Staring at the massive frame, well over a meter long, that lay upon the workbench, my mind suddenly drifted back to a distant memory.
I once had a friend who was an obsessive fisherman.
He was a man possessed. Long before dawn, while I was still sound asleep, he would unilaterally send me messages with photos of his intended prey, declaring, "I’m going after this one today." Then, late at night, just as I’d finished a day’s work and was finally trying to catch my breath, he would come storming into my home. Reeking of the sea breeze and the rocky shore, he’d be clutching a bulging, overstuffed cooler box.
"Hey, I landed some good ones! Feast tonight!"
With a heavy thud, he would dump his catch into my sink—Red Sea Bream with gills still weakly fluttering, shimmering silver Largehead Hairtail, or mountains of Small Horse Mackerel that were nothing but a nightmare to clean.
Rubbing eyes blurred by exhaustion, I would spend my late nights in the kitchen covered in scales, my hand gripping a knife while I listened to the sound of melting ice in the cooler. That had been my life.
Being a good cook and knowing how to butcher a fish are two entirely different things.
In the beginning, I sent scales flying all over the kitchen and struggled with the guts, mangling the precious meat. He and I would share a bitter laugh as we salvaged the mess by turning it into Namerou or Fish Bone Soup to hide my mistakes.
However, after countless "ambushes" and having the skeletal structure of every species hammered into my fingertips, my hands began to understand their anatomy. I eventually reached a point where I could feel the path of the bones just by touching the skin.
Before I knew it, no matter what prey he brought over, my knife never wavered.
"...How nostalgic," I muttered softly, placing my left hand on the Azurite Snapper.
If this were a regular sea bream, I had never seen its equal. Its azure scales emitted a steel-like luster, and its mass was staggering.
But no matter how large it was, a fish was still a fish. The process remained the same.
"Mina, sorry, but give me the case."
Mina held out the heavy attache case she had brought from the ship’s kitchen.
Inside sat several knives I had meticulously polished for this very moment, each resting in its own sheath. The blades, honed to a razor's edge, sharply reflected the blue lights of the market.
I selected the Deba Knife. I confirmed the familiar weight of its thick spine as it settled into my palm.
"I’m starting."
First, the scaling.
I turned the tap on the workbench, flooding the fish's body with cold water. Using the back of the knife, I flicked the azure scales away, working from the tail toward the head while the water rinsed them clean. They snapped away like sparks, but the constant flow suppressed them, preventing them from flying and cluttering the station.
The hard, giant scales peeled away, exposing the beautiful silvery-white skin beneath.
Next, I inserted the blade at the base of the gill cover, dropping the knife at a sharp angle.
I felt a crunch as the blade severed the bone. They were thick to match the massive body, but if you hit the joints accurately, you didn't need much force. I removed the head and cleared the entrails in one fluid motion.
The cold water immediately diluted the blood and washed it down the drain. I ran my fingertips inside the belly, carefully cleaning the bloodline along the spine with the precision of someone polishing fine jewelry.
Exposing the meat to water for too long was a sin, but leaving any impurities behind was out of the question.
Once I confirmed the abdominal cavity was clean, I wiped the fish and the cutting board completely dry with a cloth.
"...Hey, look at that. Look at how he moves that knife."
"No hesitation. He even knows how to manage the water. That doesn't look like someone doing this for the first time."
I could hear the whispering craftsmen, but their voices didn't register. The only thing I listened for was the slight vibration of the blade against the bone.
I ran the knife in from the belly side, sliding it until it hit the spine. Next, the back. I sliced through the azure skin, slipping the blade between the meat and the bone.
The rhythmic tap of the steel against the vertebrae traveled through the handle to my right hand. Even with a frame exceeding a meter, the knife naturally found its own "path" as long as I understood the structure.
Finally, I ran the blade through the base of the tail and pulled it out in a single, smooth stroke.
The massive azure fillet danced onto the table, exposing a pearlescent, perfect cross-section without a single blemish or tear.
"A three-piece breakdown... and in that amount of time..."
Kai’s eyes widened in shock, and he reflexively stood up from the bench he had been perched on.
On the surface I had dressed, there wasn't a single streak of stray blood or a single nick in the meat.
I rinsed the grime from the knife, wiped it with a clean cloth, and looked Kai in the eye.
"Is this sufficient?"
"...Yeah. It’s beyond reproach."
Stunned, Kai lightly pressed the fillet with his fingertip. The meat pushed back with a firm, resilient elasticity, smelling only of the fresh sea without a hint of foulness.
The silence of the craftsmen had been transformed into the deepest respect.
"You're no ordinary chef. Fine, it's as we agreed. I'll load up the best catches in this market exactly as you ordered."
The coldness of the water and a certain sense of accomplishment lingered in my palms.
The skills my old friend had forcibly hammered into me were now supporting our table here, on a planet tens of thousands of light-years away.