“An adventurer?” I said with confusion while staring at the eyes of Shakti.

“Yep. Everybody can become an adventurer, even I am one. Although I’m a guard to the chief, I’m still an adventurer. In fact I was an adventurer first before being hired by the chief.” Shakti proudly said before laughing heartily. He grinned a bit.

“So are you interested? The main reason why adventuring in the mist forest is so common is because the royal capital of the beastmans is close here. So delivering monster items is so common that it gets the mist forest a fortune.” Shakti explained while grinning.

“Of course, you’ll be handsomely rewarded for every monster item you got. Like, a goblin ear in other cities would give you only 1 bronze coin, but in here you get 3. That’s just how mist forest can get a fortune, not only that mist forest is directly being protected by the royal capital because of the deliverance of it. The mist forest is thick in magic power you see, monsters usually form around here.” Shakti’s rambling mouth just didn’t stop while he explained all sorts of benefits when it comes to adventuring, in fact his explanation was so long that it’s actually a full 10 minutes.

“Well, I’m an adventurer, although my adventurer’s guild card is a…-” I was cut off by Shakti’s voice.

“A human’s guild card? Well, you’re a C-rank too, it would be a waste if your adventuring prowess was spent on other stuff. You can always register, although different from the humans, our adventuring in the mist forest is usually exterminating monsters, so you’d be getting tested before being an adventurer for safety protocols.” And then his rambling started once more, the amount of words leaving in his mouth was like a machine gun. Though I don’t know what a machine gun is.

“Well, I’ll try one, but I don’t think they’ll have the greatest first expressions of me.” I said with a sigh. It is true that adventuring has a lot of benefits, especially in a forest like this, in fact I could make this my whole job. “Though… How about Krus?”

“Krus? Right, you have babysitting work.” Shakti’s head turned around slowly to the Krus who was sitting with Arthur next to her, ruffling his hair while Arthur kept on licking Krus’ cheeks, a very comforting sight to see. “Regolius’ visits her when he has time, right? Plus he would usually take a few hour break and leave paperworks to me. So I’d say use that time?”

“That’s an option. Though I’d think it’s better to have an alternative to get money too, is business common here? So far, I’ve been roaming around the city, ignoring the nasty glares, but shops here are pretty low in numbers.” I asked, while rubbing my chin, Shakti’s eyes retreated back to me.

“Business isn’t common actually, this place focuses more on adventuring, it’s hard to see most of the things we need here. We’d have to travel sometimes to the royal capital just to go get groceries.” Shakti’s voice was filled with dismay, it was obvious that he too was also dealing with this problem.

“Hmmm…” I hummed while rubbing my chin. Business isn’t common here, I could exploit that fact. Although beastmans have at least accepted my existence here as the guy babysitting Krus, the daughter of the chief and the one that saved her.

Some people aren’t exactly informed about it. Some people think of me as a human who’s trespassing here despite humans being welcomed here. If it weren’t for Krus by my side, I would probably be threatened and attacked by some thugs in an alleyway.

It’s a good thing that even after 2 years, I’d still kept training my fighting style, which is usually a defensive one. Though 2 years ago in the great war, my fighting style was one that is focused on killing, it has no value other than killing.

Arthur and the other 11 knights used other styles, it’s because of our weapon choice, we vary from our different weapons. What I use is a longsword, Arhur also uses the same weapon as me, but we have different sword styles that we developed through rigorous training with each other.

Arthur’s style of the sword is one filled with extreme grace, a fighting style fit by royalty, it made me think that somehow Arthur was actually a noble. I could still remember his swordsmanship, but it relies on his movements in his hands.

Although for me, the instructors have described my style as one of a wild beast, yet refined and polished. Seemingly like a monster who has attained intelligence at a high-level. I can’t say they’re wrong, the style that I used 5 years ago until the great war was one that uses momentum and acrobatics to forcefully destroy the defenses of the enemy.

In the end I got a skill from it, though I can’t fully say I was proud of it.

And I dozed off in my thoughts again, I’d have to remove this habit if I actually want to live as a normal guy.

“You’re an overthinking type of guy, huh?” The voice of Shakti snapped me out of my thoughts, my head raised up to the taller guy “Planning to start a business?”

“I just might, I have an idea in my head.” Although this idea came from Mordred who was a massive foodie, Percival was one that didn’t eat a lot, so if ever he couldn’t finish his meal, Mordred would eventually gobble his food up.

This idea was made by her, because we have the same favorite food, bread. After observing that dough can be shaped into anything, Mordred came up with an idea by simply saying. “What if the plate was actually bread?”

Which in turn made her think for a total amount of 5 days before coming up with an idea, she called “Pizza” which was basically when the dough is extremely flat, and because Mordred likes tomato soup so much she wanted the toppings to be tomato soup on top of the bread.

Fortunately, her surprising ideas turned out to be good. I tried it a few years back since I learned how to make bread, though I’d say it’s second-rate to the ones that the baker in the orphanage made. She was a nice lady who tended to us and cared for us despite our situation as orphans.

The 13 of us favored her a lot.

But since the pizza with just tomato soup was too bland, and without flavor, I decided to replace the soup with just normal tomato sauce, and decided to add this thing called “cheese” on top of the tomato sauce, surprisingly it turned out to be amazing.

Though I’d have to find the temperature to make the pizza’s crust crispier while the inside is chewy. Mordred is a careless girl, usually dozing off out of nowhere, and then doing stupid things which gets her in a lot of dangerous consequences.

But this careless and creative side of her gets her a lot of ideas. And when I mean a lot of ideas, I mean a ton of them. I’d say she’s an amazing girl despite her flaws.

Right I’ll guess I’ll make some of it in the house, the great thing is the house that the chief granted to me was a house with a massive stove. The chief specifically said the person that used to live there was a baker after all.

First, I’ll buy the ingredients at the store near here. Hermis’ store. She’s a kind old lady, although she seemed suspicious of me at first, after a few visits day by day she started opening up to me, and often chats with me for a bit. She used to be a great chef in the past although her hands got injured and well she stopped cooking.

“Right, thanks for the information, Shakti. I’ll be going now.” I said with a thin smile on my face, oddly enough, these days I’ve been smiling a lot, which didn’t go unnoticed by Shakti and Fyuma and often talked about it with me. They seemed to be happy while I smiled, so I started to smile more.

“Right. If you have any more questions, feel free to come to me.” Shakti raised his hand and shaked it a bit, gesturing goodbye while he also had a thin smile on his face.

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I turned my body around from Shakti, while I started to walk to the young beast man and the wolf. “Arthur! Krus! We’re leaving!” I exclaimed while the both of them turned their heads to me and started to run towards me, approaching me gradually.

“Are we finally going home?”

“No. We’re going to buy things at the nearby store, there’s something that I want to make.” I said before gently placing my hand on Arthur’s fur, rubbing it while the wolf seemed to be satisfied with it.

“Aww…” Krus whined while looking sadly on the ground.

“Don’t be like that, the thing I’m making is delicious. Oh right, Krus, since you so much wanted to visit Fyuma, how about visiting her. Tell her that “Krux wants you to go to his house for something.” However, if she says she’s not free then don’t force it okay. Arthur, go with her.” I said while kneeling down to the ground.

“I get to visit big sister Fyuma!?”

“Yes, so if you really want to visit her then go, Arthur knows the way to her house.” I said before patting her ears and then turning my body around. Ms. Hermis’ shop should have some salt, the only thing I need now. We have tomatoes at the house, and we’re running out of salt.

…

Oddly enough, Fyuma and Krus aren’t back at home yet. I arrived at the house that we lived in, it’s a small house but it was cozy and big enough to fit the three of us. I stared at the door of my house for a bit, before opening the door.

It opened widely before I stepped inside of the room. It was getting late already and the house was getting too dark. I closed the door at my back before raising my finger. The tip of my fingers suddenly started to glow up before a small flare of fire manifested.

I felt the heat generated from the small flare at the tip of my finger, my eyes narrowed down to the candles around the house before swiping my finger gently, letting the flare of fire float away. The flare of fire started to scatter around the house, lightening up the candles.

I then started to walk to the kitchen. I rummaged around the cabinets of the house, searching for the ingredients for a bit before starting to prepare for the pizza. The first thing we have to do is definitely to prepare the dough.

Before I suddenly heard a sudden door knock. “Probably Krus.” I started to walk right over at the door, dropping the wooden spatula I had in my hands before opening the door. “Oh, welcome back.” The figures that greeted me in the door were Fyuma, Arthur and the small little Krus.

I gently placed my warm palm right above Arthur and Krus, and stared at Fyuma. “You called for me?” I nodded without a reply, and gestured for her to come in.

“I’m making something, and it’s going to be important in the future, I’d like for you to test it and give me your feedback.” I explained while turning my back around and started walking to the kitchen, the three of them trailing behind me slowly.

“You cook?” Fyuma’s voice seemed to be surprised, for some reason this struck a nerve right in my brain. Of course I can cook, still remembering the disastrous stew which is Fyuma’s cooking and giving me a skill that’s a curse and a reminder of your stew that almost took my life.

Dear Zeus, that stew will even kill thousands of soldiers in the great war, why didn’t we think of using you as our main weapon against them!?

“I can cook, yes, and better than you at it.” I said confidently, with a satisfied smirk on my face, it’s simply a fact that I can cook better, better than your trash cooking at least. I would like for you to find someone that would like your cooking!

“Hey!” The beastman exclaimed while stretching her arms downwards, the wolf tail she had on her back raised up while the fur started to stand up.

“Stay mad!” I teasingly exclaimed before stretching out a tongue right in front of her to taunt her even more, surprisingly she fell for it, but not without consequences.

She raised her foot and immediately swung it against me, the swing of her kick hit the eggs right between my legs, I felt the whole confidence I had immediately slip away.

She kicked my balls, yes.

Fyuma kicked my balls. My face immediately went purple while I groaned in immediate pain, the crushing of my eggs seemed to even deal a further pain than having to see your friends die right in front of you.

Actually when did I even learn dark humor! “M-my balls!-” My legs started to tremble, before giving out against the pain, I kneeled to the ground while my hands immediately started to cover my eggs in a reflexive motion.

“You deserved it!” Fyuma exclaimed before giving out a hmph and then turning away.

Arthur approached me with great concern. “Arf!” He barked, although he’s a wolf, how can a wolf even bark? Okay, I should honestly, be more concerned about my balls, I feel like they just exploded.

…

After recovering from the devastating cook that Fyuma gave me, although she had a nasty glare on me while I was at the other side of the kitchen. Krus and Arthur stared at me with excitement.

The first thing to do is prepare the dough, since we’ve had yeast already, the yeast is already awakened, so the first thing is placing the yeast that we have here and then start kneading it. My fingers penetrated the sticky yeast while I gave it a thorough massage.

After kneading it a bit, the sticky dough stuck in my hands, I decided to take a large pinch of the flour and covered the dough with it, before starting to knead it once more. The sticky dough suddenly became much smoother and easier to knead because of the flour.

The dough stuck on my hands came off and started to gather into the dough that I started to knead, I gently palmed the dough and started to move it around to gather all of the dough that wasn’t gathered by the dough we have.

“Oh?” Fyuma’s interested voice, subconsciously came out from her mouth while watching me knead the dough, although it’s not much of an interesting process, it’s more like she’s staring at the movements of my hands rather than the dough.

After kneading the dough a bit, we can now start by pulling the dough into a fat and straight line before starting to fold it, before pulling it once more and then folding it once again, repeating this process until the bread becomes similar to a cake roll, although the other side of said dough seems to be quite smaller.

After doing that, we then turn around the dough and then start by repeating the process once more, folding and then pulling and then folding, a simple process, before we start by gently placing our palm once more and kneading the dough into one ball of dough.

And then the dough is finished, now that we’ve done that, all we need to do is let it rest for the dough to rise up which is an hour.

I took out a wooden bowl before placing the dough in it and taking out a small cloth, gently covering the bowl with the clothes, pushing it softly with my fingers.

“Now we let it rest for a while.” I said before turning away from the dough and started washing my hands filled with flour.

“Why?” Asked Krus before raising her hand, Arthur just seemed to suddenly lose interest in what I was doing and started playing around with the ball I got him a few days ago. Arthur surprisingly is a good wolf.

“That’s to let it suddenly bubble up. Or you won’t even understand that, you see that dough there is extremely happy, and because he’s happy he’ll just suddenly get larger and larger like a slime.” I said with a small smile and Krus nodded.

“I see…”

“Would you mind showing me your hand?” Fyuma approached me from the side with a small gentle smile on her hands, I looked at her with doubt before obeying with reluctance. I raised my hand up and showed it to her.

“Then…?” After staring for a few while, Fyuma suddenly started to giggle, her soft giggled like the chimes of a bell entered my ears. “What?” I asked, quite confused, even Krus and Arthur turned to Fyuma.

“No, it’s just that for someone as stone-faced as you. You really have beautiful hands.” Fyuma softly touched my hand, and held it with both of her hands. The warmth of her palm somehow made me feel… a bit nostalgic… I didn’t know how to describe it.

It just felt nice. “Is that so…?”

“You wield the sword right? Having hands soft like this seemed so impossible. Just like kneading that dough, you seemed to be so gentle with it. Your eyes back then were a really soft gaze.” Fyuma said with a smile adorned on her graceful face, her eyes on the hand that she held.

I didn’t reply, I couldn’t reply after all, her face just seemed to be peaceful just by looking at my hands. Beautiful and gentle? My mind flashed back, my eyes averted to my hands, and what I saw was a hand covered in blood and grime.

Yet that malicious thought immediately disappeared, when my eye averted back to her face once more. Her graceful smile, which seemed to appeal to my eyes.

“Is that so…?” I gave out the same reply I said a few while ago, it took me a few minutes to reply back while she still held that smile.

“It is so. What’s with that look-? Eh?” She said in confusion before averting her eyes back to my hands, her eyes went wide at the action she just did. “Wah!” She immediately let go of my head before her cheeks started to go red.

An outline of a blush while she looked away, her tail suddenly wagging around, she felt embarrassed.

“Thanks.” My face also made a thin smile before I raised my palm and softly placed it right above her head, before starting to pat her hair and ears, for some reason as though she allowed it.

…