“When you’re about to get picky with your food, think for a moment of all the people out there who doesn’t even have enough food to eat properly, much less get picky with what they have.” - Kisamedes Aeostolis, philosopher from the early days of the Clangeddin Empire.

“You sure got an appetite!” praised Celia while watching Kino devour her portion of the food they had ordered in an eatery located within a small town they stayed the night in. The younger girl just nodded and smiled and asked for seconds, clearly a fan of the food served in the establishment, to the joyful laughter from the proprietor and the server.

“She’s a lot less picky with food than you were at first,” commented Aideen with a jab at Celia, a playful smirk on her face. Celia had been less than enthusiastic when exposed to more unusual foods early on in their journey, though that was something she overcame after decades of living with the orcs in the northern plains. “That’s a good thing, you know?”

Despite, or perhaps due to her inexperience with the world at large, Kino was very much like a child at times, always eager to try new things out, full of curiosity towards life. The way she scarfed down the food after she had a taste – despite a look of consternation at first – was proof of that. What little prejudices she had were powerless before what she experienced for herself.

The Lichdom of Ptolodecca was rather diverse as a nation of its size went. The eastern and southern regions of the nation were colder and drier in climate, whereas the regions to the north and west were hotter and wetter. As the populace of Ptolodecca were either refugees from elsewhere or otherwise descended from them, with the lack of a nobility class above them, that also resulted in a culture where the people made the most out of everything available, with far less qualms compared to people from other nations.

One of the main examples of this was how insects were a regular feature on the dining tables of the Lichdom, unlike most other nations except the goblin and orc tribes of the far north and some therian tribes of the far west. If anything, the consumption of insects had become a norm in the present Lichdom, and dishes featuring insects could be found all over the nation.

The dish that Kino enthusiastically devoured was one such example.

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Soon after she made her request for seconds, the server brought another large wooden platter before her. Rested atop the platter was a bed of fluffy rice, which was the staple food for the western regions of Ptolodecca, with a thickly spiced stew full of local vegetables like eggplants, turnips, carrots, potatoes, and radishes poured over it.

On top of the rice and stew, the locals also added a handful of fried caterpillars, each of the white caterpillars around as large as a child’s finger. They had been fried until their skin had turned to a crisp shade of golden brown and added a rich, creamy crunch to the mellow yet spicy stew. It was those same caterpillars that made Kino look at the dish in consternation at first, but once she tried one of them, she was converted into a fan.

Perhaps because the proprietor was happy to see someone enjoy his food so much, he had sent the three of them some free snacks to go along with their drinks. When the flagons of strong ale – there was a brewery owned by a dwarf just three doors away from the eatery – were placed on the table, the server also placed a bowl of drinking snacks.

Said drinking snacks came in the form of fried grasshoppers, each easily as large as an adult’s thumb. The grasshoppers had first been marinated in spices before they were fried in a large amount of oil until their shells were candied and turned into crispy, edible treats rather than tough and unpleasant obstacles to enjoying the food.

The three of them cheerfully popped one grasshopper after another into their mouths, the fried creatures boasting a pleasant, shattery crisp exterior with a pleasantly bouncy, meaty interior that tasted a bit like shrimps and prawns. The marinade they had been soaked in lent a hint of spice and herb-like flavors to them, while the flesh inside the shells was sweet and savory, pleasant to the tongue.

Before the ale was even finished, Aideen had already ordered for three more bowls of the snack, along with more ale for the three of them to enjoy, much to the proprietor’s delight and jolly laughter.

It was with pleasantly full bellies and a slight tipsiness – while the unliving would digest and turn what they consumed into mana, it took some time to do so, similarly they could allow alcohol to affect them as much as they wished for – that the trio went to bed that night. For such a small town with probably not even five thousand residents, the tavern offered clean and comfortable rooms, with the mattresses even filled with coarse fur from various large birds instead of straw. It was not as soft as the down mattresses favored by the nobility, but was definitely a lot better than straw ones.

After a good night’s rest, the three continued on their journey in a pleasant mood. From the small town it was only half a day’s travel away to Tohrmutgent, so they would likely arrive there sometime in the afternoon. There, Aideen would have to arrange some things for Kino. For one, the girl needed teachers who could teach her the knowledge she had been missing out while sequestered in an underground dungeon for so long, as well as other things.

Then she recalled that her nieces and nephews – Mimia and Èirynn’s children – would be learning similar things about that time, and she wondered if she couldn’t arrange it so Kino would learn with them instead?