When it came to killing time during a long voyage, the consensus was always the same: food.
I sat in a corner of the bridge, once again facing off against a silver pouch of General-Purpose Synthetic Food 'Tasty Cube'.
Tonight’s menu was 'Space SASHIMI'.
The previous 'Space KATSU-DON' had been a total disaster. The cause of my defeat was clear in hindsight. First, it lacked warmth. The soul of a katsu-don lies in the steam; the best part is scarfing it down while huffing and puffing over the heat. You know what I mean?
But that thing had been room temperature. A lukewarm katsu-don is a substance even more depressing than cold pizza.
Next was the complexity of the elements. The crunch of the breading, the elasticity of the meat, the silkiness of the egg, and the individual grains of rice—trying to compress all those distinct textures into a single cube was a fundamental mistake.
But above all else, it was the letdown. My expectations had swollen to the breaking point, fueled by golden memories beautified by time. The moment those memories collided with the reality of an "eraser that tastes like katsu-don," my spirit took fatal damage.
Sashimi, however, was different.
It was just a single slice of raw fish. The structure was as simple as it got. It had a uniform texture and a slick, fatty mouthfeel. More importantly, it was meant to be eaten cold. Surely that had a much higher affinity with the Cube’s default "cold clay" consistency?
If I just insisted to myself that it was a slice of fish, there was a chance my brain would fall for the trick. There had to be. I needed there to be.
"Alright, let's do this."
I solemnly tore open the 'Space SASHIMI' Tasty Cube.
What emerged was a vibrant red cube. Red sashimi—in other words, tuna. When people said sashimi, they meant tuna, and when they said tuna, they meant sashimi.
Strangely, in the game version of Star Frontier, 'Space SALMON' was the only other fish option that existed as its own standalone menu item. There weren't any others. Maybe they were available somewhere in this reality, but for now, this was it.
"...Man, this looks gross."
I stared at it intently. It was a perfect cube. One of the six sides was painted with a thin layer of black.
"Is that... the skin? No, you don't leave the skin on a block of tuna."
I leaned in and gave it a sniff. There was no mistaking it. That uniquely pungent, salty aroma. It was soy sauce. No doubt about it. Of course, since it was "clay-style soy sauce," it looked like it would be impossible to separate it from the block to use as a proper condiment.
However, tonight's version of me was prepared. If I just bit into the block as it was, it would be a repeat of the "giant eraser" incident. I reached down and unsheathed the Survival Knife at my waist.
"Cooking is all about the extra effort."
I carefully pressed the blade into the cube. A dull, heavy resistance pushed back—a sensation far too sluggish to be the sound of cutting food. It was hard, just as I expected. But I didn't lose heart; I kept slicing the block.
Not too thick, not too thin. I aimed for that classic sashimi thickness that gives you a satisfying sense of weight when you lift it with chopsticks. This was it. This thickness was the golden ratio that unlocked the fish’s umami.
One slice, then another. I lined up the unevenly cut red slabs on top of the packaging. I didn't have any plates, so this was the best presentation I could manage.
"...Hoh."
Now that they were all lined up, it didn't look half bad. The strips of red meat, edged with a layer of soy sauce for color, almost had the dignified air of high-quality, aged sashimi.
...Well, except for the fact that they had absolutely no gloss or luster. But I ignored that.
"Alright. This is close enough to be called sashimi. Close enough... yeah, it’ll do."
I gave myself a firm pep talk, pierced one slice with the tip of my knife, and lifted it. It felt heavy. The simulation was perfect. In my mind, this was a fresh cut of lean tuna.
"...Down the hatch."
I closed my eyes and let it rest on my tongue. It felt chilly. A wave of intense saltiness and chemical umami melted off the soy sauce layer on the surface.
Then, I bit down.
"............"
The texture was clay.
Actually, because I’d sliced it, it was marginally better than the katsu-don. But a desperate elasticity—like chewing on a thick rubber band—pushed back against my molars. No matter how hard I tried to bite through it, it just squished and escaped. There was zero sensation of muscle fibers breaking apart.
It was exactly like tossing a stationery eraser into my mouth. I kept chewing. A pathetic squelch-squelch sound echoed inside my skull.
As for the taste... well, it was tuna. The parameters had been adjusted to ensure it tasted like tuna. But it wasn't the fatty tuna from a high-end sushi bar. It was the taste of lean meat that had been slapped with a half-off sticker right before the supermarket closed, forgotten in the back of the fridge for two days, and then sat in a puddle of its own juices after a botched thawing.
It was fishy, metallic, and finished with a lingering chemical aftertaste.
"This is disgusting!!"
I didn't care how I sliced it; clay was still clay. What spread through my mouth wasn't the rich fat of a fish, but an industrial paste that smelled like one. To make matters worse, slicing it had increased the surface area, making the unpleasantness feel twice as voluminous.
"Haa... haa..."
Once again, I had been defeated. Did no food exist in this universe that could satisfy my palate? No, the very concept of the 'Tasty Cube' was a mistake. It was a profanation of the culinary arts.
Despair, hunger, and a directionless rage bubbled up inside me until I felt a genuine surge of murderous intent. I didn't care who it was. I just wanted to break something.
Right then, a piercing alarm shrieked through the bridge.
"Warning. Hostile reaction detected. Distance 3,000. Rapidly approaching."
Lucia's calm voice pulled my anger back to reality.
"Master. I'm sorry to interrupt your lovely meal—pfft—but we have pirates."
"You definitely just laughed! ...Tch, whatever. This is actually perfect."
I looked at the screen. The radar was lit up with numerous red blips. Twelve corvettes and one medium-sized vessel. They were surprisingly well-equipped.
"Hey, you in the big hunk of junk! You can hear me, right? Jettison one container and we'll let you slide!"
A stereotypical, gravelly voice crackled over the comms. Out here, piracy against transport ships was more of a protection racket than actual warfare. If they demanded the entire cargo, the victim would fight to the death. Combat meant the pirates took damage, and ammunition costs were no joke.
But "one container"? To a transport company, that loss was usually covered by insurance. Sometimes, it was even cheaper than hiring mercenaries. My own transport contract even had an indemnity clause for exactly this scenario.
That was why lone transport ships often handed over goods as a "toll." The pirates would pick it up and head home. It was a cynical, "economical" system where no one had to bleed.
Normally, I would have used the Sperm Whale's massive size and Lucia’s presence to bluff them into leaving us alone, but...
Ah, I see. These guys are feeling cocky because they have the numbers. Or rather, it didn't matter to them if we were a bluff or the real deal. Their "one container" demand was the perfect middle ground—cheaper than the cost of a fight. They wanted to make me think it was more rational to pay up and move on. It was a practiced, cunning bit of market manipulation.
On any other day, I might have found it too much trouble to resist and just followed the system.
But things were different today. My mood was at an all-time low thanks to that wretched sashimi.
Maybe I should turn their ships into sashimi, too.
"Lucia."
"Yes?"
"We're sinking these idiots."
"Understood."
Spitting out the chemical aftertaste still clinging to my tongue, I gripped the control stick with all my might. This was perfect. I’d been looking for a sandbag to vent my culinary rage on.