Three days have passed since leaving Kiels.
If I had ridden the stagecoach, we would be in Zeltoble by now. And from there, it would have been another half day to Zeltoble's border town, Falliéres. However, we were walking, so we'd finally passed the halfway point.
It was taking a long time because we were on foot, but other than that, there had been no real problems. The members of Iron Will were pretty skilled, so they quickly defeated all the goblins and wolves that had appeared thus far. As expected of C-rankers, monsters of that level probably didn't even serve as a warm-up.
"The sun will be setting soon. Let's stop here." At Werner's words, everyone started preparing camp.
I was on food duty, so I was going to be a little careful picking out the menu this time. Anything too eccentric or complicated might have been considered bad by this world's standards, so I made sure to make it as simple as possible.
I'm thinking today should be grilled sausages, pot-au-feu, and bread. Everyone seemed to like meat, so there shouldn't be any complaints.
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First, take the preheated pot and cut bacon into it, and then put in vegetables and sausage. After giving the ingredients a little while to cook, put in the water. Once it starts to boil, throw in the bouillon cubes and let it simmer on low heat.
"Yeah, this is looking good." I gave it a taste test, and the saltiness of the bacon and sausage had seeped in, so it didn't seem like I would need to adjust the taste at all. All that was left was to grill some more sausage on the side...
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"Dinner's ready." I handed out the pot-au-feu in wooden bowls, along with the grilled sausage and bread on plates.
"Ahh, it's delicious. Hajime's food is great, as usual." Vincent said, talking between vigorous bites of his food. Rita nodded heartily at his words.
"It really is delicious. It might be because I've got such good food in my belly, but I feel like my body is moving better than usual."
"I've also been feeling more powerful ever since I started eating Hajime's food." Franka said, agreeing with Rita.
"Eating is the most important thing to humans. Depending on how delicious the food is, people's moods will definitely change." The normally silent Ramon chimed in seriously.
'Yeah, I get it. You like my cooking, Ramon. Thanks, man.'
"That's certainly true. People have to eat to live. If that's the case, it's obvious that tasty meals would be better than bad ones. It really just means that we're pretty lucky to be able to eat like this while traveling." Werner was the one to sum it all up. It was somehow actually a little embarrassing to be praised that much.
I guess this was a victory for Japan's food industry.
But I wonder, I thought to myself, what's up with what Rita and Franka said about them moving better? I didn't make anything really special... It didn't seem like there was anything bad going on, but I was still a little curious.
Let's use Appraisal a little here, I decided.
[Name] Rita
[Age] 16
[Job/Class] Scout
[Level] 18
[HP] 135 (+27)
[MP] 64 (+2)
[Attack] 119
[Defense] 107
[Agility] 138
[Skills] Dagger Skill, Eavesdropping, Quiet Steps
"MBFFHHHH!!" I did a spit-take.
"Wai- What the heck are you doing?!"
"*cough* *cough* *hack* N-Nothing, there was just something weird in the soup and I choked. I'm fine, r- *cough* *cough*"
+27 and +2? W-What the heck is that?
I reflexively spat out my food.
Is it because they ate my food? Is it really? I appraised the pot-au-feu I had in my hands.
[Pot-au-feu]
Pot-au-feu made with ingredients from another world and boosted with \//-\}/-\|_ \/\/ɛ|0()|\| |<()-|-|_í|<.
Increases max HP by 20% for 1 hour.
Oh...
It was totally my cooking's fault.
Wait, wait, if the pot-au-feu raised HP, then what raised her MP? The sausage? The bread?
[Sausage]
Sausage from another world.
Raises max MP by 2% for 10 minutes.
[White Bread]
White Bread from another world.
Raises max MP by 1% for 10 minutes.
Oh, so it was both of them.
Thinking about it, I mused, isn't this pretty dangerous? I mean, you can raise your HP and MP just by eating. If someone else finds out about this... oof, I feel chills.
This was definitely, 100%, without a doubt, something nobody could ever know. Luckily, only summoned heroes got the Appraisal skill, and magic tools that could appraise only belonged to countries or guilds. Also, people would need to use those magic tools in order to confirm their own statuses, so there shouldn't be any chance of them finding out that way.
As long as I kept my mouth shut, this should never get out. I've locked up my lips and thrown away the key, I decided. I will never, ever, speak a word of this to anyone.
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Five days had passed since we departed from Kiels.
"Let's stop here for the day." The sun was starting to set, and as usual we made camp at Werner's command.
"Then, I'll go ahead and use the Red Boar's meat as I like, okay?"
"Sure, we'll be looking forward to it."
The red boar is a large boar monster with red fur that the members of Iron Will had hunted along the way earlier today. Goblins and wolf monsters (apparently, they're called gray wolves) don't really have any parts that are worth anything, so we had left their bodies as-is, but I was told that the red boar's meat, hide, and fangs all fetch a fair price.
As expected of adventurers, their dismantling work was quick and professional. The problem was that it would be trouble to carry this much stuff.
When they started talking about throwing away the relatively cheap meat, I told them I had room in my Item Box and offered to put the meat inside.
And so, that's how I ended up getting permission to use the meat for our meals. At first I thought to make steaks, but that would take time, so I rejected the idea. Instead, today's menu was going to be that.
My top 10 favorite — ginger-fried pork.
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First, cut the red boar meat into thin slices before marinating it in the ginger fry sauce I bought. While that's happening, cut cabbage into small strips. After that, all that's left is to cook the marinated meat.
I also quickly prepared the usual instant consommé soup.
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"Dinner's ready. I cooked the red boar meat with some flavoring from my homeland. I hope it suits everyone's tastes." I handed out the red boar fried with ginger and some cabbage on the wooden plates, some consommé soup, and bread to everyone.
"Oohhh, the smell really gets my appetite going." (Werner)
"What the heck is this? It's great!" (Vincent)
"Delicious!! It's the first time I've eaten something this good!!" (Rita)
"I don't really like red boar meat, but even I think it's delicious like this." (Franka)
"It's my first time eating cabbagg raw, but it tastes great with this meat." (Ramon)
'Woah, it's just a storm of praise here. I just cooked it with a certain company's sauce, though...' That certain company that makes a lot of different sauces.
'Also, I realized, so cabbage is called "cabbagg" in this world, huh?'
While everyone was busy praising the cooking, and while I was also making my way through the meal thinking it really was delicious, we suddenly heard a voice.
"Human, give me some of that, too." The owner of the voice was a wolf with such lustrous fur and radiating such a divine aura that it was ridiculous to even compare it to the wolf monsters we'd seen up until now.
The adventurers froze. They didn't even quiver.