There were only 8 warrior octopeople that were too injured to swim and he put them at the back of the transporter as he also chained the abyssal and started dragging it to his base.

Took awhile, but they finally arrived near his base, Erik left the octopeople working on taking off the nonperishable parts of the abyssal like the scales and teeth, those they would take back to the village for now.

Then with some help from the Leader, Second Elder, and some warriors and Inky, he carried the 8 heavily injured people inside as the other 12 that could stand followed slowly, and then put those 8 into the onsen, the heat would help them heal faster without dealing with the frigid oceanic waters, the other 12 also sat at the stone benches, feeling better with the heat from the sauna.

The Second Elder then said to Inky.

Second Elder:" we will be staying here for some days until they recover, tell your mate to start cooking some food, they need to recover strength, but something easy to chew"

Inky wanted to retort but the second elder tone was serious and her gaze was concerned as she watched the 8 groaning octopeople in the water, so she could only relent and nod.

Erik had no problem cooking for the injured, so he went out and saw the Elders directing the octopeople to take the cut meat inside, so he just took a football-size piece of meat and went to the kitchen, the octopeople had expanded the lower fridge room themselves so they didn't need directions from him after all.

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Once in the kitchen he first made some sashimi and fried it on a skillet, but once he chewed the meat, it was tasty but it was too tough and chewy for injured people, so he decided to make meatballs.

The first step was the ground meat, he first put the eel abyssal meat into a food processor along with 20% crab meat and some fine kelp stripes to add fat and gelatin to make the meatballs softer, and bind them together.

once the ground meat was mixed up, he made balls with his hands and covered them in algae flour.

Now came the moment to cook them, he wished he had some tomatoes to make them some tomato sauce, but he could make them tasty anyways, he poured a bit of kelp oil on a skillet and fried the meatballs a little bit to give them a bit of crust, then scooped them and threw them in a pot of boiling dashi fish and kelp soup, they would finish cooking and end up tender, he made several batches so there would be enough and sprinkled them with fine salt since the kelp already gave them a salty flavor, then put then in cold oven trays and took them down the first batch of meatballs.

The honor to try the first was for Inky, she ate it gladly and wrote 'Tasty' on her notebook, then Erik tried one, the exterior was a bit brown with a bit of crust, but the interior was juicy with a crab and meaty taste, the gelatin from the algae keeping it all together.

then the Second Elder and Leader tried one and liked them and gave their approval to feed to the injured octopeople, Erik fed them each personally, to the eight that couldn't move, and gave a bowl with some to those that could move, then with the Leader, Second Elder's and Inky's help he took down the rest of the meatballs too and some soup also for the injured ones to help them swallow and to add fluids and easy to digest nutrients.

then he let them rest as the Leader and Second Elder stayed there, caring for them.

He checked on the cold area and block after block of meat was being stacked inside, this was all meat that might have gone to waste on other occasions.

took quite some time but using the cranes from the ceiling they managed to stack the meat enough to fill 70% of the space.

He came out and there was still meat on 20 percent of the bones and the guts were also used, according to the Third Elder, this meat would be for feeding the tribe this next 2 weeks, this abyssal was a female and had eggs inside and that's apparently the first they would eat, he asked for one to try it later too.