Okay, I think I’ve done as much as I can.

New, glistening pan in hand, I headed over to Ismund’s tent and rapped on it to get is attention. Sure enough, a little later his head popped out of the flap in the tent with raised eyebrows.

Before he could say anything I held up a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture and started writing in the snow, “Could you make fire?”

He nodded, “Why.”

“To cook.”

“We can just e-”, his finger stopped writing and he said something to himself. After a moment he brushed away what he’d written with his hand and tried again, “Pig?”

I looked at him and nodded with a smile.

That was easy.

I moved off to the side and let him crawl out. He looked around at my pile of sticks grabbed a flat one and a smooth pokey looking one and sat down.

You can’t make a fire with just that, can you? I mean, it’s like -40 C out here or something.

Despite that, He managed to rub them together with some sort of technique and had a fire roaring in a few minutes. I stared at the fire with a puzzled expression, looking back at Ismund a few times.

He must have some sort of skill given by the System as well, right?

As Ismund made the fire Abs had exited his fort via braking through the ceiling and walking through the wall. Afterwords, he plopped down right next to the fire and stared at it like a child.

I rummaged through the wood I’d collected for a bit till I found one that was close enough to resembling a cutting board. Taking the slab of meat he’d given me I slapped it on the flat wood. Looking over to my pan I winced.

I guess I’m going to go through a few charges, eh?

I switched the pan over to a sharp kitchen knife. Staring at the meat intensely I made a bunch of cuts at a 45 degree cuts that only made it three fourth’s of the way through the meat flipped it and did the same over again. Angling my knife so it was straight down I made more cuts that didn’t quite make it though the meat in the opposite direction, flipped it and did the same thing again. Only after that did I cut like a normal person with the knife reaching the ‘cutting board’.

Okay, I’ve got ground meat.

Pulling out my bag I looked though the different spices I had and pulled out a mix: garlic, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, fennel, smoked paprika, and cayenne. They would’ve been more expensive if hadn’t been for the man running the store not knowing much about spices. He just sold whatever herbs were shipped in, he didn’t make any herb mixes. So, I helped him out and showed him some recipes for blends he could sell for a pretty penny and he liked them a lot. Enough that I got a discount.

looking at the knife I was holding I turned it into a large metal bowl and scraped the ground meat off of the board, plopping it into the bowl. Taking the seasoning mix that I called ‘spicy Italian sausage’ I poured some on the meat and started mixing it by hand. The mix was based off of what I could remember from what I’d bought at stores and liked.

Just a genius over here, no biggie.

I smiled as I continued mixing them until I had a consistent mix of meat and seasoning.

I wonder how I’m going to wash my hands…

Shrugging, I carried on. I was already in too deep to back out anyways. The meat was getting a bit frozen from my hands, I’ll admit, so I moved the bowl right next to the fire for a bit to make sure it wasn’t freezing. Once I thought It was good enough I pulled it back and plunged my hand in the bowl-

“Ah!”

-and it was hot. I dropped the bowl in the snow, which proceeded to melt underneath it, and plunged my burnt finger tips in the snow, hissing. Metal was, in fact, good at conducting heat.

Hopefully the sausage didn’t cook at all.

I looked back at it worriedly.

It’ll be fine. Once I’m done with these they’ll be so good! Maybe it’ll convince Ismund of some of my worth or something? Maybe he’ll like me more?

I tentatively reached for the bowl and tapped it lightly and quickly with my hand until I was confident it was cool enough, Luke-warm.

Okay.

I let out a breath and tried again, it went much better. I took handfuls of my meat mixture and shaped it into sausage shapes and placed it on the cutting board one after another. It wasn’t going to be as good as the usual sausage seeing that I didn’t have any casing for it, but it’d still work. I made sure they were big. No one wanted a small sausage.

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Now, I could finally cook them. It hadn’t really taken all that long, but my stomach was gnawing on me instead of me gnawing on sausage.

Using up yet another charge, I changed the bowl back into a pan and placed three sausages on it, roughly a pound of meat, and held it above the fire. Unfortunately I wasn’t very strong and could really hold it above the fire all that long, not to mention the heat.

I need to get a rack or something for my pan to rest on when I cook so I can do this properly. I want it to kind of act like an element on a stove, if a little rustic.

I looked around myself. Abs was nearby, still watching.

Why not?

setting the pan down on the now melting snow I fished around in my bag for my ‘chalk board’ and pulled a stick out of the fire to write.

“Could you give me a hand?”

I really want this to turn out. It’ll impress Ismund, I’m sure. Even if I can’t do what I’m supposed to do, I can do other things.

Abs got out of his hunched position, walked up to me and took it from my hands and squinted his eyes. After a moment he was clutching his chin and slowly nodding. He lended me an empty hand and I gave him the charred stick I was working with while trying to take a look at what he was writing. I couldn’t see over his bulk unfortunately.

The large man hunched over the comparatively small stone and wrote painstakingly slow, frequently erasing what he’d done. Finally he turned it around.

“With what?”, Underneath that there were several poorly made drawings. One of a fire, one of bonking, Ismund? on the head or something, and a third of a knife. I didn’t know what that meant. Before I handed it back I saw something at the bottom written with tiny letters. “Circle one.”

Suuuure… whatever you say Abs.

I had fun talking with him, but he was a little too far out there sometimes. Re-focusing on what I was doing I circled the fire-

Close enough.

-and handed it back.

He nodded sagely and gave me a thumbs up. Before he could do anything too crazy, I took it from his hands and wrote in it.

“I can’t hold the pan above the fire close enough or long enough to cook. Could you do it?”

He nodded quickly and grabbed the pan, holding it above the fire and I winced.

I really hope you have a fire resistance or something.

His skin was fine, but I could see some of his arm hair shriveling and burning in the intense heat. He didn’t seem to care at all, strangely enough.

Odd.

I shrugged and used a long stick to flip the sausages around until they were crisp, golden, and smelled like heaven. I grabbed the flat piece of wood then and proceeded to place the newly cooked sausages on it.

“Ismund!”, I couldn’t wait to show him the food I’d made for him.

I may as well eat last so I can have them while they’re hot.

I looked over my shoulder and saw him climbing out of his tent with a very passive expression, not something he ever had before this parasite got a hold of him. His eyes seemed to brighten up when he saw the sausages and then I saw a very familiar expression. A scowl.

What’s wrong with the food?

I turned around and saw that Abs had eaten two sausages and was reaching for the last one.

What!?

I did my best to not panic. It was fine, he um he was just taste testing.

It’s the human element tax, yeah. Something like that.

I did my best to smile and asked Abs a question.

“Could you save the last one for Ismund. Please?”

He looked back and forth between me and the big, juicy, herby sausage once or twice and then split it in half and shoved one side in his mouth chewing it happily. I imagined he was probably humming happily. Picking up the pan with his greasy fingers he stood ready to fry up more sausages and stared at me, waiting.

I gave Ismund a pained smile and offered the other half of the sausage. He looked at it skeptically, with good reason seeing that the meat was almost expired, and gave a bare hint of a grin before looking at Abs. His gaze darkened immediately. He headed over to his tent and packed it up while I started cooking another three sausages. I would probably only have two left after this.

Oh well.

By the time I was almost finished Ismund was sitting by the fire staring daggers at Abs.

I’m glad he’s got some energy back, but he needs to not antagonize the man so much. It’ll cause issues.

Shaking the thoughts away I placed the now perfectly cooked sausages on the piece of wood before offering it to Ismund who snagged two, placing them in his inventory but the last one was a draw. Both men had their hands on it but didn’t dare tearing it away for fear of destroying it.

Man, are they that good? Or maybe they haven’t had sausages before?

I shook my head a bit confused with the whole ordeal.

Before Ismund could do anything, Abs used his other hand to bonk him on the head with his mallet necklace and shouted something. Knowing him, he probably said something about ‘pork chop’, the mallet.

Ismund looked quite upset. That meaning he was frowning, silent (as far as I could tell), a bit red in the face, and staring unblinkingly at Abs.

I didn’t think he cared all that much about food. Maybe it’s just because it was supposed to be for him and he didn’t get it. He also doesn’t like Abs, so that’s a factor.

I looked at the last two uncooked sausages and placed them on the pan.

I need to eat too.

Once I finished cooking them and placed them on the wood, to my surprise, Abs didn’t make a move and instead nodded in a, ‘go on’ sort of way.

Weird.

I shrugged and ate the sausage. It was pretty good. I smiled. Not up to my usual standards , but it was good considering. The flavor was on point, but the outside texture wasn’t quite what I’d like. It was a little crumbly too, but that was to be expected with it having no real way to stay together properly.

Looking down at my scuffed pants I decided to just rub my hands clean on them.

I’ll need to make an apron at some point.

I nodded to myself happily and made the pan a normal butter knife again. Interestingly, the little charred bits from the food on the pan stayed, even with the metal in pristine condition. After a few moments of rubbing it with my finger, then my nails, it was good as new, nice and clean.

Satisfied and looked up, saw everyone was about ready to go, and followed the guys as they walked forward.

I would’ve been more nervous, but Abs has gone in here before, it was easier than the last, and we had three people, one of which was very experienced. In the other dungeon it may as well have been a one man team with my contributing little to nothing. Even if I did a little during the boss fight, I’m sure me almost dying in there hadn’t helped at all. Probably made things worse, I’m better at that.

I frowned and felt like tearing up.

Well, I can cook. And they seem to really like that. I can do some things right.