CH 112

After buying a lot of vegetables from a street stall, I find eggs stashed away in a corner. I can’t remember seeing any dishes that used eggs ever since I came to this world. I even find cheese too. I have to stock up.

I ask the old lady who owns it if there isn’t any milk, and she tells me I can buy it on-site. She also tells me where it is, so I decide we should go there tomorrow.

And so, the next morning, it’s time to walk to that village. Walking away from the town leads to a vast, quiet landscape, and I can hear cows mooing. I see what look like pigs too, and are those chickens?

I’ve been to a few villages before, but I’ve never seen a place with such a lineup. It makes it hard to choose.

I should probably stock up on meat too, and bones for soup. But can I try to use wolf and orc bones to give soup flavor too?

In the end, I manage to get my hands on a variety of food, and I even buy vegetables with a less than perfect shape at a discount. Applying preservation magic might be the hardest part. I need to max out my Spatial Magic skill soon.

From there, we look around the farm. Mia says she used to help out in the field when she was younger, so it looks like the old lady’s explanation resonates with her. She has a lot of bad memories from that time, because farm work was tough, but she looks nostalgic when she talks about it. A little lonely too.

When we get back to town, we check out the stalls again and we all get something different to eat. When we find something particularly good, I buy more and keep it in the Item Box so we can eat on the way to Majolica.

In the afternoon, we head to the forest to the south, not really to collect medicinal herbs, but more to do mock battles and magic energy training.

But there is something even more important. I use Earth Magic to make a kitchen of sorts, and start experimenting. I have several pots at my disposal, bones, vegetables, milk, tomatoes, and all sorts of other ingredients that I can use to cook multiple things at once. Having to tend to multiple things at the same time would be difficult if it wasn’t for my Cooking skill.

As everything starts simmering and a nice smell starts filling the air, I pretend I don’t see the other three constantly peeking over here. Bear with me here, it’s not like I’m keeping you waiting to be mean or anything.

But eventually, even with my skill to help me, it gets to be too much to take care of at once. Even Parallel Thinking can’t keep up.

I taste everything, check that there aren’t any clear problems, and put all the pots but one away in the Item Box. I take that one, add seasonings, and serve its contents on plates before calling everyone to try it. What I attempted to do with this one is something along the lines of corn soup.

“So?”

I ask for their opinions and no one responds, but the frantic way they’re eating tells me there’s no problem.

“Master…”

You’re not getting more even if you hold out your empty plate, Hikari.

“If you eat too much you’ll be too full to eat dinner.”

I say no softly while explaining why. This is going to be something I’m going to save for when we’re traveling, so I can’t have her asking for more prototypes one after the other.

Mia is more interested in the cooking itself than how it tastes, so maybe I’ll teach her while I cook next time. If she can learn how to do it, I can do something else in the meantime.

We end up talking a lot about what food, until it’s time to go back. I hear all sorts of things about the kind of dishes Sera and Mia know about, and I’m sure there will come a time when that information will be useful.

We clean up everything, put the kitchen I made with Earth Magic back to the way it was, and head back. The sun will be setting soon, and there aren’t many people walking around town, but I can see light coming from people’s homes here and there.

“Sora?”

Suddenly, I hear someone call out to me. I see it on Presence Detection, but it still catches me off guard.

I turn around, and what I see is Leila, not dressed in her battle gear, and instead in traveling clothes.

She looks surprised to see me too, with her eyes and mouth wide open. It’s a bit improper really.

“Leila? Why are you here?”

Surely it’s because she’s going back to the magic academy, but that’s not the issue. She accepted the quest to deal with the stampede.

It’s not like we were in any hurry, but I still didn’t think she would catch up to us.

Does this mean there wasn’t actually much time between the stampede starting and settling?

Leila shakes off her surprise and walks over to me. Realizing we’re in the middle of the street probably has something to do with it too.

“There is a lot I want to ask you. I assume since you are here at this hour that you are staying in this town?”

“Yes, we’re planning to leave tomorrow.”

“On foot?”

“Yes?”

“I was told there won’t be any omnibuses leaving tomorrow.”

Walking has become so common that I don’t even consider omnibuses.

“Then we will also walk.”

“You really shouldn’t push yourselves.”

“Apparently it will be a while until we can travel by wagon, since they are all being used to transport produce, so it won’t be an issue.”

If that’s what they want, then I guess it’s fine.

“There’s a lot I want to ask too. Can we meet up by the southern gate tomorrow morning? Or is it better in the inn?”

“Where are you staying? It seems to be a different inn, so yes, we should meet up by the gate. We will talk more tomorrow.”

She sure left in a hurry. Didn’t even notice Mia.

“It’s not going to be a quiet trip…”

I’m going to have a hard time explaining, for better or worse. We’re out of the holy kingdom, so I’m sure it will be fine if we tell her. And we’re going to be staying in Majolica for a while anyway.