Alright. Let's start fresh.
There's something right in the middle of my bed.
It was white, round, and obviously fat.
Just… fat all over.
"Nrra."
Even its cry was fat.
"Why?"
Wait, can Dagaa even get fat?
"Nrra?"
"No, but why are you so…"
I walked over and picked Dagaa up.
Heavy!?
"Ngh — my past life memories kicked in. I remembered holding a fat cat."
In other words, Dagaa now was exactly like that fat cat.
I set it down slowly.
Heavy, sure, but not exactly tiring.
It was just that the shock had drained me mentally.
"Nrra."
"Ugh, even its voice is fat and disgusting…"
"Nrgh?"
"The way it's sitting there is just so brazen."
Classic fat cat behavior. Plonking itself right in the middle and acting all high and mighty.
"Haaah…"
"I'm home."
Mineha came back.
She didn't head for the watchtower — she came straight here instead.
"Dinner's… what?"
Mineha stepped into the room and stopped.
She stared at Dagaa, then looked at me.
"It's Dagaa."
"No way?!"
I understood the feeling. I understood on multiple levels.
I understood the "how did this even happen" look she was giving me, too.
"I don't know. I hadn't even run into Dagaa recently, so…"
There was also the fact that I'd left it behind because it had stayed in knife form for so long.
"I haven't seen it either, but that doesn't explain *this*."
"It really has, hasn't it…"
"Nrgh."
"That voice is awful, too…"
"...Right..."
We both sighed.
Why had Daga, who'd been stuck in knife form and not eating anything, gotten fatter?
The reason was — well, it was probably that place.
Nine times out of ten, something must have happened inside my mind.
Something must have gone on in there.
"This is a witch case."
"A witch case..."
Well, yeah, but hearing the word "witch" from Mineha did catch me off guard a little.
Mineha called the witch through her honey-colored ring.
She'd already gotten completely used to it, huh.
"She says she'll be a bit late, but she's heading this way."
"Ah, right."
Mineha put on the apron lying around the room and laid out what she'd bought across the kitchen counter.
Leafy greens, root vegetables, assorted cuts of meat, black bread-beans, seasonings, and spices.
What was she planning to make?
First she filled a stock pot with water from the pitcher, struck a flint to light the stove, and set the pot on top.
Next she poured oil into a frying pan and set it on the stove. Oil?
She trimmed the meat neatly and chopped it into chunks. Then she chopped the leafy and root vegetables into chunks too.
She gave the chopped vegetables and meat a quick rinse in water, then tossed them into the stock pot along with the spices.
She puts a lid on it.
She shaves down the black bread-beans. Once she's done, she cracks open an egg and beats it.
Next, she starts slicing the largest chunk of meat. The slices come out on the thicker side.
She lightly seasons the sliced meat with salt and pepper, dips it in the egg, then coats it in the shaved bread-bean crumbs.
Oh, I see. It's katsu. I don't know what kind of meat that is, but she's breading and frying it.
No. This calls for rice.
I want rice. I need to act now or it'll be too late.
But I have to stop her first!
"Mineha, wait!"
"Hm? What?"
"Just—hold off on the frying for a sec!"
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"It needs rice!"
"Huh? Rice?"
"White rice. I'll go get some, so just get the cooking ready."
"Hold on—"
I head into the next room and go down to the underground storeroom.
I grab the rice bin from the storeroom.
The rice is already polished, but I rinse it with water and strain it through a colander.
"Is this good enough?"
I poured the rice into the pot of water Mineha had prepared, added a piece of charcoal, and set it over the fire.
"Charcoal?"
"Adding it gets rid of the smell and makes it fluffy."
"Huh, you really know your stuff."
"Just a bit of trivia."
"From your home village?"
"Yeah, something like that."
The truth was, it was from my past life.
I didn't even have any memory of eating rice in my home village.
My hometown, huh.
I didn't feel even a shred of nostalgia, but I found myself wondering whether it had been destroyed.
It was the kind of remote, impoverished village that existed everywhere — so fragile a gust of wind could blow it away.
It might have already become an abandoned village for all I knew. Not that it mattered.
"Gwah..."
"What an awful voice."
Mineha laughed, exasperated.
"That's the fat one's voice."
"Right."
The flesh around Dagaa's throat was ridiculous right now.
When I actually touched it, I could pull on it.
Just that bad, huh.
Clearly the result of binge eating and then some.
At this point, I'd have to go inside my own mind and sort those guys out.
What does "go inside my own mind" even mean.
While I'm sitting there fed up, I sense someone's presence. It's the Witch.
"Hey, hey, hey — whuah!?"
The Witch barges in full of energy and immediately makes a weird noise.
Well, I get it. Even Mineha is giving a wry smile.
"Gaa!"
"Whoa whoa, whoa, this is... you've gotten fat again."
Fat. Ten. You. Got. Again.
That power phrase almost made me spit.
The Witch glides onto the bed and stares intently at Dagaa.
She cautiously reached for his belly.
"Gaa?"
"Well well, that is magnificently squishy, isn't it."
When she pulled the skin, it stretched. The Witch groaned.
"How is it?"
"That is, that is clearly a complete case of overeating."
"But that doesn't make sense. Dagaa has been a knife this whole time. I never got the feeling he ate anything."
So while losing weight was possible, him gaining weight was completely unexpected.
And since he was still in knife form, I figured eating and drinking had nothing to do with it.
Because knives don't eat meals.
"Mm-hmm. That makes it even weirder, but then again, he's always been a strange creature."
A being whose true nature we still hadn't figured out. That was Dagaa.
You could tell from his appearance that he wasn't an animal but a monster.
No animal in this world had a jewel on its forehead.
Well, I couldn't say that with absolute certainty since I didn't know this world all that well, but at least I'd never heard of one.
The witch didn't know either, which meant Dagaa remained a mystery creature.
Being a mystery creature, his ecology was also unknown.
"But I don't want it to stay like this."
"I completely agree with that."
"Well, yeah, I understand that much too."
For now, we couldn't just leave Dagaa all fat like this.
Time to start a diet.
That said, right now it was time to eat.
The witch decided to join us for the meal.
I resumed frying just a little before the rice was done.
The oil in the pan bubbled gently. Tiny droplets popped and splattered.
Good temperature.
Mineha slowly lowered the breadcrumb-coated meat into the oil to fry.
The instant it hit, the sizzling, sputtering sound of frying began.
Pleasant to the ears.
The soup was ready first.
A red soup. Not the red of tomatoes or anything like that — the color of spices.
She tasted it, then made me drink some.
Huh. Not as spicy as it looked — not really spicy at all.
Just a slight tingle, with an overall sweetness from the vegetables and meat.
The clean flavor of leafy and root vegetables, the fat and juice of the meat — the spices wove it all together beautifully.
And that subtle sourness. Probably cumin. Must have been mixed in with the other spices.
"It's delicious."
"Right?"
Mineha looked a little flustered, but also proud.
Meanwhile, the witch was lying on the bed, playing with Dagaa.
No — that's not quite right.
"Na!"
Playing with Dagaa.