“Master, we’ll be going now~””
““We’ll be back soon!””
““Right, let’s go,””
[6] I waved a weak hand at my familiars, “Yes, yes, travel safely…”
My familiars disappeared into the forest outside the City Avering.
[6] I’m here to practice my dismantling skills with Elland-san again today.
Unfortunately, whatever motivation I had from yesterday vanished after discovering that shocking truth.
To think that Feodora-san is nearly 200 years old… on top of that, she already has four children and a grandkid…
From the talk between Gaudino-san and Elland-san, it looked like that grandkid was a boy of 10 years old. [1] However, since elves age slowly, he still looks like a cute 5-year-old. Since he’s her first grandchild, Feodora-san was really attached to him. [5]
The corpse of my love, which had budded and died before it could sprout further weighed heavily on my heart. [1] Perhaps, I am not meant to find love…
No! It’s still too early to give up. [2] I must stay positive! Someday, I’m sure I will find the one!
“Excuse me~? Are you planning to start soon?”
“Hm? Oh, ah, right! Let’s get started.” [3] For a moment, I had forgotten about Elland-san’s existence. [1] Haah… I guess I should clear my mind and focus on the task at hand…
[8] On the makeshift Earth Magic table was a Red Boar. It was the smallest one of the lot, less than 2 meters long in total. [5]
First, let’s drain its blood. I stabbed the boar in the neck with the Vampire Knife. [9] According to Elland-san, the knife could pretty much suck out most of the blood from wherever I stabbed it, but since there’s a major vein at the neck, it’s the best place to use the knife.
That’s useful to know. I have no idea how the knife works but it’s really efficient. [1] Thank you knife-san for doing such a good job again today.
I had Fer do a high-level Appraisal on the knife, since it’s… well, kind of dangerous?
Anyway, the result was:
[Vampire Knife]
A knife made by combining magic iron and vampire bones. This bloodthirsty knife sucks blood endlessly. Wounds caused by this knife is hard to heal, and won’t stop bleeding. In some cases, injuries could be fatal.
Scary… [5]
Still, as a blood draining knife, it’s very useful. I’ll just have to be careful not to cut myself against this brutal knife.
[6] Since I feed it lots of blood, it’s kind of like having another familiar, right? It’s dangerous but it’s fine as long as I’m careful, right?
[6] Right.
[6] Once the knife changed colour, indicating that the blood had been completely drained, my dismantling course with Elland-san began.
“First, cut open the belly, make sure not to damage the internal organs. If you damage anything, the meat will be contaminated. See, it’s better to cut outwards and upwards with the sharp edge of the knife facing outwards to avoid accidentally cutting into anything you don’t intend to.”
I worked following Elland-san’s instructions. Carefully splitting the belly apart. Hmm, the insides were really different from Cockatrice. [5] It has bits of things that a bird doesn’t have and were all much bigger and tightly packed. I must say it all looked kind of creepy.
Still, it’s not so bad since knife-san has drained out all the blood.
After taking a deep breath, I braced myself to look at the insides of the Red Boar.
“This part and this part contains excrement, you’ll need to handle it carefully. Generally, we take everything out and dispose of them. [6] Except for the liver. Usually, the liver’s good to eat or for making medicine.”
“I see, I see,” [7] I silently activated [Appraisal] to check on the parts.
“Well, the general practice is to dispose of them, but are you planning to eat them too?”
[6] “I’m thinking…”
That’s the idea, but according to [Appraisal-san], the Red Boar’s innards are… no good?
Odd?
It looks like almost everything is edible, but it’s all rather stinky. Personally, I have nothing against organs but ‘stinkiness’ is… [8] After thinking about it, I decided to just bury the lot. [6] Organ meats have to be properly processed before they could be eaten. I really don’t feel like going through all that trouble now.
[6] Elland-san looked a little disappointed but considering how much my familiars (and Elland-san) could eat, I rather not bother…
After that, guided by Elland-san, I cut off the head carefully since it could be sold, and peeled off the skin. [9] Luckily, thanks to my increased level, I was able to easily manipulate the boar around. It’s still a pretty big animal and rather unwieldy to handle but moving it around and taking the hide off was easier than I thought it would be.
Once the boar was skinned and gutted, it was time to dismantle the meat.
“Once the meat is taken apart, you’re basically done,” said Elland-san cheerfully.
[6] “Hmm, it takes more time to butcher a four-legged creature than a bird,” I observed.
[4] “Maa, I think you did rather well. You have experience dealing with various meat parts and a very good knife, so that’s half the battle won,” said Elland-san cheerfully.
Fer, Sui and Dora-chan came back before I could get started on the skinned Red Boar.
Today’s lunch was Yakitori Don, made with yesterday’s leftover yakitori. It’s just yakitori taken off its skewers and reheated with yakitori sauce and poured over fluffy hot rice and sprinkled with dried seaweed.
After lunch, my familiars set out again and I returned to my butchering lessons with Elland-san. It’s time to take the Red Boar apart.
This portion of the lesson went pretty quickly and I soon got started on my second Red Boar. It was slightly bigger than my first one, but the process was pretty similar. Now, let’s drain the blood first and then…
“Fuuh, it’s finally done.”
I managed to properly dismantle the first Red Boar under Elland-san’s supervision. This time, he stood aside and watched as I figured out the process myself. [5]
[8] Once the second boar was taken apart, I stepped back to survey the neatly laid out meat on the second Earth Magic table. The first table was used for butchering and the second one was for laying out all the meats.
[6] A sense of accomplishment washed over me as I surveyed the meat. [8] Speaking of which, almost all the meat dismantled by the Adventurer’s Guild that I received were eaten fresh. I wonder if that’s the only way of eating meat here?
I mean, monster meat is delicious when cooked immediately. Also, having access to fresh meat is great, not to mention having an [Item Box] which could stop time and keep meat fresh all the time.
However, meat such as beef and pork are more delicious when aged.
I’ve heard that after butchering a wild boar and removing the internal organs, hunters would leave the meat in a running stream to age it [10].
If I have the time, I’d like to try ageing monster meat too.
“Elland-san, do people age monster meat?”
“Age? Monster meat?” [5]
“Erm, I heard that if you leave meat out for a certain period of time at low temperature, it would improve the taste…”
“No way~~ that’s impossible. Meat is sometimes kept fresh via cooling rooms or [5] [Item Box]. Because the fresher the meat, the better it tasted.”
[6] “What happens if you leave the meat out?” I wondered.
[4] “Well, if you salt it and hang it out, it turns into dried meat jerky. If you don’t salt it and just leave it as is, it will change colour. Turn darkish in about a week or 10 days and emits a horrible miasma… [5]
“I see, well, I’m even gladder for my [Item Box] now,” [5] still, I wonder if fresh is the best way to eat monster meat.
“Speaking of which, will we be eating something made with fresh Red Boar?” [5]
Elland-san, your eyes are sparkling…
[8] I sighed and ran my eyes over the neatly laid out meats. Well, since Red Boars are considered low-level monsters. Maybe they are closer to wild boars than high-quality pork? Hmm… do I have any boar recipes?
Let’s see.
How about… a Miso Botan Nabe, also known as Miso-flavoured Wild Boar Hotpot?
Right, it’s decided!
Once we returned to the inn, I got started on dinner. [1] As usual, prep work began with [Net Super]. [5]
The recipe for this Botan Nabe came from my parent’s neighbour. [6] They have somehow gotten their hands on some boar meat and shared some with us, along with a recipe for cooking boar.
Since everyone was hungry, speed was of the utmost importance.
In a large claypot, I placed water, granulated dashi stock, skipjack tuna, kelp, grated ginger (from a tube), sake, soy sauce, sugar, mirin and miso. While this was left to boil on the stove, I sliced the star of the dish, Red Boar, into thin slices. Once the liquid began to boil, I scatter the meat into the pot and lowered the fire.
[6] Naturally, I made several pots of the Botan Nabe at the same time.
While the hotpot simmered over low heat, I carefully removed the lye and added vegetables once the meat has become tender. Since it’s a hotpot and not a soup, the radishes and carrots had been cut into strips so that they would cook easily. I also tore up some shimeji and enoki mushrooms, and arranged some cut Chinese cabbages and diagonally cut leeks in the hotpot.
Once the vegetables were tender, I added Japanese mustard leaves and it’s done. This is the easy version since all I had to do was cut and put stuff into the pot and wait for it to boil. Burdock would have been nice too, but I have to soak them first so let’s keep those for next time.
Naturally, Fer, Dora-chan and Sui’s portions were enormous.
“Here you go. Careful, it’s really hot.”
Fer used his Wind Magic to cool his hotpot. [2] Dora-chan actually burnt himself before imitating Fer. As for Sui, well, the heat doesn’t seem to bother her and she ate normally.
““I wasn’t expecting much from Red Boar meat, but it’s quite good like this.””
““Yeah, the meat is tender and tasty!””
““It’s so yummy~~””
Well, I’m glad you guys enjoy the Botan Nabe.
I set a much smaller pot of Botan Nabe between myself and Elland-san, “Well, shall we?”
“Hmm, I thought Red Boar is only meant for grilling, but it’s pretty delicious as a stew too.”
[4] “Yes, yes, it’s really good,” [3] I tucked into my little bowl, enjoying the tender yet still slightly chewy texture of Red Boar meat. [1] However, the part I enjoyed most was the soup. The sweetness of the meat and vegetables had seeped into the broth, making it really delicious~
Fer and co had to be topped up several times. I’m so glad I made lots.
I made sure to give them most of the meat and vegetables with minimal broth because…
“Now comes the best part of hotpot cooking. The udon noodles!”
These thick, wheat flour noodles are a kind of comfort food that’s hearty, chewy and the best way to close a hotpot party.
I broke open several packets of freeze-dried noodles and stirred them into the broth. [5]
[6] Soon, only slurping sounds were heard in the garden.
[Gumihou: I changed the ending since it’s kind of lame to close a chapter with ‘I’m satisfied with udon noodles after not having it for a long time…’]
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken
[9] Added details on the butchering and skinning process.
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