Chapter 100: Hermit Crab Gratin and a Kidnapper
The day after we drove off the Dragon King.
The Knights and adventurers were working together to clear away rubble and repair damaged houses.
Apparently, that sort of thing was part of the Knights’ duties too.
“You there, adventurer! Clear that rubble more carefully! It’ll be dangerous if it collapses!”
“S-Sorry!”
Randolph’s roar rang out, and the scolded adventurer hurriedly apologized.
“Good grief, what an amateur! This is why adventurers are useless!”
“If you keep getting that worked up, your blood pressure’s going to shoot up.”
“I do not have high blood pressure! Stop wasting time and go tend to the girl who was attacked by the monsters’ leader!”
Even as he shouted at me, I picked up a bucket of water and a towel and headed for the medical tent erected in the port town’s square.
When I entered the tent, Raphiel was checking on Ryu, whose entire body was wrapped in bandages.
“How is Ryu doing?”
“I panicked when my healing miracle had no effect, but she appears to possess remarkable natural regenerative abilities, so her life is not in danger. However…”
“However?”
“Mm… I’m hungry…”
A cute little growl came from Ryu’s stomach.
“She must have expended her power regenerating her injuries. It appears she is hungry. Incidentally, I am hungry as well.”
“Ahaha… Then I’ll go make something.”
I headed for the tractor and trailer parked in the square and began preparing to cook.
“Hmm? What are you doing, Onii-san?”
“Oh, Eve. I was thinking I’d make something quick.”
“Oh? Then let’s use that thing. You know, the hermit crab that nearly beat you.”
“It did not nearly beat me. …Do you think that hermit crab is edible?”
I had heard that king crabs were technically relatives of hermit crabs.
So it probably wasn’t inedible, but…
“It’ll be fine. I ate one raw and crunchy before and got an upset stomach, but Grandpa said boiling it neutralizes the poison, so it’s safe.”
“Oh, so it has a protein-based toxin. …You ate one raw?”
“It was pretty tasty.”
I-It was tasty?
Still, if heating it neutralized the toxin, it was perfectly usable as an ingredient.
“But I’ve never cooked anything with hermit crab before. What should I make?”
…Well, I could just treat it as a substitute for crab.
First, I brought a pot of water to a boil, added some store-bought macaroni, boiled it for the time printed on the package, and drained it.
I melted butter in a frying pan and added thinly sliced onions.
Once they softened and turned translucent, I took the pan off the heat and sprinkled in some cake flour.
I stirred it for a while until the raw flour smell disappeared and the onions were evenly coated, then added milk little by little in several batches.
The trick was to mix everything thoroughly before adding the next portion of milk so the flour wouldn’t form lumps.
Then I added consommé and stirred it over medium heat, simmering it until it thickened.
And that finished the white sauce.
“Now I just need to remove the hermit crab’s shell…”
The mithril kitchen knife was useful at times like this.
An ordinary knife looked as though it would snap clean in half, but the mithril knife sliced straight through.
I added the crab meat and boiled macaroni to the finished white sauce in the frying pan, gently mixed everything together, then seasoned it with salt and pepper.
After that, I poured the white sauce into an ovenproof dish whose inside I had coated with butter…
“Pile on plenty of melting cheese, then bake it in a preheated oven!”
Once the top had browned nicely, the crab gratin—or rather, the hermit crab gratin—was complete!
…
“This occurs to me rather late, but wouldn’t gratin be hard on an injured person’s stomach?”
“Isn’t it a little late to worry about that after you’ve finished making it?”
“…I suppose so?”
I carried the hermit crab gratin to the medical tent where Ryu and Raphiel were waiting.
“The savory aroma of browned cheese smells exceptionally delicious.”
“Mm… I’m starving…”
“Very well. I shall feed you.”
“Mm…”
Raphiel scooped up some gratin with a spoon and tried to feed it to Ryu.
Ryu tilted her head and made a single request.
“Mm… Blow on it… for me?”
Having lost the “Eye,” Ryu’s body had shrunk by one size, and with bandages wrapped around her everywhere, the destructive power of that request was overwhelming.
Raphiel eagerly began blowing on it.
“I shall cool the gratin completely with my breath.”
“…If it gets completely cold… it won’t taste good… so I don’t want that…”
“…Then I shall blow on it until it reaches a suitable temperature.”
After Raphiel blew on the gratin just enough to cool it, she fed it to Ryu.
“Haf… Ahf… Mmph… Mm… Delicious… It tastes of the sea… Delicious…”
“Can you manage to eat it?”
“Mm… I’ll eat more and more… and get stronger… Next time, I won’t lose…”
“Please don’t push yourself too hard, all right? And your eye was… well, injured too.”
Ryu appeared to be vowing revenge against the Dragon King, Dratea.
“Mm… My eye is already healed…”
“What?”
Ryu removed the bandage covering part of her face and showed me what was underneath.
The eye that should have been gouged out had already regenerated, and its crimson iris stared at me.
“More to the point, Ryu’s body has already healed completely.”
“What? Then why is she still wearing all those bandages…?”
“Mm… Keeping bandages wrapped around my body… looks cool…”
“Covering your whole body in bandages just makes you look like you’re in pain…”
Maybe it would look cool if she wrapped them only around her right eye or one hand…
No, that would still make her look painfully injured.
Just then, someone casually wandered into the medical tent.
“Hey! How have you been, Eight?”
“Eve! Bring all the salt you can find! Salt!”
“Onii-san, is Ha◯ata Salt okay?”
“W-Wait! Why are you throwing salt the moment you see my face?”
“Because you told me to go to a battlefield and then vanished without a trace!”
The person who had entered the tent was Hijiri.
He sat down in a nearby chair and apologized with an embarrassed expression.
“I’m sorry about that. I had a lot of things to take care of on my end too.”
“What things?”
“I infiltrated Zahaba to investigate what was going on inside the country.”
Whaaat!?
“Y-You infiltrated enemy territory?”
“That’s right. I managed to disguise myself and slip in, but a group called the Dragon King Cult—who absolutely reeked of being a cult—found me out, and I ended up in one heck of an escape.”
“That sounds… exhausting. Here, have some tea for now.”
“Oh, thanks.”
When I served him the tea, Hijiri sipped from the cup without the slightest suspicion.
“Hmm? This tea is good. What kind is it?”
“Behi Tea.”
“…The stuff made from Behemoth dung?”
“That stuff.”
“Pfft! Wh-What are you making a friend who risked his life to get back drink!?”
“I’ll consider us even for you threatening me into going to the battlefield.”
“…You really shouldn’t earn someone’s resentment…”
I wanted him to appreciate how merciful I was being.
Hijiri seemed reluctant after the first sip, but perhaps the Behi Tea suited his tastes, because he finished it without hesitation.
Then he placed the empty cup on the table, looked at me, and said one thing.
“By the way, I’m about to attend a party at the royal castle. Want to come along?”
“No.”
“Come on, come on! Don’t say that!”
“I refuse! I’m going back to Papel Village and going to bed! I’ve been away too much lately, and I’ve been neglecting the restaurant. I want to return to that peaceful, quiet village!”
“That village is nowhere near as quiet as you make it sound! It’s a demon realm surrounded by forests inhabited by vicious monsters!”
Hijiri clung to my arm, but I shook him off with all my strength.
“Then could you at least look after this for me?”
“Hmm?”
Hijiri set a gigantic bag down on the ground.
Something heavy appeared to be inside.
When I opened it to see what it contained, I found a young child with pale purple hair and eyes, her mouth gagged with cloth and her hands and feet bound with rope.
She looked ready to cry at any moment.
I stepped out of the tent, returned with my mithril kitchen knife, and took up a stance.
“Y-You kidnapper!”
“N-No! You’ve got the wrong idea! This is all a misunderstanding!”
Hijiri desperately began making excuses.