Chapter 110 :

Chapter 110 - Cabin Father and Son (5)

Contrary to the cabin owner’s worries, the dinner the child had shown his skill with boasted a fairly convincing appearance and smell.

At the delicious scent stimulating their noses, everyone seated around the table reached out toward the food.

“It’s delicious!”

After taking a bite of the warm bread with steam rising from it, Lia shouted with an excited face.

I agreed with her words too.

The freshly baked bread was a little tough on the outside, but the inside was savory and soft.

Especially compared to the past few days, when we had been melting hard, stale bread into thin soup boiled with jerky and eating it.

“It has been a long time since I had food prepared with this much care.”

Jing also added praise, showing that he agreed with Lia.

This time, even the temple guide focused on eating without being spiteful.

Of course, it might simply have been because he was busy securing his own share while being wary of Ratel’s speed of inhaling food, but anyway.

The kid, who had been watching our reactions with a slightly tense face, only picked up bread and began eating after seeing us eat the food with satisfied faces.

Then he glanced sideways at his father, who was savoring the trout dish he had grilled beside him.

“See? I told you I could do well.”

The kid whispered to his father, who was silently eating trout.

“Hmph, do not get full of yourself. There is still a fishy smell left.”

Even while complaining, half the trout on his plate had already disappeared.

The kid also glanced at that and smiled.

“See? I told you it’s better to leave that much rather than pouring in spices to get rid of the fishy smell like Father does. And maybe the fishy smell is just coming from Father’s philtrum… Ow!”

Judging from the table shaking, I could tell the kid had suffered retaliation under the table.

Thanks to that, the guide’s plate, while he was eating diligently, shook.

For a guide, it seemed like the irritability he had been suppressing for a long time was on the verge of bursting.

His gaze turned toward the father and son, who were still bickering.

“Ah, why did you hit me! Everyone says it’s delicious, but only Father…”

“It tastes bad.”

The one who cut off the kid’s grumbling was not the guide, but an unexpected person: Ratel.

Despite having been eating so diligently that it looked like he would bury his face in the plate, the guy showed inconsistency between words and actions.

“It, it tastes bad?”

The kid asked, unable to hide his gaze that went toward Ratel’s empty bowl.

“It smells fishy.”

At Ratel’s plain, rude, and immature evaluation, the kid’s face crumpled.

“N, no, of course, there can be a little fishy smell, but…”

When his son visibly lost spirit, the flustered father looked at Ratel.

“Ahem… Still, fish dishes naturally cannot completely remove the fishy smell. Besides, a certain amount of fishiness adds flavor…”

“Yours tastes bad too.”

Ratel easily took away his energy as well.

“Y, yes?”

The flustered man stammered back at Ratel, perhaps wondering if he had heard wrong, but the guy’s answer did not change.

“It’s covered by the taste of grass, so it does not even taste like fish.”

Ratel said while chewing the father’s dish.

“Most of all, both of you are noisy, so it is annoying.”

At Ratel’s continued harsh evaluation, the father and son closed their mouths.

It was the start of a quiet, peaceful, but awkward meal.

From time to time, Lia comforted the two by saying, “Still, both are delicious”, but the two father and son, who looked exactly alike, could hardly recover from the shock.

* * *

“Are you really, really not going?”

Lia asked me in a voice full of excitement as she packed fishing rods onto the boat.

“I’m saying this for the fifth time already, but I’m not going.”

At my fifth refusal, Lia looked at me with a regretful face.

“But it’s fishing.”

She tried one last time to draw my interest, but fishing was not tempting enough for me to risk danger and go out onto the river.

“You two go. I’ll just watch from here.”

At my final refusal, Lia seemed to have truly given up now and let out a sigh.

“Jing and Ratel both said they weren’t in the mood to fish. Tomorrow we can receive the blessing at the temple, so I don’t know why everyone’s in such a bad mood. Or should I go ask Ratel one last time?”

“No!”

The kid, who refused Lia’s suggestion in my place, awkwardly scratched his head when both Lia’s and my gazes gathered on him.

“No, what I mean is, um…”

“You’re saying Ratel is scary?”

When Lia finished the words he had been unable to say in a teasing tone, the child’s face flushed red.

“….He is a little.”

After moving his lips a few times, the guy eventually confessed.

At that honest answer, Lia laughed out loud.

“His face is a little scary, but he’s not that scary of a person. You’ll find out soon too.”

At Lia’s words, the cabin boy shook his head as if that was nonsense.

“You’re all leaving tomorrow. I don’t really want to find out before then either.”

Seeing how firm he was, Ratel must have been quite frightening to him.

“You can’t tell that mister this!”

Judging from the way he hurriedly added that too.

Lia burst into laughter again at the title “mister”.

This time, the corners of my mouth also rose without me realizing it.

As expected, I was not the only one who thought that guy looked old for his age.

“He may look like that, but he is probably not that many years older than you. That guy is only seventeen.”

At my answer, the kid’s eyes widened as if they might pop out.

“Don’t lie! Then he’s only two years older than me, but he’s that big?!”

“You never know. Two years from now, you might also become as huge as that guy.”

If I remembered correctly, Ratel had not been that big six years ago either.

If this guy also ate well and grew well from now on, he might grow so much that he would be unrecognizable.

Of course, he would have to move his residence somewhere other than this cabin.

“I really hope so. I think it would be nice even if I only grew as much as you, brother.”

The guy muttered without realizing it.

I belatedly realized that the “brother” he spoke of referred to me.

Perhaps the kid himself was surprised that he had called me brother, because this time too, he closed his mouth.

“Um….I’m sorry. Without realizing it…”

The guy watched my mood, but I was not particularly angry.

There was someone who had been called mister too, after all.

“Stop that and go catch lots of fish. You saw how that mister ate earlier, didn’t you? One or two won’t be enough.”

When I changed the subject, the cabin boy grinned and nodded his head.

“Don’t worry. Fish are caught very well here. About ten won’t be a problem.”

It would probably not be enough even with ten.

While I was debating whether to advise the guy, who still had not grasped Ratel’s appetite, Lia, who was beside him, tilted her head as if puzzled.

“There are that many fish, but there aren’t any animals around. Is it because it’s winter?”

When Lia muttered while looking around the quiet forest, the child shook his head.

“No, it’s about the same in other seasons too. It’s not that there are none at all, but there still aren’t many. Sometimes rabbits or deer come out.”

At the child’s answer, Lia’s eyes widened.

“It’s a forest, but there are no animals? So you mainly catch and eat fish?”

At Lia’s question, the child shook his head again.

“Normally, we also catch and eat mountain game. Still, when receiving guests from Lucha, we are told to serve fish no matter what.”

“Who on earth says that?”

As Lia helped the child groan while lifting a heavy bundle of rope, she asked, and the kid bowed his head in thanks before answering.

“Of course, the people from the temple.”

The child, who answered calmly, climbed onto the boat and took hold of the oar as if nothing was strange.

As if no further explanation was needed, and as if there was no reason to question it any further.

* * *

As I watched the two leave after confidently declaring that they would let us eat our fill tonight as well, a large shadow fell over me.

I could tell who it was without even checking.

“What did you come for, mister?”

“Can you communicate with fish too?”

I looked up at the protagonist bastard, who was spouting the second-most novel nonsense I had heard today, and had to think for a moment.

Maybe I had made a foolish mistake like El too.

Maybe there was actually another person with the same name, Ratel, and some mistake had happened in the middle.

No, maybe the priests of Amica might have taken the wrong person.

“What are you thinking?”

Perhaps he felt an unpleasant aura from my gaze as I looked at him without saying anything, because the guy frowned.

“If I could communicate with fish, I wouldn’t have made those two suffer out there on such a cold day.”

I answered while gesturing with my eyes toward the kid and Lia, who had gone out onto the river in the boat far away.

On the boat breaking through the thin ice on the river, the two were moving around with fishing rods, as if something was exciting.

In truth, this guy had played a big role in making those two launch a boat to go fishing on such a cold day.

Despite having shocked the father and son by saying the food tasted bad, the guy had cleaned out the food, and thanks to that, the father and son had to bring out even the fish they had salted as part of the meal.

Even the ingredients they had left for dinner.

Jing, feeling needlessly sorry, had said they could make a meal out of the jerky they had prepared, but this time the guide caused trouble.

He had begun stubbornly insisting that he would not eat meat until we arrived.

In this case, it seemed most reasonable for Ratel to go fishing, but I did not welcome that.

Because I had a feeling that letting him get close to the river was not a good choice.

His sudden actions always brought troublesome matters along with them.

“If you can communicate with horses, then there is no reason you cannot do it with fish.”

On top of that, he also had the problem that the option of considering other people’s moods did not seem to be inputted in his head.

“How can a person communicate with horses?”

“In Lucha, and when we arrived here too. Ordinary humans do not commune with horses like that.”

Leaving Lucha aside, was he talking about when I briefly spoke to the horses while unloading our luggage a little earlier?

Feeling great fear and a slight creepiness at the guy’s flawless surveillance, I pretended not to know and tilted my head.

“It’s not communication or communion. I’m just talking to them. Communication means both sides have to understand each other, doesn’t it?”

In truth, I could not understand anything like what they were saying. I only felt like they understood to some extent when I spoke to them.

“Is that really all?”

“That’s all.”

The guy looked at me suspiciously, but I feigned ignorance as if I knew nothing.

In any case, the only people in the world with this ability were me and El.

Most of all, if Ratel had been certain that I was hiding an ability, my head would not still be sitting properly on my neck right now.

“You are all lies whenever you open your mouth, so I cannot trust you.”

Perhaps even after thinking it over, he had no clear way to reveal that I was hiding something, because this time, the guy muttered without speaking indirectly.

“Whatever I do, it won’t harm you. I’m someone who wants to see you win.”

This time, it was sincere.

The more obstacles were laid on his path, the more my life here also became a gravel road.

So hurry up and get stronger, then defeat the imperial family or whatever, you young brat.

“So hurry up and get stronger, then defeat the imperial family, you young brat.”

Since he had shown his honest feelings, I also revealed the most sincere truth among my inner thoughts.

Ratel did not seem to like it very much, though.

The moment his face crumpled.

“Kyaaaak!!!”

“Uuuaaaaagh!!!”

The unwelcome screams of two people announced the end of this conversation.

I quickly raised myself and looked toward the two, who had fallen into a situation desperate enough to scream during the brief moment I had taken my eyes off them.

It was far away, so I could not see clearly, but one thing seemed certain.

The cause was something Lia had fished up.