Chapter 46: Chapter 46: Potatoes and Premonitions
"So this is the very thing that we should do together?" Vikir peered down, grimacing. Before him, the camel clasped his jaw in his hand and grinned broadly.
Before him now was a steaming heap of bread, potatoes, boiled meat, and vegetables.
"You really want to eat to areas of strength for remain. Here, eat." Vikir pressed a hand to his forehead as the camo practically pushed food at him.
They had been in the fortress for north of ten days at this point. In that time, the camel had moved past the pain of his sibling's passing. But the way he'd dealt with it was causing Vikir quite a headache... because he'd been coming to the door of his quarters every day, asking to eat with him. Six times a day!
"What sort of feasts do you eat six times each day?"
"It's beneficial to eat little and frequently."
"I will quite often voraciously consume food one meal a day. Perhaps I ought to skip the following meal."
"Uh-huh. Don't you realize that starvation leads to loss of battle power? It's against military regulation."
"Then, at that point, you're not actually eating."
At Vikir's point, the camo grimaced and averted his gaze.
He pushed a piece of salad into his mouth and snorted.
"I get full watching you eat."
"...."
Vikir chewed his meat and grimaced. He couldn't figure out why a 15-year-old young lady from another family he hadn't seen in seven years was being so harsh with him.
"Could it be that she is attempting to arrange a marriage?" Before his relapse, Camus had examined strategic marriage with various possibilities, but not even one of them had actually gotten married. It would be disturbing if he had chosen himself as a contender for an arranged marriage.
"I'm leaving Baskerville. If you leave, I will destroy you. What has been your prize for doing all the dirty work in the house? You should compensate me for every one of the foul and sickening impressions of that second when you remained on the bridge waiting for Guillotine. So it's better not to get involved with Morg's women. The last thing I want is an outrage or a circle of drama later on. This was true of Camu, but of any woman in the world." Unaware of Vikir's viewpoints, the camel still looked innocent and inquired.
"Is there crap in the meat?"
"...?"
"You appear as though you bit poo."
Hearing the camel's words, Vikir blinked a few times with a relaxed expression before picking up his fork and eating again.
Meanwhile, she won't ever turn upward. Meanwhile.
Vikir's cool attitude was a breath of fresh air for Camu. Typically, when she asked to join him for a meal, everyone was happy to oblige, men, young and old. Especially men outside the clan, whose faces were already lit up with anticipation before they even sat down to eat. It was only natural. Camus was young, brilliant, beautiful, and a future leader.
But Vikir's 15 years of common sense and experience had been completely underrated.
"I think we should eat separately from here on out."
"What? Why?"
"It's uncomfortable."
Vikir said, setting his fork down.
At that, Camu nodded as if he could agree. He was right; the cafeteria where Vikir ate was exclusively filled with women. Women receiving their meals, women serving them. Barely a man in sight.
Camu chuckled. "Unfortunately, what could I ever say. Morg is a matriarchal society, so most of the warriors are women, and the men do most of the cooking in the kitchen back there." Not like the Baskervilles, a super macho society. Just as males enjoy a slight advantage when it comes to swordsmanship, females enjoy a slight advantage when it comes to magic, so naturally Morg's military is made up mostly of women. Well, the men are in charge of supply in the back, a task that is equally as important as combat.
"My uncle, who is in charge of supply, is currently ill with chest pains, so we don't have many supplies. But, eat up."
Camu ignored Vikir's suggestion to eat separately. Instead, he scooped some boiled potatoes onto Vikir's plate and cleverly steered the conversation in a different direction.
"You don't have these in your home, right?" The potatoes were the object of Camu's shrug. They were super potatoes that had been modified by Morg's plant-based magic, making them much more nutritious and quicker to absorb than a normal potato. The downside was that they were nutritious to the point that they lacked flavor.
Camu bit into the fluffy potato and remarked, "The only flaw in the dietary enhancement is the lack of taste, but it's still better than the haggis you eat back home, right?"
Vikir turned away from the potato and picked up his fork. Clearly, it's hard to shoo away a camel that has been looming over you for a while.
This was Morg's domain, and she was in control. Vikir decided to go along with the camel's change of topic for now.
"It's not bad."
"...?"
Camu repeated, and Vikir looked at Morg's potatoes with a serious look on his face. "They're not bad. It's
just that you guys cook them poorly."
"Eh? Please accept my apologies, but the chef in this fortress used to be a chef in the Supreme City, and I have a discerning palate, so he's exceptionally talented. If it's cooked by him and it doesn't taste good, it's not there."
Vikir shook his head at that. "Well, with the supply disruption, we'll have to eat this for a while anyway."
Vikir picked up the potatoes, stood up, and went to the kitchen. Using a knife, Vikir cut the potatoes into small pieces and lightly rolled them in salt and vinegar. Then, she added the dried leaves of the mentrake and the juice of the sabik tree to the pot with the potatoes and started steaming.
The chef in the kitchen saw Vikir and came over in surprise. "Hey, what are you doing... ... ." But the chef is interrupted by a camel who has just entered the kitchen.
"...."
She watches Vikir's handiwork closely. Then, Vikir holds up a gently steamed potato before the chef. "This will remove the earthy flavor and bring out the sweetness, and the texture will be just as crisp as a traditional potato."
The chefs in the kitchen let out a collective sigh. "Wow, there's a way of preparing these potatoes like this?" "It's amazing, it's a new variation, how?" "It's true, it doesn't taste so earthy, and the texture is just like a traditional potato."
The chefs quickly put Vikir's simple recipe into action. The Morg warriors were also pleased with the change in flavor of the potatoes in their rations. So did Staffordshire and the Highbrow, Middlebrow, and Uncultured trios who ate among the Morg.
"Ace, how did you know how to eat those potatoes? Obviously, the Morg didn't either."
Staffordshire asked, his eyes wide. Vikir simply averted her gaze, unable to answer. For now, these Morg's potatoes are new to the market. In years to come, they will be a battlefield staple. In the Period of Destruction, when all supplies were scarce, warriors in the battle against demons devised ways of making their limited food supplies as palatable as possible during their endless days in the wilderness. Mercenaries who had been through the wringer had learned to extract every last drop of flavor from the simplest of ingredients, such as those who figured out how to take the bitterness and earthy smell out of the potato.
Vikir, too, had been in many battles and was naturally acquainted with many survivalist dishes. Many of them were learned while being injured or mutilated, and some of them were truly culinary rarities.
Meanwhile.
"...!" The enthusiastic camel's eyes immediately changed color. She quiets down and closes her mouth. And then.
"...."
Vikir's mouth fell open too. The atmosphere outside the window changed in an instant. They both felt it simultaneously. A sense of foreboding that the others hadn't yet felt.
And then.
Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. A loud bell began to ring outside the window. It was the signal for a savage attack.
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