Two days later, I paid Aikawa-san a visit.
That morning, I took the chickens to the river and had them catch me a bunch of crayfish. Maybe too many. The large bucket I’d brought was filled to the brim with what we’d caught while doing a thorough patrol of the riverbank.
With this many crayfish around, there might just be no fish in this river, even if the water itself is clean. They’re an invasive species, so it’s probably a good idea to get rid of as many of them as I can. At any rate, this should make for a good present.
I thought all three chickens would be coming with me, but Tama decided to stay and watch the house.
“You’re not afraid of Rin-san, are you?” I asked her as a joke, and she pecked me hard. Seriously? Okay, my bad.
Aikawa-san had told me about himself when he’d come over the other day. Three years ago, he’d quit his job and bought the mountain to the west and the one behind it—like me, he owned two mountains. The previous owner had sold the mountains and moved to the nearby town, and Aikawa-san had bought them from a friend of an acquaintance. He’d gotten a hunter’s license, thinking it’d come in handy to keep himself safe in the mountains, and in the process, he’d gotten acquainted with the hunters from the village.
I’d asked him about Akimoto-san, the villager who’d butchered the boar I’d caught.
“Yeah, of course I know him. He told me if I see any dead animals lying around, bring them to him,” Aikawa-san had replied with an awkward smile.
You needed a license to lay traps or hunt with a weapon, even on your own mountain, but if you caught prey through other means or just found something dead already, you didn’t need a license. I guess my chickens count as “other means”? Eh, it’s my mountain anyway.
Much like Katsuragi-san’s mountain, the mountain where Aikawa-san lived was considerably steeper than mine. His other mountain was more like a hill—smaller than my other mountain. That reminds me... I still haven’t been to my other mountain, have I? I should probably go check it out sometime soon. Anyway, my other mountain used to be someone else’s property too, but there weren’t any roads that went there, so it was all but abandoned. Apparently, there were quite a few places like that up here. Some time later, I would find out it was a national forest.
Aikawa-san’s house was on the mountainside. I guess everyone must build their houses on basically the same part of the mountain—it’s more convenient that way.
“Hello. Thanks for having me over.”
I parked my truck next to his. The road was tidy and well paved.
“Hey,” said Aikawa-san. “Huh, there’re only two chickens with you today?”
“The other one is watching over the house.”
“Very clever.” Aikawa-san laughed.
Yeah... He is pretty handsome. I could spot a few wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. Early thirties, was it?
His eyes widened when I unloaded the crayfish bucket from the tonneau. “That’s a lot... I wish I had this many on my mountain too.”
“Feel free to come by anytime. I didn’t expect to catch this many either... These are just the ones I saw while walking along the river, actually.”
“Maybe someone dumped them... They’re omnivores, so the mountain vegetation was probably more than enough for them to thrive.”
“I think that’s probably what happened, yes.”
“Well then, I’ll take you up on that offer and head over again sometime. Rin! Ten! Sano-san brought a present for you!”
I’d met Rin-san the other day, but I still didn’t know what Ten-san looked like.
Whoa, that’s a massive snake. Probably a python, I think?
Rin-san’s body looked half human, but Ten-san just looked like a snake. An extremely large one. How many meters is that?
Rin-san greeted me with a stoic look. “Hello. Thank you.”
“Hello, Rin-san. Is that Ten-san next to you?”
Suddenly, the huge snake opened its mouth and...spoke. “Ten talk. Thanks.”
“Whoa...” I murmured. What’s going on with his vocal cords? Obviously not a normal snake.
“Ten, the chickens are Sano-san’s family. Don’t eat them, okay?”
“Okay.”
Pochi and Yuma stood in front of me, tails standing on end. Yeah, I can see why they’d be wary of a snake that big. At that size, he could probably swallow me whole... I shuddered.
Aikawa-san took the bucket and placed it down a little farther away from Ten-san.
“These are a present from Sano-san. You can eat them, but do it after we’ve gone inside. Be sure to eat everything.”
“Okay,” said Ten-san.
Still a bit taken aback by the snakes, I looked over to Aikawa-san’s house. It was pretty large, with several bedrooms—it’d probably also belonged to a former village head, just like mine.
We walked over to the house, and I peered beyond the frosted glass front door. I could see a spacious room—It’s probably undergone extensive renovations—with a concrete floor, a table, and some chairs. We stepped inside.
Aikawa-san turned to me. “Please make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. Really nice space you’ve got here.”
“I’ve had it renovated twice. Back when I first got Rin and Ten, I heard they would grow pretty large, so...”
I see. So the snakes stay here at night or during colder months. There was a large stove beside the table.
“Er, do you mind if my chickens eat some of the grass and bugs around here?” I asked.
“No problem—go ahead. In fact, I’d even appreciate it if they ate the weeds in the fields.”
“Right, your snakes are...carnivorous, after all.”
“That’s right. So I can’t really count on them to help me weed the lawn,” Aikawa-san explained with a smile, adding that Rin-san did help every once in a while. A lamia who helps with gardening... Now that must be a pretty bizarre sight. Well, she’s not a lamia, but yeah.
I turned to my chickens. “He said you guys can go ahead and eat.”
Pochi raised his head briskly and went off to have a look around. Yuma stayed nearby.
“Quite the clever birds,” Aikawa-san said cheerfully as he served us tea and rice crackers. Even his tea set is all fancy. I’m not used to this... The next room over was the kitchen. The interior of his house was far more modern and stylish than you’d have guessed from the exterior.
“Are there no Japanese-style rooms?” I asked.
“The room at the back is Japanese-style. It was a lot of work replacing all the tatami flooring, let me tell you.”
“I bet.”
Luckily, in my case, the previous owners had still been taking care of the house, so I hadn’t needed to do any renovations. Aikawa-san told me that his house had been all but abandoned when he’d moved in. He let me have a look at the firearm he used for hunting—a shotgun—which he kept in the Japanese-style room. I didn’t get a chance to try holding it, but it had a long barrel, and I could tell it must be quite heavy. Looking at it up close, it’s pretty impressive. And scary.
“Maybe I should get a hunting license too. I heard there may be bears in the mountains...”
Aikawa-san hesitated for a moment. “It’s always nice to have more hunters around, but you should know that getting a license is a long process. You also need a separate permit to own a gun for hunting.”
“Is that so?”
I looked it up later at home, and there was indeed a lot of paperwork to wade through. Maybe not.
Aikawa-san was big into cooking, and he was in the habit of picking mountain plants and preparing them himself.
“To tell you the truth, this is actually the first time I’ve had someone over,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the meal.”
Wow, I’m honored.
“It’s great how eco-friendly chickens are,” Aikawa-san remarked excitedly when I asked him if he had any vegetable scraps to spare for Yuma. “Snakes are... Well, at least they’re dependable.”
“They each have their pros and cons.”
I was treated to a full-course meal, from rice with bamboo shoots to stew to tempura. Amazing to think that all of this comes from the mountain. Aikawa-san’s cooking was both delicious and visually appealing—it almost made me feel like I was eating at a restaurant.