Ordo, the Free City
A new morning had dawned.
Roused from sleep by the warm touch of the morning sun, I rubbed my eyes blearily.
Even if I’d gotten used to sleeping rough and living in the mountains, and could drift off comfortably almost anywhere, it still wasn’t the same as a proper bed.
“Mmngh….”
It had been a while since I’d last felt the plush give of a soft bed and a thick comforter, and now I couldn’t bring myself to get up.
Hugging the blanket tight and burying my face in the pillow, I savored the warmth.
This was probably what people called a small but certain happiness.
Part of me wanted to stay here forever, soaking in this languor.
“…I should get up.”
But I couldn’t keep lazing around forever.
I dragged myself out of that comfortable nest, put my cape back on, and left the room.
“Oh, miss. You’re up?”
I gave the innkeeper a casual nod and looked around the inn.
Jurni wasn’t in sight, so it seemed she hadn’t gotten up yet.
“Will you be eating?”
“Do you have anything with meat?”
“If you’ve got coin, I can make you anything you like!”
“I have plenty of money, so make me the tastiest thing you’ve got. Put in only a little bit of vegetables.”
“Understood! One serving, then?”
“Hmm… make it enough for this many.”
I had no idea when she’d wake up, but if she saw me eating alone, she’d just start complaining again.
A wise person anticipated what was about to happen and prevented it before it could.
Today’s me had grown a little more than yesterday’s me.
“We got fresh orc meat this morning. Will that do? A lot of customers don’t like monster meat, you see.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
I didn’t dislike monster meat across the board, but I didn’t eat every monster, either.
If it looked too much like a human, or was so grotesque I couldn’t even bear to bring it to my lips, I hated it just as much as anyone else.
Oh, and things that simply tasted bad.
There were people who called that sort of thing a delicacy, but I wasn’t one of them.
By those standards, orc meat fell comfortably into the category of things I could eat.
Unlike the orcs from fantasy novels in my previous life, who were practically another humanoid race, the orcs in this world were treated more like especially dangerous boars, and they even looked very much like pigs.
They were about as intelligent as wild boars, too.
And above all else…
“Orc meat’s delicious.”
There was a reason orc meat was expensive.
Even if they weren’t all that strong, they were still monsters, so naturally they were harder to hunt than boars—and just that much tastier.
I honestly didn’t know why people hated it so much.
“Now there’s a young lady who knows her food!”
The innkeeper nodded in vigorous agreement with my words.
Jurni was the type to eat cockatrice meat without batting an eye, and she’d even brought back a sandwich made with orc ham last time, so she’d probably eat this breakfast without complaint, too.
After a short wait, the innkeeper brought out the food, and right then Jurni opened the door and came out.
“Good morning!”
Jurni, who spotted me, padded over lightly and lowered her voice as she asked, “Sleep well, Kana?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa… you ordered for me, Kana?”
The smell was delicious….
Sniffing eagerly at the mouthwatering scent of the well-grilled orc steak, Jurni licked her lips.
“Eat.”
“Huh, really?! Thanks!”
At my words, she promptly sat down and picked up her knife.
I watched her and lifted my own knife to the meat.
Even without much force, the flesh parted cleanly beneath the blade.
The cooking was a success, at least; now the question was whether it actually tasted as good as it looked.
Munch.
Chew, chew—
“…It’s good.”
Well, of course it was. Meat cooked this well couldn’t possibly taste bad.
The sauce poured over it wasn’t too salty or too sweet, either; it was just right.
I’d stopped in at the first inn I saw because I wanted to rest as quickly as possible and didn’t feel like checking around, but it seemed I’d stumbled into a good place.
“Good ingredients make good food, after all!”
The innkeeper leaned idly against the counter and watched us eat with a pleased smile.
“Ingredients? What meat is it?”
“Orc meat.”
“…Orc?”
Jurni’s hands froze in midmotion.
“Not the orcs I’m thinking of, right…?”
“If you mean monsters, then yes.”
Clink!
The fork and knife slipped from Jurni’s hands.
“O-orc meat…? The thing I’ve been eating all this time was orc meat? Ugh…! …What? You’ve been eating cockatrice meat just fine? Hey! That’s different…!”
“Miss, what’s wrong? Is it not to your taste?”
“N-no…! This was my first time trying orc meat, and it was so delicious I just—”
“Hahaha! They say there are people who’ve never had it, but no one who’s only had it once. It’s expensive stuff, and not easy to get hold of, either. You ladies are lucky!”
“Ah, ahaha….”
Listening to Jurni’s voice, which sounded like she was laughing even while crying, I shrugged.
What was her problem?
“I’m in a good mood! If you want more, just say the word. I’ll give you as much as you like!”
“N-no… I can’t accept something so precious for free….”
“Nonsense, don’t refuse! I’m just happy to meet customers who actually know good food for once. Those Apostles or whatever they call themselves always freak out at the sight of this stuff. Tsk. They don’t know what they’re missing.”
“I’m an Apostle too… couldn’t we just not make a big deal out of this…?”
Munch, munch.
Whether Jurni was talking or not, I focused on finishing my steak.
It was this tasty, so why wasn’t she eating?
It’d taste even better while it was still hot.
* * *
After breakfast, on the way out of the inn where we’d spent the night, Jurni bent over in a narrow alley and retched dryly.
“Ugh… I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
She’d been making those awful sounds since earlier. Was her stomach upset?
Watching her in silence, I heard her speak in a resentful voice.
“Kana… you should’ve told me it was orc meat….”
“?”
I tilted my head.
So what she’d been upset about all this time was eating orc meat?
“Did it taste bad?”
“It was delicious. …No! The taste isn’t the issue!”
I helpfully corrected her.
“The important thing is the taste.”
“The taste isn’t what matters!”
“Then what is?”
“The problem is that I ate an orc…!”
“Why? You ate it before, too.”
“…Before? When?”
At that, I mimed holding something long and eating it.
In other words, I mimed eating a sandwich.
“That ham sandwich you ate before—that was made from orc, too.”
Unfortunately, my tongue wasn’t so refined that I could always identify every ingredient in something after tasting it once.
That wasn’t entirely a bad thing, though; otherwise I’d never have been able to survive by eating whatever I could get my hands on.
Still, the reason I’d been able to figure out what that ham was made of was that orc meat had a flavor that was unmistakably different from ordinary pork.
How she’d managed to get her hands on ham like that, I had no idea. Quite the talent she had.
“That ham was made from orc…?”
Could it be she hadn’t even known what kind of ham she’d bought?
Apparently shocked, Jurni couldn’t get the words out.
I was just as dumbfounded, of course.
Does it make any sense not to know what you bought for yourself?
At least it had been food she could eat. If it had been poisoned or something and she couldn’t have eaten it, then what?
Well, it’s not like anyone would sell that sort of thing on the street, but still—what if?
Was this what people meant by “cute but airheaded”?
Leaving the foolish Jurni behind, I quickened my pace.
I had a long way to go, and I had no time to indulge in nonsense like that.
“Wait for me!”
We left the narrow alley and stepped onto the main road.
By then, quite a bit of time had passed since breakfast, and the streets were full of people.
“Where are we going now?”
“A merchant caravan.”
I answered without stopping.
I’d considered buying a horse or a carriage, but if I could save money, I should save it.
If I could get a guard assignment or ride along by request, I’d slip into any caravan heading toward Sedes or somewhere nearby; if there wasn’t a decent one, I planned to buy transport then.
Caravan, caravan….
Muttering to herself, Jurni suddenly straightened her chest.
“Leave it to me!”
“….”
Putting a caravan escort together should’ve suited her, a mercenary, far better than it suited me…
…but the problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to trust her.
She hadn’t been all that dependable to begin with, and now that I’d seen that ridiculous display from earlier, even the little bit of trust I’d had had evaporated.
When I shot her a dubious look, Jurni told me to follow her and strode off with complete confidence.
And that was how we arrived at the Liberi Ordo branch.
But wait—weren’t we forgetting something?
“I’m not a mercenary.”
Setting aside the fact that I didn’t exactly like mercenaries, could someone like me, an outsider, even take on a request?
I hadn’t been trying to find out by going there myself for nothing.
“Uh… shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Apparently that hadn’t occurred to her at all, because all the confidence in Jurni’s voice vanished on the spot.
“…I’ll do my best!”
Maybe she meant she’d muddle through somehow.
Clenching her fist, Jurni left me behind and went into the Liberi branch.
Left alone, I folded my arms nearby and waited for her to come back out.
“…”
I’d been standing there for a while when the people passing by on the street began to turn their attention toward me little by little.
“Wait, is that…?”
“…Looks like it.”
“Why’s she here…?”
“…That’s annoying.”
Never seen someone with a hood on before? Why were they whispering about me like that?
No, on closer inspection, most of the idiots whispering were Apostles.
So the rumors about me had reached here, too.
Thankfully, the nuisances who’d been pestering me were only sizing me up in silence, which meant even Apostles were apparently afraid of the bite of public authority.
“Kana…!”
Jurni came hopping out.
“I did it!”
“…It worked?”
“Yep!”
So it actually worked….
Maybe Liberi was run in a slapdash, improvised way after all.
“So, where are we headed?”
“Liberi!”
The Free Mercenary City of Liberi.
Jurni beamed as she said the name aloud.
“Liberi….”
It was in the northeast of the Empire, if I remembered right?
It was a bit far from Sedes Holy Kingdom, which lay down in the southeast, but it wasn’t too bad.
At least the direction wasn’t completely off.
“When do we leave?”
“Um, ten….”
“Ten o’clock.”
We were a little pressed for time, but since there was nothing else I needed to pack, I supposed it would be fine.
But Jurni’s sentence wasn’t finished yet.
“…There are only nine minutes left.”
“…?”
“We have to run.”
As soon as the words were out, she grabbed my hand tightly and bolted down the street.
“What the hell?! Watch where you’re going!”
“Hey, my shoulder’s gonna get shattered!”
“Ow, ow… Sorry, I’m in a huge rush right now…! Ack! Sorry!”
“Honestly….”
Of course. I should’ve known things were going a little too smoothly.
I sighed as I watched Jurni sprint ahead, and I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to dodge the people on the street or ram straight into them.