The Flying Emporium

Many hours had passed in the meantime. It was dead silent outside. Everyone was already asleep by now. Even if they weren’t, with the Lion’s Head guild on their way, the majority of people present now spent their nights on the docked flying ship. As such, no one noticed the slightly chubby shadow flashing across the mountaintop. Nor did they notice any of the other changes, which included the sudden appearance of an entirely new building. A building that to most probably seemed oddly placed as it didn’t directly align with any of the other two buildings; it looked as if something was still missing.

Severin moved surprisingly fast across the damp grass and disappeared into his new kitchen soon after, suspiciously looking around like someone who had something to hide and didn’t want to be seen.

Once inside, he closed the door behind him and looked around. He wasn’t irritated that the room was largely empty. After confirming that everything was arranged exactly to his specifications, he nodded to himself in satisfaction and headed towards the kitchen equipment.

Severin very much liked to eat, but he had never been much of a cook himself. He didn’t possess any noteworthy kitchen skills whatsoever and didn’t have any misconceptions about this, either. In fact, for the most part, Severin’s cooking was limited to putting a frozen pizza in the oven or throwing store-bought pasta into a pot of boiling water. It was obvious that he never had even the slightest ambition of becoming a restaurateur.

There was never a doubt that he would have to solely rely on the skills the System would bestow upon him to make this place run smoothly. Despite all that, he wasn’t totally oblivious to what a well-equipped kitchen had to look like; even if it was a commercial one.

And what he saw in front of him right now looked suspiciously similar to exactly one such kitchen.

Various kitchen tools Severin had only seen on television before dangled at just the right height from above the stainless-steel kitchen worktop. He could also make out a variety of different sized and shaped pots, pans, and bowls, which were distributed on several cabinets and shelves. He didn’t have to open the drawers to know their contents.

Then there was a big unit of metal with multiple doors and just as many control panels. Severin suspected it was the oven.

There also was a gas stove. At least it looked like one. But even upon closer inspection, Severin couldn’t find anything resembling either a gas connection or one for electricity. For the moment Severin decided to ignore that detail and continued to look around his new kitchen instead.

He found that even the floor was coated with some kind of slip resistance substance. At a first glance, it seemed as if the only thing that was missing were a freezer and a pantry, which were both unnecessary thanks to the storage provided by the System.

Severin strongly suspected that this was not how kitchens usually looked like in this world. The style resembled too much that of his old home.

It wasn’t enough to bring him off course, but for once he couldn’t help but appreciate the System’s generosity to provide him and his kitchen with more than just the bare minimum of equipment.

Then one thing specifically caught his attention.

The sink.

He slowly made his way over and appraised it on all sides. Similar to the stove, it didn’t seem connected to any sort of piping. Nonetheless, once he turned the tap, after a short hesitation, the water came gushing out.

Somehow he felt this was even stranger than ingredients appearing directly out of nothing whenever he was accessing the System.

Severin suddenly could understand Mylana and her obsessive behavior a bit better.

He put his hands into the stream of water and splashed some of it onto his face before then taking a couple of big gulps.

Yet after indulging for a bit, he couldn’t help but to silently admonish the System; almost as if his previously felt gratitude was already long forgotten.

If it’s that easy, was there really a need to restrict it in the first place? Even without a sense of thirst and its consequences. Even without the need to clean or to wash up, thanks to no dirt being able to accumulate on the store’s premises. It hadn’t been easy to give up.

Severin was annoyed but didn’t dwindle any further. Instead, he bought a random chair from the System’s store, summoned it, and sat down.

Only then, for the first time, did he open his cookbook and took a look at its contents.

The cookbook was obviously the equivalent of the alchemy recipe book.

What he saw wasn’t entirely unexpected. It was still very much disappointing and sobering.

He had already sneaked a peek at the new ingredients that had appeared in his inventory earlier, and it allowed him to make an educated guess as to what his first dish would be; if one could even call it a dish in the first place.

Besides, simply being level one already dictated what sort of meal he could possibly expect. And a hearty roast was most certainly not amongst them.

Instead, he had thought back to his beginnings as an [Alchemist]. His first products had been potions. No matter how useful, if one was being honest, potions, especially health and mana or resource potions, were pretty much the most standard, most boring product any [Alchemist] could possibly come up with.

Just by looking at things from that perspective, Severin thought he had a good grasp of what to expect. Yet reality somehow exceeded his imagination. It truly was the most boring stuff. So much so that he never even considered this result.

Bread.

Severin felt played. But he didn’t scream or yell.

Instead, he seemed almost resigned, and simply absorbed the System’s knowledge without complaining; not even arguing that he was a [Cook] and not a [Baker].

The depressing images of a group of adventurers silently eating nothing but dry bread in his planned café popped up in his mind.

>> Hello? Does this work? What’s going on? Have you…<<

All of a sudden, he heard the voice of a young girl in his ears, causing him to jump up in fright. His self-pity immediately vanished, and he franticly searched the room. His heart was beating like crazy.

>> [Cook]!? <<

The voice returned. This time with a piercing yell that kept echoing in Severin’s head.

>> Wait for me! I’m coming! <<

“Em?” When he finally made the connection, a blue dot was already moving across the map of the store’s premises and had almost reached the new building.