Book 12.2: Chapter 5
Vyvyan had never seen so many different types of food before. Most elven foods came from nature. Nature did provide a fair amount, but some things weren’t provided in such abundance. Sometimes, they couldn’t just eat what they want. Vyvyan checked out the various foods occupying the market. Astonished, she asked, “I never thought you had so much food here, and we can eat all of this?!”
“Mm, well, we can’t get it at any time and any place, since you have to take into account the season. By the looks of things, this village plants a lot of things, and they’ve had quite the harvest,” answered Elizabeth. She curiously picked up a round vegetable in front of her: “We don’t have anything to eat in winter, either. I heard people outside can only live off bread and meat, because it’s hard to keep these things fresh. They’ll go bad.”
“Is that so…?”
“That’s what my family teacher told me when I was being a picky eater.”
Elizabeth took out a cloth bag from her cloak. She didn’t know what it was. As a Princess, she didn’t need to go to the kitchen to distinguish ingredients. She picked up a little of everything until she couldn’t fit any more. Vyvyan looked at Elizabeth. Somewhat confused, she asked, “Can’t we just dry them? Why doesn’t humanity do that?”
“I would presume that there are people who do dry food. The problem is vegetables don’t taste good once they’re dry. Vyvyan, can’t you keep these things fresh with your magic? If you can, we won’t have to deal with ordinary salted meat every single day in winter.”
Vyvyan frowned. She never lived in the wilderness. She taught herself magic and was somewhat confident in her skill with magic. She didn’t know what magic to use to preserve the freshness of food, unfortunately. In saying that, she believed magic was almighty. The only issue was that she didn’t know how to preserve food with it for the meantime. Lorana was of the impression that food couldn’t be preserved. For the reason that her mana wasn’t a high grade, she couldn’t come up with a method to do so.
Vyvyan watched Elizabeth hand money to the merchant. It took her a bit of effort to place the cloth bag in front of her down onto the ground. She panted as she said, “In any case, let’s take them first. I believe I’ll be able to find a way. If we don’t come up with a way, we can still eat it before winter comes. Elizabeth, how do you humans use this food? These appear to be plants.”
Elizabeth paused before smiling: “What else can we do? We have chefs do the cooking. It’s different to your most beloved blast furnace grills. There’s a culture to humanity’s food world…”