ch161-ch180 · 169-ch169

Chapter 169: Mom's Corn Soup

Out comes corn soup.

For the corn, he'd bought cream-style cans—corn already liquidized—so he just mixed in milk and added bouillon.

Then a pinch of salt and pepper to season.

A simple recipe—but the question is how far Soushi's 【Cooking】 skill will elevate it...

Gulp, gulp, gulp.

Ah, right—soup. This is the kind you're not supposed to slurp.

"This is BAD!"

No—the taste is, no exaggeration, delicious.

What have I been eating all my life? No—drinking all my life...

And what's bad about it is: once you've had THIS, how am I supposed to go back to my mother's cooking?

The skill's working so well that the simple seasoning ends up being the best part.

This umami.

This is no ordinary corn.

Corn from America's vast farmland, harvested by tractors from fields of absurd scale.

Like watching it all from a drone.

Grown under the full glory of the sun—what a MAGNIFICENT flavor.

"SO GOOD!"

"WHICH IS IT?!"

Soushi fires back.

It's delicious, obviously.

Aikawa, some thoughts from you too...

"This is my mom's corn soup..."

A single tear slides down Aikawa's cheek.

"H-hey. Aikawa?"

"It tastes just like my mom's corn soup... hic, hic, huuueeeeh. WAAAAHHH. Mooooom!"

My first thought was: no way—your mom must be an incredible cook. But that's not it.

Aikawa's mother passed away a long time ago.

A cherished taste from long ago.

Just as an image of America's endless fields surfaced in my head, memories of her mother may have surfaced in Aikawa's.

Maybe her mother made it from a similarly simple recipe.

Teaching little Aikawa how to make it as she went...

But along with the rosy memory, that taste would have been idealized beyond reproduction.

And yet the 【Cooking】 skill delivers exactly that impossible taste.

That's honestly a little terrifying...

Whoops—not the time for that.

I hunt down a box of tissues and set it in front of Aikawa.

Found a small trash can too. Here you go.

That is the full extent of my abilities.

The rest is on the person who made her cry.

"Is it really that good? Oh—it is good. Genuinely good. Well well, I'm pretty something myself, aren't I?"

Are you SERIOUS right now?!

Ah—no, this is bad. This is very bad.

Kasumi-san, who'd been walking toward us, breaks into a run.

"Mooooom! WAAAAAHHH—"

D-do I shut her mouth?

No—she's already heard it. Pointless.

She's fast!

She's already inside the warehouse.

Kan, kon, kan—footsteps pounding up the stairs.

BANG! The door flies open and Kasumi-san storms in.

"What is going on here!?"

Easier asked than answered, that one...

︙

︙

"My mom died when I was in sixth grade... A traffic accident. It was so sudden..."

Whether the shock of Kasumi-san bursting in did it or not, Aikawa seemed to have regained her composure.

Kasumi-san included, once the pot of corn soup was completely gone, Aikawa began to speak, bit by quiet bit.

"I remember how hard everything got after. The funeral had barely ended when my dad's company went under. And then he couldn't find work for the longest time..."

His company went bankrupt?!

Yes. Not laughing.

My apologies.

Kasumi-san said the old-timer and Makihara-san were sent home.

Apparently they promised to keep a proper eye on things so we wouldn't do anything untoward to Aikawa.

Kasumi-san was a little annoyed at that—"as if we'd do that"—but then she got close to the warehouse, heard Aikawa wailing, and panicked.

Hence the zooming over here.

"I figured I couldn't stay down forever, so I told him, 'I'll handle the whole house—YOU find a job!' That was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. He didn't even cry in front of me at Mom's funeral. Seeing that set me off too, and we just bawled together for the longest time..."

Maybe the corn soup unlocked everything—Aikawa's trip down memory lane shows no sign of stopping.

Maybe she just needed to spill it to someone.

And if she's going to be party members with us, we probably should hear it.

Standing up for Aikawa is part of the job description too, right?

"Even then, work didn't come. My dad's got a scary face, and he's huge. But he kept at it, going out for day-labor construction gigs... It was a while after I started middle school, I think? When the dungeon opened to the public... At first he just went in with his construction buddies, mostly to be social, and that's where his 【Beast Transformation】 special skill showed up... And then Dad became an adventurer..."

【Beast Transformation】 was on the list the Adventurer's Association published as useful even before the dungeon opened to the public.

Famous users abound worldwide.

If 【Beast Transformation】 surfaces for you, that alone marks you as adventurer material.

It should be something to celebrate, yet Aikawa tells it like a misfortune.

"In the beginning he came home exhausted every single day, and the nights he didn't come home at all kept piling up... But money came in... I actually wanted him to quit. I hated being home alone, and back then the news ran 'more dead in the dungeon today' stories daily. It terrified me..."

Beside me, a faint grind of teeth being clenched.

Kasumi-san...

The First Dungeon Boom.

Right after the public opening, deaths came daily, and even Kasumi-san, at headquarters then, was heartsick over it.

I gently rest my hand on top of Kasumi-san's tightly clenched fist.

The fist loosens, and Kasumi-san's grim face softens into a smile for me.

"You know, I really wanted him to quit, but I couldn't say it. He started telling me happily how far he'd gotten that day... After Mom died, he'd almost stopped smiling, and then he was really, truly laughing again... It hurt, but the money kept pouring in. He got famous enough to be on TV and in magazines, and I started thinking—maybe being an adventurer isn't a bad thing..."

Right after the opening, it was the ones with powerful special skills, the talented ones, who pushed too hard and died young.

Which means the old-timer, who survived all that, was the real deal—an adventurer through and through.

And maybe Aikawa's existence was the stopper that kept the old-timer from taking that final step.

"So I worked hard. Cleaning the house every day so Dad could rest when he was home, practicing cooking so he'd have a good meal waiting when he got back from the dungeon. I didn't join any clubs, barely ever hung out with friends after school. But that was fine. As long as it was just Dad and me. Mom was gone, and we were a family of two. And then—AND THEN... hic, hic, hnn..."

The tears are falling from Aikawa's eyes again.

The words come out like they're being hurled.

That's how much a parent means to a child, I suppose.

To lose one without warning, and to lean entirely on the one left...

Plenty of people would say parents have their own happiness to seek—let them remarry, at least.

But a child's heart isn't that simple.

And in fact, with Aikawa home alone, the old-timer was out giggling it up with Makihara-san.

Yeah. That, I cannot forgive.

"Somewhere along the way, I realized I wanted to be an adventurer too. To go into the dungeon with my dad. But when I looked it up, I learned rank and level gaps mean we can't dive together... Still, someday, I thought. And then I wouldn't be alone in that house anymore!"

Loneliness, huh...

I had no idea. None.

Aikawa was always so breezy at school that I figured she was fine on her own. Apparently not.

Maybe she'd simply assumed her father carried the same loneliness she did.

Was that why she refused to be the only one to leave it behind?

I kept thinking they should talk it out properly—but what Aikawa needs might be to leave the nest.

I mostly get it now. But me saying that wouldn't help...

I glance at Soushi—impossible to tell if he gets it or not. He's listening with a furrowed brow.

"Today, you know. I was SO looking forward to it... My first time on Floor 10, picking a job. I couldn't sleep last night—I was up researching online the whole time. And then THAT WOMAN was there... She got introduced as my dad's party member, and at first I didn't notice anything. But as we went down the floors, something felt off. She stood too close, she knew all about me, and every so often, 'Gen-chan'... That's what Mom used to call him. So on Floor 9, right before the 'Gate to Floor 10'—I couldn't take it anymore, and I just asked..."

And so, detonation.

So today was their first meeting, huh...

Maybe the plan was never to say it today.

Maybe just helping out, playing the good person, hinting at it and leaving it there.

And then, magnificently botched.

"I'm really sorry about that. That was against the regulations, right? But I didn't know what else to do—I just wanted OUT of there. I'm so sorry. But I'm glad you two came over when you did. And when you invited me to the party earlier—I was so happy."

"Forget it. We're comrades now, after all."

Soushi answers in a fluster.

Because Aikawa's tears have broken free completely—she's sobbing in floods.

"Soushi... Thaaank you. ...Watanabe-san. I have nowhere left to go. I can't go back home. So—so please, let me into this party. These two are the only people I can rely on anymore. I'm a third-year already, and the only future I ever planned for was being an adventurer. Please—let me join the party, let me stay here."

Sitting on the floor, Aikawa prostrates herself before Kasumi-san.

It doesn't have to go this far, I think—but it shows just how resolved she is.

Kasumi-san rises and looks down at Aikawa...?

Huh?

Kasumi-san?