Chapter 225: Hit Among Hits

Chapter 225: Hit Among Hits

Dianeia and the rest returned to the kitchen and saw Sakura wearing an apron making breakfast.

「Ah, welcome back Master. Welcome back you guys. Breakfast will be ready soon so please relax.」

She had almost finished making everything and several dishes were lined up on the table with food sitting on them.

「Oh, thank you for working so hard so early in the morning.」

「No no, it’s almost a hobby for me at this point. —oh, as expected of Master, you fished quite a lot. They’re so pretty and shiny, amazing.」

Sakura said as she looked at the aquarium golem following me.

「Well I wasn’t particularly aiming for such a shiny catch. But since I caught so many I was thinking of salting or marinating them or doing stuff like that or get them all cut up.」

「Ah, then should I help?」

「No, be at ease and finish with breakfast Sakura.」

It looked like she’d be finished in a few minutes so I decided to do what I could by myself.

After all there weren’t any real large catches this time.

「Ah, understood. Then I’ll hurry and finish so I can come help you.」

Sakura said and returned to her work as I took out a mussel from storage.

……for now I’d start with this guy.

I had never handled this thing before so I wanted to give processing it a try.

Technically it was a shellfish so it should have some organs dealing with sand.

But I honestly didn’t know the ecology of this particular creature.

「Dianeia is there anything I need to watch out for when cooking a magic mussel?」

I asked Dianeia who sat nearby and she moved closer while answering.

「Umm…..I don’t know if this applies to a magic mussel this large, but it’s best to separate the shell and body as soon as you remove it from the water. If not then the muscle that shuts its mouth will harden up and clamp the mouth shut.」

「I see. Then I’d better use my knife and get it done. Dianeia can I ask you to help out?」

「O-okay…..I don’t know if my magic is up to the task, but I’ll give it a shot.」

Dianeia tentatively used my dragon scale knife and shoved it into the mussel’s mouth.

……her strength must’ve been good enough because the knife forced open the mussel’s mouth slightly.

All that was left was to work the knife in and use it like a lever, then we could separate the shell and the meat.

It was unexpectedly easy I thought as I began moving the knife…

—grrr—

It felt like my knife was caught on something.

「…..un?」

We’d already gotten the blade past the shell so why was it getting caught? I stuck my hand inside the shell and grabbed a few centimeter large round pink colored orb.

「What’s this?」

I held it in my hands as Dianeia’s eyes widened.

「Th-that’s……a magic crystal!? I-I see this one had crystallized a magic crystal…..! This is quite a big catch Daichi-dono!」

「Big catch……you mean this magic crystal thing is a big hit?」

「Umu, magic mussels rarely contain enough magic power to condense one of these. Then after dozens of years mix various things together to crystallize its magic. It’s a very precious resource. —they can’t create one unless they live for several decades so it’s very valuable.」

「So this is quite valuable.」

I held the sphere between my fingers.

Despite getting hit by the knife there wasn’t a single scratch on it.

…….I could definitely tell how hard it was.

I hadn’t thought it would be such an amazing item.

「Yes, in material shops and specialty shops you might be able to find one the size of a sesame seed. Larger ones can’t be bought unless you have an amount of money equal to a country. It’s usually kept inside of an extremely power magic protected lock box.」

「Ehh」

So this thing was like a pearl oyster.

With that kind of thought it’s value far exceeded that of a pearl.

Truly it was quite beautiful and shiny. Even just as a jewel I could see its value.

「It has a gorgeous color to it as well.」

It was a beautiful mixture between red and pink as it glittered in the light.

The shell was pink colored, but this crystal was even more vividly pink as if it had sucked the very color from its shell.

「Yeah, certainly its much deeper in color than those I’ve seen. Maybe this is also an influenced by how large it became….it’s probably even more valuable amongst normal crystals which are already valuable. My heart’s beating just looking at it….」

「I’d be troubled if you having heart palpitations becomes an issue…」

Well, it’s true that I’ve obtained something good this time.

「For now let’s just collect it.」

Since it can probably be used for something I placed it inside my pocket.

「Okay, let’s continue until it’s time to eat. We can cook this for one more dish.」

「A-alright, got it D-Daichi-dono. Leave the cooking to me.」

And so we began preparing and cooking some of the prey we caught this morning.