SIAW Vol. 1 Chapter 6
Chapter 6 – The Guinea Fowl Incident
Ten days had passed since I arrived at the Pioneers’ Village.
Every morning, I helped draw water at the well, then had some breakfast and took a quick rest. After that, I went hunting until noon. Today too I was on my way back to the village after my hunting expedition.
“Good work out there. We started grilling the meat, you can eat whenever you want.”
“Alright.”
Ranga didn’t tease me much lately. He still looked annoyed when I played with Mei, though…
“Oh Tenma, you’re back. The meat is ready, have some.”
It has become a custom for Sasha to cook the meat at this hour.
“Thank you, I’ll eat as soon as I unload the last catch.”
I went to the slaughterhouse and delivered three Horn rabbits. I always brought three or four of them at a time, for five trips a day.
Actually, I had a stock of over 200 in the Item Box, but it was too much for the village’s capacity of dressing meat or eating it, so I adjusted the quantity I delivered based on the situation.
In the slaughterhouse, there were two older ladies and a kid about 10 years old. They started to work in turns here, and the children came to learn how to slaughter animals and dress the meat.
I delivered the rabbits and chatted a bit with the women.
Looking to the side, I found some kids practicing throwing by hitting targets.
It was a small facility I had built after the children begged me to, after seeing me hunt.
Every morning, before going hunting, I gathered pebbles so the kids could practice easily.
Sometimes I gathered pebbles in the afternoon too, from the village’s fields. Some adults practiced in secret in the evening.
I returned to Sasha’s cooking spot: there were three girls grilling meat on skewers.
At first, they just piled up random rocks to make a makeshift stove: that way, though, the meat was cooked unevenly, there was the risk of burns and it wasted firewood. In the afternoon of the second day, I built a stove with rocks and clay, and then I picked up bamboo from the forest and fashioned it into skewers. The ladies had high praise for the skewers, which they brought home and started crafting by themselves.
The firewood I gathered too earned everyone’s appreciation since it didn’t produce a lot of smoke. Of course it didn’t: I removed the water with alchemy, after all.
“Here you go, Tenma, eat up.”
Sasha handed me a meat skewer.
The meat was sprinkled with herbs: personally, I was getting bored with eating unflavored grilled meat every day.
While hunting, I also picked up herbs and dried them to use as seasoning. One day, Sasha found out: she and the other ladies tried it too, with great success. They didn’t know about herbs that could be used to add flavor to food, apparently.
Once the Horn Rabbit population decreased a bit more, the villagers could go out more safely. The women would then be able to pick up herbs by themselves. Some particularly crafty ones said they wanted to sell them to the traveling merchants too.
Salt was a precious commodity, so it was used sparsely in the village. It could be bought from the traveling merchants, who accepted currency or bartered, so it wasn’t possible to obtain great quantities of it.
I was sitting there eating my skewer, when Sasha came up to me again.
“Is the work on the cooking area complete?”
“Yes, I finished yesterday. If we let it dry today, it should be ready for use tomorrow.”
When I first saw the cooking stove in Ranga’s house, I noticed how the stone and clay were put together haphazardly, making it hard to use and consume firewood excessively. I thus decided to rebuild it, and Sasha promptly spread the word in the neighborhood: in the end, the elder asked me to make a cooking area for the village to use, next to the well.
“Thank you so much. I’m really sorry to ask you to do so many things, but if possible, could you also fix the stove in my parents’ house?”
“Er, actually, the elder asked me to do the same, so I have work to do in the afternoon. I can do it tomorrow, though.”
“Tch, the elder was one step ahead, huh…o-oh my, I see! You already help so much, I feel bad for asking you to work even more…I just want to help my parents, you see…sorry, and thank you.”
She whispered at first, so the other people around us didn’t hear…probably.
“Oh no, you always take care of me, Sasha. Please don’t worry.”
We were talking like that, when Ranga and Mei showed up.
“Hey Tenma, how’s the meat taste? Sasha, give me a skewer.”
“Honestly, dear! You’re acting like you caught the meat!”
“Eh…ah, no, I didn’t mean…besides, I started going hunting too, since yesterday…”
“Oh really? How many did you catch yesterday?”
“W-Well…just one…but I caught two today!”
“Aaand…how many did Tenma catch? Someone like you, who caught three rabbits over two days, can act like he’s letting Tenma eat his meat? Hmmmm?”
Sasha shot a rather chilly glare at Ranga.
His timing was simply the worst. Maybe he picked the wrong words, but he meant no ill will, but since he came just when Sasha asked me to do something for her…
“I-I’m sorry!! I didn’t mean it like that, really!! Please forgive me!!”
Seeing him plead to Sasha like that, with tears in his eyes, I pitied him a little.
Right then, an angry-looking elder joined the fray.
“That’s right, Ranga!! I heard from Jeet that you had guinea fowl!! And you kept it all for yourself!!”
At the mention of the words “guinea fowl”, all the villagers in the area turned toward us.
“Damn you Jeet…!! It was supposed to be our secret…!!”
Ranga’s words were met by a glare of quiet rage from Sasha.
The day I arrived at the village, as well as two days ago, we had guinea fowl at Ranga’s house. There wasn’t enough to share with the other villagers, though, so Sasha had decided to keep it a secret.
“If it was a secret, then it was something you felt guilty about, right!?”
The elder raised his voice, and the eyes of the other villagers changed too. Things were turning really bad.
I hurriedly intervened.
“Please wait, elder! I caught the guinea fowl and asked Sasha to cook it. It didn’t feel right to eat it by myself, so I shared it with them since they were letting me stay at their house. It shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“They could still share some with the rest of us! You can stay at my house anyway. Ranga is making you sleep in the barn, right? I can give you a proper room!!”
Wait, didn’t you decide that Ranga had to take care of me?
I was honestly annoyed by the elder’s tone.
“You’re the one who told Ranga to let me stay at their house, elder. What exactly is wrong with sharing the meat I catch with Sasha, who feeds me every day, and Mei, who’s like a little sister to me? There wasn’t enough guinea fowl to share with everyone! What were we supposed to do?”
The elder did not back down.
“I have permitted you to stay in the village, so you could have at least given us something.”
“That’s exactly why I’m sharing all the Horn Rabbits I catch every day! I repaired the village’s cooking area, as you asked, and I’m going to fix the stove in your own house today. Is that not enough? Do you need to take everything I own?”
The elder’s selfish requests reminded me of the unjust treatment I received in my past life. As I spoke, the anger built up inside me, and I ended up shouting.
The elder and villagers probably thought they had gone too far, as they now had guilty looks on their faces.
“N-No, we would never do something like that! I’m really sorry…guinea fowl is a rarity for us…to be honest, I really love the taste, so…I must have sounded pretty awful just now. You’ve been nothing but kind to us, Tenma. You’re welcome to stay in the village as long as you like.”
I’ve already given you more than 200 Horn Rabbits, it’s only natural for you to say that!
The elder seemed honestly apologetic, but I thought he deserved some kind of punishment.
“I think I got carried over too…I apologize. I’d like to ask you to let me decide what to do with at least part of the prey I catch. Please.”
I then bowed my head to the elder.
“Y-Yes…of course, you can do as you wish!”
The elder didn’t seem to be fully convinced.
“I’m glad to hear you say that. To be honest, I caught some guinea fowl today.”
I pulled out a guinea fowl from the Item Box. Actually, I had another 40 or so in stock.
“Sasha, could you please cook this for dinner? You should also call your family, so we can all eat it together.”
The elder looked at the bird, wide-eyed in surprise, then a little sad.
Sasha’s parents, older brother, and younger sister were there too and looked simply overjoyed. Among the other villagers, most looked disappointed. The children probably never had guinea fowl to begin with, as they didn’t seem interested at all.
“I caught one more, by the way. This is for the elder.”
I took one more guinea fowl from the Item Box. The elder looked surprised for one second, then accepted it, his eyes brimming with glee.
“I know you’ll be able to share it nicely with everyone.”
The elder probably thought I gave it to him to eat by himself, but too bad!
Good luck sharing a single guinea fowl with more than 100 people, dear elder.
The old man’s expression turned deathly pale instantly.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
Misha had been witness to the incident from start to finish.
She saw Tenma get angry, for the first time since he came to the village.
She too was a bit annoyed with Ranga when she heard of the guinea fowl, but seeing Tenma get angry, she realized just how much he had done for the village, and became ashamed of herself…
The elder was tricked by Tenma and now had to share one guinea fowl to the whole village. He had no idea how, obviously.
As far as it concerned Misha herself, being Sasha’s sister meant that she was going to have guinea fowl for dinner.
After Tenma left, Sasha spoke to Misha.
“Tenma will leave this village soon, to become an adventurer. Misha, you’ve always wanted to become one too, right? Why don’t you go with him?”
(Sis!! That’s a fantastic idea!!)
Misha was enthusiastic at the prospect Sasha proposed.
“…I suppose you would be safe with Tenma.”
Sasha and Misha’s father too seemed to agree.
(Yess!! Father said okay too!!)
Misha mentally screamed in joy. She could finally become an adventurer!
However, her father added.
“…but wouldn’t it be better if Misha and Tenma married, so they could stay and live here?”
(Eeeh!? Why does it have to come to that!?)
Misha was shocked and confused by the sudden development.
“It would help the village, maybe, but neither Misha nor Tenma want that, do they?”
(That’s right! We don’t! You can do this, sis!!)
Sasha often took the speaking role in these kinds of discussions, as Misha wasn’t good with words.
“Tenma would be able to live safely in this village, though. He can hunt Horn Rabbits without trouble, that’s true, but we don’t know if he can defeat the much more dangerous monsters out there. Outside the village, there are plenty of dangerous people too…”
Sasha continued to try to persuade her parents, but they ultimately decided they should have Misha marry Tenma and make them stay in the village.
In the end, Misha’s brother mumbled.
“If Tenma stays in the village, we’ll be able to have guinea fowl often…”
Beaming smiles appeared on the parents’ faces.
Misha contemplated the three’s faces…
(So that bird is more important than my dream…)