Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 3===

After accomplishing his goal for the day, Quenser was thrown down to the bottom level of society along with Heivia. They had been sent out for training.

“I’d heard this was the rainy season, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a clearer sky. If only it’d start pouring. Then they might change the training menu.”

“They’re apparently using a meteorological weapon for the big event.”

“Tch. Then why can’t they just screw with the atmospheric pressure enough for a tornado or downburst to blow away the enemy maintenance bases?”

“There are plusses and minuses. The cheap silver iodide types apparently lead to soil contamination.”

Their full course of hell for the day was being held in the grassy plain far away from the weapons show booths. For some reason, it was being run by a female soldier wearing a chef’s hat instead of a helmet.

They looked around and found everyone else there had a similar background. That is, they had been labeled “problem soldiers”. That only made their bad feeling about this even worse.

Then the chef started speaking.

“Major Capistrano has made a wonderful order to celebrate our trip to Africa! Since you’re all so fat from your gourmet lifestyles, you get to learn some true survival skills! The basic rule of food is to eat everything that’s nontoxic and digestible!! Something being hard, bitter, smelly, or gross is not an acceptable excuse!! I will make sure to remind you that you are mere animals first and foremost and proud humans only second, so prepare yourselves!!”

The soldiers all perked up when they heard talk of food.

They were stuck eating rations that could only be described as erasers or soap, so some odd cuisine was not going to faze them. Present them with a tiger or a lion and they were prepared to chop it up and cook it. Anything on four legs looked like a meal to them.

“The soul of cooking is salt and oil. You may think of ‘roasted meat’ when someone mentions makeshift meals made on the battlefield, but that is often not enough to cover the texture, bitterness, and odor I mentioned earlier. That is what makes frying so good. Just like fries are as addictive as drugs and just like slimy octopus or squid fries up nice and crispy, frying fixes everything. Carry a metal pot if you have the room or just use a mug if you have to. Make sure to carry cooking oil at all times. And with that said…”

The chef soldier carried out a basket covered by a scarf.

For some reason, the scarf was wriggling a little bit.

“(Hey, what do you think’s in there?)”

“(Our ingredient. Maybe snakes or frogs? That’s not about to shock me at this point.)”

They were so hungry that they were beginning to suspect the tasteless soap-like rations were part of a masterplan to get the soldiers to go on suicide missions in exchange for a burger.

“Tah dah!! This is today’s ingredient!!”

The female soldier removed the scarf and revealed what was inside: crickets.

The entire basket was filled with a wriggling mass of shiny black insects.

“Byah!?”

“Are you insane!? Are you completely insane!? I can’t eat bugs! And these don’t look all that different from roaches! Not to mention that there isn’t meat inside them! It’s just some kind of weird juices!!”

Everyone here was a problem soldier charged with disobeying orders or negligence in their duties, so this was obviously meant as a punishment.

But the chef soldier put her hands on her hips and snorted proudly.

“Insects sit at the bottom of the food chain and they are an abundant source of protein that supports the entire ecosystem. And as long as they aren’t poisonous, they’re easy to obtain. You can eat the whole thing, so you don’t leave any bones or skins behind for enemy soldiers to find. …You just need to know how to make them taste good. Got that?”

She began preparing to show them how.

She started a fire without using a lighter, boiled the vegetable oil inside her metal pot, and dumped tons of live crickets inside.

“They’re really the same as fries. Fry them up and then add salt. When not using any batter, the trick to making them taste good is to apply plenty of moisture beforehand.”

“Oh, no. That sizzling really does sound like fries.”

“Stop that. I’ll never be able to eat fries again!!”

It was a teacher’s job to answer all of her students’ questions.

“If you don’t like how they look, you can crush them and roll them into a dumpling. Use about ten of them per dumpling.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d vomit at least three times in the process!! And is it just me or would this count as abuse in a safe country!?”

This recipe was meant to be made during military operations, so the fewer tools needed, the better. They used forks to scoop the crickets directly from the oil.

“They come out perfectly bite-sized.”

“They still look just like crickets.”

“But they sometimes stick together even when not using batter. See, like this one.”

“Ew, that is disgusting! Twenty of them have fused together into some kind of cookie!”

“By the way, this works for wasps and scorpions too. Even if they’re poisonous, that can be neutralized by the high heat. Of course, it isn’t a perfect method, so don’t put too much faith in it. And don’t even try mantises. They often have parasites, so I can’t recommend them to rookies.”

The cricket dishes were lined up in front of them.

The slimy black luster was gone, but they mostly maintained their original shape.

“You should be thankful for this gift from your battlefield chef. Follow my example and add this to your repertoire of skills. And don’t forget to say grace and follow your table manners like proper ladies and gentlemen.”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance.

They did not want to do this, but doing nothing would get them nowhere. Plus, the crickets were sure to taste even worse once they cooled, just like fries after they went cold and limp. If potatoes tasted that bad, they did not even want to know how bad crickets would get. Waiting would only increase the difficulty level of this hellish ordeal.

“I guess we just have to bite the bullet.”

“Let’s eat them together. On the count of three.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

“Zero… I knew you weren’t going to eat it!! You were gonna have me eat it first as your little guinea pig, weren’t you!?”

“You waited too, Heivia!! So stop making me out like the only bad guy!!”

A small scuffle broke out between the two idiots, but they were not going to escape the issue at hand like that.

Now, what do cooked crickets actually taste like?