The Uninvited Guest

“Don’t you know what’s most important when it comes to food? You at least know that freshness is key, right?”

“I—I mean, I know, but…”

As I approached with enough intensity to practically bite his head off, Simon instinctively took a step back. I closed the distance quickly.

“Do you have any idea how delicious sashimi is when it’s carved right after the catch? Or wraps made from greens plucked straight from the garden? Or a fried egg made from a egg laid just moments ago?”

“I get what you’re saying, but except for the fried egg, I have no idea what those other things are.”

“Tsk!”

He doesn’t know true flavor. When I clicked my tongue loudly, Simon just shrugged. His expression said, What can I do if I don’t know?

“Is your goal just to cook everything fresh?”

“There’s also the fact that freshly made food is the most delicious.”

“You carry all of this around just for that?”

“It all fits in my bag, so what does it matter?”

Since my inventory stores everything, why does he care? At my remark, Simon scanned me from head to toe. His face clearly said, You aren’t even carrying a bag.

“I don’t know much about how important cooking is, but I can certainly tell that Master Andrealphus is someone who puts his life on the line for it.”

John, who had been peering at the numerous spices in my inventory, commented. Saul nodded in agreement. No, really, putting my life on the line over this? Do they know how important a meal is? As a member of a rice-loving nation, I turned to Azrael, feeling flabbergasted.

“I don’t exactly put my life on the line. Right, Prince?”

“…….”

“Prince?”

However, no answer came. Even when I leaned in to catch his eye, Azrael desperately avoided my gaze.

“Prince……?”

“That……. I’m sorry.”

“……Do you also think I put my life on the line for cooking?”

I expected him to deny it at this point, but Azrael seemed to genuinely believe that I valued cooking as much as my own life. After hesitating for quite a while, he spoke slowly.

“……I don’t think you’ve gone as far as putting your life on the line, but.”

“But?”

“I did think you were remarkably fond of it.”

He said that and gave a pretty smile. It was definitely the face of someone trying to escape a crisis. Instead of pointing it out, I smiled back. Azrael’s grin grew even brighter at my smile, but his knights, sensing something ominous, took a step back. How unfair. I wasn’t planning on doing anything specific.

“Well, if everyone has lived without much interest in eating, I suppose you could think that way.”

“That’s an unexpected reaction.”

I shrugged and spoke.

“In that sense, I’ll teach you all properly from now on. Let’s start with peeling potatoes.”

Ta-da! With a sound effect, I pulled three sacks of potatoes and several knives from my inventory. The faces of the men turned pale at the sight. It was a substantial amount. While I could finish it in an instant with magic, I hid that fact and handed out the knives with a smile. I mean, come on. It’s not like I’m not feeding them; isn’t this a fair trade? It was rare for them to touch raw ingredients, but it wasn’t like the knights hadn’t helped with meal prep before.

“Isn’t this just plain bullying?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Where on earth did three sacks of potatoes even come from?”

Questions erupted simultaneously. Yes, I was just being petty. But instead of admitting it, I brazenly denied it.

“Not at all. I’m kindly teaching you. What do you think is the foundation of cooking?”

“No, first of all, we have no intention of learning how to cook…….”

“Then just consider it helping with dinner. Even this much will be gone in three or four days.”

I spoke firmly against the chorus of complaints. Of course, to finish three sacks in four days, we’d have to eat potato rice, steamed potatoes, stir-fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, braised potatoes, and fried potatoes at every single meal, but these people who knew nothing of cooking wouldn’t realize that. Grumbling, they each took a knife in one hand and a potato in the other and began trimming them.

Having assigned the peeling to the knights, I sat beside them, pulled out some onions, and began to skin them. As I worked next to them, John spoke up.

“Truly, who in the continent would imagine this? That the people who went to subjugate the Demon King are sitting around trimming ingredients for dinner.”

“Indeed. People would be shocked, shouting, ‘What are you doing when every second is precious!'”

Saul, chiming in, stole a glance at me. I shrugged and replied.

“Even a tour of Mount Geumgang comes after a meal. You can’t have strength if you starve.”

“It’s not like we’ve been traveling while starving until now…….”

“That dried food with the texture of tree bark? That’s not a meal. I refuse to recognize that as food.”

“The nutrition is sufficient, though…….”

Azrael, who had been quietly and passionately peeling potatoes, suddenly looked up at the mention of not recognizing it as a meal. Saul and Simon nodded in agreement with Azrael’s sentiment.

“The nutrition is sufficient…….”

John muttered. His tone was clearly dissatisfied. Unable to deny the hidden meaning behind those words, Azrael looked off into the distance for a moment before refocusing on his potato.

“Anyway, we’re going to arrive faster than if you guys went to subjugate the Demon King on your own, so stop complaining and peel those potatoes.”

At my words, the knights pouted but focused back on their task.

The peeled potatoes piled up in a basin. Since none of them seemed to have experience peeling potatoes, it took nearly an hour before the knights regained their freedom. While they were tied down by the potatoes, I had started simmering a stew with beef, onions, and red wine. Leaving the bubbling stew behind, I went to check on the potatoes and felt a sense of cognitive dissonance.

“Why are there so few potatoes? Did you guys snack on them while peeling?”

“What?”

“Who eats raw potatoes?”

“Isn’t it just your imagination?”

The quantity of potatoes had significantly decreased. This wasn’t like pork belly that shrinks when the fat renders out; there was no way a third of the volume would disappear just by peeling them.

“Looking at the size of the potatoes, it doesn’t look like you hacked off chunks of the flesh while trying to peel them……. Look. This was the original amount.”

I pulled three more sacks of potatoes from my inventory to show them. Even if they were clumsy at peeling, the volume shouldn’t have dropped this much based on the size of the individual potatoes. The knights, who had been sitting and shaking out their tired arms, looked like they had been struck by lightning. They looked back and forth between the three sacks and their own pile of potatoes.

“There are fewer.”

“What happened?”

“Right?”

“Yes, there are fewer.”

I looked around with a suspicious face. It didn’t seem like anyone was playing a prank. Then what was it?

Just then, Azrael suddenly pointed behind my back. It was toward where the stew was boiling.

“Everyone, look over there!”

I turned my head and doubted my eyes.

“……Eh?”

“A duck?”

“A goose……?”

“A bird……?”

I guess I wasn’t seeing things. Standing behind me was a goose with white, fluffy feathers, its beak covered in the unfinished stew.

Was this some kind of metaphor? No, it was a real bird. We all stiffly turned our heads to check each other’s expressions in this incomprehensible situation. I’m not the only one seeing this, right? That’s really a bird, right?

While hogging everyone’s attention, the goose let out a nonchalant cry.

“Honk, honk!”

“Someone please explain this situation to me.”

I muttered, holding my forehead.

Coming to my senses, I quickly captured the goose. There was no need for the grand word “capture.” The goose, which was busy gorging itself on unfinished stew, didn’t even think of running away when I approached noisily; instead, it buried its beak further into the pot. Even though the stew wasn’t cold, but bubbling and boiling.

“Honk! Honk!”

The goose I caught flapped its wings and honked as if protesting. No, what do you have to be upset about? The one who should be upset is me, having had my unfinished meal snatched away. I shook the goose lightly and said.

“Is this really a goose? Why is there a goose in the middle of a forest?”

“Do geese even eat stew?”

“No, there’s no way they would…….”

“First of all, how does a normal goose eat boiling hot stew?”

“Honk! Quack! Honk!”

I suppose in a game, there’s not much difference between a goose eating cold stew or boiling stew.

“The stew is going to be short, so should we just catch the goose and roast it? Roast goose?”

“HONNNNK!”

“That sounds good too.”

“Doesn’t it look like a goose someone is raising? Will it be alright?”

Judas tried to stop me, but I shook my head.

“Who would live in this gloomy neighborhood where the Demon King is about to be summoned? Even that village from before didn’t have real residents.”

“That is true, but…….”

“There’s no way a regular person would live in this forest where even the Demon King subjugation team is always on the verge of annihilation.”

In fact, since I was there, there hadn’t been a single moment of danger, but I spoke brazenly anyway. It wasn’t exactly a lie, since they really would have been on the verge of annihilation without me. Though, even without me, they would have been with another user, so they wouldn’t have actually been wiped out.

“But as you say, how could an ordinary goose survive in a forest that is dangerous even for us?”

“Uh…….”