Chapter 987: Fish Worth Over 72,000 Yen Per Pound

"The degree of deliciousness surpasses the mackerel dish."

Broly honestly spoke his impressions after tasting the pufferfish dish.

"Hmph, that is only natural. Tiger pufferfish is a top-tier ingredient, after all."

"However, speaking only of the aroma after frying, I feel the mackerel dish is more delicious."

"Pufferfish is a high-protein, low-fat fish; using a frying method, it indeed cannot compare to mackerel which has higher fat content."

Hisako Arato nodded at the side, explaining the reason why pan-fried mackerel is more delicious than fried pufferfish meat.

"Alright, enough of that. Now it's your turn. Go, using the method I just used to handle the tiger pufferfish, go handle a new tiger pufferfish."

Nakiri Erina waved her hand, interrupting her personal secretary's words that were still going to explain further.

"Okay."

Broly nodded in reply, then put on an apron and started working hands-on.

"Erina-sama, you wouldn't want to eat a pufferfish dish made by someone who hasn't handled pufferfish before, for the first time, would you?"

Broly began slaughtering the pufferfish, while Hisako Arato looked somewhat nervous, asking the Nakiri Erina who had already taken off her apron and sat down.

"That depends on how he does it. If there's a problem with the handling, I won't foolishly eat a poisonous pufferfish dish. But if he does it well, I naturally will taste it."

Nakiri Erina answered, yet her gaze was firmly locked on Broly's hand gripping the deboning knife.

She took three minutes to separate the edible parts of the tiger pufferfish; this is a speed only a veteran chef professionally handling tiger pufferfish could achieve.

But this guy Broly, who had just come into contact with how to handle tiger pufferfish, used less than two minutes to separate the edible and inedible parts of the tiger pufferfish.

His knife work flowed like clouds and water; when opening the belly and gutting, there was almost no pause, and the poisonous organs inside the tiger pufferfish's belly seemed to have grown eyes, avoiding the blade edge he swiftly thrust into the abdomen.

Rinse, cut, wash hands, change cutting board————

Every step of Broly's, every detail of handling the tiger pufferfish, was done very well.

Even frying the pufferfish meat, slicing sashimi, simmering fish soup — all were perfect replications of what she herself had done.

Closing her eyes, Nakiri Erina even had an illusion.

That the guy busy at the stove side right before her eyes was another version of herself, optimized.

Broly quickly made the tiger pufferfish into the same one-fish-three-ways dish as Nakiri Erina, and placed them on the stainless steel table in the serving area.

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"Erina-sama, let me taste it for you first."

Seeing her own Big Sister really about to move her chopsticks, Hisako Arato hurriedly stopped her, volunteering herself.

"Not needed. His steps in handling the pufferfish had no problems; I can be certain the dish before me is non-toxic."

However, Nakiri Erina shook her head and refused, directly using chopsticks to pick up the raw fish meat slices on the plate before her, dipping them in the orange vinegar in the dipping dish at the side, and putting them into her own mouth.

Top-tier knife work brought top-tier texture, plus her own self-adjusted dipping sauce suited to her own flavor — it completely matched her own judgment of delicacies.

Nakiri Erina closed her eyes, carefully savoring the fresh sweet taste in her mouth————

After a while, she opened her eyes and said to the Saiyan youth: "Broly, just from seeing my process of handling the tiger pufferfish, your first time trying you could handle a tiger pufferfish yourself — your cooking talent is even better than I imagined."

"Many thanks for the praise."

Broly slightly nodded his head, thanking the girl for her praise.

"But, Erina-sama, even if he can make this pufferfish dish well, isn't he essentially just repeating your dish?"

Hisako Arato also tasted the pufferfish sashimi, then spoke a sentence.

"Uh————"

Hearing this, Broly also looked at Nakiri Erina, but felt Hisako Arato's words were not bad.

"Not the same. This dish itself tests knife work, and the method of handling dangerous ingredients.

Although I don't want to admit I would lose to someone else, in the aspect of knife work, this guy is indeed more powerful than me to some degree.

Of course, limited to being faster than me; the sashimi slices cut out differ not much from mine, both being uniformly thin leaf-shaped slices of the same thickness.

And being able to himself handle a new tiger pufferfish well shows he has already learned this dish.

Can't say just because someone else can make a dish he can't make it; if he makes it, it's called repeating someone else's dish, right?

If really judged by this standard, would you still need a cooking beginner to create a new dish on his own for it to count as his own dish?"

"Uh————"

Nakiri Erina's words were well-founded; Hisako Arato was somewhat unable to refute.

"Tonight, Broly, you use this dish to make for your dormitory building roommates to eat. However, before making this dish, you remember to honestly tell them, this is a dish you only learned today, and moreover, this is the second time making it————"

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Speaking to here, a look of anticipation, a wicked smile expression, floated on Nakiri Erina's face, as if imagining a scene of a group of people staring at the delicious pufferfish dish before them yet not daring to move their chopsticks.

"At that time, you remember to use your phone to record video for me. I want to see the situation of your dormitory building roommates tasting this dish.

Especially that guy called Soma Yukihira, you'd best clearly film his appearance (unsightly state) tasting the pufferfish dish for me————"

【At that time, when facing that hateful guy again, I can use such a video to properly mock the other party as a coward, who doesn't even dare try a properly handled pufferfish dish————】

Nakiri Erina's face showed a keikaku-doori expression, but in her mind she was daydreaming a scene of Soma Yukihira being mocked by her, kneeling before her suffering a blow.

"Erina-sama, you wouldn't be poisoned, would you?"

", Hisako, what nonsense are you saying?"

Nakiri Erina looked doubtfully at her secretary girl who was looking at her somewhat nervously.

"If not poisoned, why would you show a look of barely suppressing laughter? And when I spoke to you, you were like you didn't hear it?"

"Uh, I just thought of some things that made me happy, got a bit absorbed in thought for a moment, therefore I neglected your words."

"Want to go to the academy medical room to check, see if there's poisoning?"

Hisako Arato was still somewhat not at ease.

"I'm really fine. Or rather, do you think if I ate something poisonous, my God Tongue wouldn't be able to taste it out?"

Nakiri Erina straightened her face and retorted, while Hisako Arato hurriedly bowed and apologized; the God Tongue was their own young mistress's proud innate talent — if she truly insisted on having her body examined, that would be expressing distrust toward this talent.

"Alright, Hisako, I know you're concerned about me too, and I don't mean to blame you. By the way, what did you want to tell me just now?"

Nakiri Erina stopped her personal secretary's bowing apology and asked directly.

"The ingredients used for pufferfish cuisine — tiger pufferfish aren't cheap. These two for practice can be reimbursed through the Sixth Cooking Building's public account.

But afterward Broly wants to return to Polar Star Dormitory and treat his dormmates to pufferfish cuisine — what about the ingredients needed for that?"

Hisako Arato, who had stopped apologizing, raised a rather practical issue.

"Uh————"

Hearing this, Nakiri Erina froze for a moment, then realized — not everyone can afford the price of tiger pufferfish as an ingredient.

【Why not reimburse the ingredients needed for the pufferfish sashimi cuisine herself?】

However, the moment this thought surfaced, Nakiri Erina herself dismissed it.

She merely wanted Broly to use pufferfish cuisine to scare a certain detestable guy, not actually spend a fortune treating that detestable guy to good food.

If she really reimbursed it, even if she did scare that detestable guy in the end, she herself would be like an unjustly wronged person for treating him to expensive pufferfish cuisine.

This isn't a money issue — with Nakiri Erina's status, even if tiger pufferfish is a top-tier ingredient, she could easily afford it.

So this is a matter of her not wanting to be treated as an unjustly wronged person by others.

【Should she switch to ordinary pufferfish?】

Just as Nakiri Erina was feeling conflicted, Broly stepped forward.

"Since I'm the one treating them, naturally I'll be the one to pay.

This tiger pufferfish has a low meat yield; to let everyone at Polar Star Dormitory eat well, I'll need at least a dozen or so.

Miss Hisako, name a price — I'll buy them with my own money."

"A dozen or so, you really dare to think big — the current market price for tiger pufferfish is over 72,000 yen per jin; suitable cooking size is generally around two jin; a dozen or so means twenty-plus jin; even at the Sixth Cooking Building's discounted ingredient procurement price, you'd have to pay over 1.4 million yen — are you sure you can afford that?"

There are quite a few students of considerable family wealth at Totsuki Academy, but high school-aged students who can casually shell out millions of yen just to treat their dormmates to a top-tier sashimi cuisine — those who can do so are still quite few.

Of course, it's not that they lack the money to do this, but that there's no cost-effectiveness in doing such a thing — with that money, wouldn't it be better to buy several portions of good ingredients to train one's own culinary skills?

"Uh————"

Broly pondered for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick stack of this world's ten-thousand-yen bills from the Crystal Palace.

"Miss Hisako, you see how much these can buy — hmm, buy as much as they can buy."

Hisako Arato looked at the bills handed before her; from the thickness there should be about a hundred sheets, and the young woman's complexion became somewhat complicated.

【Does the security industry pay this well nowadays, to give a high school student this much allowance?】

This doubt arose in her mind.

【His pockets are really deep — carrying such a thick stack of cash without it showing on the surface — but what normal person carries over a million yen in cash on them?!】

This was Nakiri Erina's inner grumbling.

In the end, it was still cash on delivery, goods on payment.

Broly obtained the remaining nine tiger pufferfish in two water tanks.

Hisako Arato calculated the money and knocked off the thousand-yen remainder.

From the stack of ten-thousand-yen bills, she pulled out twelve sheets and handed them back to Broly.

"The aerator and the cargo tricycle underneath are lent to you — remember to return them tomorrow."

"Okay, I understand, Miss Hisako."

"Mm, today's supplementary lesson ends here for now — you may leave.

However, after nine o'clock tomorrow morning, I hope to see you in the Sixth Cooking Building."

Nakiri Erina said a sentence, then had Hisako Arato see Broly out.

On the way downstairs carrying the water tanks, Broly ran into Ikumi Mito coming upstairs.

"Miss Hisako, is Erina-sama in the office right now?"

"No, Erina-sama is in the cooking room."

"Understood, thank you for letting me know — I'll go report today's results to Erina-sama."

Ikumi Mito curiously sized up Broly and the water tanks in his hands, but didn't say anything more.

After greeting Hisako Arato and asking Erina's current whereabouts, she went straight upstairs.

From start to finish, she never asked who Broly was.

"Miss Hisako, who was that?"

"Ikumi Mito — her family runs Mizuko Meat Products, the leader in the beef industry; the other party is Mizuko Meat Products' future heir, the Mizuko Family's young mistress.

Of course, right now she's merely pledged allegiance to Erina-sama, belonging to the Sixth Cooking Building — an excellent student with A5 Wagyu resources.

If you need high-quality wagyu beef, you can procure from her — as fellow Sixth Cooking Building members under Erina-sama, she should give you a discount."

As Hisako Arato spoke, she saw Broly to the entrance of the Sixth Cooking Building.

"High-quality wagyu beef, huh — I quite like eating that; looks like I'll need to find a chance to study cuisine in this area. By the way, Miss Hisako, are you good at making this kind of cuisine?"

"What I'm good at is medicinal cuisine."

"Then if I also want to learn medicinal cuisine, can you teach me?"

"Depends on the situation — if Erina-sama wishes me to teach you————"

Hisako Arato's attitude was still not particularly enthusiastic; everything took Erina-sama's will as paramount.

"I see — I'll strive to get Erina-sama to agree to let you teach me medicinal cuisine. Hmm, I'll go send the tiger pufferfish back to Polar Star Dormitory first. Miss Hisako, see you tomorrow."

Broly straddled the tricycle motorcycle; he'd driven this kind of machinery before, so operating it wasn't unfamiliar — he just twisted the throttle and left.

"He hasn't even finished learning basic ordinary cuisine knowledge, yet wants to come learn my medicinal cuisine — truly not afraid of cooking up a problematic dish and causing some food safety incidents————"

Hisako Arato watched Broly's departing figure and couldn't help but shake her head, resolving in her heart that if her own young mistress really made her teach him medicinal cuisine afterward, she absolutely could not let her own young mistress take the risk of tasting the medicinal cuisine he made.

Whether Fugu Cuisine is poisonous can be seen clearly from the technique of handling the pufferfish, but Medicinal Cuisine has far too many variations; if one is not truly proficient, even non-toxic ingredients might be mixed into toxic substances, and our Big Sister is not good at Medicinal Cuisine.

Medicinal Cuisine.

After Broly left everyone's field of vision, he covered himself and the handcart with a refracted water film, then shouldered the handcart and flew back to Polar Star Dormitory.

The reason for being comparatively concealed is because Broly now also understands that in a comparatively ordinary common world, revealing some extraordinary aspects will pull away the distance between himself and the capture targets.

And after approaching Polar Star Dormitory, he put down the handcart and started driving again.

", Broly, where did you get this cargo tricycle?"

Fumio Daimido, seeing the handcart drive into the courtyard, walked over and asked the driving boy with a somewhat surprised expression.

"The Sixth Cooking Building lent it to me; I transported a bit of the ingredients needed for tonight's cooking over here."

As Broly spoke, he moved the water tank back to his dormitory, then took out his phone and sent a text message to Tadokoro Megumi.

Upon learning the girl was about to finish class, he ran downstairs and greeted Fumio Daimido, asking about the possibility of swapping dormitory room beds; after receiving the definite reply that as long as it fits inside it's fine, he mounted the handcart again and drove out of Polar Star Dormitory's courtyard.

Still the same operation; after leaving the line of sight, he turned into air-transporting the three-wheeled handcart, and timely arrived in front of the teaching building where Tadokoro Megumi attends class before she came downstairs.

", Broly-san, what is this?"

Tadokoro Megumi, just like Fumio Daimido, showed a surprised expression upon seeing the cargo tricycle under Broly's butt.

Broly could only explain again, then invited the braided girl: "Komekko, the bed in the dormitory is a bit small for me; I'm preparing to go outside and buy a new bed to bring back, are you willing to accompany me to choose a new bed?"