Dry-Aged Mammoth Steak: Ribeye and Tenderloin
What food does someone who has only ever known the pre-portioned cuts from a supermarket meat counter start eating the most once they suddenly discover bulk grocery stores?
The answer is fixed.
Steak.
As the years passed and whole cuts of beef became available cheap—even frozen—the frequency only rose, never fell.
In short, he ate steak far more often than he had ever imagined. Across both his previous life and this one.
Of course, the long years when even a bowl of grain porridge had been a struggle played a part, but still—Karem sat with fork and knife gripped in both hands, utterly dazed.
He had never seen a sight like this.
What lay before him was steak. That much was clear. And he knew the cut was ribeye—flower loin.
But he had never once laid eyes on a plate piled high with nothing but ribeye, stacked so thick and deep the dish itself nearly vanished beneath the mound.
From the even brown-and-golden crust that blanketed every surface rose a fierce aroma of seared meat and butter, threaded with a soft note of cheese.
Those mouthwatering ribeye steaks were stacked like pancakes—thick, generous, so high that only the rim of the plate peeked out from underneath.
Karem swallowed hard.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would taste dry-aged meat—something he had never managed even in his previous life—here, like this. Not even the evening banquets at Winterhome had offered a spectacle like this.
The impossible sight of so much ribeye, and the deep yet delicate fragrance that kept drawing saliva into his mouth, sent a constant, invisible invitation to anyone looking on.
Before it could cool—no, before residual heat cooked it any further—Karem stabbed his fork into the steak at once.
Two slices came up together. He did not mind.
Better, even.
The meat parted like butter under the knife, offering no resistance, and every time the blade passed, more butter-laced juices and fat spilled free.
The anticipation that had only grown on the journey back. The frustration of having eaten poorly for so long. The hollow ache of a body forced to grow. The raw, natural hunger of an empty stomach.
Karem poured every one of those feelings into the two thick pieces of steak he lifted to his mouth.
He did not chew.
The reason was simple.
There was no need.
The mere pressure of tongue against palate tore the steak apart.
Was meat always like this? Or was it Mary’s skill? Or perhaps the result of that undead dry-aging process? He had no idea.
But none of that mattered now.
The fierce meat fragrance flooding his nose, the rich fat blooming across his tongue—those alone told him why mammoth was considered a delicacy.
It married the best of beef and pork, then layered over them the deep yet gentle, savory note of mozzarella that cut through any heaviness.
Every time he pressed the meat to the roof of his mouth, oil and juices erupted between the butter-soft fibers. Even knowing it had been seared almost as if fried in real butter, there was not a trace of greasiness.
Crisp—chew—crisp—chew.
And still the crust shattered with a destructive crunch against his teeth, lighting up every nerve.
But every feast ends.
The meat that had filled his mouth vanished of its own accord.
Karem felt joy and sorrow at once.
Plenty of steak remained, yet the thought that each bite reduced what was left made his heart ache as if it were being torn.
“If the lesser cut already tastes like this, then that nose—”
“Keep eating if you must, but please drink something and give me an explanation.”
Mary rapped the table with an expression of pure disbelief.
“I heard the outline from my contractor, but how on earth—”
She broke off, rolling her eyes around the table.
Olivier, moaning “Oh, oh” with every bite of steak. Catherine, blinking patiently while waiting for Mary to cut hers. And across from them, the exotic-looking young man everyone kept calling Karem.
“You’re saying he grew like this?”
“Your hands stopped.”
“Pardon me, but an explanation is required.”
Mary quickly ate a piece of her own steak, then sliced a portion for Catherine and held it out.
“Mm. Good. First of all, you already know that idiot took the curse in my place, right?”
“Yes. That if he had simply been carrying the holy relic, he never would have been cursed at all? So why throw it down a well in the first place…”
Karem started to protest mid-bite, but when Catherine raised a single stern finger he shut his mouth and returned his full attention to the ribeye.
“Exactly. The Curse of Aging.”
“The Curse of Aging.”
“Normally he should have died of old age right there on the spot, but the curse only activated now. Fortunately the effect was incomplete and progressed slowly.”
“Slowly?”
Mary tilted her head.
She knew the curse’s infamous reputation well enough. Slow progression? Wait—perhaps because the relic had been recovered late?
“The reasons were probably complex.”
Olivier, savoring his mammoth ribeye, wiped the juices from his beard and partially confirmed her guess.
“A holy relic just one step below a divine artifact. You said you obtained it out of nowhere at some point? A stroke of fortune. Divine power would have seeped into him without his noticing. On top of that, the life force gathered by that Flora girl—whatever she is, fairy or something else. But even all that doesn’t quite explain everything…”
“Something else?”
“If you mean something spiritual—”
“Well, my eyes aren’t that sharp.”
He pointed his steak-laden fork at Catherine.
“My insolent disciple might have seen something. Her mana balance is all out of whack, after all.”
“Does that really have much to do with eyesight?”
“It does. When you’re exhausted enough that your vision blurs and everything doubles—you’ve had that experience too, haven’t you, Karem?”
“Ah.”
He understood the feeling. With the question settled, Karem set his fork back to work.
Crunch. Slice. Chew, chew.
The stack of mammoth ribeye that had once risen more than a handspan high like a tower of pancakes was already half gone, yet he felt neither greasy nor full.
The cheesy aroma from the dry-aging? The pure best of two different meats combined? Mary’s searing skill? The kiss of flame?
Whatever the reason, it was an enormous amount of meat, yet Karem felt he could finish every last scrap of the pile in front of him even if his stomach burst.
Scrape—
“Here you are. Please eat.”
When only about a third remained, Mary set down a fresh plate containing as much steak as the first one she had served.
“…What is this?”
“What does it look like? Mammoth tenderloin steak.”
“This is tenderloin—wait, that’s not the point. You’re telling me to eat more?”
“That’s right. And you will need to eat it.”
“Excuse me?”
He followed Mary’s silent nod and met Catherine’s gaze. She was resting her chin on her hand in deep thought.
“What are you staring at? Finish it all.”
“Lady Atanitas? Even if my body is like this now, I’m not Gordon. How am I supposed to—”
“Well. If you want to live, you’ll have to eat, won’t you?”
Catherine was completely serious.
Olivier nodded as well.
The Curse of Aging had been lifted through a combination of factors, yet its results were already written into his body. Karem’s sudden leap of seven or eight years in age was living proof.
The Curse of Aging accelerated the body’s aging. Every resource required to force that aging was violently extracted from the victim’s own flesh.
It would be absurd to escape the curse only to starve to death.
“So eat. I suspect you’re not even full yet, are you?”
“There’s no way… oh. There is.”
At Olivier’s words Karem looked down.
The tenderloin steaks stacked like an additional tower. The ribeye he was still working through.
Huh. Now that I think about it, I’m not full at all.
He had easily eaten kilograms of meat. Even granting that his body had become a young man’s, that much food should have left him with at least a heavy sensation.
Yet the abdomen he looked down at was as flat as if he had eaten nothing. When he prodded it with his fingers he even found abdominal muscles he had never possessed in his previous life.
Karem sliced another piece of remaining ribeye while he considered, then reached a conclusion.
…Doesn’t matter, right?
No—he was actually delighted.
What had always been the most frustrating part of eating good food?
The fact that his stomach filled up.
And now, no matter how much he ate, he felt no fullness—only the screaming instinct to cram every last steak into his mouth right this second.
His body obeyed that instinct without hesitation. He handed the empty ribeye plate to Mary and dragged the tower of tenderloin closer.
Olivier smacked his lips at the sight.
But he could not eat more. Must not eat more.
One more bite and he might actually fall ill.
“I’d love another helping, but I believe I’ll take my leave.”
Scraping back his chair with a thud, Olivier rose, leaning on his staff as he left the kitchen. Karem watched the old man’s drifting beard for a moment, then simply bit into the tenderloin already waiting on his fork.
“Oh… wow.”
Unlike the mammoth ribeye he had just finished, the tenderloin showed almost no fat of its own—only the butter it had been cooked in.
It was not quite as soft as the ribeye.
Yet true to its name, every motion of his teeth tore it cleanly. As the grain of the meat opened, the sharp, rich aroma of cheddar cheese drifted in slowly and gently alongside the pure meat fragrance.
“Do you need sauce or a side dish?”
“I’m fine. This is more than enough on its own.”
Mary and Catherine stared at him with identical looks of disbelief, but Karem meant every word.
Olivier and Catherine had been right.
From the very first bite until now he had been stuffing pure meat into himself without a single palate cleanser, yet his tongue and stomach were still protesting for more—more!
Above all, the flavor of the mammoth tenderloin was completely different from the ribeye that had come before.
The smooth yet intense, deep note of cheddar cheese, paired with a meat aroma richer than beef tenderloin, slowly pushed aside the lingering memory of the ribeye.
One small concern remained.
“After this, am I going to have to eat something else too?”
“No. This meal ends here for now. No matter how depleted your nutrients are, any more would only strain you. So for a while, keep eating like this.”
“Understood.”
Karem murmured the answer without much emotion and continued chewing the tenderloin.
He had only been startled at first; he had neither reason nor desire to refuse on purpose.
Only the soft clink of utensils filled the kitchen.
Then, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, Karem raised his head.
“Uh, by the way—how are we supposed to explain this to other people?”
“Explain what?”
“My current condition.”
At those words Mary, who had been about to clear the dishes, and Catherine, who had been watching him eat, both froze. They had forgotten.
“I am a house elf. That seems to be my contractor’s problem.”
“Hey. Are you dumping this on me right now?”
“I have work I’ve been putting off. Just leave the empty dishes in the sink.”
With that, Mary gave Catherine a crisp, precise bow and vanished from her spot.
Mary’s signature brownie pop-teleport.
“That damn fairy actually ran away…?”
One could put it that way.
Only then did Catherine truly register the problem.
Thinking back, Olivier’s departure had been for the same reason. The longer this dragged on, the more that cunning old snake intended to dump every inconvenient task onto her.
Her workload had already more than doubled, and now another reportable issue had suddenly appeared.
Worse, the battle at Afterglow Fortress was a massive affair on a completely different scale from the earlier cold-resistance potion matter. Just writing the report would take forever.
Catherine was so furious she reached into empty air, trembling, grinding her teeth.
“Khhh. I will make you pay for this.”
“Uh… you have it rough.”
“This— ahem. Never mind.”
Her already overheated mind nearly exploded at the casual tone, but the moment she tried to look at the culprit she whipped her eyes away and shook her head.
Good heavens. What is this even about.
Getting flustered just because her gaze landed on someone’s appearance? Pull yourself together. Think of your age. Yet every time she tried to look, a fresh wave of awkwardness, embarrassment, and assorted other feelings got in the way.
“Anyway! Why don’t you let the meat cool a little before eating? I can feel the heat from over here.”
“Hmm, I told Mary the same thing. I honestly can’t tell.”
Karem set down his utensils and reached for his water glass to wet his throat.
“…Huh?”
“Did a bug fall in or something?”
“No. I finished the water—eh?”
The last mouthful of water in the glass had frozen solid.
As if it had been frozen from the beginning.
“Huh? Wait—divine power? Uhhh?”
“No, this is—excuse me? Divine power…?”
“Kid. Look at your hand.”
“Yes? Uh? Uhhh? What is this n—”
From the exact place where his fingers touched the glass, a soft light and cold chill began to flow downward like mist.
— Ribeye Steak —
— Tenderloin Steak —
Pictures drawn by ChatGPT.