Chapter 22

While wandering through the forest in search of the Masked Mouse, Tania suddenly said, "I think my outlook on life has changed."

"What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"It's the blessing selection. When I heard the voice of a god in my head, I really felt the presence of a deity."

It seems different from Ricardo. The voice he heard sounded mechanical, and he felt it was a bit different from the blessings of a god.

"I used to mock the blessing selection, but from now on, I'll take monster hunting seriously."

At that moment, Patrick's voice rose. "There are two Masked Mice."

"I'll take one, so please take the other, Tania-san."

Tania nodded and took out a catalyst, a high-level beginner's "Wind Slash." The two Masked Mice came running. Tania activated "Wind Slash," and a slightly purple, glowing blade of air flew and sliced through the chest of one Masked Mouse.

Ricardo jumped in front of the remaining one. The Masked Mouse leaped, and Ricardo blocked it with his round shield, simultaneously driving a magic-formed rod into its back, which broke its spine and stopped its breathing.

Tania was amazed at Ricardo's skilled movements. Seeing the power of the magic-formed rod up close, she understood why Councilor Isarco paid a large sum to obtain one.

After hunting a few more Masked Mice, Tania was given a few to handle on her own when she got used to it. She used a mid-level magic, "Storm Fang Array," to eliminate them all. Although it seemed wasteful to use magic against Masked Mice, Tania had no choice since her only weapon was a regular rod.

At the end of the hunt, they finished by hunting two Headbutting Rabbits. Since the rabbits were about the size of medium-sized dogs, Ricardo and Patrick each carried one back. They regretted not bringing a cart.

Instead of entering through the main gate of the Magic Guild, they entered through the north gate and parted ways with Tania and Patrick. Despite the rabbits being heavy, they managed to carry them to the employee dormitory.

They brought the rabbits to the kitchen and began to butcher them. The blood had already been drained, so they removed the catalyst parts and skinned them, then cut the meat into pieces, separating the bones from the meat.

By this time, Monta, who had been sleeping in the backpack, woke up and started complaining about being hungry. Monta spent most of his time sleeping because it was cold, and when he occasionally woke up, he would complain about being hungry, so they would give him almonds or dried grapes to calm him down.

Since they skipped lunch for the hunt, Ricardo was also very hungry.

"Hungry. Is there any food... No, there isn't."

There was leftover bread for dinner, but he couldn't eat it. He threw some dried grapes into his mouth to ease his hunger.

"Wow, these are pretty good."

Seeing Ricardo eat the dried grapes, Monta protested.

"Quququ" (Those are Monta's.)

"If they run out, I'll buy more."

"Ququ" (If that's the case, it's fine...)

Monta seemed to think the dried grapes were his.

Looking around the kitchen, there was a large water jug and two stoves. The stoves were simple, with a brick enclosure on three sides and a fixed iron grate on top for placing pots.

There was an old, worn table that served as a preparation area, and the ingredients were stored in baskets.

"Is it going to be hard bread and tasteless soup again? I don't want that to continue."

He remembered the salty soup from yesterday.

When Intou lived alone in an apartment, he often cooked. He bought a few cookbooks and chose his favorite recipes to make. He became a decent cook through this ordinary method.

During the period when cooking shows were popular, he would try to make the delicious dishes he saw on TV.

"Maybe I'll cook something today."

Today's cooking duty was assigned to Sydney and the others. They were surprised to see Ricardo in the kitchen when they returned.

"What's going on? Ricardo, you're not supposed to be on cooking duty yet."

"Today, Tania and I went hunting and caught some Headbutting Rabbits. I thought we might as well use them for tonight's dinner."

Sydney and the others noticed the rabbit meat on the table.

"Oh, really?"

"I was waiting for you to help me cook."

"Huh, you're going to help?"

There were potatoes, carrots, and onions. They were a bit different in color and shape from what he was used to, but the taste was the same.

"If you haven't decided on a menu, how about a meat and vegetable soup?"

"Haha... We don't have anything fancy like a menu here. We just cut up the leftover vegetables and boil them."

Apparently, they only had salt for seasoning.

Sydney and the others started cutting the vegetables.

"Wait!"

The boys stopped their knives and looked at him.

"You can't cut them so haphazardly."

The vegetables were cut to different sizes and looked random. Ricardo borrowed a knife and cut the carrots into uniform slices.

"Try to cut them to a uniform size like this."

Feeling like a home economics teacher, he proceeded with the cooking, putting the cut vegetables and diced rabbit meat into the pot to boil.

"Be sure to remove the scum that floats to the top with a ladle."

Before he knew it, the older boys were following Ricardo's instructions and cooking. It seemed that his tone and attitude had reverted to his teaching days, making them feel like they had to follow his instructions.

"Add salt to adjust the flavor at the end. Don't add it all at once; taste it and adjust until it's just right."

Sydney and the others had been throwing in salt randomly, so he reminded them.

The rabbit and vegetable soup turned out to be quite good. Compared to yesterday's soup, it was definitely much better.

Sydney and the others tasted it and their eyes lit up.

"Wow, this is delicious. It could be served in a restaurant."

It wasn't that good, but they seemed to like it.

That night's meal was lively. The boys praised the soup, saying it was "delicious" and "tasty," and they competed to finish it.

The next morning, Ricardo woke up to the sound of something hitting the wall. Opening the window slightly, he saw it was snowing.

He and Tania had agreed to go monster hunting every two days, so today was originally a rest day. Even if they had planned to go hunting, the snow would have made it difficult.

He went to the kitchen to drink water and quench his thirst.

"Hmm."

In this world, glass existed but was expensive and not common in ordinary households. Instead of glass windows, they used thin rabbit skin paper stretched over a wooden lattice to let sunlight into the rooms.

As a result, the rooms were dim. On cloudy winter days, the rooms were almost pitch black.

For lighting, ordinary households had tree sap lamps, but on cloudy days, they couldn't store enough light to be used.

Other lighting options included plant oil lamps, candles, and the expensive magic light lamps.

These magic light lamps stored magic power in red jade tree fruit crystals and used a magic circuit with yellow jade tree fruit crystals to convert the magic power into light.

The employee dormitory where Ricardo lived had neither magic light lamps nor tree sap lamps.

While thinking about this in the kitchen, Sydney and Robson woke up.

Sydney and Robson were called "little servants" and did odd jobs at the bottom of the Magic Guild. Thanks to Councilor Isarco, Ricardo was exempt from these duties. After seeing Sydney and the others off, he was left alone in the dormitory.

"Well, what should I do?"

He wanted to go shopping, but it was too early, and the stores might not be open yet.

Back in his room, he looked at Monta, who was sleeping soundly in the bag, and then took out the eight purple jade tree fruit crystals he had bought.

He decided to use this time to process the purple jade tree fruit crystals into storage crystals.

In the dim room, he held a purple jade tree fruit crystal, about the size of a marble, between his fingers and focused his mind.

He refined his magic power into a needle-like form and thrust it into the center of the purple jade tree fruit crystal. There was resistance, and the magic power started to behave erratically. He immediately realized this one was a dud.

Later, he learned that the reason he had succeeded with the blue jade tree fruit crystal was because he had compressed the magic power into a needle-like form. The blue jade tree fruit crystal had better conductivity, so it didn't require such a fine compression.

The first one failed. The second one was also a dud.

The third one, unlike the others, the magic power needle smoothly reached the center of the purple jade tree fruit crystal. When he infused magic power into the center, a small black dot appeared.

Continuing to infuse magic power, the black dot grew to the size of a BB pellet. That seemed to be the limit. Suddenly, the magic power met resistance and couldn't be infused any further. He tried to force more magic power in, but it scattered, and white streaks appeared around it.

"Whoa, did I fail?"

He tried to use the white-streaked purple jade tree fruit crystal by infusing magic power into it.

"It doesn't work. The magic power flows in the wrong direction."

He had finally found a good purple jade tree fruit crystal but failed by forcing it. He sighed and slumped his shoulders.

"...Ah, what a waste. I shouldn't have forced the magic power at the last stage. ––Well, I learned something."

Before resuming his work, he meditated to draw power from the source gate and replenish his magic power.

He took out the next purple jade tree fruit crystal and continued his work.

In the end, only one new storage crystal was completed. The probability of a purple jade tree fruit crystal being a good one was about 25%, or one in four.

While the sample size was small, he felt it wasn't too far off.

Looking outside, the snow had lightened up.

Around noon, Robson and the others returned with ingredients. It seemed that whoever returned early would get the ingredients and prepare lunch, regardless of the cooking schedule.

The ingredients were the same as yesterday: potatoes, carrots, onions, and black bread. There was also half of the leftover rabbit meat from yesterday.

"Should we make the same thing as yesterday?"

When Ricardo said this, Robson and the others smiled.

He taught them how to cut the vegetables, remove the scum, and season the dish, just as he had taught Sydney and the others, and the meal was completed.

Robson sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"Since we used up the rabbit meat, I'm worried the dinner will go back to the usual stuff."

Ricardo chuckled. It seemed he wasn't the only one who found it unpalatable.

"We still have the rabbit bones."

"Bones? We can't eat bones."

"Not eating the bones, but you can make good broth from them."

"Broth?"

Ricardo nodded.

"Can you help me?"

He took out the rabbit bones and, with Robson's help, crushed them with a stick. He put the crushed bones in a pot, added water, and put it on the fire.

While it was boiling, they finished their meal. It was the same as yesterday, but it was well-received by Sydney and the others.

Back in the kitchen, the broth was boiling nicely. He took the pot off the fire and transferred the liquid to another pot.

He tasted the broth. It had a good flavor but also a strange smell.

"Still, there's a raw smell."

"Let me taste it too."

Robson scooped up some broth with a wooden spoon and tasted it.

"There's a strange smell, but it's delicious."

Ricardo discarded the broth.

"Ah, what a waste."

"It's okay. There's still plenty of flavor in the leftover bones. If you add water and boil them again, you'll get a delicious broth."

"Really?"

It was time for their afternoon work, so Robson and the others hurried out.

Ricardo, now alone again, started preparing to go shopping.

He shouldered his backpack, carrying Monta in a shoulder bag, and set out in the snow.

Leaving the Magic Guild, he headed for the market.

First, he went to a store selling ingredients. He bought pepper and plant oil, and then hesitated when he tried to buy sugar. It was five times more expensive than the already valuable pepper.

"Sugar is expensive."

The shop owner heard this.

"Of course, it is. Sugar is imported from the southern continent. Do you know how much transportation costs?"

Ricardo knew from Alessandro's book that there was a continent to the south, but he didn't know sugar came from there.

Next to the sugar, there was a pot of honey. It seemed cheaper compared to sugar, but it was still expensive. It was probably placed there to make it seem more affordable compared to sugar.

Still, he wanted a sweetener, so he bought a pot of honey.

He pretended to put the items in his backpack but actually stored them in the storage crystal he had made that morning.

He also visited a vegetable store and a dried goods store, buying garlic, dried grapes, and what seemed to be dried apricots. The dried grapes and apricots were for Monta.

Next, he entered a tool shop to look for lighting equipment. He needed it to study at night.

He asked the clerk about the prices of the magic light lamps on display.

"These are used, but in good condition. Even the smallest magic light lamp costs fifteen gold coins."

All the magic light lamps in such shops were used. They were custom-made according to the customer's specifications, so no two were the same.

He knew magic tools were expensive, but the price made him consider using tree sap lamps instead.

The clerk, sensing his hesitation, said, "This time of year, the sky is often overcast, and there are many days when tree sap lamps can't store enough sunlight. With a magic light lamp, as long as you replenish the magic power, it's fine."

Ricardo had come to look at the magic light lamps for the same reason, but the price made him hesitate.

"Would you like to try it?"

The clerk pushed him to try it. When he turned on the smallest magic light lamp, a bright, small ball of light appeared in the air, as bright as a small fluorescent light.

"Surprisingly bright."

The clerk was surprised. Usually, customers who first saw the brightness of a magic light lamp were more amazed.

"Right? If you buy a new one, it will cost twice as much."

The price negotiation began. Ricardo added a larger tree sap lamp and got the price down to fifteen gold coins. The clerk said, "I'm only giving you this discount," but he must have made a good profit.

He returned to the Magic Guild with the lamp and ingredients.