Azu and Camping and Firestarting

They spent an entire day shopping, buying everything from underwear to skincare products.

Azu had been entrusted with the wallet, so when it came to cosmetics, she couldn't help wondering if it was really okay to buy this kind of thing.

She was told that skincare was a woman's basic duty, and that looking pretty would make Master happy too. That was enough to convince her.

Most of their food and travel supplies were already available at Master's tool shop, so they hauled their mountain of purchases back to the store.

Master's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the sheer volume of bags, but one look at the satisfied expressions on all three girls made him settle for a shrug.

The cart had been arranged, and they departed for Spartia the following day.

It was the first journey for all four of them: Master and his three slaves.

Only Master and Elza could drive the cart, so they took turns at the reins.

Alexia could technically handle the horse, but for some reason the animal went wild whenever she tried to drive the cart.

"This shouldn't be happening…" Alexia muttered, shoulders slumped.

The cart was a fairly spacious model, loaded with the three slaves along with food and trade goods.

The monsters they encountered along the road posed no real threat. Azu or Alexia would dart out, dispatch them, and come right back.

Some of the monsters were edible, so whenever they stopped near a river, Master would butcher them with a butchering knife. Drain the blood, strip the hide, bury the organs. Soak the meat in the river to cool it, and it wouldn't spoil right away.

That said, there was no time to smoke it, so it wouldn't last long. They only took what they could eat that day.

Whatever they left behind would become a meal for other monsters.

They combined the butchering with a rest stop and began preparing a meal.

Master had Azu sit beside him to help. The other two watched and learned whenever their hands were free.

He demonstrated first, then had Azu repeat the same steps. She fumbled at first, but she improved visibly with each attempt.

"I didn't expect you to know how to butcher."

"My old man's hobby was hunting. I'd help him with the butchering from time to time."

The monsters around here could be taken down with a machete or an axe.

It was still dangerous for an ordinary person to go hunting, but Master's father hadn't seemed to mind.

"Azu, are you okay with blood?"

"Yes. I got used to it fighting monsters."

She'd come a long way since the time she'd collected Black Snake heads and ended up drenched in blood, nearly in tears.

Azu pulled some of the meat from the river and cut away the bits where leeches had latched on.

The provisions they carried, especially the meat, were all salted or smoked to keep.

Eating nothing but preserved food would make a person sick, so whenever they had fresh game, they ate it.

The vegetables were pickled greens.

Nothing to be done about that. Root vegetables were heavy and took up too much space.

Azu ate them every time with her lips puckered. She never left food on her plate, but sour things clearly weren't her favorite.

They sliced the meat, seasoned it with pepper, and grilled it.

Spices were one of the Kingdom's specialties. Compared to other countries, they were cheap enough to use freely in small amounts.

If there were herbs growing nearby, they'd wash them in the river and toss those in too.

Once the meat was cooked through, they added salt and sandwiched it with the pickled greens between slices of bread.

The bread would go hard soon enough, so this was a treat exclusive to the early days of travel.

They packed up the leftover meat, keeping it well away from the other goods.

They continued toward their destination, stopping for rest along the way.

The destination was far. Each day, as the sun began to set, they'd scout a good spot and pitch a simple tent.

The smell of meat would attract monsters and wolves, so any game they'd acquired was used up entirely in the evening stew.

The meal was arguably more lavish than what some nobles ate, looks aside.

At night, they kept watch in pairs by the fire.

Azu had assumed the three slaves would rotate fire watch among themselves, but it turned out Master took shifts too.

He seemed to genuinely enjoy this kind of work.

He eagerly taught Azu how to start a fire, then handed her his old flint and steel.

Azu tucked it carefully into her pack.

"You're doing it next time."

"Understood."

"The moment the flame catches… it's a great feeling."

Master looked almost boyish as he said it.

Night fell. The sun sank, and the moon showed its face.

The temperature around here was mild as far as these things went, but it still got cold at night. They wrapped themselves in robes and huddled by the fire.

The crackle and pop of burning wood. The occasional crumble. A distant howl. The chirping of insects.

The faint sound of Master's breathing.

Azu listened to it all and watched the fire.

They didn't talk much, but the silence between them wasn't unpleasant.

When she was younger, being around adults had always come with a gnawing unease. The sense that she wasn't welcome. That she was being rejected.

That feeling wasn't there with Master. Maybe it was only natural from his perspective. To him, Azu was nothing more than a possession.

A strange comfort settled over her, and Azu began to nod off, then fell asleep.

It was far too late at night for a child, after all.

Master let her sleep where she was and stayed by the fire.

Some time later, Elza and Alexia took over the watch.

Alexia tied her hair back to keep sparks out of it.

It gave her a more spirited look.

Elza didn't seem to mind either way.

"… He won't live long, that one."

"What do you mean?"

"That man."

"Oh, you mean Master."

He hadn't scolded his slave for falling asleep on watch. He'd simply carried her off to bed.

Early on, he'd seemed to make an effort to maintain the pretense between master and slave, but by now he'd probably forgotten all about it.

"They say good people die young. The saying is practically a contradiction, but sometimes I think it's true."

"By that logic, every old person would be evil."

"Money, money, money. For all his talk, he's strangely generous. Oddly patient."

"Are you dissatisfied? Honestly, I'm grateful. I'd rather not be worked like a horse."

"That's not what I said… I was a noblewoman, so I've seen his type before. Kind people get exploited until they lose everything. And then they either change, or…"

Something weighed on Alexia's mind.

"Even so, some people never change, don't they? People are stronger than you think."

Elza raised her hand to her lips and smiled.

Her expression was the very image of a saint.