“The way one views time is always subjective to how much time one has experienced themselves, or will experience.” - Saying attributed to the Bone Lord.

Some distance from the main city of Port Lif, was a smaller village-like setup that was not a village, but was instead a production facility for one of the region’s well-known delicacies, a sauce made from fermented seafood. The main reason the facilities were positioned a good bit away from the city itself was due to a more practical reason, though.

It was not for the sake of secrecy or anything like that, even if each family or trading house that produces the sauce had their own recipes that they guarded jealously. The main reason the production facilities – which were located on the seashores for the most part – were located so far away from the actual city itself was due to a simpler reason.

Namely, the fermented seafood stunk to high heavens while it decomposed and fermented.

As such, while the finished product was prized greatly and even sold extremely well as exports, the production facilities were set at a separate area from the residential and trade regions, much like how tanneries and the like would also be built outside a town or village for the most part. Nobody sane would want to live near a place that stunk all the time, after all.

Most therians especially avoided the sauce’s production facilities, their sharper sense of smell finding the overpowering stink of decaying seafood a torture. Even so, there were some others that didn’t mind the stink as much, like the merfolk – who apparently had nearly no sense of smell on dry land – and some goblins, who came from tribes that had traditional foods involving similarly fermented seafood and found the smell an enticing one.

Such people formed the majority of the workforce in the production facilities, together with some Rot-affinity folk who were recruited to use their magic – even if it was meager – to speed up the fermentation process, saving time and improving production rates. While people born with the rot affinity still faced some discrimination in the southern continent, especially in Elmaiya, after the plague centuries ago, the Lichdom was one of the few places where they were not viewed badly, so many had escaped from their home countries and moved over there.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Naturally, with Port Lif situated at the mouth of the cove, the local cuisine was heavy on seafood as well, and the locals had a tendency to use their favored sauce on most of their cooking, which many foreigners described as “too much fish”, more often than not. On the other hand, sailors and fishermen loved them and it was particularly popular with visiting ship crews.

Aideen and Arquivaldo had such a meal on the night before the captain was due to depart back to Alcidea, with a large platter of the bountiful local catch – most freshly caught and sourced from fishermen who returned on the evening to be sold and cooked that very night – spread before them as well as a generous portion of the fish sauce mixed with chopped chilies, ginger, and herbs to serve as a dipping sauce.

To say that Arquivaldo enjoyed the feast was an understatement, but even Aideen enjoyed it as well. The succulent and sweet flesh of crustaceans like local lobsters and crab that had been freshly boiled meshed well with the strong, pungent savoriness of the sauce, while the additional herbs and flavorings added a tinge of heat and complexity to the mixture.

Neither did the strong flavor of the sauce overwhelm the gentle, plain flavor of the prepared seafood. Perhaps it was because they originated from the same source, but the sauce intensified the flavor of the seafood it was paired with instead, amplifying subtle tastes that few would have noticed when they enjoyed the seafood in other ways.

Other than that, the locals also served up dishes made from sharks and stingrays, which were relatively common catch for the local fishermen. Such cartilaginous fish needed to be prepared properly, as their flesh would start to emanate a stench not unlike urine if left alone for too long, which made them unpopular in most places. Of course, after centuries of experience, the locals were well-versed on how to prepare them while avoiding that issue.

The wings of the stingray was marinated in a mixture of the local fish sauce, spices, and herbs before it was grilled over charcoals and slathered generously with a spicy sauce made from crushed chilies, onions, and a flavorful, pungent paste made from fermented small shrimp and crabs. The marinade neutralized the components that would have normally resulted in the stench and imparted more flavor into the plain, flaky flesh of the fish while the spicy layer of sauce mixed with it pleasantly to result in a very moreish taste.

As for the sharks, due to their larger size, most of their meat were typically preserved into a sort of fish jerky, while their rough skin were turned into tools like graters, which were favored by the locals for use with softer things that needed to be grated finely. The most prized parts were the gelatinous fins, which were typically dried and used to make soup, like what was served on their table.

Chunks of the shark’s own meat – the choicest cuts from the cheeks – were used in the soup, which had a delicately savory stock made from boiling seaweed and shellfish to extract their flavor. A tinge of ginger added a hint of pungency and heat, while the rehydrated shark fin had unraveled and turned into gelatinous threads that added a wonderful texture to the whole meal itself.

The two unliving thus gorged themselves to their satisfaction with the abundant meal spread on their table, the two enjoying their food to the fullest and laying back on their chairs with full stomachs and blissful expressions when they said their goodbyes. Left unsaid – for it needed no saying – was the promise to meet again in the future, when Aideen would call upon the captain’s services once more, and the impact it would bring to the world at that time.