Chapter 103 – The assassin tries an upgraded spell
Chapter 103 - The assassin tries an upgraded spell
Translator: VALIANT
After returning home, I immediately went out hunting.
As usual, I hunted deep into the mountains to avoid ruining the hunting grounds of my citizens.
[But still… I’m gonna have a little sister, huh.] (Lugh)
In general, it was hard for women with mana to have children.
Their first child would be born without any difficulty, but their second and subsequent children would suddenly become hard to conceive. Medically speaking, the reason for that was unknown, so it was assumed to be the will of God.
If it weren’t for this, there would’ve been an abundance of mages by now.
After all, the national power was directly linked to the number of mages, and both the kingdom and the nobles were consciously trying to have a large number of descendants.
But no matter how hard they tried, they would only have two or three children at most. If you subtracted out the number of deaths by illness, accidental means, and in battle, you would estimate that the population of mages was decreasing, but since mages could be born from non-mages on rare occasions, the number of mages hadn’t changed significantly in recent decades.
My youthful-looking mother may be one thing, but I think my father is trying too hard to have a third child, despite the difficulty of the task.
Even as I spoke, my parents were still lovey-dovey with each other.
[…A growing family isn’t so bad.] (Lugh)
I was surprised at first, but then I was looking forward to it.
And at the same time, I couldn’t afford to die.
As long as I was an assassin of Tuatha Dé, my sister would be able to live as an ordinary noblewoman.
But if I died, then she would have to become the next Tuatha Dé.
I wanted to avoid that.
Knowing my father’s nature, he would probably teach her assassination techniques from an early age as a backup plan for me, but I planned to convince him not to do that.
I couldn’t tell my father about it, but if I died, there wouldn’t be anyone left to stop Epona from destroying the world. So there was no need to prepare insurance for after I died.
[Well, I found one. Thanks to the rich forest vegetation, the Alvanian rabbits are pretty plump this year… Dia is going to love them.] (Lugh)
While hunting, I was experimenting with an improved version of my wind-based searching spell.
It was a favorite spell of mine that allowed me to blend my consciousness into the wind and expand my perception range. No one could escape from me as long as they were in a space where there was wind.
And I had upgraded it.
Until now, I imagined it as a circle expanding around myself.
As a result, the burden on me increased exponentially as the area of effect was expanded.
Imagine a circle, and you’ll understand my point. In the case of a circle with a one-meter radius, it had an area of about 3 m2, and if the radius was two meters, the area went up to 12 m2. An increase of only 9 m2.
However, if I tried to increase the radius from 100 m to 101 m, the search area would increase by 631 m2.
In short, as long as I kept using the expanding circle method, it would be terribly difficult to expand the search area.
Which is why I changed my method for the upgraded version.
Instead of a circle, I extended a straight line.
Then I rotated that line around myself.
By doing so, the area to continue searching was limited, the toll on my mana consumption was only a fraction of what it used to be, and on top of that, it was possible for me to expand the search area.
『Although it does have its weaknesses.』(Lugh)
Due to the fact that it was a spinning line, unlike with the former method, I wasn’t constantly monitoring the search area. It took me about 0.1 s to rotate that line 360°. Although it was a bit less than 0.1 s, some details could still be missed. That being said, cases where such ultra-short oversights could pose problems were usually rare.
And if need be, I could always use that spell for different purposes.
If I was going to use it as a close combat aid, 0.1 s could prove fatal, but in that case, I could deploy it in the usual circular shape.
For close quarters combat, the deployment didn’t have to be very large.
『Well then, I guess it’s time to hunt.』(Lugh)
I took out a crossbow from my【Leather Crane Bag】.
A gun would’ve had greater range and power. But it would’ve been too powerful and damaged the meat. If I wanted to get some good meat, using a crossbow was the way to go.
I removed the arrow loaded in the crossbow, and replaced it with a new one.
This crossbow was designed to be used for assassinations, so I would load it with a poison arrow and store it in my item bag as it was.
If I shot down my prey with something like that, then everyone except my father and I, who had acquired poison resistance through training, would get food poisoning.
I thought the crossbow would prove useful one way or another, so I had it prepared. It was a silent weapon. In fact, I thought it was more suitable for assassination than guns.
I took a stance and fired my arrow.
It flew through the trees and pierced the neck of the Alvanian rabbit, just as I intended.
[That’s one rabbit down.] (Lugh)
Alvanian rabbits were large, about the size of medium-sized dogs, and they made for very filling meals.
Still, to make sure that we would all have a great meal, I wanted to get another one.
I finished hunting and headed down the mountain.
Today’s haul was two Alvanian rabbits and a wild boar.
I also collected a basket full of mushrooms and wild vegetables. I had to be thankful for my【Leather Crane Bag】.
Obviously, carrying this huge load down the mountain on my back would’ve been a real hassle.
Once I’m done butchering the boar, I should share it with the population.
Alvanian rabbits were fine, but a whole wild boar was pretty tough to finish.
Before I knew it, we were already in autumn.
It was time to start making preparations for winter.
After the butchering, I gave the village leader some boar meat and rabbit pelts, and asked him to serve them to everyone.
The fatty and tasty wild boar meat was a real treat for the population, and the fur of Alvanian rabbits was warm, fluffy, and worth a pretty penny at the approach of winter, so they gladly accepted them.
As thanks, they gave me some fresh vegetables. I would use them for the next day’s feast.
And now, I was headed for the kitchen.
Although I was only supposed to cook the feast tomorrow, there were still a few ingredients I had to prepare.
Some of them had to be rubbed in spices and left overnight.
This was especially true for spices used to eliminate odors, which went well with wild boar meat.
This kind of preparation made the food taste even better.
[I’m home. Mom, Tarte, I see you’re both raring to go too. Though I’m surprised to see you here as well, Dia.] (Lugh)
[What do you mean you’re “surprised?” I want to learn how to cook too.] (Dia)
Dia puffed up her cheeks.
I thought she and Nevan were more inclined to eating than cooking, but curiously enough, Dia was helping out.
Though I couldn’t really call her a force to be reckoned with in that department.
Following Dia, Mom and Tarte turned to me.
[Ah! Welcome back. As expected of Lugh-chan. You brought back so much delicious prey in such a short time.] (Esri)
[Alvanian rabbits and a wild boar. Both look so delicious.] (Tarte)
[Eh!? This is Alvanian rabbit meat!? Make it into a stew! And a gratin! Ever since Lugh cooked them for me, they’ve been my favorite dishes ever!] (Dia)
[I’m going to make stew and gratin with rabbit meat. As for the boar, I was thinking of grinding it.] (Lugh)
The reason I hunted for Alvanian rabbits was because I wanted Dia to eat her favorite cream stew and gratin, so that was my intention from the beginning.
And the reason why I wanted to grind the boar was also to experiment with a new spell.
[Lugh-chan, what is “grinding?” I’ve never heard of such a cooking method.] (Esri)
[That’s a surprise for tomorrow. …Is this barley-pickled Lunan trout you’re preparing?] (Lugh)
[That’s right. You and Cian like it, after all.] (Esri)
What she and Tarte were making was a fish dish.
There was a huge lake in Tuatha Dé, so we often ate fish dishes, such as Lunan trout, a kind of trout of which the taste reminded me of home.
Since ancient times, Tuatha Dé had imposed fishing restrictions so as to preserve the blessings of nature, and fishing was banned during the spawning season.
This led to the development of fish preservation techniques to secure food to eat when fishing was not allowed.
It seemed that at first, they thought only about preserving food, but by my grandfather’s generation, the Tuatha Dé domain had become wealthy, and they began to focus on how to make their food taste good.
Dried Lunan trout, for instance, was made in Tuatha Dé and processed in a rational way, setting it apart from other products.
It was a product I wasn’t ashamed to present anywhere, and in my opinion, it would be a popular item in the commercial city of Milteu.
And what the two of them were preparing was a dish called barley-pickled Lunan trout. It was a local dish unique to Tuatha Dé, made by pickling a fish in wheat bran.
That way, the fish could be preserved, and its flavor could be deepened.
Steamed pickled runamass was a delicacy, and the population traditionally ate it on special occasions.
It may seem odd to pickle fish in wheat bran, but even in my former world, it wasn’t so unusual to pickle meat and fish in brine and rice bran. In principle, it wasn’t so different from pickling in malt and salt.
[Oh! That Lunan trout is exceptional. It has a good size, and a great amount of fat.] (Lugh)
This was extra high-quality food. I had rarely ever seen such a fine Lunan trout.
[Hans-san gave it to us as a congratulatory gift. For such an excellent fish, steaming it is the only way to go. Which is why, it has to be pickled overnight, so I’m preparing it together with Tarte. Look forward to it!] (Esri)
[Yeah, I’m sure it’ll turn out great. But the only problem is… steamed barley-pickled Lunan trout is rather unpopular with visitors from other territories.] (Lugh)
There was no doubt that it had much more umami components than when served raw.
The only problem was that all fermented foods were bound to have their own peculiar smell, and many people declared that they didn’t like that about it. In fact, even some people in Tuatha Dé weren’t fond of this dish.
It would definitely be Nevan’s first time eating it, and Dia had probably never tried it either.
I was worried that they would reject it.
Instead of steaming it, for example, if you stir-fried it with a large amount of spices, you could get rid of the smell of wheat bran, but for such a splendid Lunan trout, it would’ve been a waste to season it like that. I simply wanted to taste the good flavor of the ingredients.
[Fufufu! That won’t do. I have made a point to cook steamed fish. Someone who can’t learn to appreciate its flavor will never become a woman of Tuatha Dé. Besides, cooking your and Cian’s favorite foods differently is a big no!] (Esri)
She pointed at the Lunan trout with a snap as it was being pickled.
She made a good point.
But at the same time, I thought it was better to do something that would lessen the impact and get them used to it.
Which is why…
[Mom, can you let me take care of steaming the fish?] (Lugh)
[…You are definitely up to something, aren’t you?] (Esri)
[Not at all, it’s just that in Milteu, I learned a way to make fish absolutely tasty by steaming it, so I wanted you to try it. It’s an amazing method, it completely preserves the flavor of the fish and keeps it moist. It makes you want to question the quality of all the steamed fish you’ve ever had before. I think using it on this barley-pickled Lunan trout will make it a real treat.] (Lugh)
[Uuuhh… Now that you’ve told me about it, you got me really interested. *Gulp.* But promise me that you will definitely make it a steamed fish.] (Esri)
[Yeah, leave it to me.] (Lugh)
The truth is I lied when I said I learned that method in Milteu. I actually learned it in my previous life.
It was the best steaming technique I knew.
It would please my mother, and Dia and Nevan would enjoy eating it.
Originally, it was one of the culinary skills I had acquired when I was posing as a chef to gain the trust of my targets.
How ironic that this was how I entertained and pleased my mother, my girlfriends, and my friend.
The first life I lived, I lived it as a tool.
However, I could now proudly declare that it wasn’t in vain.
Because thanks to that first life of mine, I was able to gain all sorts of skills, and make these women smile.