by Funa
Chapter 29: Seaside Street
Here we are, at a coastal town!!
I decided to enjoy the seafood to the fullest before heading east toward the next country. I wasn’t in any particular hurry, so I didn’t really have to go anywhere, but after all that had happened, I felt like I should get moving sooner rather than later. I didn’t want that crown prince guy to hear any rumors about me and decide to come over from the neighboring kingdom of Brancott, after all.
But if there was an entire other country between us, surely that would be too far for Fer-what’s-his-face to come after me, right? Besides, I wanted to see what I could of this world before I found a companion to settle down with. It would be difficult to travel freely around the continent once I had a husband and children.
...That reminded me, what were Francette and Roland going to do?
Emile and Belle were orphans, and still quite young, so they could travel around for several years to train and gain experience before eventually settling down, or even go back to the kingdom of Balmore to live with the rest of the Eyes of the Goddess. Surely they would be skilled hunters by then, and could even open their own shop with the accumulated pay for their bodyguard services that I’d been stashing in the Item Box for them.
Well, I would leave that decision up to them. I was afraid they would say, “We want to live near you once you settle down and protect you for the rest of our lives!” but that, too, would be up to them. I had no right to complain, either way. No one can take responsibility for another person’s life.
That left Fran and Roland. It wasn’t like those two were lonely, rootless wanderers. They still had family in their home country, and Roland was royalty, for cryin’ out loud! He couldn’t just abandon his home, and if he ever had a kid, that child would inherit a claim to the throne unless the current king, Roland’s younger brother, had his own child. Even if the king had his own children, there would still be the second and third claims to the throne, and so on...
They couldn’t just wander around as they pleased indefinitely! Their home country, and whichever country they went to, wouldn’t allow it.
Hmm, how long did these two plan on staying with me...? I didn’t mind Emile and Belle, but it was like the other two were there to keep an eye on me, which was kind of hard to deal with...
Also, Fran and Roland had been in a bad mood the past few days, now that the lieutenant colonel had taken over their role as the “straight man” of the group.
...Not my problem!
“Let’s find a place to stay first. Then we’ll stuff our faces with all the seafood we can!” I declared to the others as we stood in front of the town, putting the chariot back into my Item Box.
I hadn’t had a proper fish meal that wasn’t dried or preserved in salt since being transported to this world. That was a bit rough for someone who had been born and raised in Japan. I did understand that there wasn’t much that could be done for those who lived inland, considering the need to preserve and transport the fish, though.
I’d only been to a coastal town once before. But that was for an event when a new ship made by the Aligot Empire had arrived at the port of Balmore for the first time, and the purpose of the trip was to show me their completed vessel and thus earn my praise. So I was under siege by a bunch of shipwrights, and I had no time to walk around and enjoy the food, given all the parties and review meetings I had to attend.
And since it was a coastal town, I had assumed the fish would be cheap and their expensive cuisine would all be meat dishes, but they only had meat! Not only was there no seafood, they didn’t even have vegetables! Why would there only be meat dishes in a coastal town?! What a load of crap!!!
Haah... Haah...
Well, at least there were no snobs around to claim that good meat had to be marbled, so I did enjoy the red meat at the restaurant, but I could have had that anywhere.
It’s a coastal town, so just give me my fresh fish!
Well, in any case, that’s how I missed my chance last time. But not this time! I was free to do what I wanted, so I was gonna eat all the seafood! Grilled and simmered fish were tempting, of course, but my mind was set on getting some sashimi. Sashimi was the only option! I’d eat it to my heart’s content, then have grilled fish tomorrow, and simmered fish the day after.
And so, we entered the town and made our way toward the first fancy-looking restaurant I could find.
I wanted to eat as soon as possible, so I hurried the others along as they tied Ed up and we took our seats inside.
“Sashimi platters, please! I’ll leave the selection to the chef!” I exclaimed to the waiter, without even looking at the menu on the table. The others were still reaching for their menus, but I didn’t care! We didn’t have to order everything at once anyway.
All right, it’s time for sashimi! It’s been years!!! I was totally pumped.
“...Sa-shi-mi?”
That is, until I got that response, complete with a perplexed expression...
“What is a sashimi?”
“...Huh?”
My language translation ability wasn’t working? No, that couldn’t be it!
“U-Um, it’s raw fish that’s cut into pieces and eaten...” I said, feeling shaken.
“Y-You want to eat raw fish?!” the waiter shouted in surprise, which turned all eyes in the restaurant toward us.
What? They didn’t eat sashimi? Well, it’s true that the royal capital and every other location I’d visited only served fish dried or preserved in salt, but I thought that was just out of necessity, for preservation and transportation to the inland cities, and so forth.
I had assumed that a coastal town would offer raw fish, or at least similar dishes, like tataki, carpaccio, or namero. I mean, I thought fishermen everywhere had cut and trimmed freshly caught fish, scooped out the innards with their fingers, then rinsed the fish with sea water and eaten them, basically since forever...
So why was I getting looks like I had just said something utterly inconceivable...?
“Hey, buddy, you should explain properly. Anyone who eats a fish that hasn’t been fully cooked will get bugs in their stomach and end up rolling around in pain. I mean, I guess inlanders who don’t eat raw fish wouldn’t know this, but if you try to cook one without knowing how, your whole group’ll end up needing a visit to a doctor.” One of the tough-looking customers thus offered a friendly warning. He kinda looked like a ruffian, but was smiling as he spoke. Maybe he was a fisherman?
“...Ah, you’re talking about parasites!”
“Oh, you know about ’em?” the older dude, I mean, gentleman, said with a surprised look.
...I’d been kind of sloppy with my word choice since coming to this world, so I had to be careful. My brother always used to say, “Your eyes are pretty scary, so you’d have no redeeming qualities if you had a dirty mouth, too...” Hey, shut it!
In Japan, they say you shouldn’t eat river fish raw, but sea fish are fine, though that’s just because it’s commonly known that most saltwater fish were treated by freezing them before being distributed. Most freshwater fish weren’t treated this way. Moreover, sea fish lived far away from humanity, so their parasites didn’t evolve to target humans as a host.
In other words, most parasites for saltwater fish that enter a human body don’t last long, and could only ever manage to cause temporary pain, albeit rather excruciating pain, without generating any potentially lethal symptoms.
...Well, a couple hours of excruciating pain was bad enough already.
Conversely, rivers and swamps are a part of the land on which humans live.
They live alongside land animals, so a lot of parasites in freshwate
r fish could survive in the bodies of those animals.
What I’m trying to say is, some of them were really dangerous to eat. That’s probably why eating raw freshwater fish was known to be a bad idea.
Anyway, it wasn’t that sea fish didn’t have any parasites. If they hadn’t been frozen and checked by the fish shop to remove them manually, they were actually pretty common, like the kind that causes extreme pain in the human body. I knew all of this, but I could easily deal with toxins and parasites with my potions, so I didn’t really worry about them.
...But, of course, a restaurant would. Even if I told them that I didn’t mind the risks, there was no way they could serve raw fish. If someone got sick at their establishment, it would negatively impact their reputation.
“Grilled and simmered fish, one dish each, chef’s choice...” Feeling defeated, I ordered without looking at the menu or giving it much thought.
One by one, Francette and the others ordered as well. It seemed they actually perused the menu first.
Francette went on and on as she placed her order. Yeah, her body required a lot of food to fuel her physical abilities.
That’s why she ate a ton, but... she never got fat. Ugh!
As such, I was still in a state of total hopelessness as the food arrived. It all tasted good! Damn it!
“Would you mind letting me borrow your kitchen?” I asked the owner of our inn, after we booked a room and took a little break. If I couldn’t get sashimi at a restaurant, I would just have to make my own. I was already used to making sashimi in my previous world, after all.
Growing up in a family of five, it was better to buy fish in blocks rather than getting the pre-cut kind. That is, the blocks weren’t necessarily cheaper, but freshly sliced fish tasted better than fish that was cut earlier that morning. The cross-section of store-bought sashimi is exposed to air for a long time, so the flavor definitely degrades over time. I’d much rather take a well-sharpened sashimi kitchen knife and slice the fish with one smooth, swift motion, so as to not squish the meat as I cut it, then add a pinch of freshly grated wasabi and... Ohhh!
“Oh, what kind of dish do you want to make? We’re prepping right now, so we’re not serving customers yet. I don’t mind you using it for a bit, but I’d have to watch to make sure you don’t do anything dangerous or damage the equipment.”
Yes!
My decision to choose a cheap inn because it was likely to be more easygoing had paid off.
“Sashimi. Umm, it’s a dish where you cut raw fish into thin strips, then eat it with condiments! I have my own condiments, so if you could just let me borrow a kitchen knife and cutting board...”
“I can’t let you do that.”
Huh? He’d just said I could! I glared at him reflexively, and he visibly cringed, with a tight expression on his face.
“Th-Threatening me won’t do you any good! O-Of course I can’t let you!”
I wasn’t threatening him, and he didn’t have to be so scared... Well, never mind. I already knew.
“Why?!”
The owner’s look changed to one of exasperation as he replied.
“We’re an inn and eatery. If word gets out that a guest had writhed around in pain and was sent to the doctor after eating here, we’d go out of business!”
“Ah...”
He had a point. The part about the guest making the food herself would be the first detail to get omitted as the rumors spread. Then they would be ridiculously exaggerated and embellished, turning them into malicious rumors that people spread for fun. Not unlike the environment of the internet on Earth...
“What if I promise you I’ll be fine...?”
“The answer’s still no. I have way too much to lose by taking a risk and trusting the words of a child I just met.”
“Thought so!”
He was right. I would absolutely say the same thing in his place. And so I gave up and went back to my room.
For dinner, I ate the grilled and simmered fish I had gotten from the restaurant. I just couldn’t be bothered, knowing I couldn’t have sashimi...
Feeling heartbroken, I went to bed with Layette early. Yes, to prepare for the coming morning.
＊ ＊
“I’m going out for a walk.”
I tried to carry Layette in my arms and... whoa, she’s heavy!
Early in the morning, I had embarked on a grief-stricken journey, holding Layette’s hand. No one had tried to speak to me, likely out of consideration for my state of despair. And while nobody followed me out, I knew they were going to stay out of sight and watch over me.
Enshrouded in sorrow, there was only one place for me to go.
Yes, the market. The fish market! If I couldn’t borrow a kitchen, I would just have to prepare everything myself. I’d get my own ingredients and kitchen!
And here we are, at the fish market!
Of course, it wasn’t just merchants from neighboring towns and villages that were there to stock up on goods. The general population could buy things, too. They weren’t auctioning anything off, or selling exclusively in the early morning, or anything like that.
It was more like a gathering of retailers selling their wares out of street stalls, so it was no problem for an outsider like me to be there.
Each shop seemed to have merchants, or the wives and daughters of fishermen, tending it. They were calling out boisterously to customers... I wondered how they didn’t ruin their throats, yelling like that all day. Maybe a woman with a hoarse voice was a sign of a hard-working wife?
Then there were silent saleswomen... Oh, maybe they were going for guys who weren’t fishermen? Guess there were all sorts of ways to go about it.
I wasn’t particularly good at telling quality fish apart, but I could probably just buy whatever and be okay. Everything there should have just been caught by the fishermen of this town, so they should all be alike in terms of freshness.
It was also unlikely that someone would sell something poisonous to a young girl without any warning... I mean, it was possible they really were selling poisonous fish. Even on Earth, there were people who liked the tingling sensation that came from the poison in fugu.
Looking around, there were all sorts of fish I knew...or, rather, fish that resembled the kinds I knew, and some I’d never seen before. Just because I’d never seen them before, though, didn’t mean they didn’t exist on Earth.
Fish I’d seen and recognized from fish shops, supermarkets, aquariums, books, and TV were only a tiny fraction of those that existed on Earth.
The minor ones that didn’t have much market value were probably eaten by the fishermen and their families, without ever hitting the market. Those were known as fisherman’s fish. They may not have much monetary value, but it wasn’t that they tasted bad. It was simply that they weren’t worth much, mainly because of their appearance, or due to being unknown.
In places like Okinawa, you could find blue fish being sold normally. And by blue fish, I don’t mean mackerel, pacific saury, or sardines. Those weren’t fully blue, they just had some blue on their spines.
But in Okinawa, there were fish that were actually blue... like the knobsnout parrotfish.
So, what I’m saying is, even if I don’t recognize a fish, it may just be that I don’t know anything about it, and they could be sold and eaten normally in other countries or fishing villages somewhere on Earth.
But for today, I wasn’t going to challenge any unknowns. I’d go for fish that were as close to the ones I knew as possible.
Hmm, I doubt they did any deep-sea fishing, so there probably wouldn’t be any tuna or whale meat. Though, I guess it would be possible to get those inland, instead. They just wouldn’t be guaranteed to be in stock every day. That is, assuming there were tuna and whales in this world, and they happened to live in this region.
And so, I picked some seafood without putting too much thought into it, and put it all into the big bag I had brought with me. I had stuffed the bag with fi
lling beforehand, so I could pretend to put it into the bag while actually putting anything I got into the Item Box, instead.
There was nobody watching me while I went shopping (besides a certain female knight and her companions) so no one would realize I was putting more seafood into the bag than it could physically contain. So, I got an inada-looking one, a hamachi-looking one, and a buri-looking one... Wait, those were all the same fish!
Oh, I guess their names don’t change based on their sizes here. No promotions for them, I guess.
I also bought a bunch of shellfish and seaweed, too. They could be used to make miso soup, and I liked the texture of whelk.
Ah, they’re selling gooseneck barnacles. I didn’t know they existed in this world... Strange creatures, those things. They were actually crustaceans, but a type that clung to rock walls and just stayed there. I had heard they’re distant cousins of the acorn barnacle. They looked like turtle hands, and were actually pretty tasty. Peeling the outer skin is kind of a hassle, though.
I decided to buy some.
“Those are creepy...”
Layette had been looking around sparkly-eyed at the unique atmosphere and the array of seafood, but chimed in with a complaint. I mean, they did look like chopped-off turtle hands... though I wasn’t sure if Layette had ever actually seen a turtle before.
My shopping continued along smoothly. No weirdos tried to mess with me, either.
Fishing villages and towns with a prominent fishing industry tended to have a lot of tough guys and a well-established hierarchy of influential people, like fisherman bosses, leaving little room for gangs or thugs to butt in. These men worked every day putting their lives on the line, and there was no way they’d stay quiet if someone messed with their families and friends. Nor would the fisherman bosses, after having their revenue source...I mean, precious employees...meddled with. In other words, there were no child kidnappers or sections of town overtaken by rowdy street punks.