Cooking, Training, And Battle

About a month had passed since Annie summoned me into this world.

“Ahhh, come on! What was that?!”

Lenis’s angry shout echoed through the kitchen we had built by expanding the cabin.

At the moment, she was sticky from head to toe after being drenched in splattered goat’s milk.

If she was asking what had happened, the answer was simply that her sorcery had been too powerful, though Lenis obviously understood that herself.

So what she needed right now was for me to wipe her face with a slightly damp towel and show her what she should have done instead.

Without getting exasperated, I laughed as I wiped down the sulking Lenis.

When we first began this training, Lenis had strongly resisted the idea of using sorcery for cooking.

“Sorcery is a special power, so it must not be used carelessly.”

Apparently, that had been one of the teachings at the sorcery academy Lenis attended before Annie sensed danger and fled with her.

I see. For students who might get carried away after gaining special powers, that was probably a very important lesson.

I had no idea how an institution that taught something like that ended up embracing the idea of rule by sorcerers, but I supposed that was one matter and this was another.

So when Lenis insisted that sorcery couldn’t be used for things like cooking or everyday life, I asked her something.

Annie had once worked as a merchant delivering daily necessities to sorcerers who lived in remote regions to escape governmental control.

It had also been an assignment from the Sorcerers’ Association, but she had done it for the sake of those sorcerers’ livelihoods and for her own business as well.

If Lenis dismissed using sorcery “for something like daily life,” wouldn’t that also amount to rejecting what Annie had been doing back then?

Besides, lessons intended to teach self-restraint and lessons intended to improve one’s skill were two different things.

What Annie had asked me to do was improve Lenis’s sorcery, while Annie herself should be responsible for nurturing Lenis’s character.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was none of my concern, but I also thought it would be wrong for me to interfere too much.

So I told Lenis that Garmon-san, who had taught me sorcery, and I myself were both more skilled at sorcery than her academy instructors, and if she wanted to improve, she should follow my instructions even if she couldn’t fully accept them.

I placed butter into a deep bowl.

“Heat. Hot heat. Not hot enough to burn.”

I released heat from my palm and gradually melted the butter in the bowl.

Since I was demonstrating for Lenis, I did this using ordinary mana-based sorcery rather than Magic that manipulated spiritual particles and magical essence.

Granted, the incantation was completely improvised. As long as the image came across, that was good enough.

Lenis had managed this part well too, but the problem came next.

“Wind. Clean wind.”

I raised my index finger where Lenis could see it clearly and created a sphere of wind spinning clockwise at the tip.

The rotation couldn’t be too powerful, nor could it spin chaotically.

Ideally, it needed to rotate neatly in one direction, clockwise and horizontally relative to my fingertip.

As Lenis stared intently at my fingertip, I increased the rotational speed from weak to strong, then lowered it from strong back to weak before extinguishing it.

I added goat’s milk to the melted butter, sprinkled in a little salt, firmly supported the bowl with one hand, and brought my fingertip closer.

“Wind. Gentle wind.”

I began weakly, then gradually increased the strength.

The sphere of wind mixed and whipped the contents of the bowl, and the liquid milk gradually thickened until it became creamy.

Yes, this was essentially a hand mixer made with Wind Sorcery, and I was using it to make a substitute cream.

Tonight’s dinner would be cream pasta.

In truth, the technique I was demonstrating right now was fairly difficult.

But up until today, Lenis had continued using sorcery for cooking despite repeatedly failing.

By constantly performing large numbers of small, delicate spells with only tiny amounts of mana, her skill with sorcery had improved by an entire level compared with before, even if she hadn’t realized it herself.

Apparently, at the sorcery academy, she had mostly practiced firing offensive sorcery at targets from within areas enclosed by defensive barriers.

What she was doing now was the complete opposite, and Lenis was rapidly acquiring precisely what she had lacked.

Lenis had always loved sorcery and possessed abundant knowledge, so once her fundamentals were fully developed, her ability would probably blossom all at once.

I was really looking forward to that moment.

That said, being a sorcery instructor wasn’t my only responsibility.

“Lept-kun, I’ve obtained information on a sorcerer who’s currently on the run. Can you go now?”

Annie called to me from outside without entering the kitchen, and I gave Lenis instructions for the remaining steps before removing the apron I was wearing.

Whether or not we would get to enjoy a delicious dinner after returning from our work now rested entirely on Lenis’s shoulders.

Lenis’s face tightened with nervousness, but she didn’t complain.

After all, the matter Annie was calling me about was urgent.

A failed meal could always be redone, but the life of a sorcerer we were supposed to rescue could never be recovered if we arrived too late.

“I’m sorry, Lept-kun.”

Annie apologized when I stepped out of the kitchen.

Was she apologizing for making me interrupt Lenis’s lesson?

Or perhaps she thought she was overworking me.

Either way, it wasn’t a problem.

The training was progressing smoothly, and I understood our priorities.

Besides, now that I was no longer human, working a little too hard wasn’t going to break me.

And once everything was over, proper payment would be waiting for me too.

“It’s fine. Your granddaughter is talented.”

So instead of asking what exactly she was apologizing for, I simply praised her granddaughter.

At those words, Annie smiled happily.

I took the marked map from her and activated Gate Magic toward the location she indicated.