VOLUME 6

Chapter 4: Part 7

Well, anyways, so a bunch of stuff happened, but we ended up safely getting the scroll back. I was now in my own kitchen, working hard with Sera on a meal. The scroll was spread out on a table.

“Ayumu.”

“What is it?”

“This recipe does not include eyedrops. Are you sure this is a meat and potato stew recipe?”

“I’m sure.”

“Hm, how strange… I can feel no pa.s.sion in this ingredient list.”

“Hey, Sera… why are you so pa.s.sionate about cooking anyways?”

I asked her that as we waited for our rice noodles to boil, at which point Sera gave me a bit of a lonely look.

“I live by the sword.”

“Yeah, I know that much.”

I was always getting sliced into ribbons by her sword, after all. My leotard suffered a similar fate this time.

“The sword can protect people… but it cannot bring them joy.”

Sera began skillfully peeling the potatoes as she continued talking.

“However, to my knowledge… the only way to bring people happiness with the blade is through cooking.”

I see. Sera lived by her sword, so I guess it made sense that she would want to bring happiness to people through her sword. So that’s what cooking meant to her.

Dang… now I felt bad for telling her so many times not to cook.

“Also, why did you want to make meat and potato stew?”

“I asked Haruna what gentlemen enjoy eating…”

“Sera is cooking because of a guy? Haha, what a lucky fellow.”

“I am cooking this… for you.”

“Eh?” I was at a complete loss after hearing her unexpected words.

“When everyone eats my food, they are so overjoyed that they end up fainting, are they not?”

So… from Sera’s perspective, she thought that was a show of happiness?

“I am not sure if they are just overwhelmed by their first meal, but they then tend to stop eating my food. However, you are the only person who eats my food every time. Your gluttony is quite disgusting… but having my food eaten admittedly makes me happy.”

“You really don’t have to go out of your way to make something for someone like me.”

“Fufu, despite everything, I am quite thankful to you. For lots of things…”

Sera smiled… and I couldn’t help but think about how amazingly cute she looked. For lots of things, huh…?

The meat and potato stew proceeded steadily. I couldn’t see what was written on the scroll, but I figured it was fine if I just kept watch and stopped Sera from doing anything weird.

At that point, Haruna made her way over to us.

“So, how’s it goin’? Nothing exploded yet, right?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Go in the living room and wait with Yuu.”

“Hey hey hey. Don’t you try to leave me out, okay?!”

“If you start cooking, then you’ll end up doing everything, right? Let Sera handle it this time.”

“As if I care! Just let me do it! Don’t act like this after you all went and played a fun game of thief and didn’t even tell me!”

“You wanted to join in on that too…?”

“I want to wear a mask and tuxedo sometimes too!”

Thieves don’t wear that! Well, maybe the Kaitou Kid from Conan…

“Anyways, go sit down and wait. It’ll be ready soon. Please… just this once.”

“O-Okay, fine! I guess when you put it like that!”

After I somehow managed to stop Sera from adding in gum syrup and plastic, we finally finished our meat and potato stew.

We brought over this stew to where Haruna and Yuu had been patiently waiting.

It tasted like… nothing I’ve ever had before… this was Katsus.h.i.+ka Hokusai’s…

Actually, it was strange. If I were forced to say it… it wasn’t really very good.

“Gyah! Yuck!”

Haruna glared at Sera with narrowed, snake-like eyes.

“I… see. This is the first time I have heard such words from someone who has tasted my cooking. Perhaps I really should have added in the carbonic acid…”

I guess Sera’s cooking was more a matter of life or death with a ten percent survival rate, so it usually didn’t come down to the question of whether it was tasty or not.

Seconds please.

“Yuu, you…”

I also wolfed down this mediocre meat and potato stew and held out my bowl at Sera. “Seconds please,” I said. I saw Sera’s jade-colored eyes began to water, and she dabbed her eyes with one long, porcelain finger.

“This is… also the first time I have heard such words from someone who has tasted my cooking.”

I like meat and potato stew.

“It’s pretty blech, but really good for something you made. So I’ll have seconds too.”

“Thank you… very much.”

Like this, Sera successfully cooked the first meal in her life.

A meal that would bring joy to others.

Sera could use this as a jumping off point to keep on cooking real things, and even if she fails a few times she would slowly improve. Flat out forbidding her from trying wouldn’t actually give her a chance to learn, after all.

“Ayumu, I also tried making some miso soup.”

“Oh, really? Cool. I guess if you want to learn how to cook, you gotta start with the basics of the basics.”

“I went out with it and used up three mythril swords. Please try it.”

Mythril… myth… miss… miso… wait, seriously?! She hasn’t improved at all!

“Okay, I changed my mind. You seriously should stop cooking. Well, I guess if someone was there to supervise you it’d be okay, but…”

In the end, would Sera ever be able to cook something that would bring joy to others?

That was the last wisp of a complaint running through my head as I sipped at this thing she had called “miso soup.”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES