12. A night in the field (below)

Tia and Kurtz came back dripping wet, the two men walking slowly along the rutted trail along the hillside, bare-chested and shoulder to shoulder, Kurtz clutching his leather armour in his right hand and patting the water out of his ears with his left, hopping on one leg on the ground, the droplets of water in his messy hair flinging themselves around. It was Tia who was underestimating the whole way with Kurtz, and just by looking at Kurtz's naive look it was clear that the boy had been fooled by Tia again. I had been rushed over by Uncle Fred to make dinner for the day, but even a dinner for 10 was not something I could make. I couldn't manage to make the dinner tonight, so I had to come over and ask Kurtz for help.

I may be younger now, but a seven or eight year old in this world is definitely in better shape than an eleven or twelve year old on Earth. I can even jump into a frozen lake in early spring without hesitation, and I can chase wild rabbits around a meadow for half a day without getting tired, but I want to make a good dinner, as the saying goes. There is another reason, of course.

It is no secret that in some small circles of the merchants, the orc witch doctor Kulu has recipes for different flavours of food. This is what I had discussed with Kulu and explained to him that I had been studying herbalism and in the course of my studies my deep understanding of herbs had allowed me to discover new spices and that it was amazing how different spices could be combined to create different flavours of food.

Old Kuru says I have a talent for herbalism, but to others I am a human apothecary who has mastered orcish herbalism, the mysterious orcish herbalism! There must be a difference! Don't ask, those are the secrets of the Orcs, and I'm sure Old Kulu will tell Giga to keep them a secret, and he won't say anything if asked. I'm sure Old Kulu would have told Giga to keep his mouth shut, so don't ask! Well, there will always be people who think too much, and these are wonderful ideas, and in private one of their own convinces one of their own away, and in the end I am surprised that I don't even have a chance to argue.

The fresh lamb was sliced very thinly with a small knife by Kurtz and I. I was basically demonstrating and it was Kurtz who was really doing the work, my little hands struggling to grasp the large chunks of lamb. Tia watched from the fire with her mouth open as the two of us expertly sliced a whole pot of meat, and looked a little dumbfounded at the two pieces of black bread baking on a stone: "You're not so poor that you don't even have black bread, are you? How come you only bake this little bit of black bread, even if the roast meat is good, it will be greasy if you eat too much of it ..."

After being swept by Kurtz a million times with a kind of earthy elk gaze, Tia realised the problem and then asked me, "These slices of marinated meat are that good?"

I didn't even raise my eyes and acted like a harmless baby on the side, as if I couldn't understand Tia's words, and just waited quietly for Kurtz to finish cutting the rest of the lamb shank. He said, "I don't think you can understand this secret lamb shank.

The skin of the antelope is so strong that even if a sharp bayonet is stabbed into it, you can only make a white mark without using all your strength, but the meat is so tender that old Kulu once said that the power in the body of a freshly dead beast is not yet clean, which is good for the body. The slices of meat I had repeatedly salted with pepper and some chopped herbs, which naturally gave it a different flavour. I think lamb with pepper and cumin is the perfect match, but it's a shame there's no barbecue sauce, it would have been nice to have some.

There was an iron pot full of cleaned haggis, and the bones of the whole antelope were immersed in the soup pot to create a creamy bone broth that spread throughout the camp. Tia went straight to Kurtz and asked him, "How can you make a magic antelope stew smell so good?"

This guy had always thought that the way Kuz and I cooked it came from an ancient orc recipe, or maybe Kuz had added some mysterious insects or nasty ore powder to it, but the soup tasted like the devil's temptation.

"Cuz, do you think this soup has a special name?" Tia surreptitiously wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth.

I sat on a wooden crate to one side, my calves swaying casually, my hands supporting my body which was tilted backwards so that I could stretch out freely. The lambskin leather jacket I was wearing had been brushed and cleaned yesterday and smelt faintly of stink, which was nice. Casually, I said, "I think we should have a name for this soup, let's call it 'Devil's Spit'."

I probably hit the nail on the head when I saw Tia's smile freeze, as if she had thought of something horrible. Kurtz shook his head and said seriously, "That's not a good name, how about ... instead of ...", but he couldn't come up with a name, and his face turned red. The name is not good.

The man is a little handsome, the face is average, but the body is very good, the ranger belongs to the warrior profession strength. Agility. The Ranger Union requires its members to be able to shoot arrows, use two-handed swords, and learn some scouting methods, and in the army such people are called scouts. Not too fat, not too skinny, he was born to be a clothes rack, and was next to Kurtz, looking determined to hog the meal.

Kurtz took the flat, thin slab of stone from under the wagon and used the pebbles to build a cooker, placing the flat stone directly on the fire. "Dinner is served!" shouted the merchant tanner.

The orcish language was so loud and clear that even if people didn't understand it, they definitely knew what it meant.

I stood with a wooden spoon at the edge of a large iron pot ready to serve broth, one bowl for each person, and pointed to the stone slab where Kurtz was roasting meat and said, "Frying meat, enough for all the uncles who are not used to eating lamb, and two loaves of black bread."

The second half of my sentence was ignored and the dozen or so men surrounded Kurtz, who kept putting meat on the slab, which was half the size of a round table, and the fried lamb was still diminishing at a rate visible to the eye. Granny. You've never eaten meat before in your life."

"Hey hey hey, your sister's squeezing what squeezing, brother is first for you to taste, this with blood can not eat."

"Holy shit, where's your stick going!"

Every time I grab a meal I feel extra good, I don't eat much, and I have some aversion to roast meat myself, I've been repeatedly scorched by the fire poison in my own body for over two years, I'm not just a slice of roast meat. I ate my dinner hastily and then lay down on the plank cart to rest. Uncle Fred and the tanners had some rest and work to do, the longer the antelope sat, the less valuable they would be and I had to get rid of them as soon as possible, and I prayed it wouldn't rain tonight.

I saw Kurtz and the caravan men sitting around eating, and everyone kept complimenting Kurtz on how well the meat was cooked. I was bored and wanted to practise my magic resistance again. I wrote the simple magic formation a few times, and then followed the instructions given to me by old Kulu, cutting out distractions, quieting my mind and concentrating on letting the magic in my body converge on my fingertips. Instead, the fire element in my body became extremely agitated, making my chest so hot and stuffy that the air I exhaled tasted salty.

Yesterday I was able to gather a yellowish magical light, if at all, and although it flickered on and off for a short time, I was able to perform half of the magic. When he was around, I didn't feel like he was that important, but rather that the old man was a chatterbox, talking useless nonsense all the time, mumbling endlessly, but when I left his side, he was the first person I thought of. The stilted pronunciation of the orcish language, the names of the herbs I had only half memorised, the magical formations I was still not very good at drawing, was this pesky anti-magic really working for me, could someone tell me?

The more I thought about it, the more powerless I felt. When I was depressed, my body's immunity to magic weakened, and the fire poison from the fire magic stored in my flesh and blood took the opportunity to boil in my blood. The burning pain, the swelling pain of the boiling blood vessels wanting to explode, and the tingling sensation of the warmth of the new flesh all come together and I feel like a piece of fried meat.

"Oops, you're so hot, you're sick, can you talk?"

Just as I was half asleep, half awake, half unconscious, a woman suddenly spoke beside me and I mumbled in a bit of a daze, "Mum, I'm in pain!"

I really couldn't bear it sometimes, such torture was like a curse that carried me so that I couldn't see the light and I didn't know how long it would take to get rid of it, even the great shaman of the orcs could do nothing about my illness, and every now and then I thought that even if someone killed me with a knife, I would have to thank him a little.

"Good boy! Don't be afraid."

The voice was somewhat familiar, and there were hands running over my body as if examining a wound. Unbuttoning the sheepskin jacket, the cold night air blew into my chest and all of a sudden the pain was much lessened. I struggled to remove the jacket when I felt someone take the smallest part of me in their arms, I couldn't open my eyes and could clearly feel the softness of the embrace.

A cold hand was placed on my forehead and I let out a sigh of comfort and finally passed out.

-Beautiful divider-

I woke up to a blur of light, but I couldn't see clearly.

I blinked hard and my vision began to gradually return; here was a small, elaborate tent, topped by a crystal hanging lamp with a magic stone core, making the whole tent dimly lit. You could tell it wasn't very big. I was lying on a wolf skin mattress with ice filled pouches placed all over my body, I was sure for once that I was still alive, I could still feel the hot swelling and tingling in my body, but the pain was bearable at this point.

I wanted to struggle to sit up and see what this place was, it was definitely not Old Kulu's place with such an elaborate tent, but I couldn't think of anyone else who could have saved me other than Old Kulu. The tent curtain was lifted and immediately a woman's cry of alarm came from the tent, at which time I also saw the enchantress Gogo come in from outside the tent with a basin of water in her hand, and seeing me awake, looked at me in surprise and said, "Are you awake? Where do you feel unwell?"

Shaking my head and looking around quietly, I asked, "Sister Gogo, where is this?"

My voice was soft, and in this tent, where there was absolutely no room for a third person, I was surprised to find some of the women's personal belongings hanging on the simple luggage rack next to me, such as a buff-coloured bustier, white, slightly frilly cloth socks, and a soft black dress hanging down at the very top like a black waterfall. Suddenly I felt that wizards are human beings too, and need to live a normal life, and seek beauty and comfort like us normal people, and if we put aside magic, she is definitely the sister next door who is quite nice.

"Don't look around, of course this is my tent, where else would I go if I saved you?"

"Sister Gogo, do you think I'll die?"

I asked old Kulu this question, and all he said was: how can you die if you have both the blue flame and self-healing bloodline powers, talk nonsense. But I think he only said half of what he said, and half of what he didn't say. Maybe he thought I wouldn't understand, adding pressure to my mind, or maybe it was useless to say it. More than once I felt like I was teetering on the edge of death, and to be honest, I wasn't afraid, so maybe it was better to sleep it off.

"Don't be afraid, my sister is a water magician, what she is best at is healing and saving people, how could she possibly let you die." Sister Gogo's words were gentle, she pushed the water basin aside first, crawled in with her bow, before turning back and dragging the basin in, the soft body in the small space brushed the tip of my nose, the woman's unique fragrance spread into my nostrils.

I'd almost forgotten about it. When I saw her, I should have thought of her as a wizard first and a woman second.

With a wet towel spread over my face, Sister Gogo told me to lie down again and she sat curled up on her legs beside me and asked, "You've had this since you were a child?"

"Nope."

"What did that old witch doctor say, didn't he save you, why didn't he cure you?"

"He couldn't cure it either, teacher!" I answered truthfully.

"Even he can't? What kind of disease do you have, your body is scary hot when you start to get sick." Sister Gogo was even more surprised this time.

I held out my index finger and before the thought rose in my mind, the tip of my finger suddenly burst into an orange flame of light.