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Volume 7 Chapter 4 Part 8

「What do you have there, Miria?」

 

「A Whole Fish, desu!」

 

「A Whole Fish?」

 

「It is a rare item dropped by Mabream, master.」

 

Sherry explained that to me while I looked at the fish that Miria was carrying in her hands with a puzzled expression.

 

So it’s a Mabream’s rare drop, huh? When Miria passed the Whole Fish to me, I had the time to look at it more closely, and upon closer examination, I saw that it was really a whole fish, as in, the one complete with its head and tails still intact. When I looked at it and used 「Identify」on it, it even told me the exact same thing: that it is indeed a Whole Fish.

 

Once again, as soon as I received the fish from Miria, she began to look at me with those pleading, expecting eyes of hers that very clearly transcribed what she was expecting of me.

 

「Okay, okay, I get it. This thing too shall become a part of our dinner today.」

 

「Eat tasty fish, desu!」

Once more, I have caved in to Miria’s request of eating the fish that we found for dinner. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? If you were the one on the receiving end of such a cute, earnest pleading, you would have probably caved in exactly like how I did just now.

 

「Since the Whole Fish is Mabreams rare drop, then we could definitely sell it at the Guild for a pretty high price, so are you sure that you want to keep it, master?」

 

「As Miss Roxanne said. This is a pretty precious item that is usually only eaten on special occasions.」

 

Roxanne and Sherry gave me some additional bits of information about the Whole Fish, urging me to reconsider my decision of keeping it for ourselves.

 

So it would seem that in this world, Whole Fish is eaten on special occasions, similar to how it was with Rabbit Meat when we were collecting it for that one shop clerk at the Imperial City. I can also see that there was truth in what they were saying about it being pretty rare, because when I swept all those monsters out with 「Meteor Crash」just now, there was a lot of White Fish that was left behind as their Drop Items, but among all of them, there was only one of the Whole Fish, so that statistic should speak for itself.

 

In that case, should I really keep such a rare delicacy for ourselves? Maybe it is really going to be better to go and sell it, just like Roxanne and Sherry suggested?

 

「Oh well, it is too much for one person to eat anyway.」

 

The Whole Fish in its entirety is bigger than even my hands combined. It is also about twenty… thirty… fourty centimeters in length, so even a single piece or slice of it would probably be more than enough to fully satiate the hunger of a single person.

 

However, when I say 「a single person」, I actually mean a single 「normal」person. Miria, however, is a far cry from being classified as a normal person, and as such, I am more than sure that she would be more than capable of eating more than one slice of the Whole Fish by herself.

 

「If you want to keep it so that we could all eat it, then Sherry and I would be fine with just small slices if it. Miria also says that she would be fine with a small portion if it meant that we could all enjoy it.」

 

「Yes, and when it comes to the distribution of such a fish, it is usually generally agreed upon that the head of the household should get the first and the biggest slice of the Whole Fish, and then the rest should be distributed among the other residents of the house equally.」

 

Oh, so it’s actually like that, huh? I thought that it’s going to be one fish per person again, but it seems that in case of something as big as the Whole Fish, it is actually one fish for the entire household kind of thing. All right then.

 

Even though we obtained only one Whole Fish, we decided that it should be enough when it comes to the exploration of the twelfth floor of Bode’s Labyrinth. I still can’t say that I was able to blow enough steam to make all of my accumulated stress and frustrations completely go away, but even so we decided to go back to the fourteenth floor of Haruba’s Labyrinth. I might not like that place personally, but my dislike of it doesn’t change the fact that we have to continue its exploration if we want to move on to its fifteenth floor.

 

We stayed there until the evening, and then we went back home.

 

「Master, it seems like yet another message from Luke the Broker has arrived. He seemed to have made a successful bid for the Bat Skill Crystal.」

 

When we arrived at home, there was yet another note at our door left by Luke’s messenger, and after reading through its contents, Roxanne has related them to me. A Bat Skill Crystal, huh? Well what do you know, it looks like the process of upgrading our equipment is going to be able to continue on going smoothly. But first, the usual thing.

 

「Sherry, what does a Bat Skill Crystal do, exactly?」

 

「If you fuse that Skill Crystal with a piece of armor, then it is going to increase the rate of your evasion. And if you’re going to fuse it together with a Kobold Skill Crystal, then the effect that you’re going to receive is going to get doubled.」

 

Sherry game me the detailed explanation almost immediately after I finished asking my question, which makes me think that she would have done that even if I only so much as looked at her. Well, The same pattern has repeated itself over and over again now for quite a while, so I guess she must have gotten used to and quite good at predicting the things that I was going to ask of her, which makes me quite proud of her and her ability to embrace the role that she has been assigned in the Party.

 

We should definitely go to the Merchants Guild to pay Luke a visit and get the Skill Crystal from him, but I think we can do it all tomorrow.

 

For the time being, my immediate concern lies with preparing dinner for us. Since we’re going to be making the Whole Fish, I told Miria to simmer it with wine and the fish sauce, without adding sauce for the time being.

 

The dish that we are going to be making out of it today is going to be similar to a dish from the Mediterranean quisine of my old world, Aqua Pazza.

 

「Oh wow! This is really delicious!」

 

Since we’re going to be eating it today, I decided that now is as good of a time as any to show them how to use chopsticks. Although this Whole Fish had its fair share of fat to it, its texture was still incredibly firm, making it all so delicious that it was literally melting in my mouth after a single bite.

 

Delicious! Divine! Exquisite! As expected of a rare drop food item, its taste is a cut above any ordinary food that we could buy from the shop in the city. And I don’t think that I have to point out the obvious here, but it is also miles better than the White Fish Meat. In fact, I feel like the White Fish Meat cannot even begin to compare to the Whole Fish Meat.

 

Now that I had my first portion of the food, it was Roxanne and Sherry’s turn to try the boiled fish that Miria prepared.

 

「It is delicious.」

 

「Yes, this is tastier than any fish that you have made before!」

 

The both of them are digging into the boiled Whole Fish with the expression of absolute delight all over their faces. Their smiles are an absolute delight to watch. I am glad that I have decided to keep this Whole Fish instead of selling it, because if I did that, then I might have missed such a heartwarming sight.

 

「Can I have a little more?」

 

「Yes, desu.」

 

Throughout the entire meal, Miria was distributing the fish to whoever wanted to have some more of it.

 

I wonder if it was a bad call on my part to prepare the White Fish along with the Whole Fish for this dinner? Because We are all so engrossed in eating the whole fish that I feel like we might not even get to eating the White Fish.