After parting company with Rodolpho-san at the Adventurer's Guild we left the town of Claire and headed swiftly towards the Dungeon City of Doran .
As usual I was on Fer's back with Sui in her bag hanging from my shoulder while Dora-chan flew beside us, easily keeping up with Fer's incredible pace . It seemed Dora-chan's boast of being able to fly very quickly was not an idle one . After a while it started to get dark so I decided we should set up camp for the night and of course that meant dinner .
I wanted to check what I had ready to eat in my Item Box, hmmm . . . there was rice still hot from cooking and yes, the hamburgers made from Bloody Horn Bull and Orc General meat were in there too . That would make dinner simple, it would be Hawaiian style Loco Moco burgers .
First I bought eggs, lettuce, cucumber and cherry tomatoes at Net Super since I wanted veggies to go with the greasy main course . I chopped the lettuce up roughly, cut the cucumber in thin slanted slices and halved the cherry tomatoes . The eggs I fried sunny-side up, counting the portions out -- Fer and Sui would have three hamburgers so they'd each get three fried eggs . I estimated that Dora-chan would be good with two hamburgers going by what I had seen her eat previously so she got two eggs .
I put the hamburgers on dishes of white rice and then added the fried eggs with the raw salad veggies arranged around the side . I put out some mayonnaise to add if anyone wanted it but I left it off to start with .
"Dinner's ready!" I announced . Fer, Sui and Dora-chan all arrived in a rush . "Here it is, eat up . " I said, putting the dishes down in front of them . "I'll mix it together a bit for you . " It's a bit messy doing that but they couldn't use utensils so stirring everything up in the bowl makes it easier for them to eat .
"Can I eat it now?" Dora-chan asked impatiently, wings buzzing .
"Here you go . " The Three Gluttons begin to eat .
"Tastes good, doesn't it? The veggies are nice and crunchy . " Dora-chan commented as he stuffed his muzzle with food .
"Yeah, it really is!- It's got eggs too-" Sui and Dora-chan seemed to like it .
"Well, it's delicious but I prefer not having the vegetables . " Fer grumbled telepathically but I noticed his jaws didn't slow down appreciably as his bowl emptied quickly, veggies or no veggies .
"Look Fer, vegetables are essential for Loco Moco . No vegetables, it's just not the same . " I tried to explain .
"I think it's just tastier without the veggies . " Fer harrumphed, obviously disagreeing with me on this point but I shrugged and dug into my own bowl of Loco Moco with extra veggies . Delicious! Fer didn't know what he was missing out on, I decided smugly .
After the first serving Dora-chan seemed to be full up, his little belly rounded out yet again . Fer and Sui had seconds, of course . I made Fer's dish without vegetables this time .
After we finished eating I took a little break then used earth magic to make a little box-shaped bedroom for the night .
"Everyone can go to sleep now . I've follow you later but I've got something to do . "
"Well OK, but what is it you're up to?" Fer inquired .
"Oh, I was told you can eat Venom Tarantula but I've got no idea what it tastes like . " I said . "Rodolpho-san said that the legs were delicious when they are boiled in salt water so I though I'd try cooking some to see what it tasted like . I can't really cook it properly if I don't know how it will come out after all . "
"I see . " Fer said . "I'm not that fond of eating bugs raw myself so I'm interested in how it might turn out if you boil it like the Guild Master said . I'll hang around and see what happens . " Yeah right Fer, you just want to eat it, I thought to myself .
"What? Is there more tasty food? Sui will also eat it-"
"Hey, I'll eat it too!"
It seems that both Sui and Dora-chan wanted to eat it too, everybody volunteering for the tasting party . Ah well .
I had 64 Venom Tarantula legs in total . I decided to cook some of them as a test so I took 8 of them out of my Item Box, examining them closely . They were a dark purple colour, almost black and quite evil-looking . The hairs on the nape of my neck rose at the sight . Could I really cook something like this? They looked a bit like crab legs, I supposed, if I ignored the colour . Right then, to work .
I washed the legs then dunked them in a large pot filled with heavily-salted water and started to boil them as Rodolpho-san had suggested . As they cooked the hard shell of the legs turned red, looking more and more like a crab which was faintly reassuring .
"Boiling them is like boiling crab, but . . . " Don't think of it as a spider leg, this is from a crab, a crab right? Crab, crab, crab . . . I hooked them out of the pot and cracked the shells before cautiously nibbling on a bit of the meat inside . Crab meat . Crab -- oh, it actually tasted quite good, not unpleasant at all . Crab, maybe? Sort of, but not the same . The mouth feel, it was mushy, different to fibrous crab meat, what was it like? Ah, I got it, it was like kamaboko steamed fish paste, but crab-flavoured . Odd but not unpleasant .
"Hey, don't eat all of it yourself, give some to us . " Fer demanded, eyes fixed on the pot .
"Oh, sorry, sorry . " I apologised . I cracked out more Venom Tarantula meat and put it out for the three other members of the tasting committee who dug in with a will .
"Well, I think it tastes better boiled like this than the time before when I ate it raw . " was Fer's judgement when he came up for breath .
"What the big guy said . " Dora-chan chimed in . "I've eaten raw Venom Tarantula meat too and this is a lot nicer . "
I bowed to their greater experience and decided I didn't want to try eating raw Venom Tarantula meat myself . Boiling it would be best, I decided .
"Yeah, it's delicious-" Sui chimed in . "But Sui likes red meat better?" Sui prefers animal-type meat, then?
"Like Sui says, I prefer the meat you've been serving up till now . " Fer said .
"Me too . This insect meat is not bad but it's not the best . " Dora-chan agreed .
I would definitely choose meat myself rather than crab-flavoured kamaboko, I must admit . However we still had 56 Venom Tarantula legs left in my Item Box . How could we use them up? Crab-flavoured candy? I shook my head, that wouldn't work . I decided to put off deciding what to do with the legs, they wouldn't go bad in storage . Say hello to Orthros-san and Chimera-san, Venom Tarantula-sans . . .
After cleaning up the cooking utensils and dishes I took a bath with Sui . I was surprised when Dora-chan said he wanted to take a bath with us . I figured it couldn't hurt so I wiped myself down with a wet towel while I got Sui to fill my bath (MY bath!) with water before heating it with a Fireball . Dora-chan floated around in the bath like Sui, obviously enjoying the hot water . It seemed Fer was the only one of us who disliked soaking in a bath (although I think he liked getting washed more than the mighty Fenrir-sama would admit) .
After the refreshing bath everyone got into the futons I spread out and went to bed . Sleeping on futons on a journey is wonderful .
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