Cooking with Wild Game: Volume 34

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-7183-3466-3
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 34, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Cooking with Wild Game

Things ought to settle back down at the forest's edge and throughout Genos in general, but unfortunately for Asuta and company, that isn't going to happen! New faces, friendly meetups, possibilities of new romance, a long-awaited clan head meeting, and the introduction of board games apparently isn't enough. When a massive earthquake strikes Genos, what impact will it have on the people living there? How will they manage to recover from the damage caused? And what will their reaction be to the news that someone unexpected perished in the process?

See all this and more in the exciting thirty-fourth volume of Cooking with Wild Game!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eda

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kochimo

Warner, Gwendolyn

Leseproben

Chapter 1: The Invisible Hand of the Great God

1

Thanks to the positive outcome of the clan head meeting held on the tenth of the blue month, a lot of changes were coming to the people of the forest’s edge. From here on out, all clans would be able to take part in business in Genos, which would spread the benefits and the difficulties between us.

In the eighty-odd years since they had moved here, the people of the forest’s edge had always been very insular, so this was going to be quite a change for many of us. But Ai Fa and I were absolutely overjoyed to see this happen after all the effort we had put in to overturn the old way of things.

That said, even now that our path had been chosen, it wasn’t like we could just pat ourselves on the backs and say that our work was done. After all, most people of the forest’s edge had no knowledge whatsoever when it came to doing business in town, so there were all sorts of things they’d have to learn. There were three main businesses we were engaging in: the stalls we had run for over a year now, the fresh meat sales that had recently begun, and the sale of sausages and giba bacon to the castle town. Setting aside the stalls for the moment, it was clear that we were going to have to start providing lessons on how to go about selling those other kinds of meat.

At present, the Fou and Dai clans were in charge of the fresh meat, while the Gaaz and Ratsu clans handled the sausages and bacon. However, it had been decided at the clan head meeting that every clan should take turns doing that work, so all could share in the wealth and joy it brought, while also shouldering some of the burden. For the time being, the plan was to have the Sauti and Ravitz inherit the fresh meat business and the Beim clans to do the same with the sausages and bacon, and they were currently learning how to do so. Members of the Sauti were regularly visiting the Dai settlement while the Ravitz visited the Fou so both could study how to pack meat in boxes, while the Beim were learning how to properly prepare the products they would be selling from the Gaaz and Ratsu. The plan was to have them take over the work for three months beginning in the upcoming white month, after which the clans in charge would swap once more.

Additionally, the fresh meat being sold would be prepared by all of the clans, except for the Fa and Ruu. Aside from working the stalls, this would be the most direct way for our people to make money, so it was decided it should be split among everyone. That said, meat to be sold in town had to be properly bloodlet and carved, and needed to be as fresh as possible, so while we were starting out, the plan was to use the meat of one carefully selected giba from each clan.

For the last month and a half, we had been participating in the meat market with a frequency equivalent to about five or six times a month, and we had prepared more than ten giba’s worth of meat each time. The earnings from a single month worked out to around eight thousand red coins, and that fortune would be split among all clans aside from the Fa and Ruu.

If the earnings eventually increased beyond that, the excess would be put into storage for shared use by all clans. Along with the wealth we had already accumulated, it would be used to supply medicine and blades to clans that needed them, and the rest would be used to purchase as many hunting dogs as possible. That said, daily necessities like medicine and weapons were already covered by the reward money the castle town gave us, so in effect, the additional money would all go to procuring dogs. Of course, it would be dangerous to use all that money up at once, and it wasn’t like we could simply buy as many hunting dogs as we could afford regardless. First we had to wait for a dog trader from Jagar to arrive.

At any rate, the people of the forest’s edge were now beginning to walk a new path. All of the clans were joining together to sell giba meat in Genos. Where would all these changes lead us? Well, we had just taken the first big step toward finding out.

?

Four days after the clan head meeting, on the fourteenth of the blue month, we were doing business as usual at the stalls. Work there required above average cooking skills, so the Fa and Ruu had been permitted to continue managing them as we had been. In exchange, though, we weren’t taking part in the preparation of fresh meat, to both reduce the burden on us and to keep the earnings from going where they weren’t needed.

“I can’t really say I get it, but I’m just glad you’ll be able to keep on doing business like always,” said Aldas, second-in-command of the construction group from Jagar we were friends with, as he stood in front of our stalls. Though southerners tended to be on the shorter side, Aldas was a burly man over 180 centimeters tall, and he was an especially straightforward guy.

Standing beside Aldas was the leader of the group, Pops Balan, who as short and stout as southerners typically were. “Hmph,” he snorted. “Are you still going on about that? Their big meeting happened days ago, and you haven’t stopped talking about it since.”

“I mean, depending on how things played out, they might have had to stop doing business, right? If that had happened, our reason for looking forward to coming to Genos would’ve vanished.”

“We never had any reason like that until last year, though. Besides, we come here for .”

“Sure, you say that now, but we all saw how pale you went when you heard about all this from Asuta, Pops.”

In order to not make anyone pointlessly worry, I hadn’t told people about the upcoming decision until right before the clan head meeting had been held. And indeed, the memory of how pale Pops Balan had gone when he’d heard that remained vivid in my mind.

“I really am sorry for alarming you. And I hope that you’ll keep on coming to the stalls,” I said.

“Of course!” Aldas replied with a big grin. “Plus, you got permission to invite us to a banquet at the forest’s edge, didn’t you? I’m so giddy I can hardly contain myself.”

That was another matter I had raised during the clan head meeting. My proposal to invite foreigners from Jagar to a banquet hadn’t drawn much interest, but it hadn’t earned any serious opposition either. And naturally, I had support from the Fou, Gaaz, and Ratsu. The heads of those clans hadn’t seemed all that interested in the southerners either, but they very much wanted to hold a banquet with the Fa clan and were certainly ready to lend their assistance.

“You’re fine with the thirty-first of the blue month for the date, right? Your final day of work won’t end up slipping earlier or later?”

“Definitely not. We’ll be dividing up our remaining work to make sure we finish right on schedule. Depending on the day, we may not have much to do but a few repairs to roofs or pillars, though.”

“I see. I was worried that you might wrap things up and leave early to save on lodging fees. Oh, but of course, I’m happy to have you stay as long as you can, though.”

“Uh-huh. Well, we sometimes get sudden requests, so we make sure to leave as much leeway as we can. After making the trip all the way over here to Genos, it’s not like we’re in a big rush to hurry back home,” Aldas remarked with another amused grin. “And these last two years, we’ve been able to have your delicious giba cooking, so we’re even less eager to leave. In fact, it feels like a shame that we’ll have to go in another half a month or so.”

“I agree. It really does feel like time’s been flying by... Of course, everything was really hectic at first.”

“Yeah, since those soldiers from the capital showed up on the same day we did. Feels sort of nostalgic somehow, looking back on it now.”

As we were talking, the batch of pasta I was boiling finished softening up. I had left today’s special, the deep-fried giba, up to Toor Deen, while I was in charge of the giba and nanaar carbonara.

“Thanks for waiting, and I hope to see you again soon.”

“Right back at you. I’m looking forward to eating back at the inn too.”

The members of the construction group then vanished off into the restaurant space, and the area around the stalls grew a bit quieter. They had arrived a little later than they normally did today, so the sun was already a good bit past its peak.

“Sales seem to be about the same as usual over here. What about you, Toor Deen?”

“Ah, it doesn’t seem all that different for me either. Things are a lot calmer than yesterday and the day before, though, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. We didn’t work on the day of the clan head meeting or the day after, so things have been really lively.”

Two days after the clan head meeting, we had reopened for business, and today was our third day back. That placed us right in the middle of our five-day business period. Tomorrow would be the first meat market held after the clan head meeting, and the plan was to have the Sauti and Ravitz come along as part of their training.

I thought to myself as I stole a glance over at Toor Deen, and found that she was instructing the Dagora woman on the frying technique for her dish with a serious look.

There was actually one suggestion brought up during the clan...