“Eek! I was told you had a large pup, but I didn’t think it would be this big...” The young chef who’d been called upon to cook for them stiffened at the sight of Keel. Mina was probably right that if he’d been told that Keel was a wolf and not a dog, he’d have been paralyzed on the floor with fear.
In any case, once he recovered from the shock, he quickly started preparing dinner. There was a simple kitchen next to the dining room in the suite, and a waiter and waitress rolled in tableware and ingredients on a service cart.
The ingredients had already been prepped, so all that was left to do was cook them and dish them right out onto the table. This was where the chef would work his magic.
As expected, in almost no time at all, they began to present the three of them with plate after plate, starting with the appetizers. As Zen, Elysia, and Mina sat at the antique table in the dining room, they dug in.
The waiter put a large plate with a giant roasted bird on the floor. It seemed the chef had prepared a meat dish for Keel in advance, and the wolf gnawed on it, looking like he was enjoying it.
“Good for you, Keel. That’s a filling meal.” Elysia briefly put down her knife and fork, watching Keel eat with a smile.
Meanwhile, Zen had also stopped eating and was looking over at Keel. He was frozen, his utensils still in his hands.
Why is it so big? What kind of bird is that...? He couldn’t help his concern. There was no way it was a chicken or a duck. Compared to those, it was such a ridiculously huge size that it felt like a joke.
Swans inhabited the marshes on Alona’s outskirts, so he thought that was what it was at first.
However, upon digging through his memories, it looked even larger than those in the flock they’d happened to spot the day before yesterday on their journey.
There’s no way... He swallowed back those words. He had a bad feeling about this.
Zen stared intently at the roasted bird, and the waiter, who noticed him, said with a smile, “For the main dish, we’ve prepared an especially famed delicacy even among all of Alona’s specialties—a whole roasted blue crane.”
I thought so! Zen thought indignantly, his suspicions proven right.
Blue cranes were the largest birds among the empire’s native species, measuring one hundred and sixty centimeters long on average. There were four other species of crane that crossed over Catalan depending on the season, but blue cranes were said to be nearly twenty centimeters bigger since their habitat was the same all year round. On top of having a great deal of meat on them, they were also extremely delicious.
However, they only inhabited a small part of the marshes in the empire’s southern region. Fearing that they’d be hunted to extinction, the third emperor, Emperor Carls, had prohibited people from hunting them.
Then, during the eighth emperor Luke’s reign, it was determined that their population had recovered, and the ban on hunting them was lifted during a certain time of year.
During the Carnival season, you were allowed to hunt them, although only with bow and arrow. You couldn’t use traps. Additionally, if their meat wasn’t eaten while fresh, it was still prohibited to preserve it by pickling or smoking. In Catalan, the month and day that Carnival was held depended on the region, but it was always around fall, not winter.
If that was the case, then why was Keel currently sinking his teeth into a blue crane? Wasn’t it normally prohibited to hunt it?
“Man, I didn’t think we’d get to eat blue crane at this time of year. We sure are lucky,” Zen said, refraining from using a critical tone as much as possible. He still didn’t know who was responsible, after all.
Sure enough, the waiter and waitress told him with carefree smiles:
“It’s by the grace of the new prefectural governor.”
“The Carnival season, which used to be only once a year, is now held once a month.”
“That’s why we now get to eat blue cranes every month.”
That’s some twisted logic. It completely misses the point of the original law. Zen was stunned. However, it was true that time and time again, twisted logic like this was tolerated in legal interpretations.
This would eventually reach the central government, and someone like the director of the Judicial Affairs Bureau would probably tell Stoga it was a twisting of the law and warn him not to do it again—and then that’d be it.
Or perhaps news of this had already reached the central government and they hadn’t really seen it as a problem. There was also the possibility that the current emperor, who’d appointed Stoga, and the prime minister had defended him, saying he’d done nothing wrong. Regardless, it didn’t seem like this was something Stoga would be punished for.
“The chef put his all into preparing it, so please look forward to it.”
“I’m so happy. This is my first time trying blue crane,” Zen responded, smiling. Whatever he was thinking to himself, there was nothing actually wrong with this inn or this blue crane. He truly was going to eat it with pleasure.
So they all relished the splendid dishes of wild rice risotto, turtle soup, Alona carp stew, and a palate cleanser of lingonberry juice. Then at last, the whole roasted blue crane made its debut.
The chef brought it out on a service cart and carved it in front of them.
At any rate, the huge roast was incredible in appearance alone, and Zen was even more excited since he’d seen Keel get a taste of it first.
As the chef quietly set the plates in front of them, serving the blue crane with deep-fried potatoes, Zen kept his impatient heart in check. Then he used a knife and fork to take his first bite.
Delicious! For an instant, that word felt like it was going to blast out of his head. The umami packed into the blue crane meat was even stronger than duck’s. It had a good texture too, with the meat neither too hard nor too soft. The sinews were fine and velvety, and the feeling of each bite was irresistible.
Because of how big the bird was, it was more like a cow than a chicken with how there was a distinct difference between the fattier parts of its body and the leaner sections. Those differences could be enjoyed, and Zen firmly preferred the less fatty parts!
More than anything, the flavor was indescribable. Unlike chicken meat, which stirred your appetite right away, the blue crane was elegantly sweet. It had a taste that made you want more no matter how much you ate.
Th-This tastes like a sin... Zen understood that this taste would make humans go mad. He could also understand that it would spur humans to overhunt them, and without regulations in place, the blue cranes would be hunted to extinction. He understood this way too well now. From the bottom of his heart, he felt that this one moment had made his trip to Alona worthwhile. But without Stoga’s ridiculous policy, he normally wouldn’t be able to eat blue crane this time of year.
While his chest stirred with some unpleasant emotions, he couldn’t stop cutting the meat with his knife.
The taste of sin...
On that day, until the moment he fell asleep, Zen was a philosopher.