“How about I give you a hand?”

“Oh? That’s unusual. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“That’s not it. You just work so efficiently that there was never really anything for me to do.”

“Oh? In that case, why don’t you cut this meat up for me? It might end up tasting better being cut by the katana vassal weapon instead of a normal kitchen knife.”

“Understood.”

Now that Raphtalia was helping, what should I make? I guess you could never go wrong with grilling up meat.

“Make sure you cut against the grain or the texture will be off. I know you’re not Kizuna, but if you have some kind of skill to break down monsters or animals, then it should show you where to cut.”

“Okay.”

Other than that, I guess I could make a stew, maybe. I’d have to skim off the foam, though, and that always made preparing stews annoying. We didn’t have many ingredients, so we were naturally limited in what we could make. Something with vegetables could work, but I didn’t want to get too fancy since the slaves would just devour anything I made in an instant anyway. Oh, why not? It felt like a bit of a waste, but since Raphtalia was helping out and all, I figured I’d grill up another dish with cilantro, too.

“That smells good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, not bad. Should we make a soup, too?”

“Sure.”

We could just simmer some of this meat and turn it into a soup.

“Raphtalia.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to throw some Hamburg steaks together, too, so help me mince this meat.”

“Un . . . understood.”

We worked quickly, cooking up all of the dishes. Raphtalia had mentioned that her parents taught her how to cook, and I could tell she knew what she was doing more than most. But now that I thought about it, I’d hardly ever cooked with her.

“Do you have a special family recipe or anything like that?”

“I guess you could say that. I couldn’t make it with the ingredients we have, though.”

“Well, maybe I’ll have you make it once we get the ingredients you need, then.”

Having a female friend cook for me had always been a dream of mine, actually. None of my friends had ever really been the cooking type, though. Now I could look forward to finding out what Raphtalia’s family recipe tasted like.

“I . . . I’m afraid of all of the mistakes you’d point out if I tried making it for you.”

Huh? That wasn’t the response I was expecting to hear from Raphtalia.

“You think I’m some kind of food snob?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No way.”

It wasn’t like I had ever complained about anyone else’s cooking. Just what kind of person did Raphtalia think I was? I wanted to live up to her expectations as much as possible, but a food snob? That was unexpected. If any of us was a food snob, it would have to be Filo or Raphtalia. Filo was especially picky about flavor.