Laika.
“Um, it kind of sounds like you’re dissing my salad, and that makes me sad…”
Halkara looked a little glum. Halkara was an elf, and the vegetarian lifestyle was normal for her, so of course any complaints about that would make her upset.
On the other hand, Rosalie was observing us from the ceiling, nodding in great interest as though we were mere objects of study.
“There sure is a lot for the living to think about when it comes to eating.”
She probably felt like someone who had no interest in fishing at all side-eyeing a bunch of excited anglers.
“Anyway, salad is a meal on its own, so please eat it. If you want meat, then when it’s my turn, I’ll be sure to purchase some chicken. There is a shop in Nascúte that sells very delicious chicken.”
Halkara ran a factory in Nascúte, so she was an expert on the shops there.
“No, Halkara, that’s not it. Chicken is—how to put this—weak.” The expression on Flatorte’s face read, She doesn’t get it.
“About that… I sort of understand how she feels.”
Laika’s expression was muted, which basically meant that she agreed with Flatorte.
They were contending with each other, but their thoughts were often on the same page. There were probably many subtleties I wouldn’t understand unless I was a dragon.
“Basically, chicken is a bird, of course. I don’t feel full after eating bird. See, it’s much too light. I may as well eat a giant omelet—that would be much better.”
“I understand that, but the only creatures we could hunt in the land where I’m from were birds, or deer at the most.”
“Aah, deer. That doesn’t quite hit the spot, either. Anyway, unless it’s meat from something that’s more of a beast, I don’t really feel like I’ve eaten my fill. Maybe not so much ‘eaten my fill’ but more like, I don’t feel truly alive. Vegetable salad is much too well mannered. Shouldn’t we devote ourselves to the joy of eating?”
“I’ve started to understand what Flatorte’s talking about.”
This was like when a bunch of high school boys headed for an all-you-can-eat yakiniku barbecue shop once club activities were done for the day.
Well, high school girls, too. Athletes ate a lot.
“To be frank with you, eating too much meat is bad for your health. It’s a problem of nutritional balance. Not only that, but forcing yourself to eat until you’re completely stuffed is even worse. But”—I lightly hit the table—“life sometimes calls for a food and drink binge. Animals have urges to act uncivilized!”
I recalled a memory I had of stuffing my face full at an all-you-can-eat yakiniku buffet.
That wasn’t too bad.
“Yes, mistress! You understand the feelings of dragons well!”
Flatorte complimented me. I didn’t really understand how dragons felt, only how high schoolers felt. And thus was born my theory: High school student athletes were dragons.
“Falfa likes meat, too!”
Falfa energetically raised her hand, and Shalsha sat nodding beside her. Maybe it was because my two daughters were slime spirits, but they were happy to eat anything. They did like meat better than vegetables because they were kids, though.
“But game meat is difficult to procure around here. There isn’t much for us to find in the wild.” Laika tilted her head in thought.
She was right. The highlands around here were much too peaceful.
But of course, that was my own doing.
I had requested a leisurely life when I was being reborn, so naturally, I was reincarnated in an area with weak monsters and animals.
“We can travel on Laika and Flatorte, so we should investigate areas with lots of animals. I hope that’s okay with you.”
I guess that was our common ground.
But in that case, we should just make a trip out of it and find a spot to turn into our picnic ground.
Knock, knock, knock.
There was a rather gentle rapping at the door.
Judging by the sound, I was 90 percent sure it was a woman. Or maybe they were just hesitant because it was morning and we might’ve still been sleeping.
I opened the door, and there was Natalie.
She worked at the guild in Flatta. Our household’s livelihood depended on the magic stones that came from defeating slimes, and since the guild was where I exchanged the stones for money, I knew Natalie well.
In terms of profits alone, Halkara’s factory made much, much more, but as a general rule, that money went into Halkara’s wallet.
“Oh, I don’t often see you knocking on my door, Natalie. Are you off from work at the guild today?”
“No, I still have time before my shift, so I decided to come to you directly. It is a bit of an urgent matter.”
I went in to exchange once or twice a week, so I never went longer than a week without seeing her.
“What is it? If you’re coming to me, then you’re probably going to ask me to defeat some monsters, right?”
I wasn’t an adventurer, but if monsters started popping up in the village, I could deal with those, at least.
“They’re not monsters, strictly speaking, but wild animals…”
Were they that dangerous?
“Oh, come in, come in. You’re here already—I want you to tell the whole family anyway.”
I welcomed Natalie into the house.
Shalsha seemed a little shocked to see a visitor for once, but we had no problems. Everyone was very well behaved.
“All right, then, Natalie, please tell us what it is.”
“It isn’t in this province, but two provinces over, there’s a wood called Nilka Forest.”
“Okay.”
Shalsha heard the name and returned to her room, probably to get some kind of geographic reference.
She had a whole slew of books in her room. Books were valuable in this world, so if worse ever came to worst, that was enough to be a fortune on its own.
“There’s a kind of boar that lives in Nilka Forest called the long-hammer boar.”
“I feel like I’ve heard a name like that before… Oh, I killed a monster called the long-spear boar once.”
That happened on the way to Laika’s sister’s wedding.
“Their names are similar, but this is an animal not a monster. They don’t drop magic stones. Their head is long and durable, and they kill their prey by head-butting them.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear a beast like that existed.
“There’s been a dramatic increase of long-hammer boars lately, and it’s apparently too much for the local adventurers. Even the most skilled are having a tough time… I hear that there are so many of them that the party just gets surrounded, endangering them.”
“I’ve heard that can be a problem when there are too many. I don’t really understand, though.”
From what I’d heard from adventurers, monsters that are no big deal in a one-on-one can immediately become a threat when in a mob.
Like how fifteen jobs that each take an hour to complete are no joke when you have a day to complete them.
They made me do those things like it was no big deal back when I was a corporate wage slave… There was no assumption that I’d be let home at a specific time… No, no. Bad memories are resurfacing. Let’s turn the talk back to the boars.
“But they have an adventurers’ guild, so couldn’t they just send out a request for help?”
I felt bad for asking, but if they were outsourcing this kind of work, then the job probably required more bodies than we had available. You could definitely find adventurers out there who were willing to kill such creatures.
“Actually… The region around Nilka Forest has a very low population…and there’s no money at all to hire such a large number… They can pay quite a bit for a small few, but once they need ten or more heads, they really, really can’t…”
They needed the numbers, but they didn’t have the money to guarantee them. Must be hard living in the countryside.
At that point, I’d want the government to step in, but given this world’s values, it was entirely likely they’d just be told to vacate the area and move elsewhere. I sort of understood why they wouldn’t invest in such a small town.
“The increasing numbers of long-hammer boars are starting to appear around human settlements. At this rate, it might actually reach the point where they’ll have to abandon the village…”
So that’s why she came to me in a rush. The village would be in danger if something wasn’t done soon.
“A request for help came to our guild. They said the great Witch of the Highlands and her entourage may be able to get rid of the boars in no time and with the help of only a few people…”
To be honest, this sounded like a job I could do and still be back in time for dinner.
If I could use my power to stop a village from being destroyed, then I may as well. It wasn’t like it put me in much of a bind.
“Then I underst—”
“Yes, I’ll do it!” Flatorte cut me off, responding enthusiastically. “I’ll hunt one a minute, even more than that. I know I can manage that, even in human form.”
“Flatorte, you’re really into this… Well, not like it’s a problem, though.”
“Mistress, I know this request was tailor-made for us dragons!”
I couldn’t quite parse what she meant.
“These boars aren’t monsters, correct? Which means when we kill them, they won’t become a magic stone but will instead leave behind a carcass.”
“Yes, that is how it works.”
“Which means—this’ll be an all-you-can-eat boar party!”
Clack!
Now Laika inadvertently leaped to her feet.
“That’s it! That way we can get an unbelievable amount!”
“My stomach can finally rejoice for the first time in so long! We have to go!”
This was probably the first time I’d seen the dragons so passionate…
We never had any romantic escapades in this household, and everyone really had more of an appetite for food than romance anyway…
Natalie stared at my family blankly.
“Um, you may eat them, sure… But it’ll be much more than just one or two boars, you know… I hope you understand that you can’t just eat two and be done with it…”
It certainly did seem like food was their only concern.
“That should go without saying. I’d eat a hundred heads, or even two hundred!”
She was counting them by heads, like a farmer. Did she mean literal heads or the whole thing? How much was she planning on eating?!
“Boar meat would probably taste gamey. Do you know a good way to prepare it, then?”
We would likely have to carefully extract the blood right after killing it to keep the meat from tasting weird.
“Mistress, dragons are perfectly content with gamey meat!”
“Lady Azusa, the peculiarity of the meat is what makes boar taste like boar.”
They both explained fervently.
The world of dragons runs deep…
We all rode on both Laika and Flatorte in their dragon forms and headed toward Nilka Forest.
We also had to go to the village for an account of the situation, so Natalie came along.
Natalie seemed pretty hesitant, this being her first time aboard a dragon, but she quickly got used to it and started enjoying sightseeing from the sky. She sure had guts.
Maybe working in a job that dealt with rowdy adventurers gave her that grit.
First, we alighted in the village, gave our greetings to the mayor, and pinned down where the long-hammer boars were appearing.
“There’s a small river in the wood, and it seems the boars often go there for water.”
“A barbecue by the riverside… That sounds lovely…”
“It’s like we’re camping. How rustic!”
I could almost see the drool pouring out of the two dragons’ mouths.
“Then we’ll be off. But…just to be safe—Falfa, Shalsha, Halkara, stay here.”
Boars could be rather violent in their own way. There was still a chance the others could get hurt.
“Madam Teacher, I want to go into the forest to collect mushrooms, though…”
“I know how you feel, Halkara, but you have to be careful this time.”
I felt bad, but the only outcome I saw for her was one where the boars caught her.
“Miss Halkara, I want to go to the village’s museum of history and folklore.”
“You’ve got the tastes of an old lady, don’t you, Shalsha? But I guess it might be a nice way to pass the time,” Halkara commented. It looked like she would act as babysitter for me, so the rest of us would go clean up some boars in the meantime.
The two dragons and I pushed into the woods, along with Rosalie the ghost acting as a scout.
Laika and Flatorte were still in their human forms. It wouldn’t be much of a solution to the problem if they froze or burned up the whole forest in their dragon forms.
“Oh, I now see why the boars are reproducing as much as they are. The roads are dangerous and poorly maintained. Since it is so hard for humans to use them, the boars are multiplying safely.”
Laika’s impressions were probably correct.
There wasn’t much of a difference between the human and animal trails in the forest. One step off the road would land us straight in the underbrush.
On top of that, the vines and spiderwebs everywhere were super annoying.
“We’re fine, since we have such high-level skills, but regular adventurers would definitely hate this…”
“Meat, meat, it’s almost meat time! ” And among it all, Flatorte was the only one weirdly enthusiastic. “Juices overflowing, bursting like a fountain. Drink it all up! ”
Does she seriously like meat that much? I wondered, but I guess her lust for meat was just an indication of how healthy she was.
When I had still been working in the office, I often heard words like vegan and LOHAS, but I didn’t really understand what they were.
The impression I got was that people were turning food into fashion, and I didn’t really like it…
*Just my personal opinion.
When the dragons decided to turn this into an eating contest, I was unsure about letting them essentially play with their food, but eating one’s fill was an animal’s instinct. It probably wouldn’t be too bad.
Rosalie slipped through the trees, investigating whatever was ahead. She was essential for our plan this time.
But in a way, didn’t constantly staying as a ghost make her the most unfairly overpowered of all?
“I’ve seen most of what’s ahead. If you keep going straight, you’ll go downhill and end up at a mountain stream. Stay on your current path! There are about fifteen boars at the river.”
According to Rosalie’s explanation, we had a good number of boars ahead.
“Fifteen boars… All right, let’s do this! Bring it on!”
Flatorte’s enthusiasm blazed even brighter, and she dashed through the forest.
“Please refrain from acting independently!”
“Laika, this is when you call upon your wild instincts! Don’t stop me!”
Laika seemed to understand what Flatorte was saying, and she couldn’t say any more.
That being said, vines and twigs were blocking the way—
By the time the ground started sloping downward, Flatorte got caught on a small branch.
“I struggled to get free, but now I’m even more trapped… It’s rather elastic, so it’s not snapping very easily…”
“See? This is what happens when you try to force your way forward like that…”
I disentangled Flatorte from the branch. She would doubtlessly be able to peel herself free if she changed into a dragon, but I guess that wasn’t an option.
“Oooooh! It’s the clothes’ fault that I got caught on it!”
“And what will getting angry about it accomplish? Of course you have to wear clothes.”
I sighed impatiently and freed Flatorte from the tree.
Flatorte gripped her clothes and tugged at them. It was like she was seeing them for the first time in her life.
“…Now that my wild instinct has gotten stronger, my clothes are just getting in the way,” she said and started removing them on the spot.
I say removing, but that is too polite of a word. She was flinging them off violently, practically hurling them every which way.
“H-hey, wait a second! What are you doing?!”
“Have you lost your mind?!”
“Hmm, I see. So if you’re still alive, you can take off your clothes.”
Rosalie was the only one voicing an irrelevant opinion, but this was a bit of an unusual situation.
Where on earth did girls who wanted to get naked in a forest come from?!
“Mistress, I apologize. This may sound obvious, but blue dragons don’t wear clothes when they’re in dragon form. So clothes are nothing but a nuisance… I’ve been enticed by the prospect of eating boars, and I’m very tempted to return back to my regular self.”
“That may be true, but this is terrible manners for a girl!”
She continued to remove her clothing as we talked, and she was now down to her underwear. She was a real problem child!
“Please don’t worry. No one is here in these woods. No one knows I’m naked, so it’s just the same as if I was clothed.”
“What kind of metalogic is that?!”
Also, that was how you jinxed yourself. It was safer not to say those things.
Flatorte finally removed her underwear and tossed it away, and I could see exactly where her tail connected to the rest of her body.
“I’m free! I’m freeeeeee!”
Then, she dashed down the slope with so much energy, it was hard to tell if she was falling or running.
“Aaand she’s off…”
“I’m sorry, Lady Azusa. I apologize on behalf of all dragons… She has always had bouts of unpredictability. One time, she felt like fighting with a red dragon, so she came to me…”
Laika put a hand to her forehead.
“I think I understand.”
It didn’t seem like the plan behind the attack on the wedding had been particularly elaborate, either.
“She is an idiot at heart… But she is able to get things done, and I’ve heard she’s unified the blue dragons. Still, getting things done is all she does, and she has a hard time displaying leadership or taking definitive measures…”
“Sounds like a handful for red dragons, too…”
Well, there probably weren’t any other adventurers around to take care of the boars for the reward, so she probably wouldn’t run into any perverts in the woods.
But any adventurers who encountered her would sure be in for a shock… They’d probably wonder what the heck was going on with this naked girl sprinting toward them.
“The path ahead is pretty steep, so please proceed with caution.”
“Thanks, Rosalie. We’ll take our time.”
We proceeded slowly down the path for another fifteen minutes, and then Flatorte was approaching us from ahead, crying for some reason.
“When I got to the river, there were people, and they saw me naked…”
“See? That’s why I told you to wear your clothes… They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”
“I think they were women, so it was okay. They seemed startled.”
Actually, it was probably more of an ordeal for the witnesses.
“I’ve brought along your clothes. Put them on here.”
Laika handed over her clothes. It was times like these that her dependable nature really shone.
“Th-thanks, Laika… I owe you…”
“You don’t owe me anything. Just get yourself dressed.”
Then, once Flatorte put her underwear back on—
“All right, this shouldn’t be too embarrassing! Keep the rest.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m going back to the river!” She whirled around and ran off.
Hey! Why do you think wearing just your underwear makes it okay?!
“Laika, we’re going after her. They might think there’s a group of crazy exhibitionists out here!”
“Indeed… Let’s put clothes back on her!”
“I am a ghost, so I can go as fast as I need!”
We dashed through the trees for the river.
After a little while, we started hearing the burble of water, so we were getting close to our destination.
Five minutes later, we found the river.
It was shallow but over fifteen feet wide, so it was a reasonable watering hole for the long-hammer boars.
“Ah, the wind feels so nice!”
Flatorte was jumping around in her underwear.
“I wish you wouldn’t try to convince me how nice it feels dressed like that… There were people around, weren’t there…? Put on some clothes.”
“They must have left. I don’t see them.”
She was right; it seemed like we were the only ones around.
Alternatively, the nude Flatorte scared them off…
That was the most likely possibility.
“Oh, and mistress, now is not the time for clothes.”
“Clothes are a priority in most situations, actually.”
“No, our enemies are approaching.”
I took a look around the area, and the long-hammer boars were collecting nearby.
Their protruding heads looked incredibly tough.
Some of them were even shaking their heads, as though intimidating us. Were they just practice swings?
“I see. They’re raring to attack people. Let’s bring this to an end.”
“Yes. Let us begin the hunt, mistress!”
“I will show you the results of my special training destroying slimes with Lady Azusa!” Laika called it “special training,” but it really wasn’t that special.
We all faced the closest boar to ourselves.
First, I watched to see how the animal would act.
It quickly came at me for a head-butt, and I evaded it right away.
Its movements were sharp. An adventurer might be terrified if they found themselves in a circle of these.
I deliberately stopped a head-butt with my hand once. It was a fairly heavy blow.
“I see. They’re pretty powerful fighters in their own right.”
The boar hadn’t knocked me away, so it started to whine in panic and confusion.
Well, time to take care of this!
I punched its head.
From the feeling under my hand, one good hit was more than enough. It probably put a sizable dent into the bone or even broke it in two.
The boar staggered, then collapsed on its side. I was level 99, after all.
The next one drew closer for a hit, but I crouched down and gave it an uppercut.
The boar sailed through the air in an arc, then thudded to the ground.
My attack was made specifically for my opponent, so it was twitching even if it wasn’t dead.
“Hmm, yeah, that’s about right.”
My attacking hand still didn’t feel like resting yet, but I’d finally gotten the hang of it.
How were the other two doing?
Laika was dealing a rapid flurry of punches like a boxer, overwhelming the boars.
“A good offense is the best defense! You won’t find any chance to attack me!”
At last, she dealt a clean kick to a boar that sent it flying. KO. She was defeating them swiftly and cleanly, with textbook technique.
I guess even in her human form, she wouldn’t lose to enemies this weak.
Next, boars tried to head-butt her from either side, but she timed her jump perfectly so that the two ran right into each other.
“You lack training.”
They didn’t train. They were boars.
All right, Laika seemed fine, so how about Flator—
“W-wait! Give that back!”
She was chasing a boar that had somehow snagged her bra on its head.
“Hey! What on earth are you doing?!”
“Mistress, I was trying to evade it, but my undergarments were caught on my opponent… Hey! You can’t get away! You’re supposed to face me in battle!”
She was acting a little like a caveman…
And yet, Flatorte would greet any nearing boars with a firm strike. She was taking care of the problem, but she just couldn’t seem to defeat the bra thief in question.
“I finally caught you!”
The boar burst under a magnificent dropkick, and it flew over to the river and plopped into the water.
And her bra was starting to drift downstream.
“Aaaaaaaah! It’s floating away! I’m sorry! This is all my fault! It’s because I suddenly stripped!”
Oh, how cruel…
Flatorte reached out, but the bra just widened the gap.
The situation was growing dire.
The other boars had managed to get their heads in Flatorte’s other clothes where we had set them aside, and now they were running around with them.
They had been rummaging through our things, wondering if there was any food, and that was probably how they ended up like this.
“Noooooo! I’ll be in so much trouble going home if I lose all my clothes! I can give up my underwear at the most, but you can’t take thaaaaaat!”
Terrible desperation crossed her face.
Was she going to seriously engage with just a little boar?!
“Blue Dragon Kick!”
Flatorte’s attack connected, and the boar was sent to the wind like so much paper. Then, along with her clothes, the boar dropped into the river.
Yup, along with her clothes. It was almost cliché at this point.
Flatorte’s garments bobbed elegantly down the river.
“Aaaaaaaah! Wait, wait! I know they’re not my favorites, and I was actually thinking about throwing them out after they got dirty today, but— Wait!”
Come on, Flatorte, think of where you’re kicking… But at times like these, any plans she could make would just backfire on her anyway.
Flatorte stood there in a daze, and behind her appeared another long-hammer boar.
Its head caught on her underwear.
Oh…I know what’s happening.
“Wait! Let’s talk, okay?! For goodness’ sake! For goodness’ sake, you can do anything else, just not this! I know I was talking on and on about my instincts earlier, but dragons are civilized creatures, you know!”
Rrri, rrrrrrrrrrrip…
Her underwear passed into the past tense, transforming into scraps of fabric.
And when that happened, something switched on inside Flatorte.
“Enough… All right, you boars! Since you are without clothes, I, the magnificent Flatorte, shall face you in battle unclothed as well! I’m through playing around, okay?! Do you understand?! What’s wrong with nudity? Is there any animal that’s born wearing clothes? No, there isn’t! There’s nothing strange about me!”
Yeah… I think there is. What you’re doing is definitely weird.
But she probably wasn’t going to be listening anymore.
With vim and vigor, Flatorte hunted the boars.
After half an hour, we took a short break from clearing out the boars.
In the end, we defeated over a hundred of them, including the pack nearby. There were heaps of them stacked around the river.
They were considerably aggressive, so they all sought us out to attack us. Which meant the more we defeated in this battle, the more efficient it was, in a way. It would take way too much time if we were the ones pushing into the woods to fight them.
But for the two dragons, this was apparently just the beginning.
Laika immediately began setting up the barbecue equipment on the riverbank.
She brought a lot of things with her, but it looked like everything was for just that.
Once she was finished setting up, she took a big knife and concentrated on cutting away the meat. She was being somewhat careful so that the meat wouldn’t start to smell, but there was just so much. She cut and cut and cut.
On the other hand, Flatorte was calmly and nakedly gathering firewood for the fuel.
“Phew, I feel so good after taking a walk around! We’re roasting and eating boar in the forest! These are the true pleasures of the great outdoors!”
You’re way too naked to be as enthusiastic as you are! And I’m surprised to hear the concept of “the great outdoors” exists in this world!
I really wanted to show this scenery to people in Japan who talked about “glamping” or “glamorous camping.”
There was not the slightest bit of luxury in sight, and our only ingredient was boar meat.
“Rosalie, does it look like any boars will attack us soon?”
“The boars have been completely beaten back, and so it seems they’ve withdrawn. We should be fine for the time being. It doesn’t seem like there are any other herds nearing, either.”
Then it looks like we can finally begin our feast.
“This should be big enough.”
Laika breathed fire to light the barbecue. It was surreal to watch fire coming out of a girl’s mouth, but I was used to it by now.
The meat sizzled, and healthy white smoke drifted from the grill.
“Fat is splashing everywhere! It’s hot!”
“You’re totally naked, so don’t be so careless! Stay away from it!”
I was mostly taking care of the meat. The other two would be completely fine eating it rare, so I was a bit apprehensive.
Really, I wasn’t so weak that rare meat would make me sick, but mentally, I couldn’t stand the thought. When I’d gotten food poisoning in my previous life, I was in pain for days…
“All right, here we go! Barbecue under a blue sky!”
““Oooh!””
There probably wasn’t any barbecue sauce in this world, so I brought salt.
Grill, salt, eat. That was it.
It tasted very gamey, but salt was simple and strong enough to keep that in check, so it wasn’t too bad.
It felt like real hunting.
“This is good! So delicious!”
“Yes! Lady Azusa, we must eat up!”
“Now this is a meal! This is what food should be like! Now we eat like barbarians!”
It’s kind of convincing when she says it naked…
In the beginning, we were all eating at about the same pace, but our differences were starting to show after ten minutes.
I was getting tired of nothing but boar, but the other two were actually picking up the pace.
They were using a huge metal plate to grill, but it was continuously filled with the next serving.
Grill, eat, grill, eat.
Like a perpetual engine, over and over.
“It’s so, so, so good!” Flatorte crowed.
“Yes. I feel the energy spreading throughout my entire body!” Laika agreed.
“Table manners? Human manners? Pshaw, get out of here!”
“It’s not a very refined taste, but such a fun meal doesn’t need to be!”
I was so impressed—dragons will be dragons.
“To eat is to live, I see, Big Sis.” Rosalie drifted to my side.
“I’m sorry. I know you can’t eat, but it still feels like we’re showing off.”
“No, it’s all right. I’ve never seen Laika so radiant before. Thank you for the show. And since ghosts don’t have an appetite, it’s not that painful.”
Now that she said it, I understood. She didn’t need it to survive, so she never had the desire to eat.
“Why don’t you possess someone and take a bite? There’s a river here, too, so you can leave if you jump in. And we already have someone naked, so your clothes won’t get wet.”
“Then I’ll give it a shot, once I have permission.”
Rosalie possessed Flatorte.
And once she had, she yelped and covered herself. “I’m naked! This is so embarrassing!”
Huh, so ghosts gain a sense of shame when they’re in a physical body…
Rosalie’s impressions after taking a bite were, “It’s a bit gamey…”
It didn’t seem that she liked it very much. It probably looked and tasted the best to her before she even took a real bite.
Afterward, Rosalie jumped into the river in Flatorte’s body and got out with no issues.
“My body’s cooled down from the water, so time to warm it up with more food!”
She bit into the meat again, her breasts swaying.
I was becoming desensitized. I barely even noticed Flatorte was naked anymore.
Laika in turn was also gnawing on the meat. She didn’t need any carbs. Just meat.
I had also had my fill and was starting to feel a little overstuffed, but just like Rosalie, I was having a fun time watching.
Then I realized why I was so pleased with the whole situation.
“I feel like I’ve always wanted to have a girls’ day out like this…”
In my previous life, a girls’ day out mostly just meant chatting in fancy restaurants.
At least, that was true in my experience.
It was comfortable, since it was only us girls. There was no need to worry about the gazes of the opposite sex. But we were still watching one another, I guess.
As we carefully chose our topics of conversation, we would offer information to paint ourselves in a flattering or impressive light, one-upping one another as we talked.
Even though we worked in different places. None of us was even fighting. And yet most of us were trying to convince the others that we were happier.
I often felt, This feels so empty. Isn’t your whole life just posting pictures of the nice food you eat to Instagram?
But that wasn’t the case here.
We were just grilling and eating boar. And one of us wasn’t even wearing clothes.
Had I gone on this kind of girls’ day out when I was still a corporate slave, then my stress would’ve gone way down. I probably would’ve enjoyed it.
As I reflected, Rosalie came back in a hurry from her scouting mission.
“Big Sis! Someone’s coming!”
“What? Oh no, what should we do? We still have Flatorte here!”
“But it’s someone we know.”
Beelzebub flew in, carrying Vania.
“What on earth are you doing…?” She looked at us dubiously when she asked. Well, we were being pretty dubious ourselves, so I wouldn’t argue.
“Er, grilling boar,” I answered honestly.
“We came because we thought we should give these to you.”
In Vania’s hands were Flatorte’s clothes that had washed down the river!
“I was wondering what they might be at first, but I knew whoever lost them must be upset about it, so I went searching for the owner.”
“Thank you, Vania! This is a big help.” I gave thanks in Flatorte’s place.
Flatorte was also happy in her naked glory. “Phew! What a relief!”
“You lot truly show up everywhere.”
Beelzebub seemed a bit annoyed, but we’d known each other long enough that she was used to it.
Laika turned into a dragon to spit fire and dry the clothes. The strength of her dragon form’s flames was greater than her human form’s. What a luxury, to use a dragon this way.
“But you sure ate a lot of boar. I’m impressed. Why don’t we have a bit as well? Is that all right?”
“Yes, please, have as much as you like, actually. It all tastes the same, so I’m starting to get bored…”
I handed some leftover forks to Beelzebub and Vania.
The two demons filled their mouths with meat like it was water, betraying their appearances. Demons really did eat well…
“Mm, not bad.”
“This rustic approach is quite nice, but I almost feel like making a few adjustments,” Vania said, then brought out a large box. “I have my cooking set.”
In the box were spices and other ingredients, as well as a pot and other cookware. It looked like she was going to start cooking straightaway.
“Huh? Do you carry that around with you?”
“Cooking is also part of my job, so I must always be in the spirit to cook, wherever and whenever.”
She had taken care of food for us when we were on the way to the demon’s castle.
“The meat is rather high-quality, and I believe I can make a lovely wild game dish from this!”
And in a very short amount of time, she produced the boar meat on a plate with a drizzle of sauce on top and herbs on the side.
“All right. I believe it will taste a bit different this time, so you will be able to eat even more.”
I immediately took a bite, and it tasted like the real deal.
This is as good as something you’d order at an expensive French restaurant!
“Vania, you’re practically a pro chef!”
“I am a pro chef! I’ve treated you before, haven’t I?!”
“Yes, she has a chef’s license, after all. She is much better suited for cooking than office work.”
Huh, so demons can get cooking licenses.
Beelzebub sat on a large boulder, elegantly enjoying the food. She sure looked like she belonged in high society.
Both Laika and Flatorte also seemed satisfied with a professional’s true skill.
By the way, since Flatorte’s clothes still weren’t dry, she was eating in her underwear.
I might as well think of it like a swimsuit and drop the issue.
“Of course, if we were in an environment where I could use even more ingredients, I would like to try many other things, but I think this is the best I can do for now. Please come to Vanzeld Castle again.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“O-oh, okay… You’re coming again… I have to…get ready…”
Beelzebub didn’t seem as upset as I thought. She was actually weirdly shy about it.
“Yeah, this is delicious! This is the fate that my nudity brought us! Sometimes it’s good to go naked!”
Well, she wasn’t completely wrong, but that brand of positive thinking was a little absurd!
When we get home, I’ll have to give her a good lecture on wearing clothes.
Away from the rest of us, Laika finished her meal and once again breathed fire to dry Flatorte’s wet clothes.
“Hell’s bells. We were here by the river when some naked lady suddenly appeared and scared the living daylights out of us… Vania even fell straight into the river…”
Oh, so it was Beelzebub and company who were originally by the river. I suppose the list of people who would come to a place like this was pretty short.
“I gather the long-hammer boars have had their ranks sufficiently thinned,” Beelzebub commented.
“Formally, we’re here by the guild’s request. Boy, I never thought there’d be this many boars.”
Suddenly, a question came to me. I should have thought of it earlier, but the whole naked incident had shocked me so much that I completely forgot.
“Why are you demons here? I highly doubt you’ve been asked by the guild to come here, right?”
“It’s this.” With her fork, Beelzebub pointed to the meat.
“No, that’s too weird. There’s no way you could’ve known we were going to have a barbecue party here.”
Though it was possible that demons had some kind of precognitive power.
“No, no, we didn’t plan on barbecuing here, but we were planning on using boar as an ingredient for the demons’ food.”
“What?! You were?!”
The strength of Laika’s flames got briefly hotter the moment she heard that, almost scorching Flatorte’s clothes.
“Yes. We knew that there were too many long-hammer boars in this region, so we came up with a plan to use them as food and take them to the demon lands. We were here today to investigate. And the humans living here would probably be overjoyed for it, so two birds with one stone, no?”
“I see… I didn’t even think about that…,” I mused.
“In my leviathan form, I can carry roughly a thousand boars altogether. We could even butcher the meat on board on the way to Vanzeld Castle.”
Vania used the term on board to refer to her own back. Apparently, she saw leviathans as boats.
“You’re going all in… If you could hunt boars on that scale, then they’d no longer be a threat to people.”
I felt like human countries would end up much better managed in that case.
“Demons eat a lot, you know. We have to effectively take any extra meat. We also once hunted deer in an area where they had overpopulated.”
“Lady Beelzebub is the minister of agriculture, so she often deals with food problems like this.”
Wow, so that’s Beelzebub’s real work!
These sorts of problems fell right in the description of Beelzebub’s job. It wasn’t like she was being paid to do nothing but arrogantly proclaim she was the greatest in the world.
“You were thinking something rather rude about me just now, weren’t you…?”
“…Nope, you’re just imagining things.”
She’s pretty sharp…
Flatorte’s clothes were finally dry, so she put them on for the first time in a long while.
“This is the power of culture! I feel like I’ve become smarter!”
“That comment makes you sound like a complete idiot, yet you still have experience leading the blue dragons, so please pull yourself together.”
Laika sounded ashamed that her rival was acting this way.
“I think I’m a bit jealous of her taking off her clothes. That’s not really an option for ghosts.”
Living with us must have awakened Rosalie’s sense of fashion. I suppose I could teach her some magic to change her clothes when we had time.
Now that Beelzebub and Vania had joined us, the meat started disappearing faster, but there was still a good amount left.
“Hey, Beelzebub, what should we do with this?”
“We need more people. I see we have no choice but to call on Falfa and Shalsha.”
She didn’t mention Halkara, but it wasn’t out of malice; it was only because Beelzebub absolutely adored my two daughters.
“You’re right. We were going to get them to come anyway.”
“Yes. I can guarantee they’ll be safe, so you can call on them as much as you like. Anything that threatens them will be eradicated just like those boars!”
I appreciated her intent, but I’d rather she kept the eradicating to a minimum.
“My love for them will quickly surpass yours if you let your guard down.”
“Don’t worry about it, since that’ll never happen. My love for them is like a bottomless spring that’s about to…no, that is overflowing.”
This was the one thing I couldn’t budge on, as their mother.
Sparks flew between us as we stared at each other.
I actually wished she wouldn’t try to outdo a mother’s love. Couldn’t she concede on that point?
“I—I’m not saying you’ve failed as a mother or anything, okay…?”
Good. Beelzebub was backing down.
“Anyway, it’s true that we need more people. That’s how I will approach this,” she said.
“Right. And if you find anyone you can invite, just bring them on by.”
Laika looked at me, then nodded with a smile. “I will now shuttle them over.”
“I’m sorry for making you do this right after you’ve eaten, but thank you.”
“Certainly. The landing spot I use as a dragon is a little ways away from the village, but I can still make it back without losing much time.”
“Fantastic! See you soon, then!”
Among the ones remaining at the site, Vania was absorbed in developing a new menu, thinking about different dishes for different parts of the boar.
“The head bumps on these long-hammer boars look like they might have a unique texture. We can cut them into cubes, heat them, then add herbs to make a salty-sweet sauce.”
“What? That sounds amazing!”
“Then, we’ll cut gaps into some bread, pour the sauce in, and eat that. Would you like a taste?”
I didn’t have any reason to say no, so of course I’d eat it.
Yep, it was delicious. I knew it would be, but it was really good.
I was starting to get full, but this stomach still had room!
Flatorte was just taste testing, but she had seconds anyway. “I am so happy right now!”
“Those words are the greatest compliment a chef could ever receive!”
Vania struck me as the scatterbrained type, but I saw her in a completely different light now.
Halkara was the same; she was a force to be reckoned with when it came to the things she was passionate about.
As we sat around, the moment we had all been waiting for finally arrived.
Laika in her dragon form returned with Halkara and my two daughters.
“We were going so fast, I was starting to get scared…,” Halkara was saying.
Shalsha’s expression was also vaguely miserable.
And on the flip side, Falfa was in high spirits. “We came right away! It was a big adventure!”
I could see how different their personalities were. It was like the difference between who would and wouldn’t enjoy a thrill ride.
“All right, everyone! Let the barbecue party begin!” I said.
“Yay! Falfa’s gonna eat a whole bunch!”
“Shalsha’s ready to eat, too.”
“I’m a vegetarian, but I still love a good party!”
Just as I was thinking about how nice it was that the whole family was here, Beelzebub appeared behind them. She must have used some kind of teleportation magic.
“They would get angry with me if I didn’t invite them, so I brought them along,” she said.
One of the people behind her was Vania’s older sister, Fatla. She was the one who’d carried us when we went to get the Demon Medal, and she was the one who took care of us on the way back.
Fighsly, the Fighter Slime who had started training under Beelzebub, was also there.
And the last person, with those characteristic sheeplike horns—
“This is a dream come true, to feast with my darling elder sister!”
“Oh, Pecora. Long time no see. But it feels like I’ve been seeing you a lot anyway.”
Pecora swiftly closed the distance between us and wrapped her arm around my waist.
She was a rather powerful fighter, so if I ever relaxed my guard around her, she’d always end up in my personal space like this.
“You smell absolutely delicious, Sister.”
“Er, don’t say weird things like that. Have some nice meat instead…”
Once again, we resumed our barbecue party with even more people.
There were plenty of options now that Vania’s dishes were also in the mix.
It had become a much more cultured ordeal now, considering how our original goal was just to eat some meat.
The new members of the party had natural smiles on their faces.
Shalsha and Fatla were chatting about something, no doubt forging a new friendship. They were both the levelheaded type, so I was sure they were on the same wavelength.
There had been a cynical time in my life when I thought normie events like a barbecue by the river were completely pointless, but that wasn’t true at all.
“Mistress, isn’t eating meat so worth your while?” Flatorte was smiling, her plate stacked high with so much meat that it seemed a little too much for her stomach.
“I wish you’d sit and give a long think about a few things today, but—I’ll let it slide for now.”
That was because I was starting to enjoy the whole affair.
It wouldn’t be very convincing if I lectured her with a smile. Today, we would just enjoy a great time together.
“We should probably get back to hunting boars, so we’ll do another pass with Beelzebub and the others this time.”
“Yes, mistress!”
And so, we killed even more long-hammer boars. So many of them.
We froze them with Flatorte’s Cold Breath and sent them off with Vania in her leviathan form.
The boar population had been significantly reduced, and the guild thanked us.
A while later, I learned that demons would go out to hunt whenever there was an increase in animal populations—not just long-hammer boars but deer and other types of boars.
It was a fantastic deal; it wasn’t just plain old charity work, but it was also to gain food and help the regions struggling with these problems.
And there was an increase of something else in my yard.
There was a small cover on the ground, and taking it off revealed a ladder.
At the bottom of the ladder were rows of frozen meat.
Yes, the cold cellar was a new addition.
We were mostly storing meat for now.
In the past, we could chill foods either by using my magic or Flatorte’s Cold Breath, but since it took up so much space, we only really ever used it for food that was already prepared.
But now that I knew some among us were big eaters, I set aside a space just to store meat in earnest.
“Phew, it’s so nice and cool in here. I would definitely get excited about this if I had this as a kid.”
We also hunted boars and deer for our own personal consumption when the population got too high, and we stocked them here.
“I should bring back some venison for dinner.”
My repertoire of boar and deer dishes was growing significantly. Maybe I’ll ask Vania to teach me again.
Then, I heard a strange rustling sound.
Someone can’t be in here, can they? It’s not like the place is locked or anything, though.
It was at times like this that I got scared despite my high level.
No matter how high my stats were, a girl was still a girl. I hoped it was anything but a pervert.
It wasn’t entirely impossible that a wild animal somehow got inside, but there shouldn’t be any animals that could manage that around here. We were a little ways from the forest. Oh, could a slime have gotten in somehow?
The cellar was spacious.
I slowly went in deeper.
Again, I heard the rustling sound. It didn’t seem like I’d misheard earlier. I decided to take the plunge and stepped right into the cellar.
“Who’s there? I won’t allow any trespassing!”
There stood Laika, her back to me, doing…something.
“Oh… Lady Azusa…”
Guilt was written all over her face. She was doing something that she had to hide, for sure, but I couldn’t exactly tell what that was.
“What on earth are you doing? I won’t get mad, so just tell me. Well, it’s not like there’s no chance I’ll get mad, but I’ll try my best not to, so tell me.”
Laika turned around timidly, gripping grilled meat in her hand.
And then I could smell the aroma. Had she grilled it with her fire breath down here…?
“Are you…snacking?”
She nodded once. There was no way she could deny it, since I’d caught her in the act.
“I got hungry, and I knew there was lots of meat down here… I’m sorry…”
I could even hear a mean rumble coming from her stomach. Had she really been that famished?
“Fine. I’ll increase your food expenses. Then you can eat much more than you are now. You’re not on a diet or anything, so it’s fine.”
“Thank you, Lady Azusa!” Laika bowed her head, the meat still in her hand.
“Of course. No need to hold back now.”
Laika bit into the meat.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been going hungry this entire time?”
“No, that’s not it… I just felt like having a snack, that’s all!”
She vigorously shook her head in denial.
There was no mistaking that she was embarrassed because it was improper.
Looking at it another way—she was munching on a hunk of meat for her afternoon snack?
I still had a lot to learn when it came to what was common sense for dragons and other races. She shouldn’t have to be so defensive. I was sure that I would never hear the honest opinion of the more reserved types, like Laika.
“Okay, then I’ll leave my cooking duty for next time,” I declared. “Instead, we’ll all go to the Savvy Eagle and eat our fill! You can order as much as you want and stuff yourself!”
We headed to Flatta and dashed to the Savvy Eagle.
“We’ll start with ten omelets; and rabbit steaks for all of us, so six of those; and another six salads— Wait, what do you mean you don’t want one? Come on—you have to!”
Shalsha said she didn’t want a salad, but she had to consider her nutritional balance.
“It feels like things have gotten very lively all of a sudden…” The shop owner was astonished.
“We’ve changed the way we think about our meals. We’re still growing children, after all.”
It was times like these where we would ignore how long we’d lived. We looked like we were growing children, so we were.
If we ended up getting fat, well, we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. Time to stuff ourselves!
Flatorte didn’t seem entirely satisfied yet, and she was staring diligently at the menu like a student cramming for a test.
“Mistress, can I have this goose dish?”
“Of course you can, Flatorte. Order as much as you’d like!”
“Mistress, how about the lamb?”
“Of course you can. Your body may be slim, but your spirit can be full and plump!”
“Mistress, it sounds like they have turtledove in stock. Can I have that, too?”
“…Now I’m not so sure if the money I brought will be enough, but worst-case scenario, I’ll just have them bill me, so go ahead!”
It wouldn’t be a big deal if Laika was the only one, but now there was someone else who ate just as much. I could already feel the pain in my wallet…
“You should have more self-control… Can we have the goose, lamb, and turtledove dishes as well?”
In the end, Laika also ended up ordering all the same extras that Flatorte did. I had to force myself not to comment.
I spent more than seventy thousand gold that night, but we had a fantastic time, so whatever!
Laika and I spent the next day killing move slimes than usual.
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