CH 37

We didn’t have much free time today, but I’m not the type of person to waste food. That’s why I’ll make it: chicken soup using bones!

Although I didn’t have garlic and ginger, I should be able to use spring onions and cooking sake to remove the stink from the meat. I remember reading recipes that didn’t use garlic and ginger either.

However, without salt, it just wouldn’t taste as good. In cooking, there is something called the sa-shi-su-se-so: sa for satou (sugar), shi for shio (salt), su for su (vinegar), se for shouyu (soy sauce (*1)), and so for soosu (sauce). When I considered their importance, I realized that sa-shi-su-se-so didn’t really work in this world. One obvious example was salt. There might be countries that don’t use soy sauce, but there are no countries out there that don’t use salt. Sugar was treated as a luxury good here, and technically, it would be fine not to have any. However, not having salt is bad. It didn’t seem like vinegar and sauce were used often either.

Ah, wait, I made a mistake. So doesn’t stand for sauce, it’s supposed to be miso. I made that mistake often.

My friend Sui-chan, who was from Nagoya, would scold me every time I got it wrong. 「The so is miso, not sauce! Not to mention, people use miso way more than sauce! Why do you keep getting it wrong? 」she said.

Fufufu, except miso was not always used more often than sauce. Apparently in Nagoya, they have miso that comes out of bottles like mayonnaise. Actually, they just like to eat everything with miso on top, just like other people would with mayonnaise.

I wonder how Sui-chan was doing… She’d be worried about me if she can’t get in contact with me… right?

「The bones? What are you going to use them for?」

Oh, oops. Back to the topic at hand.

「I’m planning to make soup with them.」

「Ehh? We’re going to eat bones? Can Kirika eat them? They’re really hard.」

Kirika-chan looked at the bones and tilted her head.

「Fufu, no, we won’t eat them, Kirika-chan. Instead, the bones are going to be used to flavor the soup. It’ll take some time, so can all of you help me?」

If I were to parboil the bones, I would have to wash them clean first. That way, it’ll remove the stink. Afterwards, I have to smash the bones up, make sure it doesn’t boil over and remove the scum that forms. It would take around six hours to make.

If I started now, would it be done by dinner time?

No, the problem is that I can’t leave the kitchen for long. What should I do?

I guess I’ll just use the research time for the potions to make soup instead. I still haven’t thought of a menu for the mountain birds either, and also, Rofas-san asked me to make something with the MP potions.

Wait a second, what does an MP potion taste like? I still hadn’t checked.

For now, I have to wash the bones so I could parboil them. Um, let’s see. I could drain the blood from the mountain birds while we’re at the lake. I can wash the bones and leave it to dry in the meantime.

「Okay, we’re done. Let’s do the rest after lunch.」

「Yay! Bento! Bento!」

Kirika-chan hopped around cheering.

How cute. Children often expressed their joy using their entire body.

I held the pillow sheet bag with all the bentos in it.

「Let me carry it for you.」

Bryce-kun took the bag from me.

Uwah, just like a gentleman! He was too stylish despite looking like a middle schooler.

「Kirika’s really excited. This is the first time Kirika has been so excited after becoming an adventurer.」

「Me too. I never thought I would have so much fun. I thought I would be spending every single day fighting slimes to level up, since that’s what adventurer training was supposed to be.」

Uu… I teared up a bit.

If Kirika-chan and Kurtz-kun lived in Japan, at their age, they should be getting spoiled by their parents and spending the days with a lot of fun.

I held Kirika-chan’s hand with my right hand, and Kurtz-kun with my left. We walked hand-in-hand towards the lake.

「Um, when we go on a field trip, there’s a song we sing as we walked. Um, it goes like, ran ran ran.」

If I remember correctly, this is the song my class sang when we went on a field trip. How did the lyrics go… Over the mountain…? Oh whatever, it’s not like they know what the song is!

I made up the lyrics as I went using simple phrases.

「We are ~ going on ~ a happy picnic trip. Let’s take our bento ~ and head off! Ran-ra-ran-rara~」

I really have no talent, even if I say so myself.

「We are ~ going on ~ a happy picnic trip. Let’s take our bento ~ and head off! Ran-ra-ran-rara~」

We sang it over and over, and it was quite fun.

「We are ~ going on ~」

「「A happy picnic trip~」」

We sang parts together. It was getting better!

For some reason, I felt a lot of joy.

We reached the lake.

We picked a random spot to sit at, and the four of us sat in a circle.

I took the bag from Bryce-kun, took out the cups and poured water into them. Kirika-chan passed the cups down for me.

The children naturally helped out with small jobs without even being asked to. They really were good children.

「This one’s for you, Kirika-chan. This one is yours, Kurtz-kun. This is Bryce-kun’s, and this is mine. Okay, let’s eat our bento.」

I distributed the bentos in the order of our seating arrangement.

I clapped my hands together and said itadakimasu.

「Uwah! T-this, is this Kirika?」

Kirika-chan shouted after she opened the lid.

「Is this me?」

「Then this must be me!」

「Sorry, they don’t really look alike. 」

For the design of the chara-ben, I decided to make them look like the children.

The body was made out of the pork-wrapped onigiri. I made the face with the potatoes, and the arms and legs with carrots.

Since Bryce-kun had blonde hair, I placed mashed potato over the potato and used a fork to draw the hair.

For Kurtz-kun’s red hair, I used mashed pumpkins mixed with carrots. Kirika-chan’s hair is light brown, so I mixed the mashed pumpkin with a bit of soy sauce.

As for me, since I have black hair, I used pumpkin skin.

Using the soy sauce I had boiled down, I drew faces.

Afterwards, I decorated the bentos with balls made of mashed potato and pumpkin, as well as carrots and pumpkin skin cut into a star shape.