Yeonhwa, the Cooking King(4)

In life, you often encounter a surprising number of unbelievable things.

That’s because in a world where supernatural phenomena occur through magic, it’s not difficult to encounter unbelievable things.

And in such a world, Arin thought she had seen many unbelievable things herself.

No, she must have actually seen many.

There wouldn’t be many people who have seen someone cut a sky island with two swords, split the sea, and make things in front of them disappear as if they never existed with just one spell.

In other words, this meant that Arin couldn’t be surprised by ordinary unrealities.

She was confident that she wouldn’t be surprised even if someone set fire to a house right in front of her. Of course, it would be a different story if that house was Arin’s own.

And although it’s not a good example, even if demons suddenly attacked through a gate right now, Arin was confident she could calmly draw her weapon.

That’s how accustomed Arin had become to unreality.

However.

Despite having seen so much unreality, Arin was now rubbing her eyes at the sight before her.

Tap tap tap tap tap────!

The cheerful sound of a kitchen knife touching the cutting board echoes.

Arin looked at the source of that sound, squeezed her eyes shut, and muttered.

“What is this…? Am I seeing things wrong?”

She could understand up to the point where a cutting board of an impossible size fell from the sky. It could be explained if it was made by magic.

Probably Meiyel or Isolde beside her could easily create it, so one of them must have made it.

So it was fine up to the point where the cutting board fell from the sky and a massive amount of ingredients were placed on top of it.

But Arin began to doubt her eyes from the moment Yeonhwa got on top of the cutting board filled with ingredients, drew her kitchen knife, and started preparing the ingredients.

“Is she… really human?”

Warriors and archers can strengthen their bodies with magic to move several times faster than ordinary people, but even that has its limits.

Of course, there were exceptions like Aria, Kama, Yujia, etc., but they were already people who shouldn’t be put in the same category as ordinary people, so excluding them, everyone has limits in strengthening their bodies with magic.

But what on earth was happening in front of her eyes right now?

No, to be precise, it was hard to say it was happening. Arin’s eyes couldn’t even properly capture Yeonhwa’s movements.

Slice──

As soon as the sound of cutting was heard, twenty pieces of meat were neatly prepared and stacked.

Bang bang bang───!

When it seemed like she lightly struck vegetables on the cutting board, over a hundred pieces of vegetable pieces flew into the air and were sucked neatly into containers.

When she blinked once, the ingredients in Yeonhwa’s hands had changed, and if she rubbed her eyes for even a moment, more than ten ingredients were already prepared and gathered in one space on the cutting board.

It was a sense of speed as if she was living in a different time all by herself.

Arin was bewildered by the unreality of the speed being shown so calmly.

To be honest, without even a bit of exaggeration, she had never seen such speed even from Aria.

“No, what the hell is this…”

“Miss Shati. As I always say, you shouldn’t use harsh language. But I understand how you feel.”

“…Is it because I haven’t been sleeping enough lately?”

Looking to the side, everyone was showing similar reactions to Arin, as expected of her friends.

But this level of reaction was because Arin and her friends had already experienced many supernatural phenomena. If it were other ordinary people, it wouldn’t be strange if they slapped their own cheeks thinking this was a dream and fainted.

Therefore, Arin sent a word of thanks for being able to have such experiences on one hand, and on the other hand, she asked herself questions while seeking answers to the remaining curiosity.

“There’s no need to be too surprised… Yeonhwa always cooks like that when she puts her mind to it…”

However, before Arin could find the answer through self-questioning, someone who could provide a more certain answer seemed to have arrived.

“Ah, Professor Meiyel.”

“It’s quite amazing, isn’t it…? Cooking at a speed that can’t even be seen with the eyes… Would you like to know how it’s done?”

Meiyel, who had approached at some point, was standing behind Arin and the other four.

Looking closely, Isolde was also beside Meiyel, opening her mouth slightly with a bored face and letting out a cute yawn.

However, what mattered now was not their presence, but the question Meiyel had just asked.

To Meiyel’s question, which could only be answered positively, the five including Arin nodded simultaneously as if they had made a promise in advance.

“Of course I want to know.”

“Do you know, Professor?”

“If you can tell us, please do.”

“I knew you’d want to know… Well, I can tell you…”

Meiyel raised her staff, letting out a small laugh at their answers.

Meiyel pointed with her luxurious staff, which had one rare gem in the center and several jewels around it, at Yeonhwa who was disappearing and reappearing even at this moment.

And then Meiyel opened her mouth and began to explain.

“That is…”

The cook’s rapid cooking technique, ‘The Final Cooking’.

It was truly a technique created for cooking, only for cooking, and thinking only of cooking.

Actually, after using it once at the temple when I first came here, I hadn’t used this technique even once at the academy, but this time I specially brought it out.

The effect of using The Final Cooking was simple. It greatly reduced cooking time.

To put it more in line with this place, that is, reality rather than a game, it was a technique that made the space around me three times faster than the outside.

Originally in the game, it was a technique used to reduce the waiting time of several hours to finish mass cooking, but in this place which is reality itself, that process manifested as accelerating the time of the space around me.

‘Honestly, if I had used this technique every time I received orders during academy lunch time, I wouldn’t have had to spend such tiring times…’

That’s not wrong. I had imagined a future where things would have been easier if I had used The Final Cooking every time I cooked.

The only reason I didn’t use this technique was one thing.

‘When the technique time ends, my head hurts like hell.’

This technique, as much as I cooked in a time three times faster than others, the aftermath as a headache after the technique ended was no joke.

To give a simple example, it felt like constantly hitting my head against a wall while having body aches and a headache.

Although the pain would subside after about 10 minutes, it was a technique I didn’t want to use twice because of the terrible pain at that time which even healing magic didn’t work properly on.

Despite being such a technique, the reason I used it now was simple.

I wanted to finish this preparatory cooking show as quickly as possible, without even Myu’s help.

To be honest, maintaining this cutting board was also hard, so I decided to finish it as quickly as possible even if I felt a 10-minute headache.

Thanks to that, I who used The Final Cooking was literally in a flying state. Yeonhwa’s body was originally fast at cooking, but cooking in a time three times faster, my appearance to those outside would probably be no different from a magician.

Perhaps it would feel like watching magic where ingredients piled up like mountains disappear in the blink of an eye.

Thinking so and glancing, sure enough, the reaction was exactly as I thought.

Only, among them, Kana seemed to be not only surprised but also learning something from my movements as a cook.

“Ah, come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve cooked like this for show.”

Now that I think about it, that’s true.

At the academy, I was always inside the booth kitchen and all the students were outside, so none of those five would have directly seen me cooking.

I always taught Kana the combat methods of a cook rather than teaching cooking, so even though there were opportunities to show my cooking, I couldn’t show it.

Unexpectedly, realizing it was the first cooking demonstration, I felt a subtle and lukewarm emotion inside, but it was only for a very short moment.

“Alright, that’s the end!”

Clang──!

Along with my kitchen knife striking down, a chunk of meat with all unnecessary parts removed flew through the air and landed on top of the mountain of prepared ingredients.

With this, the preparation of the last ingredient was also finished.

And now if I felt sorry for showing cooking for the first time, it was a problem that could be repaid with cooking.

“Originally, you make people feel better by feeding them delicious food.”

Although I created mountains and brought them from the palace’s food warehouse, these are leftover ingredients unless distributed not only to the palace party but also to surrounding parties.

Therefore, I unhesitatingly took out a piece of meat larger than my body from between the mountains of ingredients and lightly placed it on my shoulder.

“Oof, shall I make some steak with this?”

A huge piece of meat that would probably be about 5m in size and 2m thick. It clearly looked like processed meat from a monster.

And with such a huge piece of meat, it must have been quite a powerful monster.

The mouth-watering marbling engraved in the meat and the moist texture that felt like baby skin just by touching it were telling that.

It would surely be delicious just by grilling, but if my cooking skills were added to it, this would truly be a steak that would mark a milestone in steak history.

Moreover, with this size, everyone would be able to eat until they’re full.

The only problem was where to grill it given this size and thickness. There was no frying pan, oven, or even grill that matched the size of this meat here.

However, since it was meat for everyone to eat together anyway, it didn’t take long for me to find a substitute.

“Sister Meiyel! Just one huge stone slab! Let’s grill it directly on stone!”

“Okay, got it…”

I shouted to Myu while breaking the barrier created by The Final Cooking and showing the huge meat.

Myu immediately replied that she understood and created a stone slab much larger than the meat in the form of a dolmen as requested.

Thud, whoosh───!

I smiled at Myu’s thoughtfulness as she sensibly lit a strong fire under the stone slab, and I threw the meat onto the stone slab that started heating up instantly.

“Today I’ll let you all eat this meat until you’re stuffed, so just wait a bit!”

Sizzle, the thrown meat instantly sprays the fat and meat juices concentrated inside it onto the stone slab.

At the same time, a mouth-watering smell starts to spread through the air.

I looked at the five… no, seven including Isolde and Myu, who simultaneously lost their words at that smell, and smiled, showing my teeth.

“Put down all those sacred banners for a moment! Let’s eat meat first before we go!”

It was a happy party time with the students before the Day of Divine Manifestation arrived.

And.

It was a time of a happy party.