Okay, Llewellyn was the best at setting up dates. I couldn't believe he'd had Strip Elemental Cuisine in mind, or whatever this was, and still presented the other option.
"You're on," I said.
The only problem was… I had the suspicion I was being entirely set up and was putting myself in a stupid situation playing an Elemental Cuisine game against someone with Transcendent-Level Elemental Mastery. Considering it'd still end up with either one or both of us naked, that was absolutely a win in my book regardless.
Still. It was a matter of principle.
Maybe I could cheat a bit.
An ice bucket flew past. Llewellyn waved it over and placed our order. There were no NPCs here after all, so I guess that would do.
"We want different dishes," Llewellyn said. "So we can both guess. And we can also share, if you like."
Wait, so we were going to get two ten-course meals?! That would be a total of twenty different dishes!
"So," I said, flipping my menu in case it had details, but obviously it didn't. "How does this work?"
Llewellyn settled back in his chair, looking happy.
"Each course is infused with a specific Element. We try it and taste which one it is. Whoever is wrong loses a piece of clothing."
"What if we both guess wrong?" I asked.
"Then we both lose a piece of clothing," he said. "But you're going to find I'm very good at this game."
As expected.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Not even pretending not to cheat?"
"I'm not going to cheat at all," Llewellyn said, amused. "I'm just very good."
Pft. It was clearly a rigged game from the start.
Before I could reply, two small plates flew to our table, landing in front of us.
Mine held some sort of thinly sliced cured meat in a dressing that looked amazing and smelled lemony.
Llewellyn's looked like a small soup, likely mushroom.
"Taste, guess, and swap?" I asked. "How do we know if we got it right?"
"System?" Llewellyn asked. "Can you automate some sort of reply after we each confirm our answer?"
The System pinged.
[System Notification: Affirmative. The System will show the correct Element after each User has guessed.]
"Good," Llewellyn said, and tried his soup.
"Air," he said immediately and confirmed his answer.
The word "Air" appeared floating in the air, alongside a check mark. Looked like he'd got it right.
I tried mine.
"…"
Damn, I couldn't tell at all.
"Earth?" I tried.
Looked like that was wrong. It was Air, too.
"Don't look so pleased," I told Llewellyn. "I'm just going to take a shoe off."
"You'll run out of shoes and socks soon," Llewellyn said with a grin.
Uh. My stomach did something weird.
Anyway.
"You know you could just speed things up right this second, right?" I said.
I mean, it was clear I couldn't win this game, so I might as well derail it with… uh… the table option.
"Mmh," Llewellyn said, then just swapped our dishes so we could each try the other's.
…It looked like we were going to keep this up.
I tried his soup. It tasted amazing, but… I wouldn't have been able to guess that either.
"I actually don't have ten items of clothing," I told Llewellyn as the second course landed in front of us. "Maybe seven at most. What happens if I run out of them? Are you going to ask for sexual favors?"
Llewellyn's hand stopped mid-air and his breath stuttered a bit.
"If you don't stop giving me ideas, we won't get to the end of this meal at all."
I grinned. That was exactly my objective.
"Anyway," Llewellyn said, picking one of the small dumplings on his plate and biting into it. "This is Metal."
Obviously, he was correct again.
I was the one getting soup this time. I dipped my spoon into it and… uh. No idea.
Wait, let's just try something.
I activated Elemental Insight and—
Damn it. Apparently, Myth level wasn't good enough for something so small. It looked like at the moment I could only use it with Knots.
Wait, what about Exploratory Analysis? I activated it.
[Skill 'Exploratory Analysis' has been activated! Do you want to analyze the Elemental composition of your dish?]
Ha!
Before I could confirm…
"What are you doing?" Llewellyn asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Nothing that concerns you," I said with a grin.
Llewellyn's eyes narrowed even more.
"System," he said, "can you block any attempts at cheating?"
[System Notification: User Ryo's skill 'Exploratory Analysis' has been deactivated!]
No—what!
"Hey!" I said. "Why can you even do that!"
Llewellyn grinned and leaned back, looking smug. "My Core Partition," he said, "my rules."
Goddamnit.
"No need to look so upset," Llewellyn said, though he could probably sense that I wasn't upset at all, just feeling somewhat combative right now. "That just means you'll end up naked faster."
"…"
He was right, but still!
"Fine," I said, trying my soup again. "Wood."
It was Air again.
The second shoe went.
By the time we got to my trousers, we'd been through five courses and I'd only guessed one right—Fire, because it reminded me of Penguin's cooking.
There were five courses to go and I only had three items of clothing left—shirt, trousers, and underwear.
Llewellyn was, obviously, still fully dressed.
"This is a deeply unfair game," I said, trying out a new portion of pasta.
"You wanted us to get naked anyway," Llewellyn said, amused, before guessing "Earth"—which was correct.
I guessed Wood for mine and… got it wrong again.
"Well," I said. "Since you're not removing anything, you should make yourself useful and get mine off."
"Oh?" Llewellyn said, looking intrigued—and got up.
Yes!
But also… Uh.
He extended a hand, tugging me up, then pressed me against the column behind our table and reached for my trousers, unbuttoning them.
"Like this?" he asked.
"…"
How was he so smooth?!
Besides, in front of the full glass window of the rotating platform it felt even more…
I stepped out of my trousers. Llewellyn pressed me back against the column and kissed me.
"…"
My heartbeat was suddenly very fast.
"Your Elemental Mastery is Transcendent Level," I said. "You should let me remove one piece of clothing of yours at least. To even the field."
"Seems fair," Llewellyn said, mouthing a kiss under my ear. "Go ahead."
I immediately went for his shirt. I mean, at least I was going to enjoy the view too.
I lifted it, taking it off him.
…Uh.
I was still pressed against the column.
We stared at each other.
"Should we go back to…" I started.
Llewellyn kissed me again, caught my wrists, and pinned them above my head.
Yeah, great thinking. Incredible timing. Ten points to him.
"This is why I said we had to go to the other place," he said, kissing down my throat.
"Absolutely not," I said.
Llewellyn bit down.
"I'm going to take the rest of these off," he said, and did.
He had to release my wrists to get to the rest of my clothes, so I cupped his head and kissed him, before going for his trousers and unzipping them.
Llewellyn let me unbutton them, but grabbed my wrists and stopped me before I could take them off.
"We're going to finish our dinner first," he said between kisses, pinning me again.
…What?! Still?!
I groaned.
"Why?" I said, kissing him. "I've got nothing else to take off."
Llewellyn looked down at me and… his ears went red. And so did the rest of his face.
…This guy.
Well, I imagine I wasn't looking any better if the way I felt right now was any indication.
"Doesn't matter," Llewellyn said, sucking another mark on my throat. "We're finishing the food."
I didn't really care about the food right now!
"You mean we're just going to get back to our seats like this?!"
…Was he trying to make me lose my mind?!