Lord of the Rings: Warriors

Riverguard.

"Lance and the others have been gone for a few days now. I wonder if they're safe..." Rynar muttered with concern.

"They should be fine. They've already moved beyond Kaldor's scouting range. Any further than that, and even I wouldn't be able to make it back in a day," Caslow replied, a hint of helplessness in his tone.

"Sigh, I hope it's just me overthinking things," Rynar said with a long sigh.

"Relax, Your Majesty. They've got so many people with them — nothing's going to happen. 

Unless they run into a full-scale orc army, but I doubt the orcs have the capacity to organize an army that large in that region right now," Reynard reassured him confidently.

"I'm not worried about orcs. It's the wild magical beasts that roam the area. Trust me, they're way scarier than orcs at night," Rynar said, shaking his head with exasperation.

"Ah, forget it! Thinking too much gives me a headache. What's for breakfast today?" Rynar stretched and yawned, trying to shift his focus.

Suddenly, his face changed as if he'd just remembered something truly traumatic. 

His eyes snapped wide open, and he bellowed, "If anyone dares serve me that disgusting raw marinated fish roe that made me vomit up yesterday's dinner, I swear I'll smash it right into their face!"

Although Rynar's words were fierce, his expression betrayed an uncontrollable sense of dread. Clearly, he was recalling an experience that had scarred him deeply.

The "special delicacy" served to him yesterday morning had been a total nightmare. 

The moment he saw it, he was dumbfounded. The taste… oh, the taste! It nearly sent his soul straight to Mandos' Halls.

It was allegedly a luxury delicacy enjoyed exclusively by Zaltarion nobles. But after just one bite, Rynar couldn't hold it in anymore. He threw up. Hard.

That was when it hit him — the Zaltarion nobility eats... poop?

Rynar was utterly stunned. 

How could anyone willingly put something like that into their mouth? 

He felt like he'd stumbled upon one of Middle-earth's ultimate biochemical weapons, on par with the infamous "surströmming" of his past life. 

If he'd had a few jars of that marinated fish roe during the Battle of the Lonely Mountain, he wouldn't have needed to send the Rapid Infantry to the frontlines. 

Just smear a bit of that stuff on themselves, and they could've asphyxiated every single orc on the battlefield. Those filthy orcs probably wouldn't have lasted a second.

At one point, Rynar seriously considered asking the nobles, "Do you guys honestly feed this to your king?"

But when he saw the earnest, sincere faces of the cooks and attendants, he held back. Supposedly, the process for making this "luxury delicacy" was extremely elaborate. 

It required the freshest, plumpest fertilized whitefish roe. The process involved over a dozen fermentation steps, and it took the entire winter to prepare. 

After all that effort, they could only produce a few small fist-sized jars. Proud of their hard work, they presented it to Rynar as an offering.

"Spare me, please..." Rynar wanted to cry just thinking about it.

The Zaltarion chefs were truly masters of cursed cuisine. 

The texture alone was enough to haunt him — a slimy, lumpy paste of yellow and brown, with the occasional grainy bits, and worst of all… it stretched into strings like melted cheese.

The cook who served it to him initially thought Rynar's refusal was just a matter of poor appetite. 

He took it away respectfully. But later that night, when Rynar decided to have a late-night snack… they brought it out again.

This time, it was a total disaster. Rynar didn't just vomit; he emptied his entire stomach. 

Not just the contents of his last meal — even his gastric juices made an appearance. In the end, he was dry-heaving bile, a sickly yellow color.

From that point on, Rynar developed a deep psychological trauma around anything resembling that dish. 

Back in his past life, he had doubted the legends about surströmming's infamy. But now he was a firm believer.

Yes, food can indeed become a force of divine punishment. 

It could become so bad that neither gods, ghosts, nor orcs would dare face it. Honestly, even the stray yellow dog that wandered around Riverguard wouldn't eat it.

"Understood, Your Majesty!" Reynard quickly responded, clearly just as repulsed by the thought of it.

"Great heavens, what kind of demonic chefs are these?" Rynar sighed in frustration. 

Life had started improving, his territory was stabilizing, and yet his meals had taken a bizarre turn for the worse. 

The marinated fish roe was just the beginning. The other "innovative dishes" that followed were just as mind-boggling.

Take, for example, the "Matryoshka Feast":

First, they dug up fat cicada larvae from underground and fried them until crispy. Then, they stuffed the larvae into a quail. 

The quail was smoked and stuffed inside a wild rabbit. The rabbit was then roasted and crammed inside a young lamb. Finally, the whole lamb was stewed into a rich broth for hours.

The result? A single bowl of milky white soup, condensed from all those layers. The chefs proudly declared it a miracle of culinary art.

"Are you guys insane?!" Rynar wanted to shout. "Are we this wealthy that we can waste food like this?!"

At first, he tolerated it, believing it was just the chefs trying to impress him. But then things escalated.

They served him raw wild boar intestine sashimi. 

Yes, you read that right. 

Freshly slaughtered wild boar, skinned, roasted, and its intestines boiled, cleaned, and sliced into "onion ring-style" slices. These were then paired with a "special sauce" and served as a delicacy.

"Good lord, I'm about to flip the table!" Rynar slammed his hands down, suppressing the overwhelming urge to draw his sword and "season" the chefs himself.

He was a king, a proper lord of his realm, not some desperate streamer looking for clout. The thought of eating raw boar intestine was too much. 

He had to physically use his right hand to restrain his left from drawing his sword.

He missed the old days when refugees cooked simple black bread and grilled fish. Compared to these grotesque creations, those humble meals felt like Michelin-starred cuisine.

When refugees began to settle in Riverguard, some Zaltarion chefs were recruited into the castle to cook for Rynar. 

Their skills were undeniable, but their "dark culinary arts" left him dreading every meal. 

The moment a dish arrived, Rynar would anxiously check the menu to see if he needed to eat bread on the side.

The worst part? When Rynar suggested bringing back the old refugee cooks, most of the council opposed it. 

Only Lady Aivy sided with him, as the new chefs' "natural" culinary style clearly clashed with her religious beliefs.

—

"Your Majesty, today's breakfast includes vegetable porridge, freshly baked white bread, some cured meat, and a single egg," the servant reported.

"Phew!" Rynar let out a long breath of relief. No weird experimental foods this time. Breakfast seemed safe.

At least for now, his stomach could rest easy.

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