"Alright! It's the first meat we have on this island!" Lexus excitedly picked up the meat from the wok with chopsticks made by Bob and Xiaolang.
"Delicious! It would be great if we had some black pepper sauce or barbecue sauce." Lexus ran his mouth.
"We don't have that. But here. We have some salt," Bob said as he gave him a crystal watermelon bowl filled with salt.
"Awesome! You are good! I'll be sure to recommend you to Papa's company later!" Lexus grabbed the bowl.
"Don't forget to share it with others." Laurel rolled her eyes after seeing Lexus' greed.
"It's just salt!" Lexus growled.
"It is made with effort. Bob had to boil three bottles of seawater for four hours to make that," Laurel said. Yes. Just to make five tablespoons of salt requires that much effort. Laurel sighed when she compared the salt they had acquired to the salt she had bought at the store. This much salt wouldn't even be sold for a credit back in any United Space Federation colonies.
"Tch! You talk as if you were the one who made it. You should make more, Bob!" Lexus growled as he put the bowl back.
"I will. For now, let us share, okay?" Bob smiled as he took a pinch of salt and put it in his own bowl. Everyone took a pinch of salt. Before they knew it, the salt had been used up. With their first full meal, everyone was satisfied—except Lexus, who still complained about wanting more salt.
"... We really need more salt," Bob muttered. "If we have more salt, we can dry out the rest of this meat, preserving it for tomorrow."
"Meat? Are you making pickles? I thought only fruit can be pickled," Lexus muttered.
"I don't know how. But I heard meat can be salted to preserve it. Otherwise, this meat will spoil by tonight."
"Huh? Tonight? Meat should last for weeks! Just put it in the fridge!"
"Lexus…" Laurel rolled her eyes. Others followed suit.
"Ah, right. We don't have that. Damn. This lifepod should have at least a fridge. I am going to fire whoever designed this useless lifepod!"
"Mistral?" Shingo asked. "Is it true you can preserve meat by salting it? How?"
[Yes. Meat can be preserved by salting it. However, for health and culinary reasons, it is recommended to put it in a fridge or dry it instead of salting it. By using Evaporator SK24, meat can be safely dried and rehydrated without losing its taste and texture.]
"Health?" Laurel was triggered by the new information.
[The amount of salt required to preserve meat safely exceeds daily human consumption by more than three times.]
"That's dangerous," Laurel said.
"We can just rinse the meat before we eat it." Bob said.
"Huh? We are going so far making salt just to rinse it away? Salt is hard to make on this island!" Lexus roared. "You need four hours of boiling just to make a quarter bowl of salt!"
"Is there any other primitive way to preserve the meat?" Laurel said. "We don't have any high-tech equipment here, Mistral."
[Other primitive methods, other than salting, are hanging the meat to dry or smoking it.]
"The air is too humid. I don't think hanging it would dry the meat," Xiaolang said. They were near the beach, so hot and humid air blew toward them at sunset.
"Then smoking it is. Mistral, can you tell me how to smoke meat to preserve it?" Laurel asked.
[Smoking meat using primitive methods may cause cancer. It is better to preserve meat using salt, then rinse the salt afterward.]
"Maybe we should just stop doing this. We can just hunt another scarab if we want meat, right? We already beat one," Lexus said.
"No… Food is a priority. We were lucky that we could bring down this scarab without injuries," Laurel said. "We should do our best to preserve it."
"Laurel is right. Humans have done this for centuries before. Mistral, show us how to smoke or salt it," Xiaolang nodded.
[To preserve meat the traditional way by smoking or salting, you first need to cut the meat into thin slices. For salting, you need to rub the meat thoroughly. Every nook and cranny must be covered with salt.]
[For smoking, you need to hang the meat at least half a meter above the ground while burning untreated wood and its leaves under the meat inside a smokehouse.]
"Smokehouse? Do we need a house just to smoke meat? This is ridiculous," Lexus scoffed.
[Yes. Before the RCE accident, humans built smokehouses with the sole purpose of smoking and preserving meat. Preserving food for later use is important for the survival of humankind. Meat preserved properly this way can last up to six months without any other preservatives. Modern smoked meat uses charcoal compounds. By combining them with Evaporator SK24, you can taste authentic smoked meat without any risk.]
"Really?" Laurel was surprised. Real or artificial meat usually goes bad within two days if left untreated. Just by smoking it, it would preserve the meat that long was certainly advantageous.
"There is no way we can build a house just for smoking meat," Lexus said.
"Even though they call it a smokehouse, the design should be simple. Maybe there is a way to make it smaller. There are only seven of us here. Mistral, all we need is a box, right?" Shingo said.
[Yes. All you need is a rack at least two meters in height. Then, after you burn the wood under it, you can cover the whole rack with clothes or leaves for at least eight hours.]
"Eight hours? No way. The sun is about to set; we need to sleep. I am tired," Lexus complained.
"There is enough meat here to last us three or four meals. We ate so much, and we only ate its tail and legs," Laurel measured how much meat there was and come to her concnclusion, they needed the meat to last. "I think we should force our way through this effort."
"Agreed. We need meat, and I don't want to risk my life every time we want to eat some," Xiaolang nodded. Anna and Shingo also nodded.
"Alright. Let's start making a rack for smoking, everyone!" Shingo said as he went to the lifepod to grab his computer. "I will design the rack we will make for smoking!"
With Mistral's help, in less than ten minutes, the simple smoking rack design was complete. Xiaolang and Bob went out to gather wood and branches for making the rack, while Anna and Laurel prepped the meat by slicing it thinly.
Using the vines Xiaolang gathered, coupled with her sewing kit, Lazarus tied the branches they had gathered into a simple smoking rack covered with wide, banana-like leaves bunched up together. Bob then made the final touches and lit the fire from below the rack.
"Will this really preserve the meat? If it doesn't, then all of our effort will be for nothing?"
"Says the one who didn't do anything," Laurel sighed.
"Mistral said so. This is a simple smoke rack for preserving meat! It won't be as good as real smokehouse, but we only need them to last for two or three days, not six months."
"Alright, everyone. Good job, everyone. Let's leave it for this sunset and rest up. Lexus, since you didn't do anything, how about you guard the fire? The smoke rack must stay lit until nightfall," Laurel said.
"Huh! That's not fair. I am tired too!"
"You can sleep after we sleep. We need to take turns guarding the fire, right?"
"That's not fair!"
"Do you want to go hungry tonight? If the meat is spoiled, we won't have anything to eat tonight."
"There is still the ration and crystal watermelons, right?" Lexus said.
"Rations can be kept for ten years. We will eat them last. If the smoking is successful, we can keep the meat for up to a month or longer. We can swap between the watermelons and the meat then. Eating only one type of food is bad for you."
"Grr."
"I will stay with you, Lexus. I didn't do much either," Shingo offered.
"Then you can take turns with Shingo. Shingo, we had a rough day. Be mindful of your health, okay?" Laurel said worriedly.
"Don't worry. I don't feel a thing. This planet's atmosphere is so clean my asthma didn't react at all," Shingo tapped his chest.
"Understood. We will rest first," Laurel nodded. Then, as she looked up at the horizon, she sighed. "The sun has almost set. We might wake up late…"
"Tch! What a tyrant!" Lexus snorted as he sat down near the fire.
"Thank you, Lexus," Lazarus said. She then yawned, "Hoaaam… I will switch with you after I wake up."
"Hurry up!" Lexus huffed.
A few hours later, the group woke up, only to find Lexus dozing off beside the fire. Luckily, with Shingo around, the fire didn't go out.
"Geez. He can't even watch the fire properly," Laurel sighed.
"Everyone is tired," Shingo yawned.
"You must be tired as well, Shingo. Good work. You can rest in the lifepod. It is warmer there," Lazarus said. Shingo nodded.
"Thank you. Please let me know when you are about to have breakfast, okay." Shingo climbed into the lifepod and dropped onto his couch inside.
"We should work on that naming sense. Having breakfast in the night feels wrong. So, is the smoking successful?" Laurel asked Bob, who carefully opened the rack.
"The meat is covered with soot. Should I cut a part of it?"
"We will need to wash it soon anyway. So let's see whether it is still edible."
"I will bring some seawater to wash it." Xiaolang left with one of the pans. After Bob cut some of the meat and washed it, Lazarus put the spectrometer over it. The spectrometer glowed green, signaling that it was still safe to eat.
"Does this mean it was successful?"
"Yes. We can now store the meat in a container for the future. For now, let's cook some seawater to gather salt," Bob nodded as he wrapped the meat and tied it with a string. This meat will be stored alongside their ration boxes.
"I will gather some more seawater." Lazarus picked up the pan Xiaolang had carried and came back with more seawater. She then dumped it into the wok. The water sizzled before calming down. Then, it slowly boiled.
"Hah… I don't ask for an evaporator. But if only we had an electric stove, this would be much easier," Laurel said as she put more branches under the fire.
"Hm… That spire might have it," Xiaolang said.
"Spire? Oh? You mean that stone spire?" The stone spire had completely gone out of her mind because of the scarab's meat.
"Yes. I believe it was man-made."
"What makes you so sure?" Laurel said. That stone spire was just like a pile of rock and dirt to her.
"... Just a feeling," Xiaolang said. He couldn't point it out, but there was something wrong with the spire. His gut feeling told him so.
"But there is another scarab there…" Lazarus muttered.
"Yeah. Even if that spire is man-made, should we really be provoking that scarab?" Laurel said.
"Yeah, we should," Xiaolang nodded. The reason he told the team was because he needed their help. "I need your help. That scarab couldn't climb trees. So, I want one of you to become bait and then run while climbing a tree. Then, we can use ropes to trap it."
"That's cruel." Lazarus objected.
"We want to go home, right?" Xiaolang said.
"..." His suggestion was met with silence. Laurel was intrigued, but she had a gut feeling Xiaolang was grasping at straws.
"I think we should think about this more thoroughly…" Laurel said as she looked over to the team. Consciience aside, fighting a scarab was dangerous. Xiaolang nodded. He couldn't do it alone, and he knew he was asking too much. If the team refused, he had no choice but to agree.
As the silence continued, time passed. The sun had set completely. They worked in silence, watching the water in the wok bubble. Then, Lexus surprised them from behind.
"Yo! Are you eating without me?" Lexus hopped out from the lifepod and into the fray. "Let's eat meat! I want to see the smoked meat!"
Mistral. Do you think heaven exists? I heard heaven only exists for humans. You are immortal, so I guess when the time comes, I have to leave you, huh? Don't worry. I will create a perfect AI companion for you in the future. I will name it Milie.
~Shingo