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Volume 4 Prologue 1.1

Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes

「I’m treating all of ye today! Drink up, drink up～！！」

「Yeah！！」

「Booze, booze！！」

「Bring it all over here！！」

　Hiroshi and the others simply stared dumbfounded at the sight of the banquet started with the yell of one dwarf. They were not accustomed to this.

「Hey, lady.」

「Yes, what is it？」

「Is this town always so lively？」

「Well, not just this town. Any city with a pub that has a lot of dwarves is always this way.」

　Turn to the right? Dwarves. Turn to left? Also dwarves. This attendant was one of the few humans in the area, answering Makoto’s questions with an awkward smile.

　The current city Hiroshi and his group were in was a town by the name of Aragod Mine, fifty kilometers to the north from the northernmost country of the Midas Federation, Genoa, making it one of Forre’s border cities. With it being a mining town, the population demographics consisted of seventy percent dwarves (a bit skewed), but the mining towns at the base of spirit spire mountain were basically the same way.

「Well, I did hear of a huge cave-in incident today, but apparently there were no deaths or casualties, so I do get why people are so cheerful.」

「Hahaha……」

　The attendant spoke as she lined up some food, while the Japanese party just let out dry laughter. After all, the whole reason Hiroshi’s group was here was because they had been involved in the rescue operation for the cave-in incident, demonstrating vigorous spirit in the process. In other words, they knew that there were not only no deaths, but no casualties, and since they were definitely the reason for that, the group couldn’t quite hold back their dried laughter.

「And look at them go. At this rate they’ll drink up the shop……」

「It’s all barreled liquor by this point……」

　They had started out drinking from mugs for a toast, but by this point there was a barrel at every table despite the food not even being done yet. Not pitchers or even bottles, they were just at whole barrels now. And the dwarves weren’t shocked in the slightest by the quantity, simply opening the corks with glee and pouring the contents into their mugs all around.

　These barrels were filled to the brim with quite a bit of weight to them. From how they poured the liquor into their mugs without spilling a drop, you could tell how accustomed they were to drinking on a daily basis.

「Y’know, the three of us kinda stick out, don’t we…」

「We sure do……」

「Hooray for being minors？」

「Yeah, probably……」

　At present, the only ones in the shop not drinking were Hiroshi, Haruna, and Mio. Not just in this country, but in any country, Mio (naturally), Hiroshi and Haruna were strongly opposed to drinking liquor before they became twenty. Hiroshi and Haruna were generally responsible, only ingesting it on New Years or from food that used it, but they had never drank liquor under any illegal means. As for Mio, her body being weak, her parents were rather overprotective of her and there had not been a single trace of alcohol in the house before she was hospitalized. As a result, even if she did sometimes eat food that used liquor in it when going out, Mio had probably never even seen liquor before coming to this world.

　So although the minor trio had an interest in the concept of getting drunk, they didn’t have much of an interest in liquor itself. They used liquor quite often in cooking, so they were accustomed to the taste, but it was precisely because they knew the taste that they weren’t especially eager to break the law just to drink it.

「Well, that’s probably it.」

「What is？」

「There’s just one thing that doesn’t seem right to me, based on what happened with the elves……」

「Ah～、I get what you’re trying to say. I feel a bit weird about that too.」

　These dwarves’ heights ranged from 140-150 cm, with beer barrel body builds and brilliant bearded faces. No matter how you looked at it, these were your typical dwarves found in any fantasy world. At least if they were all men.

「Right? The elves were one thing, but the dwarves are super loyal to their image.」

「But they don’t have to be so loyal that both genders have bearded faces, do they?」

「I mean, don’t ask me, I dunno.」

　Indeed, the dwarves in this world were your typical fantasy world dwarves, with splendid beards on both genders. You couldn’t tell which was which just by looking at them, and yet they sounded just like humans or elves in the way they talked, which felt very off. Some of the female voices were beautiful enough to compete with Haruna or Aearis despite the outward appearance, which created an odd clash between appearance and voice.

「Wait, but if dwarves are this way, why are the elves like that？」

「Mio, Mio. I don’t think ya can figure that out just by thinkin’ about it.」

「But these are dwarves. We could have had legal lolis or something……」

「Well, I think Makoto-san’ll hafta question that strange expectation of yers later on. But anyhow, when it’s this hard to tell ‘em apart, ma sensors’re gettin’ purty dull.」

　Hiroshi muttered with an odd expression as he thought about this rather pressing issue. It wasn’t like it was problematic to not be able to distinguish between men and women, but this was Hiroshi we’re talking about, who couldn’t trust the majority of women in general. Even if they looked that way, there was always the possibility of them being maidens at heart, so Hiroshi couldn’t be blamed for cautioning himself.

「Well, while we’re here, let’s forget about the silly things and eat some Forre cuisine!」

「Exactly. If there’s any trouble, we’ll deal with it then.」

　Tatsuya and Haruna figured it was time to wrap up the conversation, despite Hiroshi’s earnest predicament. Hearing the proposition, Hiroshi grimaced, nodded, and then started taking some food.

　Forre’s cuisine resembled that of German cuisine, which consisted mainly of potato and sausage. Being that this world just didn’t really use vinegar as a whole, there was also no pickled food and therefore no pickles or sauerkraut, but in exchange there were stir-fried foods, and cabbage was found frequently in salads. Unlike Darl, the spices here didn’t contain anything other than pepper, but as a result, the taste of the ingredients was very clear. From the viewpoint of seasoning, the food here was more similar to Japan’s than Darl’s.

「This sausage is supa good.」

「And the cooked meat and vegetables are quite nice.」

「But the bread, as usual, is hard to the point where you can’t bite it through. It’s firm in a different way from American or German hard bread.」

　The minor trio couldn’t do much besides eat, immediately beginning a critical evaluation of the food.

「Actually, when ya eat tasty sausages, don’tcha think about wantin to make hotdogs？」

「Ah～、true.」

「Actually, it kinda feels like they threw in a pinch o’seasoning ‘n tried to make these into hot dogs……」

　Hiroshi said as he sneakily took out ketchup, curry powder, and mayonnaise out. This was probably the Kansai-style type with cabbage and curry powder. Some people weren’t keen on powdered mustard, so he was probably going to put it on afterward.

「Hiroshi-kun, I get how you feel, but how about we don’t do that in a restaurant?」

「Right. You need to get permission at least.」

　No matter how you sliced it, bringing your own seasoning into restaurants and added it to the food was seriously bad manners.

「Ah～、sorry sorry. I almost succumbed to temptation there.」

　Scolded by Haruna and Tatsuya, Hiroshi quickly put away the condiments while the attendant wasn’t looking. Mio was a little bummed out that Hiroshi was prevented from making new food there, reaching out for salt-grilled river fish.

「Still, even though it’s close to German cuisine, there isn’t really anything raw besides salad, is there……」

　Haruna said that weird statement as she smacked her lips at the food in front of her. Everyone around her looked at her.

「There’s raw food in German cuisine？」

「Mhm. I think it’s called mett, and it’s basically specially processed pork that you eat raw.」

「Is that seriously okay……？」

「Well, there seems to be a trick to properly raising the meat to avoid food poisoning, so it’s probably similar to how people feel about eating yukhoe. I don’t know too much though, since I didn’t eat it while I was in Germany.」

　The Japanese group wasn’t sure whether they were fully convinced of Haruna’s explanation. This was especially true for Hiroshi, who had met with a terrible fate with the ground beef/pork mince. Still, Japanese people ate properly processed horse meat and cow meat, so it was a little weird to criticize the food habits of other countries simply because it was pork, so they said nothing.

「Well anyhow, there isn’t a huge difference between Farlane and Forre in terms of specialization, so there might not be much in the way of new breakthroughs in cuisine.」

「Yup. Seems like there’re a lotta goods imported from Farlane.」