Chapter 33
Chapter 33
“Oh no, Miss, you’re going to cook?”
“Yes.”
As I nodded, Apple’s face turned pale, and he stood firmly in front of the kitchen, starting to fidget.
“Miss, you don’t know how happy I was when you called for me. Let me tell you about the time I fought and won against a lobster in the Eastern Continent. There was a benefactor who helped me then. That person was…”
“Ah, let’s hear about that slowly later.”
As I tried to enter the kitchen, pushing past him as he rambled on without taking a breath, Apple immediately blocked me.
“Aaaaargh, you can’t!”
“What’s wrong with you?”
[Why do you think, Irina?]
[Think about what you made without skills.]
“…”
Come to think of it, Apple hasn’t tasted food made with skills yet.
It’s a feeling.
I should show him something today and get my skills recognized.
I proudly said, patting my chest:
“Apple, I’ve grown too, you know.”
Isn’t that why I’m visiting the kitchen now?
To improve my skills?
“Miss.”
“Yes?”
“When you ate Mr. Lemiere’s cookies yesterday, did you think that taste would ever become okay?”
I closed my mouth.
[Hahaha.]
[You, I heard you were shocked after eating the cookies Isiel made yesterday.]
[I heard you even used 2 luck points to avoid that.]
[Wow… you’ve always been feeding strange things to others, and now you’re finally getting a taste of your own medicine.]
“Hey. I wasn’t that bad.”
“No. That’s exactly it.”
“…You just watch.”
* * *
Apple was absentmindedly munching on the cookies I made.
It seemed to suit his taste.
He was shocked when he saw me putting onions in the cookies.
When I offered him the finished cookies, he resisted at first, but after taking one bite, he ended up in this state.
[SYSTEM | You have successfully made a C- grade dish. (1/100)]
I baked a tray of cookies, but the skill only increased by 1 after I used the skill just once.
‘You know what? Originally, this game had systems like auto-battle or auto-production.’
Who would run around 100 times on their own feet?
[That’s why it was originally 1,000 attempts, not 100.]
[Right, we drastically reduced it because you have to do it physically.]
‘….’
I wonder if there’s a skill for mass production or automatic production.
[Why are you trying to improve your cooking skill anyway?]
I checked the newly received recipe, leaving Apple behind who was nibbling on cookies.
‘Well, if there’s absolutely no way to pay off the debt, I’m thinking of opening a shop.’
Selling everything except what we don’t have.
Well, if I sell those cookies for 2 jurang each, maybe I can pay it off someday?
‘Then maybe I can pay it off in about 100 years?’
As if to mock me, the system suddenly appeared.
[SYSTEM | The current remaining balance is 99,992,310 jurang…]
[SYSTEM | Assuming you sell 2 jurang cookies to repay the entire debt.]
[SYSTEM | The total number of cookies you need to sell is.]
[LOLOLOLOLOLOL]
[SYSTEM | 49,996,155 cookies.]
“Damn, I need to bake 50 million cookies.”
[That’ll be fun, haha.]
[Indeed, haha.]
And soon after, a quest arrived.
[SYSTEM | The ’50 Million Cookies’ quest has arrived.]
[’50 Million Cookies’
Irina bakes cookies every day~
>Bake 50 million cookies (0/50,000,000)
>Sell 50 million cookies (0/50,000,000)
Reward: Establish the most famous cookie company on the continent.]
“Why are you doing this to me?”
No, really, why?
And I not only have to bake them but sell them too.
I tried to reject the quest, but there was no reject button.
Grumbling quietly, I shoved the newly received quest into a corner and pulled out my recipe book.
There are a total of 3 new recipes I got through the ‘Chef Quest’.
They were recipes of C+, B-, and B grade respectively.
Vanilla Ice Cream. (C+)
Apple Pie. (B-)
Monster T-bone Steak. (B+)
I couldn’t believe my eyes at the strange recipe in the middle.
“…?”
[We specially prepared it because we heard Cassis likes apple pie!]
[Aren’t you grateful?!]
[Now, let’s start training!]
I shook my head.
‘No. That’s not what I was talking about regarding the grade.’
[Huh?]
‘Isn’t the identity of that steak meat a bit… you know?’
[…? Oh, really?]
[But monster meat is really delicious!]
‘…I’ll try it when I get the chance.’
I don’t even know where to get monster meat, but later I should ask Cassis to hunt some if we ever encounter monsters.
I couldn’t immediately try the ‘Monster T-bone Steak (B+)’ and ‘Apple Pie (B-)’ due to issues with ingredient procurement and grade respectively.
So what I showed interest in was the ‘Ice Cream’ recipe.
Ice cream, of all things!
Before possessing this body, I loved ice cream so much that I had a separate dedicated refrigerator at home.
Whether it was summer or winter, I always had ice cream in my mouth.
But when I possessed this body, I couldn’t find any trace of ‘ice cream’.
When I said I wanted to eat something cold, they would give me frozen fruit with syrup.
‘I want ice cream.’
‘What on earth is that?’
‘It’s a thing. You could call it a product of modern science…’
At one point, I thought that maybe ice cream had been invented in the North and was already a food existing in the world.
However, what I ate day and night after coming to the North was just shaved ice with sugar sprinkled on top and fruit added.
“Ice cream, huh.”
I checked the recipe with an excited heart.
The ingredients were more common than I thought.
It ended with vanilla-scented grass, milk, cream, and sugar.
“Is this cream really ‘cream’ because it’s ice cream?”
[You could say that.]
What a roughly made world.
If I had been born and raised here as a resident, I would have pounded the ground in frustration.
[Don’t be like that. Do you know how hard we’re working to maintain this world?]
[That’s right…..]
‘But still. When I think about the world I lived in, this lacks too much plausibility.’
[…The dimension you lived in ranks first in all areas every quarter.]
[Right, do you know how amazing that world’s god is?]
[Almost a superstar among gods!]
[Everyone’s idol!]
It seems there’s some kind of evaluation system in the world of gods.
‘What rank does this place get when evaluated?’
[Um, about 100th?]
‘….’
It was like comparing the top student in school with the bottom one.
I’m sorry.
[Don’t apologize. 100th is still upper-middle rank.]
‘Really? Well, I guess the world is running well.’
I turned my head to look out the window.
Even in a world so haphazardly created, snow falls, that snow piles up on trees, and traces of horses running across the white snow field remain.
The sunset glows, the world burns red, and the wind blows.
The people living in that world are affectionate, kind, and surely have their own stories.
“Still, I like this place.”
[Really?]
“Yes.”
I mixed the ice cream ingredients while chatting with the system.
About 5 minutes after using the skill, ice cream was born with a ‘poof!’ sound.
Is this beginner’s luck?
I thought it would surely fail since it’s one level higher than my cooking skill.
[SYSTEM | You have successfully made ‘Vanilla Ice Cream (C+)’!]
With an excited heart, I scooped up some of the ice cream in the bowl with a spoon.
It was the ice cream I used to buy and eat occasionally in the middle of winter.
When I carefully put it in my mouth, it felt like fireworks were bursting on my tongue.
The sweet, cold, and soft ice cream melted on my tongue.
“Oh my god.”
[Yes, that’s right~]
“I love you.”
[Me too~]
Just when I thought it would end as a momentary happening, the system chimed.
[SYSTEM | You have achieved part of the goal of the sub-quest ‘Business Item’ of the main quest ‘Repayment of Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.]
The ‘Business Item’ quest is a sub-quest of the main ‘Debt Repayment’ quest.
It’s a quest to think about what kind of business items could possibly help repay the debt in the North.
At first, I thought about various things, but as the quest itself didn’t change at all, I had half forgotten about it.
But it was just updated a moment ago.
[‘Business Item’
This quest is a sub-quest of ‘Repayment of Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.
This quest is linked to the ‘Head of Strategic Planning Office’ quest.
What could be a way to make money in the cold, barren, but beautiful North?
An excellent entrepreneur needs a great item.
>’Ice Cream’
>Register Item
+Add
Reward: Provide business direction hints based on the item.]
But is this how it’s solved?
