Long Gull Tavern was the evolved version of Long Gull Tavern.
Back when the current Viscount and Knight Yam were still apprentices under old Viscount Grant, Uncle Deli, the owner of Long Gull Tavern, had been their comrade-in-arms and cook. He was an easygoing mute.
He had originally been a fisherman's child. He came to Southern Ridge with his parents as part of a pioneering group, but his parents died in the war against the natives. Deli himself could only join the guard unit for training and fight the natives.
Malnourished, his physical condition had truly been too dreadful to look at. He could not be a spearman, could not lift a shield, and a suit of armor would have exhausted him to death. Even when he was eventually assigned to be a cook, all he knew was how to stew fish soup...
Indeed, his many varieties of fish stew tasted rather good. But whenever they recalled eating that greasy fare for five years, every member of that old squad would reveal a pained and twisted expression.
Still, Deli had one virtue.
When trouble came, he truly stepped up. He was exceptionally dependable.
Not many people knew about what had happened decades ago, and Deli himself could not brag about it. But Ian had learned from Elder Pude that Viscount Grant had once been ambushed by elite native hunters. His shoulder had been struck by a poison arrow coated in the newly developed Purplethorn Corrosive Poison, and the antidotes he carried had been utterly useless.
Just as the arm of the team's greatest combatant was about to have a huge chunk of flesh corroded away, with the entire squad on the brink of annihilation, Deli had rushed forward and sucked out the poison without hesitation... The result was that his