No Country for Gods (3)
“Food’s up.”
The first course was a whole pig roasted in the orcs’ own fashion, the meat having been left to cure in honey. Honey-Glazed Roast Pig.
The outside had crisped to a perfect crackle while the inside stayed succulent; a brown house sauce ran down the sides and made my mouth water the instant I saw it.
The princess was no different from me. She pretended otherwise, but she couldn’t hide the way her throat worked as she swallowed.
“Well then… dig in.”
“Dig in.”
Orc course cuisine has no concept of soup or chocolate or any other sort of appetizer. What their cooking insists on is making you want another bite even when you’re already full—an utterly orcish philosophy.
So instead of an appetizer, the honey roast that came out first used honey to banish every trace of gaminess, deepen the meat’s own flavor, and then brighten the whole thing with a sharp, clean sauce. Even though the opening dish was a slab of pork, it never felt heavy.
“Wow…! This is seriously good…”
“No wonder they put Jalteleni’s name on the place.”
“We never get anything like this in the palace. It’s so bold.”
“The palace chases refined cooking, after all.”
What palace chef in his right mind would set a whole honey-cured pig on the table in front of the emperor and the princesses?
Not that palace food was bad—just that this was a completely different kind of delicious.
The princess and I demolished the cut that looked as if it had been sliced straight from the pig’s belly, polishing it off in the blink of an eye.
I could have sworn the princess was a light eater…
Plenty more courses were still coming, so finishing everything looked impossible—yet both of us, myself a natural glutton and the princess right beside me, scraped the bowls clean down to the last drop of sauce.
“Hey… Lena, there are still courses left. Think you can keep going?”
“Huh? What are you talking about? That was just the appetizer. Of course I can keep going.”
“Uh… right.”
After that came grilled rainbow golden-fish that lived only in the lake at the summit of Mount Galiax—one of the Three Great Forbidden Mountains—followed by assorted grilled cuts and raw beef from Zalkire cattle whose hide was supposedly impossible to cut without special technique, and finally butter-grilled giant clam Taepae harvested from the deepest trenches of the sea.
Naturally the two of us scraped every plate to the bottom the moment it arrived. By the time dessert showed up, the orc carrying the dishes was staring at us with pure exhaustion in his eyes.
Hardly surprising. The amount we had already put away would have made even a grown male orc start to feel the strain. Two humans—a man and a woman—had polished the whole lot off. Enough said.
“…Dessert. ‘Brothers’ Blood.’”
“Brothers’… Blood?”
What the orc set down was a drink the color of actual blood—deep red shot through with black—filling what anyone would call an orc tankard to the brim.
“Yes. Since ancient times, when a tribal war ends the orcs feast for seven days and nights. On the final night they mix a little of the blood of the brothers sitting on either side into one another’s cups and drink. We took that tradition as inspiration and named the drink ‘Brothers’ Blood.’”
“Ah… this isn’t alcohol, is it?”
“No. The ingredients are Spirit’s Tears, a Blood Pearl of the Dragon King, and diluted Essence of the Sugar King. You may drink without worry.”
“I see…”
“Please enjoy.”
Spirit’s Tears, a Dragon King’s Blood Pearl, Essence of the Sugar King—every one of them nearly impossible to obtain. The earlier courses had already been rare and difficult to prepare, but the materials in this drink sat on an entirely different level of scarcity.
You could call it the king of the entire course without exaggeration.
“Duprein. Shall we… toast?”
The princess lifted the orc tankard with shy hands and held it out toward me. She had never looked more adorable. Her eyes darted left and right in embarrassment, a soft flush coloring her cheeks as she offered the cup—it was almost painfully sweet.
If it isn’t me, when else is the princess ever going to clink orc tankards with someone?
Maybe she had always yearned for it—the rough crash of metal against metal that adventurers share in taverns, not the delicate kiss of cocktail glasses or wine stems.
“Gladly.”
I raised my own tankard and brought it to hers.
A genuine, radiant smile spread across her face, and together we struck the cups.
““Cheers!!””
“A request of that scale requires this much. What will you do?”
“Hmph… I have no need of your life. What I want is a price equal to what you desire. Nothing more.”
“…It is possible, but the other side will almost certainly know everything. The chance of failure is far higher. Still wish to proceed?”
“Very well… I accept your commission.”
“First I will collect the fee… What? You’ll pay after the job is finished?”
“That will not do… It will not do. Such a thing cannot, will not, happen, my good man. Now sit quietly.”
“I will… see the work done properly.”
“That was amazing, wasn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything like that even in the palace!”
“Tell me about it. A drink of that caliber is something I haven’t had in a long time either.”
Brothers’ Blood—grim name or not, the taste was transcendent.
The first sip sent a cool clarity racing through the entire body; a deep, bright sourness washed over the tongue; and as it slid down the throat an exquisite sweetness bloomed. Absolute perfection.
“Duprein, have you ever had a drink that good before?”
“Yeah. After the war, when I was granted an audience, His Majesty poured me something himself that was at least as good—maybe better.”
“Wow… better than that? I want to try it someday…”
“Well, work hard.”
The wine the emperor had bestowed—he claimed only a few bottles still existed—tasted as though it might have been soma, the liquor the gods themselves brew. In ancient times wars had been fought over a single bottle of it. Calling it divine wine was no exaggeration.
“Anyway… how long until the Descent?”
“We spent a fair while in the restaurant, so… roughly two hours left.”
“Two hours… What should we do until then?”
“We’re officially on street patrol, so we can wander the avenues a bit and then head for the plaza.”
“Okay. You lead, then. I don’t know the way from here.”
“…Sure.”
I walked ahead; the princess followed.
The streets themselves were ordinary, nothing special. The only real novelty was how openly delighted the princess was to be out among them.
From the moment we started she kept peppering me with questions about every little thing we passed, which was starting to get awkward. When she spotted children playing marbles in a corner she tried to dash over and join them; I had to physically stop her.
Still, watching a princess who had spent almost her entire life locked inside the palace wander the streets wide-eyed didn’t feel bad at all. It was like watching a country girl who had just arrived in the capital for the first time.
“Lena. Time’s about up. Let’s go.”
“Already? But I haven’t been there, or there, or there yet…”
The places she pointed to led, in order, toward the slums, the red-light district, and the alley into the poor quarter.
The princess had trained in martial arts, but there was no reason to go looking for unnecessary danger. The red-light district least of all.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
“Fine… I guess we have to…”
I led the clearly reluctant princess toward the plaza. Sure enough, even though we were still a good distance away, the approach was already packed solid with people.
I couldn’t blame them. People are always curious about their futures, and Livia could tell them.
“Hey, Duprein. At this rate we’ll never even reach the plaza—just forcing our way into the approach is going to take forever. We don’t have much time left. What do we do…?”
“Hmm… about ten minutes left?”
“Uh… yeah. Around that.”
“Then come this way for a second.”
I steered her off the crowded main path into a quiet side alley where almost no one was walking.
She looked puzzled—why duck into an empty alley when time was already short instead of pushing through the crowd?
Screeeech—! Skreeeak—!
“Duprein…? What are you—?”
“Here. Climb on.”
At her feet I set down a steel plate I had casually picked up on the way into the alley and bent into something roughly the size of her boots—makeshift skateboards, basically.
I stepped onto an identical one I had made for myself and urged her on. Only then did she climb onto her plate with a thoroughly bewildered expression.
“Lena… no—Your Highness. Don’t be startled.”
“What?”
Wooooom—!
My power lets me freely control anything I can cut. Since the edge of a steel plate can cut a person, the plate itself falls under my control.
“Hiiik…! E-Evan-kyung?!”
“It’s me moving them, Your Highness. Stay calm. Circulate mana through your feet, lock them to the plate, and focus on keeping your balance.”
“L-like this…?”
She spread her arms, lowered her center of gravity a little, and—following my instructions—ran mana into her soles so that her feet fused to the steel.
“Perfect. I’m going to raise us higher bit by bit. Don’t lose your balance.”
Wooooooom—!
Our figures rose steadily into the sky.
I stopped once the people below looked like ants and we ourselves would be invisible from the ground, then glanced at the princess.
Far from being frightened by the height, she was sparkling with pure delight.
Anyone with mana can fall from most places without even getting hurt, so maybe it was only natural.
“Your Highness. I’ll leave a measure of my power in the plates. Try moving on your own. The direction and angle you lean will decide speed and course.”
“O-okay! I’ll give it a shot.”
All that training hadn’t been for nothing. She tipped her body this way and that, gliding through the air, and within moments she had the hang of it—dropping lower and streaking forward at real speed.
“Wow! Evan-kyung!! This is so much fun! I’m flying!!”
“Haha… Don’t forget why we’re up here, Your Highness.”
“Right!”
She spun a full circle in midair and answered with a bright laugh.
…Maybe giving her a ride was a mistake…?