And so, the road home.
As we walked through the forest, Maria turned to me with a beaming smile and said:
“—Now then. The matter at hand: HOW shall we slaughter that fox-eared… rip-off artist Arisa?”
“No no no, let’s take ‘slaughter’ off the table entirely.”
Maria appears to be furious.
I mean — she’s smiling, but the backs of her eyes are not, which is somehow infinitely scarier.
“Who caaares about money~? It’s not like she ripped us off on carrots or anything~”
Yes, Sonya, we know. Carrots are your entire economy.
“Be that as it may — sanctions are necessary.”
“Hmmm…”
Well, the fact of the matter is confirmed: she skimmed a full half off the top. That’s a rip-off by any definition.
Slaughter is off the menu, but if we let her run wild, we’ll need to respond somehow.
“For now, we watch and wait.”
“Watch and… wait?”
“Maria, you know the market rates for selling hunted monsters, right?”
“Naturally. My adventuring career was a long one.”
“Then here’s the plan: next time we hand Arisa something the palm-top rabbits hunted, if she quotes a rip-off price, we cut off all business and consider punishment. And if she quotes a FAIR price… then there was presumably some reason last time, so we ask her why she skimmed us — and then still consider punishment.”
“Hmm… Well. Understood.”
☆★☆★☆★
Now, then. Dragon meat.
For behold… I am, at this very moment, cooking dragon meat.
That’s right.
The dragon meat of my dreams. At last.
I stared reverently at the block cuts the butcher had prepared.
Mm. Marbled like a fresh dusting of powder snow.
I sliced a bit off the end and tried it raw-ish…
“Oh. Oh, this is top-shelf wagyu.”
A5 is supposedly the highest grade wagyu goes, but this is plainly better than any wagyu I’ve ever eaten.
Like — genuinely absurd.
Now… and here I entered deep deliberation.
Yakiniku sauce, for instance, would be too aggressive — it would kill the ingredient.
So what does one do with material THIS supreme…?
—And that evening.
“It’s guuud~♪”
“Legit unreal~!”
“Yum yum yum~♪”
“It went ZING in my nose~!”
“The half-rare part is wild~?”
The palm-top rabbits demolished the dragon meat at their usual ferocious pace.
“But Lord Tatsuya? This condiment is remarkable indeed.”
Maria said it with tears in her eyes.
“Ah. That’s wasabi-soy sauce.”
My ruling: supreme ingredients deserve simple seasoning. Medium rare, wasabi, soy sauce. Done.
I carried a piece of dragon meat to my mouth and chewed.
Juice packed dense with sweetness and umami flooded out, and my face melted entirely of its own accord.
And right where the fat threatens to become too much, the wasabi cuts clean through it—
“DELICIOUS!”
I clapped my hands and groaned before I could stop myself.
I’d considered plain salt and pepper, but the meat’s so rich that alone would turn heavy fast.
In that sense, the wasabi is doing genuinely professional work.
And tonight isn’t just meat… there is also red wine.
Wash the lingering fat down with a swallow of red—
“PERFECT!”
I drained the glass in one go, and Maria refilled it for me.
Then — another piece of dragon. Then more red wine.
This is bad… I can’t stop.
The meat and wine will not stop.
Meat goes in.
Chew.
Grin escapes.
And then — red wine.
—Infinite loops are terrifying, you know that?
The booze and meat simply would not stop.
Delicious. No — TOO delicious.
Sonya and Maria were clearly in the same state: everyone silently, industriously ferrying meat and wine mouthward, on loop.