CH 57

「Ah, but you can’t use these to make kakuni! You made it without MP potions after all… I see. I thought you were going to try making an MP potion dish for tomorrow morning, but…」

Rofas-san held his head.

「I-I’m sorry, but even still, I want to eat kakuni!!!」

I wonder who he was apologizing to…

Exactly who was it directed at…

Rofas-san was yelling towards the ceiling while grabbing his head.

Was he confessing his sins to God? Wait, I don’t know anything about religion in this world. Either way, I can’t help but think he looks like he’s saying, 「Forgive me, for I have sinned.」

Wanting to eat kakuni is not exactly a crime that requires one to repent, though…

However, his feelings of wanting to know what the MP potion dish would do was conveyed to me.

It’s okay, I’m sorry I didn’t use them for dinner.

Um, since the MP potions are cola-flavored, if my memory hasn’t failed me, then…

「It’s fine, I think?」

Using cola in a kakuni recipe was a rather major thing to do. If I use cola instead of ginger ale, there should be no issues…

No wait, the MP potions are spicier than the cola sold in Japan, so maybe there will be an issue?

I want to put in some ginger ale so I could get rid of the stink too…

Ah, and I have to make a big portion too…

「I can use both regular potions and MP potions. It’d be nice if both of them give off some sort of buff.」

I said and smiled.

Rofas-san froze.

Bryce-kun also froze.

Eh?

「If using both regular potions and MP potions gave an effect equivalent to that of an upper-grade potion, then…」

「Yeah, that’d be a beginner-grade elixir.」

Rofas-san and Bryce-kun whispered to each other.

「I underestimated the power of cooking. This might be more incredible than I had thought.」

「T-that’s right… It was the right choice to make that contract early on, promising not to leak the secrets behind the potions. If we don’t do enough research before publicizing it, then surely it would cause panic and chaos among everybody…」

「That’s right, not to mention that there was a clear difference in effects between Kirika’s cooking and Yuuri-san’s cooking… There are still too many things we don’t understand…」

Yes, there really are too many things we don’t understand.

I nodded in agreement.

「Let’s see, I don’t know if mixing the two potions together is okay, and I don’t know if we can turn the dish into dried meat either… I hope it’ll still taste good once it’s dried!」

Thinly sliced and dried daikon, dried shiitake… Mhm, both increases in umami once dried.

They taste better once dry. I wonder how the dried meat would taste. 

I thought about the taste of the dried meat I tried eating earlier.

If I can get rid of the gaminess, would the flavor of the meat be more concentrated and easier to eat?

Some research is necessary after all.

In order to survive in this world without a fridge, I need to clear the condition of turning preserved food into something delicious!

This isn’t a world where we can go out and buy meat, it’s a place where we have to hunt for the meat ourselves… I don’t know when we can catch stuff either…

Rofas-san and Bryce-kun would… No, that’s not the issue, or rather, I’ve been mumbling this whole time, but this is important! This is a big issue!

Well, whatever.

First, I have to make the food.

I threw all of the cut meat into the massive pot. Ah! The spring onions! I don’t have any spring onions to get rid of the smell!

「We don’t have any spring onions!」

「I’ll go get some!」

Kurtz-kun ran off.

「Wait, it’s dark outside, it’s dangerous!」

That’s right. By the time we were done processing the meat, the sun had already set.

「Here, take this with you.」

Rofas-san tossed a stone to Kurtz-kun.

Geez, does Rofas-san not know how to hand something over?

…Ah, that’s right.

Kurtz-kun caught it skillfully. That was the assumption made by a human like myself who wouldn’t have been able to catch it.

「Glow.」

The stone in Kurtz-kun’s hand began to light up.

「Uwah, cool!」

「That’s a light magic stone. See, it’s the same as the ones there.」

Bryce-kun pointed up at the ceiling.

Now that I think about it, the hut is always well-lit even if it’s dark outside. In Japan, we have electricity, so I never thought that it was strange…

I see now, so the stoves use fire magic stones, and people light up the place with light magic stones… A world with magic sure is useful.

…And yet, why don’t they have fridges?!

Ah! Since there are water magic stones, maybe we can make a fridge that cools down using water?

If we use vaporization… So instead of a cooler, it’d be like a cooling fan. That means we need wind. Water and wind…

Uu, I can’t. I can’t figure it out with my head.