The smell of roasted meat hung on the air, a tantalising scent that made everyone sniff once every few seconds. Most of the Giant Bears had been skinned and carted away, but Isabelle had put her foot down when the assembled group of Easterners wanted to buy all the monster corpses.

Instead of stewing over her refusal, the young man — Tsurugi, the son of a small city’s lord — had instead settled for the second-best option, which was to propose that his dedicated cook prepare lunch and dinner using the last bear for everyone present, a suggestion that had gone down well with his fellow countrymen. After Isabelle obtained Gaius’ go-ahead, she acceded to the man’s request.

The stringy meat was easier to chew than he’d expected. There were probably some spices unique to the Eastern Territories that were used in its cooking, given that the boy was tasting an odd blend of sweet and sour in the meat.

After relishing the novel taste for a few more seconds, Gaius finally decided to get down to business. “So, what’s going on with the sudden desire for food? You guys have been killing monsters for a darn long time, so it can’t be that you guys can’t kill monsters now, can it?”

“Normal monsters? No, not an issue. Rather…” Tsurugi looked at the slab of Giant Bear meat he was holding, and shook his head. “Most of the monsters here have been changing ever since the Day of Red Skies.”

“The Day of Red Skies?”

“When the Worldshaper descended upon Orb,” clarified the young man. He looked at the sky, where a red star continued to gleam ominously. “That star has the ability to strengthen monsters, granting them increased strength and stamina at seemingly no cost. Giant Bears, for instance, were initially around two and a half meters tall, but ever since the God of Fire descended, their height increased by one-fifth of that.”

“The five of us,” said one of his followers, “used to be able to take on Giant Bears one-on-one. But now…two of us are required to just tie one down, and most of the monsters after the Day of Red Skies have begun banding together. Most of the cities and towns without a high-rank adventurer have been facing food shortages for the past two weeks.”

The other people, who obviously came from different towns, chimed in with anecdotes of their own. Most of them were wild and varied, but they had one theme in common: a chronic lack of food. From what he could garner, the towns and cities in Mi-Zu relied heavily on monster corpses for food, since there was little arable farmland they could use. There weren’t really much the people of Mi-Zu could do, other than curse at the other Territories that had a greater focus on farming.

“What type of monsters do you lot usually hunt for food?” asked Gaius. “And did the mutations make their flesh tastier?”

“Whatever we can find, actually.” Tsurugi rolled his eyes. “And no, the mutations just mean more meat for every monster we kill. Of course, that’s assuming that we can hire skilled enough adventurers to do the killing for us. My town’s been eating Flaming Chickens for the past two weeks, and we’re growing sick of it.”

His words drew a few longing gazes from the people of the other villages, but that was it. It was quite possible that these villages were also now seeking out monsters that were still weak enough after the mutation for sustenance.

In Gaius’ opinion, this was just an extended transition phase, but the aftermath was deadly enough to have quite the hit on population numbers. It was yet another consequence of destroying the Altar of Gods…it hadn’t been confirmed yet, but Liamar’s descent probably had much to do with the Altar’s destruction.

“Are those…Flaming Chickens actually on fire?” Isabelle asked, disrupting Gaius’ train of thoughts by asking an interesting question. “If so, how do you even cook them? They’re on fire already…”

“Oh, these monsters are quite interesting, actually,” Tsurugi replied. “While alive, the flames don’t harm them, but once you kill them…they begin to cook on the spot.”

“It’s a mystery,” added on one of his followers. “In the past, you had to put the fire on them out after three minutes, which simply isn’t enough time to cook the meat properly, but now that they’ve grown much bigger, killing them nets you finely cooked meat after five minutes — enough time to add seasoning.”

“This is a rather rare occasion, come to think of.” Tsurugi looked at his fellow countrymen and nodded to himself. “What did you guys have in the past few weeks? Maybe we can trade and stuff — you guys have got to be bored.”

Titters came from the others, and for the next few moments, he busied himself with arranging trades and barters, stopping occasionally to finish up the roasting meat. At the same time, Gaius busied himself with cleaning up Nakama’s cheeks — the little girl was a messy eater…who had somehow eaten half the bear without anyone except Gaius noticing.

Where does all that meat go to? Gaius prodded at Nakama’s belly, but there was either a black hole or a bottomless pit there, because she wasn’t showing any discomfort. It didn’t make sense to the boy either, given that Major Degurechaff had told Gaius, back in Heritage Basestation, that her increased appetite was due to her unsealing process or something.

“Do you not feel full, Nakama?”

“Nope!” Her answer was bright, but her expression was somewhat down, forming a pout of sorts. “There was a lot to eat a few months ago! Lots and lots of meat and rice…but there’s so less here.”

Gaius glanced at Isabelle. “What do you think?”

“She’s been that way for the past two weeks. Can’t get her full for some reason. Nex—” Her words cut off for a moment, and then continued a second later. “—he should have a better understanding of what’s going on.”

“One thing after another, eh? No rest for the wicked…” Gaius shook his head, spearing the last piece of meat on a metal skewer. After looking at his sister’s hungry expression, he sighed and passed it over to Nakama, who promptly demolished it bite by bite.

The fire that the Giant Bear meat was roasting on had died out by the time Tsurugi was done. His face looked somewhat haggard from all that negotiating, but that was it.

“Where are you guys headed to?” he asked. “I can’t believe I forgot to treat everyone present with proper courtesy, but the monster corpses got me too excited.”

“We’re headed towards the capital,” replied Isabelle.

“I see…well, you’ll probably be killing a whole bunch of monsters on the way there. Do you have any intention of selling them to me?” Tsurugi asked. “You probably can’t eat that much anyway.”

The others pricked up their ears, and Gaius felt somewhat uncomfortable from their gazes. It felt like a bunch of gold hunters who had come across a new gold mine, something that the boy disliked.

“We’ll be flying towards the capital,” said Gaius. “Isabelle?”

He nodded at the Knight, who promptly started to float. She had obtained an Engine a few weeks ago, after she sent her family to the Republic’s territory in the South, a family heirloom of sorts. The Easterners goggled at the sight, their eyes turning into little round spheres.

“She’s flying!

“A C-rank at least…we don’t have enough money to hire her…”

As the others muttered and lamented quietly, Gaius felt a sense of vexation in his heart. This famine was in part his fault, and the boy couldn’t help but feel somewhat obligated to help them out, especially since the affected people were in sight.

“Tsurugi—” Gaius caught himself before he added on a Japanese honorific, and said, “We’ll still be killing a few monsters on the way, but it won’t be a quantity like these anymore. You can have a few men pick up the corpses, but we won’t go out of our way to kill monsters. That’s all.”

“That’s good enough for us.” He bowed. “Thank you. If you don’t mind, I’ll like to accompany you on the journey. I’m a good swordsman, after all.”

“Bocchan! That’s—”

“Enough. Tell father what I said. He’ll approve. The rest of you should stay with me, however, so that we can facilitate transport of the corpses.”

He turned to Gaius and company, and said, “I’ll be of good use in your journey, so please do not hold back.”

Gaius eyed the young man, and gave in after seeing his determined eyes. “Fine. Let’s clean up, and prepare to move. We’ll be quite busy.”

Tsurugi nodded, and issued more orders.