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Over the Infinite – Chapter 3 (2)

 

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Translator: mii

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「Yuki, I’m hungry.」

「Eh, ehh? No way, this is a commemorative item since this is the first drop item I got.」

「Do you really want to keep it?」

「I’ll eat it. Tsuna can also just find some goblins over there and have them drop items, right?

…Ah, it’s delicious… not really. Rather, the rice ball tastes like it’s made randomly from cheap old rice. This is still luxury item outside this city, though.

Anyway, Tsuna, you are so much lunch, but you are already hungry?」

My eating portion was normal, but I was quick to digest.

When I saw someone eating food in front of me, I became very hungry.

「Mfufu, then I’ll give something good for Tsuna, nya.」

Chitta-san sidled up to me.

What was it? I wouldn’t be happy if she gave me cat powder.

I received the same card that Yuki got just now. However, what was written there was not the name and picture of “rice ball”.

「…『Roasted Goblin Meat』.」

It was a goblin meat. What, did I have some kind of fate with goblins?

Did I have to eat this even after I came to the Labyrinth City?

「In the lecture, they told us that goblin met have a bad taste.」

「If you roast it, it won’t be something that you can’t eat, nya. …It seems like it won’t, nya. It’s also treated as a ‘food’ too, nya. Now, now, Tsuna, if you’re hungry, have a bite, nya.

By the way, it’s the companion’s manual that recommends giving this to rookies, nya.」

Was it the manual? How much of a template the unpalatable goblin meat was?

「《 Materialize 》」

The card disappeared the moment I said that, and there was a drumstick that looked like chicken in an instant in my hand. But no matter what, it was a goblin meat.

Its appearance was not bad. It seemed like it was freshly roasted. There was a slight steam.

「The smell isn’t bad. It smells like a normal chicken leg that people sell at Christmas.」

「Hm.」

Then, I bit into it just like that.

As soon as I chewed it, the astringent and savory taste spread like a universe in my mouth. The texture was the worst. The moment it entered my mouth, the odor turned into a hazardous substance. The flavor penetrated and contaminated my organ just like wasabi.

There was also a subtle umami. It forcibly pushed into my sense, accentuating the original unappetizing taste of the meat and sublimating it into an even more hazardous substance.

This was a Z-class gourmet. I didn’t want to eat this even if someone paid me.

「Y-you didn’t hesitate at all, but how was it, nya? Actually, I have never eaten it, nya.」

「Yeah, it tastes bad. If I have anything else to eat, I will never eat this. But well, this is better than eating goblin raw. This is edible.」

It was roasted, and in terms of unsavoriness, eating it raw was -1000 points, and this had -500 points. By the way for the standard, aojiru had -3 points.

「Nya… nya? What kind of taste bud do you have, nya!? This is the taste that no one even knows how many adventurers have fainted after eating this!」

「Rather, Tsuna also said this in the lecture, but did you chew it raw?」

「I didn’t have anything to eat. I couldn’t help it. There was only a few minutes before it became rotten outside, so the best way was to chew it alive.」

Well, people would usually feel disgusted with that. Even if I was the one who did that, the image of biting into a living goblin was not something that could be shown to others.

I wouldn’t do that kind of thing if I was sane. This world truly pushed me to the limits.

「I finished eating it. Ahh, it tasted bad. If I defeated goblin and this came out, at least I wouldn’t starve in this dungeon.」

「H-how bad was it, nya? I guess it isn’t as bad as they said, nya. If it’s the same as the rumours, you won’t be able to eat it that calmly… nya.」

Her character was about to collapse.

「Okay, then Chitta-san should try eating it too.」

「Nyaaaa!!?」

Chitta-san made a face, like she was saying, “What is this stupid guy saying!?”

I could know that she was panicking just by looking at her expression. What an easy-to-understand cat ears.

「N-no way, I won’t do this punishment game-like thing, nya… Why do I have to do it anyway… Also, that’s right, I’m out of stock, nya.」

「「No, you’re lying.」」

Yuki and I said in harmony.

「What are you saying, nya! It’s a false accusation, nya!! There’s no one who carries goblin meat around… no one, nya.」

「No way, after all you…」

「It’s in the manual, right? So it’s normal for you to carry the participant’s share, isn’t it? This time the challengers are me and Yuki, so you will normally bring two…」

「Nya, i-it’s just a coincidence nya, I just happened to bring it, no, it’s… that’s not it, nya. This is Gobtarou’s plotting, nya!」

It suddenly became a conspiracy theory.

「Ah, yes yes, then I will go and defeat goblins, so if there is a goblin meat dropped, you have to take the challenge. It’s probably raw, though.」

「W-what are you saying, nya! That’s just stupid… What’s with this stupid development…」

Well, there was absolutely no reason for Chitta-san to eat it just because I ate it.

It was just that she was panicking so much that she stopped thinking, and I took advantage of that and played along.

But this cat was now acting like a small villain that was cornered in those dramas, so let’s keep pushing her just like this.

It was the best to push the culprit who was panicking by force. Don’t let her drink water or take a break.

「Ehh, I want to see Chitta-san’s~ good points~!!」

「Chug it, chug it!!」

When Yuki and I both cornered her like a drinking party in our previous life, she finally broke.

This cat was really the type that was easily going on with the flow.

「I-I understand, nya. I’ll eat it, nya. I understand already, so stop calling me like that, nya! I don’t really understand, but the pressure of being cornered is really impressive, nya.

…Actually, it was the clerk Gobtarou who handed me the same amount of meat with the number of people when I accepted this job, nya.」

Why was it Gobtarou again? I didn’t talk with him that much, but I felt like I had heard his name for a lot of times already today.

She slowly took out the card from her bosom, while acting like she was tortured by something.

I could hear the terrible conflict in her heart just by looking at her expression

Of course she had gotten used to it, and the leg meat appeared from the card without her saying anything.

「Well, it’s not a big deal, you know~ Look now, I was normal when I ate that, right? Everyone said that it was unpleasant and unpalatable, that’s why your imagination runs wild~」

「T-that’s right, nya. No matter what it is, calling it as ‘it’s a myriad times better to eat vomit than eating this’ is just exaggerating it, nya!」

「Waa~ I want to see how cool my senior is~」

Yuki and me encouraged her.

In this place, only I was the one who knew. That those public rumors were correct.

「O-okay, I’ll do it, nya. Here it is, nya.」

「Ah, we will do the countdown, okay?」

Maybe Yuki was going along with me since he drove Chitta-san into the corner persistently.

This guy really knew how to corner people. He was really reliable!

「Alright! Five~! Four~!」

As the performer, we started the countdown that made her unable to back out.

「Three~! Two~!」

Chitta-san was shaking with a pale face.

「One~!!」

We raised our voice, encouraging her.

「Zero~!!」

「Nyaaaaaaahhhーーー!!」

Even though she didn’t have to work that hard, Chitta-san opened her mouth and stuffed half of the meat in her hand.

It was normal until the moment she bit on it, and until then, it was a trap that would happen naturally.

「Nn, nnnhhhーーー!! Gahh, nyafwoahhh!!」

And then, the cat became a star.

－２－

「Ahh… This is really terrible. It’s even to the level where people will die because of the bad taste. Tsuna is amazing to eat this, huh. Not to say, with a calm face… Urgh…」

Leaving Chitta-san who was fainting down in agony, Yuki chewed the remaining goblin meat.

He probably was making an excuse that he had a little bit of it to avoid being blamed later if he was the only one that didn’t eat it. As expected, he stopped eating after one bite.

「Do you want to eat this?」

「No way, I don’t need it. No matter how hungry I am, I’ll exterminate the goblins until I get rice balls.」

「Right? Let’s bury this.」

Yuki started digging a hole with a scoop he took four from who knows where.

Or maybe it was a small shovel that could be gripped in one hand? Whichever was fine.

「There is also scoop in this world, huh.」

「I made this by myself. I don’t know how old scoop is on earth, but I could only find iron tools like pickaxe for digging holes.

I hanged around a blacksmith and asked him to help me make this. Well, even if I said I made this, I only helped on the design, but this scoop was very convenient.」

「I am unskillful. I can’t make anything, and if I try, the result is devastating.」

Even with weapons, I could only wipe the blood and dirt or adjust the grip. I was doubtful whether I could do proper maintenance. I also had never used grindstone.

I couldn’t make anything or become productive from my previous life. Whether it was comic books or games or novels, I was a total consumer.

However, he was also a person with overflowing vitality.

Even if he told me that it didn’t work well, but wasn’t almost all of the protagonists from reincarnation stories tried to do many things?

「Hey, what else did you try to make? Did you make those so-called reincarnation templates items?」

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