Ch.9898 – Gourmet Event

<98 – Gourmet Event>

In the evening, an unexpected cooking competition broke out in the academy’s main building kitchen.

“Isabelle is amazing!”

“She’s using six steamers at once.”

“She looks like a real chef. So cool.”

Isabelle skillfully cooked the Giant King Crab using her high cooking skill experience.

Seeing her receive praise, the central nobles bit their handkerchiefs in jealousy, while students from the central region couldn’t bring themselves to ask for a share and just swallowed their saliva as they paced around.

“Um, excuse me…!”

Just as a student from the central region was about to shamelessly ask for just one bite, Arcadia and the frontier nobles blocked his path in a group and said:

“The Empire kids usually act so high and mighty, looking down on the frontier, but surely they wouldn’t ask to share food just because they’re a little hungry, right?”

“Of course not. If they were that shameless, they wouldn’t have the right to call themselves from the Empire anywhere. Isn’t that right, Princess Arcadia?”

“Hoho. Quite right.”

The students retreated, unable to lift their faces in shame.

They could only helplessly watch the students satisfying their hunger by deliciously extracting the King Crab meat and the sweet aroma that tormented their sense of smell.

“Hmph. When I go home, I can eat Françoise 3-tier cake anytime! I don’t particularly want to eat something like Giant King Crab meat!”

“You’re drooling…”

“Ah!”

“Why can’t we eat that stuff?”

“Right, exactly. We can just make it ourselves!”

At one student’s realization, the Empire students’ eyes finally lit up with renewed vigor.

Whoosh.

The Empire students immediately went to get cooking utensils and catch King Crabs with good energy.

“There’s no way that’ll work!”

“It’ll be fortunate if they don’t get hurt.”

The upper-class students from the frontier shook their heads.

Even they couldn’t have thought of making such food without Oknodie.

Let’s say cooking is fine if you just steam it.

Let’s say they somehow borrow cooking utensils.

But who will catch the most important Giant King Crab, and when will they break and cut those hard legs to the right size for the steamer?

“We’ll have quite a show to watch tonight.”

The frontier students were grinning at the thought of healing their pride that had been wounded by the Empire students’ cold treatment, ridicule, and mockery.

However, the Empire wasn’t the Empire for nothing, and the Empire students didn’t bear food-name family names for nothing either.

“Steamer? Why go through the trouble of going to get restaurant equipment? I brought something for frying chicken.”

“You need to cut it to fit the steamer size? Then just grill it instead. Bring it here. If we extract just the meat and make crab meat pizza, it’ll be perfect.”

“What kind of cooking only involves steaming? Proper cooking requires knowing how to stir-fry. Just bring the body over here.”

Honer FriedChicken of the FriedChicken Duke family.

Cheddar PotatoPizza of the PotatoPizza Duke family.

Reph CharcoalBBQ of the CharcoalBBQ Duke family.

The Empire’s three great meritorious families lined up and began making a Giant Crab 3-dish cooking set.

“Wait, where are those people getting steamers, magic ovens, and grills from?”

“They all exchanged points for them.”

“Whaaaat?! They spent those expensive points on getting cooking equipment?!”

“Amazing, really. Duke families can afford such luxuries.”

The students thought:

What a waste of money.

But thanks to that, we can eat delicious food.

The sweet taste of duke families is so good!

“Ugh. We’re being outdone.”

“What do we do? Isabelle, can’t you make other dishes?”

“Help out before you talk.”

Isabelle scolded the frontier students who were rushing her.

She had shown off her skills because it was a shame to waste the crab Oknodie caught, but now that it was out of the water, her classmates were acting like unscrupulous merchants demanding she empty her bundle, which was quite unpleasant.

“There is. If it’s another cooking method, I happen to know a good one.”

“Lady Arcadia!”

“As expected of the princess of Florence, the maritime power! When it comes to seafood, she won’t lose to anyone!”

The rootless Kingdom of Florence, the treasure goblins of the sea who get robbed by pirates whenever they’re bored.

Whatever the case, the Kingdom of Florence usually receives all the ridicule and mockery, but today was different.

It was a wonderful country that stood against the Empire and preserved the frontier’s honor.

“First, extract all the crab meat.”

“What dish are you planning to make?”

“Crab meat salad and crab meat rice bowl.”

The students’ eyes lit up.

“A cooking method that brings out the natural taste of ingredients!”

“You can make it without getting permission to use expensive cooking equipment with points!”

“A dish that even frontier students, who are slow in technological development and poor, can make just by cracking the shell. Lady Arcadia thought of convenient cooking for us common people!”

“Wow!”

“Long live Arcadia! Long live the Kingdom of Florence!”

While festivals were breaking out on both the frontier and Empire sides, new students kept arriving.

“I heard there’s a crab meat festival in the cooking room!”

“Give us just one plate too!”

“Is this really a free meal service…?”

Students naturally gathered – frontier with frontier cooking, Empire with Empire cooking.

The crab meat that they thought would be fortunate to eat half of by today disappeared at a frightening pace.

“What do we do? We ate all the crabs!”

“Let’s hunt new ones!”

“It’s too unfair that only we can’t eat!”

Originally, Giant King Crabs would be impossible for first-years to hunt, but when dozens of people with various abilities went hunting, some succeeded.

“Amazing. Killing it by freezing its bodily fluids. Now I understand why Northern Grand Duchess Irene receives such praise!”

“Hero Ishtar is also quietly amazing. Using incredible swordsmanship to cut off all the pincers and thrust a sword into its mouth.”

The crabs gathered this way were put back into cooking, and students enjoyed their late dinner.

It became a rare day when almost all 981st class students finished a hearty meal.

“Uhaha! You could open a restaurant, Isabelle.”

“Shut up. Do you know how hard it was suddenly becoming a cook?”

“But where did our little lady go?”

“I don’t know either. She hasn’t been visible since the middle.”

“She’s over there.”

The entrance exam colleagues looking for Oknodie looked at the Empire faction table at Zhang’s passing comment.

And they discovered it.

Oknodie naturally mixed in among the Empire faction students receiving meals and getting her portion.

“That little rascal, using assassin techniques for something like that? What a waste of skill.”

“Don’t speak so harshly. That kid suffered through harsh training and grew up hungry, even having experience hiding in church warehouses to steal disaster relief supplies.”

“…Is that really true?”

When Isabelle nodded seriously, Son Ocheon felt like he had become a bad adult for no reason.

“Tch. That little rascal. She never even mentioned such a past to me. Next time I see her, I’ll have to give her 10kg of bananas.”

“Where are there bananas?”

“Deep in the forest, there are fierce red monkeys with blue shark teeth eating bananas.”

“…That sounds like a very strong monkey.”

“Isabelle. Giselle. We need to find something to put in that little rascal’s mouth, don’t we? If you have time next weekend, let’s go pick bananas together.”

The two people sighed deeply.

“When you put it that way, I can’t not help.”

“Just this once.”

* *

━━━

[You ate Giant King Crab Steam.]

[You ate Giant King Crab Meat Salad.]

[You ate Giant King Crab Meat Rice Bowl.]

[You ate Rare Dish Giant King Crab Cheese Oven Roast.]

[You ate Rare Dish Giant King Crab Grilled Organ Fried Rice.]

━━━

[Food Encyclopedia <Common><Rare><Seafood><Giant Species> stacks increase.]

[Total Recipe Collection increases by 5 types.]

[Common Recipe Collection increases by 3 types.]

[Rare Recipe Collection increases by 2 types.]

[Seafood Recipe Collection increases by 5 types.]

[Giant Species Recipe Collection increases by 5 types.]

━━━

[Collection Effect]

Total Recipe Collection 150 types – Item Drop Rate +1%. Health +1.

Seafood Recipe Collection 20 types – Underwater Additional Damage +1%.

━━━

Rare Dish [Giant King Crab Cheese Oven Roast] Collection – Defense Ignore +1%.

Rare Dish [Giant King Crab Grilled Organ Fried Rice] Collection – Physical Resistance +1%.

━━━

[While both factions were engaged in a face-saving fight, you mixed into the crowd and gained the practical benefit of increasing your encyclopedia collection rate.]

[Deception Experience +2]

[Stealth Experience +1]

It was a beneficial mealtime.

As I left the cooking room satisfied, I heard a happy, innocent voice from inside.

“Wow! This crab is awesome. I never imagined the organs would taste like this~!”

“P-Princess! Your dignity is at stake. If you don’t pay attention to your vocabulary, your reputation as a member of the Imperial Family…”

“Huh~? Your nagging is annoying. Acting all high and mighty when you can’t even cook.”

“Kuk…”

“Learn to cook even half as well as the Grilled family before you nag♡ You incompetent♡ Lowest-grade cooking skill♡ Can’t even cook tree fruits♡”

“I-I’ll start from today! Starting with tree fruits, then tree leaves, tree chopsticks – I’ll grill everything I can get my hands on! Waaah!”

The princess’s follower ran off scattering tears.

I hope they practice hard and make lots of delicious food!

“Should I sleep early today?”

“It was so delicious, I want to rest like this.”

“What about assignments?”

“Ah.”

Students falling into despair remembering the assignments they had forgotten while enjoying the gourmet food.

The suffering was the same for them and for me.

‘Ugh. I have to go to the 5th period lecture too.’

The lecture is supposed to be held outdoors in wind and rain, of all things.

I waited in a nearby corridor, feeling sorry for Titosoga who might not be able to attend the lecture either because she lacked the courage to go to the lecture hall after deciding to attend, or because they got eaten by a Giant King Crab.

“Oknodie! Did you see the magic clock? Isn’t Professor Sadaco really crazy?!”

“I think so too…”

“On a day like this, couldn’t she hold a substitute lecture indoors? How can she conduct a night lecture outdoors in wind and rain with Giant King Crabs roaming around?”

“Did you bring a raincoat?”

“Grand Duke Andersen gave me three, saying you’d have a hard time with the night lecture too.”

“Raincoats?”

“Students taking the <Sleeping Well Anywhere> lecture said they couldn’t bear to attend a lecture where they sleep inside raincoats, avoiding rain while listening to Giant Crab footsteps, so they dropped the course, leaving three raincoats.”

“So that side also had three students taking the lecture.”

“I heard there were seven? Four remained and the Grand Duke went to attend that lecture. He looked really pitiful.”

“?!”

Was the Grand Duke such a mentally tough person?

Probably not?

I tilted my head, then realized the variable.

The gourmet event!

When you eat delicious food, your morale rises and you sometimes do activities you wouldn’t normally do.

“Sigh. Who’s worrying about whom?”

“Right.”

“What should we do with the remaining raincoat?”

“I’ll put it on the lamp!”

Titosoga trying hard to put a raincoat on her beloved lamp (with waterproof function).

The shaded light from the covered lamp stretched to the end of the corridor.

Following the shadow with my gaze, I spotted a person’s head quickly hiding.

“?”

A moment later, a head popped out.

I discovered Zhang looking resentfully at the raincoat covering the lamp.

It seemed Andersen wasn’t the only student whose morale was boosted by the gourmet event enough to attend lectures they would normally give up on.