“Well... It’s important to warm up before exercising,” I replied. I may have agreed with Reina on the inside, but I didn’t want to say it out loud.
After Katima had told me her story, she introduced herself, and now she was eating a meal. At first I had spoken with her formally, but she had bluntly said, “I’m just Katima, so you can call me that,” so now we were on more casual terms.
“Y’know, it looks like the sweetfish Luna caught are about to run out. Are you guys sure you don’t want any?” Elga asked.
“I think we might have to give up for today,” Reina said.
“Yeah... When I see them like that, I can’t bring myself to ask them to share,” I said. Watching Katima and Luna chow down on the grilled sweetfish was enough to make me feel full.
After a while, Katima finished eating all of the sweetfish, then lay down while rubbing her belly. “Phew... That was good.” Though her expression hadn’t changed much since waking up, she now looked vaguely content.
Luna lay down as well, imitating her.
“Hey, you two, it’s bad manners to lie down right after eating,” Reina said. Then, she made them sit up, and they let out tired groans.
“Hngh...”
“Ahhh...”
It was a bit entertaining, sort of like watching two sisters being scolded by their mother.
Although Luna and Katima sat up, they sleepily rubbed their eyes.
“Now that I’m full, I’m tired,” Katima said.
“Me toooo...” Luna said.
“It’s already getting late, so spend the night here, Katima,” I said. “Luna...”
“I’ll stay here toooo...”
She already sounded half asleep, so I looked at her guardian, Elga. He just shrugged, not saying anything, but it didn’t seem like it would be an issue.
“All right then, let’s go to your room, Luna,” I said.
“Okay...”
I took her hand, and she obediently stood up and began to walk unsteadily. I felt a slight tug at my clothes, and turned around to find a bleary-eyed Katima pinching my sleeve.
“Me too... I’ll sleep too.”
“Oh, okay,” I said.
It seemed like her consciousness was hazy, and although she was on her feet, she looked shaky. Will she be all right? I wondered. She had been completely unconscious until it was time to eat, so perhaps almost drowning in the river had depleted all of her strength.
Reina giggled. “You sure are popular, dad,” she said teasingly.
“Well, if I’m dad, then you’re mom,” I retorted.
We both fell silent.
Reina blushed slightly and averted her eyes. I had only said it as a joke, but it made me a bit self-conscious when she reacted like that, and I ended up at a loss for words.
“C’mon, enough of the husband-and-wife comedy duo. These two look like they’re about to collapse on the spot,” Elga said.
“Ah?!” I exclaimed, quickly looking down. Both Luna and Katima were practically about to fall over. I quickly picked them up in my arms, and with no other option, I carried them that way all the way to Luna’s room. There, I laid them down in bed, and as soon as I pulled the covers over them, they drifted off to dreamland.
“They sure are carefree,” I said.
But, I also thought that was a good thing. They worked a lot, played a lot, ate a lot, and slept a lot. Setting aside the question of whether that was how people ought to be, I had been reincarnated on this island in hopes of living that way.
When I got back to the others, Reina had resumed preparing dinner. The appetizing smell of butter wafted through the air from a hot fry pan, tickling my nostrils.
“I was going to make some salted sweetfish for dinner, but as I watched how quickly the girls ate, I ran out of time,” Reina said.
“Oh? But I thought they ate all of the sweetfish...”
“Heh, I thought something like this might happen. Take a look,” Elga said. He grinned and took out his bucket. It seemed that he had hidden his sweetfish before Luna and Katima devoured all of them. There weren’t nearly as many compared to the number they’d eaten, but it was still more than enough for three people.
“And so, we’ll have a dinner just for the adults,” Reina said.
The sweetfish being cooked with butter and soy sauce gave off a different scent compared to the ones that had been grilled with just salt. Laid out on a plate, they looked incredibly mouthwatering, and the garnish of herbs added some color and made them look all the more delicious.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Sweetfish sautéed in butter and pepper with herbs! Ha ha,” Reina said, pretending to sound like a chef.
Elga gulped. “This smell is intense.”
“Oh, and Elga? No shouting this time,” Reina warned him. “It’s already late, and Luna and Katima are sleeping.”
He looked uneasy. “Will I be able to hold myself back?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder and giving him a thumbs up. “If it comes to it, I’ll cover your mouth and throw you as far as I can.”
Elga paused. “I’ll do what I can to control myself.”
I sat down and looked again at the sautéed sweetfish. Meat had been the main dish of nearly every meal I’d eaten since coming to this island, so the fish before me now stimulated my instincts as a Japanese person and made it impossible for me to tear my eyes away. Hard to say if this body even is Japanese, but...
“You know... I could go for some wine with this,” I spontaneously mumbled.
“Jeez, all right,” Reina said, exasperated. She took out a bottle of white wine from her Storage spell.
“Huh?”
“What the—” Elga said.
I couldn’t look away from the white wine. This was the first time she’d ever taken out an alcoholic drink. I just assumed that she didn’t have any...
“I can’t believe you were hiding something like this,” I said.
“Saying I was ‘hiding’ it sounds like I was doing something wrong. There just isn’t much, so I was saving it for a rainy day, that’s all.”
Reina took out three wine glasses and poured wine into each of them. It was a nostalgic sound that moved me deeply.
“Now, to start our special, adults-only party: a toast.”
Following Reina’s lead, we touched our glasses together, producing a short, high-pitched clink. Then, I took a sip of the wine right away. It had a crisp taste and went down smoothly, and I could instantly tell that this was a luxury brand. I looked at Reina, who was swirling her glass, exposing the wine to the air. She looked stylish, and it really fit her, but when I tried to imitate it, I had trouble moving the glass like her.
“It’s surprisingly hard...”
Reina chuckled. “You’re so clumsy, Arata. Until you get used to it, you should keep the bottom of your glass on the table while you swirl it, like Elga.”
Elga had been spinning his glass on the table. His drink steadily swirled around inside his glass, incorporating oxygen into the wine.
“Heh,” he chuckled, looking at me smugly.
That roused my competitive spirit. It looked like it was time for me to show the true power of my copy ability. I watched how Reina swirled her glass in the air, then did the same myself.
I failed.
“You’re so clumsy. Just give it up and put it on the table,” Reina said.
“Fine...”
Unfortunately, it seemed that my divinely granted copy ability didn’t let me reproduce these sorts of everyday skills. Resigned, I placed my glass on the table like Elga, and it felt much more stable compared to before.
“Oh, I did it,” I said.
“There you go, that’s how it’s done,” Reina said. “Also, before you take a sip, try smelling it. One way to enjoy wine is feeling the difference between before and after aerating it.”
“Huh, I didn’t know that. Come to think of it, I hardly ever drank wine.” In my past life I had enjoyed beer and shochu, but now that I knew wine was this good, I wished I had drunk more of it.
I also helped myself to some of the sweetfish. The kick of the pepper combined with the soy sauce and butter flavor overwhelmed my taste buds. The sweetfish itself had a simple, understated taste, but the plentiful seasoning meant it paired wonderfully with the white wine.
“Hahh... This is good,” I said.
“Yeah... It’s wasted on Luna and Katima,” Elga agreed.
His body trembled as he spoke. Was it because he was holding back a shout? Honestly, I was feeling the urge to shout like them too, so I could definitely understand how he felt.
“The organs can be pretty bitter, and I think they’ll go well with some light-bodied red wine. Why don’t we try that next time?” Reina said.
Elga and I both widened our eyes. You’re saying it can still get even better than this?! We thought, our inner shouts syncing up.
Now that Reina had drunk some wine, she had a captivating aura to her that was different from usual. She let out a faint breath. “Hahh... Still, this wine was also a great choice.”
Her gesture made my heart momentarily skip a beat. I averted my eyes and focused on enjoying my wine and sweetfish.
Illuminated by light magic in the fantastical forest at night, I leisurely savored the white wine and butter sautéed sweetfish with my friends. As we enjoyed the somewhat atypical atmosphere, we felt like nothing else could be more luxurious than this.