"Oh!! I'm fired up!" Stella rolled up her sleeves, imitating the President, looking ready for a big job.
"President, what dish are we making?"
"Hehe, It's curry."
Tohka Todo took a white apron out of the plastic bag, put it on skillfully, and reached behind her back to tie the strings.
She explained, "To quickly prepare food for a large group of people, curry is a great choice. The raw ingredients are easy to prep, you can make a massive amount all at once, and both the taste and nutrition are quite good."
"Curry!"
'It's here. It really is curry!'
Stella stared at the ingredients on the counter with sparkling eyes, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
Noah walked over and calmly held her down.
"Eh? Noah, what are you doing?"
"You're asking me... I should be asking you. Do you have any cooking experience at all?"
"N-no."
"Then stop messing around."
Although he hadn't said it at the time... that porridge Stella cooked for him when he was sick...
It was so damn salty! She had probably mixed up the salt and the sugar!
"But it feels like it would be a lot of fun!" Stella pleaded, wanting to help, but Noah wasn't reassured.
Seeing Noah's reaction, Tohka roughly guessed what was going on.
'That's right.'
'Stella was Her Highness the Princess, after all.'
'Would a royal princess know how to cook? Noah-kun must know about Stella's cooking skills, which is why he was trying so hard to stop her.'
'In this situation...'
'I've got it.'
"Noah-kun, could you let Stella-san help wash the ingredients? I'm a bit overwhelmed doing it alone."
Noah glanced at the small half-basin of potatoes Tohka had already washed.
Her efficiency wasn't any weaker than his! But that was fine.
The President had definitely seen his concern and was playing along to spare Stella's feelings.
Noah pretended to hesitate for a moment, then nodded. "Stella, I will leave washing the vegetables to you."
"Oh! Leave it to me!"
Even though it was just a menial chore, Stella still looked very happy.
The task itself wasn't important; she probably just wanted a sense of participation with her friends.
Noah picked up the potatoes Tohka had washed, scooped them out, and placed them on the wooden cutting board.
He picked up a standard kitchen knife and examined the dull edge, then silently used his iron-smelting magic to reforge the steel.
If the knife just now was just a cheap item you could buy in a supermarket, now it was a razor-sharp work of art that only a master swordsmith could forge.
Its material value increased by at least a hundred times.
Whoosh!
Chop, chop, chop.
Tohka's eyes widened in surprise when she saw his swift actions.
She pointed at the brand-new kitchen knife and asked, "Was that just now Noah-kun's Noble Art, 'Iron Smelting'?"
'Hmm? Noble Art?'
Noah looked at Tohka's reaction, then looked at the kitchen knife in his hand, and gave a soft "Mm."
Because he had repeatedly used this forging move in public matches, it seemed to have become a deeply ingrained signature move to the students.
To the average Blazer, this could indeed be called a so-called "Noble Art."
But from his own perspective, it was just a simple magic with the Spell-Weaver used to handle the situation at hand.
It was far from being a true Noble Art, because its degree of completion was just too low.
"Do the potatoes need peeling?" Noah asked.
"Yes."
"How big should I cut them?"
"About this big."
"Understood."
Noah and Tohka conversed very naturally in the outdoor kitchen.
Just by looking at the expert way Noah held the knife, the girl knew he was a seasoned veteran in the kitchen.
Therefore, she confidently handed this prep task over to him.
Noah's knife rose and fell at lightning speed.
A potato would tumble in his hand a few times before the peel disappeared, then fall onto the plate transformed into perfectly even cubes.
"Heh—Noah-kun is really good at this." Utakata Misogi leaned against the counter, watching his performance.
Seeing him come over to watch, Noah gave a slight smile.
'This feeling... it really has been a long time.'
The last time he did this might have been when he was camping in the dungeon with the girls from the Astraea Familia.
At that time, he had also helped cook, even taking on the majority of the work.
In his perception, that was something that happened over two years ago.
Perhaps it was almost time to wake up.
"Noah! I am done washing! Look!" Stella ran over carrying a heavy basin of potatoes and slammed it down in front of him with a bang.
He mentally estimated the amount.
Given everyone's appetites plus Stella's massive appetite, this probably still wouldn't be enough to eat.
Speaking of which, dragons store accumulated energy in their "flame sacs."
Could Stella be reproducing that specific biological characteristic of a dragon?
It was just that she concentrated all of her excess fat in her chest area instead of her belly.
As a high-level adventurer, his own appetite was no less than a normal adult's, yet it was only a sixth or even a seventh of Stella's capacity.
"Good job, Stella." Noah praised the girl, and then naturally handed her the task of dealing with the carrots and onions.
Tohka held the untouched onions, looked around the empty campsite, and asked in confusion.
"Where did Renren go? Wasn't she in charge of the onions?"
"Ah, she said she was going to the restroom, and then disappeared. Utsutsu-kun said she was definitely just pretending to go to the restroom to slack off, so he went to look for her." Utakata supplied.
"Those two..." Tohka looked a little angry.
In her eyes, these two had clearly used excuses to ditch their work and run away.
If Renren were here, the onions would have been dealt with immediately.
Renren's Noble Art allowed her to continuously accelerate until she exceeded the speed of sound, as long as she didn't stop moving.
She could chop a hundred onions in a second.
"Me, me, me! Let me do it!" Stella volunteered eagerly and took the onions.
...
Two minutes later.
A weeping and sniffling Stella came over to Noah's side, rubbing her eyes and asking him to help wipe her tears.
Noah felt she looked both pitiful and cute, so he simply told her to hand the onions over to him.
Utakata commented from the side, "Noah-kun is such a gentleman. Do you care for your lover that much?"
'L-lo-lover!!!'
Stella's entire body froze, steam practically rising from her head.
Noah, on the other hand, didn't really mind the label.
Anyway, their relationship was pretty much at that stage right now.
Maybe even a step further.
He smiled, then manipulated the wind to suspend the onions in mid-air above the cutting board.
First, he set up a water vapor shield around them.
Chopping onions makes you cry because of the alliinase contained within them.
Under its effect, the onion volatilizes some oily sulfur-containing compounds, producing a sulfurous gas that irritates the nerve endings in the human cornea.
Using a water shield to isolate this gas and prevent it from making contact with the eyes avoids getting choked up and shedding tears.
Then comes the cutting.
He controlled tiny, razor-sharp wind blades to swirl rapidly inside the water shield, dicing the floating vegetables perfectly.
"Done."