North Woods And Chestnuts (1)

The high and blue autumn sky.

Especially today, the weather was exceptionally good.

The advantage of Greek City is that it has four distinct seasons, just like my hometown. The once green leaves have changed colors, and our dragon is still very sleepy.

On days like this, roasted chestnuts come to mind. Autumn is the season of chestnuts. The sweet taste of chestnuts embodies autumn.

Especially when used in various dishes, chestnuts can be a great supporting ingredient or even the star. In autumn, dishes with chestnuts add a certain elegance.

In other regions, chestnuts are a common autumn ingredient, but in Greek City, they are surprisingly hard to come by.

The chestnut known as Bonin in this world is not distributed in Greek City.

Merchants sometimes bring chestnuts from other regions to sell in the Greek market, but the distribution cycle was very inconsistent.

Summoning chestnuts themselves is also impossible. As I’ve said many times, unprocessed ingredients have issues in the dimensional rift.

So, we need to focus on the fundamental issue. There is one reason why chestnuts are not distributed in Greek City.

It’s because the mountain with the chestnut trees, Greek Mountain, is private property of the Greek family.

Of course, Count Greek has opened Greek Mountain.

But the northern forest, where the chestnut trees are spread out, has been strictly off-limits for generations.

But that actually makes the solution simple.

The current head of the Greek family is the Greek boy. I went to him and got permission to enter the forest.

I asked why the forest was restricted, but even Greek didn’t know the exact reason. It’s been a will passed down through generations to restrict access except for authorized personnel.

It can’t just be because of the chestnut trees, so there must be a reason, but it doesn’t concern me.

Right now, only the chestnuts are important to me.

So, I set foot in the northern forest of Greek Mountain.

“It’s hard to walk here.”

“That’s true.”

Rurin and I complained simultaneously. The piled-up leaves felt like they were trapping our legs in a mudflat.

“But chestnuts are delicious, so it’s worth the effort.”

“I like meat!”

“You like sweets too, right? You just ate several fruit candies.”

“Hmm, are chestnuts sweet like candy?”

“Yes.”

“Oh!”

Rurin finally looked a bit expectant. Meat and sweets are this gluttonous dragon’s favorite menu items.

As we went deeper into the forest, it was indeed full of chestnut trees. Chestnuts everywhere. On the trees, hanging in clusters, and scattered on the ground.

I pointed to the chestnut burrs on the ground and spoke to Rurin.

“This is the chestnut I’ve been searching for. In my hometown, we call the burr surrounding the chestnut a ‘bam-songi’.”

“This is supposed to be sweet? It looks weird.”

Rurin squatted next to a fallen chestnut burr and started rolling it around with a gust of wind.

Then she failed to control her mana, and the burr touched her finger. Rurin suddenly started roaring, tears welling up as she unleashed her breath attack.

The chestnut burr vanished without a trace from the powerful attack. Additionally, the ground had a crater as if a meteor had struck. The chestnut trees were damaged, the ground was damaged, and the dragon looked triumphant as if she had won.

“You! That thing attacked me!”

Suddenly, the old chewing gum incident comes to mind. The difference this time is that she attacked the target. I can’t stop her.

And she used her breath attack.

The problem is that she first showed curiosity by rolling the chestnut burr around with magic.

Because the chestnut burr rolled with mana had quite a speed, Rurin’s finger was bleeding slightly.

“Come here.”

I grabbed Rurin’s arm and pulled her. Rurin, dragged weakly in front of me, looked up at me with a questioning gaze.

Without a word, I held Rurin’s wrist. Then I lowered my head, put her bleeding finger in my mouth, and sucked the blood.

Rurin’s soft finger touched my tongue. The taste of blood spread across my tongue.

“Huh…?”

It was a slight prick, so the bleeding soon stopped. As I removed her finger from my mouth, my saliva left a trail. Rurin stared blankly at me. Then she looked at her finger. Then she looked back at my lips.

She unusually couldn’t say anything, and when our eyes met, she lowered her head. Her ears turned red. It was the first time I saw Rurin’s ears turn red.

“Why are you reacting like that?”

“It’s nothinggg!”

“What?”

Rurin turned away.

Could she be embarrassed? Just because I put her finger in my mouth? It’s a very unexpected reaction. Not like Rurin at all.

Rurin stayed turned away for a while, then suddenly squatted again. And she started picking up the chestnut burrs again.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

As I pulled her by the nape, she fell to the ground. She threw away the chestnut burrs she had picked up as if they were unnecessary and crawled back to me, extending her finger.

Her finger was bleeding again.

“Here!”

“What are you doing, Dragon?”

Why are you self-harming all of a sudden? Did you squeeze harder than before? The amount of blood flowing was twice as much. Since blood was flowing, I had no choice but to put her finger in my mouth again. As I sucked the blood, Rurin let out a strange moan again.

“Ugh…”

Her finger tasted both of blood and salt. The expression on the dragon’s face as she looked at me was unusual.

“You…!”

So I bit the lower part of her finger to snap her out of it.

“Ow! Why are you biting me?”

Her grumbling appearance was fortunately the usual Rurin.

“Are you intentionally hurting yourself? If you do it again, no food for you.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! That thing attacked me! It hurt…”

When I removed her finger from my mouth, Rurin ran far away, squatted with her back turned, and didn’t move. I couldn’t see what she was doing.

Why is she acting like that?

How could a human understand a dragon’s thoughts?

Leaving the crazy dragon alone, I crushed the chestnut burrs on the ground with my feet. Inside, a plump chestnut appeared.

“Is that a chestnut?”

“Yeah. When did you come over?”

“Just now! Hehe.”

Fortunately, the recovered dragon clung to my back with her characteristic smile.

“It’s funny that something you eat wears such armor. But it was good armor. You ate my finger!”

“What? What did I eat?”

“You drank my blood! Now my blood flows inside you, doesn’t it?”

I looked at Rurin in surprise. Well, this shameless dragon wouldn’t be embarrassed just from licking her finger. She always crawls into my bed whenever she feels like it.

Was it because of the blood?

“Well, it’s flowing, but…”

“You! I feel happy. Hehehe.”

Rurin started to laugh brightly. She was so cheerful that I couldn’t say anything.

So I just started picking up chestnuts. Let’s not mess with the radiant dragon.

Ignoring Rurin, I continued to crush the burrs, extracting the chestnuts and putting them in the basket. The dragon, in happy mode, started to imitate me.

“Is this really delicious? It doesn’t look tasty.”

“Well, that’s just the shell. You have to peel it. Raw chestnuts have their charm, but boiling or roasting them brings out the real taste. To make roasted chestnuts, we need to gather more, so you peel the burrs and put them in the basket like I do.”

“Got it!”

I continued to gather chestnuts with the obedient dragon. It felt like a considerable amount of time had passed before the basket was filled with chestnuts.

“Well, this should be enough, so shall we roast them?”

Among chestnut dishes, I prefer roasted chestnuts. So, I decided to make roasted chestnuts. The crater Rurin had created seemed useful for making roasted chestnuts.

I immediately threw a suitable amount of chestnuts into the crater. And dry branches too.

“Rurin, cast a protective barrier around here so the fire doesn’t spread.”

Rurin nodded and used her mana. An invisible barrier likely formed around us. I paused for a moment, then placed the chestnuts on the branches and used a fireball on them. The fireball blazed among the chestnuts and branches.

But soon after.

The chestnuts, which had started roasting from the fireball, suddenly began to explode.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The chestnuts shot up in all directions above the fireball. It was like fireworks.

“Oooh!”

Rurin exclaimed in admiration as she watched. But this was clearly a mistake. The flying chestnuts even hit the barrier and changed direction.

In an instant, the chestnuts began to dance and fly around within the small barrier with Rurin and me.

“Hey! Why did you make the barrier so narrow! Take it down!”

“Hehehe! Why? It’s fun!”

Rurin, who was having fun dodging the flying chestnuts, finally took down the barrier at my shout.

I had forgotten.

When roasting chestnuts, it’s best to score the bottom and soak them a bit. Otherwise, they explode like unscored chestnuts in a frying pan.

This is the key point to remember when making roasted chestnuts.

You need to score the chestnuts so the shells can split open and roast properly.

If this were the restaurant, it would have caused a bigger commotion.

“What did you just do? It was fun with them flying everywhere!”

“Well, that was a mistake.”

I had nothing more to say.

There were still some chestnuts left. That was a relief.

First, I poured water into the basket and soaked the chestnuts. Then I scored them. This step is crucial.

After carefully following the proper procedure, I started roasting the chestnuts again in the crater Rurin had made.

“Oh! What’s that? It’s a black thing. But it’s an undignified black.”

What Rurin pointed at was a bear. A bear.

The bear seemed to have come over, hearing the noise from a while ago.

A huge bear, about four times the size of a person. As big as an average ogre. It glared at us and crawled over.

“Well, compared to a dragon’s fur, it does lack dignity.”

I answered nonchalantly.

In this world, the bear is called a Murank. Among animals, it’s quite strong.

Among animals.

“Grrr!”

It seemed to recognize us as prey and attempted to attack Rurin with its front paw. Rurin grabbed the paw.

“Grr?”

The bear, sensing something was wrong, let out a strange growl.

“Looking closely, it’s even less dignified! Grr!”

Rurin, holding the bear’s paw, started shaking it wildly while mimicking its growl.

The bear, wounded in pride, attempted to lash out, but Rurin put her hand on its head and said nonchalantly,

“I’m sorry.”