/
We left the forest and came to the main road.
There was nothing else to do but to go back since we have already to solve the Orc village issue.
“Shall we return? [1] We should be able to make it back to the city before nightfall if we go now,”
“Nu, hold on a second,” Fer interrupted.
Uh oh.
“What is it, Fer?” I asked warily, already knowing what this glutton would say.
“I’m hungry,”
“Me too!”
“Sui is hungry too~”
Well, to be fair, it was already past noon. I turned to the [Shadow Warriors], “Please excuse me. [2] My familiars are hungry, would you mind if we have our lunch now?”
“Oh, that’s right, it’s that time now. We should be thinking about lunch too.”
We all settled down by the roadside and made our temporary camp there. The [Shadow Warriors] took out dried meat and black bread from their packs. I blinked. [3] I hate to say it, but the quality of their food appeared to be quite… shabby.
Well, we did complete a mission together, surely that’s enough of a reason to share our food?
“Excuse me, if you don’t mind, would you like to try some of my cooking? At the very least, it should be better than dried meat,” I said diplomatically. [3]
“As long as it’s fine with you,”
“Oh yes, we did complete a mission together after all. Please wait a moment,”
Let’s see, what should I make?
Well, it definitely has to be bread, for one thing, to cater to the local taste. I’ll save the rice for when we’re on our own… yes, let’s go with that.
I still have plenty of black bread I bought from Doran, so I might as well use those up. The bread was in the form of round bun types, so I cut the bread in halves like hamburger buns and layer the bottom half with shredded cabbage, I placed a nice, juicy Salisbury Steak on top, followed by plenty of ketchup before topping it with the other half of the bun.
Each person gets two Salisbury Steak Burger, surely big guys like the [Shadow Warriors] would need at least that much? [4] Fer, Sui and Dora-chan get five each to start with. I treat myself to a grand total of one burger.
“Alright everyone, please enjoy.” Hamburgers had been properly allocated on plates and served to everyone. [3] My familiars ate without hesitation as usual. The [Shadow Warriors] picked up their individual burgers and sank their teeth in.
“D-delicious! What’s this thing? I swear this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever had!” Alonzo cried around his mouthful of burger.
“Delicious! The sauce on this meat is beyond good!” Clement-san said, chomping several more bites like a mad man.
“Ohh, this sauce is a little sour and sweet and so rich! Having the opportunity to eat such delicious food alone makes the mission worth it,” said Mathias-san before taking another huge bite of his burger.
“…”
Ernest-san was so absorbed in his food that he did not make a single comment.
“Seconds!” came the timely chant from both Fer and Sui. Dora-chan was oddly quiet as he rolled to his back in satisfaction. Well, the black bread’s chewy texture was probably very filling.
I gave Fer and Sui their seconds and ate my own single burger. Hmm, the bread was a little hard, but the meat was nice and toothsome and the sauce had soaked in nicely into the bread. One can’t go wrong with burgers.
Two of the [Shadow Warriors] still appeared hungry, so I gave them another burger each.
“By the way, Mukouda-san said you’re leaving the city tomorrow, right? What are your plans?” Mathias-san asked.
“Yes, Fer wants to visit the sea, so we’re planning to go to Verulean. I’m looking forward to tasting some seafood for once.”
“Oooh, Verulean City, is it? We went there last year. They have the best fresh seafood there. Ah, but some of our guys couldn’t take it, gya hahahaha!” Mathias-san laughed heartily.
“Aah, Mathias, Earnest and I enjoyed Verulean very much, but Alonzo… he hated it so much that he tried to make us leave immediately. It’s rare for us to get the opportunity to eat such fine seafood, so we all refused to leave!” Clement-san was smirking at Alonzo.
“That’s right, even though we were in a port city famous for its seafood. All Alonzo did was eat roasted meat. Everyone at the restaurant gave him judgy looks, like ‘why are you even here if you’re not going to try the seafood?’ It’s so hilarious!” Earnest-san laughed.
“I don’t see what’s so good about seafood, it smells fishy and it stinks. I never want to go back to that place. When it comes to food, it must be meat!” Alonzo-san complained.
That’s a shame, I thought, pitying this man from the bottom of my heart.
“Since you’re going to Verulean, don’t miss the morning market by the harbour. You can get fresh seafood cheaply in the morning and there are stalls selling food set up all around. I highly recommend it,” said Mathias-san.
Ohh, a morning market, now that’s quite a valuable information! Markets are where the best products are sold for the lowest prices. Markets with food stalls are a bonus!
“Oi, that fish that Verulean is famous for. What was it called again?” Earnest-san said, half muttering to himself as he tried to remember the name of the fish.
“It’s Tyrant fish, right?” Mathias-san said.
“Isn’t that a type of monster too? It’s called a fish, but it’s one damn barbaric looking fish, but it’s really delicious,” Earnest-san was sighing as he recalled the taste of this Tyrant Fish.
“It’s considered a speciality of the City because it could only be caught by the toughest fishermen of Verulean. Mukouda-san, you must try it when you get there. It’s very good,” was Clement-san’s high recommendation.
Tyrant Fish, alright, I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.
“Ohh, there’s also that shellfish thing. Soup made from those big, hard clams are super delicious,”
When I tried asking for more details for these ‘big, hard clams’, all these enthusiastic seafood fans could tell me was that these clams were the size of my palm and… were just… really big clams.
I guess those would be delicious if made into dashi soup. Clams were often used in place of miso for dashi. Clams are also delicious when grilled and topped with a little soy sauce and butter…
Ooh, I want to eat BBQ seafood now!
‘Slurp’ ugh, just the thought of it makes me drool.
I’m really looking forward to Verulean because I am really sick of meat, meat, meat all the time! [4] When we get to Verulean I must eat all the seafood until I’m tired of it!
“Ah, after talking about seafood, I want to visit Verulean again,”
“Me too, seafood…”
“Oh, I want some too…”
The three seafood enthusiast sighed, but Alonzo-san was quick to declare, “Don’t even joke about it!”
“Fuhahaha, don’t be so angry. We just want to eat some seafood, you know? We’re still going to Avering as planned, so don’t worry.”
“That’s right, that’s right, it’s been a long time since we’ve been to a dungeon. I can’t wait to test out my skills.”
“Aah, this time I want to stay a bit longer and gather a bit more money,”
“Oh, you’ll be heading out for Avering after this?” I asked.
“Aah, we’re only going to stay in Neihoff for four or five more days before heading off for Avering,” said Alonzo-san.
“What a coincidence, we’ll be going there too after Verulean,”
“Oh is that so? We’re planning for a longer stay there, perhaps we’ll meet each other at the dungeon,” said Clement-san.
“We might meet there actually,” I said and told them about how I met the [Iron Will] party back at Doran’s dungeon. I had in fact gotten to know about the Avering dungeon from them.
Talks of dungeon occupied us for quite a long time and before I knew it, it was time to return. Though we had eliminated the Orcs at record time, we spent more time chatting together.
Finally, someone said, “Shall we head back?” and we all packed up our things.
Sui was woken up from her doze, sorry Sui, and was asked to carry the [Shadow Warriors] back to the city.
[Gumihou: Aah, nice to meet other professional Adventurers~]
[1] Structural Change: Deleted repeated information and transfer some extra information as dialogue to maintain the smoothness of text.
[2] Deleted Information: Seriously, you don’t need to ask in dialogue and then explain to the readers, like, we have eyes of our own you know?
[3] Added More Information for Texture: It’s a cooking novel after all, so I added more information and smoothed out the passage.
[4] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs