Chapter 41 – Traveling by wagon

So I’ve met a Cat Sith merchant named Nekoko.

El and I get on her wagon’s cart, and head with her to the capital.

Traveling here in the cargo cart is surprisingly pleasant.

The road is well kept, since it’s a main road near the capital, and apparently Cat Sith wagons have plate springs on the axles, making them shake less.

The spring sun makes me drowsy, as I look at the sky and grassy fields.

“Let’s take a break here nyanne.”

We take another break. I guess sitting on the wagon is more tiring than it looks, but we also have to let the giant cat pulling the wagon take a break every one or two hours.

“Road, check. Wagon, check. Cargo, check, nyanne~♪. Everything’s good nyanne~♪. At this rate, we should reach the capital just past noon nyanne~♪.”

Nekoko gives the giant cat a barrel filled with water while humming.

The capital is pretty close, but it still takes four or five hours to get there by wagon.

“Laby runs through this road every day…”

“Well, she’s a fast runner.”

And then, El’s stomach growls.

Nekoko and I look at each other as El’s face turns a little red.

“I-I was just thinking that it’d be nice to eat in a grassy plain like this…”

“Yes nyanne. It’s lunch time already, so let’s eat nyanne.”

Says Nekoko while cheerfully taking something out of her backpack.

“Well then everyone, the trading session is open nyanne. We have crunchy dried fish and warm silver vine tea nyanne. These perfect traveling companions are in an excellent state of preservation nyanne. And just for today, I’m offering them at the friend’s price of three silver coins nyanne.”

…It’s starting.

She wants to do business even with something like this.

But…

“No, I brought lunch.”

“You did nyanne?”

I take out a few relatively big canteens from my bag, and…

“‘Time, turn back’.”

I chant quietly, and freshly made, warm food pops out of the canteens, plates and everything.

“Nyanne!?”

“Wah, a full course meal.”

“There’s more if you want.”

“…No, hold on nyanne.”

“Eh?”

Nekoko says while waving her tail.

“What kind of response is ‘wah, a full course meal’, Miss Ellunya!? A freshly cooked meal just popped out of canteens nyanne! And where did those plates even come from nyanne!?”

“Hum, it’s magic.”

I leave it at that, but here’s how it works.

~Time magic style three minute cooking~

① Take a cooked meal.

② Crush it into a fine paste, plates included.

③ Put it all in canteens.

④ Turn the canteens’ time back when it’s time to eat.

⑤ Done♪.

This means there’s less things to carry too, so it’s really useful when I’m going somewhere. It’s a time magic life hack.

“Don’t you find this all strange, Miss Ellunya?”

“Eh? Well, it’s Chrom, so…”

“It’s scary how people get used to things nyanne…”

Nekoko’s ears droop, and then, she looks over at the food.

“You can eat too if you want.”

“B-but I’m sure it’s expensive nyanne.”

“No, it’s free.”

“Are you god nyanne!?”

I guess her appetite got the best of her.

She puts aside everything she was saying and accepts a plate.

“It’s good… It’s good… Nyanne…! I’ve never eaten any of this stuff before nyanne! What country is this cooking from nyanne?”

“Ah, I’m curious about that too! Chrom’s food has a strange taste.”

“Well, I’ve gotten into creative cuisine lately.”

It’s not like I’m good at cooking or anything but… I experienced a lot of different eras in different countries in my previous life.

I still know how to make simple but delicious food from the future.

“Do you want fish or meat for the main dish?”

“Meat.”

“Fish of course nyanne. Answering meat would be heresy nyanne.”

“Hn… It’s like a picnic now~. And the food tastes better than usual~.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

I’m enjoying it too. Food really is best eaten right after cooking.

In my previous life, all I ate was cold vegetable rice gruel, so I figured I might as well enjoy what I eat in this second life.

“Traveling is fun, isn’t it Nekoko?”

“…I don’t think you should assume traveling is always like this nyanne.”

We finish our meal, get on the cat-drawn wagon again, and keep going.

After shaking in the cart for a while longer…

“Ah, I can see the capital.”

Nekoko says while pointing forward.

I can see the capital’s walls peeking from beyond a hill.

“El, we’re almost there.”

“Hn~! Hnu~~!”

“…”

“Hnnu~~~~!!”

“El… What’s going on with you?”

El has been puffing her cheeks and releasing magic energy.

“Huff… Huff… Training to… Increase my maximum magic energy.”

“…That’s what you’re doing?”

Now that I think about it, she has a magic invocation ring on her finger.

“Yes, everyone does it, you know? In order to increase your maximum magic energy, you need to release it until it’s empty…”

“R-really…?”

I get the feeling that I did read that in a book about magic energy of this era.

Magic energy supercompensation theory or something like that, but…

(Looking at it now, it’s really primitive…)

Well, in this era, mages still have their own secret magic, and textbooks all have shady civilian magic.

And since their techniques are so inefficient, they need staves or magic books to help them cast spells. Without these invocation items, they can’t activate magic.

That’s why everyone trains using magic like this in this era… But I can’t sit back and watch.

“No, emptying your magic energy is not only inefficient, but also dangerous. You should stop doing it right now.”

“Eh…?”

“Whether it’s magic energy or muscles, supercompensation doesn’t get you a lot of gains. In fact, the risk of getting hurt is bigger than the reward. You could break your magic circuits and find yourself unable to use any magic, but even worse, you could burn your nerves and never move again for the rest of your life or even die. It’s hard to stretch the amount of magic energy past what you were born with anyway, so the focus should be on techniques to better control it…”

“Uh…”

El has a blank look on her face.

I guess I got carried away without realizing it.

“S-sorry, I got too worked up.”

“Eh? Ah… N-no. I was just surprised because you started talking so fast all of a sudden… You really like magic, don’t you?”

“Y-yes.”

It’s not like I really like it, but I did offer my first life to it, so I feel like I can talk about it for weeks straight.

“But why do you want to train all of a sudden?”

“Well…”

El pouts a little.

“…I don’t like to just sit back and wait when you do something dangerous.”

“Ah…”

She’s talking about what happened a week ago.

She was pretty upset when she learned I snuck out and fought the Sorcerer Association by myself.

“I get that you don’t want me to do anything dangerous… But I want to help. And if I can’t, I want to at least be able to protect myself.”

“…I see.”

I get how El feels so much it hurts.

In my previous life, that’s all I could think about. And now that I think about it, Labrys said something similar a week ago.

(I don’t want to make either of them fight, but…)

In any case, they should be strong enough to defend themselves. It’s not like I’ll be by their side to protect them all the time.

As our enemies increase, I don’t know if I can protect everything by myself…

At the very least, I want to make it so people on the level of this era’s first-class mages can’t kidnap them again.

“…All right.”

I scratch my head while I accept it.

“I’ll teach you magic.”