Arcane Chef - Slice of Life x Adventure LitRPG

I might have been a little hasty with my desire to cook right away. When I reached downstairs, I saw the innkeeper Bardo serving a stew and bread to the merchants and drivers, who all gave me and Liane a nod as we entered.

I didn’t even get to ask Bardo for permission however, before Crisplet charged on ahead and went into the kitchen.

“Sorry.” I muttered to Bardo,

He just laughed it off, waving me in.

I muttered a “thank you.” As I followed Crisplet inside.

The room was nothing special, there was a central table, a stone oven and grill on the side, with a water rune and drain on the opposite side, clearly storage was at a premium though, as nearly every surface was being used outside of the central table.

Crisplet had already gone into the fire, but I ran into a problem.

If I wanted to do the voidscale hare, there would be no chance I could comfortably butcher it in here, but before I worried about that, I needed to plan what I was going to do to help heal the villagers.

I needed a strong regeneration, which was fairly simple to get. I’d use ground blood owl beak, blood tears, and virfolium. I would also make a soup, as that tended to be the easiest thing for a sick person to eat.

And just to cover all my bases I would use stock reduction on one of the leaf bladed spiders I’ve not cooked and that will provide minor poison resistance, truthfully I wasn’t sure if the poison resistance helped I’m sure Liane might make a comment about me using it here, but she’ll just have to deal with it, sick people came first.

I got the spider out of the way first, pulling one from my storage and using my stock reduction ability on it, watching the sickly green orb form.

“Hey, that was…” Liane started.

“You saw nothing!” I cut her off with a laugh.

The soup itself, I didn’t want to go too crazy on stats. I had no idea who would be eating this, so I needed to make sure I focused on regeneration and didn’t go overboard with the rest.

I pulled out two blood owls; these had been in my storage for what felt like forever now, but they would be a great base. Rather than make a chicken and corn soup, I would make a blood owl and corn soup.

First, I would need to clean the birds, leaving a lot of meat on the bones. I separated the blood owl’s breast to use later. I roughly chopped up some onion, carrots, and celery to start my stock with.

Once they were soft, I added the carcasses of the blood owls to the pot and covered it in water, putting that next to the fire to boil while I got to work on my next item.

Deciding there was not enough room in the kitchen itself for what I needed to do, I had an idea.

“Crisplet, I’m just going to step outside and skin the voidscale hares, okay?” I said, getting a burst of sparks.

I knew Liane would follow me, although it was only just then that I remembered about that feeling of being watched today, and felt it best to let someone know before I went outside to start work.

“Liane, before we go out front though, I need to quickly talk to Milo.” I said.

“I’ll wait here,” she waved it off.

But I couldn’t help but hesitate, “I’d prefer you didn’t; this is important.”

She had a small frown before getting up, however, I immediately felt confusion and concern from Crisplet, stopping me in my steps.

I needed to tell Crisplet too, or he’d be upset with me.

“Liane, any chance you could bring Milo here? Crisplet should hear it as well,” I asked.

“What is this about, Trev?” Liane looked serious.

“Uh, I can’t say without a sound dampener, I don’t think. It’s probably nothing, but it’s something I just remembered and need to tell you guys.”

I tried my best to play it off casually and not cause a scene. For all I knew, it was nothing at all, but with everything that has happened since leaving Dunhearth the first time, I knew things rarely ended up being nothing.

“Fine, I’ll get him.” Liane said, heading out of the kitchen.

I felt worry and concern from Crisplet again.

“It’s fine, I’m sure Crisplet, just being overly cautious is all.” I tried to reassure him.

While I waited for Milo, I was adjusting the knife to what I felt would help best with the voidscale hares. The scales didn’t seem overly thick, so cutting through wouldn’t be difficult, but it looked good, so saving the hide was a must.

I felt like it would be more in line with a lizard than a rabbit, so I went with an extremely thin and sharp edge, which would help me cut the fibrous connection between the hide and the meat.

I was interrupted by Liane, Milo, and even Hari, all entering.

I felt the air mana immediately spread past me before Milo had even said anything,

“Spit it out, Trev, what did you do?” Liane said with a grin.

“No, it’s nothing like that. It was, well, it’s probably nothing.” I began.

Milo let out a laugh, “So probably something really important then?”

I carried on pretending not to hear it; Hari being here as well just made me more nervous now. “When the fight with the quill beasts finished, and I was collecting the carcasses, it felt like I was being watched.” I explained.

I immediately felt silly as I said it, like I was wasting their time, especially with the frowns on Milo’s and Hari’s faces.

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“When you felt it, from which direction, and what did it feel like?” Milo asked seriously.

“Uh, the right side of the wagons towards the hills and, hard to say, like a prickling sensation on the back of my neck.” I said.

There was a look exchanged between Milo and Hari.

“Well, it’s concerning based on what we know, and more concerning that you’ve waited until now to tell us; however, there really doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. Jen’s perception is by far the highest, and she didn’t mention seeing anything,” Hari said.

Which surprised me, as I expected him to want to shut me away again.

“You don’t think the quill attack was related to it, do you?” Liane asked from the side.

“Hard to say, though I doubt it. They usually can’t be provoked and directed like that, but I’ll try to talk to some villagers and get some more information.” Hari commented.

“I don’t mean to rush you out, but I have lots of cooking to do, so I’m going to head outside to butcher one of these voidscale hares.” I said, feeling better about telling them.

Hari frowned again, and I was dreading the next words to follow, but he surprised me.

“You’re not serving the villagers something you’ve not made before, are you?”

“No, I’m making the hares for us, and a regeneration bird and corn soup for the villagers. If everything is alright though, I’m going to get back to cooking.” I explained,

Seeing a nod from Milo, I decided it was good enough and left the kitchen with Liane following closely behind.

Before Hari left, “Trev, in the future, if you sense something, feel something, see something, tell us immediately. You might have Lily and armour to protect you, but we don’t, and there is nothing we can do about a situation a day late.”

He said it seriously and sounded disappointed, which truthfully made me feel terrible. He was absolutely right; I got caught up in the moment.

Outside I quickly pulled out my wagon, and started to unfold everything, in particular the side tables so I could actually start butchering these hares properly, which ended up being a harder task than I was expecting, there was a layer of fat attached to the hide itself, If I didn’t have the legendary blade this would have been a far harder task.

For the hide, I left the feet and tail attached so my storage would still count it as meat for now, while I deboned some of the hare; this proved to be far easier.

My goal was to make essentially a rabbit stew of sorts, just using the hare instead, with mushrooms, carrots, onions, bacon, and red wine.

It was something very similar to what was made back in Geo’s kitchen, I’d have plenty of left over hare as I was only using a quarter of one, but it would be a good base test to find out the buffs of this one before I went crazy.

Heading inside, I was pleasantly surprised to find Crisplet letting off a burst of sparks, letting me know about the stock. I knew I could let this boil for several hours—it would probably be preferred, but we were in a rush.

After placing a small amount of stock aside to help complete the quest later, I began to put the soup together. It was incredibly simple, some garlic grass, the blood owl stock, and diced breast meat, then adding in the corn along with powdered blood owl beak, and blood tear, along with some fresh virfolium.

Lastly, I thickened it up with some root starch and added some salt and pepper, just to make it taste good. Having a taste, it was nice, but there was an unmistakable herbal taste to it, and I wasn’t done.

Before I infused it, I turned to Liane, “What do you think would be better for this one, a longer regeneration time, or a lot of regeneration quickly?”

She seemed to consider it for a moment, “I’d go for time over potency, you don’t know their levels or stats, and we have to assume it is not a life-threatening cut that’s bleeding out, or we’d already be too late while you made the soup.”

Pulling out the sickly green orb, I didn’t second-guess myself and used it on the soup, which gave the whole soup a green tinge.

“I’m going to need Milo to help convince people to try this, I suspect.” I said to Liane and Crisplet.

Liane, who had wandered over now, looked into the pot and nodded, “Yep.”

But I pulled up the buffs, because that’s what was important.

[Uncommon] Infused Blood Owl and Corn Soup.

• +5 Endurance
• +3 Perception
• +2 Wisdom
• Major Health Regeneration
• Minor Poison Resistance
• Clear Body (Passive)

Liane shrugged, “I’ve never heard of it, but Trevor, with how potent this is still, I would suggest you only give them half of it for now, they likely won’t need it all, check on them in the morning, if they need more, then by all means.”

It was probably a good idea, I didn’t mind giving it all to them, but it would be useful on the road, especially if we might run into more trouble.

Nodding, I asked, “Could you grab Milo?”

After she left, I threw together the stew, this was just as simple as the soup, simply cooking off the vegetables, and meat, then using the red wine to deglaze the pot before topping it up with some water, I would add some tubers and the mushroom later, along with the bacon so it didn’t disintegrate into the dish.

I had just finished filling it with water when Milo entered the kitchen again.

“Liane said you need me again? No more watchers, right?” He asked.

“No, nothing like that. I have finished the soup for the villagers, but I will probably need help to convince them.” I also went through all the buffs it contained.

“Ah, wait here a second.” Milo said, leaving the kitchen.

He returned only a second later with Bardo in tow.

“Bardo, as we don’t know your villagers well, this will probably come from you the best. Our support member has made a regenerative soup for your injured to drink, it is very potent.” Milo explained.

“Thank you, I’m sure the families will appreciate not needing to cook as well.” Bardo said, bowing.

“Oh, you misunderstood. When I say regenerative soup, I mean that literally, watch.” Milo said with a smile.

He then created a stone spike that came to a fine, smooth tip before it stabbed into his arm. Had I not witnessed the matron doing something similar, I would have tried to stop him.

Bardo looked shocked.

Milo now with a steady trickle of blood down his arm, took a small amount of the soup in a cup and took a drink, wincing slightly, but the effect was near immediate as the blood stopped oozing on his arm, and slowly I watched as the hole closed.

“They only need a little bit,” Milo said firmly.

Bardo was still staring at his arm, shocked.

“If you still don’t believe me…” Milo began.

“No, no sir, sorry, I will absolutely get it to them right now,” Bardo said in a near panic.

“Oh, also Bardo, there was a farmer injured on our way here too. He’ll probably need some too if he’s not recovered already.” I added with a smile as he took the pot that was half full of soup with a ladle.

He was taking so much care as he walked, treating it like a treasure.

Which, I suppose, it was.

I really hope everyone recovers.

“Trev, you mentioned it gave a passive skill of some kind. I’m guessing you don’t know what Clear Body does?” Milo said, shaking his head.

I shrugged.

“Trev, it clears the body of practically all ailments, from sickness, joints, poisons, toxins, you name it. It’s a very rare and incredibly powerful skill.” Milo said very seriously.

“That’s good then! They’ll recover faster.” I said happily.

“Trevor. That soup is likely worth ten to twenty gold a bowl, if not more with the alchemy guild gone.” Milo added.

“Oh, well, I can make more. I just need more spiders.” I smiled.

“Spiders… you can’t be serious?” Milo looked shocked.

Liane jumped in with a giant grin, “All the more reason to bring spiders into our diet!”

Milo laughed, “Jen’s going to kill you, you know that, right?”