Ultimate Yakitori (3)
The hat came off, and what spilled into the open was a pair of ears. Not ordinary ears, either—cat ears, so soft they looked as if they might give under a fingertip.
Which meant the fluffy thing I'd grabbed wasn't just something that happened to resemble a blanket.
It was an actual tail?
A beastkin. So beastkin really existed. I'd never seen one, never even heard a rumor, and the whole possibility had slipped clean out of my head.
"H-hiek! My tail—my tail, let gooo...!"
"Ah. Sorry."
I was so thrown that I didn't let go. If anything, I squeezed harder. Only when the beastkin adventurer begged did I release her tail.
Twitch. Twitch.
She stood with her mouth half open and her pupils blown wide. The jolt to her tail must have been too much; her soul had plainly left the premises. Come to think of it, weren't a cat's most important nerves packed into its tail? You were never supposed to grab one. This might not be the sort of mishap you laughed off. It might be serious.
"Hey. You all right? Your fingers all still work?"
"Uheek..."
A person losing it that thoroughly was definitely not normal. I caught the beastkin adventurer by the shoulders and shook her. When you needed to snap someone back, you started with the shoulders, and only went for the cheek if that failed. Shoulders it was, then, in the proper order.
Shake, shake.
"U-urgh!! Don't touch me, nya!!!"
"Oh. She's back."
Fortunately, the moment I shook her, the beastkin adventurer recovered enough language to state her wishes. She'd said not to touch her, so I snatched my hands away at once.
Her black ears flicked and pricked without a pause. Different from Eilenna's elf ears, and cute in their own way.
A brief, painfully awkward silence passed, and the beastkin adventurer snatched the hat off the ground and jammed it low over her head again.
"Y-you, you, you! What do you think you're doing, grabbing someone's tail like that, nya!! Don't you know that's a sensitive spot, nya?!!"
"I really am sorry. I had no idea you were a beastkin. You'd hidden your ears under a hat, and the tail was sort of overlapping the blanket, so I thought it was just a clump of fur that happened to look similar."
"Ugh. I was hiding it, nya. That's true. But you did feed me... and we both messed up, so I'll let it go this once, nya."
Now that I knew she was a beastkin, the way she talked finally made sense. This world was so full of unhinged people that I'd written it off as personality. Of course. She was a cat beastkin.
Her nails looked a little sharper than they ought to, as well. Whiskers... none.
When I looked at her face, color flooded both of the beastkin adventurer's cheeks. The scare had already bleached her white and then flushed her red, and there hadn't been time for it to cool.
"Wh-what are you looking at, nya. First time seeing Catfolk, nya?"
"Yes. First time. Catfolk? Not Myofolk?"
"Myofolk are rabbit beastkin, nya. We're Catfolk."
"A race just named Catfolk."
Well. Another shock, right after the blue-green Butterflyfolk. I'd been sure the scholarly-sounding Myofolk were the cats. Apparently the rabbits had claimed that name, and the cats were simply Catfolk.
Calling her "the beastkin adventurer" forever felt a little off, so I went ahead and asked her name.
"So then, Miss Catfolk Adventurer. What would your name be?"
"What's with that tone, nya. It's weirdly annoying, nya. I'm Ruri, nya."
"Ruri?"
Whap, whap!
The beastkin adventurer declared herself Ruri and brought her tail down hard against the ground. Hard, and yet the thing was fundamentally fluffy, so it wasn't threatening in the slightest.
Ruri. Ruri... the name had a strangely dragonish ring to it.
But why had she been trying to hide what she was? Enough to endure the muggy heat of summer, no less. And if you were going to hide, hide properly. She'd stuffed the tail inside the tent, then poked it out because she was hot, and I'd caught her. Was the way she talked beyond fixing?
"Ah, right. Miss Ruri. Why hide that you're a beastkin?"
"Huuuh? Well... people don't like giving commissions to beastkin, nya."
"Huh. Really? Then you might try hiding the tail and the way you talk, too. Why stop halfway?"
"Hiss! I hide the tail inside long pants when I'm out and about, nya. The way I talk... can't be helped, nya. Don't some humans talk like this too, nya?"
"Hmm. That's a stretch."
Ruri seemed to realize, even as she said it, that she was forcing the point, and quietly looked away.
Well, it hardly mattered. If the world had elves and spirits, what was one beastkin? And beastkin were cute. Those cat ears and that tail looked so soft that just seeing them made me want to pet them without mercy.
"So, how was the chicken skewer? Not just 'it was tasty.' If it were for sale, do you think you'd buy one?"
"Mm... yeah! I'd buy it, nya. When I grill it myself I can't hold out, and I eat it halfway through, so it smells and it's tough, nya. But what you grilled was the best meat skewer I've ever eaten, nya!"
"High praise. Thank you."
So that was why people hesitated to hire beastkin adventurers. Ask them to capture or cull beasts and magical beasts, and they couldn't resist poking the goods along the way.
Setting that aside, the yakitori had landed very well. It was only one person, and a cat beastkin at that, so I'd want a larger sample—but the start was smooth.
I glanced sideways.
While I talked with Ruri, I looked over the adventurers in the other tents. Every one of them was watching the two of us. More precisely, they had their eyes glued to the chicken skewers in our hands.
I wouldn't have to worry about finding a sample.
I smiled at Ruri.
"Miss Ruri. By any chance, have you heard of a review tasting panel?"
"Eh. What's that, nya."
"For the next few days I'll make the chicken skewers. All you have to do is eat them in comfort."
"R-really, nya? Free, nya?"
"Yes. You'd just give me a simple taste review, like today."
"I'm in, nya!"
Twitch!
Ruri's floppy hat shifted faintly. From the adventurers who'd been stealing looks at us, I could almost hear the sound of swallowed spit.
And just like that, I had a site for the market research yakitori's success would need.
I'd used up everything I'd brought, so today was finished. From tomorrow, I'd simply bring more.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"Got it, nya. I'll be waiting, nya!"
"Oh, right. Miss Ruri."
"Hm? What is it, nya?"
"Stop by the Adventurers' Guild early tomorrow morning. Something good will happen."
I left her with that loaded remark and got to my feet. Ruri looked as if she had no idea what I meant, but she must have been planning to visit the guild in the morning anyway; dazed, she answered that she understood.
The reactions of potential customers mattered, of course. Still, I had to finish the work I'd already started.
The best chickens are beyond the walls, too.
The other world's livestock chickens: the Dunkkeu and the Kushe. After tasting skewers made from that meat, the direction for yakitori locked into place. Even if the texture leaned closer to chew than to tenderness, concentrate the chicken's own rich aroma. That, I judged, was what would strike the palates of this world dead center.
These birds already carried a fairly deep meat-scent. What, then, of this world's true wild chicken—the native breed?
I'd already confirmed they could be registered in the Mana Market, so supply was no problem.
I left the communal campsite and stepped into the Adventurers' Guild.
Late afternoon, and the interior was relatively quiet. I took my place at the commission desk among the counters and spoke to the guild receptionist.
"Hello. I'd like to file a commission."
"Yes! What sort of commission would it be?"
"Beast capture."
Up to there it was an ordinary enough request, and the receptionist waited on my next words with a bright smile. Then I added the actual point.
"Breed, beast, magical beast—it doesn't matter, so long as it's a chicken. Any poultry will do."
"I—I'm sorry?"
"Two birds maximum per commission. One silver coin per bird. If the breed is a duplicate, fifty copper."
"W-wait just a moment. That much silver...?"
"Post thirty request sheets a day on those terms, from tomorrow through the end of the weekdays. Every day."
A stir ran through the hall.
A commission that didn't merely break precedent—it shattered common sense. Even the receptionist taking it down had clearly never seen the like; the panic showed. In a guild interior that had held only a handful of people, a low murmur rose.
But so what.
Wasn't this exactly what I'd saved the money for?
I've got a bit of money.
A black-haired restaurateur with a suspicious amount of cash. Hardtack and toast, tteokbokki, Milk Peach—every last coin of the students' pocket money, scraped clean. It was time to show the market what that capital could do.
These days, Jinwoo was acting strange.
"Eilenna, I'm heading out! Please go ahead and eat dinner!"
"W-wait!"
Clatter.
The moment the lunch service ended and he was off duty, he left the mansion without a backward glance. She tried to catch him, but he bolted so fast there was no gap in which to stop him.
"Sir Jinwoo does seem busy. Hmm."
"What is it? What is he running around doing?"
"Would it not be the chicken skewers he mentioned before?"
"So it is that. Hnn..."
"Then... I shall go and train."
With Jinwoo gone, talking to Arthur in that unbearably awkward house was difficult. This was the first time she had seen him since the fight in Nuardel, and every time, Arthur read the room and slipped out to the backyard to train.
Had she done something to him back then?
She had only meant to protect Jinwoo. She had thought Arthur was someone threatening him...
In any case, that human knight called Arthur was no fun at all. Blunt as a block of wood, a fool who did nothing but train.
Jinwoo invented work even when there was none, as if he would die if he ever stopped. She knew that nature of his, so ordinarily his running about would not have troubled her much. He started things, but he never did them carelessly, and that was one of his great strengths—one of the reasons she liked him.
Lately, though, something had been grating.
Eilenna looked around and made certain no one was there.
Then she picked up the outing clothes Kang Jinwoo had been wearing so often of late. Today he had gone out in something else and left them behind.
This is just a check. Strictly a check...
If that smell was on them again today, she would not let it pass. She was going to follow him and confirm exactly where he went and what he was doing. As the partner, friend, and business associate of the man who inspired her, this much was not nosiness. It was worry.
Eilenna buried her nose in Kang Jinwoo's clothes and drew a long breath.
Sniff.
Hnn... Jinwoo's scent.
Kang Jinwoo's body-scent sank all the way into the depths of her lungs. Eilenna drifted in it—and then caught a smell that jutted out the way a stone in the path trips you.
The smell that had clung to Kang Jinwoo, off and on, these past few days.
There it is again. Stray cat.
Black fur stuck plainly to his outing clothes. And, faint but certain, the distinctive stink of a beastkin.
She did not know where Kang Jinwoo ran the moment he got off work, but it was close enough for a cat beastkin's scent to rub off on him like this?
I have no choice. I have to go find him.
Maybe some wicked she-cat had gotten her claws into him and was blackmailing him. Jinwoo was weak, for all that his ability was good.
Pat-pat-pat.
Eilenna finished getting ready at once and went out.
She did not know where Jinwoo had gone, but it would not be toward the academy. And if not the academy, the places he might go narrowed in an instant.
First the market in town. Ask around. I'll find him in no time.
Eilenna set the plan in her head and carried it out.
"Excuse me, have you seen a black-haired man pass near here? He's about a head taller than I am, and he's... handsome."
"Eh? Don't know about handsome, but a black-haired man did go by. Toward the Adventurers' Guild."
"Ah, thank you! Sell lots!"
One question to a vegetable seller in the market, and she had Kang Jinwoo's trail. Eilenna pressed on from there.
"Hey, is the chicken closed out for today?"
"They're still taking them, last I heard. Hurry. I'm going back later to sell more."
"Oh, thank god!"
"Chicken! The chicken isn't finished yet?"
"No idea! I just got here too. Run first!"
She was heading for the Adventurers' Guild because that was what she had been told, but today an odd number of adventurers were obsessed with chickens. Chicken? What Jinwoo had been preparing lately was chicken skewers, yes... but what did that have to do with adventurers?
Still, the roads overlapped, and it might be a clue, so Eilenna walked while watching them.
Flutter!
The closer she drew to the Adventurers' Guild, the more chicken feathers drifted through the air, thick enough to be suspicious. What in the world was happening at the guild?
Eilenna let the crowd carry her feet.
What met her eyes was a long line. The line ran all the way into the guild building.
She did not join it. She went into the building first.
And she saw.
"One's a duplicate, but the other is a breed I haven't seen before. Here—one silver and fifty copper."
"Aye, thanks, boss!"
"Next, please come in!"
"Wh-what is this..."
Rough adventurers, each carrying at least one scar on body or face. Every one of them... holding chicken meat, waiting their turn like children.
She could not tell whether this was an adventurers' guild or a market floor.
And at the end of that bizarre procession, sure enough—
Kang Jinwoo sat with a fussy look on his face, examining the chicken they had brought with painstaking care.
Sway.
My head's spinning...
Eilenna's head went a little dizzy.