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SOMETHING immediately caught my eye when we arrived at the supermarket. In the car park were nobori banners scattered around various places. It was a rare sight.
I scanned the text on some of the banners.
“New eco-point system!”
“Ten times eco-points for a limited time only!”
“Eco-friendly measures starting this year! Ask staff for details!”
Judging from what I could read, the eco-point system here was completely different from what I was familiar with. I had a decent idea of what it involved after reading the banner texts, and I walked into the supermarket alongside other customers, who were also equipped with reusable shopping bags.
After entering the supermarket, I saw a staff member standing slightly ahead of us. This was new. The staff repeated the same explanation over and over to the customers with reusable shopping bags.
“Please keep your reusable bags folded until you reach the cashier! You only have to show the bag during payment! Please put your items into your basket or cart like usual! I will be handing out point cards over here, so if you would like any, please come over!”
At this point, it was clear—this supermarket had implemented a new point card or loyalty point system, and they’d coincidentally named it “eco-points.” With a wry quirk on the corners of my lips, I walked up to the staff member and received a point card. Then, like always, I headed to the vegetable section first.
As we walked, Kon, who was roaming around aimlessly near my legs, looked at me triumphantly. “See? There really is an eco-point system! I dunno the details, but I hear that there was a similar system on the other side of the border, and some beastfolk thought that we should follow the trend! I’ll be honest, but I have no clue what the ‘eco’ part means, but Mommy was happy because we get more value! And I thought you might be happy too, Mikura!”
A smile wormed onto my lips. “Yeah, thanks for telling me. You were a big help. From what I can see on the card, it’s definitely worth the effort. Looks like this reusable shopping bag will be my good partner from now on.”
He nodded profusely. “Awesome! Go ahead and use it! I mean, Mommy made it, but I’m still glad you like it!” He paused and looked at me curiously. “By the way, have you ever received eco-points on the other side before?”
“Weeell… Hmm… No, the eco-point system on our side was something from over ten years ago. I was just a child back then, so I’ve never been involved in it.”
“Huuuh! That’s so interesting! I wonder whether humans on the other side did what we’re doing now!”
We walked as we chatted. I observed our surroundings and quietly thought, It all makes sense now. The TV in the Wilds broadcasted news and TV dramas from the other side of the border, acting as a window to the outside world. However, to the citizens of the Wilds, such information and news came from a different world—it was useless and meaningless information from a world they would never interact with. The best they could do was to gain a haphazard understanding of it and to put it to practice equally haphazardly just like this point system in the supermarket.
They likely didn’t remember any of the details of an event from over a decade ago. They couldn’t remember when exactly it happened, what exactly had happened, but they didn’t have the motivation to investigate it properly, either. Only a vague imprint was left in their minds.
But there was still a handful of exceptions—beastfolk who were interested in this foreign world. They still remembered the concept of eco-points or had researched it on the Internet. But they hadn’t spread that information or contacted the supermarket about the misconception. They only gazed at this commotion impassively from the sidelines, as if it wasn’t their concern.
The Wilds already had a sustainable trash disposal and recycling system. Encouraging a more eco-friendly lifestyle wasn’t high on the priority list, so there wasn’t much point, for the lack of a better word, in using the term “eco-points.” But someone had heard this word in the past and knew that reusable shopping bags were trending on the other side of the border. They’d made that connection and implemented the system for such a fleeting reason. That was my guess, at least.
As a human who’d lived on the other side of the border, I could have chosen to clear up the misunderstanding. But there weren’t any merits in doing that, and I didn’t want to be a party pooper. Plus, earning points whenever I went shopping was a welcome addition. Yeah. I’ll stay silent about this one, I decided. There was an unsurmountable rift between these two worlds separated by a border, and I was reminded of this fact once again.
Shaking these thoughts out of my mind, I headed to the fresh seafood section and admired the display, mulling over which fish I should pick for my pizza. The pizza I’m making is the light type, so should I go for a matching fish with a light taste, or should I deliberately go for something with rich flavors?
Umeboshi pulp goes well with sardines. I can think of it as a cousin of anchovy pizza. Those are nice. Oh, there’s still fresh trout available at this time of year, huh? The trout here is amazing, so that’s another good option.
And hello there, unagi. I recalled the delicious grilled unagi my mother-in-law had made. There was a respectable selection of top-quality unagi that would probably cost at least a few thousand yen if I bought them on the other side of the border. Some were whole, some were butterflied, and some had already been grilled as kabayaki.
Unagi…pizza? A sudden extravagant and blasphemous idea popped into my mind as I admired the eels.
Then, Kon’s cheerful voice caught my attention. “Ah! I spy with my little eye something beginning with f! There’s fugu! Fugu tastes nice too, right?!” He grabbed his usual stepladder and peered into the fridge inside the fresh seafood section, leaning forward eagerly.
Fugu? Wait… Is fugu in season right now? I quickly shot down that thought. No, it must be frozen fugu since we’re living in a forest on the mountain, so I guess there’s no season to speak of. Thinking that, I glanced at the fish that had attracted Kon’s attention, and when I read the text on the price tag, I did a double take. It read, Product of Beastly Wilds.
I gaped at it. “Huuuuh?! Local fugu?!”
I didn’t know whether it had always been there or whether it had only appeared recently. It had completely slipped by unnoticed, and of course, I’d never checked its price or place of origin. It was like a bolt from the blue.
Kon blinked at me, tilting his head quizzically. “Yeah. It’s local. We farm them near the dam in…some kinda pool? It’s easy to cook, so when it starts appearing in shops, which is around now, Mommy often simmers it in ginger and soy sauce.”
“What?” I stared at him in shock. “Hang on… Wait, your mom has a fugu cooking license?”
“Huh? You need a license? For cooking fish?”
“I mean—” I gestured with my flailing hands. “—fugu is poisonous!”
“What? How can fugu have poison? I like fugu quite a lot and I eat them often, but I’ve never gotten a tummy ache before.”
This was when my brain finally started working. I recalled my knowledge of fugu toxins.
Fugu ingests their toxins from their staple food source, shellfish, and the toxins within the fugu are just a concentrated version of that. Therefore, if they are reared on farms and are only given feed that doesn’t contain these toxins, the fugu wouldn’t be toxic…or something like that. Nonpoisonous fugu is readily available in the market, but if the misconception that “all fugu are safe to eat” spreads, people might get poisoning from eating wild fugu. For this reason, even now, all fugu chefs require licenses no matter what type of fugu they handle. On top of that, there’re apparently regulations against advertising nonpoisonous fugu.