Chapter 222: Chapter 204 – Bidding a Fond Farewell

"Those whose aims led to the same destination are bound to cross roads often." - Old folk saying.

"Dammit Lucea," said Kino as they were seated around the modest dining table and ravenously feasted on the array of dishes the therian woman had made for dinner. "If you keep cooking this good I'd really be tempted to drag you off to Paradise and give us cooking lessons for a decade or three."

 

"Oh, you flatter me," replied the therian woman with an open laugh that sounded almost like a bird's song. A much louder bird's song that also reminded Cal of the strange growl-screech noise some kinds of predatory lizards made, that is. "Now put your stomach to match those words. I made plenty for tonight!"

 

Cal had to admit that Lucea's words were no brag at all, as the dining table the seven of them were seated around was filled to the brim with an array of dishes that the therian woman somehow cooked in the five or so hours that had passed until dinnertime.

 

The tyrant lizard meat they had brought as a gift had been cooked in many different ways, as it was present in most of the dishes on the table. To Lucea's credit, every single one of the dishes gave off mouth watering aromas, and everything Cal had tasted so far were nothing short of excellence. One glimpse at how the siblings and Kino devoured their food ravenously told her that they too agreed with her high regard for the food presented.

 

Cal was honestly impressed with just how many ways Lucea prepared the meat with. They had started with a light, clear soup that had bits of minced meat and some sharp, pungent peppery vegetables in it, which had been hearty yet refreshing. And yet Lucea had complained that she would have been able to make better soup if she had a couple days to boil up a proper bone broth for it.

 

The former empress even served a "salad" of sorts with very thinly sliced strips of raw meat, with minced onions, a dose of freshly squeezed juice from limes, and some dried pepper flakes rolled inside it. The whole thing was then placed in cups of lettuce leaf and served with a drizzling of what tasted like a fruity vinegar to Cal. It was an unusual mixture of flavors, sweet, savory, sour, pungent, and spicy all at once, yet taken altogether they made for a delicious flavor.

 

Skewers of marinated meat alternated with onions and what looked like some sort of root vegetable Cal was unfamiliar with were roasted until the surface of the meat was slightly charred, while the insides remained tender and juicy.

 

Finely chopped meat was made into a thick sauce, with a multitude of spices in the mixture, as well as some vegetables and to Cal's surprise, fruits. Those were then served over plain, fluffy white rice, freshly cooked and still steaming. The slightly sweet rice helped balance the dish's strong tastes well.

 

Even the simplest of the dishes, where thick slabs of fatty meat were simply grilled to perfection with only a little bit of spices, were done so well that few such dishes Cal had eaten could compare. The little bit of spicing Lucea had done perfectly accentuated the strong natural flavors of the meat, which made it the highlight of the dish.

 

The way everyone on the table had seconds or even thirds, and the clean plates left behind once they were finished with their meal - mostly because they ran out of room in their stomachs - speaks for itself. Their group of seven must have eaten enough food for twenty people if not more that night.

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Dessert arrived after they were done in the form of bowls filled with an icy slush that tasted of fruit. Cal had seen how it was made, and was mildly surprised that Adelheid had simply brought out one of the arm-sized floating ice spikes she fought with and used it to stir a large bowl of fruit juice until it froze into its current consistency.

 

"So where are you all headed to next?" asked Adelheid as they sipped hot tea around the table after the meal. The woman had clearly grown fonder of Cal after their spar, and had not shown much of her previously cold behavior.

 

"I'll be taking her to Saelostov, since old Evrett is there. Might as well introduce her to the twins as well," replied Kino from besides Cal. Evrett was the name of the current Champion of Mist Kino mentioned to Cal before, the one currently grooming his successors. "After that, we're likely heading straight for Sabaya."

 

"Hope you got good tolerance for naughty brats then," said Adelheid with a slight frown on her face, as if she remembered something unpleasant. "Those two brats Evrett'a grooming are a menace, and that was two years ago. Deities know just how messed up their pranks might get by now."

 

"If you're in Sabaya by mid-autumn, might want to have your students try the tournament. It only happens every five years, and since you said this trip is partly training for them, there'd be a lot of good fighters in the tourney for sure," chimed Azturia from her seat. Cal pondered her suggestion for a moment before she decided that it was a good one, if only to expose her students to more fighting styles. "We'll be in town as well around then, so we'll meet you there."

 

In the end, they spent the night in the cottage, before they bid their farewells to the two champions and departed the next morning. The siblings guided Cal back out of the jungle they had to go through, and by early afternoon, they had emerged out of the jungle, several hours to the west of Deliverance.

 

From there, the three siblings separated from Cal and Kino, repeating their promise to meet again in Sabaya in the autumn, while the two of them headed back to Deliverance. They reached the city by evening, and soon grouped up with the rest of the party once again, ready to resume their travels on the morrow.

 

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