Chapter 20 - Setting up Surprise

I woke up feeling a heavy weight on my chest. Knowing what the weight was gave me a fuzzy feeling. I looked down to see Becca's head on my chest. She was currently drooling on me with an open mouthed smile of her face. She was adorable.

After the second day sleeping in the same room, I realized that Becca was not a morning person.

But this was perfect for me because I had planned to sneak off early this morning to work on a surprise for her.

I slowly started to lift Becca off of my body and lay her on the bed. I was reluctant to leave her soft embrace, but if all went according to plan, we would have many years as a married couple to enjoy each others warmth.

As I let go of her and slowly started to back away, she started to mumble softly. I froze and held my breath. My plan for the morning would be ruined if she wakes up now!

As I was worrying, Becca rolled over to get comfortable on the bed and started to softly breath again.

This time, I would not take any risks.

"Instant transmission"

I had only learned about my powers yesterday, but my instant transmission ability had already came in handy several times!

It is seriously overpowered. The everyday versatility is easily the best part. How strong are advanced mages of the other magic affinities?

I wonder if Becca will be able to become an advanced mage sometime in the future. I believe she will if it only takes determination, but it might be a thing where everyone is born with their max potential already set. I will have to learn more from James in the future.

Having a healing ability would really be great though. It will make me feel a lot safer if she and I had to be on the battlefield in the future.

I was just a regular office working engineer in my original life! I don't want to be in any life or death situations that I don't have to be.

Of course, if Becca was in danger, I would do everything in my power to save her. And if she eventually got an overpowered healing ability, she would probably end up saving me countless times.

I could picture myself on the battlefield getting healed constantly by Becca and gloating at our enemies,

"Hahaha, my wife is too powerful! There is no way you can beat us!"

Well right now it was only a dream for the distant future. I need to focus on what's right in front of me.

Currently, I am in the closet of my room. Becca was cute when she was drooling, but I can't go walking around the mansion with drool all over my shirt.

I quietly put on the closest set of clothes and then teleported directly outside of my room.

I headed straight for my desired location. As I stepped foot in the room, I enjoyed the smell of fresh bread.

My plan to surprise Becca was to make her the pancakes that I promised before while she was sleeping. Luckily she was not a morning person, so I had an hour or two to set up in the kitchen and make some pancakes.

I headed over to a chef that was cooking some bacon on a skillet. His eyes widened in shock,

"My lord! What are you doing here?!"

The chef was quickly trying to put down the bacon he was holding and bow to me. He must think I am here to punish him.

Did the original Duke punish people out of nowhere like that? Maybe I should also add workers' rights laws into the list of changes I want to make for the Duchy…

"Please don't worry. I am here to make a meal. Can I ask you to show me where the ingredients that I need are?"

The chef did no calm down at all from my words.

"My lord?! If you need any food made, I can make it for you! Do you not like the food that I make?

I will do whatever it takes to improve so please give me a second chance. You don't need to dirty your hands with something that should only be done by commoners."

I shook my head and smiled calmly, "you are misunderstanding me. I think the food that you make is delicious. However, the meal that I want made is going to be a surprise for my new wife.

I would like to make it myself so that the surprise is more meaningful. I will also be glad if my wife enjoys my hard work."

The chef scratched his head. "If you are talking about a meal between husband and wife instead of a chef cooking for his lord, shouldn't it be the wife who does the cooking instead of the husband?

What strange hypocrisy this Kingdom has. When a commoner is a chef for a noble family, it is a profession so that job should only go to a man.

However, in a commoner relationship, where they have to make the food themselves instead of pay for someone to make it for them, it is the role of the wife to take care of the husband.

I believe that anyone can cook for their spouse. What is the point of sticking to gender roles when you cooking for your spouse will make them happy?

We should all just try to treat our significant other well. I would love for Becca to cook something for me someday in the future. However, I wonder if she ever learned how to cook since she has been a noble her entire life.

I answered the chef after sorting my thoughts,

"I want to make a dish I learned recently because I think my wife will enjoy it. I don't see any problem with it, now please escort me to the ingredients."

The chef reluctantly helped me get all the ingredients I needed. I started whisking all the ingredients to make my pancake batter.

I wondered if they had pancakes in this world. The Kingdom was similar to medieval times in terms of technology, but the recipe for pancakes wasn't all too complicated.

At the very least, I was confident that the pancake recipe, that I had perfected after 4 years of eating them most mornings during college, was as good as restaurant quality pancakes in my world.

I ended up making 3 pancakes for Becca and 4 pancakes for myself. I was basing this ratio off of how much we eat last breakfast together.

I also brought the bacon that the chef was making in case she wanted to have more than just pancakes for breakfast.

I am disappointed that maple syrup is not common in this Kingdom. I asked the chef to bring me some and he was just confused. He said nothing like that was currently in the kitchen.

I like syrup on my pancakes. However, my whole idea to make pancakes started because Becca said that she like toast for breakfast, so she might prefer pancakes with no syrup as long as it is fluffy and savory. To increase the savoriness, I added some butter on top and then put the pancakes and bacon on a tray and left the kitchen.

"I hope she likes them!"