Fanfiction 018 – Crossover Delicious in Dungeon – Thanksgiving (Part 1)
“”Oh, we’re here again!””
Dora-chan cheered as he flew around the too-familiar room that could only be some sort of pocket dimension that crosses over with another world that is not Earth.
Sorry, was the name of the place too long? Maybe once I have the time to properly sit down and think about things, I will come up with a more efficient name.
“Oh, hello again,” said Falin serenely.
“Yeah, nice to see you,” said Laios.
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered under my breath as I took in the surroundings. At least, the decorations were nice, as in, not threatening or creepy. No skulls, no creepy dolls and no dried-up hands or even a spiderweb in sight.
The place looked pretty autumn-ish with all the orange, yellow and reddish-brown squash of all sizes. Someone had even strung up the smaller squashes into garlands with strings of some kind of red beads weaved between them…
“Hey, this looks like Harvest Festival from the Western Continent,” said Marcille the Elf. She was studying one of the larger squashes, giving it a good thump with her staff and exclaiming, “Woah, this thing’s real!”
“Wait, seriously? I’d never seen pumpkins this big that’s not also a monster before!” Laios and Senshi the Dwarf immediately swarmed over to study the giant squash.
“You call those pumpkins too?” I asked.
“Pumpkins, squash, calabashes, they all more or less belong to the same family,” said Senshi as he hefted his axe and-
“Hey!”
“Watch it!!”
Somehow, I had half expected the thing to explode like a watermelon. Instead, Senshi’s axe got stuck.
“Hahaha! That’s so dumb!” Izutsumi laughed on the side. As usual, feline beastman had found a high place to perch and was staring smugly down at everyone.
“Hmph, I don’t care what this place is, there’s no monsters here. No meat,” Fer grumbled.
Frankly, that was the best thing I heard all day. No monsters means no fighting. No fighting means no stress. At least, none on my part, hehehe.
“Are all the squashes real?” I asked, tapping at one of the smaller ones. Senshi had roped Laios into helping him pull the axe head out of the giant pumpkin thing.
“Sure looks like it,” said Chilchuck as he hefted a bright orange squash in his hand. “Feels real enough. Smells good enough to eat too.”
“Oh, in that case, shall we have a squash party?” I asked, a little excitedly.
“No! Absolutely not!” Fer growled.
“Why not? It’s not like we have anything else to eat-”
“Gimme meat! You must have something in your [Item Box].”
“I could,” I said, “but that all depends on your behaviour.”
“Nuuu…”
I knew there was no way to get that creature to apologise, but at least he was no longer actively quarrelling with me.
“You know…” said Falin. “I remember that the Westerners like to celebrate Harvest Festival with a whole roasted bird.”
“Bird?!”
“Whole Roasted??!!”
“Hmm, I think it was stuffed with all kinds of good things too,” said Falin dreamily. “All kinds of chopped dried fruit and breadcrumbs…”
“Tch, what a waste of a bird-”
“…and stuffed with meat too…”
“Master, let’s have a whole roasted stuffed bird,” said Fer promptly.
“… …”
“Master, I wish to try a whole roasted stuffed bird as well.”
“Oh? So now I am ‘Master’?”
“”Aruji~ stuff the birdie with meat, lots~~””
“”Yeah, Aruji~ meaty~~””
“You don’t sound cute at all Dora-chan.”
““Tch.””
“A whole stuffed bird?” Senshi was immediately intrigued. He had abandoned his axe to scuttle over and participate in the ‘Stuffed Bird Discussion’. “How shall we do it? Do we even have a whole bird? What shall we stuff it with? I have some good herbs and dried berries…”
“The biggest question is, how to roast the whole stuffed bird,” said Laios seriously. “We don’t have an oven for one. I mean, I supposed we could make one with earth magic, but-”
“Hey, oven aside, where are we supposed to get this stuffed bird?” Marcille snarked. “You see any bird running around here? Not me, not even a bat.”
While the others argued, my familiars turned their eyes on me. I squirmed uncomfortably until the rest also looked at me.
“Mister Mukouda?” Falin asked in that innocent way of hers.
“… I have a stove…” I said. Then added, “For the bird, I have Giant Dodos…”
Senshi gasped, wonder and envy crossed his face.
Everyone here already knew about my [Net Super], knowing about my nearly limitless [Item Box] was nothing much, I supposed. Especially since they were kind enough to share all kinds of knowledge with us…
“How big is a Giant Dodo? Is it similar to a pheasant? Birds meant for roasting should be on the fattier side. Also, when it comes to stuffing, we should be careful not to overdo it or the whole thing won’t cook… wait, should we pre-cook the stuffing? Surely that should be the way? If we stuff it raw…”
“Hold on,” I said as I took out my six-burner stove as well as one whole Giant Dodo. There was much oohing and aahing as I placed the dressed bird on a giant tray on the stove.
We all studied the featherless bird.
I have seen bigger birds, of course.
But, there’s no point in taking out the larger birds when I don’t have the oven big enough to roast them whole.
“Shut up, Fer.”
“…I didn’t say anything…”
“I know you’re going to.”
“Nuu!”
“… I believe we should pre-cook the stuffing,” said Senshi in the end. “That makes the most sense given the size of the bird and the amount of fat on it. To make sure the meat melds together nicely, we can stir in breadcrumbs and egg, maybe even some chopped onions and diced root vegetables should you have it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed. I was starting to get a little excited at the prospect of cooking a whole bird.
It would be like Christmas!
Boom!
Senshi and I jumped at the sudden explosion
“Instead of root vegetables, how about adding some of these pumpkin!” Laios said as he stepped forward. He had somehow managed to wrench the axe out with the help of Chilchuck and Marcille’s exploding magic.
Unfortunately, that meant a third of the giant pumpkin was in pieces.
“…Sure, why not,” I said. Since they had already opened up the thing there was no point letting it go to waste.
While Senshi and I worked on putting the Roasted Stuffed Bird together, I had the rest of them cut the random squashes into pieces. It did not take long for us to make the stuffing with some pre-made Soboro meat mixed with stir-fried squash, onions, carrots and some crushed dried fruit and herbs that Senshi had on him.
I must say, the resulting ‘stuffing’ was quite fragrant. Even I was tempted to eat it as I cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl and stirred half a box of breadcrumbs into the mix. Once the stir-fried vegetables had cooled down enough, we mixed that into the meat and raw egg mixture too. And… that was it, that’s the stuffing done.
For the actual stuffing, I recruited Sui, although I swear she sneaked a bit…
Still, she must not have eaten a lot because there was still quite a bit left after we had stuffed the Giant Dodo to the point that we had to sew the skin flaps down and even tie the legs together to make sure none of the mixture leaked out.
“Should I just stir-fry this?” I said as I looked at the mess. Should I just let Sui eat the rest?
“Why not stuff the neck bit too?” Izutsumi said as she pointed at the flabby bit of skin where the neck of the Giant Dodo used to be. “Isn’t it kind of ugly like this?”
Senshi and I studied the neck bit and decided that it was a sound idea, so we stuffed on the rest of the stuffing into the neck skin flap. There was just enough skin to close down the stuffing like a neat pocket. Even so, for the sake of the stuffing’s integrity, I sew up the neck bit with some butcher’s twine.
After that, the Stuffed Giant Dodo was loaded into the oven and…
“Well, that should be ready in… four hours or thereabouts,” I said.
“FOUR HOURS?!!”
I jumped.
The group behind me looked horrified.
“Well, what do you expect?” I said exasperatedly. “Roasting takes time, you know?”
[Gumihou: I really like stuffing turkey, hehe. And yes, I stuffed the skin flap bit too, because more meat=better]
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