Eiji's limits were easily swept away in the face of sizzling meat.
The iron pot over the hearth was hissing vigorously. Even before any gamey odor could register, the rich, savory aroma of rendered fat filled the dirt-floored room. Using a tenugui towel as a makeshift potholder, Yuna carried the entire pot over to the center of the table.
The moment it touched down, a stomach let out a thunderous rumble.
"Ah, your stomach growled. That was yours just now, wasn't it, Eiji-kun?"
"…You're imagining things."
"People's stomachs don't growl out of sheer imagination~"
Yuna giggled with amusement and took a seat across from him. Last night, both their stomachs had rumbled at the exact same moment. Tonight, he felt as though he alone had suffered a defeat.
On the table sat a single flower-patterned bowl. That was the entirety of this house's tableware arsenal.
(Ah… Come to think of it, there were shards of a broken crock over at that third house. If I'd fixed it, it might've made a decent bowl… but I turned that entire house into a bathhouse.)
The bathhouse he had chosen had, in a roundabout way, caused tonight's shortage of dishes. Funny how the world worked.
"You use the bowl. I'll eat straight from the pot."
"Ehh? But won't that make you look like you have terrible manners, Eiji-kun?"
"If we're talking about manners, mine are already plenty bad."
"Why?"
Yuna tilted her head in utter bewilderment.
She genuinely didn't seem to have a clue.
"I'm eating dinner half-naked."
"…Ah. You're right."
"You only just realized that now?"
His shirt was currently sitting on a small table by the wall, waiting for Yuna's needle and thread. Faced with a guy sitting at the dinner table with nothing on top except a towel draped over his shoulders, his childhood friend hadn't paid it the slightest bit of mind until this very second. Had she already grown used to it? Part of him was relieved she didn't care, but another part felt conflicted about it. It was an awkward feeling.
"Thanks for the food," they said in unison. It was the first time in their three days in this other world that they had the leeway to say those words.
With neither chopsticks nor forks, they were both going to have to eat with their hands. In terms of poor table manners, they were actually pretty evenly matched… or so he had thought. Yuna pulled out two thin sticks of uneven length.
Then, using them like chopsticks, she deftly pinched a piece of meat.
"Unfair…"
"I found them while you were in the bath, Eiji-kun. Pretty neat, right? I'll look for some for you next time."
Yuna spoke with a proud look and popped the piece of meat into her mouth first. Then, she froze.
"…………"
Enticed by her, Eiji took a bite too, and froze as well.
"…………"
The two of them exchanged looks.
"…It's delicious."
"Yeah. It really is."
The reason why plain grilled meat tasted so good was probably half due to hunger and half due to two days' worth of exhaustion. Even discounting that, the sweetness of the fat emerged with every chew. Magic wolf meat was surprisingly good food.
However, as they ate on, something began to bother them. The flavor was bland.
"It's good, but… I'm kind of wishing for some salt."
"I was thinking the exact same thing."
"And it really is a bit gamey. If we had pepper or something, it'd be way better."
Poking at the morsels in her bowl with her stick chopsticks, Yuna wrinkled her nose. Now that she mentioned it, the gamey taste lingered on the tongue more toward the aftertaste. Whether it was salt or pepper, they desperately wanted something to season it with.
"Where would we even get salt, I wonder?"
"The ocean, or maybe rock salt?"
"I doubt there's anything like that around here."
"Then I guess salt is another item on our homework list."
Yuna said it nonchalantly. At the casual nature of the word "homework," a dry chuckle slipped out of him.
"Nothing but homework piling up in this lifestyle, huh."
Given that the very next words out of their mouths after "it's delicious" were the names of things they lacked, humans were truly greedy creatures.
There was still meat left in the pot. Considering their stock of five carcasses, they wouldn't have to worry about quantity for the time being. But when meat was all they had, their palates naturally started craving something else. After swallowing her bite, Yuna stared off into the distance.
"Meat is great and all, but… I really want to eat some vegetables. Like a salad."
"Don't say that. You're gonna make me crave it too."
Crisp cabbage and lettuce. The tartness of tomatoes. The moment he pictured them, his mouth began watering uncontrollably.
The more you counted what you lacked, the more honest the cravings in your gut became.
"There was a vegetable plot, right? If I use Purify on it, do you think we could use it?"
"Even if you spend mana to purify it, we don't have any seeds."
"Ah, that's true."
"We don't know what might happen, so it's better to conserve your mana as much as possible. The plot should probably be pushed back on our priority list."
That pillar of light that had purified the entire water vein itself. Though she had acted completely fine afterward, her mana consumption must have been immense. If she were to cleanse an entire field as well, there was no telling how much mana it would drain. To go through all that only to have no seeds to sow would be nothing short of a bad joke.
Besides, there was no telling when monsters might show up again. Even though he had gained the powers of a magic wolf, if a stronger monster appeared, Yuna's power would be indispensable whether they liked it or not.
"Then I guess we really have no choice but to go into the forest. It'd be great if there were edible wild greens or something."
"If only we could find some mountain vegetables."
"Another piece of homework added to the pile, huh."
"…Isn't our life literally nothing but homework?"
The feeling of homework piling up at the end of the day reminded him of the assignments before a school trip. The only difference from back then was that the people they had to submit it to were themselves.
And right then, he remembered something. Among their homework, there was one task whose answer was already emerging.
"Ah, right. About the shampoo and conditioner. When I appraised the empty bottles, the names of medicinal herbs and fragrant herbs came up."
"Really?! Then can we make them?"
"Making the exact same thing seems impossible, but apparently we can make something close. The soap being unscented was basically just because it lacked fragrant herbs."
"Yay…!"
Still holding her bowl, Yuna gave a little hop in her chair. Considering the conversation earlier that evening about cutting her hair, her sheer joy was only natural.
However, reality meant it couldn't just end on a purely cheerful note.
"The problem is, even if I hear the names, I won't be able to tell which plants they are. My Appraisal skill only reacts to things that have served their purpose. Even if I touch a growing plant, nothing's probably going to happen."
Searching the forest for someone whose name you knew, but whose face you had never seen. The odds of that search were terrible.
As he crossed his arms and groaned in thought, Yuna's face suddenly brightened across from him.
"…Ah. In that case, isn't it my turn to shine?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, like with that magic stone. I noticed it might have mana, remember? I might be able to do the same thing with plants. If there's a plant that smells nice, we can pick it and have you appraise it, Eiji-kun, to see if it's usable."
"…I see. Yuna finds them, and I verify them, huh."
She did have a track record of unearthing a magic stone from what looked like a plain old pebble on the hunter's shelf. With that nose and intuition of hers, she might just pick up on the good and bad among the plants.
Once picked, a plant would become a 'harvested item.' If so, Eiji's Appraisal skill would react to it.
"Yep! Let's at least give that a try, okay?"
"Then it's settled. Tomorrow, we go to the forest. We'll gather edible plants and fragrant herbs, and while we're at it, pick up some stones and branches."
"Stones and branches?"
"Materials for tableware and a kitchen knife. Assuming we can find good ones, that is."
While they had no leads on salt, the rest of their homework was conveniently located in one single place: the forest. In the middle of dinner, tomorrow's plans were neatly tied together.
Having a set plan for tomorrow. That simple fact felt immensely luxurious to the two of them right now.
…He felt like there was some other homework he was forgetting, but it was probably just his imagination.
They already had this much homework on their plates. There was no need to add any more.