“Wait, what are you doing?!”
“I was bored just sitting around…”
“You’re injured, you’re supposed to be — wow!”
The door and its destroyed latch were now almost completely fixed, despite the fact that he could only have used makeshift materials and tools.
I was seventeen solstice years old now, and I’d been living in this world for sixteen years already. Woodwork and craftsmanship weren’t beyond my understanding and I could even do a bit of them myself, but that was how I could tell.
“Wow…”
His skill was on a different level.
It was only a casual quick fix, but that made the difference in skill even more obvious. In a very short span of time, he had done a beautiful repair job that couldn’t be faulted.
“Ooh!”
“Now that’s something.”
The tavern owner and his daughter were equally impressed.
“No, it’s really nothing… Not compared to you, William…” Al, however, spoke to the floor. “You’re strong and brave and…” It seemed as though he didn’t have much confidence in himself. Because of my memories of my previous life, I could kind of understand how he felt. But that was all the more reason…
“You should stop saying things like that.”
“Huh?”
I squatted down and gazed up at him, looking him in the eyes. As I remembered the way Mary had spoken to me, I realized I was speaking a little more politely than usual. If I’d have been depressed like this, she would probably have said something like…
“Stop jinxing yourself by calling yourself weak and cowardly in a roundabout fashion. Words have power. Power to bind people and curse people.”
His hazel eyes wavered hesitantly.
“It’s one thing for an enemy to curse you, but please stop placing such curses on your own heart. Don’t you think that you at least should be your own heart’s biggest ally?”
In my past life, I hadn’t been able to manage that, either, so I wasn’t really one to talk. But despite that, I spoke firmly and with a smile. There were times when it was important to pretend, regardless of what you might or might not have achieved in your past.
“R-Right!”
I was glad to see that Al seemed to be sitting up a little bit straighter.
This world had a type of cooking called jar-boiling, in which all kinds of ingredients were put into a wide-mouthed jar with water, alcohol, salt, herbs, and spices, and brought to a simmer. In essence, it was basically a hotchpotch, but when it was made by someone who was good at it, the delicious, savory taste of the broth, the flavor of the herbs, and the piquancy of the spices all complemented each other perfectly, and it tasted very good.
There was such a jar placed in front of me at this very moment, with a large lid over its wide opening. The tavern girl lifted the lid with a thick cloth, and a wonderful smell swelled out. It was jar-boiled river fish.
“Wow…”
Inside, there was large white fish of the kind that could be reliably caught in the great river flowing beside Torch Port, chopped-up in-season vegetables, slightly aged wine, rock salt, and herbs, all cooked together into a stew. It came with crusty multigrain bread, a piece of cheese with a distinctive smell which was apparently goat’s cheese, and even wine diluted with hot water.
This would be categorized as a top-class meal. Even a main meal of porridge with a few vegetable scraps mixed in and a garnish of some kind of salty preserved food would have counted as “pretty good.” While visiting the poor villages of Beast Woods to offer medical treatment, I had often found myself floored by what was offered to me for food. In this area and time period, it was all too common to find food that had abandoned the concepts of nutritional balance and eating for pleasure. It made me appreciate that “cooking” was an art that could only exist upon a foundation of wealth. So I was very grateful for proper meals.
“Mater our Earth-Mother, gods of good virtue, bless this food, which by thy merciful love we are about to receive, and let it sustain us in body and mind.” I said grace, the same prayer as usual. It had become a habit by now.
Prayer was a very effective method for changing your mood and putting your thoughts in order. This was something I had only learned after being born into this world.
“For the grace of the gods, we are truly thankful.”
Even in my previous life, religion was something that had been passed down continuously for millennia. Anything surviving that long had to have considerable advantages and utility. That much was obvious.
“Cheers.” I raised my cup to the black-haired dwarf named Al. Al timidly raised his cup back.
I used a large wooden ladle to serve it out from the jar into earthenware bowls.
“Oh, this is good.”
The fish fell apart very easily, and the roughly chopped vegetables had absorbed the flavor of the broth. It had a slightly salty taste and went well with alcohol. This was probably the way the laborers liked it.
Al nodded in agreement. He dipped some of the crusty bread into the sauce and ate it. It looked delicious, so I copied him. It was indeed delicious. I also enjoyed the unique flavor of the cheese. It would have been too pungent on its own, but it was just right paired with the bread.
The two of us ate up the tavern cooking with relish. Al’s expression had been quite stiff in the beginning, but the tasty cooking seemed to have mellowed his mood.
A question occurred to me. “Come to think of it, what brought you here to begin with?”
I didn’t doubt in the least that he was well intentioned and had only been trying to stop those two from fighting. That was clearly the kind of person he was. But there were a lot of humans in the streets around here. Fortunately, there hadn’t yet been any large public clashes between races here in Torch Port, but even so, dwarves and humans had different cultures and led different lifestyles. It was inevitable that the residential areas would end up becoming a little segregated. What had brought a dwarf like him here?
“U-Um, I…”
I nodded and waited patiently while he tried to get his words out.
“I, I only just moved here, and…”
“Go on.”
“T-To, ah, get a feel for the place? I guess you’d say, or… umm, I mean…”
Ahh, so he was exploring, I thought, but deliberately didn’t say it myself, instead nodding for him to continue.
“Something like… exploring…” He seemed to shrink back into his chair as he said it.
“There’s nothing very strange about that, if you ask me. It’s necessary, right?”
“Yes…”
This city had its share of nasty people, but I paid attention, and Reystov and company also kept watchful eyes out, so no one dared to start anything big in public areas like the main streets. And since no major trouble would start just from walking around, it was relatively important to do that first of all and become familiar with the area. Obviously, this world didn’t have public transport, detailed city maps, traffic signs, or house numbers on display. Unless you walked around on your own two feet for a while taking in everything you saw, you really wouldn’t know your way around.
Al might have been peering at my morning training not just because he was interested in it, but also to make sure he knew the location of the liege’s mansion.
“The clan is busy trying to smooth everything out, but it’s still…”
“Oh, you mean Grendir?”
“Oh, um, yes.”
“Don’t worry about that. We have it mostly organized.”
I hadn’t only been listening to their old war stories. Agnarr and I had also made progress on dividing up the residential areas, lending out what was needed to get by for now, and organizing the amount of people who wanted to migrate here and their various skills.