Chapter 15
That evening.
“Ta-da. Our traditional dish. It’s meat pie.”
“Wow, I didn’t expect to see this here….”
“It looks delicious.”
Having apparently found a place to stay, Huey and Lucy had returned to Carol’s general store, where I turned away as I watched the food we had just stuffed ourselves with being set down in front of them.
“Ugh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“How unusual. Ren turning away from food.”
“Ahem.”
After giving Carol, who was scratching the back of her head with a wing in embarrassment, a slight glare,
I carefully opened my mouth so the contents of my stomach wouldn’t come back up.
“…We ate until I was sick of it before you two came.”
“Seeing a little fledgling for the first time in ages got me all fired up… Ahaha.”
“It was tasty, though.”
“Right!?”
The traditional bird-beastkin dish Carol had made was a pie as big as my face.
It was packed with meat soaked in sauce, so I had enjoyed it at first.
“Up to five, anyway.”
As I said that while wrapping my wings around my bulging stomach,
the two of them finally seemed to realize what had happened, judging by the looks on their faces.
“Seeing you walk around in such a scrawny body, I couldn’t help myself….”
“If that’s skinny, is she a skeleton?”
I said that while pointing at Lucy, utterly dumbfounded.
“You’re saying you want to fight, Ren?”
“I wasn’t talking about your breasts!?”
Lucy glared at me as though I were deliberately provoking her.
“Ahaha. We’ll eat gratefully for now.”
“…Well, it’s probably better to eat before it gets cold.”
If Huey hadn’t stopped Lucy as she was about to stand and changed the subject, she definitely would have rushed at me just as she had beaten Huey up last time.
I’d realized this after watching her for the past few days, but Lucy was surprisingly dangerous.
Anyway.
“Oh, this is good.”
“It is. The dough feels different from an ordinary pie, too.”
“Ohoho. If a traditional dish were ordinary, where would be the fun in that?”
The explanation we had heard earlier started over.
“As you can see, we don’t have hands, but our legs are quite strong.”
Since our legs are strong, we knead the dough by stomping on it, and then
“Once the dough is finished, we let it rest, then roll it out well….”
Our bodies aren’t really built for complicated processes in the first place, and it would be troublesome if the dough got squashed while we were eating, so
we lay the dough in a mold, add the filling we prepared beforehand, wrap it up, and bake it, and that’s all there is to it.
“And that’s how you make our special meat pie—easy to make and easy to eat!”
She picked up a pie with both wings as though showing it off.
“There’s plenty, so eat as much as you like!”
“Eat in moderation. Don’t end up like me.”
“Aww. That’s too mean, little fledgling.”
Mean? I wish she’d look at my stomach before saying that.
…This won’t do.
Watching the two of them eat made me feel as though everything in my stomach really was about to come back up.
So, thinking I needed to digest at least a little, I stood up and said,
“I’m going for a walk.”
* *
“Whew, that was a good meal.”
“Cocoa really is best after a meal….”
With Ren gone on the pretext of going for a walk,
Huey and Luciela finished their meal, then leaned back in their chairs while sipping the tea Caroline had served them.
“Hehe. Did you enjoy the meal?”
Carol watched the two of them with a pleased smile.
“Yes. Thanks to you, we’ve been thoroughly spoiled. Haha.”
“Cocoa… Top-notch….”
As Caroline joined the table where the two were lounging contentedly in the afterglow of their meal,
“Well, now that the little fledgling has stepped away for once….”
“Ms. Carol?”
Caroline opened her mouth with a broad grin.
“Mr. Huey, you like the little fledgling, don’t you?”
“Pffft!”
“It’s pretty obvious.”
“My, don’t be so surprised. Your eyes were practically dripping honey, so I thought you were deliberately making it obvious.”
“Cough! Khck!”
Huey coughed, unable to collect himself after the sudden question.
“…Is it really that obvious?”
“…Is that even a question?”
“Sigh. What a pathetic Master.”
Before long, Huey nodded with a solemn expression.
“Yes. I like her.”
“Oh my, oh my.”
“Even if you’re only saying it now with such a bold expression….”
“Ahem.”
Though Luciela immediately began disparaging him as though he were pathetic,
“Hehe. Honesty is a wonderful thing.”
Caroline smiled brightly at Huey and opened her mouth.
“So, because I want honest Mr. Huey to do well, let me offer you one piece of advice.”
Caroline leaned forward and spoke in a small voice, as though emphasizing that this was a secret.
“Ohoho. Our species, you see….”
As Caroline did so, Huey likewise leaned forward and listened intently, while
Luciela took another sip of cocoa, looking displeased at Caroline’s large breasts pressed against the table.
“We lay an egg every fifteen days, and when the time comes, our insides soften so that the egg can be laid more easily.”
“…What? W-wait a moment!”
“Oh, honestly. Hear me out.”
She cast a sidelong glance at Huey, whose face had flushed at the sudden bombshell,
and Caroline continued with a serious expression.
“But it also takes time to get used to that, so mothers used to help fledglings who had just begun laying eggs.”
During the first laying, the egg hasn’t fully developed yet, so it’s small and doesn’t cause much trouble.
But from the second laying onward, it sometimes gets stuck inside until the body has matured enough.
“When that happens, you press firmly here, a little above the lower abdomen… around the navel, pushing downward like this. See?”
As though delivering a final blow to Huey, whose face was already bright red like a tomato, Caroline leaned back and mimed pressing down on her stomach.
“Since Mr. Huey is human, I think if you press with those long fingers, the little fledgling will slide right out in no time.”
She said that she had gotten together with her husband that way herself.
“No, I mean, it’s nice of you to tell me, but even if you tell me something like that….”
“Oh my, but if I don’t tell you, the little fledgling will have a hard time later, you know?”
“As you can see, there’s a woman in our party, too….”
“I’m not doing it.”
“See?”
“I’m going crazy. Seriously.”
At Luciela’s firm answer, Huey smacked his forehead.
“Master, think carefully. You said you didn’t even mind when Ren showed you her naked body while bathing.”
“Do you really have to bring that up now?”
“Ren even went so far as to ask you whether you had a way to dry her body.”
“Did Ren tell you that much?”
“Considering she asked you even though I was there….”
Luciela deliberately left the rest hanging.
Huey immediately understood what she meant: since Ren had originally been a man, Ren might instinctively have been reluctant to ask a woman for such a favor.
“That… makes sense.”
“Right?”
Luciela had heard from Ren that she had only brought it up because Huey happened to arrive at a convenient time, and had merely mentioned it without intending to ask anyone for help.
She began calmly spinning a lie.
Of course, there was no reason whatsoever, such as wanting to see the two of them get together.
“So this means Master is the one best suited for the job.”
She was simply too lazy to help with the egg-laying.
“Hehe. So, my story was helpful, right?”
“…Yes.”
“Of course.”
Thus, with the two women exchanging glances, the future was sent even further toward chaos…
But that would be something to enjoy later.
* *
“Yaaawn….”
“Are you awake, little fledgling?”
“Yeah….”
Two days passed incredibly quickly.
“So flying was a failure after all. I really wanted to see the little fledgling’s first flight….”
“Maybe something’s wrong because the little fledgling used to be human, or something.”
The only thing I had gained from two days of effort was the ability to see the flow of the wind.
As I stretched, I heard a sound.
-Ssshhh.
“…Again?”
“It started pouring at dawn. It’s not even the season for rain.”
At this rate, won’t we be unable to set out again?
“Ugh. I hate rainy days like this because my wings get so heavy.”
“I’m not the only one, right?”
“Of course not. When wings absorb moisture, you can’t fly, and it’s hard even to stir up wind. Here, have some warm tea first, little fledgling.”
“Thanks.”
Judging by Carol’s reaction, it seemed I wasn’t being oversensitive after all.
-Creeak.
“Whew, what’s with all this rain first thing in the morning?”
“Good morning, Ren and Carol.”
While I was drinking the tea Carol had handed me, Huey and Lucy entered the general store wearing rain gear.
Judging by the fact that Lucy had even brought her coffin, they seemed ready to leave at once.
“The tavern keeper said that all the water had drained away last night.”
“Since it’ll take some time for the road to flood again with the rain that’s falling now, he said we should leave early if we want to get going.”
“Aha.”
Then we’d better hurry.
“Oh my, you’re leaving already?”
“Yeah. It’s better to go before the road floods again.”
“That’s a shame. As I said earlier, if possible, I wanted to keep the little fledgling in my arms until she could fly.”
“Can’t be helped. But once I can fly, I’ll come back and show you.”
“Hehe. Promise?”
“Of course.”
We had imposed on Carol for long enough.
After saying goodbye to Carol, I was just about to leave the general store in my rain gear when
“Ms. Carol!!”
“…Irene?”
Martin’s mother, Irene, came running up, drenched from head to toe.
“What happened? Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Hanson… Hanson…!”
“Why? What happened to Martin’s father?”
“He went out early to open a drainage channel so the water wouldn’t pool in the quarry, but part of the quarry collapsed and they say he’s trapped inside…!”
“What!?”
…It looked like we might need to postpone our departure for a while.