Volume 3 - CH 5.12

「 Ohh, how clever!」

I am guessing that those roots must be similar to garlic then. Man, this Shema is turning out to be a pretty useful herb.

Next, I used the knife to crush and grind Kobold Salt and Black Pepper into as small of a powder as possible and seasoned the tenderized Rabbit Meat with them. After that, it was time to wrap the seasoned meat in the leaves, and pierce it with skewers that are going to be holding this “packaging” in place. After that, we poured some olive oil into the wok, where we then threw the meat when it got all hot and sizzling, fried all of them until they looked just about ready, and…

Ta-dah!!! Chief Roxanne’s Shema-yaki style Rabbit Meat has been finished! Nothing else left to do but to have a bite to see how it tastes, so don’t mind if I do. Time to dig in!

「*Munch Munch*…. This is pretty good!」

「*Munch Munch*… *Munch Munch*… spicy, and yet so tasty!」

Despite having some degree of spiciness to it (maybe because Shema leaves are similar in taste to leaf pepper?), this dish tasted quite good, and the mixture of its flavors was quite rich and exquisite. It was like a symphony in my mouth that went on and on without stopping. It was like these herbs were made specifically so that they could compliment the mellow taste of the meat itself.

「Delicious! It is as if the meat was melting right in my mouth! I never knew that Rabbit Meat could be this good!」

「I know, right?! Maybe it became like that because of the tenderizing I subjected it to?」

「Tenderizing? What exactly did you do to tenderize it, master?」

「Oh, nothing that complicated, really. I just went and whacked it a few times with the blunt side of the Kobold Knife so that it would not be so hard, and that must have done the trick.」

「I see. I never knew that meat could be tenderized in such an intricate way.」

「Well, you know now. As they say, you learn something new every day.」

「Yes, certainly!」

Judging by how the whole dish turned out and how Roxanne reacted to it, I dare say that this has been a huge success. And the best thing is that since the ingredients are all relatively easy to procure, then we might just be able make this dish whenever the fancy for it strikes us.

We can get Olive Oil as a drop from Naïve Olives who can be encountered either on the sixth floor of Veil’s Labyrinth or the second floor of Quratar’s Labyrinth. Kobold Salt can be obtained from Kobolds, which can be found on the third floor of Veil’s Labyrinth or the first floor or Quratar’s Labyrinth. Black Pepper drops from Spice Spider, the Floor Boss of the third floor of the Quratar Labyrintth, and finally, we can get Rabbit Meat from Rapid Rabbit, Floor Boss of Quratar Labyrinth’s seventh floor, the one where we currently are.

After breakfast, we have returned to the Labyrinth to hunt some more Slow Rabbits for their Rabbit Fur and Rapid Rabbits for their meat. I have to admit, now that I have gotten the taste of how good Rabbit Meat is, I might have gotten addicted to it, I definitely want to eat more of it, and since items don’t go bad in the Item Box no matter how long they are kept there, we can always save some of it for later instead of eating it all at once. When we were done after a few attempts, we warped to the Imperial City. We have more than enough Rabbit Meat on us, so we might as well fulfill the request of the male clerk at that clothing store while selling the additional Rabbit Furs we have accumulated.

This time, instead of going to the side one, we entered the store through the front entrance, because our business here is not about selling the Rabbit Furs. No, today, we are here to deliver the Rabbit Meat to the male clerk that apparently runs the show here.

「Welcome, how can I be of service… oh, you are the pair of Explorers from yesterday. Since you are here, then does that mean…?」

「Yes it does indeed. Two pieces of fresh Rabbit Meat coming right up, exactly like you requested.」

「Thank you so much for doing this for me. Please, if you would be so kind as to come with me, I shall prepare your reward right away.」

After receiving a rather enthusiastic greeting, the male clerk beckoned us to follow him to the counter in the back of the shop, just like he did it yesterday when we entered the shop through the side entrance. On our way there, I “chanted” the incantation for the Item Box to appear, and then I took two large pieces of Rabbit Meat from it.

「Here you go.」

Even if we hand those two pieces of Rabbit Meat away to him, we will still have enough left for ourselves, and in case we will run out of it, all we have to do is to travel back to Quratar Labyrinth’s seventh floor and defeat the Rapid Rabbit to obtain more of it.

「Once again, thank you, I am truly indebted to you. Normally I would pay one hundred and sixty Nars for one piece of Rabbit Meat, however, you and your companion have amicably accepted my selfish request even though you had no obligation to do so, so in order to show you my appreciation, I will give you a special price of four hundred and twenty six Nars for these two pieces of Rabbit Meat.」

You say it is a special price, but I know that is just a thirty percent increase in price thanks to my Bonus Skill. It is so obvious at this point that I do not even feel like mentioning that I am using it anymore. Why did you think I decided to give you two of them in the first place, huh? Precisely because I knew that the Skill would activate that way, allowing me to claim bigger profit. You might say that this is incredibly shrewd of me, but that is how it works in those kinds of games: if you have the Skill that can be used to give you an advantage, then you are using them without fretting about the small stuff.

I brought two of them to increase the percentage by 30%, but although it was  exactly what I was aiming for, I is not surprised. I  do not feel as happy as I usually would be. Maybe I am getting too used to it?

「Sure enough, that is fine with me.」

「Very well. Then, if you could be so kind as to wait here for just a moment. . . . . . . . .」

The male clerk took the plate and disappeared into the room behind the counter.

「May we take a look inside the store while we wait?」

I talked to the remaining female clerks. Since we have to wait for the male clerk to come back anyway, might as well kill the time in a proactive manner instead of standing around all awkwardly.

「Yes, of course. I can give you a quick tour if you so desire, dear customer.」

「Very well then, please do.」

And so we took a look at what exactly this store had to offer, although pretty much nothing has changed since we were here yesterday, reinforcing my belief that this clothing store must be dealing mostly in ready-made goods. However, that does not mean that there were no clothes present on the displays at all. Even though they were not that many, they all still looked beautiful, shining with the glossy luster typical to high-quality fabrics. As expected of the clothes targeted mostly at the women of the noble state. Even the thin shoulder straps on the dresses looked as if a great deal of time and detail were put into making them.

Out of all of those women’s clothes, one item in particular caught my attention: a camisole that looked like it was made out of silk, or perhaps satin, and was very similar to the ones from my old world. It was not completely see-through, but just thin enough that it would probably leave nothing left to the imagination if Roxanne were to put it on. When I too it in my hands to see how it looked in its entirety, I noticed that it was quite long, and that its lower hem was gradually opening up the lower it went, to finally split apart around the crotch area, so rather than calling it a simple camisole, it would be better to call it a camisole dress.