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Cooking!

It’s a perfect technique for a woman to appeal to a man!

Since ancient times, it has been said that a woman can capture a man as long as she knows how to handle food and the bedroom.

Of course, that’s a story from 500 years ago.

If you spread such tales today, you’d be called an old fogey rambling nonsense from 500 years in the past, but there are indeed many instances where the words of the sages from the past haven’t been proven wrong.

“Now that there’s a restaurant, I’d like to see your cooking skills.”

Meals during a journey are extremely important.

Especially a balanced diet is essential for physical development and health improvement.

“Luciust, who usually does the cooking for our group?”

“Me and Rosmas.”

“That’s right. I entrusted you with tasks like making soup and grilling meat, didn’t I?”

Having Rosmas as the first member of the party played a part, but I also hoped that by assigning cooking duties to these two, they would bond over the preparations.

“Droniel can cook to some extent, but only the simple stuff he learned in his mountain village, while Yan doesn’t know how to cook at all.”

I’m not teasing.

However, not knowing how to cook is a fatal weakness in a hero’s campaign.

“You three… no, four have vastly different cooking skills, so it’s difficult to teach a uniform method. For now, I’ll teach Yan how to cook to improve his skills, and later I’ll introduce more challenging recipes.”

“Cooking… do you think I can do it well?”

“It’s fine. I burned everything 500 years ago. I was worse at grilling meat than you, Lucius.”

Five hundred years ago, I wasn’t particularly skilled at cooking.

I cooked a lot, but that was mostly because I did the odd jobs for the Hero Party, making the simple dishes that Lucius or Rosmas prepared.

“No chef starts from the get-go making amazing dishes. It’s all about reducing trial and error, learning precise cuts and cooking methods quickly to create delicious food. Whatever you do, it’s all about practice.”

By the time I secured the final Holy Sword, I had become proficient enough to not have any issues running an inn in the countryside. And now, I’ve become an exceptional chef to the point that I’m invited to the royal castle, but I didn’t start out being good.

“Did you know? Five hundred years ago, there was even an elf pasta shop with a 700-year tradition.”

“…Huh?”

“The elves opened a pasta shop with the intent of teaching humans vegetarianism, and it continued operating for a whopping 700 years.”

A pasta shop boasting 700 years of history!

It served until the royal capital was obliterated by magical bombardment, and afterwards, it quietly vanished, or so I believe.

“I wonder if something like that still exists.”

“Um… I don’t think it does.”

“Oh, really? That’s a bit of a shame.”

I thought someone might have taken over their legacy, but running a small business in the human world is no easy feat.

“I once dined with him and asked if he was such a good cook from the start. Turns out he wasn’t. At first, he just mixed salad with weeds and drizzled olive oil over it. For about 100 years, it was just a mediocre three-star restaurant, but little by little, his skills improved.”

The owners of the competing restaurants dying off helped too.

“So, don’t be disheartened by your current lack of skills; think about how you’ll make delicious meals in the future. Got it?”

“Uh, Sage?”

“Here, call me Captain. I’m Captain Bel of the Bride Ship.”

“…Can I still call you Master?”

“Uh… that’s a joke. Titles don’t matter that much, but if you’re going to call me Sage, please do it as Captain here.”

Given I wear the armband, I should at least earn it.

“So, what do you want to say, Droniel?”

“Are we supposed to create a cooking rotation or something?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“What do you guys plan to do after the journey? You’re going to get married, right?”

Marriage.

I don’t need to mention who you want to marry, but they should understand why I brought this up.

“Listen carefully. A woman must know how to cook for herself. Someone once said that a rich woman can just hire someone to cook, but that’s not the case. Husbands are simple creatures who get captivated by their wives’ home-cooked meals.”

“Homemade…?”

“Exactly. Taste matters and so does preference, but what really matters is that the wife spent hours in the kitchen and ‘made it herself.’ Do you understand?”

A beloved woman makes something for me?

Especially something incredibly difficult that I can’t find outside?

And it’s my favorite food?

Right after eating, I’d clean up and embrace my wife while locking the door.

“You should know how to make common dishes, steak, desserts, cocktails, anything.”

“Can you do everything, Captain?”

“The person teaching them must know.”

While my style might be from the Demon World, I have enough modern cooking skills learned back when I was with the Normans.

“And the reason I’m teaching you cooking is because there’s a very important issue regarding our party’s journey.”

“An important issue?”

“Yes. It’s about ‘supply.'”

Since it seems like this conversation will take a while, I poured some tea I had prepared for the party.

It’s a herb grown in Belselphia, so it has a slight sea aroma, but its scent and taste are no different from flower tea.

“Do you know the biggest characteristic of people who can’t cook? Lucius, what do you think it is?”

“…Aren’t they wasteful with ingredients?”

“You remember it exactly! Five points for Bel.”

Clap.

Lucius snapped his fingers in delight.

Nothing makes a student happier than receiving praise along with rewards for remembering their lessons.

“People who can’t cook waste ingredients. They can’t distinguish between usable and unusable parts and end up overspending due to poor portion control.”

“I understand what you mean, Master.”

Yan pointed to the kitchen that was blocking the entrance.

“By cooking, we can significantly reduce our ingredient waste, so you’re asking us to learn how to save ingredients while cooking, right?”

“Correct! Five points for Yan too.”

“I… ah. No, I’m not.”

Yan sighed deeply for a moment and took a light sip of tea.

“I can thoroughly empathize with what you’re saying, but Master, are the ingredients over there the ones we’re familiar with?”

“No. They were provided by Belselphia, so aside from the seafood, everything else is unfamiliar to me as well.”

“Then…”

“So in addition to talking about ingredients, I want to propose something regarding our destination.”

The guide.

This is the biggest role assigned to the wise one of the Hero Party.

“To reach Sky Island, we need to go straight on from here. But if we keep eating only the food here, we’ll surely get bored, right? So let’s make a slight detour and stop by here.”

I tapped the magic stone screen inside the ship to spread out the map.

“No… what is that?!”

“It’s a map.”

“Oh my, what was that just now…?!”

“…You’ve seen plenty of these in Belselphia, why are you surprised?”

“Oh, no. I just didn’t expect a map that looked so precise to pop out like that…?”

“Is this really that surprising?”

“Lucius. The strategic value of maps is truly important. Anyway, look here.”

I pointed to two dots on the magic stone screen map.

“Right now, this green dot is where we are. It appears to be in the middle of the sea on the map, but that’s only because we’re currently submerged beneath the sea.”

I zoomed in on the map, expanding the visible area significantly.

“See how much wider the area appears now? Do you see the red dot to the north?”

“That is….”

“Exactly. That’s the location we need to reach to ascend to Sky Island. You can think of it as a kind of portal.”

How we ascend to the sky.

That should be left for the joy of that moment.

‘Can’t hide my grin.’

As we board the portal (laughs) heading toward Sky Island, I wonder who will be so shocked that their eyes pop out.

“So before heading here, I want to go here first.”

I pointed my finger southwest.

“It’ll take a bit of a detour, but wouldn’t it be better to stock up on familiar ingredients? You guys could take a month going up and down and just chew on fish and seaweed the whole time, you know?”

“That’s… true, I guess?”

“Right? Lucius, you need to eat meat too.”

“Um….”

Lucius crossed his arms with a serious expression.

“…Regardless of anything else, I’d really like some of that.”

“That? What is it?”

“Milk.”

“…Milk?”

“Yes.”

It seemed both simple and strange, but Lucius’s expression was genuine.

“While traveling, it’s almost my first time having milk given to me by you, Master.”

“You’re talking about the milk I bought you, right?”

“…Yes.”

Milk.

It’s definitely a luxury item that’s not easy to come by in a place like the Village of the Holy Sword.

It needs to be kept in a container enchanted with refrigeration magic, and if mishandled, it spoils easily.

‘Milk isn’t easy to handle, even for me.’

There are so many things you can do with milk.

Especially in the Demon World, there are enough methods to get milk, so there are quite a variety of dishes you can make using it.

“Milk is quite a delicious drink, after all. Alright. In that sense, tell me everything you want to eat.”

“What we want to eat…?”

“Yep. I plan to make a meal plan and figure out how to gather the ingredients.”

I pointed to our destination.

“Port City, Dragon Lift.”

 

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