Alex and Benezia stand beside Menchi, who is carefully using her Supporter Skill Dismantling to roughly butcher the giant squid. Of course, she only focuses on the large parts, so she can properly store any part of worth and discard whatever is not valuable.
Alex notices her handing many of the squid parts to Benezia, urging her to store them.
"Sell them, or maybe even donate them, I don't care—they're worthless," Menchi says flatly.
"Why?" Alex asks. "They look pretty decent to me... I don't see that much difference, to be honest."
Menchi sighs. "True, but now that I'm butchering it, I've learned something. This entire squid is only Light Green Quality... at the lower end of it! Using just this squid meat, I'll never be able to turn it into anything above Light Green. I'd need additional ingredients, and I'm not sure this meat wouldn't actually drag down their quality. I might figure something out, but don't expect too much. So I am discarding anything that is not recognized by the system. I'm only keeping the actually valuable parts, even those damaged ones at Gray quality, I'll keep. Anything not even recognized is worthless to us."
So her dismantling skill allows her to make these decisions on the spot? Not bad!
Alex frowns. "Light Green?! That can't be. Look, even the damn varrens from Mass Effect were of higher quality, and they were easy to get rid of! This thing managed to block my strongest bow attack, which combines most of my skills and even took Benezia's Warp straight to its face—or eye, to be more accurate. Strength-wise, it doesn't make sense for it to be anything lower than Deep Blue, maybe even Purple! Without Jewel's cheap technique, this would've been dangerous, especially since we were on a flimsy fishing boat and not a proper ship that could take a few hits."
It's not a cheap Technique! It's the Ultimate Secret Technique!
"You're forgetting something, Alex," Menchi says. "Remember the dragon from the Wizarding World? Despite its huge size, I only managed to get a reasonable number of dishes out of it. The system actively regulates the worth of enemies. This squid might've been strong, but because of its insane size, I can harvest at least thirty usable portions of meat from it, even after Jewel's... attack, which destroyed a lot of the edible parts. You know, I hesitate to call it a technique—especially when it's used on prey. It wasted nearly half of the meat. We should really try to find a better way to hunt."
"I get it," Alex says. "Thirty portions of meat? That translates into thirty dishes. Since you're great at cooking, you'll be able to produce at least thirty Light Green dishes from it, right? That's easily 2,000 to 3,000 FC per dish, I assume? The system lowers the quality of meat if so much is available in one enemy... but I wonder, do people even buy these low-ranked dishes anymore? At some point, recovering a small amount of HP doesn't seem worth it anymore."
Menchi smiles, seemingly not concerned at all. "Don't worry about that. Players still buy these dishes—they're far superior to the [Healing Potion] and [Large Healing Potion], which restore 20 HP and 50 HP, respectively. The [Large Healing Potion] even costs 5,000 FC. Higher-tier potions are rare, and only a few merchants carry a small supply—and the price is insane. I can prepare a dish out of this meat that will rival a [Large Healing Potion], and for a more reasonable price. Even if I, or Benezia, can't sell much food directly, there are workers who'll buy it for at least a modest sum."
Benezia, looking more like her usual self, finally chimes in. "I'm grateful we didn't suffer for nothing. As much as it pains me to say... we should consider doing this again. This actually earned us a small fortune. I'd say, factoring in the Realm-store ingredients you'll need—oil, spices, other additions—and the cost of the equipment, which are all Realm-specific, we can turn this squid into dishes worth nearly 50,000 FC. If we catch one every day, that would be a profit of 1,500,000 FC over thirty days. There's even an argument for setting aside the main mission, or barely fulfilling it, and becoming full-time fishermen."
Alex stares at Benezia, clearly in shock at her change in attitude.
Is she serious?! I guess she really is a logical person to the end. As long as there is profit in it, she's willing to do anything. I guess I should strive to be more like her.
"... Don't forget that I usually conjure all my grenades before sleeping or directly after waking up. Sometimes, when I'm tired, I don't manage to create all of them and have to stock up at random times. I can't simply conjure these grenades out of thin air. Without any reductions, it costs me 30 Aura to conjure one grenade, and since I can conjure a max of 10 plus 1 per level of my skill, that's a total of 450 Aura," Alex explains, suddenly looking drained, just imagining the constant conjurations he needs to do.
He continues, "That's more than my maximum Aura. Of course, thanks to all the cost reductions from Nen Prodigy lvl 5 and Genius Conjurer lvl 5, I can still manage to conjure them all in one go, since I get a total Aura reduction of 40%. But afterwards, it takes time for my Aura to recover, and besides Aura, it also drains my Stamina. Even if my Aura recovers relatively quickly, my actual stamina needs at least three or four hours to bounce back. I've been doing this long enough to know my body—I can conjure all my grenades at most twice a day, that's the hard limit. If I go beyond that, it'll be fine once... maybe even twice... but after that, I'll be unable to fight seriously and become almost completely useless."
He glances at Benezia and Menchi. "Also, even with that much profit, I think—while difficult—we can earn 1.5 million FC if we really push ourselves. After all, we're forced to take missions. If we refuse them, we'll just get kicked out of the world with a low mission rating. More importantly, fishing is based on LUK. I wouldn't put it past the system to screw us over if we actually only focus on fishing."
Benezia smiles, replying in her usual calm tone. "It was just a thought, Alex. I fully agree with you. If we factor in the stat rewards you'll receive for a high rank, it would only be worthwhile if we could earn at least five million. And there's no reason to assume things will always go like today. Still, it's a valid way to use our time. Since we're waiting for Tereza, this is actually a good way to spend it, since we're stuck here."
"Yes!" Menchi says enthusiastically. "I'll focus on cooking and butchering, Benezia can distribute the meat, and Alex, you can slowly conjure more grenades! Let's do it again! Tereza will arrive soon, so we can aim for at least two more trips until then."
Alex sighs in frustration.
As much as I want to argue... they're right. It would be a waste to ignore this chance. Maybe we could even fish up something more valuable.
Princess Jewel will win again!
"..."
Half a day later, with the sun down, Alex, Benezia, and Jewel set out once more, ruthlessly taking another boat similar to the last one. As Alex steers them toward the open sea, Jewel toys with an Annihilation Grenade, her supply freshly replenished.
"Don't play with them. Even I don't! Aren't you scared that it explodes right into your face?" Alex asks.
Princess Jewel has unlimited trust in her Soulmate and his divine grenades!
As they leave the small harbor, they are, of course, spotted. But nobody dares to stop them—especially since Benezia had given a large share of meat to Mr. 8, more than compensating for the earlier thefts and the damaged boat.
"Why are we going out at night?" Benezia asks. "This feels needlessly dangerous and risky."
"Well... it fits our schedule. Also, there's such a thing as night fishing," Alex explains. "Different fish are active at different times. I'm hoping Sea Beasts and Sea Kings are asleep by now. At least the Sea beasts should sleep at night? At least if they resemble their ordinary animal counterparts."
Hours pass.
Alex, Benezia, and Jewel catch quite a few fish, some clearly different from the ones they had seen in the warehouse. Unfortunately, the system does not recognize any of them.
After a few ordinary catches, Jewel succeeds in reeling in two Gray Quality fish in quick succession—two [Red Scale Snapper].
"Not bad, I guess?" Alex comments, looking a bit unsure. "It's just a Gray ingredient without any real effects, but this is at least something that has a clear worth. Menchi can use them to create some Gray or White dishes, I guess."
After hours of catching ordinary fish, Benezia finally reels in a strange-looking one. The system identifies it as a [Two-Headed Cod], though it, too, is only Gray Quality.
Soulmate isn't catching anything?
"I'm not wasting my time on Gray garbage... I'm saving my LUK for a great catch!" Alex declares. After a pause, he adds quickly, "Hopefully nothing too big, though!"
Jewel and Benezia each manage to land one more cod and one more snapper before Alex finally feels a strong tug on his line. His rod bends under the strain as he reels it in, the weight testing his grip. With a final heave, the caught fish bursts out of the water.
Alex's eyes widen as he recognizes it.
"It's that damn fish Sanji won in Loguetown! A Blue-Finned Elephant Tuna, right?!" Alex yells, looking satisfied.
He inspects the massive catch, his face lighting up with joy. The system confirms it: a [Blue-Finned Elephant Tuna] of Light-Blue Quality.
"That one's from the South Blue! Nice!" Alex says, beaming.
This one is a jackpot! I wonder what Menchi can create with it?!
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