The next day, Lus was in the kitchen early so he could try out the new recipe he’d gotten from beating Relf in a fight. It sounded delicious and easy, the ideal combination.

Opening the screen and clicking on the recipe list, he selected Simple Sweet and Savory Sandwich. He scrolled past all the text, stopping at the ingredients list.

“Oh Watcher, that’s a lot of ingredients,” he said in surprise. He had expected the ingredients list to be short, since the name of the recipe literally included the word “simple”.

Shrugging, he read through. Bread, charda cheese, sliced paral, oil, egg, flour, salt, and thinly sliced cured prak. He had a loaf of bread leftover from the other night’s homemade bread and soup. He definitely had charda, oil, eggs, salt, and flour.

Stepping over to the interbox, he first reached into the fresh fruit drawer for one of the parals he had gotten yesterday.

He set it on the counter and moved on to the meat and cheese drawer. Pulling out the block of charda, he set that by the paral and dug through the various opened cheeses and pre-cooked meats. Near the back he found an open package of cured prak.

Opening it, he took a tentative sniff. It smelled like he expected. He took another, deeper sniff and still didn’t smell anything amiss, so he added it to his growing pile. He pulled out an egg, then closed the interbox.

The bread was in a breadbox and the flour was in a large bin. The salt and oil were sitting out already, since they got such frequent use.

Once he had everything set up on the same counter, he read the first step of the recipe. “Add 2 cm of oil to a pot and put it on medium heat.” He rummaged through the dish cupboard for a mid-sized pot and set it on a burner, then poured in the oil.

[Slice ingredients before heating pan]

The notification came just as he touched the knob to turn up the burner. He nodded at the wise advice and pulled out a cutting board and knife.

“Which should I do first?” he wondered aloud. He’d have to do the bread separately so he didn't get anything on it, so he took care of that, quickly slicing off two somewhat even-sized pieces.

For the charda cheese, he used a cheese-slicer that cut off two even slices in two quick motions.

Replacing the knife and cutting board, he turned to the cured prak and paral. It felt wrong to slice the meat first, but if he sliced the fruit first, he would get paral juices all over the cured prak. He decided to start with the meat. Since it was going into the same sandwich as the fruit, it probably didn’t matter.

Before he began cutting, he paused, waiting for a notification to tell him that he was making the wrong choice, but nothing came. He worked slowly and carefully and managed to get three thin, even slices. Setting them aside, he repackaged the prak and placed the paral on the cutting board.

He started with the fruit slicer, which cut out the core and left eight even-ish slices of the green-skinned, firm, white fruit. He then cut the wedges into thinner slices.

With all the slicing done, he was about to turn on the heat when he stopped. “Maybe I should actually read all the steps first,” he decided.

Looking ahead, he realized that he needed to have a few other things ready. He first took the egg and cracked it into a shallow baking dish large enough to dip the assembled sandwich in. He grabbed a fork and scrambled it into a frothy, light orange-yellow mixture.

Next, he measured out the flour onto a medium-sized plate. He added the salt and stirred them together with another fork.

With everything finally prepared, he returned to the stove and turned on the heat. While the oil warmed up, he began putting the sandwich together.

First a slice of bread. Next, the two slices of charda. Then came enough slices of paral to cover the charda. Finally, the three slices of cured prak and the other slice of bread.

Once it was all put together, he took small wooden toothpicks and stuck them in to hold it together, as the recipe instructed.

Now came the more complicated part. Grabbing a pair of tongs from the utensil drawer, he used them to lift the sandwich and lower it into the egg mixture. He flipped it to get the other side coated as well, then dipped all the edges.

With the sandwich dripping in egg, he set it in the flour mixture. He coated each side, then once again dipped all the edges.

Once the sandwich was completely coated in egg and flour, Lus set it down and turned his attention to the pot of oil.

Grabbing a small thermometer, he checked the temperature. It wasn’t quite hot enough, so he turned the heat up a bit.

[Return to medium heat]

Frowning, he did as instructed, though he didn’t understand why. Instead, he put the egg dish by the sink. When he returned, he took the temperature of the oil again and found it right where it needed to be.

Taking the tongs again, he picked up the sandwich and carefully lowered it into the oil. Bubbles rose around it as it began to cook and Lus set a timer for 3 minutes.

While he waited, he cleared away more dishes and put away the charda and cured prak. The timer went off just as he was closing the interbox, so he hurried back to the pot. Grabbing the tongs, he flipped the sandwich. The bottom was pleasantly browned. He set another timer, this time for 2 minutes.

Lus got out a clean plate and a fork and knife. He didn’t usually eat sandwiches with utensils, but this one would be very greasy and hot and he didn’t want to risk burning himself.

As soon as the timer went off, he was ready with the tongs. He pulled the sandwich out and plopped it carefully on the plate. He turned the heat off under the oil and picked up the fork and knife.

Slicing the sandwich in half, he slid the halves apart and admired the strings of melted cheese. He cut off one of the corners and lifted the bite to his lips. He blew on it a couple times to make sure it was cool enough to eat.

The bite was warm, sticky, and chewy. The paral still had a little crunch and sourness to balance out the sweet and savory flavors. The breading added some crunchy texture to the outside.

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He swallowed and followed the bite up with another. The sandwich quickly disappeared, leaving him pleasantly full and smiling.

[-5 Common Sense]

“Wait, what? MINUS 5? How can I be losing Common Sense?” He nearly shouted and looked around for something to hit. Before his fist landed anywhere, his eyes caught on the interbox.

“Might as well take this to the source,” he muttered, stalking to the screen. “Leviathan,” he said loudly. When the Demon’s face didn’t immediately appear, he growled. “This is serious, you stupid Demon!”

“Bold words for someone with [-4 Common Sense],” the familiar voice answered with a malicious chuckle as the red eyes and jagged mouth appeared.

“Why did that sandwich take away my Common Sense! I thought system recipes were supposed to be useful!”

“And you can’t think of any use for food that harms the consumer?”

“I- but- are you saying that this recipe is to feed to someone else?”

“Well, I certainly would not have chosen to eat it myself, but you often seem to choose the more difficult path.”

“It’s not like I knew this would happen,” Lus answered in exasperation.

“Well you can’t blame me for that. You’re the one who seems to have some kind of hatred for reading.”

“Hatred for… wait. Are you telling me that the information about what the food does is in the text?”

Leviathan just looked at him with more disdain than Lus thought possible for a face on a screen.

“I thought it was just history and… useless stuff,” he answered sheepishly.

Leviathan just continued to glare silently. Lus was about to slink away to read the recipe description when he remembered something else.

“Also, why did I get a notification this time about the effects of the food? This is my, what, fourth or fifth system recipe? That’s never happened before! And it would have been really handy, too!”

Leviathan’s glare turned into a defiant, almost sullen expression. “Well naturally the system needed time to adjust to you. It’s not as though I grant systems like candy at a parade.”

Reading between the lines, Lus made a guess as to what the Demon was really saying. “So you’re saying that you forgot?”

Leviathan glared again. “I am an all-powerful Demon! I do not simply forget. It merely happened to be beneath my notice for a time as I focused on more important tasks.”

Lus laughed. “Sure, sugarcoat it however you want, poor Mr. Ancient-and-out-of-practice.”

Instead of answering, Leviathan left, leaving a blank screen behind.

Lus shrugged and turned back to the empty kitchen. Pulling up the recipe again, he scrolled back to the top and began skimming the long paragraphs of information.

As he remembered, there was a paragraph on the history, another about the ingredients and what they added, and a third about appropriate substitutions.

“That’s actually pretty helpful,” he murmured, scrolling down. Next came a paragraph about the best accompaniments to the dish. Finally, he reached the paragraph about the ability.

“Simple Sweet and Savory Sandwiches are the perfect weapon against an opponent if you want to give yourself a slight edge, especially in a battle of wits or a survival arena. Dealing temporary damage of -5 Common Sense, this delicious dish will hit them where it hurts without drawing any suspicion your way,” he read aloud.

There was another paragraph after that about how to store leftovers. The last paragraph explained what the resulting dish should look and taste like, along with a few common mistakes.

“So it’s still mostly useless information,” he said. “But at least now I know where to find out beforehand what the ability is.”

Turning his attention back to the kitchen once again, he realized something else. “There’s no way I can try something new tonight with such low common sense.”

He had planned to try and make a savory version of the Tasty Buns, replacing the sweet fruit filling with a meat and cheese combination, but making homemade bread dough didn’t sound like such a great plan anymore.

“Something simple,” he said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. If he had more bread, he could make more sandwiches, but he didn’t have nearly enough to feed the entire crew.

It was time to dig back into his pre-System arsenal. Hopefully with [Chef’s Intuition] and his improved [Cooking] skill, he would be able to elevate them into something actually enjoyable to eat. Or at least edible.

“No pasta or bread, so I’ll need to use something on hand… rice? Rice is easy. I messed it up a few times, but… I’m a better cook now.”

Smiling, he headed to the dry goods cupboard and pulled out the bin of rice. He then moved to the canned goods cupboard and dug through, looking for something to pair with the rice.

After carefully examining two of the shelves, he exclaimed in triumph as he pulled three jars of sweet Tarik sauce from the third.

The bottles were old and somewhat dusty, but they smelled fine when he popped off the caps and took a quick whiff.

“Tarik sauce, rice, I can use the pre-chopped vegetable mix… and ground gervin meat?” He thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a combination he had ever heard of before, but it certainly sounded like it would go together well enough.

Lus pulled the ground gervin meat out of the nitrobox. It was frozen, so he had to thaw it in the microwave heater. He could only thaw a few kgs at a time and it took about ten minutes each, so by the time he had finished thawing all the meat, he was running behind.

He pulled out the largest pan he had and threw in as much gervin meat as he could fit. While the meat heated, he pulled out the two largest pots and filled them with rice and water according to the directions on the back of the rice bag.

Once the rice was going, he grabbed a spatula and began breaking up and stirring the gervin meat. He cooked the meat until all the pink was gone, then scooped it out with a long-handled strainer and dropped it in a bowl. He plopped in more meat and waited for it to cook.

[Check the rice]

His eyes shot over to the pots. He pulled a pot holder out of the drawer and lifted the lid off the closest rice pot. He couldn’t see any liquid and the rice looked white and fluffy.

Grabbing a small spoon, he stirred the top, then tasted it. “Yep, that’s done.”

Turning off the burners, he removed both lids and used a big spoon to stir and fluff the rice. He left the spoon to the side and turned his attention back to the meat.

After another two rounds, he was done cooking meat. The pan was full of grease, which he dumped, leaving just a little to cook the vegetables in.

He then filled the pan with the frozen vegetable mix. It cooked more quickly than the meat and he soon had a large bowl of cooked meat and another of cooked vegetables.

Lus looked from the bowls to the jars of sauce, then to the pan on the stove. There was no way he could put it all together, but he needed it all together.

He stepped away from the counter and began wandering the kitchen. He knew there was something he could use. He was sure of it. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

His eyes scanned the kitchen. The familiar cupboards, the interbox and nitrobox, the ovens and large stovetop, the counters. None of it was helpful.

Finally his eyes caught on the auto-pot. “Oh! Right, that would work,” he said with a smile. “And I probably would have figured that out a lot sooner if my Common Sense hadn’t taken such a hit,” he muttered as he pulled the wheeled, auto-heating pot over to the counter.

He dumped in the meat, veggies, and the three bottles of sauce and used a big spoon to stir it all together. Turning on the auto-pot, he let it heat while he carried the pots of rice out to the dining room with pot-holders to set them on.

Returning to the kitchen, he stirred the sauce mixture again, then took out serving spoons for the rice.

Another stir for the sauce.

Out went the plates.

Another stir.

The forks.

Finally, he took a smaller spoon and scooped up a taste of the sauce. It was hot enough to burn his tongue and he began breathing out, desperately trying to cool down the bite of burning food sitting painfully in his mouth.

Once it was cool enough to actually taste, he chewed for a moment and swallowed. The meat didn’t have a lot of flavor and the vegetables were maybe a little crunchier than he preferred them, but the sauce was delicious and at least it was a fairly balanced meal.

Rolling the auto-pot out to the dining room, he breathed a sigh of relief and promised himself that he’d never eat another Simple Sandwich again.