Chapter Seventy: With All Due Respect: You Cannot Conquer A Dungeon On An Empty Stomach…
The feast of pure meat, without any liquor, ended with a frenzy of feeding, and when I came to, I was woken up by the alarm on my smartphone in my bung bed… All that roast beef and steak had disappeared into the hungry adventurers’ stomachs. The pull-apart bread and rice were also completely eaten. As a camp cook, I’m thrilled they ate so well, and the wild ox must be at peace now.
Zzz… burppp.
Heading down into the cabin, I found Mr. Ville, who must have been on watch duty, sitting on a makeshift stool and gazing out the window. While my watch says it is early morning hours, being inside this timeless dungeon, I am not sure if calling it "morning" is accurate.
“For breakfast… maybe grilled cave trout…”
“Rin. Is there anything I can assist with?”
“No need to trouble the watchkeeper. Just your kind offer is enough.”
Mr. Ville started to get up from the stool, but I couldn’t assign other tasks to the one on watch duty! Just the thought of lending a hand is plenty. Thank you!
As my sleepy head followed its whims, I decided to prepare breakfast and travel rations. While the rice cooks, I’ll fillet this massive 50cm cave trout into three pieces… grill the belly meat with salt… Breakfast will be trout rice mixed with shredded meat and an onion and potato miso soup… For rations, trout rice sandwiches… something like a rice ball, not a burger. If I had plenty of eggs, I’d make pork and egg rice balls, but I need to save some.
Peel the onions and potatoes, slice the onions thickly, and cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Simmer them slowly in water. Once they’re somewhat cooked, add a bit of broth concentrate and turn off the heat. I’ll mix in the miso paste after everyone wakes up.
As I pan-fried the thick trout fillets and shredded the grilled scraps, the others who had been napping slowly emerged as well.
“Good morning, breakfast will be ready soon!”
As I greeted the three who woke up, I mixed the shredded trout and ginger into the freshly cooked rice. The ginger is raw—the residual heat from the rice will cook it just enough to be delicious. Everyone still seemed a bit sleepy, but their eyes sparkled at the word "breakfast." Looks like they’ll dig into breakfast too, for sure.
Now, should I bring the large pot of pre-miso soup to a boil, then turn off the heat and add the miso paste to finish it?
It’s a good thing everyone in the Gourmands is ok with fermented foods like miso and soy sauce…! As a Japanese person, I’m used to the flavors, but I hear many foreigners find the distinct aromas off-putting. Then again, even we Japanese can be averse to unfamiliar fermented foods like cheese or fish sauce… It’s such a blessing when people find flavors they aren’t accustomed to delicious!
“Help yourselves to the rice and miso soup! Feel free to add extra ginger to taste.”
“Alright! Let’s go over today’s plan while we eat.”
“…Which is simply clearing out the remaining mana springs, I take it?”
“Yes. Four more…”
“We’re gonna thoroughly smash ‘em?”
Placing the mixed rice, the large pot of miso soup, and the barley tea kettle on the table, my job is done for now. Help yourselves to as much as you can eat!
I took a sip of the onion and potato miso soup first. The sweet-salty aroma of the miso wafted through my nose as the crunchy sweet onions and creamy, gentle potatoes melted in my mouth.
For the trout rice, imagining premium salmon rice would be the closest comparison? Thanks to the shredded collar and scraps mixed in, it has a moist fattiness, but the raw ginger lends a refreshingly spicy finish. Actually, I bet this would be delicious if the base rice was sushi rice, with myoga ginger and shiso leaves mixed in too! It would make it even lighter and more fragrant, no? When we return to town, I should look more thoroughly for seasonings!
“…Hmm… The troublesome part will be the forced warps.”
“We grasped the patterns to some degree yesterday, so today should go rather smoothly.”
“If we take the wrong route, we’ll be bounced around…”
Everyone deftly maneuvered their spoons as they polished off the trout rice and miso soup.
Forced warps if you take the wrong route, that’s a really annoying type of gimmick! While hand-mapping and figuring things out, we’d get many encounters with monsters that slowly drain our resources! And of course, it’s always those times you get ambushed too…
Also, curse kill… A back attack leading to a curse kill is the worst…!
“Are you alright, Rin? You’re looking a bit pale.”
“Eh? Ah, I’m fine! I was just thinking how I’ve never experienced forced warps before…”
“We’ve found some leads, so don’t worry.”
“Yeah! It doesn’t seem like any super strong monsters will show up either!”
“Even so, overconfidence is a life-taker. We’ll stay alert and check for traps as we go.”
Following Mr. Ville putting down his emptied bowl, everyone swiftly moved to check equipment and gear. As always, Mr. Ed graciously cast cleaning magic on the dirty dishes and cookware after the meal… I may enjoy cooking, but hate the clean-up, so this heavenly environment where I only have to cook is just perfect…!
Alright, feeling motivated, I’ll keep cranking out tasty meals galore!
“Rin, we’re departing soon.”
“Alright! I’m coming!”
Taking Mr. Ville’s offered hand outside, I plunged back into the dungeon once more.
Whether it’s an ogre or a serpent… I’ll turn whatever comes out into a delicious meal!
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