Allrounders!!

Chapter 13: I Cooked!

I’m making lunch.

“Your sure skilled at this. Honestly, aren’t you actually more amazing than any cook?” The man commented.

But you see, this uses lots of magic arts, okay? I’m quite aware that no one would be able to cut the ingredients so quickly. I mean it totally looks like fantasy cooking as it’s done in manga.

Just when I ignite a fire to stir-fry the veggies, “…Your casually usin’ fire magic like it’s nothin’. Wait, is this really fire magic? Such fire magic actually existed? Also, what’s up with you doin’ all of it without chantin’!?”

He’s so damn noisy about everything.

As soon as I took out the seasoning, he bent himself forward, “Hey, what’s that? What you usin’ there?”

“Seasoning I made myself. This world doesn’t have a term to express it.”

“Your sayin’ 『This world』 all the time, but what’s the meaning?”

“Not just manners had been driven into me until I was five years old, but also language. My vocabulary is at the level of an adult noble. However, my vocabulary doesn’t possess a term that would describe this seasoning. That’s the meaning. That’s why I can’t tell you how to call it.”

“Gotcha. In short, it’s an original.”

“Pretty much.”

It’s not like I created it out of thin air, but after searching for similar ingredients and trying to create it in a similar way, I guess it might be proper to call it my original creation. Mayonnaise is a cryptic naming in the first place, isn’t it?

Once I sprinkled wine into the pan in the middle of frying, he leaned in even closer.

“Hey, that! What’s that!?”

“Wine.”

“?!?! Don’t use wine for somethin’ like cookin’!!” He roared.

“Actually it’s something that’s made to be used for cooking, I believe.”

“The hell your sayin’, you bundle of irrationality!? It’s a friggin’ waste! Hand it over! Right now! I’ll drink it!!”

“Dream on.”

“This ain’t anythin’ a brat should have!” He flooded me with another barrage of incomprehensible nonsense.

“I’ve just told you that it’s something to be used for cooking, didn’t I? In the first place, this was quite difficult to make. Or did you think it’s easy to make?”

“?!!!!!? You…can make wine?”

“As long as it’s a homemade version. …What? Are only folks with the necessary qualifications allowed to make liquor after all? Our cook didn’t mention anything about something like that, though…”

“Qualifications or anythin’ like that is unnecessary! It’s just that folk usually hide the manufacturin’ method.”

Oh my.

While sending his saliva flying, the man snarled, “In other words, your sayin’ you got that knowledge?”

“The cook as well, I’d say. The people who helped me out, too. And the same applies for a part of the servants. After researching how to make it with everyone, we finally brought it up to a stage where it’s drinkable. This was yet another reason why I improved my magic arts drastically.”

“…”

The man’s shoulders slumped down in disappointment.

“What’s wrong?”

“In other words, you can make it as long as you can freely use high-level magic?”

“Yep… I think it’s also possible even without the ability to use magic arts. However, then it’ll cost a lot of money, to put it simply.”

“…I see. High-level magic or enough money to compensate for it, huh?”

“That’s the idea.”

――Brewery, yeast plant, natto bacteria, lactic acid bacteria, acetobacteraceae. Food culture is all about fermentation. …I’m kidding, I’m just making up things. Sorry.

But! Rotten food has turned into fermented food throughout history! After discovering mushrooms that are good for the body, mankind has started to cultivate only specific mushrooms! Those mushrooms were then improved into safe ingredients! Moreover, food has been developed after going through tons of hardships until it reached a point of being provided in mass without allowing saprophytes to multiply within!! …*huff huff* *pant pant*

I feel like turning this into my meaning in life if it’s so difficult to obtain it in this world, but for a child like me it’s a pipe dream without a sponsor. Besides, I’m not really sure, but maybe it’s due to the power of magic that the production of fermented foods using yeast is going well at present.

Among the servants, liquor throws the men into a frenzy while women get frenzy over malt sugar. It’s always leading to arguments whether we should make whiskey or starch syrup with the malt. If you stop the initial fermentation to create fruit wine halfway, it becomes a very sweet, carbonated juice, so the female group has been stopping the fermentation to enjoy the juice.

It always makes me think that the people of this world should simply do more research if they like the stuff…

While brooding about this, I finished cooking. I served mystery meat (it seems to be monster meat), stir-fried veggies with plenty of seasoning, and lightly roasted bread.

“Ah, feel free to smear this here on the bread.”

Self-made soy milk butter. Since cows don’t exist in this world, cow milk is no option. Luckily the otherworld me had come up with a soy-milk-based butter when she studied various recipes for a friend with a milk allergy. It’s different from normal butter, but this one is great as well.

At first the man tasted the food cautiously, but in no time he started to wolf it down like a starving lion. Watching me smear the butter on the bread, he imitated it, and starting with the next slice, he thickly spread butter on the bread before tossing it into his mouth.

“Gimme wine, too,” he then started to say.

“The component called alcohol contained in wine is addictive.”

“Don’t be such a nitpicker ’bout each n’ every single thing! I won’t get addicted to it, so hand it over!!”

Unwillingly I filled a cup and passed it to him.

“For your information, even if it doesn’t need that many ingredients, it still requires a huge amount of labor and assiduous efforts, got it?”

In response to my mumbled complaint, “Gotcha, I’ll prepare an extraordinary magic tool for you.”

“Please enjoy it to the fullest.”

I handed him the bottle and all.

“Girl, become a cook. Make liquor n’ sell it.” He said with a serious look after finishing his lunch.

Even when he was drinking the wine, he caused a huge ruckus, yelling, “Even at the royal palace they don’t serve wine like this!!”

He’s blowing up things.

“It’s impossible as a young girl. I’ll consider it if I live to become an adult.”

“Your a child n’ not a young girl, right? Still, it’d be a waste for you to become an adventurer when you’ve got such a skill.”

Sighing, I said, “I cannot trust the people of this world.”

The man froze.

“That’s why I haven’t added any jobs in the service business where you deal with other people among my job choices. I’ve taught the cook and servants about brewing and making sweets, but it’s not like they know all of it, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to make it without me. Given that they won’t be able to reproduce it without me, I’ve been making these things while getting them involved. On the other hand, they’ve been cooperating with me since the research results include things they want to enjoy or because it’s something they’re good at. That’s completely different from trusting someone and telling them the full truth.”

Very likely the cook knows how to make the most of it, but without magic, it’s difficult to make these well『in this world』. After all, it’d probably require a huge amount of money to prepare all the necessary facilities and tools. To begin with, I don’t really know how to make the necessary tools anyway. So far I’ve been pretty much solving this issue with magic…

Rather, it’s only today that I’ve learned for the first time that I’ve been using magic arts. The cook or the servants could have told me, really.

“Let’s make a deal.” He suddenly brought up, “Very likely the liquor made by you can only be made by you alone. So produce liquor and sell it to me. Of course I’ll pay you twice the amount of the most expensive liquor available on the market.”

Not like I know the pricing around here, though.

“Liquor is a no-go. Just as I told you earlier, I’m handling the main part of the production, but procuring the ingredients, securing a site, controlling everything, and taking records is completely handled by our cook and the servants. No matter how much money you throw at me as someone unrelated to this, I can’t sell it to you as long as the others don’t agree.”

“Gotcha, take me to them right now. Unlike an oddball like you, they surely understand common sense.”

“Stop! You’ll put me on a spot! …I got it. I can’t guarantee you the volume, but if it’s just a bit, they might show some flexibility, so I’ll try asking them. Also, let me tell you in advance, but the liquor is alive. In other words, it can’t be brewed instantly. It requires several months or even years, and has a tendency to become better the longer it rests. I won’t say that this applies to all liquors, but it does for the majority.”

“Huh?”

The man stared at me with his mouth agape.

“Liquor is something that takes time to grow. At least one year. The one you drank right now needed almost a year to cultivate safely without failing midway. Moreover, I wanted to let it rest for a year, but the men were so naggy about letting them drink it, so in exchange for giving up on my initial plan, we stocked up plenty recently, and I released this wine after making it a rule that the new stock would be cultivated for at least three years. …The early brew is wine that hadn’t been fully researched.”

The man swallowed, “…Your talking ’bout the one you passed me earlier, right? What about that wine?”

“The early brew is quite unripe. Well, since it’s still a success, I’ve been using it for cooking. I mean for cooking it’s fine as long as it got alcohol, even if the fragrance and taste might be inferior.”

The man’s face lit up, “I don’t mind the inferior wine, so sell it to me. Just the amount you can sell is cool with me. In exchange, I’m goin’ to teach you common sense, and help you becomin’ an adventurer. Additionally, gimme some of the successful ones after three years too, or let me join its production.”

“It’d become a hassle if you entered the mansion, so stay away. I’ll sell you some of the ones I’ll secure for myself, so stay away.”

We’ve got a deal, probably, kind of.