After the group left Zhen Town, they decided to camp out for the first night.They could have easily reached the next town but the twins wanted to experience the joy of camping. Val slept in a cave most of the time, Cole slept in trenches, and Felicia decided she would take the carriage for herself.
And it was also due to the state Cole was currently in.
During the trip, his eyes were found looking into the distance. Even if Val made any sudden stops, he wouldn"t react and would stay completely still.
The others decided that it wouldn"t be a good thing if they were to bring Cole into a town like that.
Val had set fire to the pieces of firewood that Gemi and Mini had gathered. Felicia had chosen which dishes to reheat.
She had thought of cooking the boar that the twins had hunted since it was in their way of collecting firewood but decided to just store it for another day.
They then had some reheated Duck for dinner and none of them were sleepy yet so they decided to do some stargazing for a bit.
"I wonder if that chef has woken up yet."
Felicia ended up muttering out loud to herself. When she said that, Mini remembered something and went to ask Cole who"s eyes had cleared up a bit after eating the reheated duck. In fact, they seemed slightly livelier than before.
"By the way, speaking of that chef. What exactly did you do to him?"
"I used〈Influence〉to make the atmosphere more intense, just in case. And I ended up Devouring some of his apt.i.tude for cooking."
"I see..."
Mini said with some understanding. He just a.s.sumed that〈Influence〉was the skill he thought Cole had gained from Libra. The previous head had something similar after all.
But what Mini hadn"t expected would be that Cole would suddenly stand up and say with the hope and motivation a child in first grade who said they wanted to be XX career choice when they grew up.
"So I have hope now!"
Cole"s eyes matched the vibrancy and brightness of the stars glittering in the moonlit sky. It was the first time that any of the people present had seen his eyes filled with so much emotion.
"Hope? For what?"
"Cooking! My apt.i.tude for it was apparently a resounding〈FFF〉But with Devour, I can change my fate!"
Cole took another check at his apt.i.tude tab just to make sure he wasn"t dreaming while everyone stared at him with a weird gaze.
--------------------------
.
.
.
〈Cooking〉: FFF (UPDATED!)
► Your cooking sucks. But not as bad. Every single dish you make will still end up in failure but it won"t be as terrible as before. It can still kill people due to food poisoning, however.
.
.
.
--------------------------
Hearing such a thing, Val couldn"t help but intrude upon the conversation.
「What? But Cole, there"s no way you could be that bad?」
"Yeah, I"m not the greatest cook but my skill is good enough for day to day meals."
"I say I"m pretty good. It"s something that gets refined over time."
"It said nothing like that in your doc.u.mentaries."
Val had had discussions with Cole about the various ways to cook things and he had an innumerable amount of recipes stored in his head.
The twins had expected that any adult man would have some degree of skill. Even if it"s only to the extent of frying an egg or putting a piece of bread into a toaster. Or even just putting your favorite kind of spread on a piece of bread.
Felicia was the one who cooked all the time back in the〈Neutral Zone〉so she didn"t actually know Cole"s skill level but she had guessed it would be extremely high since he would have found a way to turn it into a weapon as well.
Faced with the disbelief at his horrendous cooking skill, Cole picked up the cleaned up pan and took a few pieces of meat from the boar that the twins accidentally hunted. Given by Felicia, of course.
He came to Felicia and asked for some standard spices and a few vegetables.
After that, he went to the preparation phase of the dish he was about to make. He had chopped all the things that needed to be chopped and mixed the things that needed to be mixed.
The way he did so showed his experience which intensified everyone"s doubt even further.
After everything was done, the five-man crowd felt their expectations rise a bit. They had already eaten but they weren"t sleepy in the slightest. They were told by Cole to not sit near him so they could only watch from afar.
The moment he put the meat on the pan that was, for your information, in no need of oil because it was that kind of pan. An explosion rang out and a pillar of smoke arose from where Cole was.
"What the..."
""NANI?!"
「Confused Dragon is confused!」
The gallery showed a variety of expressions and eventually, Cole"s figure emerged from the smoke with four plates with... something on them?
After he gave his prepared dish, he wiped his blackened face with a handkerchief he had always kept him on all times.
He then sat down and watched with no particular expectations at his judges. He already seemed satisfied with his accomplishment.
"It didn"t turn into an unrecognizable purple, poisonous monstrosity."
He would have broken into tears if he hadn"t entered the weird stunned and cloudy state from earlier.
"The fact that its original form was still retained has brought me so much happiness that you four couldn"t possibly hope to imagine."
「Nom... Nom... It... tastes poisonous.」
"...That is bad."
"...This sucks."
"No comment."
"Hey, at least you four lived to actually say those mean yet honest comments about the dish."
Val said while he continued to eat his share of Cole"s cooking. Gemi and Mini"s faces stayed sour and Felicia was able to keep a smile on her face and was able to finish the whole thing in a quick yet elegant manner.
The stars hadn"t faded the least bit from Cole"s eyes and his smile was as radiant as ever despite all their comments.
After somehow swallowing the piece of the discoloured wild boar... something. Or at least whatever it was supposed to be, Gemi clung onto her brother"s arm and faced with disgruntled eyes that spun in circles.
"Nii, my brain... Just cannot..."
"Mine doesn"t either."
「True. Cole here had performed all the prepping steps beautifully and wonderfully but when they hit the pan, it just...」
"He is truly a Weapon Master."
"Although that is clearly not a compliment, I do not care."
Gemi and Mini tried to use their enhanced brains and process why exactly such a result happened to Cole. Val was similarly confused but just accepted the result since he knew that it would be pointless to find a reason. Felicia tried to block the horrid result in front of her with a compliment but Cole took that as sarcasm.
It turned to be a peaceful and uneventful night after that.