Ch 51 -- Silent Pressure

The carriage came to a halt at sunset. "This is far enough for today." Lambert-san ordered as they prepared to camp for the night.

"Hoi, don't forget your promise earlier." growled Fer.

Wait, did I promise him something?

"You said you'd make me a luxury dinner. Remember?"

Oh, so I did. I'd completely forgotten in all the excitement but Fer had remembered, of course.

"I get it I get it, so what do you want to eat?"

"Sui wants to eat fried food-" Sui interjected.

"Ooh, what you made last time sounds good. Fried food for me too." Fer added, going along with Sui.

I wasn't that hungry but something hot sounded good.

Since I promised Fer a luxury meal I decided to make two kinds of flavouring, one with a soy-sauce base and one with a salt base. For the meat, I chose some Black Serpent and what was left of the Cockatrice and Rock Bird and deep-fried them with soy-sauce and salt.

"Aruji, can I eat it-"

"Just wait a moment." I put the fried food on a dish and pushed it over to Fer and Sui.

"Oh, this tastes different. It's also delicious-" Sui said. Oh, Sui noticed. It's nice to be praised.

Fer was silent as usual, gobbling up the fried food. I expect it's delicious for you too the way you're devouring it. Well I can always fry up some more...

Lambert-san, a boy he had hired and members of 'Phoenix' were gathered around us. I was being silently stared at. Some of them were drooling. The pressure...

Oh, right. I got it.

"Here, if you'd like to help yourself..." I pushed a plate of fried food in their direction and jumped back as they dived towards it.

"Excuse us-"

"Really, I couldn't wait to try some..."

"Ummm!"

"Oh so tasty, it's wonderful..."

"I've never had anything so good..."

Fried food is popular after all. After that I was frying and frying continuously. Just cooking for Fer and Sui is hard work, cooking for this lot was much harder. Worse still, at the end there was none left for me.

I couldn't help myself, I bought a sweet bun from the Net Super when no-one was looking to console myself and I ate that instead.

Damn it.

On the other hand I didn't have to stand a night watch. Fer always set a Barrier so I never needed to carry out a watch although it's usually something you should do in camp.

"As a thank