The Cooking Princess - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Princess Who Cooks

Episode 19

The taste of the sea monsters had been verified through the tasting by the Count and Eshir.

Before launching a full-scale fish farming business, she first had to showcase dishes using these monsters.

She needed to prove to people that monsters could become wonderful cuisine in order to make the business successful.

Chloe couldn’t keep going back and forth between the North and the Garnet Estate by herself to catch monsters, and that wouldn’t be enough to handle the volume needed.

Chloe wanted to let as many people as possible in this place, who lived eating tasteless food daily without even knowing it was tasteless, taste delicious food.

‘But first, I need to bring all of this back home.’

To catch the living monsters and slice them into sashimi right at the Garnet Estate, Chloe prepared bags that could transport living creatures with Eshir’s help.

However, while flounder and salmon fit into the bags she had prepared, the really large tuna was a problem. It was nearly 3 meters long, far too big to fit whole into the bag.

She considered slicing it all into sashimi before taking it, but there wasn’t enough time, and she wasn’t confident she could slice sashimi properly without proper equipment in a place that wasn’t even a kitchen.

Most importantly, to convince people that monsters could become food, she had to show them that these were monsters first.

Otherwise, they would be too delicious and people wouldn’t believe they were monsters.

‘They’d just think it was some newly discovered fish.’

Having to worry that monsters might be too delicious for people to believe they were monsters – what an ironic situation.

After pondering for a moment, Chloe made her decision.

‘Right. I’ll give up on tuna sashimi for now.’

Though she was disappointed knowing how exquisite the rich, buttery taste of tuna sashimi was, bringing it back came first.

“Eshir, can you grill this whole thing?”

“Yes, well. I can do that.”

Eshir answered readily and shot lightning magic at the tuna. In an instant, the tuna was evenly grilled to a golden brown.

“Wow.”

The skin was crisply grilled with oil dripping everywhere. The savory aroma vibrated in all directions.

Such powerful yet delicate magical control.

Lightning magic was even a combat-type magic.

Chloe, who had thought Eshir wasn’t good at combat magic and was helping her because of that, was mildly shocked.

‘If he’s this good at offensive magic, why did he specifically come to the Garnet Estate?’

Of course, the Garnet Estate was paying exceptionally generous wages and treatment.

However, since the current empire was ruled by the aggressive conqueror Felix III, there was naturally high demand for combat mages, so Eshir could have found better work if he wanted to.

Perhaps he was too young to enter the Magic Tower but had circumstances requiring immediate income. Chloe speculated to herself.

‘It might be rude to pry into his personal circumstances.’

Chloe set aside her questions for now.

The tuna was more important right now.

She looked at the steaming tuna and asked Eshir.

“When can I eat this? I’m asking because I’m worried I might get electrocuted if I touch it.”

“You’re thinking about eating while watching a monster burn up?”

He narrowed his eyes as if incredulous.

“Then when should I eat it? Don’t tell me I can’t eat it? Did you poison the lightning?”

“How would I poison lightning… Fine. You can eat it.”

Eshir answered with half-resigned acceptance of Chloe’s unique imagination, and Chloe’s eyes sparkled as she tore off a piece.

The Count dismantled the rest of the tuna piece by piece, and Eshir carefully packed the well-cut tuna pieces into bags and lifted them easily with levitation magic.

And Chloe’s eyes began sparkling non-stop after tasting the piece of flesh she had torn off.

The reason was simple.

‘The tuna tastes much better than what I ate in my previous life.’

The flounder tasted similar to her previous life, but why was the tuna even more delicious? She couldn’t understand the criteria, but it was very, very good news for Chloe anyway.

‘After all, the more delicious the fish, the better!’

Of course, it might be because she was eating it fresh right after catching it, but that was the same for the flounder.

The moist flesh and the umami that came through without adding any spices. Moreover, even without salting or removing fishy odors, there was barely any of the characteristic fishy smell of tuna.

Chloe was already filled with anticipation about what dishes she would make with this tuna.

‘Just from today’s catch, there’s flounder and tuna…’

It was truly a tremendous harvest. It was disappointing that she couldn’t bring the tuna back alive, but she could just work Eshir harder to prepare larger bags.

And there were still unknown sea monsters yet to be discovered.

‘It would be nice if there were yellowtail and gizzard shad, rockfish… mackerel and flounder too.’

In Chloe’s mind, the northernmost part of the domain was already a giant aquarium and fish farm.

Chloe returned to the Garnet Estate with her successful harvest and swelling expectations.

***

Upon returning to the Garnet Estate, Chloe immediately studied the sea monsters thoroughly from head to tail.

And she discovered a surprising and fortunate fact.

“Wait, the sea monsters have no poison?”

Eshir, who had been conducting research alongside Chloe, muttered in a deflated voice.

Regardless, Chloe was so excited she was busy jumping up and down in place.

“See! Everyone just said they were monsters because they looked scary, but they really are edible, right?”

Not only the flounder, but all the monsters hunted from the sea had no poison at all, unlike land monsters.

From Chloe’s perspective, wanting to use sea fish as ingredients, this was truly fortunate.

She couldn’t have a mage detoxify every single fish she caught.

Either they would become incredibly inefficient and expensive ingredients requiring a mage’s labor cost per fish, or she would have to develop techniques to remove poison like with pufferfish. Freed from this hellish dilemma, Chloe now began working in earnest to cook the flounder.

Chloe muttered regretfully while slicing the flesh of the flounder she had caught alive.

“It’s such a waste when the flesh falls off. All of that is edible.”

With Chloe’s clumsy knife skills, it was still difficult to perfectly slice flounder into sashimi.

The castle’s cooks and knights hovered around trying to help, but Chloe declined.

Though the knights were skilled with swords, they probably had never dealt with fish, and while the cooks had experience handling fish, they didn’t know how to slice sashimi.

In the end, Chloe had no choice but to do it herself.

At Chloe’s comment about the flesh being wasteful, Eshir retorted with a ‘here she goes with nonsense again’ expression.

“You find everything precious, don’t you.”

Chloe was about to argue back when she suddenly paused, struck by a thought.

‘Wait. If I say I want to learn swordsmanship to slice sashimi, wouldn’t my parents, who try to stop my dangerous actions, allow sword training?’

Actually, she had been thinking about this since going to the far north.

Unlike the Count who wielded his sword like part of his body, and Eshir who could easily catch monsters using lightning magic, Chloe had to wait for others to catch monsters for her.

If she learned swordsmanship, she could easily catch whatever monsters she wanted.

And her parents…

‘If I say I want to learn swordsmanship to slice sashimi, they’d be bewildered but worry less.’

She recalled the Count who worried even while accompanying her to the northernmost part of the domain, and the Duchess who could barely sleep from worry about taking her daughter to the far north.

If she learned swordsmanship, she could fight back even when facing monsters, which would ease her parents’ worries.

Having finished her calculations, Chloe answered Eshir with sparkling eyes.

“Dad is a Count but also received a knight’s title.”

That’s why another title for Count Garnet was ‘Sir Grania.’

“…So?”

Sensing unease in Chloe’s innocent question, Eshir answered a beat slower.

And as soon as he answered, Chloe opened her mouth as if she had been waiting.

“Then don’t I have some talent for swordsmanship too?”

“What?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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