I Decided To Cook Because The Losing Potion Was Soy Sauce

「You need salt? I’ll bring some over next time for you . You can write down a list of things you need, and I’ll bring-… wait, can you write?」

Of course I could, if we were talking about j.a.panese .

「I only know how to write the language we use in my hometown . 」

「Well, that should be fine then . Write it down for me later . 」

Eh?
Did Rofas-san know to read j.a.panese?

Later that night, I returned to my room and wrote「塩」on a piece of paper . Wait, maybe n.o.body here could read kanji .

I then wrote 「しお、シオ, shio」next to the kanji . I also wrote 「solt」just in case . Unfortunately, that was the limit of my language knowledge .  (*1)

In the next morning, I woke up a little earlier than usual to start cooking some rice .

I washed the rice that was polished yesterday, and then began cooking on the kamado stove .

I thinly sliced the boar meat, and then sliced the onion to a similar size .
As I worried about whether the sweetness might be too overpowering, I poured cooking sake, soy sauce, and some good potion over the onion and meat .

I was trying to make shogayaki (*2), but instead of real ginger, I was using potions that tasted like ginger ale…

I grilled the meat and onion with the mixture, and then I taste-tested some of the sauce .

Fuoh!
It was fine .

I managed to make some delicious shogayaki . Phew . I felt that this dish wasn’t good as a breakfast dish, but that was okay, because I planned to use these for pork-wrapped onigiri for lunch .

Now, I had to make breakfast, but there were no eggs nor any breakfast-like ingredients .

I know, I should write down eggs on the to-buy list . Ah, but wouldn’t it be hard to keep eggs and such since they didn’t last for long without refrigeration? What if I asked for a chicken? Would we be allowed to keep chickens?

I guess milk would be difficult for the same reason . Could we keep cows too then?
…No, that might be too difficult . Hmm, if only we had a fridge or freezer .

Hm? Wait a second .

The stove top here used a fire magic stone, and that was something you could only find in a fantasy world . In that case, it wouldn’t be strange to a.s.sume there were storages that used an ice magic stone to keep cold, then .

「Good morning, Yuuri-san . You’re up early today . I’ll help you with the cooking . 」

「Ah, Bryce-kun, good morning, and thank you . Can you set the plates and forks for me? Also, there’s something I wanted to ask you . 」

Bryce-kun looked my way as he set up the table .

「What is it?」

「Um, you know how there are fire magic stones, right? Are there ice magic stones, or something similar that could cool things down?」

Bryce-kun’s pretty face looked down slightly .

「I’m sorry, but I don’t think ice magic stones exist . I am pretty certain that there are only fire and water magic stones . 」

I see, that’s too bad . I guessed that meant there was nothing like a fridge in this world…
I was a bit disappointed .

「Um, Yuuri-san… There aren’t ice magic stones, but…」

Bryce-kun saw how dejected I looked and in what seemed to be an attempt to cheer me up, held out a cup of water .

「I only got to level 10 recently, so my skills are not that good, but…」

Hm?

「【Freeze: water, lower your temperature and form ice before me . 】」

Uwah!
The water in the wooden cup rapidly froze over .

「Bryce-kun, that’s amazing! Is this magic?」

I couldn’t hide my excitement seeing magic for the first time .

I grabbed onto Bryce-kun’s hands that were holding onto the cup .

「I’m so glad . This is the first time I have ever cast magic . This is a special moment for me, seeing how happy my magic has made you . 」

「Wait, Bryce, did you just use magic?」

Rofas-san had come into the kitchen without us realizing, and he gazed down at the cup of ice .

「Is this your magic? That’s impossible… You just turned level 10, don’t you have to learn how to utilize your mana?  There’s no way you can just use magic so suddenly . 」

「When I went back to my room last night, I did some practicing . 」

Rofas-san held his head in confusion .

「No, no, hold on . It usually takes one month for someone to learn how to use simple spells, you know?」

「I studied spell casting and mana manipulation through books before I turned level 10 . 」

Upon hearing that, Rofas-san immediately had a distant look on his face, as though he was saying,「I don’t read books and have trouble listening to other people’s instructions, so it took me three months to learn how to use magic, with half of it being self-studying…」

Author’s Notes:

There’s no need to change 「solt」to 「salt」 .

(*1) Yuuri first writes “salt” in kanji, then in hiragana, katakana, and romaji . Then finally, she wrote it in English but spelled it incorrectly . The author’s note suggested that it was an unintentional spelling mistake but decided to keep it anyway .

(*2) Shogayaki is grilled ginger pork . It is quite tasty .