Turning Trash into Treasure

Over there, they were slaughtering the pig. Du Pont sat blankly, still reliving the killing from earlier.

Compared to slaughtering the cow before, he had clearly gotten the hang of killing pigs this time. Even after his first failure, his hands no longer trembled.

Normally, that should have meant he was improving. But the soul of someone from a civilized society still made him deeply disgusted by this kind of slaughter.

Maybe it would get better after he killed a few more, Du Pont thought idly.

"Boulderstone wasn't mocking you earlier." As Du Pont was thinking, Judy came over, patted his knee, and handed him a cup of milk. "Actually, I think he admires you. But Barbarians are mostly used to being careless and rough. They basically don't know how to speak properly, and every other word out of their mouths is filthy. Still, he's not bad at heart. He just didn't want you to be as cowardly as that idiot."

"Thank you, Judy." Du Pont nodded and gave a shy, youthful smile. "I feel much better after hearing you comfort me."

"Haha, how could someone who became a mage not understand such things? You're just younger. You'll be fine after more experience." Judy pointed to the side. "This may just be mindless manual labor, but when you're out in the wild and run out of food, you sometimes have to hunt and do this kind of work yourself. Especially when you don't have a Bag of Holding, you have to carefully calculate how much you can carry on each journey. You can watch how they do it."

Du Pont nodded. Several farmers worked together to lift the fat pig onto a large pot, pouring over it with hot water that had long since been boiled. Once the hide and bristles softened, Butcher switched to an ordinary long knife and quickly scraped off the hair. He then directed the farmers to turn the pig over, sliced open both sides of its lower body with a small knife, made another cut, and tossed the pig's penis away in disgust for the hunting dogs that had followed them.

After the filth was removed, it was time to cut off the head and open the belly. Butcher merely turned the knife in his hand between the thick neck muscles, and the nearly half-meter-wide pig's head dropped off. Several farmers took out large wooden basins they had prepared beforehand to catch the head and offal, while the pig's blood was tossed away in disgust.

Du Pont watched with some regret. These people didn't know how to eat.

Boulderstone, on the other hand, worked cleanly and efficiently. His movements were incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, he had removed the tendons and bones from one leg. The previously whole pig was cut into chunks of varying sizes in less than two minutes, then tossed into different wooden basins according to the cut.

At last, he happily removed a long, narrow strip of tender meat from beside the spine. Without even washing it, he casually took out a bowl of sauce, tore off a piece of meat, dipped it, and stuffed it into his mouth, leaving Du Pont staring in shock.

Damn, wasn't he afraid of getting sick from eating it like that?

Or could this world use magic to prevent and treat pig diseases?

That seemed unlikely. While magic could be more miraculous than science in some ways, it had to be cast by people or spell arrays, and both cost money. Hiring mages to care for pigs would make the cost absurdly high.

Boulderstone saw Du Pont's ghost-stricken expression. After swallowing the meat in his mouth, he tore off a few more strips and offered them to him. "This is real tenderloin. It's about as tender as beef tenderloin, but with a flavor all its own. You could call it a delicacy of the mortal world. Want some?"

Du Pont hurriedly shook his head. Boulderstone muttered something about him being as unable to appreciate good food as a halfling, then continued eating by himself. After he finished, Du Pont asked, "Brother, aren't you afraid of getting worms from eating like that?"

"Worms? How could this give you worms?" Boulderstone looked at him like he was an idiot. "Have you ever seen fleas growing inside meat? Did copying test papers make you stupid?"

"I'm not talking about fleas." Du Pont figured this guy had probably never seen parasites, so he gestured with his hands. "The kind of worms you find in fish bellies. Flat, white, like noodles. Pretty disgusting."

Boulderstone shook his head. "No. I've even eaten dragon meat, so what does this count for? Stop talking about this. You're ruining my appetite." Then, as if something suddenly occurred to him, he frowned. "But every few months, my body does feel unwell. Whenever it acts up, I just find a druid to cast Remove Disease on me. It's usually nothing serious."

Du Pont fell silent.

Remove Disease was a 3rd Circle Druid Spell, one circle higher than his fifty-gold Lesser Restoration, yet it was being used on this gluttonous Barbarian.

If he remembered correctly, even in modern times, pork tapeworm disease had only been curable for a relatively short number of years, and the treatment was quite troublesome.

In Faerûn, though, it was simple. As long as you had money, one spell and the disease was gone.

Seeing Du Pont's expression, Boulderstone sensed danger. "Are you saying that illness I get is because I eat raw meat?"

Du Pont nodded. "That's right. This pig looks fairly clean, but some pigs may carry parasites. Eating them raw can let them lodge in your stomach and grow inside your body. It's pretty disgusting."

Butcher looked unconvinced. "You've got to be trying to fool me. My eyes are good enough. How could I fail to see worms longer than my fingers?"

"...They're eggs. Very tiny ones. Besides, you didn't seem to inspect the meat that closely when you tore it apart earlier. Still, this meat looks pretty good, so it should be fine. But if you see white spots in pork in the future, then it's definitely pork with worms. Some people with strong stomachs might get diarrhea and pass them out. Those are parasites."

Du Pont's words made Butcher's expression turn ugly. The farmers beside him looked no better, and one of them even started vomiting. Even the halfling looked unwell, making Du Pont ask in surprise, "Don't tell me you've all eaten it before?"

"...There's plenty of meat with white spots. Beef has them too." Judy scratched his head. "But I've never felt particularly unwell."

"Generally speaking, as long as the meat is cooked thoroughly, it's safe. Those worms don't have fire resistance. Boil them for a few minutes, and they'll die."

Du Pont's words made them relax, but Judy still found it hard to believe. "But meat sent to the academy sometimes gets randomly checked with Detect Poison. It's never set off an alarm."

"First, parasites and poison are two different things. This falls under disease, so antidote magic is useless. Also, cooking the meat thoroughly solves the problem. Of course, picking good meat is best." Du Pont looked toward the offal. "All right, stop dwelling on it. Just don't eat raw meat in the future. What do you do with these things?"

"The heart and liver both taste good. Sometimes we boil them in salt water, and they're quite tasty." Judy jumped down from the bench. "As for the pig's head and other organs, they're usually sent to the market and sold cheaply. They look ugly and smell too strong. Aside from poor people with barely any money trying to get a bit of grease out of them, hardly anyone likes eating this stuff."

"Do you remember what I told you yesterday?" Du Pont smiled. "I once saw a mysterious book that described ways to prepare these things. They can taste very good."

"Hm?" The halfling frowned at that, as though his professional integrity had been challenged. "You mean the pig's head? I've tried some parts of it, and they do have a unique flavor. But it has far too much fat and feels greasy. After a few bites, you don't want any more. It doesn't look good either. No proper banquet would serve it. Just seeing it might ruin the diners' appetites."

"You're right, but the proper cooking method can turn trash into treasure. Besides, this pig's head isn't completely worthless. You should know that it's a premium ingredient with nine entirely different flavors. Compared to its deliciousness, its ugliness barely counts as a flaw." He pointed at the intestines and stomach on the ground. "And these two can also be called delicacies of the mortal world. Their cooking methods are just a little special."

"Ah, these can be eaten too?" Judy looked utterly incredulous. Butcher remembered something. "In my hometown, if the harvest was bad and there wasn't much game to hunt, stomach, small intestine, and pig lungs were usually made into offal soup. But as long as supplies were sufficient, we normally fed these things to the tribe's hunting dogs. As for large intestine, no one would take it even if you gave it away. Hey, George, do you eat this stuff?"

The farmers shook their heads. "Offal porridge with some vegetables and mint can get rid of some of the smell, but who would prepare intestines? Dogs stink for days after eating them. No matter how poor you are, you can't eat that stuff."

"Normally, cleaning them really is a problem. If they aren't handled properly, not only can they make you sick, but they smell terrible." Du Pont nodded in agreement. If he had not discovered how useful magic was, he would not have bothered dealing with such things. "But mages have a spell called Dust Removal Spell. You don't need to use your hands at all to clean them. Once the spell has cleaned them, just wash them with salt and flour."

The farmers clearly did not believe him. Judy stood there with his mouth open, unable to say anything for a long while. Butcher patted the halfling on the shoulder. "Interesting. This stuff isn't worth anything anyway, so you can give it a try. But you'll have to eat it first."

"...What kind of thing is that to say? Would I really feed you shit just because I had nothing better to do?"

At that, both the Barbarian and the halfling shook their heads and said in unison, "Hard to say."