That Makes Sense
That evening.
“Ta-da. Our traditional dish. Meat pie.”
“Wow… seeing this out here…”
“Looks delicious.”
Huey and Lucy had apparently found lodging without trouble. Watching them return to Carol’s general store—and watching the very food I’d stuffed myself with until my stomach was ready to burst get set down in front of them—I turned my head away.
“Ugh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“How unusual. Ren turning her face from food.”
“Ahem.”
I shot a mild glare at Carol, who was scratching the back of her head with a wing as if embarrassed, then carefully opened my mouth so nothing inside would come back up.
“…I ate until I was sick of it before you two showed up.”
“Well, seeing a little chick after so long got me all fired up… Ahaha.”
“It was tasty, though.”
“Right!?”
The pie she’d made—claiming it was traditional bird-beastman cuisine—was the size of my face. Packed full of meat soaked thoroughly in sauce, it had been delicious at first.
“Up through the fifth one, that is.”
When I said that while wrapping my swollen belly with my wings, the two of them finally seemed to grasp roughly what had happened.
“Watching you walk around so skinny, I just couldn’t help myself…”
“If this is skinny, then is that one a skeleton?”
I pointed at Lucy out of sheer disbelief. She immediately glared at me.
“Ren. You’re asking for a fight, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t talking about chests!”
“Ahaha. Well, we’ll gratefully dig in.”
“…Better to eat before it gets cold, I suppose.”
If Huey hadn’t stopped Lucy as she started to rise and smoothly changed the subject, she would absolutely have charged me the same way she’d once beaten Huey black and blue. From what I’d seen these past few days, that girl was secretly dangerous.
Anyway.
“Oh, this is good.”
“It really is. The dough feels different from ordinary pie crust too.”
“Ufufu. Traditional food wouldn’t be any fun if it were ordinary, now would it?”
And so the explanation I’d already heard once began again.
“As you can see, we don’t have hands, but our leg strength is excellent.”
With that leg strength they kneaded the dough by stomping it underfoot. Once the dough was ready they let it rest and age, then rolled it out carefully.
“Our body structure makes complicated processes impossible anyway, and it would be a problem if the pie got crushed while we were eating it. So we just lay the dough in a mold, put in the filling we prepared ahead of time, wrap it up, and bake. Done.”
“Easy to make, easy to eat—the special meat pie is complete!”
She picked one up with both wings and held it out proudly.
“There’s plenty, so help yourselves!”
“Eat in moderation. Don’t end up like me.”
“Aww, that’s so mean, baby.”
Mean? She ought to look at my stomach before saying that.
…I couldn’t take it anymore. Watching the two of them keep eating made me genuinely feel like everything inside was about to reverse course. Deciding I needed to digest at least a little, I stood up.
“I’m going for a short walk.”
“Phew. That hit the spot.”
“As expected, cocoa after a meal is the absolute best…”
Leaving Ren, who had excused herself for a walk, behind them, Huey and Luciella finished their meal, sipped the tea Caroline had poured, and leaned back in their chairs.
“Fufu. Was the meal to your liking?”
Carol smiled contentedly at the pair.
“Yes. Thanks to you, Carol, our mouths are living large. Haha.”
“Cocoa… peak sense…”
She joined the table where the two of them were languidly sprawled in the afterglow of the meal.
“Well then, since the baby has stepped out for once…”
“Carol?”
Carol opened her mouth with a mischievous grin.
“Huey, you like the baby, don’t you?”
“Pffft!”
“It shows rather a lot.”
“Oh my, so surprised. Honey was practically dripping from your eyes—I assumed you were doing it on purpose.”
“Cough! Gack!”
Huey choked and sputtered, completely blindsided by the sudden question.
“…Does it show that much?”
“…Is that even a question?”
“Sigh. What a hopeless master.”
After a moment Huey nodded with a resolute expression.
“Yes. I like her.”
“Oh my, oh my.”
“Coming out with that confident face now is completely pointless…”
“Ahem.”
Luciella’s scathing assessment poured down on him at once, but Caroline only smiled brightly.
“Fufu. Honesty is a wonderful thing.”
She looked at Huey and continued.
“So, wishing that honest Huey does well, I’ll give you one piece of advice.”
Leaning forward as if to emphasize secrecy, she dropped her voice.
“Ufufu. Our species, you see…”
Huey leaned in as well, concentrating. Luciella, looking distinctly displeased at the large breasts now pressed against the table, simply took another sip of cocoa.
“We lay eggs once every full moon. When that time comes, our insides soften so the eggs can come out more easily.”
“…Huh? W-wait a second!”
“Oh, come now. Listen to the end.”
She shot a mild look at Huey, whose face had gone scarlet at the sudden bombshell, then continued in a serious tone.
“But it takes time to get used to. For chicks who are just beginning to lay, the mother would sometimes help them directly.”
The first laying wasn’t much trouble because the egg wasn’t fully grown and stayed small. From the second laying onward, however, until the body matured enough, the egg often got stuck inside.
“In those cases you do this—right here, a little above the lower belly… around the navel—and press downward as if pushing it out, like so.”
As if delivering the finishing blow to Huey’s already tomato-red face, Caroline leaned back and demonstrated the pressing motion on her own abdomen.
“Since you’re human, Huey, if you press with those long fingers of yours, I think the baby will slip right out.”
She herself had bonded with her husband that way, she added.
“No—look, I appreciate the information, but telling me something like that…”
“Oh my, but if I don’t tell you, the baby will have a hard time later, won’t she?”
“As you can see, there are women in our party as well…”
“I will not do it.”
“See?”
“I’m going insane. Seriously.”
Huey smacked his forehead at Luciella’s flat refusal.
“Master. Think carefully. You said that even when she showed you her naked body while bathing, it didn’t bother her at all.”
“Do we have to bring that up right now?”
“She even asked whether you had any way to dry her off.”
“Ren told you that much?”
“The fact that she specifically asked Master even though I was right there…”
Luciella trailed off meaningfully. Huey understood at once: because Ren had originally been male, she instinctively hesitated to make that kind of request of another woman.
“That… makes sense.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Luciella already knew from Ren herself that she had never intended to ask anyone; she had simply mentioned it because Huey happened to appear at a convenient moment. With a perfectly blank expression, Luciella began spinning a casual lie.
Of course, there was no ulterior motive such as wanting to watch the two of them grow closer.
“Therefore Master is the most suitable person for the job.”
She simply found the idea of helping with egg-laying bothersome.
“Fufu. So my little story was helpful, wasn’t it?”
“…Yes.”
“Of course it was.”
And so, with the two women locking eyes, the future tilted a little further toward chaos…
But that pleasure could wait for later.
“Hwaaam…”
“You’re up, baby?”
“Yeah…”
Two days had slipped by surprisingly fast.
“In the end flight was a failure. I really wanted to see the baby’s first flight…”
“Probably because I used to be human. Something’s off somewhere.”
All two days of effort had earned me was the ability to see the flow of the wind, more or less.
As I stretched, a sound reached my ears.
—Swaaaaah.
“…Rain again?”
“It’s been pouring since before dawn. It’s not even the rainy season.”
If it kept coming down like that, we wouldn’t be able to leave again, would we?
“Sigh. On days like this the wings get heavy and I hate it.”
“Ah—so it’s not just me?”
“Of course not. Once the wings soak up moisture you can’t fly, and you can barely stir up wind either. Here, wet your throat with some warm tea first, baby.”
“Thanks.”
Judging by Carol’s reaction, I hadn’t been oversensitive after all.
—Creak.
“Phew, what’s with this rain first thing in the morning.”
“Good morning, Ren, Carol.”
While I was drinking the tea Carol had handed me, Huey and Lucy stepped into the general store wearing rain gear. The fact that Lucy had even brought her coffin suggested they intended to leave immediately.
“According to the tavern keeper, the water all drained overnight.”
“It’ll take time for the road to flood again with the rain that’s falling now, so if we’re going to leave we should go early, he said.”
“Aha.”
Then we needed to move quickly.
“Oh my, leaving already?”
“Yeah. Better go before the road floods again.”
“That’s a shame. As I said a little while ago, I wanted to keep you in my arms until you could fly if at all possible.”
“Can’t be helped. Instead, once I can fly I’ll definitely come show you.”
“Fufu. Promise?”
“Of course.”
We had imposed on her for quite a while, after all.
After saying our goodbyes to Carol, just as we were about to step out of the general store in our rain gear—
“Carol!!”
“…Irene?”
Martin’s mother, Irene, came running up completely soaked by the rain, looking frantic.
“What’s the matter, rushing like that?”
“Hanson… Hanson…!”
“Martin’s dad? What about him all of a sudden?”
“He went out early this morning saying he needed to open a waterway so the quarry wouldn’t flood… and part of the quarry collapsed and he’s trapped…!”
“What!?”
…Looks like we would have to put departure on hold for a little while.