With the sudden influx of migrations and specialty products from Lorel to Asora, Asora gained energy.
The people of Asora have been relying on the finished product visuals and Makoto’s taste to replicate the food of Japan, but finally, they have obtained the chance to see, touch, and taste the actual product of things created by other japanese people aside from Makoto and also other hyumans.
The results were great.
It is not that the memories of Makoto, his knowledge, and words were unreliable.
But actually making it, tasting it; the ingredients and seasonings, dishes, and sake already existing there have the ability to convey the food culture easily.
No matter how different of a culture it is, compared to being told about having eaten a dish that’s similar to this drawing, having people come and go telling others about how the neighboring place has been eating these kinds of things in this way makes the difficulty of the replication, as well as the understanding of the receiver, be completely different.
And so, the food culture passed by the Wise, and the migration of the demi-humans familiar with it, made a breakthrough in the food department.
“To think there was so much difference between red miso and white miso. The white one is sweet miso.”
“See, I told you rice-malt was the answer! Now, if we test it out nicely, don’t you think we will be able to make it?”
“In that case, the combined miso would be…mixing the red one with this?”
“Not rice and rice-malt, but beans and rice-malt? Why?”
“This white miso on fish is crazy good though.”
“Grill it! You apparently eat it after grilling it!”
A crowd of residents was formed with just one miso.
For the sake, rice, soy sauce, and the other things, there would be a variety of races who would be interested in those gatherings, exchanging heated discussions, and enjoying the taste of Lorel.
“And so, what about Waka-sama?”
“He is apparently going to be returning after a few days. I heard from Tomoe-sama that he will be taking it easy after.”
“I see! Man, whenever I saw Waka-sama, he would mostly be having people bringing work to him while mixing sermons in, so I thought that he was avoiding this place.”
“…Chief, aren’t you talking about your own daughter there?”
“Thanks to that, even the times I can meet with Waka-sama have decreased. That Ema, even though she is unbearably happy when Waka-sama is here, she always ends up being naggy, and it troubles Waka-sama.”
The chief of the Highland Orcs points out the troublesome part of his own daughter, no, he complains.
“No no, Ema-san is a good daughter, isn’t she? She is wise, works hard, and is a beauty.”
“I know that. I would like her to relax her shoulders a bit, you know.”
“…Ah, I will be checking the sake area a bit.”
“In the first place, the youngsters nowadays…”
Noticing that the Chief was entering his sermon mode like usual, the young orc immediately disappeared into the crowd of people.
“Hmph, good grief. But with this, Asora’s research of japanese food will be heating up. Even so…”
In the mind of the Chief, the dining table of Asora at the time not long when he came to Asora surfaced in his mind.
There, there was a bamboo shoot salad, a tempura of white clovers, acacia, and those kinds of flowers, and herb soup.
They were all superb.
Even when several hundreds of recipes have been born in Asora, the menu that shocked him pretty early in his time was still colorful and vivid.
It may not have been a long enough time to call it nostalgic, but with the many changes that have occurred, it can create the sense of having been a long time ago.
His daughter Ema is also valiantly challenging new dishes, but the Chief was feeling like the standard is slowly being reached.
The one who is the leader of the Highland Orcs is in essence Ema, and she is currently busy running around taking the ideas of the various races.
There’s a lot of motivation, and the days must be looking dazzling now.
On the other hand, her father is kinda in a position of prestige. So his tasks are mostly discussing the opinions of the race as well as the negotiations.
It is quite the relaxing thing…compared to the time when they were living in the wasteland.
(Now that I think about it, Ema liked to eat bread with lotus blossom honey.)
At present, the types of honey produced in Asora aren’t only 1 or 2.
There’s more than 10 types of honey, and they are loved by many of the races living in Asora.
“Hey, this salt has color! So pretty!”
“It apparently goes well with deep-fried food. The green one is tea, the pink one is plum, the skin-like color one is seawood, and their tastes are all different.”
Salt?
The ears of the Chief twitch.
Speaking of salt, they go well with tempura.
The broth, soy sauce, and salt, were the troubling problems that couldn’t be decided until now.
Just how does salt with flavor work?, is what he ended up thinking about the affinity it could have with tempura.
“This is?”
“They said it is a bamboo shoot dish. It is called…Menma?”
“Bottled. Do you eat it as it is? Like pickled stuff.”
“I tried eating it, but it felt like an appetizer for sake.”
(?! Bamboo shoot!)
Bamboo shoots are an ingredient that the Highland Orcs just must have.
If they have a recipe that can serve as an appetizer for sake, they must obtain it.
“Hoh, to think the miso broth could change so much.”
“True. Even the red that we normally use has quite the different taste. There might be optimal types. Fermentation has a lot of depth.”
“Miso and soy sauce are tasty, but are a swamp.”
The more you pursue it, the deeper you get caught in it. It is bottomless.
“Yeah, they are a good competition to sake.”
“This time around, I was defeated by the soy sauce. Light, thick, red, white, collected; I even felt moved by it. This will change our meals greatly. I would like to tell the sea settlements about it.”
(There were that many varieties? There might be a soup foundation that goes better with the stickiness of okra.)
In Asora, not only the most senior that are the Highland Orcs and Mist Lizards have cooks, but almost all of the races have cooks.
Learning how to cook, reproducing the dishes, specializing solely in creating food.
In regards to fighting, there’s the powerful ones of the Asora Rankings who are constantly polishing themselves and doing their best in surpassing their limits.
In the manufacturing area, there’s Shiki at the center as well as the mages, and there have been scholars appearing here and there who are specialized in researching.
For the living commodities, the dwarves are engaged in the constructions and inventions, creating many contributions.
Moreover, from within them, there’s some dwarves who would carry those paths to the extreme, like for example; dwarves that would polish ceramic art would take interest in art and culture, and would walk down that steep road.
The cooks are one of those.
The residents that migrated from the wasteland to Asora chose their own path to move forward to, their possibilities, and grasped it.
They are called the First Residents, and he is the Chief of the Highland Orcs, who gather the attention of the other races, and is one of the senior groups of Asora.
Even he is giving an ear to each and every conversation that can be heard.
He was thinking that it should be fine to arrange the regular meals with the new wind of Lorel.
It is still fresh.
The gathering and product exhibition that served as a welcoming to the migrators this time around, which was proposed by Tomoe, ended in a big success, and the Mirage Town as well as the Coast also received that heat and shock.
◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆◇◇◆◆
The first town of Asora has another name that is Mirage Town.
This is the name that most of the adventurers know it as.
However, the Mirage Town that the adventurers know of is only one sector of the town.
They are called as ‘guests’, and they simply pass a fleeting time in this illusory town of demi-humans and mamonos.
Those people that wander into this wonderland receive a warm reception, are given experience and knowledge, and at times, they would be able to obtain materials and tools that you can only obtain there in exchange for coins or goods.
The many materials, which come from this town that there’s no knowing of where it is located in the wasteland, increase the power of the adventurers, progress the magic researches, and were exchanged for high prices as valuable products that can further increase the power of Tsige.
The adventurers that enter the wasteland wish that one day they will be blessed with that luck, and the name of the Mirage Town is being spoken as if it were Shangri-La.
At that Mirage Town, there’s a certain test being performed with Tomoe and Shiki as the center.
It is related to adventurers, but the adventurers themselves know nothing at all about it.
A Sea Lord race, which is a race that has no connection to the wasteland, showed interest in a certain adventurer which served as the trigger.
The tentative plan of reconsidering adventurers.
It is a test that they at least gave a rough explanation to Makoto and got his permission.
This is not them being rebellious against their master, but it is through their heartfelt desire for the benefit of him that Tomoe and Shiki had a different real intention.
If you think about it normally, it is quite the strange thing, but there’s no hyuman residents here.
Right now, it may be unconscious, but the lord of Asora, Makoto, is unable to digest these two ‘normal things’.
Tomoe and Shiki think that this isn’t good for Makoto.
Mio doesn’t think anything about it.
Tamaki thinks that this is only natural.
They may serve the same master, but their way of serving, their thoughts, and methods heavily differed.
Unless it is quite the big thing, the rule amongst them is that they will simply give tacit consent to their own individual actions.
Or so it should be, but in reality, the weight in the words of Tomoe and Mio are quite a lot stronger, though that’s an aside.
“There seems to be no problem with the First Group.”
“The old man that is swinging around a longsword, huh. It seems like it is shaping up pretty well.”
“The revisit?”
“No problem. It seems that he was a weirdo from the beginning, but he doesn’t cause anything stupid. Great Tuna-san has drilled it into him.”
“What about his comrades?”
“There was apparently one idiot. Though I don’t know if he was lucky or not, he met the heartbroken Levi and was disciplined by her, and met Tuna-san as well, and has rethought his ways. We have set it so that he won’t be able to go to where the children are.”
“Meaning that making them from guests to frequent customers is going well?”
“It seems like it is showing good results with 2-3 people.”
“If they pass the gate and wish to become residents, it is my win.”
“I know. For me, it will be that they will pass the gate, but will decide to go back.”
“When they learn about the whole picture of this town, their eyes might pop out of their sockets, but there’s no doubt they will be eagerly biting.”
“But the Adventurer Guild they are so attached to isn’t here, and even though they are hyumans, they would have to start from zero, you know? Of course they would leave.”
Normally, the Mirage Town is a one time entrance for the adventurers.
They will now be changing from guests to regular customers and allow several visits.
By having connections with specific adventurers to the Mirage Town, they will strengthen their bonds with the residents.
And so, individual rankers from the Asora Ranking will be beginning a trial of strength with them acting as gatekeepers.
If the regular customers gain enough strength to pass it, they will be shown the further growth of the town, and in turn, show them to Makoto, and by observing them, they could change his thinking in regards to adventurers and hyumans into a flexible one, and make him reconsider his evaluation.
The rough outline of the Adventurer Reconsideration Plan goes like that.
The ones talking are a Mist Lizard and a Wingedkin.
They have been ordered to arrange and document the report in regards to the most auspicious first people for the test.
They are having a bet about what the result will be, but they have a serious working spirit.
Makoto seems to be drawing a line when connecting with hyumans or thinking about them.
As for the people living in Asora, they mostly think ‘I don’t care’.
They simply think that if they were to get hostile against Makoto, the Kuzunoha Company, or Asora, they would be enemies they have to fight against.
In the first place, at the time when migrating to Asora, they mostly rejected the races who had a strong animosity towards hyumans, so this way of thinking was natural.
There’s not much of that strange prejudice like the one Makoto has.
Though there’s not a single one who would refuse when ordered by the highest of tops in Asora, Tomoe and Shiki.
Of course, the two who are from the same team and got an order directly from them were even happy by that.
“Anyways, this former idiot has been born under a truly interesting star.”
“The one that was almost killed by Levi all of a sudden?”
“The gatekeeper of that sector that time around was apparently Mito-san, you know?”
“Yeah, I am surprised he survived. There have been people who have challenged the gatekeepers before the First Group. Have there been any who have survived when it was with Mito-san?”
The two speak about the idiot that challenged the gatekeeper.
Suddenly being attacked by the irregular Scylla, and challenging the official gatekeeper that was the Highland Orc, Mito.
The reports had the details written in them.
The ones who heard about this would shake their head several times.
“In regards to the individual rankings, she is lower. But you know, I honestly am more scared of Mito-san than Levi.”
“Same. Rather than scary, it is more like horrifying.”
Remembering the basic strategy of Mito, the two nod and tremble.
Even so, it is not that complicated. It is actually pretty simple.
She rips off your magic resistance, throws your mind into panic, and then instant death.
She would link these three spells as if they were flowing.
Aside from these three spells, the only other things she can use are the stun to stop you in your tracks, and a barrier for defense.
After coming to Asora, she decided her own way of living, and obtained the current style she has.
She has specialized in these 5 spells zealously.
‘It is fine as long as I have minimum required defense’.
‘My true area is in playing with dirt and reading’, that’s what she asserted.
By the way, she cannot find which to prioritize between gardening, ceramic, and reading books, and she is a maiden that would for sure poke her head into the love talks of her friends and always complaining about not having enough time.
Even so, those three spells complement quite well.
It is on the level that the match could be decided by the first move that is ripping off your magic resistance.
Because the Panic spell that you get hit by next would make you defenseless in mind and body, and you would get hit by an instant death spell after.
You die right there.
There’s no steady process for it.
Everything is done in a few seconds.
“About the future…”
“Hm?”
The Wingedkin suddenly changed the topic.
“Will a future where hyumans live in Asora come?”
“I don’t know. But well, by that time, we will also have a lot of demons as comrades, and the hyumans will stop with their ‘We are the best’ mindset, I think?”
“It is true that in the current state, the most we can do is call in guinea pigs. We only have the Princess-san in the demon side after all.”
“Our Waka-sama has an absurdly big heart, but if they were to cause some war in Asora, it would just be unbearable.”
“War in Asora, huh. Fufu, that would indeed be unforgivable.”
“Right? Rather than crush them one by one later, it would be better to assess them properly from the very beginning. That way Asora won’t get dirty.”
“Got it. Ah, once this is over, let’s check the food of Lorel together. It is apparently pretty impressive.”
“That! I was thinking about going too!”
The two were of different races, but the race wall couldn’t be felt between them.
Asora was surely evolving.
