The calm after the storm that was Elland-san was a great relief.
Fer immediately laid down on a nice fluffy rug and took a nap. As for the dragons, after spending a bit of time venting and dissing about the creepiness of ‘That Weird Old Elf’, they too began to relax.
Apparently, one of the questions Elland-san kept throwing at Grandpa Gon was about other dragons of similar sizes and what they have in common. Well, Grandpa Gon might be a dragon, but even he did not have the answer to all of the old Elf’s questions.
As for me, I was contemplating what to cook for our next meal.
Hmm, we’d been having all kinds of steaks and stews and heavy meaty dishes (as usual). However, I feel like having a change of pace…
That’s right, I have this special Sui-made mincer.
Why don’t we make a minced meat dish?
Not a burger patty or menchi katsu, but a proper minced meat dish.
While I was browsing through my [Item Box] Sui was swaying next to me, “”Aruji~~ Aruji~~ Sui is very free now~~ Sui wants to help~~””
“Oh my, of course, I’m happy to have Sui with me~~” ahhh, hearing Sui’s sweet voice cured some of the cloying and completely uncute ‘~~~’ from Elland-san.
“”Yay~~ Sui will help~~””
Ah, my sweet Sui-tan~~
We adjourned to the kitchen and I took out the Mithril Mincer.
“”Sui made this~~””
“Indeed, Sui did a very good job making this~~” I complimented her. “We’ll be making something with this today~”
“”Yay~~ Umm, what will Sui do~?””
“Right, when I put the meat up here, Sui help me to turn the handle like this, alright?”
““Okay~~””
[1a] Several huge bowls of minced Dungeon Pork and Dungeon Beef later.
“”No more meat in~~?””
“No, this is plenty for the next few meals. If we run out, could Sui help me again?”
“”Yay~~ Sui will help~~””
“Good Sui, I’m going to start cooking now, you can go rest in the living room with the others, okay?”
““Okay~””
Once Sui has bounced away, I contemplated the bowls of minced meat.
“Well, I have my mince, now what should I do with them?” my eyes trailed over the bowls of minced meat lining the bench to the corner of the table where large sacks of vegetables were piled up.
Alban’s fields have been yielding harvests every day and today was no exception.
I looked through the sacks and found potatoes, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes and green peppers…. Some of these vegetables were things that Alban had never seen before and he wanted my advice on how to cook them.
My hand touched something glossy and firm. I found myself holding a dark purple eggplant. It looked really fresh and crisp, making my mouth water just looking at it.
“Eggplant… maybe a slightly spicy Mabo Eggplant would be nice. Yes, Mabo Eggplant on rice would be just the thing. I could easily adjust the amount of minced meat for the meat, meat, meat lovers… yes, let’s make Mabo Eggplant Don.”
Now that I have decided on the recipe, time to pick out the extra ingredients needed from [Net Super]. Let’s see, I’ll need doubanjiang [2], sweet soy sauce, fresh garlic, ginger, chicken stock and some Hawk’s Claw Peppers [3]…
I did consider using a storebought Mabo Eggplant sauce base, but since I want to adjust the spiciness level, it’s better to season the food myself.
Naturally, this was all for Sui’s sake.
“Right, let’s do this.”
First, prepare the eggplant and green peppers. Generally, I’d cut the eggplants long-wise, but since Alban’s eggplants are nice and fat, I cut them into half-moons about 1cm thick. The large green peppers were cut to a size that was similar to the half-moon pieces.
Next, mince the garlic and ginger.
For the seasoning, I mix chicken stock granules with doubanjiang, sweet soy sauce, and regular soy sauce with a little sugar and water. As for the chilli peppers, just use however many according to the spice level that you like.
Now that the prep work has been done, it’s time to get cooking!
First, heat the oil in a large frying pan. Stir-fry the eggplants first, when the eggplants started to change colour, add the bell peppers. Once everything had been thoroughly cooked through, remove from the oil.
In the same pan of oil, heat up the minced garlic and ginger. If there isn’t enough oil, just add a bit more sesame oil. Once the garlic and ginger are fragrant, add the minced Dungeon Pork.
Stir the minced meat, breaking it up into bits until it has browned nicely before adding the seasoning. Let everything boil together for a bit. Add a little more hot water if it looks like it’s drying up.
Once the meat stew was done, add the eggplants and green peppers back and simmer them together.
As a final touch, stir in some potato starch dissolved in water to thicken it a little. And it’s done!
For Sui who dislikes spicy food, this one was for her. I’ll be making some moderately spicy and fairly spicy versions of this dish. Personally, I have a hankering for something a little spicier~~
After cooking Mabo Eggplants with varying levels of spiciness, I dished up freshly cooked rice… well, cooked rice that’s been kept in my very convenient time stop [Item Box] into bowls and topped them with the lovely, savoury and very meaty Mabo Eggplant.
“Right, Mabo Eggplant Rice Bowl with plenty of minced meat is done.”
[4]
“It’s about time.”
“Eep! I mean, what are you- Fer, you scared me!”
“Master is an easily scared Master…”
“Humph, do you guys want your dinner or not?”
There was a general grumbling from the two larger monsters while the other two fluttered or bounced about happily.
“Today’s dinner is Mabo Eggplant Rice Bowl.”
[4a] “Eggplant? This plant comes from eggs? How curious,” said Grandpa Gon.
“Don’t be stupid, there’s no such thing. There are no eggs in eggplant,” Fer grumbled. “What a waste of a plant.”
“The plant itself looks like a purple egg,” I explained. “That’s why it’s called an eggplant.”
“”That’s the most boring reason ever,”” Dora-chan said between bites of his food.
“”Can Sui have eggs with eggplant?”” Sui asked.
“”Hey! I want eggs too!””
“Umu, same.”
“If Master would oblige…”
“…sure, but why don’t you have the Mabo Eggplant as is first? It’s made with Dungeon Pork you know?”
Fer made a face at the sight of the green peppers but ate his portion anyway.
In fact, [1b] everyone ate their portions without complaint. The general consensus was ‘It’s spicy, but delicious~’. In fact…
“Mumumu, it’s good, but I could take spicier food.”
“If you like it a little spicier, I can add this chilli oil into your next portion.”
“Humph, do it.”
“Alright.”
Seconds came and went, and so did the thirds, fourths and so forth.
In fact, I think everyone was eating… more?
Ah, that’s right, spicy food could stimulate the appetite. What was I thinking…?
Anyway, time to serve myself.
“Hohoho, and now for a generous splash of chilli oil~~ Fuhah! Spicy! Yummy!!” It was really spicy, but I found myself stuffing my cheeks with more rice and Mabo Eggplant.
“Huff, tea, tea,” I searched my [Item Box] for the bottle of cold tea and downed it all in one go.
“That was delicious~~”
“Oi, more, more chilli oil.”
“I’d like a splash.”
“”Seconds!””
“”Seconds for Sui~~””
As we enjoyed the spicy sensation of Mabo Eggplant Rice Bowl, we eventually forgot about that crazy elf who had descended on us like a whirlwind.
The next two weeks.
While I did ask the guards to keep an eye on Elland-san to make sure he stays put with them and takes his meals at their place, well, he’s an S Ranker, dragon-obsessed creep, so…
There were issues.
[5]
Like, him looking in through windows while we were resting in the living room, from the shadows of trees when we stepped out into the garden, him looking through windows while we were resting in the bedrooms of the upstairs floor!!
It was a complete violation of our privacy!!
Honestly, if I haven’t threatened him with ‘If you set foot into this house at all, you will never see Grandpa Gon or Dora-chan again!!’ I’d probably see him under the bed or hidden in the corners of our ceiling…
Shiver.
Yeah, nope, nope.
Thankfully, Fer and Sui were very diligent in spotting the creepy elf, and together, we drove him away from our fellow dragon friends.
I must say, the dynamic of our party improved tremendously in these two weeks as we united against the creepy elf.
Fer and Sui would normally say something about wanting to go hunting by the second day of being cooped up, but nobody said anything this time. I think we are all perfectly aware that if we set out to hunt, a certain golden-haired creepy shadow will follow us…
[5]
Well, to be fair, they did say something about ‘ah, I want to go hunting~~’ but it was just a small vent, with most of the frustration aimed at our creepy guest.
After that, their attempts at repelling the old creepy elf… became just a tad more vicious…
Still, humans (and non-human creatures apparently) are adaptive beings. After the tension of the first few days of non-stop waiting, watching and repelling, it became… boring.
Thus, to entertain my familiars, I bought Reversi [6] from [Net Super] and taught everyone the simple rules. Everyone soon got addicted to it.
In fact, the Fer vs Grandpa Gon battle had been going on for some time now.
Unfortunately, Grandpa Gon and Fer’s limbs were too large to flip over the game pieces. [7] I think Fer is trying to manipulate his Wind Magic to flip the black and white pieces, but it was difficult to flip just one piece in the middle of many pieces, and after scattering two sets of boards, I banned all magic and set myself to be the piece turner instead.
It got boring and scary very fast due to the tension between these two titans.
Ahhh, it can’t be helped.
I would rather they battle over a boardgame than stomp all over my house.
Speaking of which, I only left the house once with Sui. [7] Dora-chan took over my job as the Reversi-piece-turner while I was at the Adventurer’s Guild.
Why was I at the Adventurer’s Guild?
Well, I had all these Zatorog fur and things which I could not realistically sell. Since the local King had been so obliging to my presence in Carelina I asked Willem-san to send the Zlatorog fur, and a set of emerald jewellery that included a ring, necklace, and brooch, as a tribute to him.
I had meant to do this earlier, but then the attack of the creepy elf came and everything was pushed to the side.
For some reason, Willem-san sighed at the sight of the Brixt dungeon loot. “You have brought a bunch of outrageous items again…”
[8]
“Ahaha, apologies…” I said.
“No, no, I mean, it’s rare for someone like me to even see something like Zlatorog fur, let alone touch it… anyway, I shall keep these safe for now. Since Ugor-san will be here soon, I shall head towards the Capital once he has settled matters here.”
“Oh, thank you. I am looking forward to Ugor-san’s arrival too.”
“Aren’t we all?” Willem-san gave me a wry smile. “Lambert has also sent in a mission request for an escort to the Royal Capital to sell the Hair Restorer, so I think he’ll be happy to join my group.”
“Ah, is that so?” speaking of which, as Lamberts-san’s wholesaler, I should probably replenish the stock soon…
After that meeting, I returned home.
Not much happened aside from the usual. Oh, I made an offering to Demiurgos-sama, and informed the guards what Ugor-san looked like and instructed them to tell me immediately as soon as he appeared.
I really look forward to Ugor-san’s visit. He should be here in a few more days…
“O-ii! Mukouda-san! The person you’ve been waiting for is here!”
“Really?!” I rushed outside with Bartel. Surely this is a little too early? Isn’t it two weeks at the earliest?
“Ugor-san!!” he was earlier, but who cares?
The moment I clapped my eyes on his figure, I was so happy to see him that my entire body went limp with relief.
[Gumihou: Ugor-san is a very important person here]
[1] Deleted:
[1a] Deleted ‘wow, meat comes out here~’ because this can’t be the first, or the second or even the third time Mukouda uses this ‘Sui-Made Mitril Mincer’. It’s a cute scene, but unless Sui has amnesia, or a history of forgetting things, this scene is pointless
[1b] Lengthy dialogue of ‘Spicy but yum’ scene
[2] Doubanjiang – Spicy bean sauce, is very delicious~
[3] Hawk’s Claw Pepper (Takanotsume) – Japanese peppers
claw-shaped, intensely hot, bright red peppers.
[4] Change the familiars’ dialogues from the usual ‘what’s this? > spicy but good > umu > but meat? > vege why?’
[4a] Might as well have fun with the word ‘egg’ in eggplant, replaced the original ‘Sui made the minced meat~’ with this eggplant joke
[5] Edit the text to make it more dramatic and creepy
[6] Reversi – Also known as ‘Othello’ is a strategy board game
It only has 8×8 uncheckered board and was invented in 1883
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi
[7] Might as well add this scene, because it seems like something that Fer would do.
[8] Changed ‘bland narrative’ to active dialogue. Author-san, if you want to add to your word count, this is where you should do it.
