15. Barbecue

Returning to the stone stage, Shiro suddenly felt a wave of hunger strike him.

After the long battle, finally back, the tension faded and his body’s needs surged forward. Checking the time, it was around six in the evening. Dinner time, he thought.

“Ah, I’m starving.”

Shiro decided to start preparing a meal. Cooking, in this case, meant something like barbecue—outdoor-style food. Back on Earth, he’d gone camping a few times, so he had basic knowledge.

“Hmm, ingredients… root vegetables we gathered, horn rabbit meat, and a salad of edible leaves?”

First, he thought about butchering the horn rabbit—then he paused.

“Honestly, I’ve never done this before, so I don’t even know how to start…?”

On Earth, even camping trips didn’t usually involve hunting. Nobody, not even seasoned campers, would know how to butcher an animal. Let alone a monster’s carcass (or whatever it was). Shiro was about to drift into thought when—

“Shiro, combining inventory and entity disassembly might work,” Mitoka suggested.

“Ah, right,” Shiro said, impressed.

He first imagined pulling the horn rabbit from his inventory.

He didn’t actually take it out—instead, he mentally recognized the horn rabbit inside the inventory as a collection of entities, focusing on isolating only the edible meat and usable materials, filtering everything else.

He concentrated on making the image clear. Once the mental model settled, he said “Disassemble,” and felt the meat and materials separate within the inventory, becoming distinct items.

Incidentally, the materials from a horn rabbit are horn and fur. There’s also a gemstone.

——『[Inventory: Disassemble] Level 1 acquired』

"Yeah, worked out well. This disassembly is a method of the inventory, huh."

"That’s right. There’s a separate skill for disassembling monsters or animals with a knife. It should be gained through actual practice and experience."

"Yeah, that’s how it usually goes. Thanks to the inventory and this skill, I can disassemble without getting my hands dirty at all—how convenient is that!"

Shiro’s energy spiked.

Now that the disassembly was successfully done, Shiro thought about pulling out just the meat from the inventory—but then paused mid-thought. On second thought, the size was ridiculous. Probably around three hundred kilograms.

"Ah… I’ll have to cut it up first. Need a knife and a cutting board. Actually, a table or chair would help too. Can I materialize them?"

"Shiro, materializing something as large as a table or chair would be inefficient. You’re better off using existing materials—like the rocks nearby. It’d be faster to refine and shape them."

Creating something from nothing with magic requires more mana and is more difficult than reshaping what’s already there.

"Alright, then I’ll use one of those rocks around here…"

Shiro selected a rock of sufficient size nearby, imagined flooding it with magical energy, and pictured it transforming like clay.

He held that image for a few minutes. When he felt it was beginning to work, he said, "Refine." The rock gave a faint glow, and he sensed it could now shift form.

——『[Refine] Level 1 acquired』

"Nice!" Shiro couldn’t help but exclaim.

He visualized a table roughly one meter by two meters, shaping the rock to match. Just like forming an image in his mind, he could reshape the stone with a thought—malleable as clay. Convenient, he thought, impressed. He decided to keep it simple: just a tabletop and four square legs. He settled on the form.

Once the shape was roughly set, he said, "Form," and the configuration solidified into a permanent state.

——『[Form] Level 1 acquired』

"Whoa, done!"

"This is handy. If I’ve got the material, I can make anything. Feels strong enough, too."

Shiro grinned, pleased with his newfound skill.

He then made a chair the same way.

"Seating’s a bit stiff. Would be nice to have a cushion, but I’ll just tough it out for now."

He muttered to himself.

The knife was small. No iron ore around here, so he quickly conjured one into existence.

"Cutting board? Eh, not essential. I could chop wood and plane it, but that’s overkill right now. Save it for later."

Shiro’s enthusiasm was starting to wane.

He immediately pulled out horn rabbit meat from his inventory and placed it on the newly made table.

"Big one."

Nearly three meters long—plenty of meat. Shiro roughly cut off a kilo, estimated by eye, then stowed the rest back in his inventory.

Next, he decided he wanted potatoes baked like in the old world. He attempted to conjure aluminum foil. He imagined a thin sheet, recalling roughly how thin—maybe fifty microns?—and strained to spread his magic as thinly as possible, pushing it out with effort.

At first, it was about a millimeter thick—failed. Next time, maybe five hundred microns? It halved, at least.

Try again. This time, roughly half that thickness. Repeat this about twenty times.

Despite the failures, Shiro managed to get it down to around fifty microns.

——『[Precision Mana Control] Level 1 acquired』

“Huh. So fine mana manipulation’s a separate skill?”

Shiro tilted his head, a bit surprised.

“Shiro, manipulating at the micron level is a separate skill. Most people can’t do that.”

Mitoka shook her head, exasperated.

“Haha… well, I’ve always liked the little details,” Shiro chuckled, self-deprecating.

After acquiring the skill, it became relatively easy to visualize. He casually crafted around twenty sheets, each roughly fifty centimeters square, as practice.

Now, time for the real thing, Shiro mused.

First, he gathered stones of decent size and arranged them in a circle to form a fire pit. He visualized a cast-iron grill (with legs), then materialized it and placed it atop the stones.

He used a combination of fire and wind magic to create a drying spell, applying it to wood he’d picked up along the way. Once dried, he cut it into manageable pieces and used it as kindling. *Fire magic is handy*, Shiro thought.

He waited until the kindling burned down enough to produce charcoal, then placed slices of meat about a centimeter thick and wrapped sweet potatoes in aluminum foil onto the grill, waiting for them to cook.

While waiting, he materialized a knife and fork from stainless steel, and swiftly forged plates via refinement and shaping.

“Need a pair of tongs for the meat…” Shiro thought, but shrugged. Too much hassle. Instead, he made a large, sharp barbecue fork and used that to flip and grill the meat.

Shiro could generate sodium chloride with matter formation with ease, so salt was no problem at all.

Once it was cooked enough, Shiro took a bite straight away.

"Damn, this is good," he said, genuinely surprised.

The black horn rabbit meat, perfectly grilled, turned out juicier and softer than expected. Almost no gamey smell at all.

He wished for pepper or herbs, but decided that salt alone was enough for now—still, he quietly planned to make a barbecue grill next time, complete with lid, just for steak.

For salad, he gathered edible leaves, washed them with a water sphere conjured by water magic, then spun them dry with wind magic. They tasted great even without dressing. Later, he checked on the potatoes. Using matter formation, he made a wire and poked it in to test the texture.

"Yep, soft all the way through."

He unwrapped the aluminum foil, sliced it open with a knife, pulled out a piece with a fork, and took a bite.

"Yep, nicely sweet and fluffy. Tastes good. Surprisingly decent. Too bad no butter."

He finished the meal with a bite of apria fruit as dessert.

All in all, it was just ordinary, eatable food. Shiro relaxed—food for the foreseeable future was sorted, at least for now.