Ryouriban

(Author’s note: This is sorta written in a 4-koma format with the first half being chill, and the second half serious)

I like cooking.
When I was young, I was always watching from behind as my mum was cooking. I, who was brought up with delicious food, obviously held an interest in cooking.
I could finally help out a little when I entered the third grade, handle the knife when I was in middle school, and allowed to handle the pot when I was in high school.
Living such a life, I was good enough to create my own lunch boxes when I was in high school. Discussing my cla.s.smate’s lunch box contents became everyday lunchtime talk.

Despite this, after graduating high school, finding a job, living by myself, my interest only even further.
There was an increase in time and money after all.
I bought all the j.a.panese, Western, Chinese books I could get my hands on to study, studying history and re-creating cooking methods of the past.
Without really thinking about it, the director of the construction site said
“Your cooking is good but, this line of work might be wrong for you”
or something like that. But I do wonder why I’m working as a plumber.
I simply chose this line of work just so that my parents wouldn’t worry. I have no regrets.
After almost two years, the food for the end of year party was made by me. The president said
“Compared to the j.a.panese restaurant over there, your cooking tastes better and it’s cheaper.”
or something like that. The preparations were fun so it wasn’t that tough.
So coming back from shopping for my twentieth.
For some reason, my hands were tied behind my back, and I was surrounded by men holding spears and swords.

“Who are you? Why are you here”

That’s what I want to know.
Coming home from shopping, I got wrapped in a mysterious light and arrived here.
When I was wrapped in that light, it seems like I had dropped everything, my wallet, the food I just bought, everything.
Jeans and a white shirt, that was all I had.
HAHAHAHAHA。

“What are your laughing at!”
Ah ah, it seems like I made them angry.
The person in front of me glares at me with sharp eyes.
I wanted to run away barefoot. Nah, it wouldn’t be good leaving my shoes behind as they are a part of my properties.

“Umm, you can call me Shuri. Where is this place?”
“The one asking questions is me. Stop speaking nonsense.”

I beg your pardon.
Looking around was a slightly stained tent which looked like it came out of an old war movie.
A pot was being cooked on top of firewood, seriously what era is this.
There were also people sharpening swords, spears, bows and arrow.
Amongst all this, I was detained as if I was the criminal.

“You’re called Shuri right? Where do you belong? What village are you from”
“The countryside of j.a.pan”
“Jyapan… never heard of the place”
“Um, I got lost getting here, and I have no idea where this place is”
“Shut up for me”

It’s like I have no human rights. I give up.(ギブミー。)

“So uh, I’m pretty hungry”
“Be quiet, so are we”

Oh? It seems like the leader-like person in front of me is also feeling the hunger pains.
Looking around, there are four people who are surrounding me right now, but they seem to be hungry too.
It appears like I came during mealtime. I can only blame my bad timing.

“Captain, what do?”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything we can take”
“But doing nothing like this won’t do any good”
“However, there’s no way we can just free him. Hurry up and kill him and start preparing for the war.”

How dangerous. It appears to be the meal before the fight.
And it seems that I will be stripped of my a.s.sets.

“Uh, excuse me”
“What”
“I’m kinda hungry, can I cook something please?”
“…You, you’re a cook?”

The giant who appeared to be the leader, let’s just call him Leader-san. Leader-san had a quizzical face on him.
Close-cropped cut blonde hair, sharp-eyed handsome man. And he’s muscles were sugoi. It was something envious for an average looking guy like me.
That kind of handsome Leader-san wore full body armour. That kinda armour, you could only see it in movies yo.

“If its cooking then I can do the basics. If you’re going to kill me, at least do it after I eat something please.”

Of course dying wouldn’t be great. I do not wish to die. I dun wanna die!

“Interesting”

Leader-san laughed with a ‘hu’. It was an expressionless laugh. A handsome guy will still be handsome doing that huh.

“In that case, make something delicious. If you do that, I will let you live”
“Captain?! Are you serious?!”
“It’s before the war. Doing something like this to raise the morale of the troops wouldn’t be bad. If it tastes bad then we can just kill him”

Such danger. It became like a development from someone’s history cooking manga.

I, who was released from the ropes, borrowed a pot, a cooking board and a knife.

“The ingredients are over there”

In front of where he pointed was milk, b.u.t.ter, wheat flour, carrots, spring onions, fish, salt, potato.

“Is there anything else?”
“No. This is already quite extravagant. It’s usually Salt and Potato soup.”

That’s tough… I feel depressed just imagining that.

“Then… let’s go with Seafood Cream Stew. It would be so much better if there was shrimp. Since there’s none then let’s replace it with the perch.”

You shouldn’t underestimate perch. It can create good fish stock and bring out flavour.

Three fish were cut up and quickly grilled, it was finished once it was boiled in the pot with some basic preparations and everything was thrown together. If there wasn’t any milk, b.u.t.ter or flour added then using the perch’s stock would’ve still been fine but, these people may not be used to the taste so I stopped.

“Here you go”

Serving it onto a dish, I handed it over to Leader-san. Oh and, the fish bones and intestines were taken care of.
I made a perch soup but putting in the bones just like that might be a little annoying.

“This… soup is white”
“It’s cream stew”
“If it’s bad I’ll kill you”

Well excuse me. I was limited by the ingredients but it should be good.
One bite, Leader-san timidly placed it into his mouth.
And then, stopped.

“Um?”
“How is it captain?”
“…Delicious”

Leader-san started devouring the stew greedily.

“Oi, bring more here”
“Aye aye, I made a lot so don’t worry and keep eating”
“A lot? Even though there was only that many ingredient?”
“Working around with water, perch and milk, even if you don’t have many ingredients, you can still get the amount.
It’s before work right everyone? Eat moderately because eating delicious foods will bring out your full power”

Leader-san made a surprising face.
By the way, at the banquets I did mountain-loads of work to increase the amount while keeping the flavour.

“…I see, it was planned to that extent”

What? I only thought that it would be better to have a lot to eat though?

“You, do you have any place to go?”
“I don’t. I don’t even have any clue as to how to get home”

This place was clearly foreign. I wonder how I’d get back to j.a.pan.
Leader-san, after he finished the cream stew said as he looked me in the eye.

“If you have no place to go, then come join our corp.”
“Eh”
“As a cook. Your job will be to create delicious tasting meals. Until you make it back to your hometown, make meals here”
“Is it ok?”
“I say its ok”
“So, in that case, thanks

Just like this I entered Leader-san’s mercenary corps.