The Second Guest — The Wyvern Hunter (3)
"One bowl of hot stew. And water."
The old man who had handed me the wyvern meat placed the same order as on the first day. I glanced toward the back door, but—
…Those two don't look like they have any intention of coming in.
As if they wanted nothing to do with sharing a room with a dragon slayer, the two of them stayed behind the inn and made no move to enter. Left with no choice, I rose from my seat to bring the old man his stew and water myself.
"…?"
When I stepped into the kitchen, a bowl of steaming stew was already waiting on a tray — as if to say, just take this and go.
"……"
I cast a quick look toward the backyard, then picked up the tray and left the kitchen. I set the stew down in front of the old man with a spoon, then went over to the tavern side, filled a cup with water, and brought it to him.
"Hmm…"
Without a word, the old man ate the stew, then drank the water.
"Hah… That hit the spot."
Ah, right. That reminded me.
"Has a party stopped by this inn yesterday or today? A standard party — warrior, archer, thief, and a nun."
"Yesterday or today?"
The only guest who had visited the inn yesterday was the old man himself. And today's only guest was the same old man sitting in front of me now.
"Looks like they haven't. Must have taken different roads."
"If they do come by, shall I tell them you were looking for them?"
"Mm."
The old man seemed to deliberate for a moment. It wasn't that he was unsure whether he could ask the favor of me — he was weighing what message to leave behind. Once he'd made up his mind, he spoke.
"Tell the warrior that Grandpa stopped by."
"…Grandpa?"
"I don't go around giving out my name."
His name…
It was Oldrich Skybane, I was sure of that. Being a transmigrator, it meant nothing to me — but among the people of this world, it might well be a famous one. That was probably why the old man preferred not to reveal it if he could help it. Showing me his status window yesterday had only been to make me understand the situation.
Even so… Grandpa?
While I was thinking that, the old man pulled out his coin pouch the same way he had the day before and held it out to me.
"Good meal. I'll be back."
Once again, he left far more money than the stew and water were worth, then walked out of the inn.
"At least he knows when to leave."
Rain opened the back door the moment he was gone, as if she'd been waiting for it, and came inside. Then she sat down at the table — not on a chair in front of it, but on the table itself.
"If he'd overstayed his welcome, I was going to throw him out with nothing but burns all over his body."
"……"
I didn't react to Rain's words. In the end, she hadn't done it.
While that thought crossed my mind, Grace was examining the wyvern tail meat.
"He bled it cleanly the moment he killed it. That's why the quality is so good. After aging, this should turn out quite nicely."
With that, Grace picked up the meat and headed for the kitchen.
Aging, huh…
"How are you planning to age it?"
As far as I knew, there were two ways to age meat: dry-aging it in open air, or wet-aging it by removing the moisture, wrapping it, and putting it in a refrigerator. But Grace had something entirely different in mind.
"Would you like to see for yourself?"
Curious, I followed her into the kitchen. Grace laid the meat on a clean, washed cutting board, and then—
"Done."
"…?"
She declared the aging complete.
"…Huh? Wait — did you do that with magic?"
Magic existed in this world, so aging meat with a spell wouldn't have been strange.
"No. Strictly speaking, it's Master’s ability."
When you place ingredients on the kitchen tools, they become perfectly primed for cooking — the absolute best condition possible. So the wyvern meat was aged to perfection the moment it touched the board.
"…I had no idea."
"You've never set foot in the kitchen, so that makes sense."
Well, I had left the kitchen entirely in Grace's hands.
As I was thinking that, Grace began breaking down the wyvern tail meat into bite-sized pieces with the assortment of knives kept in the kitchen. Then she held out a thin slice to me.
"Try some. Thanks to Master's ability, you don't have to worry about parasites even without cooking it."
"…Alright, then."
Grace wouldn't do anything that would harm me. With that thought, I put the raw meat she'd offered into my mouth.
"!"
The moment my teeth met it, the meat parted softly and melted. A deep savoriness bloomed across my tongue — and then it was gone.
"Wow…"
It was delicious. But at the same time, it left me hollow.
"…It needs seasoning."
The wyvern meat melted on the tongue and carried a rich umami, but that was all. Completely unseasoned, it left an unmistakable sense of something missing.
"Would you like a light dip of salt?"
"…Yeah. Thanks."
Following Grace's suggestion, I dabbed a little salt on it, and it was better. Still—
"We're limited on salt, aren't we?"
The salt currently in the kitchen was finite. All of it had come from Grace's own lair.
"Yes. So we have to use it sparingly. Ideally, a merchant passing through the Dragon Canyon would be selling salt and other seasonings, but…"
The odds of that were slim. Merchants who traveled this canyon at all were rare to begin with.
The one silver lining was that Grace's cooking had a chance of turning out high quality on its own, which meant the seasoning would balance itself. As long as she put in a little effort, we wouldn't have to rely on spices.
Still, once the kitchen levels up someday, seasonings will probably start generating infinitely the way other ingredients do, right?
Three days had passed since the old man brought us the wyvern meat. He hadn't returned to the inn since. I figured he'd left the Dragon Canyon to sell the wyvern byproducts.
Either west to Coreloot, or east toward the Demon King's Territory.
But that didn't mean we'd had no guests after him.
"Waaargh! There's the inn — our destination!"
"We've arrived!"
"Good day to you. This is our second meeting."
The orc mercenary band — our very first guests — had come back.
"There seem to be more of you than last time. Am I imagining that?"
"No. There really are more of us. We needed to haul as much cargo as possible, so non-combatant orcs from our tribe came along as well."
The well-mannered orc answered my question.
Ten wagons, even.
But they weren't planning to fill every wagon with grain bought from our inn. They would only purchase enough for five. The other five would carry monsters they'd hunted while traveling between here and the Demon King's Territory.
"I see."
I watched the orcs steadily transferring sacks of grain. For the record, the payment had already been settled — Grace and the well-mannered orc had finished negotiating everything.
"By the way, things look a little different from last time. Is the tavern ready?"
"Ah, yes. The tavern was set up after you left."
"Hmm… I'm curious what beer brewed at an inn that supplies such fine grain would taste like."
The well-mannered orc considered for a moment, then pulled several gold coins from his pouch and handed them to me.
"Payment in advance."
Understanding what that meant, I gave Grace and Rain a look. They nodded and began pouring beer into wooden cups and distributing them among the orcs. I carried cups in both hands as well.
"Waaargh! Beer!"
"Clean beer!"
"I expected as much from the moment they used grain without a single impurity, but everything from this place truly is clean."
The orcs who had been loading grain onto the wagons each took a cup of beer and rested.
"Beer!"
"It's alcohol!"
"……"
Even the ones who still looked like children. Watching kids that young drink made me a little uncomfortable — but in this world, it was normal.
Because the water isn't clean.
At our inn, clean water was always available, so it wasn't an issue. Elsewhere, though, water was often contaminated. And while the Church's influence meant people weren't entirely ignorant of hygiene, it was common practice to drink beer instead of water.
The brewing process involves boiling the water, and the alcohol in the beer kills bacteria… so it would have been far safer than drinking plain water.
Of course, plenty of people simply boiled their water and drank that, too. Either way, I simply watched as even the children drank their beer.
…Though they're drinking slower than I expected.
My personal image of orcs involved draining a cup of beer like this in one go — but the ones around me were nursing theirs carefully, sipping slowly. I was almost worried the beer tasted bad.
"That's not it."
As if she'd heard my thoughts, Rain sighed, sat down beside me, and explained why the orcs were drinking so slowly.
"The beer's limited, so they're rationing it."
Hmm… considering the money the well-mannered orc had given me, another round wouldn't be out of the question—
"Don't."
"?"
"The price of beer floating around in Master… 's head right now is based on an ordinary inn — the kind in a village, or at least somewhere with convenient roads."
But this place is different.
"This is a special location, right in the middle of the Dragon Canyon. Anything sold here should cost at least twice what it would elsewhere, even at a low estimate."
"I see."
Hmm. Then, by any chance…?
"The money that wyvern hunter left us before — was that also…?"
"Master… seemed to think it was several times the fair price, but from that human's perspective, it was probably a reasonable amount."
So that was it. I'd thought I'd been overpaid, but it had been the appropriate rate all along.
The knowledge I have from those two is only what they themselves know… and even that doesn't always apply here in the Dragon Canyon.
Once the orcs left, I was going to need to learn quite a bit from Grace and Rain.
Ah, right. Before the orcs departed, I remembered something I wanted to ask of them.
"Excuse me — next time you come, would you be able to bring seasonings, cloth, books, recreational tools, things like that? I'll pay a good price."
Hoping to establish regular trade with the orcs, I made the request.