A Perfect World

Even though I have a cheat ability that feels like it belongs to a light novel protagonist, I really do not feel like a protagonist at all. While I was musing like that, evening had already arrived.

I should stop overthinking things. It is bad for my mental health.

Ideally I should spend about a full day on this, but I am not trying to make high quality charcoal. This should be good enough by now.

Using a random wooden stick, I roughly scraped away the clay dome and made a square opening. Being careful of the temperature inside the dome, I pulled out the chunk of soil I had cut away.

There was still heat left inside the clay dome, and it looked too hot to take the charcoal out with my bare hands, so I hastily tied some wood with rope to make a T shaped tool.

I shoved it inside and pulled toward myself, raking the charcoal out. The charcoal rattled as they spilled out.

I grabbed one of the pieces and snapped it in half. It was brittle and the color was bad, but it was definitely charcoal. I peered inside through the opening.

Maybe the seal was imperfect, or maybe I opened it too early. A lot of it had turned into half burned wood. Using the stick, I scraped the contents out.

About forty percent of it had become charcoal. Since the method was pretty sloppy, I would have been lucky with even twenty percent. I am on a roll.

The wood I picked up at random might have been well suited for making charcoal.

Depending on the amount, proper charcoal making involves keeping it over a fire for two or three days until the smoke disappears. Cooling it down also takes a full day.

This time both the heating time and the cooling time were short, but the amount was small. Thanks to that, it turned into charcoal fairly well.

I was not trying to make high quality charcoal anyway. I just wanted fuel that produces little smoke. That is all, so poor quality charcoal is fine.

Compared to high quality charcoal, the lower carbon content means it does not get as hot and the burn time is shorter.

However, high quality charcoal is hard to light. Even when camping, you often have to blast it with a burner for quite a while. Low quality charcoal, on the other hand, lights easily.

Of course, if the quality is too low, it produces a lot of smoke because the carbon content is too low. I will not know until I burn it, but it feels close to the quality I want.

This low quality charcoal meets the fuel conditions I want most. It lights easily and produces little smoke. That makes it the best choice.

Besides, even if it is low quality, charcoal is still charcoal. Hehehe, charcoal grilled meat! A yakiniku festival!

After the residual heat had faded, I packed the charcoal into a basket. The wood that failed to turn into charcoal could be used as material for the next batch, but I left it for now.

I have everything I need. Now I can eat food that has been cooked. Grilling and boiling, my dreams are expanding!

To avoid leaving a trail that could be tracked, I will take a long way back to the base. Puhahaha, I cannot contain this surging excitement!

High on charcoal making, I sprinted through the mountains while letting out strange sounds. I shook off monsters that were drawn in by the noise and headed for the base.

When I arrived, I immediately went to the kitchen.

Calling it a kitchen is generous. It is just a crude space with a rough stone stove and a palm leaf roof shaped like a chimney, with a makeshift filter attached.

The filter is nothing more than layered leaves and tree branches, but it surprisingly does a good job of dispersing smoke.

I learned how to make it long ago from a book that introduced survival techniques. I still wonder why it included techniques that assume the presence of trackers.

Maybe the author leaned toward military circles, and the survival techniques were skewed in that direction. Old books were incredibly chaotic, after all.

Where would you ever use something like that? Techniques I picked up halfheartedly while thinking that have turned out to be useful. You never know what will happen in life.

Thinking about that, I rubbed sticks together to make an ember. Once I built the fire using my usual steps, I lit the charcoal.

Will the amount of smoke really be low? Nervous, I blew on it to feed it oxygen.

The charcoal caught fire, and after the oily wood used as tinder burned away, only a tiny bit of smoke rose.

Success! Yes! I thrust my fist upward like an uppercut and struck a victory pose.

“With this, I can eat all the charcoal grilled meat I want!”

In high spirits, I went to get the meat. As I removed the palm leaves it was wrapped in…

“Uh, this is a little bad…”

The meat there had faintly turned green.

“Well, I cannot eat it raw, but if I grill it, it will be fine! This is not rotten, it is ultra aged meat!”

I trimmed the surface and cut it into easy to eat pieces. Fired up for barbecue, I headed toward the charcoal fire and realized something.

“Oh no, I do not have a grill. I really messed up. What do I do?”

I had gotten so excited that I completely forgot I did not have proper cooking tools. With no choice, I carved some wood with my knife to make skewers and stuck the meat onto them.

Because the meat was sliced thin for yakiniku, it felt extremely wrong. If I had cut it for skewers, it would have been different, but…

I also considered laying down stones and doing a stone plate grill, but that would weaken the effect of the charcoal. So I had no choice but to go with skewers.

If you make skewers from random trees or branches lying around, the components of the wood can seep into the meat, and there is a risk of ingesting substances harmful to the human body along with the meat.

Every year you see news about people getting sick after using random wood as skewers while camping. It is something good kids should never imitate.

“But my passion for charcoal grilled meat will not be stopped by a little poison. Heh,” muttering such a stupid line to myself, I brought the skewer closer to the fire. Even in the worst case, I probably would be fine since I have poison resistance.

That “I will probably be fine” mindset is the one thing you should never do in survival situations, but after living on raw meat for so long, I have no strength left to resist the temptation of charcoal grilled meat.

I laid a branch across the stove and roasted the meat from below. Fat dripped onto the charcoal with a sizzling sound. The sweet aroma of melting fat and the fragrant scent of charcoal spread through the air.

“Ugh, I cannot take it anymore!”

Half rotten… no, it was ultra aged meat, so it needed to be cooked thoroughly. Slow, indirect heat, carefully cooking it all the way through.

With the meat cooked just right, I bit into it with such force that I nearly ate the skewer along with it. The moment I bit down, sweet meat juices burst out.

Meat aged to the extreme is incredibly tender. While retaining the springy bite typical of boar or pork, the fibers easily fall apart once you sink your teeth in.

Because it was slowly grilled over charcoal, it was fully cooked through without becoming tough.

The meat, lightly smoked by the oily smoke, has its heavy fattiness refreshed by the savory aroma of charcoal.

A texture that is soft while still preserving the meat’s sweetness and springy texture. The fragrant, refreshing scent of charcoal. And the increased amino acid savoriness from aging, plus the sixth flavor’s secret assassin, mana flavor.

The seasoning is nothing more than simple salt, and yet what is this deliciousness? It is good, too good. My brain floods itself with endorphins, and I am wrapped in an intoxicated sensation.

“A perfect harmony of flavor and aroma, a violent flood of deliciousness. Not a dull world of mere harmony, nor a cruel world of nothing but violence. A world where two opposites blend in perfect balance. Truly, the perfect world of taste, a Perfect World!”

Before I realized it, I had eaten every bit of meat I had in stock. I also used up quite a lot of salt. Still, I have no regrets. Heh.

I think I got carried away and spouted some incomprehensible nonsense. It is embarrassing when I calm down, but I am happy right now, so I do not care.

After stuffing myself with meat, I started to feel sleepy. The sun has set, so I guess I will go to sleep.

I ate all the meat. Starting tomorrow, I will work hard on restocking it. Today was a good day. Just having charcoal, just being able to use fire, lets you do so many things.

My dreams are expanding! I hope tomorrow will be another good day. Thinking that, I rubbed my full belly and drifted off to sleep.

The next day, after calming down a bit, I thought it might be better to erase the traces of the charcoal making, so I headed out to deal with it.

Making charcoal would give away the fact that I planned to stay on this mountain for a while.

I got high on the words “charcoal grilled meat” and ended up making a series of careless moves. I realized once again that mental stability is more important than anything.

Even if you try to be careful, when your mind is off, you end up acting recklessly. Hiding yourself is important, but being too obsessed with it is not good either.

When stress from suppression wears down your mind, you expose yourself to danger through careless actions.

I was reminded that balance is important in everything: raising the quality of life without breaking your mind, while still staying inconspicuous.

I really do not want to live on the run again. This was a good lesson. Huh? Did I just raise some kind of bad flag?

As if to shake off the ominous future that came to mind, I vigorously shook my head from side to side.

That was kind of manga like behavior. While thinking such a stupid thought, my presence detection picked up humanoid beings.

Four humanoid figures were at the charcoal making site. I cautiously closed the distance. As the accuracy of my detection improved, I realized they were armed humans.

Looks like people came to investigate already.

Well, of course they would. If smoke had been rising for hours, anyone would come to check it out. Regretting my carelessness, I used conceal presence and carefully approached until I was close enough to see them.

They were not soldiers, but a group of four that looked like adventurers. It would be bad if they brought any information back. I left the area and began to plan how to kill the adventurers.