Ch.37Chapter 6. The Price of a Name (2)

I prepare lunch.

The menu is nothing special, just a simple vegetable stew.

I place a pot filled with clean water, a pinch of salt, and some “flavor-enhancing powder” on the gas range and light the fire.

Next, I add diced potatoes, cook them slightly, then remove them. This helps release the starch so they’ll cook faster when stir-fried.

I heat a frying pan with bean oil, add the drained potatoes, and stir-fry them thoroughly. When the yellow potatoes start becoming translucent, I add similarly diced onions and stir-fry them together.

Thump. Camilla stomps her foot upstairs. A warning that zombies have entered effective range.

The effective range of a K11 SWS is 1,300 meters. Not urgent enough to rush out immediately, but just to be safe, I cover the frying pan with a lid. The aroma of raw ingredients cooking wafts pleasantly through the slight gap.

A few days ago, after spending a sleepless night in the van, we agreed on some terms. One was “when eating together, cooking and guard duty rotate between us.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to change any part of our agreement. I’d learned through countless job study groups and study circles that once you start compromising on one or two points, the whole organization falls apart—unless you scrap everything and start over.

But after witnessing yesterday’s “miracle,” everything seemed pointless.

The house we visited yesterday had some ingredients left. Vegetables, potatoes, grain sacks, cooking oil, and even flour. Since we’d thoroughly scouted the area, cooking was relatively safe.

After a coin toss, Camilla took cooking duty while I kept watch.

“Time to show off my skills after so long!”

Camilla, wearing a head scarf and apron, performed a “miracle.” She transformed flour dough into what resembled leather hide. It was perfect leather in appearance, taste, and texture—firm enough to use as a tambourine.

“T-this is strange. This shouldn’t happen.”

Red-faced, Camilla kept fidgeting with her fingers.

“…What were you trying to make?”

“Hotcakes.”

“Hotcakes need baking powder, eggs, and milk. We don’t have any of those ingredients.”

Camilla looked extremely flustered at my observation.

“Isn’t it just mixing water and flour, then cooking it? That’s what I’ve always done.”

“…That must have been pancake mix. This is just 100% flour dough. They’re different.”

“Is that what it was?! I-I’m sorry. Oh, what should I do?”

She might not have known. I cut the “leather” into small pieces with scissors, stir-fried them in oil, then slathered them with strawberry jam from our MRE supplies.

“They’re croutons. I used strawberry jam since we don’t have sugar. Should be edible.”

Even shoes taste good when fried properly. The same applied to flour “leather.” It felt more like eating snacks than a meal, but it tasted good.

“Are you some kind of angel?”

“If you’re grateful, pay me back with a can of apple preserves.”

“You stingy devil.”

Though she pouted, Camilla handed over her share of apple preserves. Still, she looked apologetic the whole time.

“Hey, Johan. I’m sorry I messed up the cooking.”

“It’s fine. Let’s use more positive expressions instead of negative ones.”

“How?”

“You didn’t fail at cooking—you succeeded at materials engineering. It’s innovative. If you’d cooked it a little less, we could have made a synthetic leather jacket…”

Anyway, we changed the rule to “when eating together, Johan cooks and Camilla keeps watch.”

We established many other rules too. What’s yours is yours. Sleep separately unless something special happens. Take responsibility for your own life. And we meant it.

“This was originally yours, so I’m returning it.”

I gave back her weapon and bulletproof vest.

“Then I’ll entrust this to you.”

She gave me her mobile phone. It was unexpected—why that of all things?

“It means I won’t secretly contact my organization members. There’s no cell service here anyway, so calls won’t work. But I should show some trust.”

It was password-protected, of course. I turned it off and stored it with my own phone.

Instead, we agreed to communicate via walkie-talkies we’d salvaged from an abandoned police car. They’re waterproof and can be charged with batteries or solar panels, so they’ll last a long time.

They’re also tools that allow us to communicate while staying safe from each other.

“Work together, live separately.”

That was the essence of the rules Camilla and I established.

We met out of necessity, not trust, and would part ways without hesitation when no longer needed. I conveyed this to Camilla, and she readily accepted.

However, she insisted on adding a final clause: “The above terms may be changed by mutual agreement.”

When we changed the food-related clause, she seemed to gloat, saying, “See? Good thing you listened to me,” but that was probably my imagination.

I believe so, anyway.

A savory aroma fills the house.

The once-translucent potatoes and onions are browning nicely together.

I remove the lid and add the chopped carrots. I skillfully shake the pan slightly to mix everything well.

Salt-sprinkled potatoes and onions fried in oil are excellent, but the color is monotonous. The reddish carrots add a “delicious-looking” visual effect.

They also provide texture when the potatoes are crumbling and the onions are caramelizing like now.

After all, this is a meal, and meals should have something to chew on.

Now the softened carrots are turning brown too. I carefully transfer the pan-fried ingredients into the boiling pot.

I add small amounts of water to loosen anything stuck to the pan and add that to the pot too. Burnt bits would only add bitterness, but these well-cooked carrots, onions, and potatoes add a savory sweetness and depth of flavor.

The well-cooked potatoes dissolve and melt. The browned onions glisten. I press a fork against a carrot—it sinks in with a soft “plop.” It’s cooked through.

I carry the ladle and stew pot upstairs. I fill our mess tins to the brim. I’ve made enough for dinner too, so there’s plenty.

With Camilla sitting by the north window and me taking the east, we’re ready. We need to keep watch even while eating.

“Let’s eat.”

I pick up my spoon immediately, but Camilla bows her head. She says it’s a pre-meal prayer to the “Goddess of Hunger.” I’m not sure why she prays to such a deity, but she’s not asking me to believe in it.

I take a spoonful with my short spoon. Even after blowing on it, it’s still a bit too hot to taste properly. I would have burned my mouth if I’d eaten it directly—like Camilla did.

“Did you burn yourself?”

Camilla sits covering her mouth, looking flustered. She shakes her head firmly, then chews with her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel. Then she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

“You really did burn yourself, didn’t you?”

“…No. It’s not that.”

“Did you bite your tongue?”

“N-no, I didn’t.”

“Oh, does it not suit your taste?”

“No. Ha.”

Now she puts down her mess tin and covers her face with her palms. Then, almost sobbing:

“Hey. This is… so delicious…”

I made it, but it’s not that good.

“Oh, r-really?”

Camilla nods and forces a smile.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her for a while. She’s terrible at cooking but eats so deliciously. Like a model—well, she is a model who’s done food commercials—as if we’re on a photo shoot.

One spoonful at a time. Chewing thoroughly and neatly. As she eats, her cheeks flush, color rises to her eyes, her pupils sparkle, and sweat beads on her forehead. Eventually, she tilts her mess tin and scrapes it with her spoon.

“…Um, Camilla? I made plenty for dinner too, so you can stop scraping the tin.”

“Huh? Oh.”

Though she reluctantly put down her spoon, she looked genuinely happy when I refilled her tin.

“Was it so delicious it brought tears to your eyes?”

I feel somewhat proud that she enjoyed it so much. Camilla nodded vigorously.

“This tastes like a memory. It’s exactly like the vegetable stew from the restaurant behind my university. The owner claimed they only used vegetables, but it tasted just like this. It was cheap and never got boring, so I ate it all the time.”

Even someone fresh from a sauna wouldn’t look this vibrant. Camilla looked truly happy and refreshed.

“…I knew you could cook well, but wow. How does it taste like this? There’s a meaty umami flavor in this vegetable stew! How did you do it?”

That’s because I used meat to make the broth. Actually, since we were short on salt, I cut up some beef jerky from the MRE and added it. That was the “flavor-enhancing powder.” So Camilla had essentially been deceived by the restaurant owner who claimed to “only use vegetables” throughout her college years.

“This? You just do it.”

Camilla fell for it again. She wipes her mouth and laughs contentedly.

“Hey. Let’s really live together. Hm? I’ll do the laundry, heat bath water, and take care of all the zombies. Just cook. I’ll do the dishes. If I could eat this three times a day, I’d be the happiest person alive.”

Sorry, Camilla, but I don’t think we’re at that stage yet. I’m not mentally prepared.

“Why don’t you just learn cooking from me? I’ll teach you.”

“…Hey. I’m actually really good at making apple pie! I’m confident about that.”

“Anything tastes good when made with beef.”

“Are you stupid? Who makes apple pie with beef… You’re just teasing me!”

I laugh and fill my mess tin. It’s time to leave this house. We haven’t been spotted by zombies, but their lurking within a 1km radius is concerning. There’s no benefit in unnecessary fights, so we should avoid them as much as possible.

“Ah, I’ll do the dishes.”

I went downstairs with the pot instead of Camilla. I buried it in a pre-dug hole along with the frying pan, covering them well with soil.

“…This really is a nice house. Such a shame.”

Camilla looks around the house regretfully.

Even I can see it’s well-situated.

It’s a fairly large house with a farm. The farm is surrounded by wooden fences that, with a little reinforcement, could hold off a zombie or two.

The house itself is a bit old but quite sturdy, and it seems to have been recently remodeled, making it quite neat. The new furniture is even covered with plastic wrapping.

The downside is that the house is half-collapsed. A large truck crashed through the wall.

Judging by the dried-up corpse in the driver’s seat, the driver was infected by zombies and lost consciousness while driving.

“Well, we’ll find a better shelter. Let’s take the gas canisters and go.”

“Okay.”

We loaded the gas canisters onto the one-ton truck parked in front. “One, two.” Thanks to the mattress we’d laid down beforehand, there wasn’t much noise.

“Let’s go.”

We returned to our newly acquired hideout. It’s a warehouse nestled between collapsed buildings, easily mistaken for ruins and overlooked.

Even I was a bit confused at first.

I don’t remember this area as well as the transmission tower forest or Langberman, but it’s somewhat familiar. Not something I can recall mentally, but a place my body remembers—the kind where you think “Oh, here?” when you arrive.

However, this world is less devastated than I remember. The buildings are relatively intact, and the surroundings differ from my memory. It took me a moment to recognize it, comparing it with my recollections.

Besides, if I had suddenly said, “I know a good place around here,” it would have obviously aroused Camilla’s suspicion.

Of course, I don’t trust Camilla 100%, but her not trusting me is a separate issue. Even if I don’t trust her, I need her to completely trust me.

That’s how I stay safe.