Creak—
"You're back."
"Yeah, I'm back."
Noah returned to the dorm room and set his heavy grocery bags down on the small kitchenette counter.
He glanced over at Stella and noticed she had already changed into comfortable indoor clothes.
'But still.... why this kind of clothes?'
The soft cotton shorts she wore barely covered her thighs, reaching only to the very top.
Was she even wearing anything underneath?
"Hey, Noah."
"Yeah?"
"Starting today, we will officially be living together... ahem, sharing a single room."
"Uh, yeah."
"So, what I mean is, you don't need to go outside into the hallway every single time I need to change clothes."
...
So the girl had noticed his polite intentions from earlier.
But what she said next was still quite shocking!
"N-Not that I am letting you look freely! I just mean, you could just turn around, or I could simply change in the bathroom from now on!"
"Ah, okay."
'So that's what she meant.'
"Alright, I understand. By the way, I bought some pork leg meat, green peppers, eggs, and shrimp. Let's cook dinner in the dorm tonight."
"Huh? Dinner? In the dorm? By ourselves?"
"No problem. I checked the appliances earlier—the induction cooker is brand new."
"No, I mean, can we actually cook? What if it turns out terrible?"
Stella was a genuine royal princess, so her practical cooking and housekeeping skills were naturally at absolute zero proficiency.
She had never once learned how to chop a vegetable!
"Then just wait at the table. I can handle it alone."
"Noah, you can cook?!"
Since they had met, she had never seen the boy cook a single meal!
Come to think of it, to Stella, the boy was her only close friend and the only boy she trusted, but in reality, they had only known each other for two years.
She knew he had once been a slave gladiator, but she didn't know what his life was like before that, or what his past was really like.
Even though he told her to just sit and wait, the girl still stood eagerly nearby, watching him curiously.
Noah took out the pork leg meat, arranged it on the cutting board, pinched the fat and then picked up a kitchen knife to make a cut.
Feeling dull resistance from the blade, he frowned and appraised the knife, only to find that the cheap dorm equipment hadn't even been sharpened.
'An unsharpened kitchen knife?'
Noah casually used Smelt Iron to reforge the knife on a microscopic level.
A brief flash of heat flared and the steel blade became incredibly sharp.
With a single smooth cut and pull, the tough skin separated from the meat.
Accompanied by a rapid rhythmic tapping sound, the pork was sliced into perfectly even paper-thin pieces.
"Wow...!"
Stella exclaimed, clapping her hands. "That's amazing! Just like a professional head chef!"
Seeing the girl's innocent, starry-eyed expression, Noah suddenly recalled his skills and smiled.
"If you have been a chef for seventy or eighty years, you would at least have this level of knife skill."
Since there was no dedicated rice cooker in the cheap kitchen, he used a stainless steel pressure cooker instead.
Although it had stronger heating power, the cooked rice wouldn't naturally be as plump and fragrant.
The most important thing was that manually controlling the heat and water level inside a sealed pot was highly difficult.
But this wasn't a problem for Noah.
Appraise.
[Pressure Cooker (Rice Cooking Mode)]
Optimal rice-to-water ratio: 1:1.1976
Recommended trace elements: Potassium, Calcium, Sodium, Magnesium
Recommended addition: 3 green tea leaves
Recommended addition: 1.14 milliliters of vinegar
Countdown, 15 minutes, on!
Watching his incredibly smooth and effortless movements in the small kitchen, Stella could only feel pure astonishment.
When she saw Noah masterfully tossing the green peppers and pork in the hot wok, fully releasing their mouth-watering aroma, the girl couldn't help but drool a little from the corner of her mouth.
The stolen experiences gained by Truth Seeker weren't strictly limited to combat—even mundane professions like cooking, fishing and other soft skills were perfectly absorbed from the adventurers in Orario.
The combined culinary experiences of dozens of tavern cooks made his knife skills, heat control and plating utterly flawless.
Not to mention, his Spell-Weaver gave him even greater elemental control, allowing him to instantly adjust microscopic temperature changes and perform even more exaggerated cooking techniques.
Steamed shrimp with eggs. Green pepper pork. Plus a side of seaweed salad.
Two people, five dishes.
Stella alone ate four massive servings.
"Mmm! This is so delicious! I have never seen you cook before, but it turns out you have such amazing culinary skills, Noah!"
"I wasn't intentionally hiding it. After all, in the palace, there were so many master chefs and maids that I never had the chance to step into the kitchen."
"...Wait, does that mean I can eat your home cooking every single day from now on?!"
Noah was momentarily speechless. "No. Isn't there a massive cafeteria at school? Wouldn't eating there be much more convenient and easier than cooking for ourselves every night?"
As any adult knows, the easiest part of cooking is the actual "cooking."
The troublesome parts are buying the groceries, washing and preparing the ingredients and after eating, washing the greasy dishes, taking out the trash and wiping down the counters.
When cook for yourself, the hidden costs of time and energy are actually quite high.
"Could the cafeteria food possibly be better than this?" Stella asked skeptically.
"How would I know?"
"Then let's go try it together tomorrow!" Stella said excitedly.
Noah witnessed firsthand what it meant to be a glutton—she hadn't even finished her massive current meal yet, but was already eagerly looking forward to the taste of the cafeteria food tomorrow.
'No wonder her tits is so big...'
"Alright."
...
On the first day of the academic term.
Noah and Stella arrived together at the first-year hallway.
Their assigned homeroom was Class 1-1.
As the two entered the classroom, all the seated students immediately began whispering and discussing them.
"Hey, it is the Crimson Princess."
"She really is beautiful in person, and she is an A-Rank knight too."
"What is with the guy walking next to her? He looks so close to the princess. Damn, what a lucky bastard."
"Shh!"
"Idiot, if you want to die, do not drag us into it! That is the Calamity! If you had seen him go berserk in the arena yesterday, you wouldn't be saying something so stupid now!"
"Calamity? I haven't heard of that title."
"Then remember it well from now on. That guy is definitely the most terrifying monster among the freshmen..."
"Hehehe."
Stella overheard the others' fearful discussions and covered her mouth as she laughed quietly.
She teased the boy, "Noah, did you hear that? Your scary new nickname has spread in no time!"
---------
Read 50 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator