CH 69

「Thank you. Nom. Mm, the one Kurtz-kun made was pretty good, but yours tastes good too, Kirika-chan.」

Kirika-chan gave me a nice smile.

「Eh? The one I made tasted good?」

Kurtz-kun looked surprised.

「Mhm. Of course it does. It tastes great because you made it for me.」

Kurtz-kun looked down a bit, his expression stiffening up.

「I’ll make an even better one next time! I’ll make sure it tastes great, just for you, Yuuri-neechan!」

「Kirika will too! Kirika will cook lots and get better, so Kirika can make Yuuri-oneechan lots of yummy food!」

「Then, I’ll work hard too! I’ll do my best to develop recipes so I can make lots and lots of delicious food for Kurtz-kun and Kirika-chan!」

After we ate the dried kakuni sandwiches we made together, I got the fried bread sticks I made from the edge of the bread buns, spread a generous amount of spice jam over them and stuck two together.

「Here you go, this jam is made from the silverberries that everyone picked. I put some MP potion into it, so the color became a little too dark, but…」

All three of us can’t use magic yet, so if the MP potion heals your MP, we wouldn’t be able to check our status to see if it works. So, I won’t be taking notes for these.

Nom.

Haah, the distinctive taste and richness of the spices are so good, as I expected. It was the combination of the sweetness from the cooked silverberries and the MP potions. When boiled together, it makes the flavor richer.

It’s so good. I want to try using fruits together with this jam. Apple slices cooked in jam sounds really nice.

Kirika-chan bit into the bread stick with a crunch.

「Ah, sorry Kirika-chan, I might have put too much jam into that.」

The jam was spilling out of the bread sticks, and Kirika-chan’s mouth was covered in jam.

「Yuuri-oneechan.」

Kirika-chan’s eyes opened up wide like a startled cat. Hm? Her eyes really look like a cat’s.

「It’s really sweet. So sweet, so sweet, it’s such a happy flavor. Kirika feels like a princess.」

「Fufu, I see. That’s good.」

「Uwah, this is crazy! It’s sweet. Are these similar to the dessert that only rich people get to eat? Amazing, these were only made from silverberries and MP potions!」

Oh, I see why they’re surprised. Since sugar is a luxury, these two have never eaten something sweet before until now.

But rather than being a dessert, in Japan, bread with jam spread over them is still considered bread.

It’s not quite a dessert bread, but more like toast and jam…

I hope I can make sweets for them one day.

In the afternoon, we smacked down the roach slimes with nothing but our makeshift slippers.

I have to train since it’s my dream to use magic. For my dream…

「No! Don’t come near me! Eeek! Nyahh!」

Split, splat, smack smack smack!

「Yuuri-neechan’s amazing.」

「Yeah, she is. She’s so cool. Kirika has to work hard too!」

「I won’t lose!」

Dungeon rules state that we shouldn’t overwork.

Pant, pant.

I was out of breath, so I went outside.

「Status open.」

I was still at level 2. Hmm, although I went from level 1 to 2 really quickly, getting from 2 to 3 seems to be harder.

I guess that makes sense. If everybody could level up that fast, then nobody would have to stay in the hut for years.

Uu, my path to leveling up is long. What am I going to do if it takes ten years… I’ll be forty years old by then. I hope I can make it to level 10 within five years. I better work hard!

I bit into some dried kakuni. Since I get +7 from it, the rate that my HP recovers at will likely be at +70%. It’s faster than doing nothing, though it doesn’t exactly matter, since I only have 15 HP and it fully recovers in under a minute.

The useful part of this buff is that it will continue healing at that rate until the effect runs out.

Well then, it’s time to face off against the demonic roach slimes again… Uuu.

We finished up our training at an appropriate time, so we began preparing for dinner.

The two children wanted to learn how to cook, so the three of us were going to cook together. Hehehe. Being able to have fun cooking like this is like a dream.

To tell the truth, it was rather painful to have to make precisely three unique meals a day. When I was making food for myself, I would mostly just eat leftovers from the morning or night before.

「What are we going to make today?」

I took out the boar meat.

It was kept cold with the ice that I had Bryce-kun make for me.

Afterwards, I took out the chives I picked from the field.

「We’re going to make gyoza tonight!」

Although we didn’t have garlic, it should be fine since we have chives.

Since Kurtz-kun and Kirika-chan helped out with butchering, I figured they know how to handle a knife.

If we were in Japan, I’d probably think, I’m too scared to let a child hold a kitchen knife! 

「First, we’re going to mince the meat.」

「Mince?」

Ahh, maybe they don’t mince their meat in this world?

「Um, it means to cut up something finely. Like this, tap tap tap.」

「I got it!」

「Be careful not to cut your hand.」

While Kirika-chan and Kurtz-kun minced the meat, I started prepping the other ingredients.

For the seasoning, I’ve made many different recipes before, but here I could only use the things I have.

The gyoza filling will consist of boar meat, chives, and cabbage. Since we don’t have salt, I’ll use a little bit of soy sauce.

I gave up with the garlic-ginger option and the sesame oil option, meaning I was left with cooking sake.

We didn’t have chili oil for dipping either, so vinegar soy sauce it is.

There, that’ll make lightly seasoned gyoza. Maybe I should put more veggies into the filling to make them healthier.

Now we only need the gyoza skins, but…

Usually the skins are made from hard flour. Are wheat flours hard? Or are they considered soft?

I went to the storage to get some wheat flour.

……

The bad wheat… They should be in the bag of rice.

Hm, there aren’t any.

There’s none in the wheat bag either… We have no flour!