“Mhmm, didn’t you promise to buy my goodie bag every day? Maybe I should let it slip that you two are here?”
Shan Li waved the big fish in front of them and smirked like a cat. She told them the mule pulling her carriage was descended from Red Rabbit, the fastest horse the Continent had ever seen. So if it came to it, Shan Li could get word to Miyako’s whole family about Miyako and Fuuka in no time at all. No time at all.
“Y-You’re pure evil!”
“You say something?”
“No, nothing...” whined Miyako.
Miyako had no options left.
“Hey, Miyako?”
“What’s up, Fuuka-chan?”
When Miyako turned around, she saw that Fuuka had at some point picked up a book. “The Local Cuisine of Atika” was written on its cover.
Oh yeah, there was a book like that on the bookshelf. It’s a pretty old recipe book. The fact that she’ll even read things like that speaks volumes about how much effort she puts in, or should I say her bookwormishness?
“Local cuisine...?”
“That’s right. The basic form of distribution in commerce is local production for local consumption. If you want to acquire something fresh and cheap, it is best to narrow your focus to what is found nearby. And that fish appears to be one you can find in the sea in Atika.”
“Wow, you really do know everything, Fuuka-chan.”
“I...! It’s just something I saw in the field guide at my mansion, nothing more. This is your home, you just don’t know anything!!”
“Fuuka-chan, your face has gone all red. You’re not embarrassed, are you?”
“Miyako!!!”
“Heh heh, sorry for teasing you.”
It’s so cute when you puff your cheeks out like that, too, thought Miyako.
Fuuka glared at Miyako, and then began some sort of negotiation with Shan Li in Continental.
Miyako found herself completely out of the loop.
“So that’s that. We’ll take the fish, Shan Li-san.”
“Great, thanks for your patronage.”
They watched Shan Li waving from her wagon as she left.
Fuuka held the splendid fish in her hands, as well as something else.
“What’s that, Fuuka-chan?”
“What it looks like, a stone.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Fuuka-chan, is this all right?”
Miyako left the cabin holding the things she’d been told to get ready. That was a wooden bucket, in which they’d put leafy vegetables, the fish, and the soup. Miyako had cleanly removed the fish’s innards and scales and boiled it in a pot with the vegetables earlier. The bucket full of soup made quite the impression.
“Yes, that’s fine. Things are coming along nicely on my end.”
After stoking the fire, Fuuka plucked something out of it with some tongs and stood up... It was a heated stone.
She had taken the smooth stone they had bought from Shan Li, meant to be a paperweight, and scrubbed it clean. Then she had heated it in the campfire for over an hour, and though it might not have looked it, it was piping hot.
“...I bet this would really burn you if I pressed it against you, Miyako.”
“Wh-What? Don’t scare me!”
“I’m joking. Just because you stole my life’s work, my marriage into the Reinhardt family, doesn’t mean I have the right to burn you with a hot stone.”
“...Uhhh.”
“And I’ll turn a blind eye to the fact that you kidnapped me and are holding me prisoner.”
“I-I might have kidnapped you, but you don’t look like a prisoner!”
“Since you dragged me all the way out to the country without any horses, I might as well be a prisoner. Miyako, could you bring that wooden bucket here, please?”
“S-Sure.”
Miyako placed the bucket down. After Fuuka said that to her, she started to feel she might have done something a little bit bad. But if Miyako had married Klaus Reinhardt, Fuuka would have still met a tragic end. And anyway there’s no way in hell I’d marry that hysteric man whose only saving grace is his pretty face.
“All right, here goes,” said Fuuka.
“Okay. Fuuka-chan, are you gonna tell me what you’re doing with that stone or wh— Whoaa!”
Fshhhhhhh.
“It looks like that went well,” said Fuuka.
Inside the bucket that Fuuka threw the heated stone into, the soup came to a boil in a split second. A pleasant smell filled the cabin.
“I’m told eating this while it’s hot is the way to go with Atikan cuisine... Haha, even I can manage this!”
“Heh heh, yep! You’re amazing, Fuuka-chan.”
Although, Miyako did do most of the work preparing what went into the bucket.
But some things are better left unsaid.
Fuuka-chan making the effort to find out about my homeland’s local cuisine is just way too cute, thought Miyako, cradling her head.
“...But, this might be a problem,” said Miyako.
“We made a little too much...”
Enough soup—or rather, stone-heated stew—to fill a bucket was too much to fit inside two girls’ stomachs.
Miyako began to think to herself while chewing on the fish. Stone-heated stew... Stone-heated. Heated stone, water. Heated stone, water, and boiling... A bath!
“Fuuka-chan! We might actually be able to build a bath here!”
“What?”
“I know I’ll do a great job! I’ll do my best to get you to feel happy!”
Eager to put her idea into action, Miyako was completely unaware at the moment that her plan to use the heated stone to make a bath would cause an incident of sorts.
Nor did Fuuka know that a spy dispatched from the capital was trying to find their cabin.