Chapter 118
We loaded everyone into the car and made it to the post town at the summit of the pass.
We rescued a merchant who had been in an accident along the way, but after treatment—it seemed his life was no longer in danger.
There were two people blessed with this world's miraculous power, as well as two grand archmages.
If even all that wasn't enough, we'd have to give up and chalk it up to bad luck.
After leaving the injured man in the post town's care, we began preparing dinner a little early. We had been driving through the pass the whole time, so nobody had eaten lunch.
Since we were apparently making curry, Primula began preparing it, and Reiran-san offered to help.
"Um, I'll help peel the vegetables."
"Sensei! I don't think you need to push yourself."
Just as Akira had said, she apparently couldn't cook at all.
Annerose-san was wandering around alongside her, but she didn't seem to be able to cook at all either.
Well, she'd been a noble once. The female knight watching them had given up from the start.
Reiran-san began using a kitchen knife, but she was so dangerous with it that I couldn't bear to watch.
"Please use this for peeling."
I took a peeler out of my Item Box and handed it to her.
"What's this?"
"It's a blade that makes it easy to peel vegetables."
After demonstrating how to use it, I saw Reiran-san stare in surprise.
"With this, even I can peel vegetables!"
"Um... Could I use one too?"
Annerose-san must have thought she could peel vegetables if she had a peeler.
I gave her one as well and had her help with the peeling. There was an awful lot to do, after all.
"What are Kenichi and the others eating, nya?"
"We're thinking of eating some dragon offal, but—"
I took out a section of intestine left over from when we butchered the dragon.
Anemone had cooled it for me, and I had put it straight into my Item Box, so it felt cool in my hands.
"Aagh! It stinks, nya!"
"Ulp! Boss! We're about to eat! Cut it out!"
Everyone protested loudly, so I moved a little farther away and set out a table.
I took a large plastic container from my Item Box, filled it with water, and vigorously washed the intestines.
We had drawn plenty of water from the river. Since we were going to grill and eat them in the end, washing them with river water should be fine.
"That's one huge intestine. Is it about twenty centimeters across?"
"Something like that."
It was a white, thick, flabby ring-shaped tube, with folds and bumps on the inside. It certainly smelled awful—but intestines were supposed to be like this.
"Have you ever eaten grilled offal, Kenichi?"
"My maternal grandmother used to serve grilled offal at her diner."
"Huh... I ate it in Osaka, but I never expected I'd end up eating dragon offal in another world..."
"Same here."
I changed the water and washed them several times.
"Are you going to throw the water away later?"
"Between you and me—my Item Box has a place where I can throw things away."
"Seriously? Is there a hole or something?"
"Yeah. You can throw anything you don't need in there."
"Good grief! Then I could kill anyone I didn't like and put them in there for a perfect crime..."
Akira folded his arms and grinned.
"Well, that's the idea."
"I could kidnap people too..."
"I do have a conscience, so I won't use it for evil. I don't want my family to hate me. You wouldn't want Reiran-san to hate you either, would you?"
"Absolutely not."
"Anyway, leave garbage disposal to me."
"Okay."
Once the intestines were clean, I cut them on the table. Since the meat was so thick, I had to slice it as thinly as possible.
Offal is springy and tough.
A regular kitchen knife couldn't cut it thinly, so I bought a fugu-slicing knife from Shangri-La for about ten thousand yen.
The blade was thin and flexible, allowing me to slice cleanly and thinly. I arranged the slices on a large platter.
"It looks like fugu sashimi."
"If you don't do this, it'll be too chewy to bite through."
"It is pretty thick."
Once I had enough slices, I took a cassette stove from my Item Box and tried grilling them.
"A cassette stove?"
"It has gas too. What we use over there is a magical stove."
Akira apparently had a magical stove of his own, so he probably didn't need a cassette stove.
I bought some sauce for grilled offal from Shangri-La—three bottles for 2,000 yen.
I also took out stools and small dishes for the sauce from my Item Box.
"This feels like some seedy little drinking joint on the outskirts of town."
Akira laughed at my comment.
"A standing bar in another world where you can sit down and drink! Hahaha!"
We sat on the stools, placed a yakiniku griddle on the stove, and grilled the intestines on it.
The griddle had grooves carved into it so the fat would run off below. It produced an incredible amount of sizzling smoke, but we were outside, so there was no problem with making as much smoke as we wanted.
As they cooked, the meat curled into little rolls, giving off a savory aroma.
"Ooh! It smells great! The smell gets a passing grade!"
I handed the excited Akira a pair of disposable chopsticks.
"How does it taste? If it's awful, we'll have to throw away this mountain of intestines."
"That'd be a waste—puff, puff... Here goes. Chomp, chomp."
"Let me try some too—chomp, chomp."
"Delicious! Too delicious!!"
Our voices overlapped. The chewy texture and rich, fatty flavor combined with the spicy sauce to create a wonderful harmony in our mouths.
"What is this? This is seriously delicious!"
Akira took a can of E○s beer from his Item Box and opened it.
"You're drinking already?"
"What goes with grilled offal if not beer?! Gulp, gulp, gulp—ahh! This is heaven!"
"Grilled offal and beer. A demon's purine attack—straight to gout in another world."
"Oh, come on! Do you really think the Blessed can get gout?"
Akira had a point. Could people like us, who constantly had Heal active, even get sick?
"Akira, where's your hometown? You seem to mix together all kinds of dialects..."
"Huh? I don't really have one. Because of my father's job, we moved all over Japan every six months to a year at a time."
"Ah, I see. You circled Japan by motorcycle and traveled around the world on a shoestring too, right?"
"Hahaha! Exactly!"
"So is this other world just another stop on your life of traveling?"
"Maybe... I can't think of anywhere I'd call home and want to go back to. Even after coming to the Empire in this other world, I never settled anywhere."
"But you're thinking about settling down soon...?"
"Yeah... I have Sensei, after all."
Reiran-san seemed to want to settle down and devote herself to magical research too, but while she was in the Empire, she could be drafted whether she liked it or not, so apparently that had been difficult.
"I suppose that's inevitable, since the country paid for your mage training."
"It was like being a Self-Defense Forces officer who attended the National Defense Academy."
In Japan, she could have refused her commission, but that wasn't possible in the Empire.
"Nyaa."
Bell came to my feet.
I gave her some grilled offal without dipping it in sauce. She ate it with obvious relish.
I wondered what I would do if Bell stopped eating anything else.
While Akira and I ate offal and talked, the princess came over and stared intently at the intestines, smoking and blackening in white clouds.
"Princess Lilith, the smell will get into your clothes."
"..."
"All right, all right..."
I brought out a chair from my Item Box and seated the princess.
"Are you really going to eat such lowly food?"
"I decide whether it's lowly!"
"The princess may say that, but royal and imperial families don't eat animal offal, do they? This is commoners' food."
Akira had a point, but the princess ignored us and decided to try it anyway.
I brought out another plate and poured sauce into it.
She couldn't use chopsticks, so she ate with a fork.
"Munch, munch. It's quite chewy!"
"How does it taste?"
The princess chewed the meat for a while, then swallowed it.
"Delicious! This is delicious! What a rich flavor. This is the true taste of meat!"
"—Or rather, it's the taste of fat, isn't it?"
"This white smoke is the smoke from the fat burning too. Kenichi, we're going to run out soon!"
Once the princess joined us, the offal began disappearing at an incredible rate.
I hurriedly began cutting more intestines. The pieces ended up somewhat rough, but there was no helping it.
"The tastiest part of an animal is the offal."
Akira muttered that while drinking his beer.
"Lions eat the offal first when they take down prey, don't they?"
"Yeah, because it's the tastiest and most nutritious. The meat between the ribs is hyena food."
"Right. And hyenas look like dogs, but apparently they aren't dogs."
"Huh... Is that so?"
"Apparently they're close relatives of civets and mongooses."
While the princess continued devouring the grilled offal and Akira and I talked—
Akira pointed behind him with a beer can in his mouth.
"Hey, Kenichi—behind you."
"Behind me? Whoa!"
When I turned around, the beastfolk were standing there with drool streaming from their mouths.
It wasn't just Myaree and Nyamena. Myaa and what seemed to be the male beastfolk from the post town were standing there too, forming a wall of meat.
They must have followed the smell of the meat drifting through the air.
"Hey, don't sneak up on us while suppressing your presence. You'll scare us."
"Boss... I'll pay you, so let me eat that..."
"I can't stand it anymore, nya..."
"Hmm. Even beastfolk can't resist their instincts, it seems. That's how delicious it is."
The princess might have been right.
I had the beastfolk build a stone hearth, then had Anemone light it with her magic.
We placed the griddle on top of it.
"I can lend you a magical stove, but..."
That was Akira's offer, but there was no need to get a stove dirty.
"No, it'll probably get covered in grease, and they say my cassette stove smells like gas."
"The smell of gas? Ah, right. Beastfolk have good noses..."
Besides, cooking over an open fire should taste better.
"Here. This is the meat, so it'll taste better if you cut it as thinly as possible."
"Oooooh!"
The beastfolk swarmed around the dragon's intestines. But they paid no attention to slicing them thinly, hacked the meat apart, and began grilling it with a loud sizzle.
"It's delicious!" "This texture is incredible!" "This sauce is great! It's loaded with spices!"
The beastfolk had powerful jaws, so they seemed perfectly fine with that level of chewiness.
I gave them some alcohol as well. Beer would mean dealing with troublesome aluminum cans, so I went with shochu.
"Here, have some booze. Pour it yourselves. Let's see... ten of you altogether."
I took ten cups from my Item Box. I also brought out two four-liter bottles of Da○goro.
"Whoooo!"
"You're giving us Da○goro?!"
Akira couldn't help but deliver a retort.
"Even that stuff has a reputation for tasting good."
"Well, yeah. Around here, anything with a strange smell or a sour taste counts as alcohol as long as it fermented."
"I think any liquor would taste considerably different after distillation..."
"I've never heard of distilling alcohol."
"Why don't you start a distillery, Akira? I think it would sell."
"Hmm..."
I'd heard that alchemists used dry distillation, so they should be able to distill alcohol too if I taught them how.
I showed Akira one of the magical devices I owned.
"I use a magical device like this. It's a machine that separates the components of liquids."
"Huh... So if you separate out just the alcohol, you can increase the concentration?"
"That's right. I use it to make biodiesel fuel, though."
"Making alcohol in this world wouldn't be a bad idea."
He must have something he wanted to do as well. If he found it, perhaps it would help him settle down.
"You're the one who brought over things like hand pumps, abacuses, and double-entry bookkeeping, aren't you, Akira?"
"What?! Is that true?"
The princess, who had been eating the meat, stared at me in surprise.
"Yeah. I taught double-entry bookkeeping to the guildmaster so I could get the rights to a shop."
"I heard he became the Empire's Minister of Commerce..."
"Hahaha. Since that gave me leverage over him, I took full advantage of it."
"Good heavens. So you weren't merely the Dragon Slayer—you were also the person behind such important inventions..."
While the princess groaned, I called Primula over.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Apparently Akira here invented double-entry bookkeeping in the Empire. You praised it as something wonderful too, didn't you?"
"What? Really?"
"Yeah, it's true! Really true—actually—just kidding! Hahaha!"
"Akira... aren't you getting a little drunk?"
"I'm fine, I'm not drunk! If you have any questions about double-entry bookkeeping, just ask me. I'll teach you hands-on, from head to toe—and even around the waist."
The rule is that anyone who says they're not drunk is drunk.
"Hey, don't make a move on my family, all right?"
"No worries, no worries! If I did something like that, Sensei would pulverize me! Hahaha!"
Though he insisted he wasn't drunk, perhaps the alcohol was starting to affect him—Akira called the female knight over.
"What is it, Akira?"
"Now things are really getting lively! Try this on."
Akira took something resembling red armor from his Item Box.
The red sections had been polished carefully, while the edges looked like gold filigree. They reflected the light brilliantly.
"W-wear this here?"
"Don't like it? I've also got the sword I bought you at the dwarves' shop. I paid a fortune to have this armor made for you too."
"Kuh, kill me..."
"All right, all right—Kenichi, I'm borrowing the house so she can change."
"Go ahead."
Akira took the female knight by the hand and led her into the house.
After a while, the two of them emerged, and the armor had been fitted over the female knight's trained, bare body.
It was armor made with the bare minimum of metal, covering only the important parts.
She wasn't as well-endowed as Reiran-san, but she had large breasts and thick, shapely thighs.
The female knight in gleaming armor blushed shyly and covered her chest and crotch with her arms—it was the legendary bikini armor.
"Fire!"
"Direct hit!!"
Akira and I shouted together.
"Now that's quite a sight."
"Hahaha! Right? It's one of a kind. I paid two hundred Imperial gold coins for it."
Two hundred Imperial gold coins meant... twenty million yen. What an idiot—I mean that as a compliment.
"Oooooh!"
The male beastfolk who had been eating the grilled offal stared at her with gleaming eyes.
Tents were already going up in their crotches.
"Kuh, kill me..."
Primula had been watching this. She went into the house, brought out a blanket, and draped it over the female knight.
"Honestly! What kind of outfit have you put her in?! Isn't this cruel?"
"Now, Primula, she's a pervert who gets excited by this sort of thing. Right? You're happy to be dressed like that with your butt completely exposed, aren't you?"
Akira pulled the female knight close and dug his fingers into her buttocks.
"Kuh, kill me..."
"Akira-sama! In that case, I shall wear an outfit like that too!"
Annerose-san stepped forward toward Akira.
"No, no, it wouldn't suit you, Annerose."
"Annerose-san should wear a princess costume, right?"
"You think so too, right?"
Reiran-san had been eating in silence as she watched the two middle-aged men discuss this.
She set down her plate and strode silently toward Akira.
"Sensei! I'm sorry! I got carried away! I'll stop right now!"
Akira shoved the female knight into the house, bringing the festivities to an end.
The show was over, but Primula was still fuming.
"Honestly! I understand that he's the amazing man who invented double-entry bookkeeping, but I could never like someone like that!"
"Fuhihi, sorry!"
Akira laughed uproariously, but he showed no sign of regretting anything.
"Now, now. He seems drunk, so I don't think he's a bad person. One of the secrets to making money is to associate with people you dislike if it's for business, right?"
"I suppose so, but..."
"Even just the oil Akira can supply would make a substantial business deal. He can produce as much oil as he wants, but he has no distribution network. If the Marlowe Trading Company could get a foothold in that market..."
"..."
As I talked with her, I remembered the female knight in her bikini armor.
When I stared intently at Primula's body, she noticed and let out a shriek, covering herself with her arms.
"I will never wear anything like that!"
"What a shame—then..."
I bought a white bikini from Shangri-La for 2,000 yen and showed it to Myaree and Nyamena, who were eating grilled offal.
"Put this on."
"What is it, boss? You want us to wear this scrap of cloth?" "It's so flimsy, nya."
"Then you only wear armor on your arms and legs."
I handed them armor and swords I had bought at the dwarves' shop.
"Sure, but..." "Nya! I'll put it on right away!"
The beastfolk grabbed the armor and swords and rushed into the house. It had turned into a cosplay contest, but beastfolk should be fine with that.
They didn't mind being naked, after all.
After waiting a while, they came outside wearing the white bikinis over their fur.
The armor matched their toned bodies perfectly.
Their fur made them look a little plumper, but when they got wet, their muscular bodies, hard as steel and completely free of excess fat, would be revealed.
"Nice!"
"Kenichi, bikinis really suit beastfolk. Hmm, they're something else."
Akira folded his arms and groaned thoughtfully. What were two middle-aged men doing?
"Beastfolk don't have any unnecessary flesh, so they're perfect for this kind of cosplay."
"But boss, if we took a blow to the stomach in this, we'd be finished, right?" "It doesn't protect us at all, nya."
Nyamena pointed at her stomach.
"That's the point of this kind of play. Hahaha."
Myaa, who had been watching, hugged Akira.
"Nya?! Akira likes outfits like that too?!"
"Yeah, I do! I love them!"
"I'll wear one too, nya!"
So I bought Myaa a white bikini as well and handed it to her, and she ran into the house.
She quickly put on the bikini and armor, then struck a pose with her sword.
"Ooh! It suits you, Myaa!"
"Really, nya? Akira likes this sort of thing! I'll wear it for you anytime, nya!"
Myaa hugged Akira and purred loudly.
Seeing that, Myaree and Nyamena hugged me too.
"This outfit makes it easy to see your fur."
"We don't mind wearing outfits like this, either." "That's right, nya."
Beastfolk were perfectly comfortable living naked, but other residents complained when they did so, which was why they wore clothes.
"But should we wear helmets too?"
"Kenichi, I don't think that will work. Beastfolk have ears."
"Ah, right... Then how about gas masks?"
I put a gas mask I had bought from Shangri-La on Myaree.
"Oooooh—this is a little chuuni, isn't it? Hahaha."
"What is this, nya?"
Myaree's muffled voice came from inside the mask.
"It's a mask that keeps out poisonous mist."
"Hahaha, that's a little too specialized for me!"
While the two middle-aged men laughed uproariously and played around like that, Primula and Reiran-san gradually began narrowing their eyes, so we called it quits.
"Mmph!"
Anemone was in a thoroughly bad mood too.
"You don't have to get so angry."
I picked Anemone up.
"I'll wear something like that too!"
"Huh? Anemone, isn't it a little too early for you?"
"Why is it too early?!"
"You need to grow a little more first—your chest and legs need to get bigger."
"Mmph!"
While we were fooling around, it had grown dark. We lit a fire for warmth and light.
In this world, once it got dark, there was nothing to do, which was a real problem. All you could do was sleep.
Anemone and Primula were playing backgammon by lantern light.
They seemed to be teaching Reiran-san and Annerose-san as well.
The rules weren't all that difficult, after all.
Akira's family was here, but the female knight was nowhere to be seen—she had retreated into the house.
"Akira, is the female knight—Clementina-san—all right?"
"She's fine, she's fine. She's always like that."
"..."
Akira seemed to notice my doubtful expression.
"It's not as though I've bound Clementina with magic or anything—I'm not."
"There are things like that?"
"There are—items that let you form slave contracts, for example."
"I see..."
According to Akira, it was a ring-shaped item. Both parties to the slave contract put their fingers into it to establish the contract.
You really do need firsthand experience. It's the sort of thing they mean when they say seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times.
Akira and I talked for a while, but there was nothing to do. I was bored. It was still too early to sleep...
I thought of something. With a Japanese person like Akira right in front of me—
"That's right! Akira, can you play mahjong?"
"I can, but..."
"Then we can play two-man mahjong."
"Mahjong with two people?"
"It's pretty fun. I've even played through the night at two-man mahjong before."
I decided to play mahjong with Akira.