Chapter 22 – Cooking and Imagination
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We obtained boar meat and decided to eat it together, but…
“By the way, how do you actually eat boar meat?”
“Boar stew?” Chiyu asked while tilting her head.
“Oh, I see,” I answered, but I had never boar stew before.
Maybe I just need to imagine a regular stew?
“Before any of that, Sousuke-kun, would you be so kind to tell me about the food we have currently on hand?” Shion asked with a serious expression.
Using the hair band she had with her during the transfer, she tied her hair into a bun. She looked cute with her hair down, but her tying up her hair didn’t look any worse either.
“R-Roger.”
I manifested the somewhat bigger wooden table for cooking and placed the ingredients on it. Shion went around, checking all of them.
“Ah…! We got kombu. That means we’ll be able to make soup stock with this.”
Looking at the ingredient Shion picked up, I supplemented, “That’s the one Chiyu gathered at the beach, isn’t it?”
While I was felling trees, Chiyu was going along the broad beach with a basket on her back and picked up stuff for us. The currently big stock of shells was also picked up by Chiyu back then.
“It drifted ashore.”
“Since 『Inventory』 has also flagged it as 『Edible』, it’s okay.”
“Yep. Besides, because it has likely become clean after getting stored by you, Sousuke-kun, we can use it without worries.”
“I see. Still, soup stock, eh? If fish also appear, we might become able to make katsuobushi.”
“Oh, nice! Sousuke-kun, your ability is truly all-purpose and superb.”
Shion frolicked. She made it pretty clear that she likes to cook.
“『As expected, Sou-kun』.”
I was also praised by Chiyu with a wording which was in the process of becoming a standard.
“As a Japanese, I feel a craving for soy sauce or miso as well, but…”
Assuming we can make these, I wonder how long it’ll take until we’ll be able to obtain the ingredients on this island. You can get salt from the sea, so if we can obtain soy beans for starters, a path will open up, I guess…?
After all, my Crafting Ability takes care of the complicated manufacturing process for me.
“Right. I think it’ll be a stew with a rather simple taste. Judging by those ingredients, we can also add the mushrooms. This time we’ll be going with those, but if we can find some veggies during our future explorations, I think the pot will also look a bit better.”
“Oohh~”
We had a light breakfast, but hearing Shion talk about the hot pot made me hungry.
“Also, grilled meat that can be eaten with salt might be nice as well.”
“Barbecue!”
“We have no netting, so are we going to frill it on a stone?”
“Leave it to me. I’ll create something usable.”
“Hehe, please take care of it. This is going to be an early lunch. So let’s have grilled boar meat for dinner, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
“No objection here.”
Chiyu audibly slurped her saliva back up.
“Say, Sousuke-kun, can you create a kitchen stove?”
“Oh, it’d definitely be handy to have one of those.”
Being told so by Shion, I checked my recipes. It looks like I can make it. Since I didn’t see it yesterday, you can probably say that the perception of whether you can make something counts as one of the conditions for unlocking a recipe.
Given that there are also recipes which will be added even without me imagining them, the discovery of raw materials is definitely a crucial part.
With that said, I’m going to make a kitchen stove. Because it’s basically a container to make the heating power converge, I just need to surround the fire. Of course, it also needs a hole to add the fuel.
I still had plenty of building stones in my stock, so the creation was easy enough.
Anyway, stones sure are convenient… If I find rocks in the future, I’ll actively go for 『Itemizing』 them.
After finishing the production, I deployed it.
“Whoa, thanks!”
A smile blossomed on Shion’s face, almost as if her face was surrounded by twinkling stars.
“Right back at you. I know next to nothing about cooking, so it’s a big help for you to handle that side.”
I ignited the fire at once and manifested an earthenware pot as well as a casket full of water for the sake of making boar stew.
“It makes me happy to hear that since it seems like I’m finally useful to you in some way,” Shion muttered cheerfully.
I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to mind it so much, but she might feel bad about not being as helpful as the others. I mean, Shion’s ability is kind of plain when compared to the cheat abilities of the others. Though it’d be extremely powerful, if we should ever get in contact with another group or some such.
“Sou-kun, I can also cook to some extent.”
“Ahaha, I know.”
Chiyu occasionally cooked together with my Mom and she also made a bento for me many times. It’s just, cooking with ingredients obtained in the wild and cooking normally at home are totally different.
“Ugh…if only we had eggs, I could make the rolled omelets you love so much, Sou-kun…,” Chiyu clenched her fists in frustration while keeping her usual expression.
Talking about ingredients seemed to make Shion quite happy.
“Wow, that looks so delicious.”
“Chicken can also be seen as chicken 『meat』, so maybe they’ve been dispatched on this island?”
I grunted at Chiyu’s remark.
“It’s unclear whether they’ve dispatched animals, which can be domesticated, for us.”
In the first place, the power to dispatch beasts on an island all of a sudden is weird, so I wouldn’t be surprised if cattle also appeared in nature here.
“If they did, we’re going to catch and keep them.”
“I think it’s possible.”
“Ah…!”
Shion suddenly raised her voice when we were all cutting the boar meat in thin slices with stone knives.
“W-What’s wrong?”
“You see, yesterday you had Shouko-chan summon sheep, didn’t you?”
“So I did.”
Thanks to that, we got plenty of wool, allowing us to sleep warm and comfy.
“And the reaped fur didn’t disappear, right? Then, what about milk?”
“I see. Milk…ah!”
I didn’t realize it because cow milk is usually meant whenever you speak of milk.
“How does sheep milk taste?”
“Umm, I drank it only once in the past, but…it’s thick? Rich? You can’t drink a lot of it, but it seems to have a lot of nutrients, so I’d be glad if we could get some.”
“I want some as well, but I think it’s questionable whether we’ll be able to get it through this method. The meat of the summoned creatures was flagged as unusable for consumption, right? I wonder whether milk would be judged to be collecting material like the fur was.”
“If we go by our experiences so far, Shouko-chan’s recognition of it plays the key role, I think.”
“Right. I guess we can talk to her about it, once she comes back.”
“Oki, let’s do that.”
And just then, at the perfect moment, Shouko showed up.
“Pheew, Mino-rin said she can handle the rest herself. Sousuke, please store Mino-rin’s clothes.”
Shouko placed the dressing basket next to me.
“Sure, good work. By the way, Shouko…,” I called out to her while putting the basket into my Inventory.
“What’s up?”
I asked her with slight impatience in my voice, “Can I collect some milk?”
Shouko froze for a second and then became bright red.
“HUUH!? WHAT!? Are you harassing me!?”
And then she crossed her arms in front of her voluptuous chest to cover them.
“Ahaha, Sousuke-kun…,” Shion smiled wryly.
“Shortened it too much,” Chiyu pointed out calmly.
“Ah, that’s not what I meant! Sorry! Just now we were discussing whether it’d be possible to get some sheep milk…!”
I explained in a hurry. It’s good that Shijiyo isn’t here. Otherwise she’d have likely scolded me for being indecent.
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