CH 26

TLN: Chapter 23-25 are sub-story, retelling of the story so far from Alma's POV. They can be skipped per author's word so I'm skipping them for now in favor of progressing the main story. They will be done at a later date.

This chapter is a direct continuation of chapter 22.

Chak chak chak

Hello, good evening. It's time for today's cooking show.

Our menu for dinner tonight is katsudon. Absolutely not kattadon even if it's to celebrate our victory.

And today we have Alma Mama, Lunatiara-san as our guest star.

Or more like she offered to herself. Which is a big help honestly.

Having a beauty with a nice body as a support would have normally been quite a boon, but she's a married woman and her husband is watching behind us, I really shouldn't have any weird idea.

This person is the mother of 16 year old Alma, so I believe she should be in her 30s, and yet she looks like someone in her late 20s.

Do you age slower if you raise your level from a tender age or something?

<<Conjecture: She simply dresses to look young.>>

Oh okay.

...Let's stop probing this topic further. Would be scary if she picked it up.

Let's focus on the cooking, for starter, the preliminary work.

First I put prepared seaweed (or something that looks like it) from the water into the pot and take it off the flame just before it boils.

It's gonna take time if you don't prepare beforehand, so be careful here. You'd get a nice stock soup if you had it sit in water for about 30 minutes.

Throw katsuoboshi (or something*(abbreviated)) into the seaweed-less water. Let it boil and take it out.

I stealthily store the taken out seaweed into 'Item Screen'. This Screen is handy and all but it's gonna turn into a trash bin if I'm not careful, I gotta remember to regularly sort it out.

Then I put in soiso (soy sauce-like), sake, sugar and mirin-like made from sake while sampling.

Everybody has their preference, and it's mine this time. Judging from their reaction to karaage last time, it should do well.

Once I'm done with the flavoring stock soup, I proceed with the ingredients.

I peel (slice) Rock Onion's skin, or more like husk and mince it.

Alma Mama helped with the slicing, at a tremendous speed, she was done with it as I stared in wonder.

I was gobsmacked. Alma Mama had a smug look with her whole body. So this is the power of Cooking Skill... No that's probably not all, her high stats must have contributed too. Also, another form of experience different from Skill exp from cooking everyday or something.

For the pork, I sliced it up shallowly and rubbed salt and pepper on it.

Pepper is even pricier than sugar at 3000 en per small bottle. My sense of value is going wild.

I smear the pork cutlets in flour, drop them on powdered flour, seep them in egg and cover them in bread crumbs.

I made the crumbs from cutting up bread, drying and crushing it.

It turned out too hard I had a hard time breaking it down, but Alma Mama easily did it by gripping it in her hand. Gotta take care not to make this person angry. Scary.

I threw the pork cutlets into heated oil. I flipped them over and took them off the flame after five minutes.

On the drying rack, I sliced the surface every 2 cm.