There were three bear beastfolk who had come looking.
Even seen through the window, they were hulking figures who looked easily over three meters tall.
Their faces were almost entirely bear-like, and their bodies had the form of humans, but
the breadth of their shoulders and the thickness of their limbs were beyond comparison with any human’s.
Each held a weapon in hand.
A greatsword, a club, and a spear.
“Pina, hide for now.”
I spoke without looking back.
From deeper inside the kitchen, I heard Pina holding her breath.
“Um… Manager…….”
Aris called to me in a small voice from beside me.
“You go into the back of the kitchen too and stay with Pina.”
“But…….”
“It’s fine.”
After making sure Aris and Pina had gone into the back of the kitchen, I stood before the restaurant door.
Before opening it, I quietly cast a spell.
“Force Rewind.”
I spread my palm and placed it on the door.
Mana spread thinly over the door and the entire wall.
This magic had originally been devised for cooking.
When kneading dough, when pounding meat,
it was a spell that limited the physical force received in tasks requiring precise control to the desired level.
But today, I intended to use it for another purpose.
I cast the same spell on myself as well.
Then, with a calm face, I opened the restaurant door.
* * *
The three bear beastfolk standing before the door looked down at me.
Perhaps they had not expected a human to open the door and come out first,
because they hesitated for a moment.
Of the three, the one standing in the middle, who was also the largest,
looked down at me with a greatsword in his hand and said,
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
The atmosphere was menacing.
“This is a restaurant. Have you come as customers?”
“Did a cat beastfolk come this way?”
I crossed my arms and slowly looked the three of them over.
Thick arms with large, imposing muscles standing out.
Though they were holding weapons,
even without using them, it looked as if they could tear an ordinary human to death with their bare hands.
Their gazes clearly looked down on me as inferior.
They were glaring at me with the eyes of predators looking at herbivores.
If I had not been a seasoned mage,
I might have been frightened by their attitude.
Bear beastfolk possessed a peculiar pressure that could never be felt from humans.
Had they chased all the way here in search of the fleeing Pina?
Were beastfolk cast out in tribal conflicts not even allowed to flee?
In any case, I had no intention of handing Pina over to them.
“A cat beastfolk? I haven’t seen one. More importantly, have you come to eat?”
“Cut the bullshit. This place is reeking of that cat bitch’s scent. You’d better tell the truth.”
The largest one said, sniffing with his nose.
Whether his sense of smell was good or not,
he seemed convinced Pina was here.
“You have a good nose, befitting a beast.”
I did not deny his words.
“Then I’ll be honest. I have no intention of handing over a customer who is here.”
“……What?”
“I already said it. A customer who enters my restaurant is my customer. I advise you once again to leave.”
The eyes of the one in the middle narrowed.
“You bastard… do you know who you’re giving orders to?”
“It isn’t an order. It’s a suggestion.”
“Looks like you’re a human who’s gone mad wanting to die.”
The three of them adjusted their grips on their weapons at the same time.
I quietly let out a sigh.
As expected, something troublesome was happening.
* * *
The one in the middle swung his greatsword first.
Straight toward the wall above the restaurant door.
Since, for a giant over three meters tall to enter, he would need to break down the door.
With ferocious force, the weapon slammed into the wall above the entrance.
But the door was fine.
If it had been a door without magic cast on it, it would have been smashed beyond recognition,
but Force Rewind was currently cast on this door and wall.
A door with an upper limit set on the physical force it could receive.
Any force exceeding that limit would simply vanish.
The one with the greatsword tilted his head.
“……What?”
This time, the one on the right brought his club down on the door.
Again, only the force was fierce, and the door remained as it was.
I stood blocking the restaurant door, watching the three bears perform their tricks.
They swung their weapons again and again, trying to break through the restaurant door and wall,
but since any force beyond the limited physical force scattered and disappeared, not even a scratch was left.
At last, the three bear beastfolk exchanged glances.
Their bewilderment was obvious.
When attacking the door proved useless,
the one in the middle thrust his greatsword directly at me.
It was an attack made with unmistakable killing intent.
For an ordinary human, it would have been more than enough to kill them instantly.
But Force Rewind was also cast on my body.
The moment the greatsword touched my chest.
It felt like a baby had punched me, a ticklish sensation.
The attack that had come flying with fierce momentum stopped unrealistically as it touched my chest.
I stood there and calmly straightened my clothes as if nothing had happened.
The force felt so weak that I did not step back,
nor did I even blink.
The one in the middle withdrew his greatsword and looked at the palm that had just held it.
He had attacked a human with enough force to split even a log,
yet there was not a single scratch on the human’s body, like something out of a dream.
He looked as if he could not understand it.
“You…… are you a mage?”
“I’m a chef.”
“……A chef?”
“It’s magic I devised to use when cooking, but, well… isn’t it all in how you use it?”
The three of them closed their mouths.
I stood with my arms crossed and spoke slowly.
“Would you like to continue? You may attack to your hearts’ content until you collapse from exhaustion.”
“…….”
“If you don’t want to do something pointless, then I’ll tell you one thing.”
From the three bear beastfolk, I could feel bewilderment, a little fear, and helplessness.
To those three, I spoke in a low, firm voice.
“The place where you are standing now is human territory. I do not know what happened inside your tribe, nor do I intend to know. But this place is my restaurant, and my domain. I have no intention of letting you do as you please.”
The one in the middle ground his teeth.
“That she-cat is our tribe’s business. It’s not something a human should interfere in.”
“Then you should have settled it within your own territory. Isn’t that right?”
I took one step forward.
“I suggest it once again. Leave.”
The three did not move.
A brief silence passed.
The one in the middle looked into my eyes.
His eyes showed no intention of backing down.
“In that case…….”
I pointed at the middle of his brow with my finger.
“It seems I’ll have to show you something a little more unpleasant this time.”
Then the one in the middle seemed to feel fear, and hurriedly opened his mouth.
“W-wait! There’s no need for that. We don’t intend to cause any more trouble either.”
“……That would be best.”
They looked at one another with grim expressions,
then put away their weapons and slowly backed off.
“……Let’s go back.”
“Take care.”
The bear beastfolk retreated backward,
and at last turned their backs and disappeared toward the monster forest to the west.
I watched until they vanished completely from sight,
then dispelled the magic I had cast and went back inside the restaurant.
* * *
After sending the bear beastfolk away and coming back inside,
I heard a sound from the kitchen.
Pina appeared.
Her face looked as if her eyes were blazing.
In her hand, she held a fish-filleting knife she had grabbed from the kitchen.
Then, with her tail and ears standing upright,
she strode toward the restaurant door.
“Wait.”
I stretched out my arm and stopped her.
Caught in my grasp, Pina could not move.
Compared to the bear beastfolk from earlier, her strength was truly insignificant.
“Let me go!”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Those guys! Those guys killed my whole family! I can’t just let them go!”
Pina’s hand was trembling.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
I did not lower my arm.
“They’ve already gone back.”
“But if I chase them now!”
“What is going to change just because you’re holding one fish-filleting knife?”
Pina looked down at what she was holding.
“You know what will happen if you charge at them with that, don’t you?”
“……I know. I know, but……!”
“But you still have to go?”
Pina bit her lip.
Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“I don’t care if I die. At least I’ll kill one of them before I go.”
I looked at Pina for a moment.
She had lost her reason and was in no state to make a proper judgment.
It was not that I couldn’t understand.
She must have thought she had completely escaped,
and never imagined the enemies who had killed her family would chase her all the way here.
I had not expected the bear beastfolk to come all the way to the restaurant either.
“You won’t be able to take down even one of them as you are now. You’d just be throwing your life away for nothing.”
I quietly took the knife from Pina’s hand.
“Don’t go out of your way to throw away the life you struggled so hard to keep.”
Silence flowed for a while.
Pina sank down on the spot and shed tears without a sound.
Aris quietly approached, knelt beside Pina,
and gently pulled her into her arms, stroking her head.
* * *
That dawn.
After Pina and Aris went up to the second floor,
I searched through the underground storage room.
The books I had bought and gathered here and there during my life as an adventurer.
Among them, I vaguely remembered there being something about beastfolk.
After searching for quite a while, I found it.
It was an old book covered in dust.
[Research on Beastfolk Society - A Study on Tribal Structure and Internal Dynamics]
The author was a researcher affiliated with the Royal Academy.
I brought the book back alone, sat at a table, and opened it.
---
……One of the greatest characteristics of beastfolk tribes
is that different animal species form a single community.
On the surface, this appears to be the result of mutual complementarity.
Carnivorous animal species are strong in hunting and combat,
herbivorous animal species are skilled in gathering and agriculture,
and the other species also make use of their respective talents to support the tribe’s productive foundation.
However, behind this coexistence lies an old tension.
For species that are instinctively predators and species that are prey to live in the same space
contains an emotional conflict that cannot be completely resolved, no matter how much reason and language they possess.
If one examines records of conflicts within beastfolk tribes,
most of their beginnings start with minor friction.
Imbalance in distribution.
Withdrawal from communal labor.
Or simple struggles over hierarchy.
But the moment that minor friction crosses a critical point,
the old instincts possessed by each species rise to the surface.
What becomes especially problematic
is when powerful carnivorous animal species come to make up the majority within a tribe.
In such cases, the majority carnivorous animal species often attempt to form a single tribe consisting only of themselves.
However, historically, there are very few cases in which such attempts succeeded.
A tribe composed solely of a single animal species appears strong at first due to its high internal cohesion,
but as time passes, it cannot avoid a weakening of resource acquisition and its productive foundation.
Hunting alone cannot continuously feed an entire tribe,
and combat alone cannot carry them through winter.
Most recorded tribes of a single carnivorous animal species disbanded within ten years of their formation,
or went through the process of accepting other species again.
Or else met an even worse end…… (omitted)
---
I closed the book.
The faces of the bear beastfolk who had come today briefly passed through my mind.
They were strong and full of conviction.
They had faces that believed they were right.
But as for what end the tribe they had created was heading toward,
it was something I could know without going out of my way to look it up in a book.
Well…… it was none of my business.
I returned the book to the storage room.
It was time to think about what to do with Pina.
* * *