Chapter 113: Not Taking the Meat Home
Eugene had gone out of the workshop, and the next thing Ren knew he was back with a clerk from the buying counter.
“Eh? Is it all right to do the buying here, without going to the counter?”
Bewildered, Ren looked from the clerk to Eugene and back again. Eugene stood by the wall and smiled.
“It draws less attention this way. Besides, there’s material here that will sell high just now, so there’s something in it for the guild too.”
“…”
Eugene was smiling, but the clerk from the counter was expressionless, checking over the goods laid out on the table without a word.
Azure Wind Swift, Flame Finch, moss rabbit, horn ferret, three-eyed eagle. Eugene leaned over the magical beasts laid out there, looking impressed.
“…That’s remarkable. Did you hunt all this on your own?”
“Mm.”
“And you’ve drained the blood properly, too.”
“Mm. It was written in the reference material.”
“I see. That’s what comes of being the one who put the reference room in order.”
“Heh heh…”
Being praised left Ren a little ticklish, and he laughed. Eugene watched Ren’s embarrassed face steadily. The clerk from the buying counter finished making notes and looked up.
“The flight feathers and tail feathers you’re keeping, apart from two feathers from the Azure Wind Swift — that was it, wasn’t it. The feathers you’re putting up for sale, left or right?”
“Ah… What should I do… Would it be odd to have only one wing? Then one from each, left and right.”
“Ho.”
The clerk from the buying counter raised an eyebrow slightly, then began writing on a board.
“The moss rabbit meat — taking it home?”
“Eh.”
Ren gave a start and his eyes widened. He remembered what had happened in the kitchen.
(It looked as though they had plenty of other meat laid in… and besides…)
He felt something a little like sadness trying to well up from deep in his chest.
He pressed his lips together in a tight line and shook his head.
“The meat… it’s all right. I won’t take it home…”
Quietly, he closed his fist.
“Azure Wind Swift flight feathers, one each from left and right, for sale. Flight feathers and tail feathers of the other bird-type magical beasts, kept. Meat, not to be kept. The rest purchased.”
The clerk from the buying counter wrote it all down on the board evenly and went back to their post.
Afterwards the low feeling stayed with Ren a while. Eugene spoke to him.
“Is there something about the meat? Did you usually take it home?”
“Mm… But I don’t think I need to take it home any more.”
“Is that so. Still, moss rabbit meat — I had some in the dining hall yesterday, and it was quite a good thing.”
“…Ah! Mm! Moss rabbit is good, isn’t it! It’s a bit different from horn rabbit, isn’t it.”
Ren’s face came up brightly.
“It’s good, so I suppose I did want to eat some…”
“If you want to eat it, I think you may as well eat it. Why do you look so sad?”
“…”
It was only when Eugene said it that Ren realised he had been making a sad face. He set the corners of his mouth hard.
“Sad… am I, I wonder. I thought it was enough if they cooked the meat I wanted to eat, and I got to eat it and it was good, and everyone else ate it and said it was good… That was all it was, but something seems to have been a bit different from that…
When I took the meat home, they thought of it as ‘an errand’.
‘An errand’… That’s somehow not it, I thought…”
“‘An errand’, was it…”
Eugene, still smiling, moved across and sat down opposite Ren.
“You did the hunting yourself, though, Ren-kun.”
“Mm.”
“And drained the blood.”
“Mm.”
“You put the work in, and it was as good as treated as never having happened. You didn’t like that.”
“Mm…”
“You wanted the work you’d put in to be acknowledged.”
“…”
Ren lifted his face and looked at Eugene.
“I wanted to be acknowledged… was that it.”
Ren felt that he had understood, a little, what the clouded thing in his chest was.