Minerva, after welcoming us back, was more than happy to help with the cooking. It turned out she really enjoyed her maidly duties. She also had the strength to drag the corpse of a buffalo around. Minerva and Lynn seemed in a good mood as they worked. Alister had wandered off to get some wood for the grill.

But what was I going to do? Just standing here felt kind of awkward.

“Should we help somehow?” I asked Lucy.

“You can play with me!” Ben suggested. He was still here.

“I know some great games!” Shani announced.

“How many of those involve blood?” I asked.

“Blood is fun…” Shani muttered.

“Amaya and myself can turn into animals! You can ride on our backs!” Lucy suggested.

“Yay!” Ben cheered.

I liked the idea so I transformed.

“Kitty!” Ben seemed to approve. Lucy changed as well and soon we were running around. Shani was surprisingly helpful and gentle with Ben. She placed him on our backs and made sure he did not fall off.

Of course she occasionally suggested we should kill things. And she theorised about good weapons for Ben that would work while mounted. But we all had a great time and I extended her summoning once more.

Meanwhile other people were busy doing actual work. The flaming buffalo was expertly butchered and cut into steaks. Josef had joined the preparations and was mixing sauces. Thessia was preparing side dishes with Elandru. Lily was working on a dessert.

Ben got tired after a while but did not want to stop playing. Despite his protest he eventually took a nap. Iris returned with her new recruits who joined the preparations. Lucy and myself were back to our humanoid forms.

“With Ben sleeping we lost our excuse to not help.” I admitted.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“We don’t need an excuse. We are in charge here. Embrace being the lazy noble.” Lucy countered.

We were lying in the grass next to each other.

“I guess. You know, this all feels so normal. People preparing a feast and having fun. No demons, no conspiracies. It’s kind of nice.”

“We did blow up a castle earlier.” Lucy reminded me.

“Not we, that was you alone.” I pointed out.

“True. You can have the next one. And there is a demon.” Lucy pointed at Lily.

I sighed. “Fine. Our normal just includes demons and explosions. Anyway, how big is this party going to be?” I wondered. “The village does have a reason to celebrate. Will they join? Or throw their own party?”

“No clue. But there will be enough buffalo for everyone, that is for sure.”

“We should hunt more monsters. Do you remember the fancy restaurant from Unitera? They had so many interesting things. Oh, we need to hire a true chef.”

“Either that or train one of our maids. I think both Lily and Minerva enjoy cooking.”

We continued to laze around a bit more before we joined the others. Part of the buffalo was shared with the remaining village. It looked like there were a few different celebrations all over the place. We would simply have a feast with Lucy’s family. I suppose they were my family now as well.

Of course we also had our maids, recruits, Thessia,... We certainly were a big group now. Since the preparations were mostly done, Iris started to do spear drills with her recruits.

I walked over to the big grill when Minerva started to throw some meat on it. I handed her a mug of beer. “You can’t grill without beer. That is just wrong.” I told her.

“Uh, thank you. I shall remember that.” She answered.

“What do you think of the new recruits?” I asked.

“They look promising but it’s too early to tell. They did not object to maidly chores and they have not stabbed themselves with their spears yet. That is a good start. But we need proper armour and weapons for them.”

“Hopefully we can recruit a smith and a tailor.” I said.

“We are going to travel through the dwarven kingdom. It should be easy to recruit a smith. Well, depending on your standards.” She added.

I nodded. I was thinking the same thing. The meat sizzled and smelled heavenly. I was very curious about it. Soon the first pieces were ready and the feast truly began.

We had an entire table filled with dishes. Fried vegetables, salads, roasted potatoes, bread... I was impressed. We also had several condiments. And I spied something like brownies for dessert. Of course we also had plenty of beer and wine.

The whole feast was possible because I had a lot of things in my storage. Lynn and Alister provided some fresh produce but the village was rather poor. Ben was awake again and especially excited.

“Wow, so much food!” He exclaimed.

While he was running around excitedly I tried the flaming buffalo. Obviously I had to make sure it was actually tasty. So I grabbed a wooden plate and claimed a steak. The meat was tender, reminded me somewhat of beef and had a rather peppery spiciness. I quite enjoyed it. After my first bite I put the steak between two slices of sourdough bread and added some mustard. Did that count as a burger? Sandwich? How cares, it was delicious!

People started filling their plates and grabbing drinks. Lucy was telling the new recruits stories of our adventures. They all looked starstruck. Ben loved the steak and declared his goal of becoming a hunter of tasty things.

Alister walked over to me. “Thank you again for saving Lucy. I still can’t believe that she is finally home.”

Home. Something I had not thought about for a while. I came alone to this world. But I found friends here. Even more than that, I found love.

“I might have saved her but I don’t know what I would do without her.” I said with a smile.