I crawled down using a side crawling posture I learned during my military service. Having to crawl on the side with this frail body made me feel like my legs and flank would go numb, but I had no choice but to think of it as an exercise and continued.

Eventually I had to take the rope out again as the tunnel had bent directly downward.

“Nabi, hold on to the rope for me.”

“Oh, I’ll hold it for you.”

“Really? Then I will be in your care.”

Precia stepped up and I handed gave her the rope.

“Nabi, fix the air around us so that none of the sound leaks.”

—Meow!

As Nabi was controlling the surrounding air, Precia asked with curiosity. “Can you not hear anything if air is fixed on the spot?”

Sound is a wave that needed a medium, which in this case, was the air. If the medium couldn’t do its role, sound wouldn’t be able to travel either. That kind of common sense was not so common here.

“Well, kind of. But still, loud sounds might get heard so come down slowly.”

I went down one floor with my arms shaking like crazy. Then, Precia pulled the rope back and simply climbed down the tunnel by putting her hands and feet on the walls on either side.

We then crawled and finally reached at the kitchen of the third palace.

“Nabi, take this wire mesh off without making a sound.”

—Meow!

At my instruction, a strong gust of wind took the wire mesh off, but also sent it flying. For a moment, my heart started racing, but fortunately there was no sound from wire mesh falling on the kitchen floor.

“Good job, Nabi.”

—Meow~!

I smiled and patted Nabi on the head which made Precia look at Nabi with envy from behind.

Looking at her, I asked her with a smirk. “Do you want to pet Nabi too?”

“What? Ah, no…Ah, yes! Yes I want to! That’s right!”

She got red, seemingly ashamed of coveting her master’s possession. Nabi definitely was very cute. Even in the novel, Precia loved Nabi a lot.

I jumped from the vent and tried to land on the floor safely but lost my balance. “Ugh, that was humiliating.”

Precia jumped after me, landed and got up shaking the dust off her clothes. “Where are we going from here?”

I answered her with a playful smile, “This is our destination.”

“Here?” She looked around the kitchen.

It wasn’t surprising that she was puzzled since this place looked like an ordinary kitchen from what could be seen under the moonlight seeping in through the small window near the ceiling.

I took out a candle, flint and firesteel from my bag and lit it. It would have been nice if I had matchsticks, but they were not developed here yet. As flammable materials was strictly controlled by the state for fear of illegal gunpowder development, it was inevitable that matches had not been developed yet. Using magic was pretty common as well.

As the candle lit up, an ordinary kitchen came into view.

Leaving Precia behind, I moved to the place where food ingredients were piled up. “Precia, how much do you know about Dallangta?”

Precia blinked in puzzlement. “By Dallangta, do you mean Archmage and Sage Dallangta Wizzle, the hero of the war that happened 115 years ago?”

“Yes, that Dallangta.”

When I affirmed her, while putting the ingredients away, she pondered for a while before replying. “Um, I know that 115 years ago, he accomplished great feats in the war against the empire and unprecedentedly received the title of count and that he established an academy to train mages? Oh and his descendant, the current head of Wizzle household is a famous figure in central politics. From what I hear, that person often does eccentric things …”

“I asked about Dallangta, not the current head of the Wizzle family. Do you know anything else?”

When I asked for more, Precia lowered her head and apologized.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry just because you don’t know. You are not even a member of the Wizzle household, so it’s natural that you don’t know it. Hm, is this it?”

I pulled out a bag full of potatoes from the bags of food ingredients.

“Dallangta Wizzle was originally a chef, not a mage. His father worked as a head chef at the royal palace and he too was quite a capable chef himself.”

This was a fact that many people would hardly believe, since the Wizzles were known for being a lineage of mages now.

“Dallangta Wizzle started learning magic simply because of a problem related to ingredient management.” I untied the bag of potatoes pulled out the string tying the bag. “At that time, one of the assistants in the kitchen made a mistake and the food was cooked with expired ingredients, which led to that kitchen assistant getting executed. As the head chef at the time, Dallangta’s father also had to take responsibility.”

A small magic letter was engraved on the string and at the end of it there was a small ring tightened to the string.

“Seeing his father getting demoted, Dallangta started looking for ways to keep food ingredients fresh and soon turned to magic.”

I put the small, golden ring on my finger and forcibly injected mana that I got from Aquila’s magic circuit. When I did, the string disappeared as if it was sucked somewhere.

“He tried to learn magic and fortunately, a mage at the time recognized his talent and taught him.”

That mage was one of the Sage of the Four Seasons like Jade. “The Sage of the Spring Flower.”

“Dallangta worked in this kitchen until the war broke out and what I have in my hand is the subspace artifact created by Dallangta, the ‘Cooking Supplies Storage.’ Oh, and by the way, he was drafted in this very war, and that was how the Wizzle household was born.”

“How do you know so much, Your Highness?” she asked, seemingly surprised by my knowledge

I simply grinned back. “I read a lot of books.”

When the cooking supplies storage and my mana were connected, all the information about how to use it and what was in it came into my mind.

“Well, is this how you do it?”

As I gestured in the air a kitchen knife with a magical formula engraving appeared in my hand. Precia alternated her gaze at me and the kitchen knife in surprise.

I gestured again and knives of different sizes appeared in my hands. The knives ranged from a small finger sized knife used to peel potatoes to a giant knife of the size of my arm used to butcher animals.

While their intended purpose was to be used as kitchen knives, based on the magic engraved on them, they were practically legendary swords that anyone would drool over.

“I won’t give you these knives. A chef would be get upset if they find out that their knives are used as weapons.”

Forget sad, he might try to kill me if I try to use them as weapons.

After all, Dallangta was more of a chef than a mage. There was also the fact that I was going to get Precia a sword that was incomparable to these knives.

“Yes, understood.” Precia nodded without any signs of regret. I didn’t know why, but she even looked slightly relieved instead.

“This is convenient as there are all kinds of cooking utensils in it other than kitchen knives.”

There would be nothing as helpful as this when I go traveling later. To put anything in the cooking supplies storage, it seemed I had to touch that thing with my hand that has ring on it or make a loop with the string attached to the ring and put things in through the loop.

Its volume seemed much bigger than I had expected. The reason it was used as an ordinary bag to contain potatoes in the kitchen was simply because its magic had weakened so much that one could not detect it. A mage wouldn’t normally come searching through a pile of ingredients in the kitchen.

“Are we going back to the palace now?”

“No, I’m going to get everything I can get here.”

I went into the wine cellar in the kitchen. Unlike the palace where I lived, the third palace was huge so not only did it have more things it also had precious alcoholic drinks in it.

This was another reason I came to get the cooking supplies storage first.

* * *

“Your Highness! Are you awake?”

Even after waking up from Herion’s voice and the sound of knocking, I squirmed in the bed. It looked like it was already past nine in the morning. I had slept late last night and had gotten sleep of only about 4 hours as I was getting the hidden treasures from the third palace then from fourth, seventh and eighth palaces.

I had originally planned to only get treasures from third and maybe the fourth palace if I had time but thanks to Precia following me, I was able to go to even the seventh and eighth palaces thanks to her carrying me.

Although it hurt my pride that I, a bona fide adult male of this nation, was carried by an underage girl but I couldn’t help considering its efficiency.

Maybe I will owe her tonight as well.

“Yes, ahem! Ahem! Ahem! I’m up,” I answered in a hoarse voice.

Hearing my answer Herion opened the door and brought a tray along with him.

“You woke up later than usual today.”

“Yeah, I was reading a book late into the night.”

“Reading books is good but sleeping late is not good for your health.”

“Haaam~! I will keep that in mind.”

Herion smiled helplessly at my half-hearted answer and took the lid off the tray.

“Today for breakfast, there is tea, scrambled egg sandwich, sweet potato soup and salad with citrus dressing.”

“I told you to give me a lot of prot… I mean, meat.”

Eggs and sweet potatoes were good but what I needed to do was not lose weight but build my body up. My body needed more protein. Still, after wandering around everywhere day and night, the percentage on my wrist rose slightly.

0.0417 percent—It was a ridiculously small increase, but at least it didn’t decrease.

I decided to be optimistic and thought it would get to 100 percent someday. Otherwise, I might as well die out of frustration at this moment.

“You meant in the morning too? Wouldn’t you feel sick that way, Your Highness?”

“I can’t help it if I want to build my body a little. Why not just… No, never mind.”

I thought about asking for what the knights had for their meals, but then realized that those knights wouldn’t necessarily be eating a scientifically formulated balanced diet. If I were to eat like those knights with a body like this, I might throw up and not be able to even walk properly.

“I will make a diet plan later, so please make my meals as closely to it as possible.”

I wouldn’t be able to make a diet plan as good as those professional sports coaches, but I was sure that whatever I come up with would be much better than the people of this world who had no knowledge about nutrition.

Herion answered while pouring tea and I was cutting my sandwich. “I see. I will let the chef know. Oh, and earlier today, the lord steward visited from the privy council.”

The lord steward was a messenger that delivered the King’s orders and had a fairly high position in the privy council.

“Really? The lord chamberlain just came last night, so that was quicker than I thought. So, when is it?”

“It’s this evening.”

“Today? Well, I guess it is strange to delay it when it is supposed to be a celebration for my birthday…”

I finished my breakfast quickly and washed my face with the water brought with the breakfast

I spoke as I wiped my face. “Tell the knights to get ready because I will be going for a walk like yesterday in an hour.”

“Are you going today as well?”

I smirked at Herion’s question “Of course, Herion, I’m sure you must have heard the rumor by now too.”

In the first place, the king wanted to have a meal with me because of political reasons, but it was also a gesture of commendation. So even if I was tired, I was going to go on strolls until around next week. Of course, for today, I was only planning to walk around in the morning in consideration of my condition for the evening.

When Herion left with the tray and empty bowls I checked things I had obtained last night in hurry in the cooking supplies storage.