“Fire.”
Fwoooosh!
Having hunted the cockatrice with a single blow,
I lit a campfire in front of its enormous corpse and set up a temporary camp.
Princess Rosaria looked utterly exhausted.
Although she had recovered some strength through healing magic and dragon’s blood herb tea,
she had gone so long without a proper meal that her body had weakened.
If an ordinary person’s maximum stamina was 100,
Rosaria’s was only around 10.
Even if I cast healing magic on her again in that state to restore her energy,
she would not last long before collapsing from exhaustion anyway.
“The cooking will take a little while, so please get some rest.”
Rosaria nodded and sat beside the campfire with Aris, her face pale.
“Aris, you’re supposed to help me. Why are you sitting with her?”
“Huh?! I wasn’t resting too?”
“You’re not a guest. Go bring the bag.”
“Uuuugh…….”
Aris stood up again and brought me the bag.
“Now then…….”
The massive body of the cockatrice was nearly four to five meters in size.
Among adventurers, it was treated as a dangerous monster because of its petrification ability,
but to me, it was nothing more and nothing less than an incredibly huge chicken.
Of course, unlike a real chicken, its meat was tough and there were parts that were dangerous to eat,
but I was more than used to cooking with monsters.
“Steam Fire.”
First, I spread my palm toward the cockatrice and cast fire magic.
It was a spell similar to the one I used when lighting a campfire, but the effect was completely different.
It was magic that mixed in the water element to create hot steam.
Steam gushed from my palm and enveloped the cockatrice’s body.
Doing this produced an effect like scalding it in hot water,
opening the pores in the skin so that the feathers would be easier to pluck.
Once the cockatrice’s pores had softened enough,
I grabbed the feathers by hand and pulled them out in one direction.
“Aris, you help pluck them too.”
“Ah, yeees!”
Sliiip—! Pluck—!
Plucking the feathers from the huge cockatrice took quite some time,
but because the pores were open, the feathers themselves came out smoothly.
After plucking the feathers from its entire body,
a familiar sight appeared, like a raw chicken sold at the market magnified dozens of times.
“Wind Cutter.”
Then I used magic that handled wind like a large blade,
cut off the cockatrice’s head, and used magic to control the pressure, finishing the bloodletting in an instant.
After that, I took out the simple cooking tools I had packed in the bag.
I set up a tall iron stand made to hang a pot over the campfire,
and hung a large pot in the very center.
“Condense!”
Then I used magic to gather moisture from the air into the pot,
filling it with clean water as if creating something out of nothing.
If used in a confined space, it would dry out the surroundings in an instant,
but in a forest like this, there was no problem at all.
“Aris, butcher’s knife.”
“Huh? Ah… yes!”
Aris rummaged through the bag, pulled out a knife, and held it out to me.
“That’s a kitchen knife! And when you hand someone a knife, you turn it so the handle faces them!”
“Huh? Uh… um… so…….”
“There should be a knife with a curved tip. Give me that one.”
“Yeees!”
This time, Aris found the butcher’s knife properly and handed it to me with the handle turned toward me.
I took the long butcher’s knife and carved the meat from the cockatrice’s massive thigh, skin and all.
If it were a chicken, I would have used one whole part,
but this thing was far too big for that.
If properly butchered, it would probably yield enough for a hundred servings.
I did not need that much right now,
so I deliberately cut out only the amount I needed from the thigh.
A little bone, lean meat, and skin.
I put all of it into the pot and began boiling it.
I adjusted the firepower of the campfire with mana, controlling it finely so it would not become too strong.
Once the broth began to boil, I added three kinds of herbs and salt to remove the gamey smell.
With a ladle, I skimmed off the impurities and excess fat floating on top,
then scooped up a bit of the broth and tasted it.
“Mmm.”
As expected, cockatrice broth had a much deeper flavor than ordinary chicken.
You could call it an upgraded version of native chicken.
The flavor drawn out from the bones and skin was in a league of its own.
Of course, the peculiar gamey odor of monsters was truly difficult to handle,
but I had already perfectly dealt with it thanks to all the ingredients I had prepared in the bag for that purpose.
After boiling the broth for quite some time,
I took out the bones and skin, leaving only the thigh meat behind.
After checking that the meat had become tender enough,
I shredded it finely, almost like threads.
Lastly, I added the rice I had packed in the bag,
then used magic to accelerate osmosis so the broth would soak evenly into each grain of rice.
“It… it smells deliciousss.”
Aris, who had been watching my cooking process, made a slurp as she sucked in her drool.
What I was making now was none other than cockatrice porridge.
And I was boiling it thinly, letting the grains of rice spread out thoroughly, to the point where it could be swallowed almost without chewing.
A little while later—
the cockatrice porridge was finally complete.
Its appearance was similar to very thin chicken porridge,
but the flavor was far deeper, with a richer meaty aroma.
“Here. It’s hot, so please try a little at a time, slowly.”
I put exactly one ladleful of porridge into a small bowl and handed it to Rosaria.
“Is this…… the food I ordered?”
Rosaria asked me, holding the bowl of porridge.
“Right now, Miss Rosaria, your stomach has weakened because you haven’t been eating properly day after day. If you suddenly eat ordinary food in that state, it could become dangerous. For now, you need to slowly eat warm porridge and wake up the stomach that has been resting for so long. Once you are in a condition where you can eat normal meals, I will give you real food then.”
After explaining the reason to Rosaria,
I filled bowls with porridge for Aris and myself as well.
“Hawp…! Hawp…! This…… doesn’t feel like anything special, but it’s strangely delicious!”
As soon as Aris received her bowl, she scooped up a spoonful and shoved the porridge into her mouth at tremendous speed.
It had just been ladled from the pot, so it should have been almost as hot as lava,
yet she was eating it so well that I could not understand how she managed it.
“If it’s delicious, then it’s delicious. What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t feel special, but it’s good’?”
After lightly scolding Aris for her tasting review,
I checked on Rosaria.
Rosaria was holding the bowl of porridge, staring at it, hesitating to eat.
It was probably because the matters of her family, which had caused her eating disorder, were still holding her psychologically.
I spoke to her again.
“I understand that you are still worried inside. But rather than forcing yourself into an unwanted marriage according to your family’s decision, I think the decision you made now is far better. Think of it as the process of finding your own life anew, Miss Rosaria. From the moment you came back to me, the Hildenburg family will not be able to find you again.”
“Do you think so…….”
“Just for this moment, try thinking of yourself not as a princess of your house, but as one adventurer. Wipe the family matters completely from your mind. Once the meal is finished, Irit will come to pick you up. From then on, whatever you do will be your freedom, Miss Rosaria.”
Rosaria slowly lifted the bowl of porridge and smelled the steam rising from it.
Since I had completely removed the gamey odor, even someone with a weak stomach would not detect an unpleasant smell.
As long as she was not still psychologically rejecting food.
Seeing her still hesitate to put the spoon into the bowl, I continued speaking.
“Before I ran a restaurant, I was an adventurer too. Over many years as an adventurer, I camped in forests like this, and in dungeons, I would procure ingredients myself and cook meals. They couldn’t compare to food eaten at a top-class restaurant, but all the food I ate while living as an adventurer remains a special experience to me.”
“…….”
“Would you like to experience that same freedom as an adventurer, just once? This is the beginning.”
After saying that, I also scooped up a spoonful of porridge from the bowl I was holding and put it into my mouth.
The deep flavor of the rich cockatrice broth lingered throughout my mouth,
and the meat, shredded completely thin and soft, was easy enough to swallow without chewing.
Rosaria stared intently at the bowl of porridge she was holding again.
Then she gulped, swallowing her saliva once, and scooped up the porridge with her spoon.
The spoon held in her white, delicate hand slowly moved toward her lips.
And finally…… the first spoonful entered Rosaria’s mouth.
Munch… munch… munch…….
With a tense expression, I watched Rosaria roll the porridge around in her mouth.
Would her body be able to accept the porridge without rejecting it?
Honestly, I was not certain.
But I thought I had done everything I could for her.
If she vomited the porridge back up here…….
Then, honestly, I had no other method.
That was when it happened.
Gulp—
Rosaria, who had been chewing for a long while, finally swallowed the porridge.
Then she raised her head and looked at me.
“How is it? Does it taste all right?”
I asked Rosaria with a smile.
“It’s… delicious. More than any food I’ve ever eaten…… I’m shocked.”
As she answered with a genuinely surprised face, her hand was resting on the pit of her own stomach.
Perhaps she was feeling, for the first time in a long while, the sensation of food properly going down.
“Please eat slowly so you don’t get indigestion.”
“Then…… thank you for the meal.”
Rosaria’s spoon went toward the bowl of porridge once more.
Then another spoonful, and another…….
Steadily, the porridge in the bowl diminished.
She did not vomit back up the porridge she had eaten.
And on Rosaria’s face, as she had a proper meal for the first time in so long,
a dazzling vitality was slowly returning before I knew it.
* * *