Paladin of the End - Volume 3.1 - Chapter SS3

Evening of Rest

The cured meat was tossed deftly into the boiling pot.

A knife held in one hand worked around vegetables held in the other, and then, after being beautifully peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces, the vegetables were plunged into the pot.

I could hear the sounds of water and crackling firewood. These were the sounds of cooking.

“I acquired some good salt-cured meat, so we have soup today.”

We were on our way to Whitesails. While we set up camp in the forest, Tonio smiled at us in good spirits as he prepared our evening meal. After determining where to camp, he had gathered dead branches, put together an oven out of stones he had found, and begun preparing to cook.

“Woohoo!” Bee started dancing. Menel wore his usual expression, but I caught a hint of a smile. I was beaming, too.

Having delicious food was a wonderful thing. I remembered reading a book on the military a long time ago in my previous life which said that whether food was warm or cold and whether it tasted good or bad had an effect on morale. At that time, I hadn’t really thought much about it, but after being born into this kind of world, I understood how true that really was.

These Beast Woods had a lot of villages in unfortunate circumstances, and due to that and other factors, we had remarkably few resources to spare on meals. But even so, it really made you miserable to eat bad food. Like gloopy wheat porridge with a weird bitter flavor and half-cooked vegetables mixed in it, or dried fish that you weren’t quite sure had been fermented or just gone bad...

“Having tasty food is good!” Bee declared with clenched fists.

“Yeah.” Agreeing, I handed her the rope to put up the tent with.

“The breakfast we had in that village this morning, no offense to them, but it was kinda terrible. So you bet I’m ready to eat tonight! Tonio, lots, okay? Make lots!”

“Yes, yes. Most certainly, Madam.”

She was quite a glutton and ate a lot for her size. It was completely believable that she was sticking with Tonio for his cooking skills.

“No but for real, this is what’s such a pain about traveling. Only two or three meals a day! In my home village, I’d have twice that!”

“Here we go, the halfling food obsession,” Menel said wearily. “Do you guys actually eat six meals a day? You serious?”

“Yep, serious. Super serious.” She laughed. “Breakfast, elevenses, dinner, low tea, high tea, and supper! Any decent halfling village will be something like that. Awesome, right?”

“Where the hell do you put that much grub? You’re gonna get fat.”

“Wow, that’s not a very nice thing to say to a lady. I move around a lot and use up what I’ve eaten, obviously, and that makes the next meal taste good. Isn’t that common sense?”

“Halflings. Brother...”

Bee was genuinely as brisk as she claimed, and even as she spoke, she was busily working on putting up the tent. Menel shrugged.

“Right, I guess I’ll go do a bit of work as well. I’ll go look for some more firewood. Hopefully there’ll be something to eat, too.”

“Go find some fruit or something for me, mister talented hunter.”

“Sure, okay, I’ll just find some fruit. Gods. Don’t get your hopes up.” And with a wave of his hand, Menel disappeared into the forest.

◆

Before long, the tent was also finished. I used several Words and Signs to place bug repelling and early warning magic around the tent we’d erected. It was very simple magic, kind of like a charm, but there was a big difference between having it and not.

“Thanks again. Having a sorcerer around is sooo useful! Goodbye, nights of annoying buzzing noises!”

“I’ve seen a few sorcerers before, but Will, the way you use magic is particularly fluid.”

“My teacher was all about small magic.”

Gus could use any kind of magic, no matter how difficult, but he put a lot of importance on small magic like this instead. Back when I was in the city of the dead, he’d made sure to drill that message into me.

“What did he say to you?”

“Even the most indomitable hero, who can conquer any monster when it comes to battle, can eventually succumb to the poisonous bugs that plague him during his travels.”

“Hmm. Was he a bit of a bore?”

“The opposite. He was actually pretty wild. From time to time, he’d blow his own horn with these really crazy stories. But when it came to this, yeah, he had his head screwed on tight.”

Even though not much time had passed, those days in the city of the dead were already feeling pretty nostalgic to me.

“Hey! Hey!”

As I lost myself in my memories, Menel came back. He was running towards us. My hand instinctively reached for my spear as I wondered what was going on, but then I noticed he looked awfully proud of himself, and he was carrying several bundles of dead branches and a lot of red fruit.

“Forestberries?! Oh my god, they’re so rare!” Bee shouted out, her eyes sparkling.

“Found a bunch of them growing behind some rocks over there.”

Tonio thought for a moment and started talking profit. “If we can take them to a nearby town, we should be able to make some change out of these.”

“Are they that good?”

“Oh, Will, you’re so clueless!”

“Just try one already, dammit. Here!” He shoved a vivid red berry into my mouth.

I tried biting into it. An invigorating tangy sweetness filled my mouth. “This is delicious!”

“See?!”

“You three, take care not to eat too much before dinner, please.”

“Ya, I know, I know.”

As the sun slowly set, we made a lot of noise together while passing the time before our evening meal. It was an uneventful, everyday scene—but I was sure I’d look back on it someday with a smile.