Maillard Bear Meat

At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

"What the... why all of a sudden?"

I closed my eyes and opened them again. I even slapped my own cheeks. It didn't go away.

No matter how I looked at it, this was a perfectly genuine status window.

"Seriously? Now?"

I was dumbfounded. Nearly twenty years since my reincarnation, and the thing I'd been calling for all that time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without so much as a whisper of a response had only decided to show its face now.

When I was orphaned in the middle of a war.

When my master threw me to a magic beast and I nearly died.

When I cursed my own talent and glared at the horizon, hoping for a next life.

Not a single reaction back then. But the moment I set off on a journey to find some senile old man, here it was, right in front of my eyes.

"Don't tell me the activation condition was 'leaving on an adventure'... and you're telling me this now?"

I had suffered like a dog for the past twenty years. If it was going to appear anyway, couldn't it have shown up a little sooner?

"Ah, whatever. It's not like I left it with anyone else. Better late than never, I suppose."

Still, the simple fact that something had finally appeared for me did make me happy. After all, for a supposed reincarnator, I had absolutely nothing.

The corners of my mouth twisted into a bitter smile as I stared at the status ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠window.

That was it. The end.

"...No stats or anything?"

I searched everywhere. Nothing.

Out of a desperate flicker of hope, I dredged up memories of my past life and opened my mouth.

"Skills."

"Inventory."

"Shop."

Astonishingly, nothing happened. The status window displayed nothing but my name and my trait. Beyond that, emptiness.

"You're telling me that's genuinely all there is?"

I stared at the status window for a long while, then fixed my gaze on the part that grated on my eyes the most.

"...Yeah, I know."

There was really no need to elaborate. I'd heard it from my master until blood poured out of my ears. And it was a fact I acknowledged myself, so it didn't sting that much.

"Ha... and here I got all excited for nothing."

For a while after that, I kept poking at the status window to kill time. But I couldn't find a single useful thing in it.

The biggest problem after setting off on my adventure was food. It's not like I'd left home with any supplies — the lack of edible anything was half the reason I'd left in the first place.

Sizzle, crackle—!

"Ow, hot!"

Fortunately, I'd gotten lucky on the road and run into a magic beast. The massive creature lying sprawled on the ground was called a Titan Bear. The status window had even been kind enough to provide the recipe along with the name.

"Chew, chew... maybe because it's a male? It feels a bit tough."

No seasonings, which was a shame, but I couldn't complain. Using my hunger as the side dish, I started shoving big ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chunks of meat into my mouth.

Juicy, fatty meat with the juices running down my chin. Maybe it was the stone-slab searing, but it had a proper Maillard crust on it.

"A beast this size just keeled over in one hit? Looking at the wounds, I'd say it got into a fight with something."

It seemed to have had a territorial dispute before I found it — its body was covered in injuries from head to toe.

"Well, made it easier for me to catch, so no complaints."

Even if it had been in perfect condition, the outcome wouldn't have been much different. By the status window's own assessment, this thing was frankly too embarrassing to even call a magic beast.

True magic beasts possess high intelligence and unique abilities of their own. They don't blindly charge in relying on raw physical strength, the way this dim-witted lump of bear did.

I'd been relatively lucky, I could say.

"Then again, with a name like Titan Bear, I suppose it's certainly big."

I didn't know the exact figures, but it looked to be at least five times the size of an ordinary bear. Its head alone was about the size of a compact car, and the belly bulging out made it look even bigger.

But at the end of the day, a bear is a bear. It was never going to beat a mage.

"Sigh... here I am, twenty years old, hunting bears — while somebody else out there is slaying dragons for fun."

I shoved the last piece of oil-seared meat into my mouth. At least it tasted decent. Small mercies.

"If I've got nothing better to do, maybe I should save up and open a restaurant."

I did occasionally entertain the thought. That maybe I hadn't just reincarnated, but reincarnated into one of those web novels — I Secretly Opened a Shop in Another World and the Emperor Became Obsessed With Me! or something along those lines.

But twenty years was more than enough time to come to terms with reality.

"...Shall we get moving again, then?"

I couldn't afford to dawdle any longer. It was still hours until nightfall, but call it habit — I hated wasting even a single moment like this.

I left the leftover bear meat as a gift for nature, and began shouldering my backpack once more.

My destination, without question, was a village with people in it. There was no way I'd be carrying a map, so I took a moment to steady my breathing and focused my mana.

Ssshh—

The quiet whisper of the wind. The rustle of swaying branches.

As if generating a magnetic field centered on myself, I began scattering a faint ripple of mana in a full 360 degrees.

Hummm—!

Echolocation. By my master's own admission, it was barely even magic — a rudimentary position-detection trick.

Of course, "true mages" conceal themselves the way a stealth field would, so aside from ordinary people and magic beasts, it supposedly couldn't detect anything worth detecting.

Hummm—!

A few seconds passed like that.

"Found them."

I could feel the press of a vast crowd. But it didn't have the shape of a village. More like... a formation? Everyone moving together in columns.

"Doesn't feel like bandits or brigands... an army?"

I'd have to get closer and see for myself to learn anything more concrete. From a distance, of course — watching carefully, in case things turned dangerous.

I started walking toward where the people were.

"Can't just wander off in a random direction when I don't even know the roads. I'll go ask around."

Fantasy worlds are still places where people live. Nobody charges you money or beats you for asking directions.

At least, that's how it was in my childhood memories.

Thud, thud—

How long had I been walking?

"They were definitely heading this way, right?"

I hadn't used echolocation since the first time. Mana consumption was one reason, but there was a bigger one.

"What if someone sensed me using the detection spell? I kept the emissions as faint as possible, but still."

If anyone sensitive to mana was out there, they'd have sensed it. And naturally, they'd have been annoyed.

Think about it. If you suspected some stranger was watching you from afar, identity unknown, furrowing your brow would be the perfectly normal response.

That's why my master had told me: if you're not absolutely confident in your control, don't use this spell at all. If the person you're scanning has stronger magic than you, forget detecting them — you'll only end up broadcasting your own position.

&%&#&#%—!

Before long, I could hear the sounds of footsteps, of voices talking, of armor clinking against armor.

"Found them."

And sure enough, off in the distance, people at rest began to come into view. A rough count put them at well over a hundred, all of them clad in armor and carrying wicked-looking weapons.

Soldiers of a fantasy world, plain as day. It was an army, just as I'd guessed.

What a relief. If they'd been bandits or brigands, I'd have had to quietly turn tail — but an army was a different story. Though I had no way of knowing what an army was doing deep in these mountains.

"A training exercise? I've never heard rumors of a war breaking out around here."

The soldiers had split off into little clusters with whoever they seemed friendly with, resting in their groups. There ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were a lot of them, but maybe because they were soldiers, everyone kept quiet — resting in silence or murmuring softly to the person beside them.

I began walking toward a group of soldiers tucked away in a corner.

"Huh...? A person?"

One of the soldiers spotted me and spoke up. The others turned my way too, eyebrows climbing.

A stranger suddenly emerging on a mountain trail was reason enough to be puzzled. But my outfit was unmistakably that of a traveler, so they didn't seem to be on any real guard.

"Good day to you."

I approached the soldiers wearing my most disarming smile, doing my level best to prove I was harmless.

"Who might you be, showing up out here on a mountain trail?"

"I'm looking for a village nearby. Might I trouble you for directions?"

The young soldier I'd been speaking with gave an awkward laugh.

"Haha, the village is a straight ways west of here. That direction."

"Ah, thank you. And thank you for your service, truly."

"And you're a traveler, I take it?"

"Yes, I've been having quite the trouble just finding my way around."

At that, the soldiers around us laughed as if they found it absurd.

"You're one lucky man, that's for sure. Surviving out here this long and all."

"Sorry? What do you mean by..."

"Haha, it's not hard to guess, is it? Think about why we're out here."

One soldier tilted his head and gestured at his weapon.

"A Rift opened nearby, and magic beasts came pouring out. All of us were dispatched here to eliminate them."