The Peerless Kobold - Chapter 198
When we got back, the girls had already finished processing the large wild boar and some of the carved meat was laid out on a flat stone. Beside them, iron plates were laid on four stones of similar size, and charcoal was stuffed into the gaps.
“Ruu, ruuoa, kuano♪” (Light it up, light it up, fox fire♪)
My sister held up her palms over the pit and dyed the charcoal red as her fox fire burned brightly. When the griddle was hot enough, she speared some of the boar meat with the tip of her stiletto dagger and began grilling.
“Mmm~ that smells so good”
Mira, who smelled of medicinal herbs suddenly appeared and sprinkled some finely chopped herbs and salt on the meat.
“And while I’m at it, I’m going to grill these too!!”
Mira took out a variety of mushrooms and added them into the iron grill plate. The mushrooms consisted of maitake that she had collected from the roots of beech trees during our trip back to the village, high-class white truffles that are mostly found buried on the ground, and cute and round field mushrooms.
(Well, those are all edible mushrooms, so it should be fine.)
I don’t doubt her judgment as an apothecary and an elf who lives in the forest, but we were the ones who found and dug up those white truffles using our sense of smell…
When the boar meat was fully cooked and we started serving them in wooden plates, Listy and Lancer who were training in magic earlier came out of the tent after they were lured out by the smell. When I asked Listy about Lenaide, whom I hadn’t seen since this morning, she said she had gone out with Buster to look for an appropriate place to plant the World Tree seedling in the forest.
After I heard this, I casually looked in the direction of the forest and saw Ax and a bunch of the floppy-eared kobolds who had just returned from hunting.
(Those are deer and badger meat…)
Anyway, it seems Ax is going to eat with the floppy-eared kobolds, so I’ll save some for Lenaide and Buster and smoke the rest of the leftover meat.
(Now that I think of it, we gotta stock up before winter comes.)
While thinking of the things I had to do, I thrust my wooden fork into the herb-grilled boar meat and ate.
“Wofuworu kuruaou…” [Why, these are quite tasty…]
“Kuruauu~” (So yummy~)
“Fuffu~, don’t be shy, you can praise me more~”
“This is definitely delicious… but I was the one who hunted it.”
Listy stopped nibbling on the piece of boar meat she was eating and smiled as she watched everyone happily eat the grilled meat and mushrooms.
“Fufu, it’s so nice to see everyone laughing together without minding their color or the clan they belong to.”
“Woan…” [You’re right…]
In a way, the elves’ existing social infrastructure suppressed individual freedom. That’s why Listy, who is a reformist moderate who agrees with Queen Aristia’s ideals, somehow seemed to feel at home in the dog people’s village.
And so, the elves from all three elf clans and us kobolds spent the rest of lunch in a lively manner. In the afternoon, Asta and the droopy-eared kobolds went up to the river to build the waterwheel and the waterways while we waited for Lenaide and Buster to return from planting the World Tree.
The tree planting ceremony was much more simpler than I expected as the World Tree Priestess Listy ended the ritual with a prayer while pouring porcelain mead on the ground. I was told that this ceremony would have to be repeated multiple times until it sprouts from the ground.
Then, with the help of Ax, we cleared the southeastern part of the woods to create a field that would be used to plant the autumn-sown wheat, and passed the rest of the season fighting squirrels and other forest rodents for the walnuts and chestnuts, and before we knew it, winter was almost upon us…
