CH 94

When I saw the item that Lansley-kun was showing me with his tail wagging, I was so shocked that my head short-circuited.

Looking at the inside of the wrapping, Yusef-sama leet out a dumbfounded voice.

“Hey Lansley, what are you doing, showing that stuff to Alice-sama?”

“It’s not like that! It’s delicious!”

Lansley-kun responded back to him with a huff. The conversation continued in front of me, who was still shocked and stunned.

“What did you show her, Lansley…is that kajikaji? Alice-sama can’t eat this.”

“Kajikaji! It’s delicious!…But you can’t show her how to eat it, can you?”

Ivan-sama made a dumbfounded voice as well, and Fredge-sama said the kajikaji was delicious but sounded complicated for some reason.

“It looks strange….is it wood? But it smells like fish.”

“It looks hard…but it smells kind of nice.”

Yulena sullenly looked at Kajikaji and analyzed it while Matilda with a strange look on her face.

Then, when my head finally rebooted, I jumped on Lansley-kun with vigor.

“Lansley-kun!! You are the best!! Wonderfull!! The best in the world!!”

I let out an overflowing passion as I spoke and stroked Lansley-kun’s head around. Fuoo!

“Wai—Alice!? Stop!! Stop it—!!”

“Alice-sama!?”

Brother Will and Johann screamed at my sudden odd behavior and character change, and pulled me down.

I looked at Lansley after the shock of it while catching my breath, I saw that he had turned bright red,  his eyes spinning as he passed out. Sorry.

“Alice!! You can’t hug the opposite sex out of nowhere!”

“-gulp-…I’m sorry.”

The corner of his eye twitched and his voice was sharp. Brother Will was angry at my brutality. I reflexively shuddered.

It’s so scary. I’m sorry.

“Honestly…So what’s going on all of a sudden? What’s up with this?”

Brother Will returned to his normal mode, breathing out a sigh at my reflection. Everyone else was looking at me anxiously, wondering what’s wrong with me too.

No, I was just too excited. I’m sorry for my sudden character change.

I cleared my throat and opened my mouth, trying my best to maintain a cool expression like a leader.

“This is what I’ve been looking for. It’s just what I need!”

“What, the Kajikaji!?”

I nodded seriously to his surprised voice and received a puzzled look.

“Well, but Alice-sama…these are things that are harder than wood and need to be chewed at continuously with a beastman’s fangs to be eaten, right?”

Continuing on with Fredge-sama who said that, Ivan-sama also made a puzzled voice.

“It’s like a treat we give as a reward…But the thing is, once we start biting into it, we can’t stop—we can’t stop going on and on. So it’s unsightly to watch us eat them…Don’t tell me you’ve had one of these before?”

I see. So the beastmen see this lump as a snack.

Because their teeth are strong and sharp, they didn’t slice it up and use it like usual, but rather, they used it for nibbling. And because the beastmen were so excited about gnawing on it, normal people avoided it.

I spoke clearly, while vaguely remembering the pet jerky treats from my past life.

“No. I’ve never eaten this that way…This is what’s called ‘bonito flakes’ in some regions. If you slice this thinly with a knife to make a broth out of it, you can create a wide variety of versatile, healthy, amazing-tasting food!! This, without this, I-I would die…!”

(***T/N: Bonito flakes are called ‘katsuobushi’ in Japanese. A strong umami tastes and very commonly used in Japanese foods. The name ‘Kajikaji’ was probably derived from ‘Katsuoboshi’)

While trying to calm me down, who was getting over-excited and sniffling again as I spoke, Connie was yelling, “Miss—your character! Your character!” in my ear. Oops!

I was just so excited that my repertoire of Japanese food had exploded with the presence of bonito flakes…No, I can’t just settle down. I also want some soy sauce.

“So that’s it…Alright, they make kajikaji in my hometown too, so let’s order as much as possible from them.”

Hearing that, I said,

“Yusef-sama!!!! Thank you so much!!!!”

…This time I lunged at Yusef-sama and was later scolded by my aides.

[Original Author’s Note] Alice’s excitement is a reflection of this author’s excitement. An author who would die without dried bonito (laughs). For the time being, it is time to improve the food situation and create avenues for getting rare ingredients from different parts of the world. The food story should be finished for now…

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T/N: So I wasn’t completely wrong about guessing food…although it’s more like an ingredient. Whoever guessed rice was also kinda close! But with this, we can move on from food and hopefully get back to magic, lol.