Chapter 45: CH 45

We walked alongside the river towards the depths of the forest. There’s no sharp inclines, so it was a relatively smooth journey. Even if the previous expeditions were only conducted twice a year, there were tracks of humans passing through, so it was easier to walk than I thought.

「 Okay, time for lunch. 」

「 We’ve covered a lot of ground, huh. It’s great that the weather is nice. 」

Dean and Retze commented.

We take a break by the riverside, and we have our own bento that we brought for lunch. Well, even if it’s bento, most of them just eat meat sandwiched in ordinary bread.

「 I’ll go for a bathroom break and will gather some firewood on the way. 」

I took my baggage.

It’ll only be a burden if a monster attacks us here and we get scattered around. Well, the others are wearing shoulder bags, so they’ll probably leave this mountain of a bag behind.

Chris and Retze were left behind, keeping an eye on the belongings and clearing up the place so they could make a campfire, and they also picked up firewood within the vicinity.

Bears venture around this place, but the other monsters don’t come around this area, so everyone is minding his or her own business; but once we go to the forest depths, we’ll be moving with either Chris or Dean.

「 Riche. 」

I did request to have free time during the early morning, but it’ll be troublesome if they’re going to treat that as if it is nothing and insist on sticking with me. I finished with the toilet business and diligently picked up the firewood.

Oh? I found some wild asparagus. The purplish, slender sprouts stretched out from the ground. They’re growing pretty well, even if they’re only as thick as half of my pinky finger. Butler lamented that we could have picked those Asperge sauvage if we had come a little later. I asked him about the characteristics, and apparently, it’s a different type from the normal asparagus, so now I wonder what kind of taste it has. They’re in season around April, so that’s still a long way off. I think I’m gonna look for it then.

I also found some butterburs. They use the leaves of this plant to wrap butter when selling them. It’s also effective for migraine, nasal congestion, hay fever, and irritated bladder, but they also have some side effects like acute hepatitis and liver failure, according to good ol’ Appraisal.

Whoa, that was dangerous, and here I was thinking about tempura made from butterbur stalks. Retreat, retreat — I should be satisfied with asparagus this time around.

A campfire was already set up when I returned to the place earlier, and Butler was boiling water. I was the last one to arrive. Our firewood will be enough, excluding nighttime, if everyone gathered a little bit at a time, considering the number of people currently here.

「 I’m back. 」

I put the wood I gathered at the spot where they piled the firewood, then I took out my bento bundle.

Although it’s a bit better thanks to the coat, and moving around helped, it was still way too cold. I want some soup and tea to warm up my body. Well, that’s the reason why Butler is boiling water, I guess.

「 Is this for tea? 」

「 Yes, that’s right. 」

I also brought my pot out and boiled some water, then added some of the dried chicken and onion, tossed some shiitake mushrooms, then salt and pepper to taste.

I already dried and diced the mushrooms and onions, so there’s no need to cut it up, and I can also easily shred the chicken with my bare hands. I left it as it is, and opened my bento.

The different sandwiches with cutlets, eggs, cheese and ham, sautéed mushroom and beef and were wrapped in oil paper. I also have deep-fried chicken, which is still good even if it’s cold.

「Your lunch seems excessively delicious……」

「You can have some. I made a bit too much, and it won’t keep, too.」

I used an entire loaf of bread so there are two of each type, so I can’t finish everything on my own. I thought I can still eat it at dinner, but I already took some asparagus.

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「…Wait a sec, all of you!?」

Hands stretched towards me from all directions, and each of them took a piece. This won’t be enough for me at this rate! Well, I can just eat my fried chicken.

「How inexplicably soft!」

Chris shouted — he got the egg sandwich. The bread here is either hard or dry, right. Not sure if it’s because you’re supposed to eat it while putting a lot of olive oil in it…or, maybe because they assume it’ll be easier to store.

Plus, it also depends on the variety and quality of wheat, right? Well, their priority here was to get their calories from food without wasting any bit of it,.

「 I like my bread hard, but this meat is really good, huh. 」

「 I agree that it’s tasty. 」

「 What is this stuff that’s covering it? 」

「 Breadcrumbs. 」

Dean and Ash are eating the cutlet sandwich. They have breadcrumbs here, too. To be more precise, they would dry the hard bread under the sun to make it harder, then they would pulverize it coarsely and then boil it to cook some of the dishes. I’ve never seen them do something else other than that method, though.

「 Breadcrumbs, is it? 」

「 Actually, you dip the pork in a batter made by mixing egg and flour. After that, you cover it with breadcrumbs, then you fry it. 」

I replied to Butler, who seemed like he wanted to make it.

People usually cook on the stoves here, so fried foods aren’t rare. There are also thinly sliced pork, similar to the cutlets you fry in a pan, so it doesn’t mean they’re totally unfamiliar with it.

Thick pork roast, coarse breadcrumbs — it’s crunchy after frying, and the meat is juicy. You can set the cutlet aside for a day, then sandwich it between bread. Pour the sauce over so that both bread and pork are moistened. The pork is crunchy when you sink your teeth in it, you can hear the crackling when you bite it off.

It’s probably harder to make oyster sauce, I thought to myself. I【 Teleport 】to buy oysters, but I’m not sure if it’s something they could get their hands on in this place. Rather than that, they probably didn’t even know oysters existed, huh.

It’s not easy to travel around this world, and raw cuisine is unheard of. Plus, you need money to move ー when you enter a territory governed by a different lord, when you pass through the gates, when you cross a bridge — all of them require a toll.

Those adventurers ranked silver and above, as well as merchants, are generally exempt from toll fees aside from those paid to enter a city, but it still depends on who the ruler is at that place, it seems. The adventurers are also taxed if they hunted monsters and kept their numbers in check, and there are also cases when the price would still vary even if it’s the same feudal lord.

In other words, most of the lords exploited the commoners within an inch of their lives. They’re probably worried that breadwinners, who are their precious tax payers, would move to another city, so they tied the peasants and farmers to the field.

I drank the soup while eating my fried chicken.

「 This is also tasty. 」

「 Is this chicken? 」

「 This is also fried in oil, huh.」

Dean and Ash were the ones who kept on commenting about the food. Butler also kept on asking about the recipe. Chris and Retze stayed silent halfway through, busy with stuffing their cheeks and chewing. It was a bit scary how their eyes seemed unfocused.

I anticipated that we have a long journey ahead of us, so I packed the food and also brought a lot of seasonings like salt and pepper, garlic and ginger, fish sauce and a bit of brandy. The fish sauce was a byproduct from the anchovies.

I got a cheat called【 Teleport 】; still, I only brought the food made from ingredients that I see around here for the time being. Plus, I decided not to mind the quality too much — after all, the corn was different, so even if I tried to mimic my『 Food Storage 』, it was a far cry from the real deal. I could keenly feel the difference.

Anyway, yup, this dish won’t stand a chance against freshly fried food, but it’s still delicious.

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