"Welcome. Party of six?" As we entered, a small girl wearing an apron greeted us. At first glance, she seemed to be no older than twelve, but she most likely looked younger than she actually was.
Dwarves were basically very short humans, so it was hard to tell their age from looks. In game lore, they were referred to as 'shadow halflings,' since it was said that they had originally been the same race as the halflings. According to the lore, the halflings had been split between wandering freely and living in caves at some point, which eventually divided the race into halflings and shadow halflings.
Halflings were basically something like homo floresiensis (or like grassrunners from Sword World RPG, or the halflings from DnD) but not quite. More accurately, dwarves were also a member of the halfling race.
That being said, all this is just from lore, and no one actually cares. I also think that halflings are simply halflings, and dwarves are dwarves. So from now on, I'll ignore their scientific names and just refer to the floresiensis of the pair as halflings and dwarves as dwarves.
Names and classifications were just like that sometimes, though. Even on Earth there were examples of this. Like hedgehogs, for example, which were much closer to moles than hogs. But no one cared about that, and everyone called them hedgehogs anyway. This was a similar case.
It was pretty standard in fantasy settings to make dwarves into short people with huge beards, and this was no different in Midgar. Their short stature was a racial trait, and all the men grew magnificent beards. But other than that, they weren't too different from humans. They didn't age any slower or faster. Dwarves aged at a similar rate to humans. Honestly, they just didn't shave.
But, I had heard that dwarves grew muscle easier, probably in order to handle manual labor. It must have been a racial difference. The men probably burst with male hormones, since they got ripped with only a little work. Their eyebrows grew thick and bushy, and they started to look much rougher in general. Of course, their beards grew at an incredible rate as well.
Finely chiseled features—basically what was commonly referred to as 'the mature man face'---were also considered the most attractive among dwarves. That was why every single man basically looked like Santa Claus once they passed thirty.
And as expected, humans with no beards or cool looks weren't popular at all among dwarf women. Dwarf women are all basically legal lolis who stan older men. Well, they all age normally, though, so once they get old enough, they just look like really short grandmas.
"Your order?"
So I looked at the menu and answered, "Barometz soup."
I'd been wanting to try barometz since I came to Midgar. In the game, food was treated as a healing item, and barometz was included in that.
Barometz was a kind of a monster, but it had mutated in a very interesting way. Its true nature (probably) was that of a plant. The plant resembled a gourd plant, but for some reason, it sprouted a lamb. If left alone, the lamb matured into a sheep as it ate all the grass and plants around it, until finally starving to death when it ran out of food. The whole thing was unfathomable. It was clearly a failure of a species as far as survival was concerned. But it was still quite useful. Even the lamb's hooves were made out of wool, so the whole thing could be turned into materials for use in something else.
Barometzes were a reliable early game companion for Alchemists. It was fundamental knowledge that low-level Alchemists started off by farming barometzes until they'd gathered a full set of wool armor. I'd gone through several front line classes before starting Alchemist, though, so at that point, I was just hunting monsters and dinosaurs without batting an eye. On top of that, I'd already had Fiona, who produced rainbow wool—the highest tier of all sheep-based materials—by then. Honestly, barometzes were nothing to me.
Anyway, barometzes were delicious… apparently. I'd been told that their meat tasted like crab. I could only think of that as a joke now. Well, it probably was a joke in the game. That was most likely what the game's writers were aiming for.
Still though, to think that they've been copied over directly to this world… How pitiful.
I'll still eat it, though.
Or so I thought, but then I noticed Fiona leveling a steady stare at me.
"…"
Noticing my gaffe, I hurriedly changed my order. "Ah, no… On second thought, We will have the mushroom soup."
I was careless. I shouldn't have tried to order mutton in front of Fiona, who was a sheep. Though, I'm not sure if barometz counts as a sheep. Of course, Fiona probably wouldn't hold it against me. But I was scared that she would try to cut off a piece of herself, because she thought something like "so Lady Naru likes mutton…"
Damn. I guess I need to stay away from any animals that resemble one of the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians.
"I'll have a chicken soup."
"Me too."
"Same here."
"I would like barometz soup."
While Haruka, Fiona, and Tayuya all ordered a chicken soup, Wendy didn't hesitate to go for the barometz soup. She didn't mind Fiona's stare at all. Actually, she didn't even notice. Then she ordered a goat next.
"Oh, and some goat milk porridge, too."
Tayuya's stare was now added to the mix, but she still didn't care. She's incredible, in a sense.
"It's amazing how you get ingredients in a golem, though."
"Well, you see… Inside the golem—" Haruka started to explain, but was cut off by Penny.
"There are agricultural production plants inside the golem. They mainly raise barometzes, simple Bryn fruits, tubers, and a variety of other vegetables. That being said, almost all of their food is imported."
Haruka ground her teeth after having her role as expounder of knowledge taken away from her, but as always, Penny didn't seem to mind.
Why is it that all of you want to explain things so much? Well, whatever. Food's more important right now.
The soup that was brought out to me had a variety of sliced mushrooms in it and looked really inviting. There were some strains I didn't recognize, but I wasn't that knowledgeable on mushrooms in the first place. I couldn't even tell the difference between matsutake and shimeji mushrooms. As long as they weren't poisonous, I was fine with whatever mushroom was put in front of me.
The soup's taste was… good. Perfectly salted.
The fact that the last bit of land humanity had managed to hold onto while the grimmfolk took over most of the world was coastal was a small silver lining. There was that place where I'd fought with the Grimm King… near Laevateinn. I remembered that place was near the ocean. Salt was important for health. If the grimmfolk had ended up taking all the coastal land, then humanity would probably have crumbled without a fight.
As I expected, though, this world's culinary techniques weren't as advanced as those on Earth. It felt like they just kind of boiled up this soup and put in whatever amount of salt felt appropriate.
Well, I guess that's only natural. I mean, all of Midgar is in a state of war, after all. Nutritional value and amount was valued more than taste. People didn't have the leeway to experiment for taste, nor did they have the spare ingredients. So it was inevitable that food culture hadn't progressed. Experimenting to create delicious food was great. Nobody would object to good food. But the world just wasn't in a state that would allow that.
This world also lacked seasonings. That was probably one of the things preventing the growth of food culture as well. It was a staple of the fantasy genre for even pepper to be a rare and valuable item, and in the game, pepper actually was something that sold for a high price. I think it was because places that can produce it are limited?
Still, it wasn't as precious as it had been on Earth in the Middle Ages. During that time on Earth, pepper was worth its weight in gold. It was during the Age of Exploration, too, so refrigeration technology hadn't been invented yet. Pepper was indispensable in helping preserve food over long periods.
But this world wasn't in any sort of Age of Exploration, and Water magic existed. If a person wanted to preserve food, they could just use Water magic to put it on ice, and there were several other ways to preserve food on top of that. Of course, magic ice would still go back to being mana eventually, but that just meant you'd have to cast it again. In terms of preserving food, there was basically no need for pepper. Though, pepper was still valuable, even without that use.
If there was even a slightly larger variety of spices, this soup would be much tastier… Oh well.
I wouldn't say I felt satisfied by the meal, but I'd finally managed to have something that wasn't travel rations. So with a full belly, I paid the bill, and we left.
The next thing on the list should be finding Jaune. Given the fact that I had no idea where he could be, there was no other choice but to turn over every stone in our search. But with how large Blutgang was, doing so would take too much time. Plus, a lot of this place was made up of residences, so we wouldn't be able to search everywhere anyway. We weren't the heroes of some RPG, so we couldn't just barge into people's homes and start breaking pots.
"Penny, can you find Jaune?"
"Like I said earlier, I will be able to commit all the citizen's breathing patterns to memory with enough time and use that to find him. Please wait a while."
"Then We guess we should just wait until Penny is done."
Penny should be able to take care of the search for Jaune. She said it would take time, but it would probably still be much faster than having us physically search everywhere.
That was when Haruka made a suggestion. "Ah, then would it be okay for me to do some shopping? I should restock our food and water."
"Then I will serve as your guard."
Surprisingly, Penny volunteered to keep Haruka safe as he shopped. Haruka would probably be fine by herself, but she'd be doubly safe with Penny. In fact, I would have asked Penny to do that if she hadn't volunteered.
I wasn't terribly concerned for Haruka's safety. She was level 1000, so she should have been able to deal with almost everything herself. But I was concerned, since I had no idea what Haruka might get up to if she were left alone. She was a double agent for us, after all, so I already wasn't quite sure what she was doing in the background. Despite all the danger, though, I'd still asked for her to join me.
But with Penny nearby, even Haruka shouldn't be able to do anything too strange.
But Penny is still searching for Jaune. Will she be able to multitask?
"Please be at ease. I will be able to continue searching while guarding Haruka. In fact, it will be much more effective for me to get closer to the center anyway, since each floor of this golem is soundproof."
"Understood. Then We will leave it to you."
"You can count on me."
Haruka and Penny left to go and restock our food and water, and I was finally left with nothing to do.
What should I do until they come back? We just ate, and there aren't convenience stores or anything similar around to kill time at. So I guess there's nothing other than taking a walk?
"All right. It's free time until Haruka and Penny come back. All of you, make sure you don't cause trouble."
"What will you be doing, Lady Naru?"
"We will be taking a walk."
"Then I'll come with you."
"Me too."
"Ah, then I'll come too."
"…"
As soon as I told them that I'd be taking a walk, the sheep, goat, and maiden all attached themselves to me.
Like, what? Is this like that thing that happens in RPGs, where the party just lines up single file behind the hero for some reason?
This is making it really hard to walk, though…
"…You know, you're all free to do as you like?"
"I like being with you, Lady Naru."
"Me too."
"Uhh, if I do something by myself, I'll probably get lost."
I tried to hint at them to go away, but they showed no signs of doing so. While Wendy's concern was understandable, Fiona's loyalty was… heavy. And was I imagining it? All Tayuya had been saying for a while now was, "Me too."
Wow. It's looking like I won't get any actual free time for a while, huh? Ah, well. It's not like I hate this. Being with them, that is.