The Moss Boar
A wild boar with moss and mushrooms sprouting all over its body.
Karem found himself quietly marveling at the creature’s bizarre appearance when Catherine asked,
"Well then. How shall we handle it?"
"It’s only a moss boar. No need to waste magic on it."
"Oh? So the mercenary means to hunt it himself?"
"If you’d just make me a spear with that impressive magic of yours."
Catherine accepted the request. She stretched a hand into empty air and simply closed her fist. The moment the small motion finished, ice began to grow from her clenched hand like icicles and stalactites thrusting upward and downward. It lengthened until it stood a handspan taller than Gordon, then stopped.
Gordon took the ice spear she offered, gave it a few experimental swings, and checked the keen point and the shaft’s strength. Satisfied it would serve, he strode forward without hesitation.
Prrrrrt—!
The moss boar that had been warning them off with its entire body suddenly showed open hostility the instant Gordon began advancing. It stopped scraping the ground and launched itself like a car gunning the accelerator, thundering straight at them.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—!
"Lady Atanitas. The distance is still a bit far, but… is that really all right?"
"Just watch for now."
"It looks dangerous."
"What’s the worst that can happen? Broken limbs or a hole punched through his gut?"
"That’s not exactly ‘just’ anything!"
Karem’s worry proved groundless. When barely a few meters remained between Gordon and the charging boar, Gordon dropped into a low stance.
What followed was too fast for Karem’s eyes to track. The last clear image he retained was Gordon leveling the ice spear horizontally. He blinked—and Gordon was suddenly beside the moss boar, driving the spear through the gap between neck and shoulder.
Kweeeeeeeek—!
The impaled moss boar let out a startled, pain-filled shriek and thrashed wildly in place, trying to escape the agony and the threat. Gordon, however, was not thrown off by the thrashing. He planted himself like an ancient tree rooted deep in the earth and braced the butt of the ice spear with his right hand. The shaft sank so deep the sharp tip vanished completely.
"Wait—people hunt like that…?"
Karem had never watched a hunt in person, but he knew the theory. Most hunting used guns or bows; even spear hunts were usually more about showing off strength. Closing to melee range with a spear against a thrashing quarry was something he had never seen.
"Ho. So the talk of him being knight-errant class wasn’t empty boasting after all."
"Uh, Lady Atanitas… can all knights do that bare-handed?"
"If they can’t manage at least that much, they have no business calling themselves knights. Still—that level of footwork. Perhaps the ‘knight-errant’ claim was him selling himself short."
By then the moss boar lay still, body flipped skyward. Gordon yanked the ice spear free, gave it a few satisfied twirls—and the spear suddenly dissolved into mist and vanished into the air.
"Tch. I was rather fond of that thing."
"Yes, it made for a decent show. By the way, boy."
"Yes?"
"Haven’t you forgotten something?"
Ah!
Following Catherine’s nod, Karem’s gaze snapped to the campfire. He had been so absorbed in the hunt that thick black smoke was now billowing from the frying pan. He snatched the pan off the fire at once. Luckily only the sausages were ruined; the pan itself was fine.
While Karem exhaled in relief, Gordon already had a dagger out and was beginning the butchering by slicing away the mushrooms that grew from the moss boar’s hide.
Contrary to Karem’s expectations, Gordon proved surprisingly skilled at butchering. The work was finished in moments. With nothing more than a single dagger he produced a steady swish-swish of cuts until red meat and yellow fat lay heaped like little hills atop the hide that had been spread out like a mat.
Karem was about to ask how they should dispose of the remaining carcass when Catherine stepped in. Cold and the boar’s blood whirled together in an instant; the leftover remains froze solid like a mammoth sealed in a glacier, the red ice shedding white vapor like mist.
Catherine eyed the ice, nodded, and turned away.
"Good. It should stay like that for a while. Once it thaws, the forest animals and monsters will take care of the rest."
"You’re not eating the mushrooms?"
No matter how carefully Karem scanned the pile of meat, not a single mushroom was in sight. When he lifted the hide a little and confirmed the mushrooms still clinging to it, Gordon waved a hand.
"The mushrooms that grow on a moss boar are all poisonous, sadly. The moss itself is edible, but it tastes terrible, so we put it to other uses."
"Other uses?"
"Wrap the meat in moss-boar moss and it keeps for a long time."
Gordon clapped his hands to draw their attention.
"Anyway, we’ve got fresh game now. Time for a proper lunch."
"Lunch? We just ate cabbage rolls."
The man who had polished off half a pot of cabbage rolls was talking as though that meal had never happened. Karem felt his sanity fraying, yet Gordon looked completely serious.
"I’m not some noble who treats vegetables like a digestive aid only serfs and peasants eat, but vegetables do digest pretty quickly."
"That’s—wait—"
"Besides, those cabbage rolls were mostly bulked up with greens. There wasn’t much meat in them, was there?"
So he was hungry now. Gordon nodded as though stating the obvious, and Catherine agreed.
"Well, at knight-class strength, simply moving the body is enough to work up an appetite."
"Is that how it works?"
"The kind of speed and power ordinary eyes can barely follow doesn’t come free."
Hearing that, Karem—who had been half-convinced a beggar lived in Gordon’s stomach—finally began to understand. Bodybuilders and athletes always followed hard training with carefully measured meals; greater physical ability simply meant greater caloric demand. It was the same principle as a wrestling-champion actor polishing off twenty thousand calories when he set his mind to it, or a ssireum wrestler treating a ten-person serving like a light snack.
Still, Catherine defending Gordon felt a little odd. When Karem shot her a suspicious look, she casually turned her head away.
"Does Lady Atanitas also want a dish made from this freshly hunted meat?"
"Mm. I’m not particularly picky, but vegetables do tend to disappear from the stomach rather quickly."
"…Well, I am honestly curious about the taste."
Karem, too, wanted to know what moss-boar meat tasted like. He unpacked the gear he had just stowed and pulled out the cooking tools again. Gordon, still wiping blood from his dagger with a cloth, looked delighted.
"Oh? No menu fretting—you’re already diving in?"
"Yes. The moment I saw this much meat piled up, something came to mind."
Just to be safe, Karem sliced off a small piece, seared it, and tasted it with only a light sprinkle of salt. He had braced himself for a fierce gamey reek worthy of the name “wild boar,” but the odor was nowhere near strong enough to make him grimace. There was a mild gaminess, the same as ordinary low-grade pork, yet layered over it was a bright, clean scent of forest leaves and grass.
"It has a sort of grass taste—grass smell—but because of that the gamey note is mild and the meat itself is good."
"That’s the moss growing on its body. Just looking at it you can tell it reeks of greenery."
"Ah, right. And you said the moss is edible?"
"Edible, yes. Tasty, no. More importantly, the beast is relatively small and doesn’t smell of mushrooms, so it must have only just reached adulthood."
"Excuse me? This isn’t fully grown?"
The hide alone, spread flesh-side up, was large enough for several children Karem’s size to lie under with room to spare. In his previous life the hybrid hogzilla—cross of domestic pig and wild boar—had been this size; yet this one was supposedly a youngster that had only recently matured.
"And you’re saying this isn’t a monster?"
"If it were a monster it would have charged the moment it saw us instead of merely posturing."
Catherine had drifted to Karem’s side without his noticing.
"Moss boars are fairly gentle animals as long as you stay out of their territory and leave their food alone. A full-grown adult that smells of mushrooms is actually quite tasty."
"Mushroom aroma on top of this… I can’t quite picture it."
"You’ll know once you eat it. Once you eat it. By the way—planning to keep that all to yourself?"
At those words Karem quickly cut another piece, seared it, salted it, and popped it straight into Catherine’s mouth.
The delay had dragged on, but it had given him time to settle the recipe in his head. He pulled out a cutting board and kitchen knife and began slicing the large cuts thin, then mincing them. Personally he believed meatballs were best made with beef, yet the moss boar’s flavor was strong enough that he thought it would work here.
"Karem, is there a reason you’re going to the trouble of mincing everything?"
"The meat tastes good, but I wasn’t sure how to cook it."
"You say that, yet your knife work doesn’t hesitate at all."
"I’ve already decided what I’m making."
"That makes me nervous."
"It’ll turn out decent, trust me."
Despite the words, Karem was quietly confident. Finding the minced meat a little short on fat, he added more fat and kept chopping. He stirred in sautéed onion, salt, and powdered hardtack as a flour substitute, then rolled the mixture into bite-sized balls. Into a large pot greased with moss-boar fat went the meatballs; they began to sizzle at once. Karem quickly tossed a lump of fat into the frying pan. When the oil was bubbling he pulled several apples from the pack, diced them finely, added them to the pan, and started frying them with a sprinkle of salt.
Authentic Swedish meatballs were supposed to be served with lingonberry jam. He had never tasted that. The closest he had come was strawberry jam, and even that had been a revelation. There were no strawberries—or anything like them—here, but he wasn’t worried. Every apple the party carried was sharply tart yet even more richly sweet.
Catherine seemed to guess what he was doing and gave a soft hum of appreciation.
"So the meatballs alone might taste bland, and he’s pairing them with an apple sauce?"
"Lady Mage, you actually call those meatballs?"
"Yes. A cooking method that originated in a fallen ancient empire. Quite rare in the Seophon Kingdom."
"It looks a bit like the filling for black pudding."
"Not wrong."
A fallen empire. The phrase sparked curiosity, but Karem shook his head hard and banished the distraction. Daydreaming in front of an open flame was dangerous.
High heat and salt rapidly drove the moisture from the apples; they began to collapse into a paste-like mass. Karem stirred them with a spatula while turning the meatballs one by one so they cooked evenly.
"Tch. Looks just about done. Isn’t this enough?"
"Mm, yes. You’re right."
"Man, I could really go for a beer right now."
Karem ignored Gordon’s longing tone and tipped the nearly jam-like apple sauté into a bowl. He lifted the pot of perfectly browned meatballs off the fire, set it on the ground, and placed the steaming yellow apple mixture beside it.
"All right, it’s ready. Dig in."