132-Chapter 8-8 Shrimp Festival

Now that we're at the lake Shilomar, Solomon, I'm sorry, but I don't think you guys have a chance today.

As soon as they got to the lake, they started warming up and froze when they heard me say it. Aside from Solomon, who rampaged yesterday, I felt sorry for Shiroumaru because he was staying in the bag, but today we were going to check the bottom of the lake, so they didn't have a chance.

As the two of them tried to walk back to the bag dejectedly, they looked at me curiously when they noticed Slarin, whose name had not been called, lingering beside me.

'Slarin will be helping you in some cases, so don't ask him to do that.

When Surarin heard this, his body bounced widely, as if to say he understood. Seeing the situation, Shiroumaru and Solomon shouted in protest. It was too noisy, so I won't take them to the bottom of the lake after all, but the two of them settled down as long as they didn't leave this level, they were free to spend their time.

'Okay, let's get started ... first, let's start with the usual.

The method I came up with yesterday is what I always do when I'm camping and so on, which is to put up a ward around me and dive into the water. If this works, there should be no water getting into the water and no water getting inside the wards. The problem is oxygen, but that's where you just need to get on land periodically. It's a bit of a hassle, but if a land creature wants to stay in the water, it's not an option.

So, we tried it and....

However, if there was an obstacle like a rock on the ground or the ground was swollen, the edge of the warding would get caught in that spot and I couldn't move. So, I tried a little bit of ingenuity and put the warding above my head in the form of an umbrella. The umbrella warding was better for movement than the previous two methods, but it also meant that every time I moved, water would come in under my feet, so my feet were always in the water. And if there were large rocks in our path, we had to climb over them one by one, which was cumbersome. Well, of the three methods, this was the easiest to use, so this was the first choice... but it still left me dissatisfied.

''Well, since I'll probably only use it for a couple of days, there's no need to elaborate on it that much. Let's take a little break.

I decided to make a fire and boil water to take a break, since the boundary was in sight. I moved the boiled water into a cup and brought it close to my mouth, but the water was hotter than I expected, and I had to blow on it several times to cool it down to drink it.

While I was somewhat dazedly blowing on the hot water, I suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

'Come to think of it, I've never used wind magic wards before.

As long as it's used as magic, wards also have attributes, and since I usually use no attribute or earth magic wards, I had forgotten all about the wards of the other attributes. It's a good idea to be able to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

Other light-attribute wards can make your appearance invisible or difficult to see. Incidentally, the light-attribute ward was used by Jeanne and the others to hide themselves in the dungeon, but at that time they were able to set up the ward because they had the assistance of magic tools, so they are unable to use it now.

The wind magic wards are said to be the most humble of all the wards because instead of having little defensive power, they can control your odor so that it doesn't leak out to the surroundings.......that's their main feature. Therefore, there are not many ordinary adventurers who use it. However, people who live in the forest, such as forest dwellers and elves, like to use it, so it's not completely unheard of.

It's a very good idea to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

''Well, wind magic wards aren't much different from non-attribute wards, so I'm sure I can do it after a few practice sessions.''

All of the wards have little difference in their activation process, just the type of magic power they use. So as I expected, after a few practice sessions, I was able to use the wind magic wards the way I wanted them to be used. It's a good thing that you're able to have a good idea of what you're looking for.

When I got back to land, I searched my bag and found a pair of boots I bought a long time ago, so I changed out of them and then went back into the lake to start looking for mithril. It was good up to my feet and waist, but when the water came up to my chest and head level, I was a little scared, even with the dome-shaped wards on it. I explored my feet at a depth just barely below my face for about ten minutes, and after I got a little used to it, I moved to a depth where the wards were completely submerged in water. The warding was about three meters in radius around me, and when it hit an obstacle such as a rock, the shape of the warding changed as if it were swallowing the obstacle.

'It's like being in a bubble.

Forgetting my original purpose for a while, I enjoyed the underwater walk. There were a lot of aquatic demons out there, so I was expecting the demons that found me to attack me, but contrary to my expectations, they didn't come near me at all. They did come close every now and then, but they either walked past the wards or hit the wards and flipped around and ran away in a surprised manner.

'Maybe I'm not as blind as I thought. Or maybe he can't see me because of light refraction or something.

Carelessness is the worst enemy, but with this, I might not have to be particularly vigilant about my surroundings. Just as I was thinking this, I stepped on an angler cat that was hiding at my feet and fell down. The angler cat, which often stays still at the bottom, didn't try to escape when it touched the warding, but instead entered the warding, hiding still.

I panicked, but the angler cat was more surprised when it was suddenly stepped on and tried to run away, but a slurin jumped out of the bag and caught it, stopping it. Incidentally, the cause of the Angler Cat's death was a blow to the brain from the fork Slarin was using to eat.

'So this kind of thing happens. 'You mean, watch your step enough?'

I muttered to myself as I tucked the Angler Cat that Slarin had taken down into my bag. Slarin heard my words and reached out with his tentacles and pecked at my leg, as if to tell me to be careful.

After regaining my composure, I began to examine my surroundings as I had originally planned.

As I looked closely, I found more armor and protective gear underfoot and behind rocks than in the shallows. But just as much, I also found bones that seemed to belong to people.

''Maybe they fell into the lake. They were probably eaten after being carried to the depths by a demon.''

I lightly clasped my hands together and then went around picking up the scattered armor and armor. It's impossible to pick up all of the bones, so I'll just leave them there, but if there are names and other information engraved on the found items, I must think about reporting them to the guild. Well, what to do with the found items will be up for discussion with the guild, but since the items found in the dungeon are basically the property of the person who found them, they won't be confiscated unless there's something very bad going on.

After continuing to collect them like that, I was able to pick up nearly 100 kg of equipment in about three hours. There were several magic bags and other items among them, so depending on the contents, we could expect to make quite a bit of money. Moreover, since this time the lake was about one-fifth the size of the entire lake, there are probably many more treasures lying around.

The deadline for exploring the dungeon this time was set at seven days, so we had three days and a half left. At this rate, I think we can go around to the bottom of the lake within the deadline. I don't want to get angry at my grandpa again, so I don't want to quietly extend my dungeon life.

''Well, let's get started.''

When I got back to land, I decided to boil water and take a break to sort through my finds. Shiroumaru and Solomon had been hunting quite a few demons while I was at the bottom of the lake. So I decided to process a few of them at random, skewer them and roast them in a separate hearth. Right now, they're waiting around the hearth, drooling and waiting. Slarin is in charge of the fire, so when it's done, he'll let you eat it as you see fit.

Among the finds from the bottom of the lake, there were about twenty kilograms of mithril stuff, and the rest were all made of magic iron and iron. The reason for the large number of mithril items was because they found several pieces of mithril-made armor with full equipment. Perhaps they belonged to a high ranking adventurer or a rich person. It would be a shame for the victim, but for me, I'm grateful.

And as for the bags of concern, there are two magic bags and one dimension bag. It's not in a good condition, but it doesn't seem to be broken, so it seems to be able to be opened without any problems.

The first one is mostly medicine and food. Nothing too fancy, apparently. The second is ... not much different.

I opened it out of the Magic Bag, but the first was no big deal. The second one only contained roughly the same kind of stuff, and the bag was much more valuable. By the way, the quality of the bag is not very high, and it looks like it will only hold up to about thirty to fifty kilograms.

''And as for the dimension........Seriously!

The dimension bag was about three meters square inside and was a shoulder bag with no distinctive features, but inside it were mithril ingots and other items. There were also gold ingots, silver ingots, and magic iron ingots. Maybe the lack of features on the bag was a disguise to prevent people from realizing that there was something expensive inside.

''Maybe it's something I stole but what does it matter to me?

It was hard to imagine that a mere adventurer had this many ingots, so I thought that maybe they belonged to a merchant, but in the end I decided that there was no way a merchant would come to a place like this, so I decided to assume that these were stolen... well... There was no request to search for the bag in the guild, so it shouldn't be a problem to keep it as mine.

'The magic bag is going to fetch a reasonable price if I put it up for sale.

I've never sold or bought a magic bag before, so I don't know how much it will fetch, but even though it's a low grade thing, it's still a magic bag, so there will be a good demand for it.

But I don't need the money I can give it to Amy.

Feeling that anxiety, I used the water I'd magically produced to remove the mud from the bags and lightly rinsed them.

The three somewhat cleaned up bags were packed together in a burlap bag before putting them in the bag. I plan to do some minor repairs in my spare time, but for now it will have to wait.

'Slarin, I'll take a break for a bit longer and then we'll go back to it.

Slarin shows his approval by bouncing his body against my words. On the ground, it should be about the time of day when the sun is about to set, so considering the time to eat and take a break, you won't be able to examine the bottom of the lake for too long, but that doesn't mean it would be a waste not to go. So we decided to go to feel like reexamining the place we investigated today.

"Looking at it this way again, there are quite a few small fish.

So far, I've only had my eye on demons like angler cats and crocodilefish, but when I looked into the crevices and backs of the rocks, I found quite a few small fish and other creatures. Well, the fact that large fish (demons) inhabit the area means that there are creatures to feed on, but since this was a dungeon, a space where common sense didn't seem to apply, it didn't occur to me until I actually saw them.

'There are a lot of shrimp... oops!

At our feet, small shrimp were moving in the mud. Among them were the occasional large shrimp, so we hastily changed our objective and began catching shrimp for food.

There were two kinds of shrimp that we found, one kind was a swamp shrimp-like shrimp, about three to five centimeters in size. The other kind was a long shrimp-like shrimp, about 10 to 20 cm in size, excluding the scissors. The scissors were about half as long as the body.

'I'm worried about the mud, but it would be nice to eat it grilled or fried.

As I put the shrimp I caught in another bag, I was thinking about which dish I was going to cook. They looked no different from ordinary shrimp, so the taste would be promising.

After about two hours of catching the shrimp, we had about three hundred swamp shrimp weighing about five hundred grams, and about a hundred long prawns, which weighed less than ten kilograms. The size of the long shrimp was much larger than we had expected, but they varied in size from 50 to 200 grams, so we had to separate them according to size when we cooked them.

After the shrimp returned to land, we had them remove the mud in a bucket filled with fresh water. Since we wanted to give them at least half a day to remove the mud, we decided to cook the shrimp tomorrow night, and today we decided to make a simple meal of bread and other foods. Shiroumaru and Solomon disapproved, but they became quiet when I served the leftover grilled fish from yesterday.

'I knew it would be more efficient than the shallow end. A lot of fish today.

The next day, I'm up and ready to go, and today I'm at the bottom of the lake looking for Mithril. Today I'm diving alone, and Slarin is on land overseeing Shiroumaru and the others. Otherwise, the two of us are likely to conduct a monster rampage.

To the extent that Slarin isn't around, we have to be aware of our surroundings, but in the meantime, we're properly equipped with protective gear, so we won't be seriously injured unless there's something very bad going on.

''There's a lot of shrimp, too, but if we don't stop them around here, we won't be able to say anything about Shiroumaru and the others.

Just like yesterday, the shrimp were moving around in the mud at my feet, and when I captured them as if straining the mud with a colander, they were jumping around energetically in the colander. I hadn't even eaten yesterday's shrimp yet, and people might ask me if I still needed to catch them, but when I imagined shrimp tempura and fried shrimp, I naturally reached for the shrimp.

'Good! Let's focus on finding mithril!

I deliberately started looking for mithril with a lot of energy out loud to forget about the shrimp, but I suppose it's no wonder that every time I find a large shrimp, I reach for it.

After that, we kept looking for mithril (and shrimp) until our concentration wore off, and as a result we found more than we did yesterday (and the shrimp exceeded yesterday's amount as well).

''Out of one hundred and fifty kilograms, mithril is twenty kilograms.........yesterday was too good to feel like less.

However, I'm not in need of money, and I haven't even reached half of my goal with everything I have, so the thought that this is all I've got comes first... ...If the djinn and the others ask me about it, they're going to go all in.

'Well, there's no need to be in such a hurry. More importantly, it's a prawn now.

I pause to sort through my finds, then stick my hand in the tub and grab the ten-long shrimp up. The hand-long shrimp attacks me with its scissors, but it doesn't have much force to pinch me, so I hardly feel any pain.

'Let's try grilling them orthodox first, shall we?

He lightly sprinkled the shrimp with salt, skewered them and brought them closer to the fire, and the shrimp turned redder and redder as he looked at them and gradually began to smell better. With that, the amount of drooling from Shiroumaru and Solomon also increased.

'It's about time. The shells don't seem to be too hard, so can we eat them as is?

I didn't want to have any parasites or anything like that, so after cooking it thoroughly, I bit into the long shrimp. I was able to chew the shells of the long prawns with no problem, as I thought I would, and the baking gave them a savory flavor, but on the other hand, they didn't feel good on the tongue, so it would be a matter of taste. Well, it didn't matter to our foodies.

When I found out that there was no problem with the taste of the long shrimp, I couldn't help but gulp my guts out. In a previous life, shrimp had been one of my favorite foods, so I was happy to be able to taste them again. Incidentally, I also tried to roast the swamp shrimp, but this one tasted less tasty than the long prawn. However, because they were small and had a thin shell, we didn't mind eating them as much as we did the long prawn.

Next, it's time for tempura.

When it comes to shrimp dishes, that's what I'm talking about in my book! That's what shrimp tempura is. Fried prawns are also hard to get rid of, but that is quite time-consuming, so I won't try it this time. Instead, I was going to make oyster fry using swamp shrimp. If it is thin-shelled prawns, it would be good for kakiage.

For the batter of this tempura, I used a mixture of flour and rice flour without eggs. The oil is vegetable oil.

Pour the oil into the pan and heat it up, then remove the shells of the long prawns and prepare them. Of course, don't forget to cut off the end of the tail. When making the batter, I used cold water and roughly mixed it.

When I finished preparing the long shrimp and batter, the oil was hot at the right time, so I threw in the battered long shrimp.

'Yeah, sounds good,'

The sizzling sound and smell drew Shiroumaru and Solomon, who were also waiting for the tempura to be fried now and then.

'Is it about time?'

I pulled the shrimp out of the pot just as the batter turned a light foxy color. Immediately after I pulled it up, the oil was still sizzling in the batter, so I pulled up all ten of the shrimp I'd thrown in and waited for the surface to cool down a bit before putting them in my mouth.

'Yum!'

The tempura was even better than I expected. The shrimp had a sweet taste without the muddy smell, and the plumpness and crunchiness were irresistible. More than anything else, the freshly fried tempura seemed to double the flavor of the dish.

'Kuhn!'

Sigh.

As I was impressed by the taste of the shrimp tempura, I heard a squeal from right next to me. I turned my head to the side and saw two drooling faces right in front of me.

For the time being, I brought the larger shrimp tempura in front of my mouth from the fried shrimp, and they both bit me with great vigor. Fortunately, I was holding the tail, so it didn't bite me, but I got pretty impatient.

The second shrimp tempura was eaten with salt, but it was still delicious. This being the case, I would have liked to have some tempura sauce, but I had to give up because I didn't have all the ingredients.

Slarin seemed to like the tempura, and while I was feeding him tempura, I tried kakiage. We used only swamp shrimp for kakiage, and we put dozens of them in a bowl and used the batter left over from frying the shrimp tempura.

'I don't have a ladle, so I'll just use my hands.'

With a handful of hands, you throw the kakiage seeds into the oil, shape them into a flat shape with chopsticks, then turn them over occasionally to make the whole thing foxy brown.

I'd like to eat it on udon noodles or with sauce on my rice!

The oysters were fried with their shells, so they were fragrant and delicious. Of course, it was a hit with the three fish.

I started mass-producing shrimp tempura and kakiage, and within a few hours I had made more than 200 pieces of tempura and over 100 pieces of kakiage.

I consumed nearly half of them right away, but I made the other half into tenmusu for a snack and meal tomorrow, and kept the other half in a magic bag to give to my grandfathers as a souvenir. If I had a magic bag, I could eat freshly fried shrimp, so it would be very helpful. By the way, we thought that the shrimp we caught today might not have enough mud, but it was not so.

We'll have to look for mithril and catch shrimp tomorrow.

If the shrimp were this good, I picked up a large number of stones that had fallen nearby and threw them into a pile in the lake to capture the shrimp, which had risen in my mind to the same level of importance as finding mithril. If this works, the pile of rocks might become a home for them.

'Maybe we'll have a look at it later tomorrow.

We went back to the place where we rested yesterday, thinking that we would prepare something like a crab cage for the next time we came.