CH 240

It’s Fine

Under Sion’s direction, the group moved forward quickly. Now that everything was ready, all that was left to do was start the signal fire.

“I think this can be done by rubbing two branches together, right?”

“Yes, Princess Mia, you have a lot of knowledge. This time, though, I brought a flint with me, so let me do it,” Keithwood said.

He knew from her question that her survival skills were not very good and were more of an academic interest than something she could use in real life. He told himself that he would never leave her alone with something that was important to their survival, because he knew that nothing was more dangerous than a little knowledge. Those who thought they were capable were the ones who failed the worst.

He thought, “It looks like I should keep an eye on the princess,” but his worst fears came true right away.

“Oh! I have a thought! Why don’t you let me take care of the forest if we’re going to look for food? I know quite a bit about what grows there, you know. All the plants, mushrooms, and—”

“That sounds like a great idea, but I’m afraid I’ll have to go with you, Princess Mia, on your quest in the woods. Since we don’t know what’s on the island, it’s important for your safety that you do what I say when we get there. Will that be okay?”

He smiled a friendly smile, the kind where the lips, cheeks, and eyes all curled in the right way, but there weren’t quite enough muscles moving for it to be real. Mia didn’t notice or care about this small flaw at all.

—

“Wow, look at that plant! What do they call it? I think it has to do with mugwort. It’s meant to be bitter but still eatable.”

“Ah, impressive. You’re exactly right. The name for this is Southsea Mugwort. By parboiling it, you can get rid of some of the bitter taste. Very healthy food though. Nice find.”

Mia and Keithwood were finally sent into the forest to look for food. Sion and Abel would watch the signal fire while they tried to catch fish at sea. Last but not least, Anne, Nina, and Esmeralda would stay in the cave and get ready to cook the food that the others had brought back.

“As a Greenmoon, I promise that Ni—um, my maid will make a delicious dinner that lives up to our name. We might not have enough tools, but I don’t think that will be a problem. Right?”

Esmeralda looked at Nina with a questioning look. Nina’s eyes moved diagonally up as she thought about what to do.

“Give me a moment… The menu will be small, but if we have enough food, I think I can make something edible,” she said, taking the task Esmeralda gave her with a straight face.

Mia looked at her for a moment.

“Hm…” She muttered to herself, “Poor girl, having to deal with Esmeralda’s nonsense all the time,” and then she shrugged.

“Oh well. She’s done it a lot, so at least she’s good at it. I think she’ll be all right.”

She didn’t notice that Keithwood’s eyes were getting tired and far away as he stared at her. She was blissfully unaware of the irony in her rude comment. Still, he didn’t say anything, and the two of them went on their hunt for food with mostly no bad feelings.

But Keithwood was beginning to change his mind. After entering the forest, Mia found plant after plant that could be eaten, and they soon had a nice collection of tasty greens.

If he was being totally honest, it was pretty impressive. So impressive, in fact, that it made him wonder if he’d been too hard on her and if her survival skills, which seemed half-baked at first, had actually been cooking for a lot longer than he’d thought.

Mia quickly said that this assumption about her ability was wrong.

“Ah, look! I think this is a mushroom that can be eaten. I’m sure of it, in fact.”

She said, “My gut tells me so,” as she reached for the fungus.

Keithwood moved quickly to stop her.

“For the love of—oh, excuse me. Princess Mia, no. We won’t eat mushrooms,” he said in a friendly but firm way.”

“…Excuse me? I’m not sure I understand.”

She asked with a frown, “Why are we not eating mushrooms?”

“Because.”

“Because?”

“Because it’s fine. We’re good. Let’s move on now.”

Mia pouted to say she didn’t want to, but his firm insistence scared her, so she reluctantly gave up her fungus prize.

“It’s such a shame… It also looks so good…”

The thing she was about to pick was called the three-day maitake, just so you know. Its name, “maitake,” which means “dancing mushroom,” and “three-day,” which means “three days,” could tell you something about how dangerous it is. If you ate one of these, the hallucinogenic poison in it would make you want to dance for three days straight. No way could you eat it.

Everyone’s lives have just been saved by Keithwood. Or at least their pride as a group.

“Speaking of tasty,” Mia said, and she quickly turned her attention to something else. “See that fruit way up there? It looks good, doesn’t it? But I know for sure that it is actually poisonous.”

“You are correct. That fruit is called the ogre slayer. You really know your stuff,” Keithwood said back. “Except when it comes to mushrooms,” he added, but didn’t say it out loud.

Really, what does this girl have with mushrooms? How can she be so obsessed with them when she knows so little about them?

He had just started to think about how Mia was a walking mystery when he suddenly grabbed her wrist. The action had become almost automatic.

A white mushroom was just a few inches from her outstretched hand. Its colour was so bright and bold that it almost screamed “deadly poisonous.”

Both of them looked at it for a second before they looked at each other.

“…Yes?” he asked without raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, I just…,” she said in a shy way, but her hand was out in the air.

“I’ve never seen this mushroom before, but it looked kind of interesting. I was wondering if it might give our dinner some flavour. Like a special ingredient or something?”

“No, it can’t.”

“But, but, it could taste great—”

“It can’t be used.”

“Did you know that mushrooms really bring out the taste of a soup? Even more so in a rabbit stew—”

“We’ll have to catch a rabbit first if you want rabbit stew. So, I think the right order should be to worry about flavours and secret ingredients only after we get the other things we need. Do you think that’s right, Princess Mia?”

He was happy. Well, at least his lips did. There was nothing else on his face that made them work.

She finally gave in and said, “Ugh, fine.” Then she sighed and shook her head as if to say, “What am I going to do with you?”

“But Keithwood, you really need to learn how to be a little more flexible. You’ll never make friends if you’re always ruining parties.”

A vein on his temple popped, but he kept his smile on and kept thinking about how kind she was to give him the cookies until it went away. The gratitude worth a cookie goes a long way.

“Let’s forget about the mushrooms for now and focus on getting ingredients that don’t need much work. Princess Mia, would that be okay with you?”

“Go ahead, go ahead. I swear, it’s your luck that I’m so helpful…”

On that day, Keithwood’s veins worked hard.