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THE next day, I woke up before sunrise, changed clothes, braided my hair, and washed my face.
Breakfast was available in the cafeteria. We had to sign in at the entrance, as the cost of meals would be deducted from our pay.
Today’s breakfast was vegetable soup, bread rolls, sausage, and hard-boiled eggs.
The old woman behind the counter built a small mountain of food on my plate.
All knights were allowed as much bread, butter, and jam as we wanted—it was paradise.
“Would you like some more bread, Miss Risurisu?”
“Thank you. But no, that’s plenty.”
The woman thrust three large bread rolls, each the size of my palm, onto my plate. There was no chance of me having any room for more after that.
I’d always thought I had a big appetite, but when I looked at the other female knights in the cafeteria, I realized they were eating even more than what I’d been served.
Would I get that big and muscular if I trained like them?
No, I was a combat medic. There was no need for me to get so buff.
Once I’d finished breakfast, I made my way to the barracks for the Second Expeditionary Squadron. It was roughly a five-minute walk from the women’s dorm. However, the Royal Order of Enoch consisted of an overwhelming number of male knights. While my dorm was full of women, as soon as I stepped into the expeditionary squadrons’ territory, there wasn’t one to be seen.
The people I passed in the hallway cast glances my way. I imagined seeing a Fore Elf in such a setting must be unusual.
As I tried to don my jacket and cap—part of the order’s uniform when going outside—someone called out to me from behind.
“Whoa! It’s a Fore Elf!”
I turned around to see a young, slender knight looking my way. Naturally, he was a complete stranger to me.
“Are you lost? Do you need directions to the forest?”
My long, pointy ears were an immediate target for gawkers.
Could he be any ruder to a woman he just met?!
“What squadron are you in? What’s your name?”
Mom always told me not to give my name to strangers.
I pressed my lips together and ignored his questions.
However, I couldn’t get over my surprise at how this guy talked to a person he had just met. He wore his shoulder-length hair down, while his necklace and earrings made him stand out in a flashy way.
“Aw, man! So you can’t even say hello? Is that a rule of the forest or something?”
“You’ve got that right!” I wanted to scream at him. But just then, I suddenly felt myself lifted up into the air.
I was staring right into the eyes of a giant bearded man.
“I-I-It’s a bandit!!” I cried out involuntarily from fear. But when I looked closer, it was just my captain.
He lifted me up and draped me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. Wh-What’s going on?!
“What do ya want with my combat medic, Kinon?”
That seemed to be the gaudy knight’s name. Interesting…not that I intend to remember it!
“N-Nothing!” Kinon said. “She just looked like she needed some help.”
What in the Fore Elf Forest is his problem? I didn’t need help with anything! He was totally lying.
“She’s part of my squadron,” Captain Ludtink said. “Don’t mess with her, or you’ll be sorry.”
“R-Right. Understood…” With that, the man darted away. It seemed he and Captain Ludtink knew each other already.
Just when I thought it was all over, a group of knights rushed into the room. They stopped in front of Captain Ludtink.
“What’s going on?”
“We just heard someone shout about bandits…”
“Sorry about that!”
Still draped over the captain’s shoulder, I had to apologize to the knights with my butt facing them.
“I’m sorry. I thought Captain Ludtink was a bandit…”
“Ah, very well then…”
An awkward silence followed. Captain Ludtink finally dismissed the other knights.
But even then, he refused to set me back down. The captain carried me along like I was a piece of luggage.
“I’m all right now. Please put me down.”
“If ya walk so slow, you’ll be a target for creeps.”
“Th-Thank you for helping me out.”
“Mm-hm… Anyhow, are you sure you’ve been eating properly?”
“Yes, I’ve been eating a whole lot…”
“Huh…you’re as light as a feather.”
Well, I don’t think that’s true. Should I eat more bread with breakfast…? No way, I just can’t!
“I don’t think it matters if a combat medic is slender or not,” I said.
“But how’re you gonna keep up on expeditions if you’re not strong and robust?”
“That’s true, I suppose…”
I’d just have to gradually get more accustomed to this new way of life.
During the course of our conversation, we eventually arrived at the Second Expeditionary Squadron’s barracks, where the captain finally put me down.
The barracks were a single, one-story wooden building, three storage sheds, and a stable. It was distinctly run-down…or put a nicer way, it was a building with a long history.
We gathered in the captain’s office for our morning assembly and received each of our respective assignments.
Vice Captain Velrey was to train with Garr, while Ulgus was in charge of giving me the rundown about my work.
The meeting ended after only five minutes. We all dispersed.
“Lower ranked knights get stuck doing a lot of basic tasks no one else wants to do, don’t they…?” I said to Ulgus as we walked on.
“You’ve got that right!” he said.
First, we were to clean the barracks.
“Is it just me,” I asked, “or is this place a total mess?”
“Sorry about that!” Ulgus replied. “I just really hate cleaning.”
Cleaning the barracks was the responsibility of the knights themselves. But here, the hallway was dusty, the rooms unorganized, and dirty dishes were piled up in the small kitchen.
“How often do you clean this place?” I asked.
“Once a week…actually, more like once every two weeks.”
I thought I might faint. It was so ridiculously unhygienic!
“Ulgus, you have to clean a building once a day, every day.”
“Are you kidding? I could never—”
“I’m serious!”
“Urk… Okay…”
We divided up the work and began tidying up the barracks.
“You’re doing it wrong, Ulgus! Put some muscle into it!”
I had to teach him the correct methods, since he didn’t even know the essentials of cleaning.
It’s almost like he’s the brand-new member of the squadron…
We spent our whole morning cleaning the barracks. When Captain Ludtink left to attend a meeting, we took the opportunity to air out his particularly messy office and get the place in order.
“See?” I said once we’d finished. “Doesn’t it feel better to have a clean room?”
“Y-Yeah…”
Ulgus looked even more exhausted after half a day of cleaning than he did when returning home from an expedition. What he needed was some discipline.
After eating lunch in the main cafeteria, Ulgus led me to the small sheds outside.
The first was for storing weapons, the second was for tools, and the third…
“This is the shed where we store preserved foods,” he said.
Here it is! The source of that stiff, disgusting food!
Apparently, the squadron had a budget specifically for food brought on missions, so we could go out and buy it ourselves.
“Some…stuff happened, and now we’re allowed to make whatever we want.”
Ulgus explained that they’d borrowed books from the library and learned how to make jerky and dried bread for themselves. Indeed, they had a large amount of stored food.
But it was the food’s quality that was lacking. As soon as the door creaked open, I was hit with the overwhelming stench of meat.
“Urgh!” I cried.
“Sorry about the smell…” Ulgus said.
Inside were cuts of meat hung from strings and rows of bread sitting out to dry.
“It smells so rotten…!”
“Oh yeah! I completely forgot about the meat I bought the other day.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
The source of the stench was raw meat that Ulgus had left out for two days!
He went on to say that he hadn’t had any time to prepare the meat, as their deployment orders had shown up suddenly.
“When you say ‘prepare,’” I asked, “does that mean you dry the meat yourself?”
“You bet! Preserving food’s another job given to the lower ranks.”
“I see. How exactly did this jerky come to be in the first place?” Nervously, I questioned him on his process.
“Well, let’s see,” Ulgus began. “First, I buy a lump of meat at the market, cut it up into thin strips, roast it, boil it, then let it dry.”
“…Oh. I see,” I said dryly.
His method was flawed on a fundamental basis. But at the very least, he did cook the meat.
If he’d dried the meat raw without using any salt or anything, we definitely would’ve dropped dead while out on our expedition.
I then worked up the courage to voice my complaints.
“This jerky and the bread are extremely hard, sour, and even flavorless,” I said. “It’s very difficult to eat.”
“We used to think that at first, too. It’s scary how the body adapts to certain things…”
So they really were just ignoring their bodies’ own objections to the food! If only they knew that there were perfectly delicious ways of drying meat that didn’t require such restraint.
“We need to fix this, Ulgus,” I said firmly.
“Agreed,” he said. “I look forward to working with you.”
I felt like this was a problem we needed to tackle immediately.
“Let’s start by going to the market.”
My fellow low-ranking knight and I set out on our new quest: to make delicious jerky!