For the time being, we decided to sit down on the ground and wait. Tiamat was powerful enough to push past the wolf, but that would have been pointless.
“I didn’t mean to give him so much concern,” Tiamat said, as she plopped down on the ground.
“I’m sure they didn’t want their living quarters destroyed.”
“Excuse you, Eiji. The next one was only going to be at half strength.”
How different, really, was a destructive beam that reached a kilometer and one that reached half that. Potayto potahto. Let’s call the whole thing off.
“Since they volunteered, it would be better to leave it to them. I’m sure even you couldn’t fully get the hang of things after only a couple tries. There’s much to learn from failures, but it’s not like we want to become hunters, anyway.”
Our end goal wasn’t to hunt gagd. Our current objective was to popularize dishes using the gagd meat to Lishua, and eventually the entirety of Azur. Even that wouldn’t be the end of it, though. Boar meat wasn’t enough to make up for the lack of vitamin B1. Our endeavor would only be successful once we ingrained a balanced diet of sides into the culture here. The road ahead of us seemed endless, but we had to hurry. Lives were at stake. If my efforts could save even one or two lives, not trying was not an option.
“Hm? What’s wrong, Tia?”
I noticed that Tiamat was staring at me. We were already partners, so she wasn’t looking at me like she wanted to join the party.
“Nothing. I was only surprised at how earnest you are.”
“...Was I thinking out loud?”
“I mean no offense by this, but I had pegged Japanese bureaucrats to be much more lackadaisical.”
“I don’t deny that some of us are.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. When asked why they chose their profession, many bureaucrats would cite the steady pay and job security. I don’t think that’s a bad reason either. Everyone works for themselves or their family, and there is nothing wrong with that. Even bureaucrats can’t be expected to be altruistic. In my case, however, I had someone I aspired to be like.
“Who?”
“Not a direct acquaintance. Saw him on TV.”
“Oh?”
In 1986, Mount Mihara on Izu Ōshima had a major eruption. It was Mister Akita, the assistant official, who had taken command of the evacuation to get the ten thousand plus residents and tourists off the island without a single casualty. He pleaded with all sorts of institutions, did everything that needed to be done, and stayed behind on the island to watch the final rescue boat leave.
Of course, I had no direct knowledge of this event. It took place in the year I was born. I learned of it in the year 2000, through a TV program aired on the national broadcast channel. I was a fourteen-year-old middle schooler.
“I looked up to him. He was admirable. I wanted to be like him.”
“This formed your career path, then.”
“I don’t know if I was that determined about it, but... I want to help other people. That’s never left me.”
I placed my hand on my heart.
...Perhaps it was a little too cheesy.
“I see. I feel like I’ve cracked a mystery. It was curious why you worked so hard for the sake of the people in this world.”
“It’s a little embarrassing that it all started from a TV program.”
“No matter the drive behind it, good deeds are exactly that. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Ah. While we were learning about your embarrassing past, Mister Fenrir has returned.”
“So should I be embarrassed or not?”
Concealing my embarrassed grin with a chuckle, I stood. In front of us was a gagd of considerable size, as big as the one Tiamat had turned to ash. Its freshly dimmed red eyes looked up at us begrudgingly.
“Now, what will you do with it, Human?”
“You can call me Eiji.”
“Then, I permit you to address me as Baze.”
Permission was granted from a very high horse. Although, from a Fenrir’s perspective, it had no reason to speak with a human. At best, a human could only hope to be seen as an enemy and not prey.
“I believe we need to drain its blood first.”
“Hm. How?” Tiamat asked.
“...”
How, indeed? It was a popular plot point in fantasy pieces, especially ones that focus on pioneering or survival. However, I didn’t know how to take apart an animal. Even if I did, what was I supposed to do with a four-meter boar? How could those protagonists make it look so easy? Was it a skill obtainable by watching someone do it a couple of times? More importantly, how could they be so unaffected in the face of a freshly killed carcass, animal or otherwise? I was beginning to doubt that these protagonists were genuinely Japanese. Perhaps they were already hunters and gatherers.
I, in the meantime, was chickening out. Terrified, to be honest. A charging gagd was terrifying too, but a corpse was terrifying in another way.
“Hang it upside down and slit its throat,” Tiamat enlightened me.
Whether this was a necessary piece of knowledge or a trivial one, it was nice to have someone that knew the steps. Nice, but the problem was how. How were we going to hang a four-meter-long beast? I didn’t have the strength to do it, and Tiamat couldn’t physically do the task as she was the same size as me. Mister Baze the Fenrir was larger than the gagd, but his forelegs were not as well suited for things like holding or tying rope. We didn’t even have any rope in the first place.
“What should we do...”
“I can fly up with its legs in my mouth.”
“You can fly, Tia?”
“I have them on my back. These wings aren’t just for show. Ha-han.”
“Can you please start pulling gags I can understand?”
Tiamat’s proposal was for her to bite down on the gagd’s leg and fly up. Once it was upside down, Mister Baze would slit its throat to let out the blood. It was the most brute-force way I could have imagined to bloodlet. I was beginning to worry that the entire area would become flooded in blood.
“Why don’t you just bite it as-is, Eiji?”
The Fenrir shook its head, nearing the edge of his patience.
“I’m not the one who’s going to eat it, Mister Baze.”
The people back at the city needed to eat it. We needed to let the blood out, and make it into a delicious dish. If the notion that gagd didn’t taste good was established, it wouldn’t be easy to retcon.
On the flip side, if the gagd dish made a good first impression on people, the dish could spread fast and wide. If that happened there would be other issues to worry about, of course, like damaging the woodlands and overhunting. Turning the gagd into livestock may be the shortcut, surprisingly enough.
“Then they should be the one to do it.”
A grin seemed to flash on the Fenrir’s face. I followed its gaze to see a hint of a dust cloud in the distance.
“A carriage is approaching. Seeing that they are screaming your name, they seem to be looking for you, Eiji.”
“You can tell from this distance?”
“The human senses are much too dull. You would never survive in the wild.”
“That’s why we formed groups, built cities, and passed down our knowledge to the next generation in order to survive.”
Baze scoffed at my generalized study of human society. Nowhere in history had there ever been a country of magibeasts. Nor an empire of demons, or a kingdom ruled by a Demon Lord. There had only ever been human nations. Didn’t this historical fact back my theory, in a way? That was exactly why Mister Baze wore a disdainful expression.