The Predator's Duty

When Lude led the three of them into the tavern, the first person to greet him was the bartender.

"Sir, you're back. Your room is ready, at the end of the third-floor hallway."

The bartender spoke respectfully, then glanced at the three people behind Lude. "And these three... should I prepare a room for them too?"

"No need."

Lude waved a hand. "Prepare a private room for us, and bring out all the good food and drink you have."

The four of them had barely made it into a private room on the second floor when the bartender followed with a huge assortment of plates, cups, knives, and forks. Soon four grand dishes were laid out on the table: a whole braised pork knuckle, a whole roast chicken, a rock-salt-baked rabbit, and a smoked sheep's head.

The soup was cabbage soup made with rich stock, and the drink was homemade brandy served in a clay jug.

These dishes obviously couldn't have been prepared and served in the time it took Lude to say a single sentence, so where they'd come from was clear enough. Who knew which unlucky customers had ordered them? They'd probably have to wait another half hour.

But that had nothing to do with Lude. He spread his hands at the three of them, who were staring at the food with wide eyes. "What are you waiting for? Dig in!"

Silverback started first. He didn't bother with a knife or fork, but reached out and tore off half the chicken, then wolfed it down bones and all. Crow sliced off a piece of the pork knuckle's rich, flower-cake-like meat, slapped it onto a chunk of pretzel bread, and swallowed it in two or three bites.

As for Sally, she didn't hold back either. She pulled off a rabbit leg and polished it off in a few bites.

Lude didn't ruin the mood by asking questions just then. He took his time tearing into the food, washing down each bite with a sip of wine. He didn't mind discussing business over dinner, but that was best left until everyone was full and they could talk over cold dishes and sweet wine.

When it was time to eat, one should savor the taste of the food. That was not only good for one's health, but also a predator's duty.

One had to learn about the food's habitat, savor its vitality from when it was alive, and listen to its dying cries—then acknowledge that one had taken a life simply to feed, and accept that fact without qualms.

If you couldn't even do something that simple, you might as well go back to being a vegetarian.

The same was true in human society. Only those with a tiger in their hearts could claw and fight their way to the top of the food chain. The spoiled brats who had no idea where the meat on their plates came from were nothing more than fat pigs waiting to be slaughtered, no matter how much wealth they possessed.

But one thing was worth remembering: if you chose to be a tiger or leopard instead of a sheep or cow, you also gave up the protection of the shepherd.

That was why Lude had never resented the person who had tried to murder him. He never resented any enemy. They were all tigers and leopards who had forsaken the shepherd's protection. Catching their prey depended on their own abilities, and if they were hunted in turn, they had only themselves to blame for being too weak.

If you were outmatched, if you lost by a single move—the world didn't believe in excuses. A loss was a loss.

Those four grand dishes were, at most, appetizers for the four of them. Strictly speaking, they were all still growing, after all. So the bartender soon brought out one delicious dish after another, and Sally and the others ate until grease shone on their lips.

Even Lude pulled a deboned sea bass fried in butter with asparagus in front of him and began to eat.

The meal lasted more than an hour. The bartender didn't bring out the dessert wine until Silverback had stopped eating and started picking his teeth. Still, the food here wasn't particularly fancy, and the entire meal came to only three Sol and six hundred and fifty Pfennigs.

Amusingly, the person who ate the most wasn't Silverback, but the refined Lude.

"Well, I think it's time we talked." Lude raised his glass and toasted the people around the table. "About you, this town, that Collector, and how Miss Sally discovered what was special about that little knife."

Sally, a little tipsy, glanced at Silverback, then at the taciturn Crow, and sighed. "I'll explain."

The three of us were all orphans living at the Blaney Orphanage. From the day I was sent there, the headmistress put me to work. Crow and I mostly worked as cotton cleaners in a textile mill. Because Silverback was so big, they sent him to the dye works to haul things.

Then, when we were twelve, the orphanage closed down after a serious accident.

Many of the children were sent elsewhere, but the three of us stayed behind for our own reasons. After that, we had to fend for ourselves.

I didn't have Silverback's strong physique, which let him chase wild boars up the mountain. And I wasn't as good at hiding as Crow, who could hunt wary rabbits and antelope. But I had my own way of getting by.

As she spoke, she took out a small lens. "My way was trading with the Collector."

No one knew the Collector's real name, or how she had made so much money. I once heard one of her subordinates say that she was the head of a division in a very large organization, responsible for managing the organization's operations in the Duchy of Bohemia.

And in her free time, the Collector was unusually interested in certain strange things.

As she spoke, Sally held up the lens. "This is the only Relic my father left me. I never knew what it was for."

"But one time, I saw one of the Collector's subordinates buying strange things from travelers from foreign lands. I don't know what came over me, but I looked at those things through this lens and saw that several of them were surrounded by mist of different colors and intensities... Or was it a glow? Some other kind of haze?"

"Anyway, after that, I went looking for similar things and gave them to the Collector's subordinate who bought those strange objects. I told them I wanted to meet the Collector."

Things went just as I'd expected. I met the Collector that very afternoon—ah, sorry, Mr. Hastings. Let me catch my breath. I still remember that smell...

As she spoke, Sally took a deep breath, her face turning slightly pale. "I'd always wondered why the Collector only ever sent her subordinates to buy things and never showed up in person. But that day, I understood. It was probably not that the Collector didn't want to go out, but that she simply couldn't."

Lude raised an eyebrow, curious. "Was the Collector paralyzed, or extremely obese?"

"Extremely obese!"

Sally answered without hesitation. Her pupils even dilated slightly. "Extremely, extremely obese. She was a full three meters tall, and as for her weight... I once heard the Collector's subordinates discussing it. According to them, she must have weighed as much as three thousand kilograms!"

"Three meters... three tons?"

Lude's eyelid twitched slightly as he pictured Big Mom in his mind.

"Yes."

Sally drew a deep breath, as though that were the only way to dispel the lingering stench from her mind. "That's what you wanted to know, Mr. Hastings: a nightmare made of wobbling folds of fat and foul stench. And every week, I have to make a deal with her... Ugh!"

"All right, all right." Lude raised a hand and gently pressed it down. "Miss Sally, tell us about something else. For example, other useful information about this town, like where the blacksmith, market, and clothes shop are."

"...All right." Sally nodded, panting.