*Creak*
The wooden door makes a sound like it hasn"t been used for a long time..
"I"m home!(Tadaima)"
I"m greeted with silence..
That"s right..
Master"s not here anymore..
I might have said that out of habit..
Yeah, If I remember correctly, It was when I was usually coming home from hunting demonic beasts for its meat..
{"I"m home old man!"
"Ah, did you manage to catch even one [Demon Boar] today?"
"Of course, I"m counting on you for dinner old man!"
"Sure, sure..just leave it there and go wash up while I prepare the meal.."
"Alright"
"Oh, and Orion.."
"Yeah?"
"Welcome back(Okaeri)"}
And he"d have that goofy grin on his face whenever he said that..
Honestly, it was irritating..
But, to think I"ll never go back to those days..
*Gururururu*
Okay, okay already..
Well, since I"m this hungry..
I ain"t holding back on the ingredients!
I"m gonna make myself a feast!
Hmm? What am I talking about?
No, I mean I"m going to cook?
Unbelievable? Aren"t I a NEET? Weren"t I a lazy free-loader?
Honestly, I can cook you know? I think you"re getting meaner every time..
I mean I watched Master cook these dishes I"ve never even tasted before..
So it"s a given that I would be interested in learning how to do it myself..
Over the years, he trained me not just in fighting, but also the ways to survive..
And one of those things was cooking..
No, I still can"t cook as well as him you know?
But I can puff out my chest with the skill level I have..
And I will put even more effort in the future to surpa.s.s Master"s cooking..
And so, I took out all the ingredients we had on stock..
I mean, I can always hunt some more later..
Well, it is now noon..
I think I have all of it but just to be sure, I"ll check..
I take into account the 100kg of [Demon Boar Meat], A bag of salt and pepper, Herbs and spices, Master"s secret marinade and glaze, Vegetable oil, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and some aged wine that Master used to use when cooking every meal.. I think it"s like cooking sake if I compared it to j.a.pan standards..
And the vegetables here are not really called that here, I just name it that because it"s easier for me to differentiate between them, and since they taste almost the same, there"s barely any difference..
Well, let"s start preparing..
First I take out a giant pot and fill it with water from the water crystal and boil it using the "improvised cooking stove" I made by using metal and fire crystals with charcoal..
While I"m doing that, I cut the potatoes, carrots and other various veggies into thin slices and put them inside the pot..
I season it lightly and then I move on to the meat..
What I"m going to make is my "Steak and Soup Set"..
Yes, I"m not good at names, sue me..
But it"s delicious, you know?
I got praised by Master when he tasted it..
So I think that"s good..
Anyway, I cut a slab of meat and render the fat off carefully..
I finished it in 5 seconds..
What, a practiced hand moves well in the kitchen..
After that, I slice the meat into bite-sized pieces and rub various spices on my hands..
I make them absorb the various flavors by coating them in the spices while holding it in my hands..
Carefully molding them into raw pieces of coated meat..
When I finish, I place them into the soup broth to make a kind of pork-flavored soup..
I season the soup lightly when I"m done and leave the lid on the pot to avoid it getting cold..
Now, moving on to the main dish..
I use a larger knife to fully cut the meat into steak sizes..
And I render the fat in a skillful manner taking all the fat away into preservation to make lard in the future..
After they were spread out on the table, I do the same thing by coating each in various flavorings and spices..
But this time, I add the glaze and marmalade coating in order to give a certain sweetness to it..
It was an arduous task since there was so much to season..
But I know this will all pay off soon..
I begin taking out the pans and heat them..
I then take out the cooking wine and oil and spread it on each pan and add a stick of b.u.t.ter around them..
After I determined it was at the right state for cooking..
I place 6 steaks into each of the 6 pans..
I can hear the sizzling sounds of juicy meat being in contact with a low flame..
*Gurururururururururu*
*Gulp*
Be patient, me..
I know I"m hungry and this even further stimulates my appet.i.te..
So I must control myself even though I know I haven"t eaten for days according to my stomach..
And by the time I noticed it, the sun was going down..
Well, I guess it"s gonna be dinner then..
I then go back to concentrating on the meat..
While it absorbs the flavors, I carefully and seriously watch if the other side is cooked already or not..
I mean my eyeb.a.l.l.s are literally moving to each pan at breakneck speeds..
I"m amazed how hunger can force you to do crazy things..
After one side is cooked at the optimal temperature, I flip it over to the other side..
When it"s all cooked, I put them on plates at my sides..
I repeated this action again and again until..
"Huh?"
I can feel presences..
They seem to be demonic beasts..
But this kind of power is greater than average..
And these numbers...
10..40, no..70 demonic beasts are headed this way with something leading them..
But why here?
And that"s when I noticed..
The window"s open..
And the steam from the soup and steaks are moving outside..
Oh No..
Have they been attracted by the smell?
No matter, I"ll deal with them quickly..
I won"t let them even get a scratch on this house..
This is where my last years with Master were spent..
Besides, I think this magic power might be familiar..
As I was driven with emotion, I sprinted outside to see who it was..
"So it was you.."
There I see shrouded in darkness and illuminated by the moonlight..
A demonic beast army consisting of [Demon Trolls], [Demon Hobgoblin Raiders], [Demon Spiders], [Demon Wolf Riders], [Demon Bears], [Demon Orcs], and [Demon Goblins]..
And the one in front riding the biggest [Demon Wolf] and the one leading this army..
"The Ogre Lord"
Yes, this guy, an annoying monster who will not die..
The Ogre Lord is one who keeps gathering demonic beasts together in a horde and take over territories..
But this guy in particular loves to keep collecting minions..
So he might be a variant..
I call this guy, "The Coward Ogre Lord"..
Since every time we meet, I decimate his entire team and then, instead of fighting to the last breath..
Once he realizes he can"t win, he uses the others as a meat shield and uses some kind of skill to get away..
And I didn"t pursue him that much before, since there was no point..
Still, why have they come this far to look for food?
Wasn"t their territory near Rouzier Forest?
Oh wait..
Even still, They had the guts to pursue their desires to the lengths of invading our home..
This time, I won"t let a single one escape..
I won"t show them any mercy..
Wipe those stupid grins off those ugly faces of yours..
It"s time to begin the slaughter..
*ROAR*
The Ogre Lord signals to the others to attack and they all run in this direction..
"Let"s go..[Aura of Wrath]"
..
.....
.................
"Phew.."
I clap my hands together in relief..
I am now standing in the center of a ma.s.sacre..
Bodies strewn across the ground, blood decorating the battlefield, severed limbs and heads with mouths agape..
It"s practically a work of art..
"That took longer than I thought"
I say while staring at the decapitated head of the "Ogre Lord"
I was originally going to use my sword techniques to kill most of them in one blow..
But it didn"t turn out that way..
Turns out the skill I invoked, [Aura of Wrath] takes most of your consciousness during battle..
I barely kept myself awake through all that..
Instead of ending their misery early by slicing vital points, my body moved on it"s own..
And started eviscerating limbs and turning most of them into limbless stumps..
Slicing their skin only and making them feel physical pain..
And then killing their brethren in front of them and bathing them in their own blood..
And the most cruel of all, I made them stay forcibly conscious so that they can see the scene of h.e.l.l..
And then finished them all off with a whirlwind of slashes to the neck..
Am I a s.a.d.i.s.t when I use this skill?
Dangerous, dangerous..
I nearly, voluntarily vomited back there..
But now that I think about it..
They were just looking for food and the smell led them here since the forest was destroyed..
Hmm? Wait, food?
Then it hit me like a lightning bolt..
"Oh no,,
No, no, no.."
I run with the speed of breaking the sound barrier on my way to the cabin..
And to be met with a cruel fate..
"No way, this can"t be happening.."
Everything"s over..
I don"t want to look at this..
The scene of fire..
It turns out the oil spurted of the pan into a puddle near the stove and the flame sparks from the charcoal kept flickering and somehow lit the spilled oil on fire, turning the already cooked meat into charcoal themselves..
And the ones which were currently being cooked?
Same result..
I hurriedly check the soup if it was okay..
I turn my head and see that the lid is gone and there is nothing in the pan..
No way, how long did I leave it boiling..
It must have evaporated by now..
But how the heck does meat evaporate?
*Gururururururururururururururururururururu*
Is this some cruel, sick joke?
Why must the world punish the food, they haven"t done anything wrong..
Take me instead..
I spent a whole half-hour sprawled across the floor wallowing in self-pity and contemplating life..
"Well, I can"t do anything about it now.. Let"s find something else to eat.."
I stand up and forget this ever happened..
"Oh right.. There is no ingredients left.."
Ah, this is bad.. my head hurts.. and more importantly..
*Gurururururururururururururururururururururururururururururururu*
Ah, I have to eat that don"t I?
I accept the harsh reality begrudgingly and soon after I walked outside..
That night, I ate grilled [Demon Wolf Meat] which was of course, horrible..
It was bland, had a rubbery texture and was hard to chew..
But at least my stomach was filled..
After that, I went to sleep and had a nightmare about me at the funeral for the meal I never even got to eat..
I woke up sweating bullets, and then went back to sleep..
..
......
.........................
The next morning, I woke up and rolled around my bed to get pumped for the new day..
After that, I did my early morning routine..
I ran 100 km around the area, did 1000 pushups, situps, and lifts, and practiced my swordsmanship for an hour..
Yes, it might sound harsh but I"m used to it..
But of course, at first, I thought it was impossible..
And then, I got whipped into shape by my s.a.d.i.s.tic Master..
And through the years, I gradually got used to it..
After I was done, I drank lots of cool water from a water crystal to re-hydrate myself..
I made some breakfast from the leftover meat..
After I ate, I washed the dishes and sat on the couch..
I was now thinking what my next move was..
Since usually, after I get done with breakfast..
I get started with whatever random training schedule that Master cooked up each day..
But now that he"s not here..
I think it"s time to move on..
So, with that said, I want to leave the house to travel and go on an adventure..
Yeah, I want to travel to all the continents and meet friends along the way..
And have adventures and party battles with monsters.. Yeah, let"s do that..
This is a fantasy world after all..
Oh, and also I have to do something about the coming war and stuff..
Somewhere a tsukkomi was made about how he only thought of the G.o.d"s war as something trivial by a certain G.o.d looking into his daily life, but that"s for another time..
I wonder how Kate-nee chan and Derek-tousan are doing right now?
I hope we meet again someday..
After I made my decision, I packed up all the things I needed..
Clothes made out of [Demon Spider Silk], Provisions for a month, Cooking Utensils, Element Crystals for Daily Use, Sleeping Bag, Tent, Beast Materials from Demonic Beasts, and Travelling Tools..
I put them all inside my [Aura Pocket] and went out of my room..
[Aura Pocket] is a skill I developed by learning [Spatial Magic] from Master..
He showed me his [s.p.a.ce Dimension] and I adapted it into an aura skill..
Based on my experiments, it currently has no limits as long as I hold the item in my hand and put it into my pocket..
Yes, I don"t know why I designed it like that in the first place either..
Since I was leaving, I had to pay my respects to Master..
But I don"t have anything to use to remember him..
Ah, there might be something in his room that relates to him..
He never lets me into his room for some reason but today it"s important..
I enter through the door and find a simple bed and a lampshade on top of a drawer..
There"s not much here..
Who knew Master liked simplicity considering he was a former Dragon King..
I open the only thing that can be considered somewhere you keep things, the drawer..
I find a photograph taken using [Light Magic] encased in a frame..
It seems to be Master in his younger days with a woman with golden hair and they are both seem happy..
This must have been his late wife..
I place it on top of the drawer and offer a prayer..
After I was done, I was about to close the drawer when I noticed something else..
An enclosed red envelope..
Ent.i.tled, To My Precocious Disciple..
It must be for me..
No, I"m not conceited..
I open the envelope and find a letter a addressed to me..
I knew it..
"Dear Orion,