Gauss and Alya exchanged a glance, seeming not to notice her astonished expression.
He lowered his head, his gaze fixed intently on the enormous frog corpse.
"It's been a while since we ate," Gauss said, nodding to himself. "It's not every day you come across an edible monster. It'd be a waste not to prepare it..."
Alya instinctively drew a deep breath and looked down at the giant frog.
Even though it was completely dead, thick saliva still dripped from its gaping mouth. When it landed on the weeds, it hissed softly, sending up wisps of white smoke. The grass it touched withered and blackened in an instant.
Was this... really something they could eat?
She knew that parts of some monsters were edible, but she had never cooked any herself.
A monster whose saliva could burn through grass? Could their stomachs really handle eating something like that?
She was a little worried.
But while she was still hesitating, Gauss had already got to work.
Without the slightest hesitation, he drew a dagger from his waist.
Seeing this, Alya swallowed the warning she'd been about to give. She didn't want to spoil his enthusiasm. Besides, although she probably wasn't going to eat any herself, she was a little curious, too.
Gauss maneuvered the dagger carefully around the slime and made a precise, long vertical incision across the belly, running from the Corrosive Frog's lower jaw all the way to its tail.
Then he followed the incision and slowly peeled away its mottled gray-green skin.
The process went much more smoothly than he'd expected.
Once the entire hide had been peeled away, the Corrosive Frog's tender pink flesh was exposed before him.
He pulled the thick Emerald Forest Surrounding Ingredients Compendium from his Storage Bag and quickly flipped to the page