[Country Food] Is anyone watching that divine cat stream? [Other-World Returnee?]
1: Anonymous Viewer What on earth is that rural cooking stream showing up in recommendations lately? The cat is cute.
2: Anonymous Viewer Which one?
3: Anonymous Viewer The one grilling monster meat in a place that looks like a shed. It went viral with the miso-grilled horned rabbit and ginger-grilled fang-boar.
4: Anonymous Viewer Ah, I saw it. It was so much food porn that I cooked rice in the middle of the night.
5: Anonymous Viewer The cat is cute.
6: Anonymous Viewer Someone is only talking about the cat.
7: Anonymous Viewer No, the cat is the main body. That white cat stopped the fish from overcooking with its front paw during the stream.
8: Anonymous Viewer It is Divine Cat Mikoto-sama. Remember the name.
9: Anonymous Viewer That streamer is apparently an outcast from Sword of Dawn.
10: Anonymous Viewer Huh?
11: Anonymous Viewer Sword of Dawn is the major explorer team led by Ren Kurose, right? They are even on TV.
12: Anonymous Viewer An outcast doing cooking streams in the countryside? Too much information.
13: Anonymous Viewer Was his name Yuma Kamishiro? He used to be like an odd-job guy in Sword of Dawn.
14: Anonymous Viewer An odd-job guy can fillet a frozen trout?
15: Anonymous Viewer Isn’t frozen trout the one that appears in the cold water layer of abandoned mine-type dungeons? That is a fish that will take your fingers off if an amateur touches it.
16: Anonymous Viewer Yeah, yeah. Yet he grilled it with salt in yesterday’s stream. The skin was super crispy, and the meat was super fluffy. The comment section was filled with rice, sake, and where is the village.
17: Anonymous Viewer That episode was crazy. While grilling, fat dropped onto the charcoal, and the moment it made a sizzling sound, my stomach growled too.
18: Anonymous Viewer It was great when the village grandpa said with a straight face, This is fish.
19: Anonymous Viewer It is scary how the streamer himself keeps a face like, I just grilled it normally.
20: Anonymous Viewer There is a rumor that he was banished under a false accusation.
21: Anonymous Viewer Yeah, yeah, another believer’s delusion.
22: Anonymous Viewer If Kurose-san banished him, there must have been a proper reason. Do not hype up a guy who caused trouble for Sword of Dawn.
23: Anonymous Viewer Did a Kurose fan arrive?
24: Anonymous Viewer I am not particularly a fan, but didn’t he get banished because he caused trouble? Doing favorability farming in the countryside using a cat now is a bit telling.
25: Anonymous Viewer Favorability farming using a cat is hilarious. He is the one being used by the cat, you know.
26: Anonymous Viewer Mikoto-sama: Yuma, the heat is too strong. Yuma: Yes. A hierarchy has completely formed.
27: Anonymous Viewer The comment section is peaceful, but message boards get like this right away.
28: Anonymous Viewer Stream comment section: Looks delicious! The cat is cute! Is the village grandma doing well? Mail order when?
Message board: The truth behind the banishment is this. Kurose is that way. The cat is the main body.
29: Anonymous Viewer Isn’t only the last one the same?
30: Anonymous Viewer The cooking skills being so abnormal is real. Did anyone see the dismantling of the fang-boar? Even a normal hunter could not do that.
31: Anonymous Viewer The angle of the knife is way too clean. The bleeding is fast, and the odor removal is minimal. Yet only the umami of the meat is left.
32: Anonymous Viewer But he is a cook, right? If he is an other-world returnee, isn’t that common?
33: Anonymous Dismantler Pardon me for cutting in. There is no way that is common.
34: Anonymous Viewer Someone came.
35: Anonymous Viewer A self-proclaimed expert?
36: Anonymous Dismantler Self-proclaimed is fine. I have worked at a slaughterhouse for seventeen years. I handle earth-born beasts and dungeon specimens. The handiwork of that person named Kamishiro is not normal.
37: Anonymous Viewer Give specifics, please.
38: Anonymous Dismantler First, the horned rabbit. There is a core of magical power at the base of the horn. If you pull it out roughly, bitterness spreads to the meat. In the stream, he cut almost without hesitation only on the outside of the core. You cannot do that unless you look at individual differences and apply the blade.
39: Anonymous Viewer Huh.
40: Anonymous Dismantler The fang-boar is the same. The fang-boar has a hard shoulder fascia. If you do it with brute force, the meat tears and the texture drops. Mr. Kamishiro laid the blade flat and peeled only the fascia. Moreover, he did this while streaming, asking the village grandma about the amount of miso.
41: Anonymous Viewer He was doing that while chatting, wasn’t he?
42: Anonymous Dismantler Normally impossible. Even with concentration, it is difficult. Furthermore, the frozen trout is even more abnormal.
43: Anonymous Viewer Fish too?
44: Anonymous Dismantler Frozen trout have fast post-mortem rigidity. There is a cold air pouch in the internal organs, and if you break it, the meat becomes watery. In the stream, the angle to open the belly was perfect, and he did not touch the cold air pouch. Far from that, he utilized the cold air of the pouch to maintain the temperature of the meat.
45: Anonymous Viewer What is that, isn’t he too professional?
46: Anonymous Dismantler Even professionals rarely go that far. If it were me, I would be nervous even on the premise of serving it in a restaurant. That person was doing it with a face like, Salt is good today.
47: Anonymous Viewer The banished person is actually competent theory.
48: Anonymous Viewer No, isn’t it beyond competent?
49: Anonymous Viewer But wasn’t he an odd-job guy in Sword of Dawn?
50: Anonymous Dismantler I do not know the scope of the word odd-job guy. However, if a human capable of that level of processing was in the party, you could entrust him with food management, material management, wound medicine material processing, and even the removal of magical contamination. Raid efficiency should change quite a bit.
51: Anonymous Viewer In other words, a hidden pillar of strength?
52: Anonymous Dismantler Far from a hidden pillar, the foundation.
53: Anonymous Viewer Does that mean Kurose-san and the others were strong because Kamishiro was there?
54: Anonymous Viewer Jumping to conclusions is not good. But Sword of Dawn has been a bit rough lately after he left.
55: Anonymous Viewer Kurose looked bad in complexion on the stream before this. Reina Shiratori stayed silent the whole time too.
56: Anonymous Viewer Reina-san seems to have noticed something.
57: Anonymous Viewer Hey hey, do not bash active teams with delusions. If Kamishiro is really that amazing, why hasn’t he shown his face publicly until now?
58: Anonymous Viewer Probably because he himself has no intention of stepping into the public eye.
59: Anonymous Viewer The cooking stream does not feel like he wants to go viral either. Every time, feeding the village people comes first. The comment reading also feels like a girl named Riko is teaching him from the side.
60: Anonymous Viewer Riko-chan is competent. Yesterday too, without picking up weird comments, she brushed it off like, Are the grilling sounds coming through?
61: Anonymous Viewer If that management role was not there, Yuma would probably answer everything straight-on. If asked, Are you falsely accused?, he would probably say, Well, the food is getting cold.
62: Anonymous Viewer It is hilarious because he sounds like he would.
63: Anonymous Viewer There is a rumor that the Kurose side is going to release an expository video.
64: Anonymous Viewer Again.
65: Anonymous Viewer I only saw the title. Something like The Truth of Outcast Yuma Kamishiro. The thumbnail is a black background with red text.
66: Anonymous Viewer Old-fashioned.
67: Anonymous Viewer But those kinds of things get views.
68: Anonymous Dismantler If the video says An incompetent person who can only cook, people in the industry will laugh. Instead of only being able to cook, he can transform dangerous materials into ingredients. This is the highest peak skill as a raid support profession.
69: Anonymous Viewer The expert cannon has arrived.
70: Anonymous Viewer Feels good.
71: Anonymous Viewer Or rather, that cat is crazy too. Mikoto-sama pressed down the bucket with his tail the moment the frozen trout jumped. Is that a cat?
72: Anonymous Viewer I told you it is a divine cat.
73: Anonymous Viewer Conclusion:
Yuma is good at cooking
Dismantling technology is abnormal
The cat is the main body
The villagers are happy Isn’t this fine?
74: Anonymous Viewer Fine.
75: Anonymous Viewer I am going to cook rice.
◇
I had not seen that message board.
To be precise, I knew of its existence because Riko-san had a difficult expression and said, A thread is currently up under Yuma-san’s name.
However, my hands had no time for such things.
Inside the large pot, the broth extracted from the fang-boar bones was turning turbid white. When I added just a bit of the frozen trout scraps to it, the heavy umami of the beast overlapped with a clear scent like a cold river.
“Yuma, scum.”
“Yes, yes.”
Mikoto wagged his tail on top of the workbench. I scooped up the scum with a ladle and dropped some soup onto a tasting plate.
Outside the shed kitchen, the villagers were lining up folding chairs. Today’s stream was a trial run of a limited menu. Ever since guests started coming to the village for the salt-grilled frozen trout, the grandmothers got overly enthusiastic and started saying, It would be better to have soup too.
It was something to be thankful for.
Whether I was banished, falsely accused, or who was saying what about whom.
Far away from all of those things, the pot was quietly raising steam.
“Yuma-san, the comment section is fine for now.”
Said Riko-san, who was checking her smartphone.
“Are there times when it is not fine?”
“There are. So you do not need to look.”
“I see.”
“Really, you do not need to look.”
She emphasized it.
With a wry smile, I put the chopped wild vegetables into the pot. The aroma became a notch brighter. Mikoto twitched his nose and narrowed his eyes with satisfaction.
“Hmph. Not bad.”
“That is good.”
On the other side of the streaming screen, comments were flowing.
“Delicious just from the steam.” “The sound is unfair.” “Mikoto-sama check has been entered.” “The village people’s bowls are cute.” “Peaceful today too, which helps.”
Riko-san picks out only questions about cooking from among them and hands them over to me. The amount of salt, the preliminary processing of the fish, the odor removal of the fang-boar. I answered within the range I could.
At that moment, Riko-san’s smartphone vibrated.
It was her personal device, separate from the streaming one.
The moment she looked at the screen, Riko-san’s complexion changed.
“Yuma-san.”
“What is wrong?”
“It seems one of the village children is missing.”
The air in the shed grew abruptly cold.
The village mayor, who had been lining up chairs outside, came running over to us. His breathing was rough. Sweat was beading on his forehead.
“Yuma-kun, sorry. Sota might have gone toward the abandoned mine.”
“The abandoned mine?”
I lowered the heat.
The abandoned mine had been acting strange recently. Cold air had accumulated inside, and signs of dungeonization were appearing. That was also the reason why the frozen trout appeared.
It is not a place children should enter.
“Since when?”
“He has not been seen since evening. His mother was looking for him, but according to his friend, he went to see the glowing stones.”
Riko-san immediately picked up the streaming device.
“Yuma-san, I will cut the stream. I will explain.”
“No.”
I took the jacket hanging on the wall. I put down my kitchen knife and instead lowered an old machete and rope onto my waist.
Mikoto jumped down from the workbench without a sound.
“Yuma, hurry. The wind has changed.”
With those words, hesitation vanished.
Riko-san searched for the broadcast stop button. However, perhaps because her hands were shaking, the screen did not switch. The comment section started to get stirred up.
“Eh, what?” “Abandoned mine?” “I heard a child.” “Yuma-san?” “Mikoto-sama has a serious face.”
“Riko-san, please tell the villagers not to block the entrance. Also contact emergency services and the town hall. Tell no one to enter inside.”
“Yes!”
“The stream?”
There was no time to cut it.
I glanced sideways to see that the smartphone was still filming us. The pot raising steam. The lined-up bowls. The worried villagers. And me and Mikoto starting to run toward the abandoned mine.
The comment section rushed by all at once.
“Wait.” “Stream is still on.” “Rescue?” “Be safe.” “Yuma-san, go!”
The moment I stepped onto the mountain path at night, a cold wind struck my cheeks.
From deep inside the abandoned mine, the scent of magical power faintly drifted.
I drew in my breath and accelerated my running speed.