Ch 129 -- His Dragon Steak Was So Delicious That He Wept

　　Elland-san took me, or rather dragged me to a residential area not far from the Adventurers Guild where there was a row of two-story town houses looking like a high-end street in London, England -- (If you are talking j.a.panese style it would be a tenement). We stopped in front of one particular house which seemed even larger and finer than the others in the street. I presumed it was higher-cla.s.s than the others because he was the city's Guild Master. He escorted me into the house, or rather pushed me in and took me to the house's kitchen. It was large and well-equipped but showed little or no evidence of actual use.

　　"The kitchen is here, but I, I do not cook..." Elland-san said uncomfortably. I looked around at the worktops and sinks and stoves, having given up on trying to avoid Elland-san's intention to eat Dragon meat. Nope, all this was too unfamiliar, I couldn't cook in this kitchen without spending a lot of time, too much time, making mistakes and learning how everything worked. I had been cooking outdoors, in the wilderness and inn courtyards all the time I had spent in this world and it was the only way I knew how to cook here. As Elland-san led me into a reception room I saw a small garden just outside the window. Ah, that would work.

　　"I have my own cooking tools. Can I cook out in that garden?" I enquired.

　　"Yes, of course you can." Elland-san replied immediately and led the way out into the garden where I set up my Black Magic Cooking Stove.

　　"Oh, you have a much larger Item Box than I first thought, Mukouda-san." Elland-san said as I took the stove out of storage. "It was obviously large enough for the Earth Dragon but you can store even more than that in it as I can see. I have Item Box as a skill myself but I could only get half of the Earth Dragon into it if I tried."

　　"You also have Item Box, Elland-san?"

　　"Yes, since Elves have high magical power Item Box is not uncommon among us." That's right, the image of Elves as magical beings of great ability is a common one. Elland-san went on to explain that he could use plant magic -- he gestured around the small but well-kept garden as he spoke -- which was unique to Elves as well as the more common wind magic. He had used these magic skills along with his abilities as a swordsman to rise high among the ranks of Adventurers. He was not a bowman himself, he admitted when I asked. I had the idea, from a certain series of movies perhaps that Elves were all natural bowmen but no, Elland-san's expertise was with the sword. Maybe that was why he was really looking forward to getting his hands on a Dragon sword, because of his experience with swords but I suspected much of his enthusiasm for the project was because of that "Dragon" word again.

　　I knew that Elland-san was a former S-rank Adventurer but my personal impression of him had been formed by watching him obsess over Dragons to a deplorable degree so I found it difficult to see him as a strong figure. Nevertheless he had become the Guild Master of Doran by merit and achievement and, putting aside his dangerous fixation with Dragons I had to a.s.sume what I had witnessed of his behaviour was not necessarily what others saw in him. I would have to keep that in mind in the future, I told myself.

　　Anyway, enough about Elland-san, I thought to myself. It's meat, Dragon meat we're here to cook. But how to cook it? Hmmm, I decided steak was the way to go, quick and simple. A steak was the meat of a creature cooked in its most basic form, after all so Dragon steak it would be. The only additions, at least to start with would be salt and pepper... hmmm, I had bought some high-quality salt and pepper from the Net Super when I had cooked Wyvern steaks for the first time, hadn't I? I dug into my Item Box and located them again. Ah yes, fresh black peppercorns in their own grinder and premium sun-dried salt. Yosh.

　　l took out some Dragon meat and cut it into thick steaks. I admired the meat as I sliced it, lean and firm and beautiful-looking. I decided to prepare it like b.l.o.o.d.y Horn Bull steaks so I turned on a burner on the cooking stove to high and heated up oil in a big frying pan. I sprinkled salt and pepper on the steaks just before I put them in the frying pan.

　　Sizzle---. The smell of cooking meat rose from the pan and my mouth instantly flooded with saliva. I swallowed, concentrating on the timing. Something this good, I couldn't ruin it by overcooking simply by being hypnotised by the smell, no matter how exquisite. Concentrate... after a minute at high heat I turned the burner down and cooked at a lower setting for another minute before flipping the steaks over and cooking the other sides in the same way. I then took the pan off the burner and put some aluminium foil over the top for five minutes to let the steaks cook through with the residual heat.