It was watery, but crunchy. As he chewed on it, its juices mixed with the salty savoriness of the beans. It might have been a bit too salty. Perhaps it was the type of miso that used more salt and sat for longer. Either way, it was definitely miso.
A wave of nostalgia threatened to bring Renya to his knees, but he kept firm; people were watching.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding at the storekeeper. “I’d like some of this. What do you call it?”
“We call it miso.”
Renya was shocked to find that even in a different world, miso was still miso. The storekeeper’s next words, though, surprised him even more.
“We first learned of it from a Wanderer.”
Apparently, one of Renya’s forefathers had taught the elves how to make miso and soy sauce. The storekeeper when on to explain how originally, elf beans had always been eaten green and boiled. Then, the Wanderer appeared, showed them a variety of methods for processing the beans, and helped to spread the news, resulting in a widespread love of the new products throughout the kingdom.
“The young missus mentioned you’re a Wanderer,” said the storekeeper with a smile, “so I let you have a bite.”
Feeling no small amount of gratitude for the great deeds of his ancestral kinsman, Renya began crunching some money-related numbers in his head. Frau, seeing him gesturing and mumbling to himself, decided to step in and take matters into her own hands.
“How much can one gold coin buy?”
“You’re not from around here, are you? I’ve got to hold some for my regulars, and these take time to prepare so I can’t sell you too much… but let’s go with three barrels of miso and 2 barrels of soysos for a gold. How does that sound?”
Renya eyed the barrels. They looked like they could each hold about ten liters. It felt somewhat expensive, but he figured he’d have to just accept it as a form of otherworldly inflation. Still, it was one gold. That was a lot of money. He had to think about this.
Meanwhile, Frau pulled out a gold coin from her apron-like dress and dropped it in the storekeeper’s hand.
“Deal.”
“Whoa, uh… Frau?”
“Master wants to eat this. If Master wants, Frau buys. No discussion,” said Frau. “No worries. Frau just needs to tweak the manastone pipeline and bump up the market portion.”
The fairy proudly puffed out her chest. Renya scratched his head in submission. He had to give her credit. In terms of raising funds and managing operations, Frau handily outclassed him in every way.
Soon, barrel after barrel of beany goodness was being lugged to him from the store shelves. He began putting them into his inventory one by one. Suddenly, a dissonant sound cut through the ambient commotion of the market. He spun in the direction of the noise and listened carefully. Down the road in the distance, something heavy was running, and it was making people scream. All around him, other elves started to glance in the same direction, their expressions clouding with worry. Shion and Rona approached him. Lacking the auditory advantage of elves, they weren’t sure what was going on.
“Renya, what’s happening?”
“Not sure… but it sounds like there’s trouble that way.”
“These are hoof sounds… It’s a horse,” murmured Croire.
By the time she finished her sentence, Renya was already in motion. A moment later, realizing he had dashed off, Shion followed. A few leaping strides later, he saw the source of the commotion. It was indeed a horse, but something seemed strange. An elf sat astride it, arms dangling loosely at the horse’s sides while the reins fluttered freely in the wind. The rider’s body was pressed lifelessly against its neck. Slowly, jostled by the horse’s gallop, the motionless body slid little by little to the side. Then, the elf fell.
“Renya, he’s falling off!” yelled Shion as Renya stomped the ground hard, propelling him toward the airborne rider in a burst of speed. He dove past the horse, scooping up the elf before the fall could take its toll. The horse, now free from both reins and rider, continued to charge madly forward. In its path stood a figure.
It was Shion.
“Shion?!”
For a moment, he thought she was going to sumo-wrestle the horse into submission, but that seemed like an insane idea even by his standards of her. Just the sheer difference in mass meant that wouldn’t end well. Instead, he saw her deftly sidestepping the frenzied horse and grabbing the floating reins with her left hand. With a firm yank, she flipped onto the horse’s back.
“Renya, this horse is in bad shape,” said Shion, expertly pacifying the horse with a few simple pulls of the reins. “It’s hurt all over. I don’t know where it got all these wounds, but they’re pretty serious.”
Renya, with the elf still in tow, rushed up to take a look. The horse’s intense exertion had worsened the deep gashes that covered its body. Blood flowed freely from its wounds, staining Shion’s clothes. She didn’t seem to mind.
“Yeah,” he answered as he looked down at the unconscious elf in his arms. “Same here.”
Fine features adorned a well-sculpted face. Though attractive, they also served to obscure the elf’s gender. Judging from the somewhat stocky feel of the body, Renya decided the elf was probably a man. He wore leather armor atop a full suit of green. The bow on his back and the quiver dangling from his waist marked him to be an archer. All, however, were badly damaged. Piercing wounds had been inflicted in various places, from which blood still dripped. His bowstring was snapped, rendering the bow useless, and his quiver was empty.
“Hey! Wake up! What happened?”
Renya shook the unconscious elf a little and called to him. Slowly, a crack appeared between his eyelids. His parched lips stirred, barely opening wide enough to let a frail voice escape.
“Inform… the ministry…” said the elf, glazed eyes looking but not seeing. He seemed only partly conscious, unaware that he was speaking to a human.
“Wait, never mind. Stop talking. You’ll die faster. I have a priest who can use restorative gracecraft with me, so we’ll get you healed up first—”
“Please… eastern fort… has fallen…”
The elf kept talking as though he didn’t hear Renya. Maybe he no longer could. His fingers, infused with a desperate strength, dug into Renya’s arm as he forced out a dire warning.
“They’re pouring out… of the Forest Maze… It’s an outbreak!”
With that, the light faded from his eyes. His hand loosened and slipped to the ground. Renya could do little but watch as the elf’s head fell to the side, never to move again.