Chapter 49 – Departure Part 3
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Translator: SFBaka
Editor: Thor’s Stone
“Great. Now then, it’s time for a fishing competition! In this corner, we have the Sharon and Selena team. In this corner, we have the Cleria and Elna team. And I’ll be alright by myself. Take it as a handicap since I have prior fishing experience. Once someone manages to catch something, she’ll get replaced by the other member. The team with the largest fish caught wins.”
Each team only had one rod after all, so me being alone wasn’t much of a handicap, but it looks like they haven’t noticed.
With this, we’ll be able to enjoy fishing more.
We took some distance from one another and started to fish.
Whoah. It looks like Selena managed to land a fish straight away. Like I thought, these waters were quite deep. Selena cheered at her success. Hou, the fish she hooked seemed pretty big. Even if she was reeling the fish with all her might, I believe the rod and the line can take it. It wasn’t allowed for someone else to assist in reeling in the fish during the competition after all. Since it was getting dark, there wasn’t enough time for us to fish.
I’m not landing any hits yet huh. Oh, this time, it was Cleria who got a bite. She’s also reeling it in with all her might. I’m gonna switch areas.
This time, it was Sharon. She also seems to have landed something rather large. Then, Elna managed to land one as well. It was a double hit.
Ugh. It’s no use. It’s getting pretty dark already, and since it looks like I’m gonna have to cook a lot of fish dishes for dinner, I guess we should wrap things up.
Elna took the most time to reel in her catch, and it turned out that she got the largest of the bunch. It’s actually a salmon that surpasses a meter in length.
“Ehem. And the winner for the party’s first fishing tournament is the Cleria and Elna team. The runner up is the Selena and Sharon team.”
Cleria and Elna seemed really happy about their win.
Selena, Cleria, and Sharon’s salmon were all about eighty centimeters in length, so it was a bit difficult to judge who one out against the other.
By the way, my trout was a measly fifty centimeters.
“Right then. I’ll go ahead and prepare dinner.”
“Fishing is really fun, isn’t it, Alan? I want to do it again if possible,” Cleria happily exclaimed.
“Yeah… And next time, I won’t lose!”
I started filleting the fish on the riverbank. Except for what I caught, the rest of the fish were pretty big, so preparing them felt great.
The girls were still not over their excitement from the fishing tournament as they started gathering firewood to make a bonfire. We brought several light-producing magic tools, but a bonfire was still brighter.
Now then, let’s think about the menu.
I’ll make canapes by putting thin slices of cheese, salmon sashimi, and mayonnaise on top of lightly toasted bread slices. I’ll season them with some salt and pepper as well.
Next, I’ll make salt-grilled salmon and trout.
Then, I’ll cook up some salmon meuniere
Then, we’ll have some bread on the side.
That should do it. It was also possible to place the salmon meuniere between bread slices and spread mayonnaise on it. That’s pretty good too.
Since we managed to get some fresh fish, I wanted to try making some salmon sushi, but since it’s already becoming dark outside, there was no time. I’ll just try it next time.
We also brought a folding table and some folding chairs with us, so we brought them out and set them up.
It was already quite dark when we finished preparing dinner.
But we placed two light magic tools on top of the table, and four around the sides of our makeshift dining area. With the light from the bonfire added, our surroundings were pretty bright.
“Let’s go ahead and dig in then.”
“They all look delicious!” Sharon exclaimed.
“They don’t really resemble dishes eaten while at camp.” Elna commented.
First, let’s try the canapes. Mm. It was pretty good. The combination of the fatty salmon meat and cheese was perfect. The mayonnaise added depth to the overall flavor. The crisp texture of the toasted bread also enhanced the taste.
“I can’t believe it! So raw fish can also taste this good!?” Elna exclaimed.
Cleria already tried these, so she wasn’t surprised at all.
The salt-grilled salmon was pretty standard stuff, so there were not many excited reactions over it. They liked it all the same though. The crispy skin was really nice.
I tried the salmon meuniere sandwich I thought of earlier and placed some lettuce between two slices of bread, followed by the salmon and some mayo. It was pretty good. Everyone else ended up copying me as well.
“I feel that the dishes are made more delicious by the fact that we caught them ourselves.” Cleria pointed out.
Everyone else agreed with her statement. Well, I did manage to catch a fish myself, so I guess I can share the feeling too, somehow.
It was a really fulfilling dinner overall. We didn’t manage to finish them all, so we’ll leave the rest for breakfast tomorrow.
We then drank some after-meal tea and made small talk.
“Elna-san, what kind of magic is earth magic?” Sharon asked.
Oh yeah! There was that kind of magic too. Cleria wasn’t familiar with it, and I failed to learn it through the Magic Guild in the end. It seems it was quite a rare type of magic.
“I also haven’t gotten opportunities to meet people who can cast earth magic spells that much myself, and I only have one experience of seeing earth magic being cast in person. It was during a military drill between different regiments. A company of military mages made a pitfall using earth magic at that time.”
“That sounds like some amazing magic! I wonder what happens to the soil that gets displaced in the process of making that pitfall though. Don’t tell me it disappears?”
“It doesn’t. The soil and dirt swell out and eventually pile up around the completed pitfall.” Elna explained.
“Hm. But it still sounds amazing. It seems like it’s a pretty convenient magic type, so why isn’t it widely used?”
“According to what I heard, there aren’t many people who can manage to learn it even after reading the corresponding magic tome. And there’s also the fact that, apart from service in the military, there’s no chance for people to make a living if all they can do is dig holes and pitfalls.”
Hm, I see. But it sounds pretty useful for building construction and digging graves for cemeteries though. Maybe it’s due to the amount of soil and dirt a single mage can dig out by him or herself then?
“How large was the pitfall you saw that day, Elna?”
“If I remember correctly, it was four meters at all sides, and had a depth of two meters.”
“And how many people were required to make such a hole?”
“About twenty people.”
“Can they make an even bigger hole than that?”
“Well, I’m not sure, honestly. I just happened to come across it by coincidence that one time after all.”
I see. They managed to move quite a lot of earth, but since twenty people were needed to do that, it wasn’t as impressive as it first seemed. But I still want to learn earth magic after all. There might be an opportunity to learn it in the future. I’ll look out for it then.
When we finished cleaning up after the meal, there wasn’t much else to do, so we decided to go to sleep. We planned to wake up once dawn breaks tomorrow and continue on our way after having a quick breakfast.
“Alan, what is the order for lookout duty?” Elna asked.
“We don’t need any lookouts. I will be able to wake up once my scanning magic picks up any monsters that come close, then I’ll be able to warn everyone, and we’ll be able to prepare for whatever comes.”
“What!? …Is that true?”
“It’s true, Elna. During our journey from Talas village to Gotania city, Alan always woke up every time monsters approached even if he was deep asleep,” Cleria assured.
“Haa… I understand. Even so, that sounds awfully convenient.”
Elna made a deep sigh for some reason.
With this, our first day of traveling came to an end.
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