The Chair has Dinner

We followed behind as Ai’s vines trailed over to the beast. She quickly confirmed it was dead, then neutralized the poison. Did Ai have Poison Magic? Or maybe it was a trait of her vines. I didn’t know.

Emma rummaged around in her rucksack before pulling out a mid-grade potion and a new rag, handing it over to Aster.

“Nice, though I’d wish you’d stop losing body parts,” Rufus commented, averting his eyes from her body. Aster had already reverted to her feminine form, and her torn up rag easily exposed her body.

“It’s convenient.”

“Wait,” I said. “You always sacrifice your body like that?”

“It’s convenient.”

“Why?”

“It’s convenient.”

“Saying the same thing over and over again doesn’t explain anything.” Aster tilted her head quizzically, but she eventually explained properly.

Aster drank the mana potion, sticking her arm where it once was attached. All the wounds on her body disappeared: her arm reattached itself, as if it hadn’t been severed in the first place. She then changed her rags, prompting Rufus to immediately turn around.

“I can regenerate any part of my body as long as I’m alive. By disconnecting the nerves right before impact, I can avoid any pain. I didn’t necessarily need to reattach my arm, but it uses less mana that way.” That was concerning. If she was ever put in a situation where she couldn’t get a healing potion, she could spend days or seasons regenerating herself. While logically sound, it was reckless. Sure, taking advantage of that ability is useful, but it shouldn’t be her main strategy. At the same time though, I wanted to see what other tricks she had up her sleeve.

“Okay, it’s ready,” Ai said, her vines moving away from the dead wolf beast. It sounded like the poison had been drained from its body. Rufus stepped in afterward, using a dagger to harvest the meat. It wasn’t particularly clean, but it got the job done. Emma then cleaned off the meat with a water crystal, flushing the blood and other bits out.

“Let’s set up camp for the night. We can use the beast’s leftovers as fuel for the fire.”

“Okay,” Emma nodded. She unpacked her rucksack, pulling out a cutting board, knife, and large pot. She also took out some pre-diced vegetables and a large container filled with some sort of liquid. I was impressed that the rucksack could fit that much.

Rufus glanced over at Ai next before heading towards a nearby tree. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Fine,” Ai sighed aloud. She raised one of her fingers, making a bunch of off-putting, purple-brown plants to sprout out of the ground. It gave off a slightly sweet scent that made me feel nauseous.

“A repellant of some kind?”

“The lavender is more of a deodorizer. The smell will stick around until the lavender has removed the smell of the rotting corpse.” Convenient but annoying at the same time.

Turning my attention back towards Emma, she quickly diced up the wolf beast meat before throwing it into the pot, followed by the vegetables and strange liquid. Rufus came back with some nearby branches, creating a makeshift hook over the beast’s corpse. Once that was finished, Rufus lit the body with a fire crystal. Emma hung the pot over the fire soon after.

Emma stirred the pot with a long wooden ladle to ensure everything was evenly cooked. I expected to wait an hour for the stew, but the strange liquid started to boil in five minutes. Ten minutes after that, the stew was served.

There was only one type of drinkable liquid that could cook so fast: beast broth. As the name implies, beast broth was made from simmering the bones of beasts. It had a tendency to conduct mana, so the liquid was very sensitive to its surroundings, including changes in temperature.

However, there were a couple of downsides. First, you could easily burn anything cooking in the pot. You would need to pay extra attention to whatever was cooking. Second, beast broth had a very gamey flavor, making it highly unpalatable. Seasonings didn’t help much to mask the flavor. I usually avoided having it because of that.

Ai rushed over to the front of the line as soon as the stew finished. Aster and Rufus were only a step behind her. It left me a bit surprised since I knew how the flavor would taste. However, the three were already greedily eating, a happy smile plastered on their faces. After seeing that, I grabbed a bowl for myself. The soup was a golden brown and smelled delicious. I could feel my mouth starting to water. Against my better judgment, I took a bite.

The beast broth hit me first. It had a mellow undertone, serving no more as a base to enhance the flavors of the other ingredients. It still retained a bit of its gaminess, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Next was the wolf beast meat. Most meat tasted like a chicken beast to me, but this one had a deeper layer of savoriness. It was so tender that the meat fell apart in my mouth. Finally, the vegetables rounded off the missing flavors, tying the meat and broth together. All in all, it was surprisingly tasty. It could’ve used a bit more seasoning though.

Emma sat down next to me once she finished serving Ai a second bowl. “Glad you’re enjoying the stew.”

I gave a quick nod while I finished off my current bite. “Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be this good. I don’t remember beast broth tasting like this though. It was more bitter and flat.”

“Well, most of the issues with beast broth comes down to how it’s prepared. Since the broth is made from the bones of a beast, a bit of extra legwork is needed to remove any of the nasty junk. Like any other beast, you simmer the bones to pull out the flavor. The longer you simmer, the stronger the flavor. Most people tend to leave the pot simmering overnight or for an entire day, making the flavor too strong. I find it tastes the best when I simmer and remove the scum for around twelve hours. From there, it’s just a matter of trying other ingredients to get whatever flavor profile you want.”

“Wow…” So, she could speak clearly. “...you’re quite the impressive cook.”

“I learned everything from my mom. She runs a restaurant back in Akamai.”

“Oh really? I would’ve thought your mom was a herbalist, with all your knowledge in plants.”

“She was, though that was technically our entire village where we originally lived. See, our village was created for the purpose of researching flora.”

“You’re from one of the border villages?”

“Yep, the Mixing Point to be precise.” That…was astounding. Border villagers were notoriously difficult places to live. They were typically situated in the middle of dangerous areas, usually given one purpose by the higher-ups in the country. Some provided intel on another country’s movements while others researched life-threatening topics. As long as you kept producing results, the village had unlimited funding.

The Mixing Point was an especially hard place to live since it was a space warped by an overabundance of mana. Six biomes – forest, grassland, ocean, tundra, desert, and volcano – coexisted directly next to each other, separated by clearly defined borders. It was said that if you walked in any direction, you would enter a new biome in twenty minutes. However…

“I thought the villages in the Mixing Point were destroyed a few years back.”

“...they were, but most of the villagers were able to safely make it out.”

It seemed like she was a bit uncomfortable, but curiosity was getting the better of me. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?” Emma sat silently, fiddling with her fingers as she hesitated to answer.

“I-it… was basically bad luck. We lived in the forest biome, so it was rather safe compared to the others. Of course, it wasn’t completely safe: our village was the hunting grounds for some of the volcano and tundra beasts. We had food stores, so they tended to raid us every so often. The village guards did manage to drive them back, though not without major effort.

“One day, we were extremely unlucky. According to the others, both the tundra and volcano beasts came to raid us around the same time. The guards couldn’t hold off both of them at the same time, so most of our house and fields were torched and frozen over and over. The beasts did eventually leave the village, but the buildings were left in disrepair.

“Normally, we would be able to rebuild the village: there were a number of contingency plans for such a situation. However, there was supposed to be a rainstorm in a few days. The extreme heat and cold had shattered all our metal rain covers, and it would take too long to get new ones in. We made the choice to abandon the village to save our lives. There were plenty of little nooks within the forest, so we were able to wait out the rainstorm before heading towards the next town. We did check the village after the rainstorm, but the only thing left was the sidewalks we walked on. The rainstorm had melted the rest away.”

“Wait. How can rain melt away things? It only makes you wet,” Rufus asked, joining in on our conversation.

Emma moved away slightly before continuing her explanation. “U-um, I didn’t say rain. I said rainstorm. Rainstorms have acid droplets instead of water, so it eats away at anything it touches. The more yellow the clouds, the stronger the acid. Similarly, the darker the clouds, the longer the rainstorm will last. Honestly, the attack might have been a blessing since our rain covers would’ve given out before the rainstorm subsided. There aren’t any rain covers that can survive yellow rainstorms for a large period of time yet.”

“Are rainstorms common? I haven’t heard of them.”

“Well, most towns, cities, and paths are always built outside of common rainstorm areas, so most people will never encounter them. The guild should have a list of places where and when rainstorms occur. Regardless, I always make sure to have a few rain covers on me, which should survive everything but yellow rainstorms.”

“Okay, guess we don’t need to care about them then.”

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted.