Suna

The first quarter of the chapters of the novel explained to the readers about the love interests who were there with the female lead since the start of the story, or should I say, the love interest that the readers knew would be the love interest.

If I were to say, then there should be Carter, the crown prince, Kaizel, the second prince, Liam, the elf king, Kuzan, the guild master, Azel, the head of the mercenary group, Cairne, and the commander for the first knight squadron, Heron. Some other love interests were introduced late into the story, like the angel, Kaoli, this Clairmont right here, and the demon lord’s first general, Ivran. I bet you guys think about wow, what a load of love interests. I seem to forget telling you that the web novel has a ‘harem’ tag on it. So, of course, the female lead would be surrounded by a bunch of male leads, but she will ultimately fell in love with Carter.

But.

That’s not what I wanted to talk about. And man, did I just stray away from the main point again?

I was scrolling through the chapters where the novel depicted about Remnants of Rustaval. The kingdom of Rustaval was once a flourishing kingdom. However, it perished when a dragon appeared and killed the people and destroyed the land.

Huh.

It said here that a dragon will destroy Rustaval. But instead, internal dispute was what almost destroyed the country. Has the plot changed again?

“What are you thinking so hard about over there?” My focus broke apart when Clairmont called me, who was sitting on the alcove. He was sitting down on the edge of the bed after taking a bath, and was drying his hair with his wind magic.

“Nothing much.” I scrolled the novel chapter in the hologram in front of me. That’s all the novel depicted about Rustaval. To add, Rustaval was told in past tense when the story started, so Rustaval was destroyed before the story even happened, A.K.A, before Carter met Minerva.

Just before I focused back on the novel, my focus broke again when Clairmont called me and said, “It’s almost lunchtime. Don’t you have anything that I could eat?”

I heaved a sigh and swiped the hologram to close it. Then I stood up from the alcove and began to walk towards him.

“What do you mean by, ‘do I have anything that you could eat?’. You can just call the room service and they’ll serve you anything you want.” I rested my hands on my hips after I stopped in front of him.

Clairmont shot me a glance. “Don’t tell me that you forgot about your promise.”

“Hm?” I raised an eyebrow.

“You said that you’ll cook for me if I promised to stick together with you. Isn’t now a good time?”

I grumbled.

True enough, I did say that I agreed on his terms of wanting to cook for him. But is now the right timing? I mean, we were in the middle of saving a country, do we have the luxury of engaging ourselves in leisure activity?

Well.

In fact, I think we do have that luxury.

“Okay then, I’ll cook something for the two of us.” It’s been a while since I last indulge myself in Japanese cuisine. The last time I ate a proper Japanese cuisine was when I returned back to my hometown back in my old world to enjoy some grilled meat. The taste of the A1 steak is still fresh on my tongue as if I ate it just yesterday.

I opened the online store and start scrolling for some ingredients that I could buy.

“Hmm.” I cupped my chin while scanning the ingredients. It’s currently autumn, so I was craving for something that could warm me up. And of course, having meat in it is a must. If it’s something warm, then a curry would be it.

“…Should I make that, then?” I muttered.

I then started clicking on some ingredients. Their prices were almost the same as the price back in my old world. Though, the difference was that I have a little bit more money compared to when I was a broke university student.

“Clairmont eats a lot, so maybe I should buy a lot just in case.” I increased the number of chicken breast that I wanted to buy. After receiving all the ingredients, I placed them all on the dinner table before heaving a satisfied sigh.

The menu that I wanted to make for lunch is chicken katsu curry. The curry is the same as a usual Japanese curry, with potatoes, carrots, and some beef inside. But for the chicken katsu part, I placed a piece of cleaned chicken breast and started to flatten it using a meat pounder. After the chicken breast became as flat as I wanted it to be, I marinated it in a mixture of mirin, shoyu, some garlic paste and some salt.

After a few minutes, I dipped the chicken in a sequence of flour, egg, flour, egg, and breadcrumb and then let it rest while I heat up the oil inside the frying pan on the stove. Portable stove from my old world is really handy. ^o^ Despite the wide usage of magic stove that ignites using Mana in this world, and I know I can use it if I wanted to, I still opt in using the devices coming from my old world.

After the oil has heated up, I put the chicken in. Then my work circulated between cooking the chicken, washing and cooking the rice, and checking the curry until everything is set and ready to be eaten.

“Whoa.” Clairmont took a sniff. I didn’t realize that he was nearby when I was cooking. “The smell is surprisingly good. I didn’t know that you could cook so well.” He commented, while also slipping in a little bit of sarcasm.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What is surprising? I’ll have you know I always cook at home, okay?” Moreover, his appearance is more shocking than my cooking skill. A V-neck short-sleeved black shirt paired with a pair of black trousers looked refreshing on him, especially if his signature outfit is a set of scanty clothes made of silk, like a dancer. If he had normal looking clothes, why bother wearing that outfit?

“So, you can cook at home, huh?” Clairmont paced beside the drying rack where I put the fried chicken katsu. Hmph, I bet that he wanted to steal a piece.

“What’s your old world like?” He stole a piece, just like I predicted. I rolled my eyes and heaved a sigh, before continuing to stir the curry.

“It’s a world completely different from this one. The usage of magic is scarce from where I came from, because we rely on things people call ‘technology’, and there are no races other than humans, as far as I’m aware of, exist.”

“I see.” Clairmont nibbled the chicken katsu quietly. “It’s hard to imagine as such just from your words. But I imagine that there won’t be magical creatures running rampant around.”

I giggled and turned off the stove. “You’re right about that. I can say that my world is pretty peaceful, and pretty mundane, in my opinion.”

The mundane part might be the reason why I wanted to travel into another world in the first place. I was grateful for the blessing of a peaceful life, that in one way or another, became increasingly stagnant as years go by. No excitement apart from by the accompaniment of gadgets and ordinary entertainment.

Still, I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss those times, where I won’t have to worry about people’s gaze whenever I go out, and where my decisions won’t bear that much of a heavy weight on someone else’s life. I kinda miss those times.

After I finished cooking and plating the chicken katsu curry, it’s time for us to dig in.

“Itadakimasu.” I said as I clasped both of my palms together. Meanwhile, Clairmont went straight in for the meal.

I moaned in joy from the combination of the crunchy chicken katsu and the softness of the steamed rice mixed with the curry gravy. This tasted like heaven~ It’s been awhile since I last had chicken katsu curry that I almost forgot about what it tasted like.

“This is good.” Clairmont commented, with his mouth full of rice. “But it’s a bit bland for my taste.”

“Is it now?” I replied in wonder. For me, this is as good enough as it is. If I put more salt to taste, the dish might become too salty.

“It’s fine, though.” Clairmont shrugged, and took a bite out of the chicken katsu. “I still like it anyway.”

I fluttered my eyes in surprise, before letting out a chuckle. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“The time is now, sire.” A voice appeared from the darkness, seemingly trying to persuade Saul for a decision.

“Indeed. If we didn’t kill the young King now, he will definitely eliminate all of us. We must prevent that from happen.” Another voice persuaded.

“Calm down, you fools.” Saul hollered back towards the voices, rendering the hall filled with darkness to now be filled with silence. “I know we are short on time, and I know the king will definitely eliminate us if we failed. But, if we panicked in this situation, our doom will fall upon us sooner than we thought.” The old elf reasoned.

“And it’s obvious that the king seems to know about what we’re planning behind his back, especially when those imbeciles failed to kill him last night, and is putting his guard up. Do you think that we could make a move at this time?”

The hall remained silent.

Saul cupped his chin and paced to and fro, under the single spotlight directed upon him. He too, was actually restless and was at the end of his wits. Last night, during the celebration for the newly appointed SS-rank adventurers, was supposed to be the night where the king drew his last breath. But for some reason, all the assassins that he sent to the king were mysteriously captured. The assassins didn’t seem to remember what happened to them, which bothered Saul the most.

Did Kuzan apprehend them all and placed a spell on them to make them forget? Saul didn’t remember having anyone follow him and the king except for the assassins that night, and he was sure that no one followed him even after he left the king.

If the king was the one who apprehend the assassins all by himself, then the king might be more powerful than Saul expected.

He needed to think of a way to eliminate Kuzan fast, or else, everything that he planned for almost half a century would go naught.

“Sire.” Suddenly, a different voice appeared. For safety purpose, all the people present in the hall had their face covered and their voice altered. Safety reasons might actually be an excuse, those people didn’t want to risk exposing themselves if something were to go wrong. Still, people could assume the identity behind one’s voice, and the voice who was speaking to Saul right now, with a snide tone laced with contempt, is the voice of a woman.

“Weren’t there two newly appointed adventurers of SS-rank? We can persuade them to do our job while offering them a price they couldn’t refuse. After all, the adventurers love money more than anything, no?” The voice suggested.

Saul pondered for a bit.

“That is…” His wrinkly mouth slowly crooked up. “That sounded like a brilliant idea.”