Luke greeted a truly satisfying morning after a long time, feeling much more refreshed than usual.
Could it be because he had a nutritious meal with the ogre leaf caterpillar that the golden hawk provided him early in the morning?
The weather was nice, and surprisingly warm for autumn.
He had successfully exorcised the evil spirits, and thanks to that, Kate’s character formation was almost at its end.
‘Everything is going smoothly.’
Luke energetically opened his door and slowly descended the stairs.
– Tap, tap, tap, tap…!
– Bubble, bubble…
As Luke stepped down the stairs, the sound of bubbling water rising and bursting, along with the cheerful clash of a knife against the cutting board, gradually grew louder.
‘Is Dayton preparing breakfast?’
Thinking this, he headed towards the kitchen and unexpectedly ran into a familiar face.
Yerna, wearing an apron, was cooking.
“Yerna?”
At Luke’s questioning voice, Yerna put down the cookbook she was holding and replied.
“Ah, Lu. You’re already up? Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming because I was focused on the book.”
Yerna, being an elf by nature with acute hearing, also had the ability to discern even the slightest sounds thanks to her intense training as a forest keeper.
However, it was quite unusual that she missed the sound of his footsteps while not even attempting to suppress them.
Just how focused was she?
“You’re cooking…? That’s rare…?”
“Ah, hahaha. Isn’t it?”
Yerna had many talents, but her cooking skills were not particularly good.
She usually just bought vegetables and threw together a meal on the day, with salad being about the best she could manage.
Even then, during times she didn’t feel confident, she wouldn’t even bother to put the vegetables in a bowl, which meant her cooking skills were pitiful, nearly at a primitive level.
Because of this, Yerna’s house didn’t really have much in the way of kitchenware, aside from a tea set, and she had no cooking utensils that used fire, so there had been only a small oven in her home for cooking for a long time.
At that time, Luke, having just become self-aware, didn’t know how ordinary people lived in modern times and couldn’t point this fact out.
Thus, Yerna was very indifferent when it came to anything other than fighting.
Although she had recently started learning to cook from Dayton, he had already recognized that there were no cooking tools that used fire in Yerna’s house and had only taught her things that didn’t require the use of fire.
However, for some unknown reason, Yerna was currently attempting a somewhat serious cooking method that involved fire.
With a shy smile, she said.
“Y’know, now that we’re all living together… and since I took a long vacation and am not going to work, I thought I could at least make breakfast for Dayton. You know, to play the wife a little.”
“Hm… That’s a good intention.”
Nodding at Yerna’s story, Luke cleared his throat.
Yet, he couldn’t help but point something out.
“But, Yerna, why are you holding the knife backwards?”
“Oh, this?”
Yerna held up the knife she was gripping backward with a smile that seemed to say, ‘Oh, was that what surprised you?’
“At first, I tried holding it like other people do, but it didn’t work as well as I thought. So, I tried holding it the way I find comfortable. Turns out, I do it much better this way!”
“……”
Luke was momentarily dumbfounded, thinking about what she meant.
He didn’t quite understand.
Common sense suggests that holding a knife backward while cutting vegetables is extremely inefficient and dangerous, right?
However, Yerna smoothly reassured him.
“It’s not that weird. Want to see?”
Naturally, Luke nodded.
He was curious about how one could cook while holding a knife backward.
With Luke’s affirmation, Yerna beamed and said.
“Step back a bit? It could be dangerous.”
As Luke took a few steps back, Yerna picked up a vegetable in front of her and took a deep breath, as if to relax.
“Whew…”
And in an instant.
She widened her eyes and skillfully swung the chef’s knife, slicing through the top part of the vegetable with speed.
– Slice-!
Yerna struck the headless vegetable down onto the cutting board with a decisive sound.
Soon, her hands moved back and forth over the cutting board like they were dancing.
Still holding the chef’s knife backwards.
The cutting line was a straight shot, as taut as a string pulled tight.
– Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap…!
The cross-section of the cut vegetable was exceptionally neat, as if a professional chef had done it, and the thickness was consistent, making it seem perfectly suitable for cooking.
After finishing the vegetable preparation, Yerna smiled with satisfaction and opened her mouth.
“How’s it? Not bad, right?”
“Uh…”
Luke, shocked by the unexpected display of Yerna’s knife skills, swallowed hard while staring at the vegetables she had prepared.
What he had just witnessed was a type of ‘dagger technique’.
It was a technique used to cut vital points and tendons to sever the lifeline of monsters and other creatures.
She must have learned it during her battle training as a forest keeper.
Had what Yerna just sliced not been vegetables, but rather a person’s flesh, it likely would have been cut just as cleanly.
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
Luke was genuinely impressed.
To integrate the movements of dagger techniques into regular knife handling was much more natural and precise?
This was beyond mere talent; it was a matter of instinct and reflex.
Her body knew how to perceive and manipulate the tool that was a ‘knife’.
This indicated that Yerna had remarkable skill in swordsmanship as well.
However, unlike the old days when battles lurked everywhere and everyone learned sword fighting, modern swordsmanship didn’t have much relevance anymore, so her talent might have faded somewhat, but it still stood at an astonishing level.
In response to Luke’s admiration, Yerna blushed slightly, rubbing the back of her neck and giggling.
“Well, when you put it that way, it makes me a bit embarrassed.”
Indeed, if Yerna had been born in the past, she might have become a Grand Swordmaster.
If not that, she surely would have gained fame as a hero.
“By the way, what are you cooking now?”
Recovering from the shock of Yerna’s culinary finesse, Luke asked with curiosity.
Delicious aromas filled the kitchen, scents he had never experienced from any dish before were wafting from the pot.
“This is mushroom soup seasoned with mure. It’s refreshing and easy to digest, making it great for breakfast.”
“Is that so…?”
Luke nodded.
Indeed, mure could be expected to have such effects.
However, mushroom soup with mure? That was a dish he had never heard of.
But considering that new dishes were being developed somewhere in the world even now, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were recipes he didn’t know about.
Luke reportedly nodded in understanding and said, “Yerna, isn’t the heat too high?”
“Yeah, I turned it up a bit too much.”
“Hmm? Why? Was the recipe like that?”
“No, according to this book, it said to simmer it over medium heat for 50 minutes. But that would take too long. So I cranked it up a little…”
“Yerna, turn the heat down quickly!”
“Eh? Why?”
Mure has a property where, if exposed to a certain level of heat, it absorbs heat and contracts, and then when it reaches its limit, it releases all the heat it has stored at once.
Thus, if it was cooking under intense heat, careful attention was needed regarding how much mure had contracted.
However, Yerna didn’t seem to be checking on the state of the mure at all.
“Before the mure expands!”
“Ah, got it.”
At that moment, bubbles suddenly began to boil over furiously from the pot.
The force was like splattering water into hot oil.
– Splash! Splash!
‘Just as expected!’
“Ahh! What’s going on? Why is this happening?!”
“Yerna, get out of here quickly!”
Startled, Yerna hurriedly turned off the heat, but the mure that had already reacted kept splattering the soup everywhere.
Yerna panicked, covering her face with the cookbook, while Luke quickly pulled her arm and searched for a pot lid to cover it.
“……”
“……”
The kitchen was in shambles.
Luke looked at Yerna with a subtle gaze and broke the silence.
“Have you never cooked mure before?”
“……Well, I’ve only eaten it raw before…”
That made sense; Yerna had never really tried cooking that used fire.
After learning the laws of cooking from Dayton, she always cooked herself.
“Still, the cookbook must have mentioned some precautions.”
“……I, well, it said that in the next chapter.”
The cookbook was odd as well.
If there were precautions for cooking, shouldn’t they have been written first?
“……Sigh.”
Could it be a sense of shame for showing ineptness as a mother?
At Luke’s sigh, Yerna subtly averted her gaze.
Seeing this, Luke felt the need to encourage Yerna.
Honestly, mistakes with fire control were something he had also made when learning to cook for the first time.
Everything had to start with first experiences.
“Let’s clean up the kitchen together before everything gets out of hand, Mom.”
“Y-yeah! Let’s clean it up together!”
Yerna’s expression brightened sharply at Luke’s gentle voice.
Thus, Yerna and Luke joined forces to wipe away the splattered soup and tidy up the messy kitchen.
Since they had cleaned everything up, anyone who hadn’t seen what happened would never know there had been a commotion.
Yerna and Luke clapped their palms together with proud expressions.
– Clap!
Although it was a bit messy, the aroma of the soup they had made was quite appetizing.
“Now, let’s see how much soup we have left.”
“Right.”
When they checked the pot, the amount had decreased a bit, but fortunately, there was still enough left for breakfast.
“Thank goodness.”
“Yeah.”
Luke nodded.
It was a delicious-looking soup.
With this, one couldn’t help but expect good taste.
‘Still, for a first attempt, quite…’
Thinking back, the first roast beef he had made had come out blackened, and Dayton had only eaten it because he had to.
Considering that, Yerna might actually have some talent.
Luke took a ladle and scooped a little soup to bring to his lips.
And…
“Bleh…”
He immediately spat it out.
“W-what? Does the soup taste bad?”
Yerna, shaken by his response, watched as Luke poured water into a cup.
“Yerna, the red one is sugar, and the blue one is salt.”
“……”
