Meat, Fire, and the First Night
With only the carcass of the deer-like herd leader left behind and the rest of the animals fully retreated, Jincheon slung the body over his shoulder and set off somewhere.
"H-hey, where are you going?"
"To wash the meat, obviously. We can't eat it like this."
"Eat it? That weird animal…!?"
Beatrix's face went past cultural shock and settled into the look of someone staring at a complete savage.
Jincheon only tilted his head at her.
"You've never eaten meat even once? You a vegetarian or something?"
"Meat just comes out ready when you go to the store!"
"…"
This time it was Jincheon's turn for a cultural shock of his own.
The thought crossed his mind that she might genuinely not know how meat was produced.
That was exactly it.
The nobles of the Giranlek Empire had no idea how meat was made.
Of course they knew it came from killing animals, but they had zero knowledge of what it actually took to get the delicious meat they ate every day.
This world had crop varieties improved to yield several times more than twenty-first-century harvests, and systems capable of stopping most disasters, so something like a drought never touched the fields. A single planet's crops could feed another planet of similar size; by feeding that surplus to livestock, planet-scale ranches were completed. Unless someone deliberately shattered that cycle, food was never scarce.
So nobles never had to think about eating. They focused only on the basic knowledge a noble was expected to possess and on external international relations.
Among the nobles of the Giranlek Empire—no, among the upper echelons of the entire universe—those who actually understood the process of how meat was produced numbered less than a tenth of one percent.
"You… never mind. Freshness is everything from the moment you kill it."
Jincheon started to say something more to Beatrix, then decided preparing the meat took priority and headed for the stream.
Beatrix followed behind him, determined to see for herself just how meat was made.
"These things… do they go after the smell of blood?"
Once they reached the stream, Jincheon flung the organs he had already set aside onto the nearby ground.
The earth heaved. From every direction, things lunged toward the guts lying a short distance away.
With wet, heavy thuds, the caterpillar-like monstrosities latched onto the organs with suckers and began to feed.
Deer liver and heart would make good ingredients too, but without bait like this there's no way to drive those things off.
He could have lured them out one by one and killed them, but Jincheon had no idea what side effects might follow if an entire ecosystem collapsed. He chose bait out of respect for the balance of the place.
Of course, if they still came after him even after he'd given them bait—
A wet crunch. A sharp thrust.
"You little bastards looking to die."
—he simply skewered the ones that charged him with a wooden spear and was done with it.
While the giant leech-like creatures sucked down the organs, Jincheon began rinsing out the carcass with stream water. If he had used the meat itself as bait, the juices would have been drained out of it, leaving dry, tasteless bottom-grade flesh. Giving them the organs was better in every way.
He severed the neck to drain the blood, then washed the body cavity with practiced, rapid efficiency, finishing before the leeches were done with their meal. It was only possible because he had forced the remaining blood out with martial power.
The rest of the work didn't need to be done here. He slung the washed carcass over his shoulder again and headed back to the lean-to.
"What's the point of washing it like that?"
"If you don't, the blood rots and ruins the meat. When you eat meat, draining the blood is basic."
"…"
Beatrix shut her mouth at the word basic.
Back at the lean-to, Jincheon first pulled free the antlers and tested their hardness. In the old world, deer velvet was used as a tonic—an aphrodisiac, even—but here there was no need to eat it. He intended them as weapons.
These are harder than stone. Did the deer on this planet—if they even are deer; the antlers look like the deer family, at least—evolve to stab things to death with their horns? Creepy.
He set the antlers aside for later work, fetched another stone, and began grinding a stone axe as sharp as he could make it.
"Hup!"
Then he loaded the honed axe with qi and started skinning the hide.
"Whoa…"
Watching something that had been a living animal only a short while ago turn into a slab of meat, Beatrix found her mouth hanging open without realizing it.
Wait—I can't just stand here!
"H-hey!"
"Hm?"
The pressure of needing to do something instead of staring blankly finally forced words out of her.
"Isn't there anything you can leave to me?"
"Do you know how to start a fire with nothing but wood and grass?"
"Ah… no?"
"Do you know how to butcher meat?"
"…I don't…"
With every question Jincheon asked, Beatrix's voice sank closer to the ground.
"If I teach you, are you actually going to learn properly?"
"Y-yes!"
"Then wait. I'll start with the basics. This isn't basic."
Once the hide was fully stripped, he flipped it fur-side down on a suitable rock to dry, since there was nowhere better to hang it yet.
"Ah, damn. It's starting to stink."
Next he peeled off the pilot suit, still caked with blood and scraps of organ from killing the deer and tearing out its guts. Pilot suits were almost always one-piece top-and-bottom units except in special cases, so in a single motion Jincheon was left in nothing but his underwear.
"Kya…"
"Come over here for a second. To start a fire…"
"…"
Jincheon kept talking as if she weren't even there.
W-what the hell! What is this! Why is he just stripping right in front of me like it's nothing! Why doesn't he care about me at all!
Beatrix bit her lip at the sight of a man who wouldn't even observe the most basic manners between men and women.
So I don't even register as a woman to him?
She suddenly thought of the Orobece woman and the Zabalcan woman who had been traveling with Jincheon. Their builds and coloring were a little different from hers, but both of them would have been beauties even by Giranlek Empire standards if you ignored the physical differences of their races. And once they had become Jincheon's females, a distinctly feminine allure had gradually settled over them, turning them into the seductive figures they were now.
Knowing none of that background, Beatrix compared herself to Heliane and Calsira and decided Jincheon simply didn't see her as a woman at all.
"What are you doing? Not going to learn?"
"N-no! I just had something to think about for a second…!"
When Jincheon frowned from his seat by the ring of stones and asked, Beatrix shook her head and moved closer.
I have to learn everything I can from this guy.
She couldn't keep being dragged around by Jincheon forever. Whatever it took, she needed survival knowledge so she could live on her own if something happened later.
"First, to start a fire…"
As she stepped close to a man who was practically naked, Beatrix inevitably caught his scent.
A wild, intense male scent. Strong, yet strangely addictive. The scent of the Lust Emperor that beguiled females.
As a noble she had never been allowed to get close to men casually; aside from her father, she had never smelled a man this near. Her head felt like it was being pulled under.
W-w-what am I doing…! Wanting to smell a guy like this—I sound like a pervert!
She shook her head in panic at the sight of herself craving Jincheon's scent like some kind of deviant, but the smell he gave off kept eating away at her reason.
Breathing in Jincheon's heat-stirring scent, Beatrix managed to copy the fire-starting method she had barely learned. For an ordinary human—even a soldier—it would have been hard work, but for someone who had undergone biological enhancement surgery, it was more doable than expected.
"I-I did it!"
"Hold on a second!"
Using the method Jincheon had shown her, she rubbed a stick against a broad piece of wood until smoke rose. Jincheon brought over a bundle of dry grass and set it on top.
"Keep rubbing!"
"Got it!"
Jincheon arranged the dry grass so it would catch; Beatrix kept friction-heating the wood.
A soft whoosh—
"Yes!"
Seeing the dry grass catch fire, Beatrix cried out without thinking. Jincheon pinched the end of the grass bundle and shoved it under the fire pit; the flames spread to the other dry grass and then to the branches.
"Kyaa! It worked! It worked!"
"Figured it'd be simple enough with the bio-enhancement surgery."
While Jincheon kept building the fire larger, Beatrix felt a kind of exhilaration she had never known before.
What is this feeling? I only lit a fire—why am I this happy?
She had known every kind of joy and thrill. Beating a higher-ranked pilot. Entering the Imperial Guard. Rising to captain of the Imperial Guard on pure skill alone. Countless other moments of triumph. But this particular kind of exhilaration was new.
Watching the fire grow with her heart pounding, Beatrix felt the warmth reach her and a smile formed on her face.
Crunch. Crack.
Just then Jincheon began severing the deer's legs with the qi-loaded stone axe.
"Gather every bit of dry grass and every branch you can find nearby. We have to keep this fire going."
"Got it."
A little confidence from having made the fire with her own hands sent her off to collect branches and dry grass as ordered.
It's fine. This kind of life won't last long. Right, Sister?
Her mood improved by the fire, she looked up at the gradually darkening sky and made an optimistic prediction: Eirin would come for her soon. The Galantid System would be finished once this single planet was taken, so Eirin would almost certainly throw everything into a total offensive. A week at the longest.
Holding onto the hope that her sister would save her, Beatrix returned with an armload of branches and dry grass.
"You're back? You must be hungry—let's eat something."
Jincheon was already threading chunks of meat cut to a suitable thickness onto wooden skewers.
"No spices, no seasoning, so don't expect the meat to taste like what you're used to."
If they checked every fruit and plant on the island one by one, they might eventually find things that could serve as seasoning or spice—but on the first day of being stranded on an unknown uninhabited island, that was impossible. If Jincheon used his full original abilities without restraint it might be different, but right now he was operating under the premise that his physical capabilities were roughly on par with Beatrix's.
Sizzle—
Grrroowl~
As Jincheon started grilling the meat, the smell of cooking flesh finally made Beatrix aware of the hunger she had ignored through the shock of the crash. She had no memory of ever being hungry enough for her stomach to actually growl; she lowered her head in sudden embarrassment.
"Here. It's done."
Ignoring that, Jincheon held a skewer out to her.
"Th-thanks…"
"We've got plenty of meat from day one, so eat up. Tomorrow there's going to be even more work that needs strength."
"Work?"
"We have no idea when rescue will come. We can't keep living like this forever. If you want to raise the quality of life as a human being, you need tools."
"Sister will be here soon anyway—do we really have to do all that?"
Beatrix shot back that they would be going home before long, so why bother.
"There's a good chance that Poltein guy we fought has joined the defense forces. We felt his skill with our own bodies, didn't we?"
"But he's only one unit."
"Right. And that 'only one unit'—me—what kind of combat record have I racked up so far?"
"…!"
"Poltein's mecha was several tiers above mine. Speed, power, flexibility—everything. The only thing that was even close was pilot skill."
Thinking that far, Jincheon recalled the high-mobility combat Poltein had shown.
I never expected someone with abilities similar to mine to show up there. How the hell does that guy even have that kind of power? A high-mobility pilot suit? Or…
Remembering Poltein's Grancion, Jincheon concluded that if they hadn't been fighting at the edge of a gravity well, he would have lost for certain.
The performance gap with Gareld is too big. I either need more modifications, or I need a higher-performance mecha if I'm going to take that guy down.
Failing that, he would have to use tactics and strategy—massed forces—to bring him down. That was not Jincheon's style.
"Ugh… it's bland…"
Meanwhile Beatrix, chewing deer meat that hadn't even been salted, wrinkled her nose at the pure taste of flesh.
"Eat it anyway. If you don't, tomorrow's going to be rough."
Jincheon found it just as tasteless, but he ate every scrap while thinking of old memories. Beatrix's stomach demanded the same of her; she forced it all down. By the time the meal was finished, night had fallen and the world had gone dark.
"Haaawn~"
A full stomach made her body heavy; the shock of being stranded finally caught up, and exhaustion pressed in.
I should sleep now… hm?
In that moment she registered that there was only one lean-to.
"Jincheon. Wait."
"What?"
"Why is there only one hut?"
"Building two would be a waste of space."
"…So we're sleeping here together?"
"And? Why? Is there a problem?"
"!!"
Beatrix bit her lip at the completely casual way he asked it back.
"Of course there is! How am I supposed to sleep in the same room as you!?"
"If you don't like it, sleep outside."
"You don't even have the basic courtesy due a noble—!"
"Yep. None. See you tomorrow."
And with that, Jincheon flopped down on the leaf-strewn floor and almost immediately settled into steady breathing.
"…"
She was so floored she didn't know what to do with herself. At least he had left her enough space to lie down—if that counted as a conscience.
"…Kh…!"
Trembling with rage, she still couldn't bring herself to sleep on bare dirt, so she went into the lean-to.
The wind's getting in.
Leaves alone couldn't fully block it; the breeze came through in streams. Wind came through the entrance as well. She still couldn't quite believe this was her situation.
What made her angrier still was that Jincheon refused to treat her as a woman.
…You bastard. I'm a woman too…!
The way he treated her as if she were just another man filled Beatrix with fury.
Am I really that unattractive as a woman?
Being so thoroughly ignored as a female made her start to wonder whether she had any charm at all. She lay down carefully.
She had at least been trained in how to sleep in the harsh conditions of a battlefield, but this environment was worse than that. The one mercy was that it wasn't a battlefield, so there would be no enemy raids.
As she tossed on the uncomfortable bed, a familiar scent reached her nose.
Jincheon's wild scent.
…I'm sleepy…
Strangely, once she breathed in Jincheon's scent, a sense of relief settled over her and sleep came on fast.
And so the first day on the uninhabited island drew to a close.