027: Cool Summer

The mountain path we’re on starts with a gentle slope, but it turns steeper. Plenty of villagers come this way to gather edible plants, so we’re using the trail that’s been made. We’re in a lush forest environment only seen in summer. Even though it’s hot outside, the breeze and the forest shade is making it cool for us. This isn’t like Japan, I don’t even need to use Ice Magic to cool off.

Currently we’re walking in the order of Eleanora leading, Emma, Alfred, and finally Sheila. I’m happy that Emma is watching me closely, making sure I can get over the rocks and holding my hand. However, Eleanora objected to my treatment, saying I should be able to handle this much based on my sword practice, so I’m no longer holding hands with Emma. What an unnecessary thing to say, Emma may not have been good at holding a sword, but it was a soft girlish hand to hold.

It seems Emma and Sheila have been doing training with the village militia for the last two years after seeing Eleanora practicing. Really, women already hold so much control in the village, why do they need to practice swords too?

“Did Alfred start practicing the sword this Spring?” Emma

“Yeah, it’s not every day though. I’m getting pushed hard by Nord and Eleanora, they’re both strong opponents for me.” Al

“That’s normal, nor-mal.” Eleanora

“Eleanora and the lord are very strong, I always lose quickly.” Al

Ah, Emma looks to want to sit down now.

“Let’s eat here!” Sheila

Sheila hugs her lunch box and whinges, how many times has she asked to stop and eat so far?

“It’ll just be a bit longer, please bear with it.” Eleanora

Sheila picks back up her lunch box, wait where did it go? She moved it to her chest and it disappeared, does she have Spatial Magic too?

“They smell so good, they’re torturing me with the smell.” Sheila

“Sheila, keep up, it’s really just a little more, ok?” Emma

“Yup” Sheila

Sheila starts walking again, encouraged by Emma. I’m ahead of them, so I can only look ahead and climb the mountain.

“We’re here!” Eleanora

There’s no dangerous parts to this trail, so we were able to reach an overlook that could see all of Koriat Village.

“Lunch! Let’s open the lunch boxes now!” Al

Sheila hears my suggestion and immediately sits down on the grass to eat.

“You can see all of Koriat Village from here.” Al

“Eleanora’s mansion is the largest, you can easily make it out.” Emma

“Hurry up! Let’s eat!” Sheila

“Sheila is totally relentless when it comes to food.” Eleanora

“Unusually, he’s cute today.” Emma

Eleanora chuckles and smiles with Emma, something feels weird.

“What?” Al

“Nothing, let’s open the lunch boxes.” Eleanora

We all sit down in a soft grassy area. There’s a nice breeze that is cooling us off and the grass blows in a beautiful pattern.

“The wind feels so good.” Al

“Then, let’s eat” Sheila

“Yes!” Emma

“Yup” Al

Everyone opens up their lunch box and can’t not respond to the food.

“Wow!” Sheila

“Delicious!” Emma

“Keep it up, Bartolo” Eleanora

“…” Al

Looks like mine ended up all tamagoyaki, Bartolo did complain he was short on time and ingredients. Everyone else has a nice mix of different things, but I can fix this. I’ve got various things stored in my subspace, I’ll just swap some things out when nobody is looking. I’ll replace most of the tamagoyaki with some leftover spaghetti with meat sauce and mushrooms, ah, I’ll put in some buttered carrots as well.

Sheila stabs her tamagoyaki with a fork and throws it in her mouth.

“Wow! It’s a sweet but rich tamagoyaki that melts in your mouth.” Sheila

“Fufufu, they I’ll… what is this white thing? Eleanora?” Emma

Emma asks Eleanora what the white thing is in her lunch box. It looks like Eleanora hasn’t seen it before either…

“Something, I’ve never seen it. Al, do you know anything? Is this one of your inventions?” Eleanora

“It’s a rice ball, you eat it by hand. It’s salty and pairs well with meat. Bartolo came up with it.” Al

“Huh. First time I’ve heard of it.” Eleanora

“Me too” Sheila

“Foohi Hinite Hyune Fune” Sheila

“Sheila. We can’t understand you when you talk with a lot in your mouth.” Emma

“Yes” Sheila

Sheila swallows with glee and replies with a soft smile. It feels kind of natural or childish, it seems cute.

“This rice ball is quite delicious, isn’t it?” Eleanora

“Is it true? … It’s true! It’s a little chewy, and the more you chew it, the sweeter it tastes!” Emma

“That’s right.” Eleanora

That’s not how it tastes, Eleanora is just going along with whatever was said. Maybe if you bit into Eleanora’s head you’d find it hard to get an impression. When she first had spaghetti, she described it as “funny and delicious”.

Uh oh, Eleanora may be detecting my thoughts. I’ll try and send a thought of me treating her to a hot rice ball back at the mansion.

“It’s tastier when it’s warm.” Al

“That’s right, you said Bartolo came up with it?” Eleanora

“Yeah that’s right.” Al

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. It’s pretty simple and requires the rare ingredient rice. Recently, Nord had to drive away a weird merchant that was trying to buy the rights to Reversi. We already licensed those to Triela, we’re not going to change to some random merchant that we don’t know.

“It could go well with fish” Emma

Sheila is enjoying her rice balls while doing a little happy dance. I believe the treasure of Koriat Village is currently up here overlooking the village.

After the meal, I lie down in the shadows to rest before heading back down the mountain.

“Funi! Funii!” Bird

What kind of silly bird call is that?

“Eleanora, what kind of bird is that with the strange call?” Al

“Oh, you haven’t heard of them before. It’s a larger than average bird that lives up in higher elevations, it’s named the Funi Bird.” Eleanora

“Just like its call. Well, I sometimes wish I had a unique voice too.” Al

“It’s a bird, but it sometimes runs on the ground. It ends up tripping over itself when it runs around.” Eleanora

“That’s one weird bird. By the way, do you always talk in a polite manner when you’re out and about?” Al

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t heard that last question, women have many mysteries about themselves.” Eleanora

I’m worried about Eleanora who just leaned in close to make her point known.

“Eleanora really treasures Alfred. When we were climbing, I noticed she was careful to not outpace him and made sure he was keeping up.” Emma

Emma smiles as she sits on a comfortable stone and interjects.

I was worried about things, so I went to look at Eleanora, but she had turned away so I couldn’t see her expression.

“That’s not the case, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going too slow.” Eleanora

Her voice seemed a bit softer than usual.

Today was a peaceful day.

Translation

Good Job!

Do Better!

Chapter

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FFS!

Really?