"Is this all the lumber to transport?"
"Yes, please. It should increase somewhat by the afternoon, but this is all we have for now."
It was nearing midday, and Rei had come to the Treant Forest together with Set.
Ever since the Gilm expansion project had been decided, the Woodcutters had been desperately felling trees, but from Rei's perspective, the vastness of the Treant Forest hardly seemed to have changed.
From above, only the trail left by the Gigant Turtle's movement stood out as a wide scar across the landscape, and the very visibility of that trail likely made the contrast all the more apparent.
Incidentally, Set would normally have been flying above Gilm, keeping watch for flying monsters, but given how arduous transporting lumber from the Treant Forest was, that duty had taken priority.
The fact that it only took Set a few minutes of flight to travel from Gilm to the Treant Forest probably also factored into that decision.
It simply showed how critically important the lumber from the Treant Forest was.
After a brief exchange with the man handling the negotiations, Rei touched the felled trees one after another, storing them away.
The entire morning's worth of hard work by the Woodcutters vanished in a matter of minutes.
The Woodcutters who had only recently arrived in Gilm stared at the sight, dumbfounded.
Seeing those bewildered Woodcutters, the others—those who had been in Gilm from the start—nodded as if to say they understood exactly how they felt.
However, among those Woodcutters, a few directed displeased glares toward Rei.
At the forefront was Danza, who had fallen in love with Marina at first sight and had picked a fight with Rei only to be knocked out effortlessly.
But he understood all too thoroughly that he was absolutely no match in terms of strength.
If he couldn't win by force, then Rei was simply not someone Danza could do anything about.
Under normal circumstances, he might have gathered companions for the task, but given his personality, Danza did not have many allies to begin with.
He had a handful of men he might call underlings, but even they had seen Rei's true capabilities demonstrated right before their eyes, so there was nothing they could do either.
As a result, all Danza could do was glare at Rei while seething with frustration.
Despite being on the receiving end of those glares, Rei swiftly stored the felled lumber into his Misty Ring and flew off on Set.
"Tch."
In the end, Danza could only watch Rei leave in silence and click his tongue in irritation.
The adventurers in Gilm who knew what kind of existence Rei was observed Danza with the kind of looks one might give a pitiable fool.
They knew full well what it meant to pick a fight with Rei—that was precisely why they looked at him that way.
"That's the lot, then."
"Yes, thank you very much. We'll be counting on you again this afternoon."
Nodding at the craftsman's words, Rei turned his gaze once more behind him—to the stacked piles of timber.
Every piece was wood felled in the Treant Forest, which an Alchemist would now process in various ways before it could finally be used as construction material.
With the handoff complete, Rei headed with Set toward a nearby food stall.
Rei was now taking his lunch break.
He could have gone to the construction site, but if he did, Malz—who had a strong interest in Rei's Death Scythe and his magic—would come seeking him.
Malz was by no means a bad sort, but even so, being hounded by an old man wasn't exactly an enjoyable experience for Rei.
(Come to think of it, he seemed quite interested in Filma too... I hope he focuses his attention there instead.)
Mages were an inherently rare breed to begin with.
Even among them, those capable of using Spirit Magic were even fewer.
With a Spirit Mage present, it was only natural for Malz to direct his attention that way.
Marina was also a Spirit Mage, of course. But Malz probably lacked the courage to approach her.
After all, Marina was a well-known celebrity in Gilm.
"Gurururu!"
Along with Set, who rumbled his throat to indicate he was hungry, Rei went around buying a generous assortment of food from nearby stalls.
Skewers, Sandwiches, Nikuman, soup. And various other dishes besides.
Eating Nikuman in the middle of summer felt slightly odd to Rei... but delicious food was delicious nonetheless.
Amidst all that, Rei and Set stopped in front of a particular stall.
"Huh."
The one who let out a voice of admiration upon seeing the stall was Rei.
It wasn't just that there was a large crowd of customers around the stall—it was because of what those customers were eating.
The dish was udon.
...However, it was not the kake-udon or nikomi-udon varieties that Rei had spread throughout this world... nor was it the yaki-udon that the residents of Elgin had devised on their own.
It was a dish that had surely been born precisely because it was midsummer and blazing hot.
What many of the people were eating was a dish consisting of udon in a plate, topped with boiled and cold-water-chilled meat and vegetables, drizzled with a cold sauce—in Rei's mind, it was closest to bukkake udon.
Naturally, there were various differences from the bukkake udon Rei knew.
The absence of condiments like grated daikon, myoga, shiso leaves, long green onions, umeboshi, and bonito flakes; the use of a rich sauce rather than dashi soy sauce; the lack of an egg yolk on top—differences such as these.
Then again, the bukkake udon Rei knew was, at its core, what he had eaten when he was in Japan.
Because his family were farmers, they had access to as much of various summer condiments—myoga being just one example—as they could want.
Vegetables that couldn't be shipped out were eaten at home, and even then some were thrown away because they couldn't finish them all, so naturally the variety of vegetables used in their cooking was extensive.
In any case, though it differed in many ways from the bukkake udon Rei knew, the dish being served at the stall was, by his reckoning, impossible to call anything other than bukkake udon.
"What do you think? Want to eat?"
"Guru!"
At Rei's words, Set rumbled his throat as if to say, Obviously!
Seeing that, the customers around the stall quietly made room for them.
Most of the customers were adventurers, and one look at Set told them that the person accompanying him was Rei.
"Welcome."
"One portion for me and one for Set. Make Set's five servings. Ah, I'll have three."
"You got it."
The stall owner was a man who regularly ran his food stall in Gilm.
Even with an order considerably larger than usual, he accepted it without any particular confusion.
If someone asked for a portion for Set as well, most would normally be surprised... and some might even refuse.
But to the people of Gilm, having Set eat their cooking drew customers in with its adorable appearance... and above all, the fact that Set had eaten it deliciously would cause orders to come flooding in.
Compared to the regular dishes sold at stalls, it was slightly... no, considerably more expensive bukkake udon, but even so, in the current Gilm, many people had money to spare thanks to the expansion project.
Given the situation, for the stall owner, having Set eat his cooking was something to welcome, not refuse.
Most of the ingredients were already prepped and cooked; all that remained was to boil the udon, chill it, and plate it.
Of course, Rei's three servings aside, Set's five was quite a lot, so the amount of udon to boil was substantial.
After boiling the udon, he rinsed it in water to remove the surface starch, plated it, arranged the various toppings... and finally drizzled on a sauce that had been chilled to near-freezing using a Magic Item.
This Magic Item-chilled sauce was precisely the reason the stall was thriving as much as it was.
...Though the use of a Magic Item was also the reason the food cost more than usual.
"...It's good."
Eating bukkake udon with a fork was still a situation Rei hadn't fully grown accustomed to, but the bukkake udon was delicious nonetheless.
Even Rei, wearing a Dragon Robe with Simplified air conditioner capabilities, found bukkake udon eaten under the blazing sun this tasty—so for those without such equipment, it wouldn't be strange for them to want to pay any price to eat this bukkake udon.
Rei had eaten bukkake udon as a dish before, at the Full Belly Diner.
But this bukkake udon was clearly more refined than what he had eaten there.
Moreover, the Full Belly Diner naturally didn't have anything like a Magic Item, so it simply couldn't achieve this level of coldness.
"Gururururu!"
Beside Rei, Set ate his bukkake udon while rumbling his throat to express how delicious it was.
Seeing Set like that, a few people who had been hesitating due to the high price placed their orders... and that set off a chain reaction as more and more customers flooded in.
While eating his bukkake udon and watching the scene unfold, Rei turned his gaze back to his own plate.
(Bukkake udon is nice and all, but I'd really love some chilled ramen too... But while udon is one thing, I have no idea how to make Chinese-style noodles.)
When it came to summer, chilled ramen was more standard for Rei than bukkake udon.
In Japan, there were regions where udon was more prevalent than Chinese noodles, but at least where Rei had lived, chilled ramen was the norm.
However, udon could be made with just flour, salt, and water, and fortunately, Rei had made it before so he had managed. But Chinese noodles? He had never even attempted making them.
And even with udon, what Rei had managed was merely teaching the general method—it was Dishot of the Full Belly Diner who had actually gone through repeated trial and error to perfect the udon.
Compared to udon, Rei's only memory of Chinese noodles was a vague recollection of seeing them in some cooking manga or something.
(Eggs... They called them egg noodles, so Chinese noodles probably use eggs, right? And besides that... kansui, was it? I feel like they added something called kansui, but what even is kansui to begin with? Special water? Special... special in what way?)
The more he thought about it, the more Rei agonized over how to make Chinese noodles.
Furthermore, even if he were to make chilled ramen, there was also the issue of the sauce.
Rei liked chilled ramen with sesame sauce, but he didn't dislike the standard vinegared sauce either.
But if asked how to make them, he didn't know the method for either.
Acidity? When Rei heard that, what came to mind were citrus fruits or vinegar.
(Ah, but I think I saw lemon soy sauce listed as an ingredient for chilled ramen sauce before... so maybe it's citrus rather than vinegar.)
Rei, who had been thinking about chilled ramen, had that thought come to him—but even if he had figured out the source of the acidity, there was no way it was really just soy sauce and lemon.
(The meat, rolled egg, vegetables, and stuff like that can all be made normally here, at least. Though there are probably various differences.)
Rather than boiled chicken breast or ham, the meat would be monster meat like Orc meat, and instead of the cucumbers and tomatoes Rei knew, the vegetables would be Elgin-grown produce.
"Guru?"
As Rei was pondering chilled ramen, Set had apparently already finished eating.
Set tilted his head slightly as if asking what was wrong, and Rei shook his head to indicate it was nothing while eating his very last bite.
"Just a little. I remembered a dish I want to eat, but I'm not quite sure how to make it. It's the kind of dish you crave in this kind of heat."
At Rei's words, the surrounding customers pricked up their ears.
Many of those who had been in Gilm for a while knew that Rei possessed deep knowledge about cooking.
Udon, Pizza, Nikuman—the dishes Rei was thought to have conceived had become massive hits within Gilm.
The udon that had been devised first had already spread not only through the surrounding areas but considerably throughout the Kingdom of Mireana, and the Pizza and Nikuman conceived in winter were also spreading to neighboring regions.
In other words, they understood that there was no miss when it came to the dishes Rei came up with.
...In truth, Rei's culinary knowledge came from what had been widespread in Japan, so for the residents of this world—whose palates were not so different from those of the Japanese in the sense that they did not favor rotten meat or things that were extremely spicy, bitter, or sour—there was no such thing as a dish that missed the mark.
Of course, that was only because the dishes Rei knew of were generally easy to accept; if, for example, one tried to introduce a food with a pungent stench like kusaya, whether many people would readily accept it was another question entirely.
(Hatahata sushi probably wouldn't be well-received either, I imagine. ...Even though it's delicious.)
Rei recalled the hatahata sushi he had prepared every winter without fail... a type of sushi classified as izushi.
For Rei, it was a dish he could rightly call the flavor of his hometown.
Naturally, having been made to help out every year, he actually remembered how to make it—something unusual for him.
(Hatahata sushi, huh. ...I'd love to make it, but there's no rice. Even if I substitute the hatahata with some other fish...)
It was a dish he wanted to eat, but with nearly none of the ingredients to make it available, Rei unfortunately had no choice but to give up on the idea.