Eguchi Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill: Volume 16

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7183-4330-6
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 16, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill

You can only spend so much time conquering dungeons, slaying legendary beasts, and causing international incidents before refusing to meet with the king stops making you look humble and starts making you look like you're snubbing the crown. Mukohda, much to his dismay, has run squarely into that limit, and Willem the guildmaster has dragged him to the capital for a long-overdue royal audience!

But a trip to the capital isn't all bad news. After all, the biggest city in the kingdom is also home to the biggest Adventurer's guild around, and the guild headquarters is the one place where Mukohda stands any chance of fulfilling his familiars' biggest objective: getting the leviathan they found in a dungeon butchered! The task is titanic, even by the capital's standards, and it's going to take everything and everyone the guild can spare-which means that Mukohda is due for a number of reunions, some much more welcome than others...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eguchi, Ren

Weitere Mitwirkende

Masa

Hill, Tristan K.

Leseproben

Chapter 1: Arrival at the Capital

“Ooooh, so that’s the capital city, huh?” I muttered as I looked down from Old Man Gon’s back at a cityscape more expansive than anything I’d seen in this world so far.

«No kidding! It’s huge!» Dora-chan said, leaning over to take a look at the capital as well.

«It’s sooo big!» Sui agreed.

«I sense an innumerable quantity of humans...and a scant few of them have presences that may, perhaps, be worthy of some small note,» said Fel, who was lying nearby, idly listening to our conversation.

“What do you mean, ‘presences worthy of note’?” I asked.

«I meant what I said. I assume they are high-ranking adventurers, or inhabitants of the king’s court.»

It make sense that there would be a lot of high-rankers in the capital, and that the king would have some pretty tough customers guarding his place as well.

«More importantly, where should I land, my liege?» Gon asked.

“Oh, uhh... Where you even land around here? Maybe that grassland over there?”

«Very well, then!» Gon said before beginning a slow and steady descent.

The grassland I’d directed him toward wasn’t far away from the city gates—close enough that I would’ve actually been a little worried, normally—but since Willem the guildmaster had told me that he’d given advance notice about our arrival, I figured it would probably work out well enough this time. Before I knew it, Gon had touched down on the grass, which was indeed big enough to contain his massive (though technically still not full-sized) form.

He’d spent the whole trip blissfully unconscious.

“Hey, guildmaster? We made it! We’re at the capital! Guildmaster?!” I said as I shook Willem by the shoulders with some difficulty. He was quite a bit older than me, but being a former high-ranking adventurer, he still had some real bulk to him.

“Hmnh... Mnhh... ?!” Willem screamed, shooting to his feet in the blink of an eye. In his mind, apparently, no time at all had gone by between the moment he passed out and now. “L-Lemme down! I want off this creature, !” he bellowed.

“It’s okay, guildmaster! Calm down! We’ve already landed!” I shouted back.

Willem froze in place. “We’ve...what?”

“Like I said, we’ve reached the capital. We just touched down. See for yourself!”

Willem very timidly glanced downward and saw the vividly green grassy field beneath Gon. It took him a moment to process what he was looking at, but eventually, he let out a sigh of relief and flopped onto his backside.

“Okay, let’s all climb down and head for the city! I have a funny feeling that getting past the gate might take a while, so the sooner the better,” I said. The line at the capital’s gate had been long enough that I’d been able to make it out from the air during our approach.

“Y-Yes,” Willem stuttered. “Good idea.”

I made my way down from Gon’s back, followed shortly by Willem, who immediately fell to his hands and knees and started muttering something or other about “sweet solid ground.” , I thought. And, while I waited for him to collect himself...

“Huh?” I grunted. “It looks like some people are coming our way. Wait... Oh, yikes! Hey, this might be bad! We’ve got a bunch of armored knights on our hands!”

“We what?” Willem asked. What appeared to be a whole battalion of knights clad in very fancy-looking gear was making a beeline from the capital’s front gates straight toward us. “That armor... Is that the Royal Guard?”

“Bwuh?!” Royal Guard

“Oh, of course!” Willem said. “It’s because I sent word that we’d be traveling by dragon! That news must have already made its way to the palace.”

am

I decided to hold position, waiting apprehensively for the guards to arrive...and the moment they did, they formed up in an extremely orderly line before me.

“We, the First Division of His Majesty the King’s Royal Guard, have been dispatched to serve as escorts for the S-ranked adventurer Sir Mukohda!” one of the guards declared.

“...” I squealed before I could stop myself, but okay, seriously—you blame me for that! You just can’t! Who sends the to escort a single adventurer into town?!

“It begins,” Willem commented.

“ begins?!” I replied.

“We all knew the king was itching to meet with you. The moment he learned that you’d be in the capital...”

“We shall guide you on your way into the city!” said the guards’ apparent leader. “Form up, men!”

“Yes sir!” the other guards bellowed in unison before spreading out to encircle us in a tight formation.

“Hey, uh, guildmaster?” I whispered to Willem. “Do you think they’d mind if we politely declined?”

“What do think?”

“Figures...”

I didn’t have much choice except to resign myself to my fate and head through the gates, surrounded by Royal Guardsmen the whole way. Now, at first, I that Fel and Gon had taken the hint and decided to behave themselves, but as we cleared the gate and headed into the city proper, Fel sent me a telepathic message.

«So we are going to the palace first? I had thought we would begin by seeing to the leviathan, but I suppose I shall be patient.»

«I mean, how was I supposed to say no?» I replied. «Let’s just get all of our less pleasant business here out of the way nice and quick. That’ll make the rest of our trip easier anyway.»

«True indeed. It has been quite some time since I have met with one of mankind’s kings. The last king I knew was an impertinent fool who made the fatal error of ordering me to be slain. I wonder how king will fare in comparison?» Fel said with a malicious smirk.

«What? Okay, no, hold on, you are going on a rampage here! Absolutely !»

«We shall see.»

«No, we shan’t!»

«It’s been many a year since I last met a king as well, my liege, and my experience was much the same as Fel’s. The king said something about butchering me for materials, and I gave him a hearty helping of dragon’s breath for his trouble.»

«Don’t you start too, Gon! No violence in the city!»

«We’ll see.»

«Will ! Gaaah—I’m begging you guys, , just don’t do anything crazy!»

I could not possibly have been more worried about our upcoming meeting. Dora-chan and Sui, meanwhile, were riding on Fel’s back, chattering about how «That food stall looks awesome!» and «There’re sooo many people here,» so at least of us were enjoying ourselves.

any

And so we marched onward through the capital’s streets. With the Royal Guard surrounding us and drawing huge amounts of attention from the capital’s populace, the trip was, in a word, agonizing.

? ? ? ? ?

We soon arrived at the royal palace, and in almost shockingly short order, I found myself on my way to an audience with the king himself. Fel, Gon, Dora-chan, and Sui were all acting exactly as unconcerned as ever, but the guildmaster and I were on pins and needles as we stood in front of the door to the audience chamber, waiting for our cue to enter.

“Wait. I never asked about what you settled on for your gifts for the king. You sure you chose appropriately, right?” Willem asked.

While we were on our way into the palace, I’d been informed that I should present any gifts I’d brought with me to a handler prior to my audience. According to Willem, that was a perfectly normal security measure—they had to be checked to make sure I wasn’t giving him anything dangerous, after all. That meant I didn’t have my gifts on hand for Willem to look over.

“I thought that an in-person meeting called for something special, so I brought a little extra compared to what I...