Chapter 74: Chapter 69 – A Vampire is a Better Cook Than You

With our confirmations in order, it was probably best to move on and go our separate ways.

Fixing up my outfit, I turned my attention back to my new familiar.

"Alright, looks like everything went well. Now then..."

*Gurgle*

Sarah put her hands on her belly, but rather than be embarrassed by the noise it made, she just looked depressed.

"...Are you hungry?"

"I am. The food in this world is all pretty terrible though, so I'm always hungry."

That explained the look she had on her face. Or rather did that mean she skipped out on meals a lot? Maybe that was connected to how sunken her cheeks were?

"*sigh* Well, I guess I can make you something if you want."

"I'll take it if you're offering."

The way she despondently answered made me want to take back my words, but you can't unring a bell, so I just swallowed my complaints.

Aside from that, since there was a good chance that we would be forced to have more dealings with each other in the future, it was probably best to at least make a reasonable attempt to get onto her good side. If I could make her feel like she owed me on top of that, all the better.

As long as she didn't become obsessive like Claret. I couldn't handle a second like that.

"Lets go back to the fountain room first."

While I could theoretically cook anywhere, there was a distinct lack of freely available water in the middle of a dungeon floor, so we quickly made our way back to one after pulling out her sword from a nearly bisected tree. Thankfully that woman didn't have any trouble keeping up a brisk pace that would've put Usain Bolt to shame and we quickly arrived at our destination before I removed my bag to take out some ingredients.

"So do you have any requests?"

"Well, I doubt you can make it with how shitty this world is, but..."

The way she worded her sentence made me wonder if she was trying some sort of unsubtle psychological warfare on me, or was just plain bad at being pleasant.

"I'd love it if you can make schteev. My dad use to make it all the time."

"Never heard of it. What is it made from?"

"*sigh* Well, it's a soup mainly made from beetroots, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onion and tomatoes. My dad liked to put in slices of beef and parsley into it as well. It was soooooo good, how it warmed you up and filled your belly, and I couldn't get enough of that sour flavour! Ah, just thinking about it..."

"Okay, okay, I think I got it."

While the name was different, the food she described sounded similar to a dish I had once read up on, but never actually made: borscht. I could vaguely remember how it was made as well, though only just.

I arbitrarily removed the ingredients Sarah had mentioned, along with a steak of obsidian bear meat I had picked up earlier in the dungeon. I didn't know how it tastes, but it was probably close enough to beef. At the very least, there was no way I could recreate the food she had in her memories that closely, so such a difference wouldn't matter much.

Dicing up an onion while heating a large pot, I threw the pieces inside with some oil to let it fry for a bit while I worked on the rest of the ingredients. Next went the thinly sliced bear meat until it got a nice layer of browning on each side before I dumped some water into the pot. I brought that to a simmer and then threw in the rest of the vegetables, then a bit more water to cover it.

Raising the magical flame further, I slowly stirred the contents with telekinesis as I casually watched the pot, occasionally removing the scum off of the top.

As the scent of the cooking food slowly wafted, Sarah's complete disinterest slowly changed as she sniffed the air like an animal. Step by step she moved closer to the pot until her face was over it, and I started to worry that the drool dripping down her chin would fall into the pot.

Doing my best to work around her big-headed obstruction, I added some salt and pepper, along with some arbitrary herbs crushed between my palms.

Very soon, the soup was done. There were a bunch more things I wanted to do to get it into a better state, but those would've taken a few hours to do. Between the immediacy of the need for the along due to my already hungry recipient with the fact that I didn't want to actually put that much effort into this woman's meal stopped me from actually bothering to do so.

The motives being balanced at about 10/90.

After shooing Sarah from the pot and arbitrarily telekinesising over some of the soup into a hastily made stone bowl, I handed the food over to her.

It took me a few second to realize I hadn't given her any utensils to eat with, but by then, she had already tipped the bowl over and started pouring its contents into her gaping maw.

"*fuha fuha!* Ah, it's so good! It's nothing like the crap the stores sell in the city!"

In between puffs of breath to cool down the solids in her mouth, Sarah gave me some exaggerated compliments. Soon enough, she held the bowl out to me and asked for seconds.

With a sigh, I refilled her bowl before she went back to stuffing her face with the bright red soup. This cycle repeated until half the pot was emptied and the woman was laying on the ground rubbing her belly. Even though her armour, I could see it bulging a bit.

"It's not quite how dad used to make it..."

"Of course it isn't. I just threw everything into a pot and let it cook for a bit. There's no way it would be as good as something someone made all their life, let alone similar to it."

It was a little uncharacteristic of me, but I couldn't help but interrupt and snap at her. For some reason, just watching her enjoy that meal annoyed me. Most likely, the way we met had left a sour enough impression on me that I couldn't help but let it bleed into my actions now that she wasn't a clear enemy anymore.

"No, but, but it was really good. Way better than anything I could do. It's true dad made it for as long as I could remember. He said it was a family recipe, but you got it closer than I ever could without even had tasted it."

"It's by chance. I just happened to know a similar recipe, that's all."

(I hadn't even had a chance to try borscht out in my previous life, and now I'll never know what it even tastes like.)

Going though all the effort of researching a dish that I had grown interested in after showing up in a show I had seen, only to have never actually had tried it after slacking on making it in my previous life felt like a petty, yet real regret.

But after a few seconds, I blinked and realized what I had just thought to myself. Maybe it wasn't that Sarah had left a bad enough impression on me to sour our relationship for the foreseeable future, but I was just feeling jealous watching her enjoy the thing that I had looked forward to having in my previous life. Something that I couldn't experience now with my new body.

Of all the disadvantages to my vampiric body, this was an unexpectedly massive one. Sure, it wasn't potentially fatal, but it was easy to get caught up in the trap of being envious of something that others could enjoy but I couldn't.

It was possible that this was the very reason why I found myself making food for others so much. It was some unconscious attempt to get back a part of what I had lost since my reincarnation, as vain as it was. Maybe it would've been one thing if I didn't know how good normal food could taste, but I did, and it made it hard not to feel envious of people who could enjoy the food I made, and thus I had been trying to recapture a portion of that.

I felt like I could understand how my predecessor felt when she grew obsessed over the envy of the other races raising children and having a family.

Thankfully I didn't share that obsession, but I would probably have to take care and not let food become my own obsession.

"Anyways, I'm going now. Bye."

Bringing my thoughts back to the occasion, I put away my things, leaving the pot and bowl Sarah had used, and shouldered my bag before turning to leave the fountain room.

"Wait!"

"You can have the pot, if that's what you want to ask."

It wasn't like I could enjoy it after all.

"Thank you! No, I mean, that's not it!"

The woman's sudden movement towards me had me raise my claws as I turned, but I managed to catch myself to observe her actions instead. Claret quickly jerked towards her as well, but stopped when I gave her a small shake of the head.

In the end, my sudden sense of crisis was unwarranted as she only crawled on her hands and knees to me to grab the hem of my robes. I was getting a bad feeling from the look she was giving me. Too much puppy dog eyes and too little offerings.

"I, I don't have anywhere to go!"

"Don't you have a place here to sleep?"

"I do, but..."

"If it's money, don't you already have a way to earn it here? The fact that you're on this floor means that you don't have trouble earning money by selling the materials here, right?"

"Yea, but..."

Not really interested in what she had to say at this point, I turned to leave again, wherein she promptly threw her arms around my legs, preventing me from taking a step. From the corner of my eye, Claret was looking particularly annoyed and was getting dangerously close to lashing out at Sarah.

"Look, what is it that you want? I'm sure that you don't want to hang around someone you were just trying to kill, right?"

"Well..."

The way she let go and started to fidget in turn once again gave me a bad feeling and made me nervous.

"Can I go with you?"

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(Seriously?)

"Why?"

"Well......the schteev you made was amazing."

I felt like a person who accidentally tamed a wild animal with food and was stuck with trying to figure out how to deal with the animal who wanted to come with them.

"You can make it yourself. I'll write the recipe for you."

"No, but..."

"It's not hard to make, and you can take your time to experiment."

"..."

"Here, this is fine, right?"

I quickly raised some stone from the floor and moulded it into a tablet with the recipe etched into its surface before handing it over to the woman.

"..."

She took it, but put on a pensive expression as she looked at the tablet.

The bad feeling I had wasn't going away, and at the same time, I wasn't sure that this would be enough to make her go do something else.

"Hey, what is it you want to do anyways?"

"Umm, what do you mean?"

"Your goal in life, or whatever. If you're not going to do what those guys told you to do, what are you planning on doing then? What kind of life do you want to have for yourself?"

It wasn't like I was a good person to talk about this sort of thing, as I didn't really have much of a personal objective for my life overall, just some short term goals, but I needed something to get Sarah's mind off of trying to follow me.

"I, I don't really have anything I suppose?"

"Well, what sort of thing do you enjoy? Have you found anything you like in this world?"

"..."

It was clear I wasn't getting anywhere from this line of talk. I needed to try something a little different.

"What about your previous life? That thing you did, that game. Was that something you were willing to make your way of life if it was possible?"

"Of course! I loved Medal of Valour! It was the most amazing game ever!"

"So isn't diving in the dungeon a bit similar? While you're not shooting at other people, you are fighting. Isn't staying here ideal for you?"

"...I don't really like hitting things with a stick though..."

(...Fuck.)

While there was a simple solution, it wasn't exactly one that Claret would approve, but it probably wouldn't become a problem.

Taking out an iron ingot as well as a copper one along with a log of oak. I converted the iron ingot steel by charring some of the wood adding some of it to the ingot. Next, I shaped it into a pipe half as long as I was tall with an inner diameter just big enough for my pinkie to fit in. The interior had a helical hexagonal shape to it. One end of the pipe was enlarged to twice the diameter and fitted to secure a simple, quick releasing cap. I quickly extruded a few parts of the long pipe, and then carved the log into a long shaft with matching receptacles for the extruded bits. Boring a hole through the combined sections, I riveted a small steel post through the hole, securing it all in place. With some quick additional work, I whittled down the wood to some appropriate dimensions and smoothened the surface.

Finally, I took the copper and remaining steel, and made a few tapered steel cylinders with a thin layer of copper wrapped around them. To add to that, I made tiny jars out of the steel and filled them with water before plugging the tiny jar with the little cylinders.

Detaching the end cap from the assembled pipe, I inserted the little jar plug first into the cylinder before securing the plug once more.

Finally, I shouldered the whole mechanism and pointed the open end of the pipe at an arbitrary wall. Mustering a little bit of magic, I flash vaporized the water inside the tiny jar. The water vapour dislodged the plug, propelling it through the pipe, the copper surface scraping against the interior and reforming from a completely round shape to a hexagon as a spin was induced.

As I concentrated on my action and time slowed, vibrations ran through the apparatus and a little bit later, the plug exited the opposing end and jets of steam erupted in all directions quickly obscuring the flying projectile. As the density of the haze dropped, the airborne plug reemerged, visibly spinning around its axis, ballistically making its way through the air faster than anything currently in the room. But it was not so fast that I couldn't follow its motion before it came in contact with the far wall. The plug deformed, pancaking against the hard surface before shattering and spreading iron dust along the wall's planer surface.

Before I knew it, Sarah was staring at what I was doing with bated breath, whereas Claret was full of curiosity, but there was a distinct lack of understanding in her eyes. Alicia was silent, but I could feel her examining every little detail of my little creation, most likely her plastic mind understanding only a little more than Claret.

Satisfied, I made a few more miniature jars and plugs, filled the jars with fountain water then secured the plugs onto the jars before handing over the entire thing.

"Maybe this would make hunting in the dungeon more enjoyable?"

"You made a gun! That's so amazing! I didn't think it would be possible! But..."

"It works by super heating the water inside of the brass. It's done through [Fire Magic], so you'll have to learn to use it. Simply feel out your inner mana, then convert a portion of it into fire. When it comes to making new bullets, use [Earth Magic] to do the forming. It's just steel for the casing and bullet core, and copper for the jacket, so it'll be easy to make once you get a little bit of practice."

"I see. I didn't know magic would be so easy to use, and so versatile. Thank you!"

Taking the simple rifle out of my hands, Sarah shouldered it and tried pointing it around. There was clear excitement in her expression, and she probably wanted to try it out immediately.

Well, it would have to wait until she learned to actually use magic, but that wouldn't take long.

"After a while, you should start being able to make your own guns. I know that you can make gun cotton mixing cotton with nitric acid, if you can get your hands on that. It might make things easier and work better."

"I see! Thank you so much!"

Taking advantage of the fact that she was still distracted, I turned to make my retreat.

"Well, then, see you some time."

"Yea! See you!"

"Are you sure it's fine to give her a weapon Master?"

The second she was sure that Sarah was out of earshot, Claret asked the obvious question.

"It's fine. Something like that isn't actually that strong in this world. I could probably take a direct hit and it wouldn't even scratch me."

While it was difficult to make any accurate estimations, I was most likely right on that part. It was merely a flying steel rod, and there was no indication that any skills activated with it, so it was literally as strong as it looked. While it could theoretically be enhanced to become stronger, Sarah's sword was already leagues more powerful than the gun I had made her against me.

I doubted that it would surpass weapons that already existed in this world.

Even if it could, I doubted that it would be impossible to increase my own strength to the point that I could surpass the capabilities of any weapon she could make from extrapolating from that gun. In the end, the system reigned supreme in this world. With a weapon that wasn't a part of the system, its capabilities were limited by physics, whereas the system wasn't. At least as far as my personal experience had shown me that was.

The limits imposed by the two were just too different, and thus unless if the system ended up having some sort of unexpected response with the gun, the future of firearms as an actual weapon looked bleak. It would be entirely relegated just a toy in the end.

That was, unless if I completely misread the situation, which was a possibility, but I was sure that I could deal with it if it had come to. I had bought enough favour with Sarah, and she now owed me for providing her a way to move forward. I had a reasonable amount of confidence that she wouldn't turn on me as long as I didn't give her reason to.

"Above it all though, I need her to like me, to think I'm a good person."

"Master, you are a good person. The best person in the world. You don't need everyone to know that for it to be true."

"Claret, let me tell you something. It's not true. No matter how much you think it is, I'm not that great of a person. And while it's true that I don't need everyone think I'm a good person, I do need certain people to think that. Sarah's amongst the top. The more she think I'm a good person, the less likely it is that she'll turn against me in the future. Rather than deal problems by crushing them myself, it's better to make others not want to cause problems to me in the first place."

<I don't think that makes you any less of a good person Scarlet.>

"I..."

Didn't really have a legitimate counter to that assertion.

"Well, lets get the rest of this dungeon don with then."

As smoothly as rust skidding on concrete, I changed the subject.

Sprouting my wings, I lifted off with a greater dark spirit as my payload and quickly made our way through the floor, beating through various trolls and collecting their drops. Now that I didn't have any need to actually hide how fast my progress was, the whole act quickly became monotonous, and it wasn't long before the boss, a garden troll chieftain, was dealt with and we moved on to the next floor.

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