LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 117
Chapter 117 Unicorn Sashimi
[??? : If this doesn’t taste good, then there must really be something wrong with the person who cooked it, right?]
[Yeah, there’s definitely a problem~]
[LOL, so true ㅋㅋ]
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[How could that possibly taste badㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[It looked so good on the outside though.]
[‘GodValueChew’ has donated 3,000 won!]
ㄴJust imagine you were grilling a rock instead of meat, it’ll put your mind at ease.
“Ah, shit! Stop talking nonsense!”
[Can a saintess curse??]
[Did she just curse??]
[Wow, the saintess is swearing!]
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[She’s about to snap!]
“No, just… Ha… Haa… Sigh… Let’s calm down…”
I couldn’t do it.
At this rate, I’d be distracted by the viewers and fail to cook properly.
I had to regain my composure.
I was Shia, the Saintess of the Dead.
I swore that I wouldn’t waste a single piece of meat before me, so may the starlight bless this unicorn meat.
[‘LeafFriedVendor’ has donated 24,000 won!]
ㄴShia, you look really holy when you’re praying, but in front of that ruined unicorn meat, it’s kinda… weird…
“…..Olga, you really have to come see me later.”
To others, it might not seem like a big deal, but losing fifty servings of meat was a serious and significant matter for Shia.
She was so mentally overwhelmed, much more than usual.
Normally, she’d always maintain a saintly, gentle smile like a passive skill, but now, all of that had vanished long ago.
Shia’s current expression looked less like a saintess and more like a child lost in the kitchen after a massive accident.
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[More than the food, it’s funnier to see the streamer pissed offㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Noona… please stay mad forever..]
[I came here expecting an explanation for why you quit the SS rank promotion match, but instead, you’re losing it over unicorn meatㅋㅋ]
[‘KawaiiHorned’ has donated 10,000 won!]
ㄴI’ll give you 500,000 won if you eat it all.
[‘LeafFriedVendor’ has donated 5,000 won!]
ㄴHow are you going to eat all that? ㅋㅋㅋ
[‘SimplePotatoCreamCheeseFlavor’ has donated 30,000 won!]
ㄴThis is looking like a smack on the back momentㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Having ruined over fifty servings of unicorn meat was definitely not a small issue.
Generally, unicorn meat wasn’t something you’d find in the Hunter market or regular shops.
Hunting a unicorn was incredibly difficult.
And no sane hunter would think of butchering a unicorn to roast it as food in the first place.
Most hunters used the unicorn’s horn, bones, or other mana-concentrated byproducts to craft equipment.
If not, they would make potions and elixirs, not grill it like it was orc belly meat.
Shia was probably one of the first, if not the only, person who had the audacity to cook unicorn meat like this.
Because of that, there were no known cooking methods for unicorn meat, and Shia had to desperately wrack her brain to figure out how to salvage it.
‘What should I do… what should I do…?’
The massive grill had over fifty servings of meat on it.
If I ruined this much meat, Yoon-jung would probably get really mad.
Like all mothers, if I wasted food or played around with it, I’d definitely get a smack on the back, just like one of the viewers said.
No, I had confidently brought Yoon-jung here to show some filial piety.
How could I serve her this awful food?
“Hmph, that girl, Yane, sure has a big appetite. Well, it looks good… Ah! Is it all cooked?”
“Ah….”
At that moment, Yoon-jung, who had returned from the lake with Yane, noticed the well-done unicorn meat Shia had “cooked.”
Yane started eagerly tearing into the fresh raw unicorn meat that Yoon-jung had washed for her at the lake.
Meanwhile, Yoon-jung took an interest in the massive grill Shia had been using.
“Wow, it smells amazing. Did you cook all this yourself, Shia?”
Before Shia could stop her, Yoon-jung approached the grilled meat and used tongs to pick up a piece.
The smell was incredible, and the sound of the meat’s fat sizzling suggested it hadn’t failed at all.
[?]
[Oh no, she’s eating it.]
[Stop her!]
[Wait, can you even eat that??]
“Uh… Mom, wait…!”
“It’s fine. Meat usually tastes good once it’s cooked. There’s no way it could kill me, right? Let’s see….”
Crunch!
And then, an ominous sound came from Yoon-jung’s mouth as she bit into the unicorn meat.
The moment they heard the sound, both Shia and Yoon-jung realized something had gone terribly wrong with this dish.
[Whoa, what was that sound?]
[That crunch sounded brutal.]
[Did her teeth break?]
[Streamer, use Great Healing!]
“Uh, mom…?”
Shia called out cautiously, wondering if she had misheard, but Yoon-jung remained silent.
After a few moments, a sound like someone biting into rocks or metal echoed from Yoon-jung’s mouth.
Crunch, crunch.
Snap, crunch!
“…Mmm… it… it’s delicious….”
There was no way she meant that sincerely.
The way her eyes twitched and how she was clearly struggling to hold something back was evident from her expression.
Even though Yoon-jung was chewing on something harder than stone, she was forcing herself to say it was tasty because she couldn’t bear to waste the food Shia had made.
Crunch…!
“Mom, stop. Stop… you don’t have to push yourself…”
Chomp!
“Ah… ugh….”
“Eh?”
[Something flew out of her mouth?]
[?]
[Wait, did her teeth break?]
“Ugh… cough…!”
“Kyaaaaah!? Mom!!”
[Holy crap, that’s insane.]
[Watching this is making me hurt too.]
[The first victim of the Antics Saintess’ cooking… is her own mother.]
[I’ve never seen someone get injured eating food before ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Meanwhile, the streamer seems completely fine after eating that? ㅋㅋ]
And so, Shia had to use the Miracle of Great Healing on her mother.
Not because a unicorn or some monster had attacked her.
No, Yoon-jung’s body had been seriously damaged from eating Shia’s cooking.
After a moment, Yoon-jung, having barely recovered, spat out everything that had been in her mouth and silently stared at Shia.
“……”
“……Sob…”
“Hey.”
Whimper.
“Hey, you idiot! What kind of meat is this that you’ve grilled it for people to eat?!”
[LOL so true.]
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Who would have thought she’d break her teeth and start coughing up blood after one bite ㅋㅋㅋ]
Smack.
Whack!
“Ouch!”
Even though Shia was physically far stronger than Yoon-jung, the full swing to her back still made her freeze like a scolded child.
Who was Shia?
She was the top figure in the Genre Hunter Gallery.
In less than half a year, she had gained the recognition of many people as a potential S-rank hunter.
Her extraordinary abilities, along with her occasional bouts of crazy antics, earned her the nickname “Antics Saintess” and a subscriber base of hundreds of thousands on her large corporate-sponsored channel.
And today, that very Shia, the leader of the gallery, knelt before Yoon-jung, humbly shrunk down in shame for ruining the unicorn meat.
“Whimper…”
“What on earth did you do to make this meat so tough?! I thought I was going to die!”
Smack!
Slap!
No matter how hard Yoon-jung hit her with her thin, soft hands, how much could it really hurt…?
“Ouch! I-I told you to stop!”
“You could’ve put cyanide in the meat, and it wouldn’t have made me feel this close to death. If the meat was ruined, you should’ve taken it off the grill immediately! What were you even doing?! Do you have something against me? Were you trying to poison me on purpose?!”
“N-no, that’s not it at all… Although surprisingly…”
Meanwhile, Yane, who had already been tearing into the raw unicorn leg, looked at Yoon-jung and Shia with a face that seemed to ask, “What are they doing?”
“What are you going to do about this now?! We can’t just throw away all this meat!”
“W-well, the tentacles can still eat it though…”
“What? The tentacles?”
At Shia’s words, Yoon-jung glanced at the tentacles squirming around Shia’s waist.
They seemed to have mouths, so they could probably eat something, at least.
Sigh, fine.
Since we can’t eat it, might as well feed it to those tentacles…
Yoon-jung used the tongs to grab a piece of the overcooked, well-done unicorn meat and handed it to the tentacles.
[Spit]
“Huh?”
“Huh…”
[Whatㅋㅋㅋㅋ the tentacles won’t eat it eitherㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Not only did they not eat it, they spat it outㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Didn’t those tentacles eat that Centipede Dragon raw??]
[So the grilled unicorn meat is worse than a raw Centipede Dragon… huh.]
[Even the tentacles rejected the streamer’s unicorn meat…]
Just in case, Yoon-jung tried again to feed the meat to Shia’s tentacles.
[Spit!]
[Spit spit!]
[Breaking news: Even the tentacles think this is a no-go…]
[Those tentacles definitely have some intelligenceㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[LOL]
[How can they spit it out with such precisionㅋㅋ]
“………”
“……….”
“Let’s just clean this up…”
“Yes…”
In the end, both Yoon-jung and Shia, thoroughly defeated by the unicorn meat, quietly began cleaning the grill that even the tentacles had rejected.
[‘ShiroboSoup’ has donated 100,000 won!]
ㄴToday was truly an all-time disasterㅋㅋㅋㅋ
“Nom nom nom.”
Meanwhile, Yane continued to happily tear into the raw unicorn leg that Yoon-jung had washed for her at the lake.
“…Well, it seems like that thing she’s eating looks tastier.”
“Really…?”
Come to think of it, you don’t always need to cook meat.
There are dishes like sashimi and yukhoe (raw meat).
Usually, freshness is the most important factor for raw meat dishes, but unicorn meat contains mana, and since it was freshly hunted, it was the perfect meat to serve as sashimi.
“Well, according to my smart watch, horse meat is usually eaten as sashimi…”
“But… I don’t think unicorn meat and horse meat are the same… Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s reliable…”
“So, where exactly did you find the recipe to grill unicorn meat until it turned into a rock?”
“………”
Having turned fifty servings of unicorn meat into stone, Shia had no words.
With no choice, Yoon-jung approached Yane, who was tearing into the unicorn’s hind leg with both hands.
“Um, hey… uh, Yane? Can we also have some of that?”
“………..”
Yane looked back and forth between Shia and Yoon-jung.
She wasn’t full yet, but she noticed that neither Yoon-jung nor Shia had eaten anything, so sharing the hind leg didn’t seem like a big deal.
After all, Shia was her master, and it was Shia who had hunted the unicorn.
Yane had merely started eating the hind leg on her own after sensing that it was okay to do so.
“Kie!” (Sure!)
[Kie?]
[Wait, who is she? She’s been showing up on the stream for a while now.]
[Doesn’t the streamer pay attention to their own stream?]
[Who is she?]
[But the fact that she’s making those “kie” sounds means she’s into the roleplay, right? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[Is she a hunter with transformation abilities?]
[If she’s a transformation or mutation type, it makes sense ㅋㅋ]
[At least she’s nice.]
When Yane willingly offered the hind leg, both Yoon-jung and Shia’s faces brightened a bit.
“Phew, well, this worked out. Shia, let me show you some of my skills.”
“But, Mom… do you know how to prepare raw meat?”
“……”
Of course, she didn’t.
She didn’t even know how to butcher meat.
She had no idea how to handle this massive chunk of meat.
Shia had never dealt with unicorn meat before, but neither had Yoon-jung.
“Well, how hard could it be? If I can’t manage, I’ll just grab a hind leg like Yane did and gnaw on it.”
Even though she didn’t know how to handle raw meat, Yoon-jung had spent decades in the kitchen.
While she wasn’t some fancy hotel chef or Michelin-starred restaurant cook, as Shia’s mother, the knife skills she honed over the years weren’t something she’d lose, even in a new life.
“Well, I’ll just treat it like slicing sashimi.”
“Sashimi… oh, come to think of it, Dad used to go fishing often.”
“Ugh, don’t get me started on that man. Your dad would always head off to some rocky shore for fishing at Chuja Island without telling me and bring back these weird, unheard-of fish, always asking me to slice them into sashimi. After doing that for over 20 years, I ended up being better at slicing fish than most restaurant owners, even though I’m not from the coast.”
“…Is that so…”
I didn’t remember much, but I did recall that our house had an oddly large amount of fish and sashimi when I was younger.
So that was all because Dad went fishing…
By the way, if Mom is here, does that mean Dad is around too? Where could he be? What does he look like? Could I find him…?
“Done!”
“Huh? Already?”
[Wait, how did she finish so fast?]
[When did she do it?]
[Heuuung, mom…]
[Her knife skills are super fast.]
“Well, it’s nothing special. I just sliced the meat thin and nicely along the grain.”
Though Yoon-jung only had the capabilities of a D-rank hunter, by normal human standards, her skills were still impressive.
Thanks to that, the fresh raw meat she sliced gleamed with a translucent, ruby-like texture, almost like glass.
But then…
Twitch!
[Whoa, what was that?]
[Holy crap, it’s moving.]
[Oh my god…]
[Is that postmortem rigidity?]
[Does unicorn meat also have rigor mortis?]
[It looks like a bug.]
“Eek…”
“Ah, that’s probably rigor mortis.”
The raw meat Yoon-jung had sliced began to twitch grotesquely, as if it had a life of its own.
The way the meat jerked around was almost disgusting, but humans are such contradictory creatures—rather than feeling disgust, Shia and Yoon-jung’s mouths began to water at the sight of the twitching meat, thinking it looked tasty.
After losing over fifty servings of unicorn meat earlier, this only heightened their hunger.
Later, I learned that when it comes to beef, after slaughtering, the fat is allowed to congeal for about a day in a freezer, and marbling is used to determine the meat’s grade.
But with raw meat, there’s no need to grade it by fat content; it can be distributed immediately.
The same went for unicorn meat.
In fact, the rigor mortis in the unicorn’s raw meat was proof that it had been slaughtered less than an hour ago, meaning it was extremely fresh and, thus, bound to be delicious.
Shia, Yoon-jung, and Yane glanced at each other while eyeing the thin slices of raw meat laid out before them.
“Yane.”
“Kie…?”
“Try it.”
Shia, feeling a bit nervous, let Yane have the first taste.
Since it was just a smaller version of the meat she’d already been eating, Yane didn’t hesitate to put the sashimi in her mouth.
“Nom nom, gulp.”
Despite the meat still twitching from the postmortem rigidity, Yane calmly chewed it up and swallowed.
Her expression didn’t change much, but as soon as she swallowed the first bite, she picked up another slice of unicorn sashimi.
Seeing this, Shia and Yoon-jung’s faces brightened a bit.
Oh, it seems like it’s edible after all.
“She seems to be eating it fine, right?”
“…It seems that way.”
“Alright, then. Let’s eat, Shia.”
“Yes. Thank you for the food, Mom.”
The still-twitching raw meat was a little unsettling, but it was bound to taste good.
After all, Shia had eaten plenty of more repulsive things than this.
Actually, it wasn’t the raw meat that bothered her—it was the trauma from the unicorn meat that had turned into stone earlier.
“Chomp.”
“Chew.”
“Kie…”
The three of them began eating at the same time, and no one said a word.
Chomp.
Chew chew.
“……”
“…….”
Shia and Yoon-jung glanced at each other.
Does it taste good?
It’s good, right?
Yes!
“It’s delicious!”
[Look at their faces brighten up ㅋㅋㅋ]
[They look like kids.]
[Noona… when you smile, it’s… ugh… heuuuung..]
[You freakㅋㅋㅋ]
[But the streamer’s smile does get to me.]
[Isn’t it gross to eat meat with rigor mortis? I couldn’t do it… Streamer’s got a strong stomach.]
[This streamer likes fried bugs…]
[So true ㅋㅋㅋ]
[‘KawaiiHorned’ has donated 50,000 won!]
ㄴFinally, success! Congrats!
[‘BaldManagerLickLick’ has donated 65,000 won!]
ㄴRaw sashimi is the best, hands down.
It really was delicious.
Shia wasn’t usually fond of raw meat or sashimi, but this unicorn sashimi was on a completely different level.
Perhaps because it was sliced by her mother Yoon-jung and not her own hands, the unicorn meat, sliced neatly along the grain, was far more tender and flavorful than any beef she had ever tasted.
The moment it touched her tongue, it melted, the delicate balance of mana and fat creating a perfect harmony in her mouth.
Of all the monster-related dishes Shia had ever tasted, she was confident this one took the number one spot.
For the record, second place was the wyvern egg soy-braised dish.
“Chomp!”
“Well, I guess this mom hasn’t lost her touch when it comes to slicing sashimi, huh?”
“Yes, yes! You’re right!”
Maybe it was just because her mom had made it for her, but the sashimi tasted even better.
But who cares if that’s the reason?
As long as it tastes good, that’s all that matters.
It was really delicious.
The sashimi quickly disappeared, devoured by Yoon-jung, Shia, and Yane.
“By the way, are you going to keep the stream on while we eat?”
“Nom nom, well, yes, I suppose.”
“But it’s a stream. Don’t you have to do something? Like describe the taste or tell the viewers to have a bite too… You’re just sitting there eating.”
“Hehe, it’s fine. That’s what this stream is about.”
[Hey, give us some too.]
[What? Give us some.]
[It must taste amazing…]
[Streamer, please pay attention to us too…]
“Pay attention to you? Uh… no.”
[Aww, come on.]
[You little brat!]
“Hey, you guys were making fun of me when I failed at cooking earlier! This is karma!”
Even while eating, Shia joked around with her viewers in a lighthearted, practiced manner.
Well, if it makes her happy, then so be it.
And so, Shia, Yoon-jung, and Yane continued to enjoy their unicorn sashimi meal in satisfaction.
“But doesn’t it feel a bit lacking to stop here?”
“…No, I’m full though…”
The amount of unicorn sashimi the three of them had eaten was by no means small.
By normal standards, it was probably enough for 20 to 30 servings.
“No, Mom. It’s not over until I say it’s over. We’re going to keep eating, slowly and steadily.”
“Geez, were you reincarnated as some kind of pig…?”
“Not a pig, please call me the Saintess of the Dead.”
[ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ That face is going to haunt my dreams ㅋㅋㅋ]
[Pig = Saintess of the Dead.]
[Pig = Saintess of the Dead.]
Even though Shia’s stream was supposed to feature a mukbang, it wouldn’t look good if she couldn’t successfully cook her own dish.