CH 62

The two of us finished eating lunch together, so we sat around leisurely and calmly after.

“Here,” I said. “Have some tea.”

“Thank you,” Mikoto said.

I used heat magic to warm up the water in the bottle I brought with me, and when I brewed the tea, Mikoto took it and drank it…

“Hot…! What is this?! Why is this water so hot even though you haven’t boiled it yet?!” Mikoto yelled.

I got scolded…….

No, maybe she’s not angry, but it sounds like she’s angry. The truth is that she was surprised at how hot it was, but she probably sounded angry because of her rough speech manner or her usual hostile tone of voice.

“Is it too hot?” I asked. “Shall I cool it down a little? … Here, try it.”

It’s easy to understand if heat magic is a technique that moves heat energy freely. So of course, it can not only heat up but also take away heat. It was too hot for Mikoto, so I let it cool down a bit.

“Thank you… wait, that’s not right!” Mikoto yelled. “Why are you offering me boiling water even though you haven’t boiled it?! And what was that just now?”

Even though I handed her a cooled version, she continued to snap at me without hesitation. The tea is about to spill, so I want her to calm down a little more.

Was it like Adele, the daughter of Viscount Alco? The juice Adele poured on me was not cold, but it wasn’t hot, but the tea Mikoto was holding was hot. As expected, I would like to ask her to refrain from dumping hot tea on me.

“First of all, calm down, Mikoto. The tea’s about to spill,” I said. “And about what you’re asking? Look at this.”

I use heat magic to gather more warmth from the surroundings into the water bottle. In no time, steam rose as the water boiled.

“Wha…!” Mikoto cried. “What is this!? What’s going on!? Was that magic just now?”

“Yes, it was?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

I was told not to show too much of my strange magic because it seems to be a fairly weak thing. I accidentally used it in front of Mikoto, but I have to boil water to drink tea. Heat magic is quicker than starting a fire here.

“I can’t believe that someone who can use status enhancement magic can also use elemental magic…” Mikoto said. “And why is the water boiling even though there’s no fire…? I’ve never seen magic like this before…”

Mikoto is mumbling, but let’s not answer too much. If you say something unnecessary, you’ll be digging your own grave.

“That’s right! How do you know about rice and rice balls, too?!” Mikoto said. “Isn’t that strange!?”

Ah… it seems she remembered. I can’t say it’s because I was Japanese in my previous life and ate it as a staple food.

“That aside, Mikoto, why are you so confused even though you made that boxed lunch?” I said.

“Huh?! No… uh… that’s…” Mikoto said.

Oh? Apparently, this is a weak point. Hearing that counter, Mikoto mumbled and her eyes swam. It seems that there is something dark behind it.

“You did make that boxed lunch, didn’t you?” I asked. “So why are you so confused about it…?”

“No! No, that’s not it! I was actually making one with the intention of giving it to you… but I messed it up…” Mikoto said.

And then she brought out the other packages she was carrying. Something smells a little burnt. It smells like burnt soy sauce, like when boiled food dries out and burns.

“This is……” I said.

When I opened the package she offered me, there was a charred boiled fish dish. I don’t know what kind of fish it is. There is no similar fish that I saw in Japan. It may be a fish unique to this world, or it may have existed on Earth but due to my lack of knowledge, I don’t know about it.

That’s not the problem. It definitely smells like soy sauce. It must have been simmered in a soy sauce-based broth. It’s burnt, but I’ll break it down a little and eat it.

“Ah…! You shouldn’t be eating that failure…” Mikoto said.

“So-Soy sauce~~~~!” I cried. “It’s definitely soy sauce…!”

Mikoto is saying something, but I can’t afford to listen. I’m reuniting with many things I’ve been looking for in the 13 years since I came to this world. It was more of an emotional high than anything else before.

“Is it safe to eat something that’s burnt like that?” Mikoto asked, worried.

Well, it definitely tastes bad. You can imagine something like a stew that boils dry and then sticks to the bottom of the pot, it’s unlike delicious okoge, the crispy burnt bottom of a pot of rice. It is edible but not delicious. However, it is more important that there’s soy sauce than its flavor.

I thought it would be difficult just to obtain soybeans, but there are soybeans that have already been processed into soy sauce!

“It’s okay if it’s burnt, but… this fish smells a little too fishy… I think it’s because you haven’t prepared it properly,” I said.

“Huh? Huh? What should I do, then?” Mikoto said.

Mikoto’s boiled fish is not only burnt but it’s got an unpleasant fishy odor. I suspected it was because it was boiled without proper preparation.

The simplest and most profound way to get rid of the fishy smell (in my opinion) is to sprinkle salt on it. When salt is sprinkled on fish, moisture comes out from the inside due to the difference in osmotic pressure. Then, the cause of the unpleasant odor comes out with the water, which reduces the overall smell.

However, the problem is that if you don’t wipe off the resulting water and remove the salt in an appropriate amount of time, even the umami flavor will seep out and it won’t taste good. Wiping off the moisture properly is important because that water is mixed with the cause of the odor, if you don’t remove it completely, the fishy smell remains. And if you don’t wipe it off before the umami flavor seeps out, it won’t taste good. This timing and process are difficult to get right.

In Japan, depending on the type of fish and food, if you look it up, you’ll be able to easily find out how long it should take, but that’s not the case here. And the target is just a guideline, not absolute numbers. I think it’s hard to learn this. That’s why I said that it seems simple, but it’s a profound process.

Another thing that comes to mind is soaking in milk or yogurt. Or soaking in vinegar. Soak it in alcohol. Boil with ginger. I wonder if those methods are around?

Even though I used to cook for myself, I can’t do such a full-fledged meal, and I didn’t study by reading cookbooks. I don’t know why it should be done that way, or whether this processing method is suitable for this dish or that processing method is suitable for that dish. I just did a little research and cooked it that way.

Still, I tried to teach Mikoto how to cook them. She will fail, but you will never succeed unless you try. If everything goes well all of a sudden, no one will have such a hard time.

“I see, so that’s how it was…” Mikoto said. “That smell didn’t go away no matter how long it took… I thought it was different from the food everyone else was making, so I kept cooking it for a long time, and before I knew it, it was burning…”

I understand……. did she overcook it because she thought the smell would go away if she simmered it more?

“I don’t think it will work right away just because you tried the method I just explained, but I have to try various things and get used to it yourself,” I said.

“Yeah…” Mikoto said. “I thought it would be easy to cook fish… but it wasn’t that easy. I didn’t know that at all. What should I do, I thought then? … I thought I could make it quickly, so I just grabbed rice and balled it up…”

Aah… so she was so upset because she only made rice balls that seemed to be the easiest to make, just in time, unlike my plan. For me, it was an irreplaceable feast, but if I had asked her to exchange boxed lunches and she brought only rice balls, I’d probably gotten frustrated.

“Don’t be so depressed,” I said. “I under you tried hard to make it, Mikoto. I’m not a great cook myself… eat this and cheer yourself up.”

“Thank you……” Mikoto said.

She takes what I offer her. She’s still a little shy, but she looks like some kind of small animal and it’s cute.

“Hey, wait a minute! What is this!? Sweet! Delicious! Hey! What is this!?” Mikoto cried.

“Sugar rusks?” I said.

I also made sugar rusk-like snacks for tea. It’s easy to prepare by just cutting stale bread and baking it with butter and sugar. It may be different from the real modern rusks, but when I was on Earth, I looked it up on the internet to find out how to make the bread crusts delicious. Now that we have butter and sugar, I can recreate snacks like this.

“What was I asking again?” Mikoto said. “Oh right, why do you know rice and rice balls? You said soy sauce, too, right? You know soy sauce, right? Hey? Why is that?

Oh no… the subject suddenly came back. Mikoto is interesting because the topic keeps changing, but it’s hard to keep up with her. And then he went back to interrogating me.

While talking with Mikoto while deceiving her appropriately, I also gathered information about the rice and soybeans Mikoto showed me.

I was able to spend a meaningful time while dodging Mikoto’s interrogation. There is also some good news for me. Mikoto’s hometown seems to have rice and soybeans. If there is soy sauce, there may be miso as well. I became interested in Mikoto’s hometown in various ways. I would love to go there if possible.

However, I am faintly aware that it will not be that simple. I asked Victoria to search everywhere, but I couldn’t find those ingredients. Of course, it is possible that the order was not conveyed well to Victoria and she overlooked the ones that did exist. It would be difficult to find something that was just described in words because I can’t show her the actual thing.

However, it’s easy to see that it’s strange without even thinking about it, they’re things that even Kruck Trading Firm can’t find despite their best efforts.

Then there is Mikoto. Mikoto seemed to have never cooked properly. Besides, stories about servants and maids sometimes come up in our chat. It’s easy to misunderstand her with the way she talks, but Mikoto must have been raised in a very good family.

Well, it’s fine…. there’s nothing good for me if I dig deep into it. I’m having a good time chatting with Mikoto now. I can speak in a casual manner, so I don’t have to speak hard like a young lady as I did with Alexandra. In that sense, it feels like a friend who can be more intimate with me than I was with Alexandra.

Mikoto feels like a female Japanese student from Earth, so I can’t help but relax. When I’m talking to Mikoto, I tend to talk naturally. It’s nice and easy not to have to act like a noble lady.

…… Oops, this is not the time to think about Mikoto. There is so much to do and so much to think about.

If I don’t improve my buff magic first, I don’t know when my mother will kill me. The buff magic that I made myself is more effective than the so-called boosting that the knights seem to use. But compared to my mother’s buff magic, the effect is low.

Making it effective is easy. I just need to use more magical power to activate bigger spells. The problem is that the body cannot withstand its effects.

Buff magic is, so to speak, a force multiplier. It’s a product of physical ability and buff magic, so if you increase the intensity of buff magic, your physical abilities will naturally jump. However, the recoil that comes back to the body is also that large, so it can’t be used frequently.

Basically, it would be the best path to raise the base value of the force to be multiplied, that is, raising my natural physical abilities. But it takes time to build up my body, and I’m still growing, so I can’t do unreasonable training. I’ve heard that it’s not good to put on too much muscle from a very young age. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.

Anyway, it’s not something that can be done overnight, so it’s necessary to continue to train, but it doesn’t have a dramatic effect immediately. What to do then?

In terms of physical ability alone, my mother shouldn’t have that amazing physical ability like a superhero. It’s true that she’s trained so much that she’s much more amazing than a normal person, but she’s not so abnormal as to be called a superhuman. In that case, the multiplicative factor of her buff is huge, so you could say she can demonstrate that much ability.

However, as mentioned above, if you just increase the multiplication, it’s simple, but it doesn’t last long. There must be some secret. During training, I don’t have time to look at the buff magic very carefully, and my mother’s buff magic is too quick in its activation, so I don’t really understand it. I can only imagine it. I can’t imitate the formula, but it might be possible to create a similar effect.

Perhaps the decisive difference between my buff magic and my mother’s buff magic is whether or not there is a magical formula to protect the physical body.

My buff magic is simply Physical Ability x Buff Spell to raise my ability. Compared to that, my mother’s buff magic probably has the effect of protecting the body there. Therefore, even if the multiplication factor is huge, the physical body can withstand it.

Easy to say but not so easy to do. Naturally, I thought about that when creating buff magic. However, I didn’t know how to protect my body, so I couldn’t incorporate it into the technique. I thought it was impossible and gave up, but it’s not a spell that’s impossible as long as there are people who could use it practically. So all you have to do is think about it and make it.

“That way… with that… and then…”

I put together a formula that I could think of. I just have to try different things.

“Buff magic……. O-OOOWWWW! YEE-OW-OW-OW-OW-OW…! YOW…!”

The buff magic I tried to make failed. The muscle in my left arm wriggled and jumped like it was independent of me, it was disgusting to watch, and it hurt a lot. It’s not like a pulled muscle or cramps.

“Huh… it won’t be so easy after all, huh…?”

Until I fell asleep that day, I repeated trial and error with various forms of buff magic.