Chapter 1096: 83. Potato
The next day, at dawn.
Muen gently lifted the patched curtain, and warm sunlight immediately spilled across his face.
In the morning light spreading like watercolor, the village was swiftly waking. Quite a few villagers were already hurrying along with farming tools over their shoulders, heading off to work in the fields and along the ridges.
As for what had happened last night... it seemed as if it had only been a dream.
But it had not been a dream. In the very center of the village, several bizarrely shaped heads were hanging from earthen pillars, displaying to everyone the achievement of the guardians here in defeating the evil believers.
A peaceful village. Hanging heads...
So eerie, and yet so harmonious.
"Last night was a little long. I wonder if it was because of geographical factors."
Muen opened his pocket watch and glanced at it. Night had lasted several hours longer than he had expected, but this kind of long night and short day, in a season that was gradually entering winter, was not anything especially unusual.
At most, it could only prove that this region was farther north.
But speaking of farther north, the climate here did not seem as cold as he had imagined?
Knock, knock.
Just as he was thinking this, someone suddenly knocked on the door.
Muen tidied the ragged clothes draped over him a little, making sure that not the slightest trace of last night’s events had been left behind, then went to open the door.
"Did you sleep well, young man?"
Grandma Meg was standing outside the room with a kindly expression.
"Very well."
Muen smiled. "Maybe because I was too tired. I slept straight until dawn."
"Really? You didn’t hear anything unusual last night?" Grandma Meg asked.
"Noise?"
Muen froze for a moment, then looked suddenly enlightened. "You mean the commotion in the middle of the night? I did get woken up by it. From the sound of things, it seemed like you were going to... catch some thieves? Anyway, I was half-asleep, and I didn’t really listen carefully before falling asleep again."
"Is that so..."
Grandma Meg suddenly narrowed her eyes. In those weathered eyes, a flash as sharp as an old fox’s seemed to pass.
"To sleep so soundly in a stranger’s room, you’re quite careless, young man. Weren’t you afraid I might do something bad while you were unprepared?"
"Shouldn’t Grandma Meg be the one worrying about that?"
Muen could not help laughing. "I’m a grown man. Letting a strange man like me stay in your home for an entire night—Grandma, you’re the one who’s truly careless."
"Haha... That’s true. I suppose I asked a pile of nonsense."
The old woman’s body was still just as stooped, as if a light breeze could knock her over, but her laughter was very hearty.
"Still, young man, you should be a little careful lately. This area hasn’t been very safe."
"Not very safe?"
"Yes. Yesterday, a few little thieves broke in... that was the noise you heard. Originally, those little thieves’ intrusion was all within our expectations. But unexpectedly, by the time we arrived, those little thieves had already been dealt with."
Grandma Meg walked into the room and helped Muen tidy the bedding. Calling it bedding was generous; it was nothing more than a stone bed covered with some kind of dry grass.
"That... really is strange."
Muen followed behind her, his face grave. "Grandma, you should all be careful. Usually, this sort of strange incident always ends up involving some extraordinary mastermind behind the scenes. I have a lot of experience in that regard."
"Mastermind behind the scenes... an interesting way to describe it, and very fitting too. Everyone thinks those little thieves ended up like that because they triggered the traps, but I know they definitely did not become like that because of the traps. There must have been someone else involved."
Grandma Meg’s gaze grew even more meaningful.
"So, young man, what do you think?"
"Me? I slept like a pig last night. What thoughts could I possibly have?"
Muen’s expression remained perfectly normal.
But in his heart, he gave a tiny sigh.
So she had discovered it after all? This Grandma Meg was indeed different from the others here.
"It has nothing to do with how you slept last night. I only want to know your thoughts, about that mysterious person." Grandma Meg stopped what she was doing.
"Well... I think he probably didn’t have any ill intent."
Muen "seriously" thought it over.
"Oh? Why do you say that?"
"Because didn’t he help you deal with the bad people? If he had ill intent, last night probably wouldn’t have ended the way it did."
"...That is true."
Grandma Meg showed a thoughtful look, then nodded along.
"That mysterious person really does not seem like a bad person. After all, no matter where he came from, in the end, he helped us protect the forest farm. If we find him, we really ought to thank him properly."
"Perhaps he doesn’t need any thanks?"
Muen half-joked. "After all, he ran off in secret. He looks like the type who does good deeds without leaving his name behind."
"Whether we thank him or not has nothing to do with whether he needs it."
Grandma Meg smiled faintly and looked back. "Besides, you’re not him. How do you know he doesn’t need it?"
"A guess."
"Guesses aren’t accurate."
"That’s all I can do."
"You brat..."
The conversation suddenly ended.
The two looked at each other, and the atmosphere seemed to grow a little awkward.
Fortunately, that situation did not last long. Grandma Meg casually waved.
"All right, enough of that for now. Let the mysterious person stay mysterious. Come, let’s have some breakfast together."
"Thank you."
Muen did not stand on ceremony and directly nodded in agreement.
...
When they came to the living room... or rather, just a relatively spacious room inside this simple house, Muen found that Grandma Meg’s granddaughter, Marcie, was already sitting at the stone dining table. When she saw Muen arrive, she glared hard at him.
Only, she did not show the obvious rejection she had yesterday, and let Muen sit down across from her.
"What happened to you..."
Muen noticed Marcie’s appearance at this moment and nearly failed to keep the corner of his mouth under control.
She was clearly a rather decent-looking little girl, but there were layers and layers of cloth wrapped around her forehead, making her head look quite large, like an adorable big-headed doll.
Thinking of last night, Muen felt the corners of his mouth become even harder to hold down.
After all, having been in this world for so long, he could be considered to have seen all sorts of people with all sorts of attributes. But someone who possessed the flat-ground tripping attribute, something that should only exist in animation, was still a first for him.
"What are you laughing at?" Marcie {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} bared her teeth.
"I’m not." Muen pressed the corner of his mouth with his finger.
"You’re clearly laughing!"
"I’m not."
"You laughed out loud just now. I heard it!"
"I really didn’t."
"You..."
"Enough!"
Grandma Meg came over with food, interrupting Marcie, both indulgent and helpless.
"Can’t you change that awful temper of yours? This young man is our guest. You can’t wear that face for everyone you meet."
"Of course I don’t wear it for everyone. I only wear it for certain freeloaders who eat for free, drink for free, stay for free, and can’t help with anything at all!" Marcie said angrily.
Muen: "..."
What did she mean, could not help with anything? Without him, did she think last night would have been that easy for them?
No gratitude at all.
With the intention of deliberately teasing this little girl, Muen took advantage of the moment before she could react and snatched the largest piece of food from in front of her, provoking the little girl into baring her teeth and glaring. If she had not been injured, she probably would have picked up a clay bowl and smashed it at him again.
"I’m a guest. Guests eat first."
As Muen made faces at the little girl who had practically puffed up like an angry cat, he picked up that piece of food and, as if showing off, took a big bite.
And then...
"Hm?"
The food entered his mouth and engaged in the most intimate contact with his lips and tongue, but the taste that came from his mouth did not give Muen even the slightest feeling of pleasure from eating.
In fact... if the noble upbringing that had become almost instinctive over all these years had not stopped him from spitting out the thing in his mouth, he would already have retched directly because of that indescribable taste.
It was too...
Damn awful.
It was actually even worse than the lowest-quality black bread mixed with wheat bran and sand.
No, compared to the thing in his hand, black bread could be considered a top-tier delicacy. If Ariel came over and took one bite, she would surely sigh that the life she had lived before had not actually been that bad.
"What is this?"
Muen stared in disbelief at the boiled, tuber-like food in his hand.
"A potato?"
"Yes, a potato."
Seeing Muen’s strange expression, Marcie, who had originally still been angry and annoyed, suddenly looked pitying.
"Don’t tell me you’ve never even eaten a potato."
Muen: ???
A potato?
Never eaten one?
What kind of joke was that? Something like potatoes did not even qualify to be served at the Campbell family’s table!
"Hmph, how pitiful. You really are a wanderer from who-knows-where. You’ve never even eaten potatoes."
Marcie seemed to have determined from Muen’s shock and confusion that he had never seen the world at all. She reached out with her small hand, picked up a piece of potato, placed it in her cherry-like little mouth, and bit down hard. Then genuine joy and satisfaction appeared on that young face.
"Mm. Delicious."
"..."
Seriously?
Seeing Marcie like this, Muen wondered if perhaps he had accidentally bitten a rotten part just now. He picked another piece from the clay bowl and bit into it...
"..."
He had not been mistaken.
It was awful.
Bitter and astringent, without any of the sandy, soft texture that belonged to potatoes. It felt as if what he was eating was not a potato, but some kind of immature plant root...
Yet from its appearance, this was undoubtedly a potato.
"Young man, is something wrong?"
Grandma Meg also looked over in confusion. "I usually only bring out these boiled potatoes when I’m entertaining guests. You’re not used to them?"
"...No."
Muen forced out a smile. "I’m used to them. It is just as this... Miss Marcie said. This is my first time eating something this good, so... I lost my composure a little."
"I knew it."
Marcie raised her chin triumphantly. "Hmph. Since you’re so pitiful, I won’t hold what happened just now against you. Hurry up and eat. Once you’re done, hurry up and leave my house. We don’t keep people who eat for nothing here!"
"..."
Muen rubbed the piece of potato in his hand back and forth between his fingers, pondering why these people’s standards for whether something tasted good were so different from his.
Could it be that to these people, this thing really was that delicious?
No.
Muen noticed that after Marcie ate the potato, she did indeed show joy and satisfaction, but that clearly was not because of the thing’s taste. Because she barely chewed at all. Every time she swallowed, Muen could even imagine the way those fibers, still tough even after being boiled, slid with difficulty down her throat.
If this thing really tasted good, that would definitely not be her eating posture. Her joy and satisfaction were more like the instinctive joy and satisfaction people felt when filling their stomachs.
So...
Muen’s gaze followed the potato upward until it came to himself.
The clothes sewn from rags were still on his body, and Muen had still not gotten rid of that discomfort.
Yesterday, he had thought that only Grandma Meg’s household was not very well-off, which was why she could only take out cloth like this. But now that he thought about it carefully...
Even the black robes worn by those evil believers who had come to attack were patched and tattered.
Not just them. It seemed that everyone he had seen since coming here looked like this.
So, could it be... that the ragged-looking clothing he was wearing right now was actually rather decent here?
Just like the potato before him, which was awful to the extreme, but could truly fill the stomach?
"Why aren’t you eating, young man?"
Grandma Meg spoke and interrupted Muen’s train of thought, still with that smiling expression. "It isn’t good for young people to keep their stomachs empty."
"I’m eating. I’m eating."
Muen swallowed. After issuing himself several firm resolutions in his heart, he finally stuffed the two pieces of potato into his mouth one after the other and swallowed them down.
Mm. Not poisonous. Just awful.
Yet on the strength of that awful taste alone, Muen already felt that perhaps a delicious poison would be easier for him to accept.
And yet he could not show anything abnormal. After all, judging from the evil believer’s reaction earlier, his identity as an outsider might cause some unpredictable trouble. Right now, he did not want to take that risk.
Besides, if his guess was not wrong... the difference between this place and the world he knew might be even greater than he had imagined.