Chapter 46 (1/2)
I stabbed my fork into the steak in front of me and cut myself a piece with my knife.
Surprisingly, the knife went through the thick slice of meat with ease. That could have been because of the knife’s quality, but it was clearly one of those ma.s.s-produced knives you could find pretty much anywhere.
When I picked up a piece of meat, its juices flowed from the cut.
It looked incredibly delicious. Plus, it smelled fantastic. Add in my hunger, and I gulped audibly.
Even so, I hesitated to eat it.
It looked every inch a first-rate cut of meat. Steak came from cattle, but this didn’t lose out in any way — if anything, it looked even better.
Sharing the table with me in the dining hall were Leon, Aira, and Palmira. I looked at each of them in turn.
Not one of them said anything. They watched me intently. The mood was like that of the night I was encouraged to try the sparkling wine. Well, that’s how it looked to me, anyway. Those faces.
Frankly, the more they watched me with those faces, the more I hesitated.
But in appearance and smell, this was superior to first-cla.s.s steak. Just looking at it filled my mouth with drool. Feelings aside, my instincts were demanding that I eat it.
Oh, who cares?
Succ.u.mbing to temptation, I sunk my teeth into the meat.
“Uh–fwah–”
The juices gushed out.
As they flooded the inside of my mouth, I savored the umami of the rich fat.
As I chewed the tender meat, its flavors overflowed again and again, putting me in a dreamy reverie. Though I wanted more of that taste, I ended up swallowing the portion in my mouth.
“Haahh–”
Tasty. No, not just tasty, really G.o.dd.a.m.n tasty.
I don’t even know how to describe it, but anyway, it tastes amazing. It’s impossibly delicious.
This — is dragon meat.
“How is it?”
Leon asked for my opinion, grinning.
To the side, Aira was smiling too, and even Palmira, while expressionless, looked like she was waiting for me to say something.
“…Well, it’s tasty. Gave me a surprise. It’s my first time eating this.”
And I didn’t mean dragon meat, but monster meat in general.
Hacked into ma.s.sive pieces, and now it was food.
Right now, dragon had become the main dish on the fortress’s menu.
–
–
When Aira and Palmira came calling, I was a bit unsteady from oversleeping, but more than that, I was starving. So it wasn’t long before I went to get myself a meal.
The sickroom wasn’t in the half-destroyed control tower, but in a corner of the North Tower, one of the defensive constructions inside the fortress. And right now, it was Elite Guard as far as the eye could see.
The North Tower didn’t sustain much damage during the dragon attack, its facilities remaining mostly in order, and so we relocated here.
I left the sickroom for the dining hall.
Although Leon would’ve been better off catching up on sleep — frankly, he looked worse than me — he courteously accompanied me to the dining hall.
Hanging out is great and all, but these things have limits, you know.
Then, what was placed before me was this platter of dragon steak.
The dead dragon’s enormous bulk had crashed into the control tower, where it was still exposed to the elements. Removing it was proving to be a problem.
Apparently, in the middle of it all, someone said, ‘Hey, can’t we just eat it?’
And they gave it a shot and it turned out to be delicious, so afterward they decided to disa.s.semble the body and put it to use as food. It was a very crude but heroic suggestion. I bet Gary came up with it.
Dragon meat.
If I think about it, isn’t this an incredibly rare ingredient?
The extremely appetizing dragon meat was being used up before it went bad with substantial enthusiasm. Primarily to fill the stomachs of the fortress soldiers.
Other than that, discovering its value, lucky traders with a discerning eye were carting it off by the load.
At any rate, even though Basragate Fortress took some serious damage from the dragon, it triumphed over the beast, and there was quite a bit of festivity in the air.
I didn’t realize until it was pointed out to me, but while I was taking my sweet time, my early lunchtime had turned into normal lunchtime, and the dining hall got a little crowded.
With the North Tower crammed with the Elite Guard, the soldiers streaming in one after another all looked familiar to me.
“h.e.l.lo, Lord Leon! Hey, everyone. Chris, you’re up too! I’m so glad!”
It was Irene, cheekily seating herself at our table.
Forget familiar, she was one of the people there that night. Nothing about her appearance suggested that she’d been injured.
I didn’t say it, but it was a relief.
“What is that, Irene?”
I noticed the strange food sitting on the wooden tray she brought with her.
It was bread, but it’d been split into top and bottom, and stuck between them was a slice of meat, probably dragon. It was surprisingly bulky.
“You’re asking me? It’s a chrissando, right?”
Her face puzzled, Irene said something that grabbed my attention.
“What? What sort of name… Eh.”
I was about to question her when I detected a odd atmosphere, and I looked at Leon.
Leon turned away, refusing to show me his face.
I looked at Aira.
Aira, still grinning, averted her eyes. Palmira absently left me with the cryptic words [No more drinking]. I don’t know what that means.
“…Someone explain this to me, guys.”
No one replied, and always moving at her own pace, Irene stuffed her face with the chrissando.
I didn’t really get it, but the meat-stuffed bread called the chrissando seemed to be popular in the North Tower dining hall. Even at other tables, I could see a relatively large number of soldiers eating the same thing.
And, when I made eye contact, every last one of them looked away. Seriously, what the h.e.l.l is going on here?
“Well, it’s fine, isn’t it?”
His face a bit red, Leon tried to steer the conversation away from the topic.
I found it difficult to let go without getting an explanation, but for some reason, I felt like I shouldn’t poke my nose in any further, and I reluctantly shut up on the subject.
“By the way, how long are we going to be here?”
Noon had come and gone, and the dining hall had become spa.r.s.ely populated.
The truth is, we’re already running three days behind schedule.
Well, even if I say that, I have no idea if we’re in a hurry or not. Being delayed doesn’t bother me much.
Though I didn’t know how extensive the dragon’s destruction was, Basragate still had quite a few city amenities despite being a fortress.
Even if we stayed here awhile, I wouldn’t particularly mind. So I was pretty casual about asking.
“Rupert can’t move, and with Maddox currently at large, it would be dangerous to leave the fortress now. I’ve called Vyde back, so we’ll await his arrival. Besides, we have an obligation to the fortress to a.s.sist in its reconstruction in whatever way we can. And, well, there wasn’t much of a rush to return to the capital in the first place.”
Vyde, huh…? I recalled the First Platoon Commander. To be honest, ‘plain’ was the only way to describe him.
Vyde’s being called back here to stand in for Rupert, but if so, then I suppose he’s just as strong.
He hasn’t displayed the slightest hint of that strength in front of me so far, so I can’t imagine it no matter how hard I try.
“Then, how long will we stay here?”
“Roughly five days. That will likely be enough time for Vyde to arrive,”
Leon said, in response to Aira’s question.
Five days? Well, it seemed long, but it wasn’t really.
Especially for me — I wasn’t looking forward to arriving in the capital, and since we’d be inviting another attack from Maddox if we moved out recklessly, I was all for Leon’s plan.
For the time being, I had no reason to oppose them.
“Oh, thank G.o.d. To be honest, I don’t really want to go to the capital,” said Irene.
“Why’s that?”
“Mmm, because when I go back, I have to drop by the Schola Magorum, and whenever I go there, I get saddled with more weird work.”
Irene was too frank for a typical civilian contractor in the military; she was sharing her thoughts right in front of her boss.
The mention of the Schola’s ‘weird work’ sparked my interest, but I had the feeling that Irene was just waiting for someone to give her an opening, and that it would be a pain to deal with. So I make a conscious decision not to take the bait.
“That aside, what about your work right now?”
Lunch was just about over, and as the soldiers in the area dispersed, the dining hall returned to its deserted state.