Chapter 423: Inside the Treasure Chest & Charcoal Grilled Meat
Naturally, I [Appraised] the treasure chest first.
“Well, there are no traps on it, so…”
I still carefully tip the lid open with the point of my spear. It opened with a thump.
When nothing happened, we looked inside.
Nestled within the chest was a pendant. It looked like a rainbow opal set within a frame made with an intricate silver geometric design.
Well, the chest was safe but, hmm…
[Dispelling Pendant… A magic item that invalidates any magic, once]
“This is…” I swallowed.
““Oi, what is it?”” Dora-chan crowded over to look.
“”Not meat…”” said Sui sadly.
“It’s some kind of magic dispelling pendant,” I said.
“”I guess that’s useful?”” said Dora-chan.
“”Umu, it could nullify any spell, regardless of strength, once.””
All three of my familiars looked at me.
“Wear it.”
“”A wonderful trinket for the c-cautious guy,”” Dora-chan cackled.
“You…” don’t think I don’t know what you’re planning to say first!
“”It’s pretty~~””
Even though I have several Blessings (small), it came with the caveat of ‘…unless it is an instant death or a very strong spell, it should be enough to nullify it.’ [5a]
Right now, I have a counter for one of them.
“Fufufu,” you bet I put on that pendant immediately! [5a]
Please read this at dot com ~
We left the nest and continued to explore the rest of the forest with Sui shooting down any monster that got in our way.
Aside from the obviously insect type insects with six legs and carapaces, there were Venom Tarantulas, Giant Centipedes and some weird slimy monsters that should really be banished away for the sake of decent people’s eyes.
Ugh, I get the chills just looking at them, but luckily Sui just happily blasted them out of existence.
Anyway, the further we get from the nest, the more beast-type monster we encountered. I was able to collect some skin and meat Drops for once on this floor.
A short while later, it was time for dinner.
And since there was no one on this floor…
“Right, what do you guys want for dinner?”
“Minotaur meat.”
“”Yeah! That!!””
“”Meaty~””
“That again? Hm… what should I do… Gigantic Minotaur is basically lean red meat, so steak is the most obvious choice, but… hold on, since we’re ‘outdoors’ right now, how about a barbecue?”
The more I thought about it, the more excited I became.
“Fufufu, that’s right, let’s have a charcoal grilled BBQ day~” I sang as I took out the necessary equipment and ingredients.
The dwarf made barbecue grill, of course, and meat, some salt and pepper…
[8]
First, after setting some charcoal on fire and leaving them to burn down to embers, I cut the meat down to fairly thick strips. The plan is to do something like a high-end grilling, with meat cut down to about two bite sizes each with salt and pepper on standby to season it.
Once the meat was cut, I gave the fire a little more encouragement before scattering it into an even layer. Then, I placed a layer of new charcoal over the embers. This way, the fire would last longer, not be too hot and less prone to flare-ups.
When the fire looked stable, I replaced the net over the barbecue stove and started putting a layer of meat on it.
Ahhh…. There’s nothing more beautiful than the sight of nicely arranged meat on a hot grilling net~~
Soon, the sizzling sound of grilling meat was heard and the delicious smell of cooking meat rose.
Tssss…
Fat dripping off the meat caused a few flare ups. However, since the meat was pretty lean, it was still manageable.
I turned the meat and scattered some salt and pepper over them.
Just a bit more, just a bit, and it should be done. Red meat did not have to be cooked through, luckily…
…Because Fer was now drooling into my stove!
Tssss…
“Fer you disgusting beast! That’s gross!”
“Slurrp, huh? What? No, I’m not.”
“Eww, your drool just fell into the stove, shoo! Shoo!”
“Mu…”
He sounded belligerent, but at least he backed away.
[5b] The rest were also drooling or just standing there mesmerized by the sizzling meat.
I even have to wave my spatula against Fer at least once when I caught him breathing heavily over my shoulder, eww, I think he dropped a bit of drool on my shoulder.
Anyway, instead of elegantly turning each piece of meat with tongs, I opted to use the spatula and do a quick scoop and flip to speed up the cooking process. Once all the meat had been flipped…
“Is it done yet?”
“”Eat~?””
Smack!
“”Oww!””
“Back off Dora-chan, it’s not like I hit you that hard,”
“Yeah, back off, Dora,” Fer rumbled.
“”Meat~~””
While the meat was on its last sizzle, I took out my familiars’ bowls and began scooping up meat into them. After a final sprinkling of salt and pepper…
“There, dinner is served.”
Silence as all three familiars dived into their meal while I placed more steak strips on the stove. I had just done laying the meat onto the grill when Fer called out, “Hey, where’re my seconds.”
“I’m making them now. You can either wait, or you can eat it raw,” I said sternly.
“Gununu,”
“Well?”
“Fine, I’ll wait.”
When the second batch of Charcoal Grilled Steak Strips was ready, I scooped them into their bowls. This time, I said, “You want salt or steak sauce?”
“Mu, the garlic sauce.”
“”Same! That sauce is awesome!””
“”Sui too~””
I splashed on the garlic steak sauce over their steak strip mountain.
Ahh, I’d love to have one too, so I sneaked one for myself.
Oooff, that was good~~
Anyway, onto the next batch of meat, and the next and the next…
We had steak strips with onion sauce, butter sauce and a soy sauce based sauce.
Dora-chan ate so much that he was now splayed on the ground, his rounded stomach very obvious as the rest of his limbs starfished out.
“More!”
“”Sui wants more too~””
These two are too scary…
Luckily, they have at least slowed down a bit.
I had been sneaking the odd bite here and there, but I really want a whole steak to myself. Therefore, while the last two were nibbling at their food, I slapped on a decent size steak on the grill just for myself. Not a strip of steak, but a whole piece, hehe.
Once it was done, I took it out. After letting it rest for a bit, I cut into it and, instead of splashing on steak sauce, I touched the piece of steak into some wasabi salt. Woah, juicy! Spicy! Savoury!
“This is… really super, incredible, delicious!”
The pungent wasabi sensation blew through my nose. It was a perfect match for the super juicy and savoury steak.
“This is crazy delicious, I feel like I could keep on eating it forever!”
After three more pieces of wasabi salt dipped steaks, I switched to the lemon salt.
“Woah, it’s refreshing in a different way! Since it’s not in sauce form, the taste of meat is intense as well. Umu, it’s hard for me to decide which one is better…”
Suddenly, I felt a gaze boring into the back of my neck.
“Oi, what’s that?”
“Uh, it’s wasabi salt and lemon salt?”
“It goes well with the meat?”
“Yes, it matches the meat very well.
“Then why didn’t you give me any with the salt? Give me some now!”
“”Sui too~~””
“Ah, fine, fine,”
Even Dora-chan rolled over to eat a few more pieces of steak thanks to the new seasonings.
As for the dungeon challenge, what dungeon challenge?
We are now on a BBQ picnic feasting on Gigantic Minotaur Meat!
Big Delete Chapter: End point 1280
Gumihou: I know you guys probably won’t believe me, but I actually added a lot more detail into this chapter
Fer: How can you add details and yet delete close to 500 words
Dora-chan: Yeah! I don’t believe you!
Gumihou: … more words does not equal more details. In fact, if any of you dear readers are a fan of the Last Airbender and Zuko in particular (but don’t like Aang’s flightiness) I recommend Embers by Vathara. You can find their work at Ao3. It’s over 400,000 words and there is not a single superfluous word in it.
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information… starting to delete pointless scenes now
[a] Shorten ramblings re the Blessing (small) and how happy he is about getting the pendant
[b] Deleted ‘Is it ready yet’ scene and replacing it with Fer’s weird drooling scene.
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken – Gumi basically took over the BBQ grilling thing, since author still doesn’t quite seem to understand it. Also, utilise some Fire Magic on the stove, because that is totally what I would use my Fire Magic for.