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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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8:00 AM.
Mister still hadn’t emerged from his room, even though breakfast time had passed.
Finding it strange, the three children made a decision.
“Hmm, I can sense his presence, but why isn’t he coming out!?”
“W-We need to open Mister’s door… H-He might have collapsed because of his eye…”
“In the worst-case scenario, he might have been assassinated.”
Excluding Estia, who was confined to her room due to her high risk of running away…
The children exchanged glances and nodded.
‘Let’s go in.’
They were in agreement.
Slam!!
The children burst into the room, shouting.
The loudest of them all was Luna.
“Mister!! Are you hurt anywhere?! Are you alright?!”
“Quiet down, Luna…”
“I-Is it because of me?! Am I the reason you’re sick?! I-I’m a burden-”
“I said quiet down, Luna.”
The previous night…
Lee Jun-woo and Luna had been drenched in the rain, but for some reason, only Lee Jun-woo had caught a cold.
It was the difference between the Hero’s physique and an ordinary person’s.
Lee Jun-woo spoke to the children, who were looking at him with worried eyes, his voice weak and raspy,
“Girls… please leave… you’ll catch my cold…”
“N-No, Mister…! Y-You need to be taken care of… I-I’ll stay by your side and watch over you…”
“That’s not necessary, Hare…”
“Hmph…”
Hare’s plan to stay with Mister all day under the pretense of nursing him back to health had been foiled.
Cough- Cough-
Lee Jun-woo coughed and said,
“…I can’t do anything today because of this cold… so you’ll have to step up today…”
Cooking, training, cleaning, grocery shopping.
Lee Jun-woo couldn’t even lift a finger due to his severe cold, so he had to entrust his tasks to the children.
They weren’t exactly reliable…
But there was no other choice in this situation.
“Keep that in mind… and Saten?”
“…Yes, Mister.”
“Cough- Stop hiding behind the door and come here…”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was just standing still. I never hide.”
Saten tried to make excuses as she cautiously approached Mister.
She seemed reluctant to admit that she had been hiding.
It was a matter of pride.
Lee Jun-woo decided to entrust Saten with the authority to act in his stead.
“Until I recover from this cold… I need you to take control of the children… can you do that…?”
“Hmm, are you asking if I’m capable? I can do anything. Your question was flawed from the start, Mister.”
“I see… Then, since you’re the most reliable among the children, I’ll trust you.”
Her confidence was so high it was threatening to pierce through the universe.
Well, it was better than lacking confidence.
Lee Jun-woo looked at Saten’s expression.
Her eyes were devoid of emotion, but the corners of her lips twitched slightly.
‘…Is she happy because I said she’s reliable?’
It was an expression that didn’t match her eyes, but it must mean she was pleased.
With those thoughts in mind, Lee Jun-woo addressed the children, his business concluded,
“For that reason, from today onwards, listen to Saten as if she were me.”
“N-No way!”
“I-I refuse too…!”
“I won’t hear any objections. I want to get some rest, so…”
Now leave.
I don’t need to be nursed back to health.
Slam-!
The children were ruthlessly kicked out by Mister and exchanged glances.
Luna tilted her head and asked,
“What should we do now?”
“W-Well… M-Mister has a cold… and we have to do his chores…”
How should we work?
The road ahead seemed daunting.
Meanwhile, Luna blamed herself for Mister’s cold.
She muttered in a dejected tone,
“It’s all my fault… I-If I hadn’t run away, Mister wouldn’t have gotten sick…”
Dejected-
Luna, the Hero, slumped her shoulders.
The other two children agreed with Luna’s sentiment.
Although their words were a bit off.
“That’s right, Luna… It’s your fault Mister caught a cold… I-If you hadn’t run away, he wouldn’t have gotten caught in the rain…”
“You did something unnecessary, Luna.”
“Y-You meanies…! W-Where’s the comfort…!”
Comfort?
What was that?
Hare and Saten didn’t know how to offer comfort.
Saten completely ignored Luna’s outburst and said, taking charge,
“Comfort is unnecessary right now. The most important thing is to fill Mister’s shoes.”
“C-Can we really… fill them…?”
“No, we won’t be able to fill them completely. Mister’s presence is too great.”
“T-Then what should we do…?”
“We have no choice but to do our best.”
And for that…
Food.
They needed to prepare breakfast first.
As Luna’s stomach growled…
They headed to the kitchen to fill Mister’s shoes.
However…
-H-Hey?! It’s breakfast time?! W-Where’s the food?!
They didn’t hear Estia’s screams from the second floor.
The kitchen was stocked with ingredients Mister had purchased the previous day.
Onions, rice, green onions, meat, potatoes.
The basic ingredients for cooking were all there.
“But who’s going to cook?”
“Y-Yeah…”
“…”
The only one missing was the cook.
Saten stepped forward confidently and picked up a potato.
“What kind of fruit is this? We can peel it and cook it.”
“That’s a potato, Saten! It’s not a fruit! You can’t eat it raw!”
“How annoying. Why can’t we eat it? Hare, try eating this. We need to experiment.”
“N-No… Get that potato away from me…”
Saten rubbed the potato against Hare’s cheek, trying to force-feed her.
But Hare, who knew how to eat a potato, desperately resisted.
“I-I stole one and ate it before… Y-You have to heat it up with fire…”
“That’s right! You have to cook it!”
“Hmm, is that so?”
So they just needed to heat it up with fire?
Then it was easy.
Saten picked up a kitchen knife hanging on the wall.
She intended to use Blood Magic.
Slash!!
“U-Uwaah!! Wh-What are you doing, Saten!!”
“M-Mister’s kitchen is being stained with blood…!!”
“Be quiet. Before I use your blood.”
“Gulp!”
“Gasp!”
They both shut their mouths.
They weren’t brave enough to talk back to Saten, who was wielding a blood-stained knife.
Saten drew a magic circle on the floor with the blood dripping from her wrist.
Then, she placed a potato on top of the circle and started channeling mana.
“Burn, flames! Heat up this potato!”
“Huh?”
As soon as Saten finished speaking…
Whoosh!!
Flames erupted from the kitchen floor, engulfing the potato, leaving no trace of its form.
Luna and Hare watched Saten’s satisfied expression and screamed in terror.
“This isn’t cooking!!”
“T-The house is on fire…! M-Mister is in danger…!”
Saten ignored them and snapped her fingers.
Snap-!
The flames instantly subsided.
“Hmm, I think it’s hot enough now.”
They said we just need to heat it up.
Then this must be a delicious meal…
“…”
…It should be, right?
Why was there a black lump on the floor?
As the wind blew through the open window, the potato-shaped lump scattered into the air.
“It’s a failure.”
“W-Wow, what a failure… Saten, you’re a terrible cook…”
“T-Terrible… cook…? You’re saying I’m bad at cooking…? That’s impossible…”
Again.
‘If I try again, I can do it.’
‘Because I’m a genius.’
Saten, refusing to lose to the potato, placed more potatoes on the magic circle and channeled her mana again.
Watching the flames erupt, Luna and Hare muttered,
“Weren’t those the last potatoes?! I think there were enough for all of us…”
“Y-Yeah… I-I guess we can’t eat today…”
Whoosh- Whoosh-
After a shorter time than before…
Saten snapped her fingers again.
Unlike before, the potatoes retained their shape, but they were still charred black.
It seemed she hadn’t realized that the problem was the temperature.
“…Was meat supposed to be cooked with fire too?”
“D-Don’t do that! I’ll do it! It’s better if I do it! Saten, stop!”
“I’m the leader. Mister said he trusts me. Don’t order me around, Luna.”
“U-Uh…”
Saten continued to attempt cooking with other ingredients…
But they all ended in failure.
Even Saten, with her strong pride…
“I can’t cook. Luna, you try.”
“O-Only one green onion left?! A-Are you telling me to cook with this?!”
…Had to admit that she had no talent for cooking.
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“I heard a lot of noise coming from the kitchen… and the result of that was… food…”
“Hehe…”
Even though I was confined to my room, I could hear the children’s commotion.
There was a fire, talk about experiments, and strange screams… I couldn’t get any proper sleep.
But at least I was able to eat thanks to them.
I looked at the plate Luna had brought me.
“You put green onions in water. And…”
There were so many other ingredients…
But there was nothing else in the plate.
It looked like she had just boiled some green onions in water.
No, could this even be called food?
My conscience wouldn’t allow me to call it that.
“Who cooked this?”
“I did…! But Saten burned all the other ingredients, so I couldn’t help it! Anyway, it’s not my fault!”
“…”
So Saten couldn’t cook.
I glanced at Saten.
She had a blank expression, but she was fidgeting nervously with her fingers.
It seemed Luna was telling the truth.
“Well… It’s not exactly food… but it’ll fill our stomachs. Thank you.”
“This is nothing!”
“That’s not a compliment, Luna.”
“Huh? Was I wrong?”
As I sipped the plain water with a hint of green onion flavor…
I looked at the children.
They all seemed dejected from the cooking failure.
‘I guess I’ll have to cook dinner, even if I’m sick.’
Since they didn’t know how to cook, I’d have to choose one of them to teach.
With a mountain of things to teach, I couldn’t even imagine when they would be ready to leave this place.
‘Anyway, since they burned all the ingredients…’
I’d ask them for a simple favor.
I said to the Hero’s party, who were hanging their heads,
“Cooking can be difficult. So this time, I’ll ask for a simple favor.”
“I-If it’s a favor from Mister… w-we’ll do anything…!”
‘You don’t have to do almost anything.’
I wrote down the ingredients needed for dinner on a piece of paper and handed it to Saten.
“Go to the market and buy the ingredients on this list. This should be easy, so you should be able to do it without any problems. Cough-!”
“M-Mister, don’t die…!”
“I won’t die… It’s just a cold…”
I had chills and a fever, but…
It wasn’t life-threatening.
I would recover with some rest.
Even Minerva, who once gave me a problem to create a cure when I had a deadly cold, didn’t say anything this time.
So it must be a simple cold.
Therefore…
“Go and get Estia, then head to the market. Just the four of you. You need to learn how to do things without me.”
The Hero’s Party.
Observing their first mission from afar…
That was all I could do right now.
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Someone is gonna recognize them I can feel it.