Chapter 189

Chapter 189: Gigantify

Translated by Zzonkedd

Edited by Gumihou

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Guilds were especially busy in the early mornings, so we came a little later to avoid the mad scramble for missions. There was practically no one at the reception hall when I came in.

The receptionist went off to fetch Yoran-san for us right after I showed her my guild card.

“Are you here to report on the Cyclops mission?”

“Yes, we’ve managed to complete the mission without any issue.”

“Ooh, is that so, is that so. Very well, let’s move this conversation to the warehouse. Follow me please.”

We trooped in after Yoran-san to the warehouse.

The dismantler was in the middle of his work when we arrived. He looked like he was in his 40s, huge and full of muscles. He paused to say, “Ah, it’s the Guild Master, do you need anything?”

“You’re almost done with that, right? We can talk once you’ve finished with your work, Horace.”

“Alright, please wait for a little while,” said Horace. He went back to his work, his long sword flas.h.i.+ng as he skilfully dismantled the monster.

“Apologies for the wait, Mukouda-san.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” Well, I said I don’t mind, but the stench of blood… ugh, it was like my nose was being a.s.saulted by sickly sweet rusty iron… I really can’t get used to these kinds of places.

Luckily, Horace was quick with his work. It was all over within 5 minutes, and he came forward while wiping down his long sword. “Apologies for the wait. Well? How may I help you?”

“Umu. Mukouda-san, have you brought the Cyclops? Is it fairly undamaged?”

“Ah, yes. He’s in my [Item Box]. Should I bring the Cyclops out here?”

“H-h-h-hold on, a Cyclops? A whole Cyclops? If you bring out such a huge creature here it will be a problem for me. We’ll need more s.p.a.ce… oh, you can put the monster here.” Horace quickly rushed around to clear up some s.p.a.ce for me.

“Alright, I’ll put him here,” I said, placing the body of the Cyclops onto the s.p.a.ce cleared by Horace.

“Woah, this is amazing. There are barely any wounds on this creature.” Horace exclaimed, “It’s so rare to see one with so few wounds. I should be able to harvest some very good skin from this.”

Right? Right? My familiars all did a very good job, right? They defeated it with minimal wound just as I asked.

“What about the eyeball?”

Horace-san pulled the eyelid up to check said body part and made a little tsking sound, “U-n, it’s a little damaged. It will lower the price, but the overall condition is pretty good.”

Eh? Just how did the eye got wounded… oh, right. Fer’s Lightning Attack hit the Cyclop’s head, didn’t it? Well, that’s where the eye is, I guess it can’t be helped.

Fer had been listening all this while, and did not seem happy to hear this, “Humph, you told me not to injure the skin, n.o.body said anything about the eye.”

“No, no, I think it’s fine. It’s just a little damaged, but still salvageable, right?” I looked at both Horace and Yoran-san, who nodded.

“Didn’t they say the price will be lowered?”

“Well, that’s true, but it’s not like we’re hard up for money, aren’t we? So, no problem, no problem.”

“Humph.” Fer seemed to take the lowering of the price of his prey personally. Maa, it’s not like I care though. Also, since Fer is our biggest earner, I’m not going to quibble over this with him.

“I see, so Fenrir could speak human languages…” Horace-san looked surprised by this.

Ahh, I keep forgetting that aside from being powerful, my companions were unique in other ways.

“Oh, sorry for listening in on your conversation. I had heard of this, but until I heard it myself, I really couldn’t believe it…”

“Hahaha, I understand what you mean. I was really surprised when I first met Fer too.”

“Creatures that could speak and understand human languages are legendary monsters indeed. The only ones to exist are probably that Fenrir over there, and Ancient Dragons.”

“Umu. That’s because those old geezers have too much time on their hands. Most of them learn human languages out of boredom. So it’s normal for them to be able to speak to you.”

To call Ancient Dragons old geezers… Fer is probably the only living creature in this world who would dare to do so…

“Huoh, huoh, huoh…” Yoran-san appeared very amused by this.

Horace said, “Hohoho, you sure are amazingly daring.”

Erm, let me apologise to the Ancient Dragons in my heart. Sorry, sorry…

Anyway, let’s try to change the subject. “Uhm, can you also dismantle these too?” I took out a Black Serpent, a Giant Dodo and two c.o.c.katrices from the [Item Box] that we had hunted before leaving the City of Doran.

There was also a Dim Grey Rhino and a Sabre-Tooth Tiger in my [Item Box], but since they weren’t edible, I decided not to take them out.

“Oh, Black Serpent, Giant Dodo and a couple of c.o.c.katrices? Of course, I’d be happy to.”

“Please take the meat off for me, we can negotiate for everything else later.”

“Aah, very well. So, I’ll be dismantling the Cyclops as well as these, right? Please come back and collect them tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

“If that’s the case, shall I hand over the subjugation money tomorrow?”

“Yes, that’s fine with me.”

Once the business was settled, we left the Adventurers guild. Before our next trip here, we shall go sightseeing!

It’s a pottery town, after all, let’s have a look at tableware. Plates, bowls, cups and things!

Perhaps infected by my excitement, Sui peeked out from the bag.

Ah, yes. I did say I would check that out first…

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“How about here? It’s not a very busy spot so we should probably be fine here.”

“Yes, I do believe this is a good place for it.”

After leaving the Adventurer’s Guild, we made our way outside the city to test our Sui’s newly acquired [Gigantify] skill.

I had Fer find us an unpopulated area with few people or monsters around.

“Sui, can you come out?”

Sui popped out of my bag with a little pyon and looked up inquiringly from the gra.s.sy floor. “Yes, Aruji ~?”

Ahhh~, ahem, “Sui, do you remember your new skill?”

“Yes, the one that makes Sui bigger than big.”

“Yes, that one. We’re here to see just how big you can get. Why don’t you try it now?”

“Un, okay ~ Everyone please go a little bit further away from Sui, ne ~”

“Oi, oi, what do you mean go a bit further away? How big are you going to get?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out, Dora-chan. Let’s just move away, okay?”

I shuffled away, along with Fer and Dora-chan. We’re still within calling distance, I’m sure this is good enough.

“Yahoo, here I go~” Sui activated the skill and began to grow and grow…

… and grow and grow.

The word ‘gigantic’ was certainly appropriate for the size that Sui ended up becoming.

At 5 meters tall and 10 meters wide Sui looked down at them, “Arrujiii~ Sui can become thi~is big~” having grown so large, even Sui’s telepathic voice had a low echoing quality to it. It was a little scary.

“H-huge, na…” Dora-chan, who was already tiny in comparison to other monsters, was especially startled by Sui’s size.

“Is this the form of a Huge Slime? It’s definitely bigger than any Huge Slimes I’ve ever met before,” said Fer, clearly even he was surprised.

“If even Fer is surprised, then I can definitely say that Sui is a very special Slime, na.”

“Suuii is speeciaal? Yaaaaay!” Sui began bouncing up and down in excitement.

Doom, doom, doom, doom.

In her Gigantified form, Sui’s bouncing was more unnerving than cute. “Aaah, Sui! Calm down! Please go back to your regular size!” I shouted desperately.

“Oka~y,”

I really have no idea how these things worked, but Sui thankfully began to shrink down to her regular form again. It’s so unscientific but awesome at the same time.

“How is it? How is it? Sui became really, really big, you know~?”

“Aah, it’s really incredible how huge you become.”

“Ufufu, Sui could become both bigger or smaller between this size and the biggest size, you know ~”

Eh? So, in other words, you can control your size at will?

That really is incredible.

“Ah, but Sui still likes this size best because Sui can sit in here~” said Sui as she reached out with a slime tentacle to touch her favourite bag.

“I prefer Sui in this size too. It’s the size when I first met Sui-chan, this feels like you most~”

“Ehehe, if Aruji prefers this too, then Sui will stay this size too ~”

“I’m very glad to hear that, but, if I ask Sui to grow bigger, please do so, alright?”

“Alright~”

Ah… Now that I was paying attention, the area where Sui had used her Skill was completely squashed, making a very nice, flattened area. It looked like a good picnic area.

“Hey, since it’s almost lunchtime, shall we have our meal here?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, na. The weather’s nice and the food’s bound to taste good too.” Dora-chan fluttered around the circle of squashed gra.s.s in high spirits, zipping here and there excitedly.

“Umu, a good suggestion.”

“Lunch, lunch, lunch~”

“Alright, since we’re all in agreement, I shall prepare the food now.” I really had not considered what to make, but since the weather was so nice, whatever we eat would bound to taste good.

I took out my special dwarf-made barbecue stove. We’re outdoors, the weather’s good and there’s a nice breeze going on, what’s better than a barbecue?

Let’s see, what should we put on the grill?

Oho, I still have those fresh sausages I made before, hmm, we can also grill up some b.l.o.o.d.y Horn Bull and Wyvern. Let’s get some vegetables too, I don’t know about the others, but I’m getting really tired eating meat, meat, meat all the time… I want something more refres.h.i.+ng, na…

I should marinate the meat, but it would take time to make the pickling solution… oh, maybe I can just buy some marinade sauces off the market and use those instead.

With that, I opened up my trusty [Net Super] and bought all the necessary groceries: First, the charcoal, then for vegetables, oh the s.h.i.+take mushrooms looks good, oh, and the asparagus too. Let’s get some of these plump looking corn as well. Oho, grilled corn with b.u.t.ter, that’s right let’s get some b.u.t.ter too, and these expensive flaky salt to sprinkle on top….

Next, let’s look at the list of sauces, oho, this one looks good, this one looks alright I guess… oh, oh, this one!

Compared to the other sauces, this one stands out via packaging. Instead of a little plastic bottle, the sauce came in a tall carton box, perfect for pouring over large quant.i.ties of meat.

I’ve tried this sauce before, and I must say that its thick and strong flavours should do nicely as a marinade for raw meat. Oh, it even says that on the packaging, perfect.

Let’s see, barbecue is all about timing. Ideally, everything should be done at the same time so that food is not left loafing around too long, or a side dish completely eaten up before the star dish even make its debut.

So first, pour the yakiniku marinade over fairly thick slices of b.l.o.o.d.y Horn Bull and Wyvern meat. Ma.s.sage them a little, and set them aside to sit.

[1] I always like to start the fire first and let the charcoal burn down to a bright red ember before cooking. I used to have a lot of trouble starting fires, but no more! Just pile up the charcoal here and with a quick (and tiny) Fireball lit it up.

While the fire was burning merrily away, I turned my attention to the vegetables.

s.h.i.+take mushrooms were roughly sliced up and set aside. Next, I used a peeler to peel off the tough stems of the asparagus. That’s the secret to good grilled asparagus, you know? To avoid overcooking or undercooking the asparagus, the best thing to do was to peel off the tough bits before putting them on the grill.

The tomatoes and bell peppers could be grilled whole, same goes for the corn. Ah, I do like the smoky charcoal taste these vegetables picked up from the fire. All they need was a little drizzle of olive oil and they were good to go on the grill.

[2] Time to check on the fire. I had piled the charcoal into a little mountain right in the middle of the special charcoal shelf. With a long spatula, I spread out the burning embers evenly. Reaching for more charcoal, I placed them on half of the burning embers. With the unburnt charcoal on top, I now have a less hot vs hotter sections.

Because we can’t control the flame through gas management or magic, it’s a good idea to have a weak fire and strong fire section. I closed the net and piled up meat over the entire barbecue real estate. The key is constant flipping on the hot side, and less flipping on the cooler side to cook the meat and prevent burning. Since there was no issue of food poisoning for my familiars and also-

“Oii-, the meat on this side is done already!”

-there’s that.

I lifted the well grilled, but probably still a little b.l.o.o.d.y in the middle, meat into a large plate and let them sit there to cook in their own heat for a little longer. There was no stopping my familiars, however, even as I portioned out their share into individual bowls, meat was being s.n.a.t.c.hed up from the deep bowl.

Oi, have some patience, you guys. “Alright, alright, here you go.” I handed out three bowls of meat, amused by their hafu, hafu as they tried to swallow the piping hot meat. Not that it seemed to bother Sui, looks like spicy peppers were the only kind of heat she disliked. Fer cheated by using his wind magic to cool his meat, whereas Dora-chan, well Dora-chan is a dragon, but he seemed to be more sensitive to heat than I expected [3].

Now that I have s.p.a.ce, I moved the meat from the low-heat to high heat section and began placing vegetables onto the freed up s.p.a.ce. Vegetables could be served with nothing but salt, yum. As expected, the vegetables were quickly done, alongside the second helping of meat in time for the-

“Seconds, please!!”

Yes, yes.

I placed freshly grilled meat and vegetables into their bowls. Fufufu, looks like everyone was enjoying their very first proper barbecue~

“Nn, someone’s coming.” Fer was the first to notice.

I squinted my eyes in the direction he was looking and saw figures of people walking towards our direction.

“Don’t worry, they are merely children.”

Oh? Fer is good enough to alert me even though they are children? How vigilant, as expected of my most trusted and reliable partner.

Still, would little children really appear in this kind of place?

Finally, they were close enough for me to see them too.

It was a group of five boys and girls in their early teens. All were dressed in armour, robes and carrying weaponry like Adventurers.

If this was j.a.pan, I’d say cosplay. If this was a kid’s anime, I’d say the most powerful team of wreckers has arrived. [4]

Should I be worried?

[Gumihou: Ahhh, I love a good barbecue. It’s almost like the j.a.panese osechi here. On the 31st of December, you will see smoke coming up from people’s backyards as we all prepare to grill our favourite meats and vegetables while waiting for the clock to strike 12]

[1] Adjusted some details: He only started the fire after all the prep work is done. Bad move, bbq fire should always be started first so that the charcoal fire is more stable. Some editing work from my side. Oh, and I bought the b.u.t.ter too, and salt.

[2] Added more details: Author did not seem to know the right way to do a barbecue. Our family do compet.i.tive barbecue every year, so please allow me to add details. If we do what Mukouda did in the original text, the tomatoes would have melted through the net, the asparagus turned into a limp noodle and the corn both dried and blackened. Definitely not ‘sweet and delicious’. Oh, the meat would have been warmed on the outside and b.l.o.o.d.y on the inside, which I’m not sure whether the familiars would care, but I certainly would protest.

One does not put the veggies before the meats, unless the goal is to stuff your guests with vegetables due to lack of bbq protein. You should cover the net with meat first, serve up whatever’s done, then place the vegetables on, keeping a third of the bbq real estate for veggies and the rest for main proteins.

[3] Adjusted some details: Instead of the usual, ‘kyaa, kyaa, yummy, yummy, seconds!’ routine, I decided to go with this instead.

[4] Added more details: Okay, so I took an opportunity to poke fun on anime logic, where the group with the youngest and prettiest people are the strongest. Lol, I can’t resist.