“Land octopuses… How does that even work? Do they breathe with lungs?”
“I can’t stand the sea ones, but I love the land ones. Sprinkle on some salt, dry them, then roast them a bit. They’re a great snack when drinking.”
“Mm. Tell me more.”
“You can put them under the sky and turn them into jerky, too. Great for nibbling on. Don’t eat them raw, though. Too tough to chew. Also, you can’t grill them fresh, either. They’ll end up so hard you’ll think you’re chewing on a shoe.”
Presumably, the process of drying activated some sort of enzyme that softened their texture enough for consumption. When it came to animal meat, fresh did not necessarily translate to tasty. Some things, even, were tastiest just before they rotted. Knowing this, Renya did not find it especially surprising that forest octopuses were not to be eaten fresh.
“They’re a pain to find, though. And you’ll want to be careful because some of them can get pretty big. A friend of mine once found a sucker that was over five meters in length. At that size, it’s not guaranteed who eats who.”
“Any relationship between their size and their taste?” Renya asked, completely ignoring the implication that they sometimes fed on humans. His attitude made the middle-aged adventurer smile wryly before continuing.
“They’re not great when they get too big. Apparently, the babies still taste the best. You dry them whole. Also, I heard you can roast their eggs too, but I’ve never tried them myself.”
“I see… That’s good to know. Thanks. Here, treat yourself to a drink,” said Renya as he handed the man a few silver coins as a token of gratitude. He didn’t have much money left, but he still thought that useful information deserved to be paid for.
“Appreciate it, my good man. If you’re going to try your hand at hunting them, don’t bother with the little critters. It’s better to chop up a goblin and spread the flesh around. Those suckers are drawn to the smell.”
He hadn’t expected them to eat goblins as well, but the thought didn’t bother him either. He could hardly have tasted the likes of octopuses and mantis shrimps in his previous life if he had been so squeamish.
“I see. You’ve been a great help. Thanks for everything.”
Renya gave a quick bow, thanked the man again, and headed home, his head filled with thoughts of forest octopus trapping.
“So, we’re doing a guild mission, and we’re going to hunt ourselves some forest octopuses while we’re at it,” declared Renya.
The first thing he had done after getting home was to gather Shion and Rona to make his announcement. Neither of the two girls had any idea what he was talking about, forcing him to summarize the events at the guild.
“Oh, those things. Yeah, those are a delicacy,” said Shion, nodding together with Rona. “The forest is huge and there’s not too many of them. On top of that, monsters roam around there, so they’re hard to find on the market. There’s basically only one supply chain for taverns and diners, and that’s getting them directly from adventurers, so they’re pretty expensive.”
Shion continued to explain that they might have made for a decent business if they could be caught en masse and sold wholesale. Unfortunately, due to their rarity, merchants didn’t like to carry them. She did not hide the disappointment in her tone.
“I’ve also only tried them on a handful of occasions, but I do remember them to be quite good. They were dried raw and cut into thin slices for a salad. I’ve also had them pickled. Oh, and there was a time when they were chopped up and cooked with a crop from the west called arroz. That was delicious as well.”
“Arroz?”
“Um…” Rona put a finger to her chin, looking like she was trying to recall some old memories. “They’re tiny white grains used to make alcohol and vinegar.”
Her words hit Renya with the force of a bull. Only with an effort of will did he prevent his shock from showing on his face.
She was almost certainly referring to rice.
Renya might be an amnesiac, but he was a Japanese amnesiac. Bread and pasta might fill his stomach, but only rice warmed his heart. Being in a different world, he was already prepared to never see rice again. Thinking back on it, though, wheat flour existed here. There was also plenty of vinegar in the markets, so it should have been a foregone conclusion that the precursor to vinegar — rice — existed as well. Feeling slightly disappointed by his own oversight, he focused his thoughts on emphasizing how participating in the mission normally would be profitable as well.
“Even if we don’t catch any, the guild will reward us for killing monsters. If we clean the place out, we’ll at least make some money.”
“Not a bad idea.”
With Shion in agreement and no further opposition, it was quickly decided that they would depart in two days.
The forest they came to was referred to as… the forest. The place had no particular name. According to Shion, it really was just a regular old forest.
Renya estimated Kukrika to be about four kilometers from end to end, based on the fact that a slow walk through the city took about an hour. This meant Kukrika occupied an area of approximately sixteen square kilometers. Since the forest was big enough to fit a couple of Kukrikas, it was likely at least sixty to eighty square kilometers in size. In his previous world, thirty square kilometers of trees would be enough to deserve a name and a plaque. Here, a place twice that size was “just some forest.” It was another one of those moments when he really felt the alternate world culture gap.
From Shion and Rona’s point of view, this forest wasn’t worth naming. The Miasmal Forest, where Renya first made his appearance in this world, was a couple hundred times bigger. Compared to that, the place before them really did seem like a dinky little patch of trees.
Normally, it was a quiet forest rarely traversed by people. But thanks to the sudden influx of adventurers, there was now a fair bit of commotion in the area.
“Geez, just how many freaking parties decided to show up?” said a slightly annoyed Renya as he put his hands on his hips.
His attire was different from usual, consisting of a long black top with an intricate pattern of silver thread woven into the hem. His pants were also black, and he wore his usual leather chest guard, arm guards, and iron-reinforced boots on top. Frau had come to him the before they left and handed him new clothes, saying she had made them overnight. Rona, rather tactlessly, proceeded to wonder aloud whether fairies needed sleep. Shion responded by jamming her elbow into her insensitive friend.
When he took the clothes from Frau and ran his hand across it, Renya realized that he had no idea what they were made of. He stared at the fairy, who bashfully rubbed her hands together before explaining that Silkies were originally expert tailors whose skill with threads were second to none. She then proudly declared that she had taken the fibers of a grass she grew in the garden and the silk of a certain creature that lived in the garden, and used her mana to weave them into a special thread to make the cloth. Upon learning this, all eyes except Frau’s became fixed on the garden. It seemed no different than any other garden of a large house. That did not stop them from sharing the same exact thought: what in the world was happening in that garden?