Ch.208Side Story: Cooking? – 5

‘This cooking competition isn’t quite what I had in mind.’

Serena, looking extremely satisfied, crumpled the empty pot like paper and tossed it into the trash before sitting demurely beside me.

I’m not misstating anything. Literally, she compressed the iron pot as if it were a piece of paper and threw it in the trash. It crumpled so easily that at first I wondered if I was seeing things.

What made it more bewildering was that she didn’t even use mana enhancement or physical strengthening. Anyone who didn’t know Serena would have thought the pot was made of something other than metal.

Yet Serena herself remained completely nonchalant about this bizarre act, and Olivia, who witnessed the whole thing, merely muttered about wasting a good pot without commenting at all on the fact that Serena had just crumpled iron with her bare hands.

The cooking competition I had envisioned was nothing like this. When they first mentioned cooking in the middle of their argument, I was touched, thinking they were finally going to compete in a somewhat wholesome way.

I wasn’t sure if you could really call it a “cooking competition” when one person poisoned another’s dish, another performed a miracle to turn carrots into spaghetti, and someone else served boiling soup cut into perfect squares.

“Abel, can I poison her food too? She started it first.”

“Can’t you just let it go? I said I’d take everything into account later.”

“That’s separate from how unfair this is! All the other girls got to serve you food, but I’m the only one who couldn’t. How is that right?”

“One of them just handed me a raw carrot. Can you really call that serving me food?”

“Uh…”

Olivia was complaining about being the only one who couldn’t serve me food when I pointed at Christine, causing her to close her mouth. She seemed to want to argue but couldn’t find the words.

It felt a bit like I was throwing Christine under the bus, but I had seriously wondered whether I should call a carrot that tasted like spaghetti “cooking” in the first place.

“I’m now someone who could die if I accidentally eat poisoned food. I understand you feel wronged, but please bear with it. If healing magic hadn’t been used in time back then, I could have died, you know?”

“Die?”

Olivia tilted her head.

“Abel, do you really think you would have died then?”

What does she mean, did I really think I would have died? My lower jaw was completely melted away—normally people don’t survive long after that.

“When ordinary people have their lower jaw melted away, they usually die.”

“But Abel isn’t an ordinary person.”

“Me? Even though my time fixation has been released, why?”

“Ah, I chose my words poorly. More precisely, it’s your surroundings that aren’t ordinary.”

“…”

That was certainly true, so I couldn’t find a response.

Anyone would get beaten up for calling it ordinary when I have four individuals attached to me, each capable of single-handedly overturning an entire continent.

“Would I… ugh, I hate to even say it. Do you think I would have let Abel die right in front of me? And what about the other girls?”

“That’s—”

“You don’t think so either, right? That’s it. As long as you have women like us around you, you can never be called ordinary. You should stop denying reality and accept it.”

Olivia chuckled and brought her lips to my ear, whispering softly.

“Besides, if you’re going to sleep with all four of these beauties at once, of course you need to be special. Do you want to make me a woman who spreads her legs for an ordinary man rather than the kingdom’s finest man?”

“Hey, you…”

I shot her a sharp glance, already having enough trouble figuring out how to manage the relationship between these four, but Olivia ignored my look and smiled boldly.

“If you want, you could just forcefully order us to spread our legs. Nobody here would refuse if Abel commanded it. I bet my life on it. Want to test whether that’s true or not?”

Serena and Christine both flinched simultaneously.

Even though Olivia was whispering into my ear, they weren’t sitting far from us. There was no way they couldn’t hear our conversation at this distance.

Besides, Olivia didn’t seem particularly intent on hiding the content of our conversation. Bringing her lips to my ear was less about secrecy and more about creating the impression of an intimate conversation between us.

As I was debating whether to flick her forehead or pinch her cheek, Olivia burst into laughter.

“I’m just joking this time, so don’t take it so seriously, Abel. But you should really consider it later. This place is full of women who wouldn’t resist if you grabbed them by the hair and dragged them to bed—they’d actually get wet between their legs.”

“…When I first met you, I’m sure you were a very innocent child. I wonder how you developed this personality. Is it a side effect of merging personalities?”

“If you want to study my personality, we’d have to delve into philosophical topics. Are you up for that?”

“No, I’ve had enough discussions about existence back at the magic tower. Those are topics without definitive answers anyway.”

“No definitive answers? But Abel, you’ve already derived the more correct conclusion, haven’t you? That’s why I’m here—?!”

Olivia suddenly stopped mid-sentence and swung her arm, deploying a barrier of black mana. A heavy explosive sound rang out as the mana barrier trembled. Then came a crashing sound that echoed throughout the kitchen.

It was the sound of something bouncing off the barrier and smashing through the kitchen ceiling, breaking through to the roof.

Building debris showered down into the kitchen. I was fine thanks to Olivia’s mana barrier protecting me, and she was safe as well.

Serena sliced the falling debris near her into invisibly small pieces with Wind Shear, keeping herself unharmed, while Christine simply sat still as the fragments naturally avoided her.

The kitchen was instantly transformed into a disaster zone. Sunlight and wind peeked through the gaping hole in the ceiling. Wood fragments and stone pieces were piled everywhere.

Fine dust swirled in the air, and the table, struck by falling debris, had collapsed pathetically onto the floor.

And then the culprit behind all this destruction walked proudly into the kitchen. In her left hand was a plate covered with a silver dome.

“What are you doing? Because of you wenches, the space where I need to feed my husband has been reduced to this state. Get out.”

“Because of me? That’s what I should be saying. Did you use common sense and decency as seasoning because you ran out of actual spices? Why are you acting crazy again?”

As Charlotte and Olivia seemed about to fight again, I quickly stepped in to stop them. I had a strong feeling that if I let them continue, this wouldn’t end with just a verbal argument.

Thankfully, Serena and Christine remained calm and stayed put.

“Charlotte, I need an explanation from you. Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“That wench was sitting too close to you.”

“…For that reason?”

“What do you mean ‘for that reason’? It was an extremely important matter to me. While a wife is cooking for her husband, for another woman to be sitting close—”

This time, a blue mana barrier surrounded Charlotte’s body. With a heavy thud, a sphere of black mana deflected sideways and blasted a large hole in the kitchen wall.

Through the hole in the wall, the vast forest was visible.

“What are you doing? You’ve destroyed the space where Abel and I were talking. Would you mind getting lost?”

“…How impudent.”

When Olivia threw Charlotte’s own words and actions back at her, Charlotte’s expression twisted. I sighed inwardly.

“Both of you, stop it. Charlotte, that’s enough. And fix the kitchen you destroyed. You’re not expecting me to evaluate your cooking here, are you?”

I deliberately didn’t mention Olivia. Nor did I severely reprimand Charlotte. It was my own way of maintaining balance.

“Of course not, my dear.”

Charlotte snapped her fingers. Immediately, the devastated kitchen began to return to its original pristine state.

Dust scattered everywhere reformed into fragments, which then returned to become parts of the walls and ceiling. As the holes were filled, the shattered table also regained its original form.

It took barely three seconds for the kitchen, which had been nothing short of ruins, to return to its original state.

“Our meal was delayed because of some presumptuous wench. I apologize, my dear.”

“Abel, I think we can guess how that food will taste without even trying it. If she used common sense and decency as seasoning, and garbage is her seasoning, then naturally it will taste like nothing but garbage.”

Charlotte continued her barbs even as she set the silver-domed plate in front of me. Olivia saw no reason to hold her tongue either. I was the only one caught in the middle, feeling miserable.

After somehow calming them both down, I grabbed the silver dome covering the plate and carefully looked inside. The aroma of spices wafted up, stimulating my nose. The smell was exquisite.

—Thud.

And in the next moment, my body collapsed onto the table.

Before I could even grasp the situation, my consciousness faded away.