The kitchen was quiet on Lus’s last evening before he left for the next mission. He looked around, wishing that inspiration would strike him. He really needed to make a good dinner again so he didn’t lose the small edge he’d gotten from the soup, but he couldn’t just make the soup again.

Sighing, he pulled up the recipe again and read through the ingredients. “If pasta wasn’t so hard to roll out,” he muttered. It would be so easy to cook up some fresh pasta with a sauce from the canned goods cupboard, and everyone would be super impressed by it.

He walked aimlessly from one end of the kitchen to the other, glancing at the few familiar and many unfamiliar pieces of equipment.

“How am I supposed to become a great chef?” he asked, slumping in defeat. “I don’t even know what most of this stuff does!” He slapped his hand down on a strange metal device that looked kind of like a paper shredder, except instead of sharp blades it had a smooth opening.

Frowning in concentration, he turned on the small screen on the side. It blinked to life with a question.

Select dough type:

Pasta

Bread

Cookie

Fondant

Lus’ eyes widened. “Does this… does this flatten the dough for me?” he wondered aloud.

If this machine could roll out the pasta dough, that would make it much easier. He checked the clock. He still had plenty of time, so as long as the machine worked faster than he did when he rolled by hand, it was worth a try.

Looking back at the screen with the recipe, he began gathering ingredients. He put the flour bin next to the counter where he planned to work, moved the salt container close by so he wouldn’t forget it again, and grabbed the eggs out of the interbox.

The flour went down first. He measured out the mountain of the white powder, then grabbed a smaller measuring spoon for the salt.

Before he added the eggs, he mixed the salt through the flour by hand, messing up the nice mountain. Lus re-heaped it and hollowed out the center, creating a large bowl for the eggs.

Dusting off his hands, he set to work on the eggs. He had cracked enough eggs that it was becoming more natural, but he still had to stop to fish out pieces of eggshell a couple times.

Halfway through the twenty eggs, his fingers were starting to lose feeling from handing the cold eggs and shells and digging through the slimy egg liquid. He took a short break, stretching his fingers to try and warm them up more quickly.

Once his hands felt mostly thawed, he went back to work, quickly cracking the other ten eggs in. Finally, he finished and tossed the sticky, empty shells in the compost bin.

Lus headed to the sink to wash his hands. He flinched as the hot water hit his frozen fingers, sending an unpleasant tingling through his hands. He turned down the temperature a bit and just held his hands under the stream until they were warmed through.

Turning the heat back up, he got soap and scrubbed all the sticky, slimy egg residue off. He dried his clean hands, then sighed and looked back at the volcano of salted flour with slimy egg magma starting to leak down the sides.

Straightening his shoulders, he plunged his hands into the egg goo. He made quick work of squashing the yolks and mixing the egg, then began incorporating flour from the sides. Once the flour was all mixed in, he began kneading the dough, working it until it became smooth and elastic.

Now it was time for the real test. He stepped back and swiped his forehead with his shoulder, wiping away the sweat, then moved to the sink to scrub off the dough stuck to his hands.

It took a few minutes of hard scrubbing to get all the dough off. He also had to use his short nails to scrape a few bits that were really stuck on around his nails and between his fingers.

Once his hands were finally clean again, he took a chunk of dough from his pile, about a quarter of the whole, and headed to the machine. The screen had turned off, so he turned it back on and selected the Pasta option.

The smooth cylinders moved a couple centimeters apart and started turning. He carefully set the dough on top. He watched as it disappeared into the opening, coming out on the other side of the far cylinder in a sheet. He didn’t realize he needed to catch it until it came all the way out and fell in a folded heap on the counter.

“Right.” He shook his head. “Of course I’ve got to catch it.”

He picked up the mess of dough, turned off the machine, then turned it back on. “Let’s try this again,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

Lus fed the dough in again, this time making sure to catch the somewhat flattened sheet of dough. As he lifted it, the cylinders moved closer together. He took the end of the sheet and carefully fed it into the smaller opening.

He again caught the sheet at the end. It was already getting long enough to be difficult to hold and he wondered if he needed to use less dough.

Before he could worry too much, the cylinders moved again, prompting him to hurry and feed in the sheet.

This time, as it came out the end, he had to stretch his arms as far apart as he could to keep it up. Thankfully, it was already quite thin. He put it in again, amazed as it came out the other end in a sheet far thinner than what he’d been able to accomplish with the rolling pin.

The cylinders moved even closer together, but Lus couldn’t handle the sheet being even thinner than it already was. More specifically, he couldn’t handle it getting longer. He carefully carried the long, thin sheet of pressed pasta to a clean counter and laid it out.

Grabbing a knife, he began cutting noodles. He had to concentrate hard to try and keep his cuts even. Cutting uniformly wasn’t a skill he had ever practiced, so it took a lot of work to keep his knife strokes even and parallel.

When he finally finished, he gathered up handful after handful of noodles, then looked around in confusion.

“I don’t have anywhere to put these,” he realized. Shaking his head, he set them back on the counter and washed his hands, then pulled the two largest pots out. He filled them with water and set them on the stove, quickly turning up the heat.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

While he waited for those to come to a boil, he took another, smaller chunk of the pasta dough to the machine. It was still waiting for him to put the previous sheet through the smaller setting, so he turned it off and on again.

He put the sheet through the same number of times as he had put the first one through. This sheet was small enough that he could have put it through again, but he wanted all the noodles to be the same thickness.

When he finished with the second sheet, he moved it to the last clean counter. The water in the pots was boiling, so he dropped in all the noodles he had already cut and set a timer for them.

Grabbing the knife off the other counter, he returned to his newly pressed sheet of pasta dough and began working on cutting it up, trying to make noodles the same length and width as he had with the first sheet.

He was only halfway through when the timer went off for the boiling pasta. Dropping his knife, he grabbed a strainer with a long handle and a large bowl. He worked as quickly as he could to strain out the cooked pasta and drop it in the bowl.

Lus left the pots boiling while he returned to cutting noodles. Once he was finished, he dropped the new noodles into the water and set another timer.

The third chunk he grabbed was larger than the second but smaller than the first. The finished sheet came out the perfect size for him to carry to one of the two empty counters. He laid it out, grabbed the knife, and made a couple cuts before the timer for the cooking pasta went off again.

Dropping the knife, he grabbed another bowl since the first was nearly full from the first batch. He scooped out the cooked noodles again. The pots were only about half as full of water as when he had filled them, so he got a large measuring cup with a handle and filled it with water. It took a few trips to get the pots filled back to the level they had started at.

With the pots refilled and heating, he set to work on the third sheet of pasta dough. By the time he finished cutting noodles, the water was boiling again so he dropped them right in.

He took half of the dough that was left and rolled it out while the noodles cooked. He again managed a few cuts before he had to remove the boiled noodles. He was up to two and a half bowls full of noodles. He hoped he could find enough sauce to cover them, but he couldn’t worry about that now.

Lus finished cutting the fourth sheet and dropped them in the water, then rolled out the fifth sheet. Glancing at the clock, he frowned. The machine hadn’t really saved him much time, but at least the noodles were much higher quality. And it had certainly saved him a lot of work.

When the fifth batch of noodles went into the pots to cook, he set the timer and hurried to the cupboard of canned goods. His anxiety proved to be unfounded.

Right at the front of the cupboard, he found 8 matching jars of seasoned tamo sauce designed to serve over pasta. With a sigh of relief, he pulled them out, then glanced around the kitchen. He needed to heat the sauce, but he was already using the largest pots.

Shrugging, he set the jars next to the stove. As soon as the timer went off, he quickly scooped out all the finished noodles, dumping them in a fourth bowl.

Taking the largest pot to the sink, he poured the boiling water, now thickened and cloudy from cooking pasta, into the sink.

“Do I need to wash this?” he wondered aloud. He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah, it’s not like pasta water has germs in it.”

Placing the now-empty pot back on the stove, he opened all 8 jars of red, somewhat chunky tamo sauce into the large pot. Only as he was opening the final jar did he notice that the label looked slightly different than the previous one.

Checking the jars, he discovered that he had put in 4 jars of chunky vegetable tamo sauce. Another 2 were tangy harvic sauce. The final 2 were simple homestyle.

“Well blast,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

Peeking into the pot, he didn’t see much difference in the sauces. It all looked like the same thing.

“I’ll just stir it together and hope for the best,” he decided. He grabbed a large spoon, turned on low heat, and began stirring the sauce.

It didn’t take too long for the sauce to start bubbling, shooting large drops of red sauce almost out of the large pot. He hissed as one of the hot drips hit his hand and pulled away, turning the heat even lower.

When the sauce was bubbling enough that he was certain it was hot all the way through, Lus turned off the stove and gave the pot a couple more stirs. He moved it off the heat, then looked between the large pot of sauce and the bowls of pasta.

“Where am I supposed to mix these?” he wondered.

Glancing around the kitchen, his eyes caught on the autopot. “Perfect,” he whispered. He pulled it over near the counter and dumped in all the bowls of pasta, filling it over halfway with noodles.

The sauce went in on top of the noodles and he began mixing. He stirred and stirred, trying to get the noodles evenly coated with sauce.

His arm ached by the time he finally deemed the sauce and noodles mixed well enough. He stepped back and surveyed his work.

It seemed to be missing something still. He frowned thoughtfully. “What else goes well with pasta? What do I have on hand?”

Stepping over to the interbox, he threw it open and looked over all the shelves. He didn’t have time to cook meat or vegetables to go with this, though it would have been smart to throw in some ground gervin.

Shaking his head, he scanned the drawers, his eyes stopping on the large cheese drawer. “Cheese,” he whispered. Cheese made everything better.

Pulling it open, Lusac grabbed a large container of powdered perman cheese, which was often served with pasta and sauce.

“Now should I put it on now or just let everyone add it themselves?” he wondered. Shrugging, he decided it would be easier to put it on by himself.

He opened the lid and shook a generous sprinkle over the pasta, then added a little more. He stirred it in, then frowned. He couldn’t even tell there was cheese, so he added some more and stirred that in.

It took four additions for him to feel like there was enough perman to really make a difference. He returned the container to the interbox and returned to the pasta.

“I think it’s done,” Lus decided.

[Cooking Complete]

[XP Gained: 50]

He was pushing the auto-pot out to the dining room when he realized something.

“I haven’t tasted it!” he exclaimed, pulling to an abrupt stop. He rushed to the utensil drawer for a fork and scooped up a large bite. Sliding it into his mouth, he closed his eyes.

The pasta was much better than last time. Since it was thinner, it was less chewy. And it was more flavorful, likely because he had actually measured in the salt this time.

The combination of the three different sauces and the perman cheese worked. Lus thought it tasted almost as good as a restaurant pasta dish.

“This is definitely gonna keep me cooking,” he said with a satisfied smile.

He rolled the auto-pot out into the dining room and laid out plates and utensils just in time. The crew began flooding in as soon as he set down the last of the forks and Lus stepped back to let them through.

“It doesn’t smell horrible,” Wsr said from the front of the line. A wave of laughter from the rest of the crew answered her words.

“Hopefully it tastes as not horrible,” Lus answered, mustering up a tired smile. Instead of watching everyone go through the line, he hid in the kitchen. He almost talked to Leviathan, wanting to brag about his success, but then remembered that it wouldn’t be a good idea to approach the demon with the entire crew in the next room.

Finally, the noise died down to an even hum, signaling that everyone was sitting and eating. Lus snuck back out and grabbed himself a serving from the already nearly empty auto-pot. Thankfully, Becky was sitting alone so he joined her.

She glanced up as he slid into his seat. “This is good,” she said with an encouraging smile.

“Thanks.” His cheeks heated a bit at the praise. “I- I made a few mistakes, but-”

“So what?” She shook her head. “You made some good food. Be proud of that.” She leaned in. “And I’m not just saying that because I’m your friend.”

“I know,” Lus answered, remembering all the times she told him that his cooking was terrible before he’d become a [Chef].

“Seriously, I’ve heard the others. Everyone is saying good things. Good job, Lus.”