I just let her cry for a bit until she calmed down on her own.

"Sniff… Sniff… Thank you, teacher…"

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Sniff… I'm ok now…I apologise for showing such an unsightly appearance…"

I patted her on the shoulder, "It's ok. So what do you think about the food?"

She sniffed, "It was the most delicious food I have ever tasted. It's even better than the food made by the teachers in my school… How did you even get this good by being self taught?"

"It's obviously because it's Tera~" Amber answered for me.

Lea and Ries nodded behind her like Amber had just stated something deep and meaningful.

I'm not even going to comment on it…

I then cleared my throat, "So… If you don't mind… I would like to get my part of the payment too."

She gave me a weird look, "Payment?"

"Yes? The payment we agreed on for me to teach you in the first place?"

She blinked at me for a moment before she finally remembered our agreement.

"Oh!! Oh, of course! I am so sorry!"

Mmhmm, I was expecting her to tell me where we could buy appliances like the teppan grill that I had just used.

She reached her hands up and I was expecting her to show me her personal terminal which might show me the location or even the contact of the place that we could make such a purchase, but what she did was to pull off her top to expose her chest.

She then stood up to start taking off her pants before I stopped her.

"What are you doing?"

Deidre tilted her head, "Umm… Paying You back? This is what you wanted right, teacher?"

I was then reminded that one of the things she offered was her body. I honestly completely forgot about that…

I didn't get the chance to correct her since Amber suddenly appeared beside her with a hand placed on Deidre's shoulder.

"Oh? What makes you think that you can just sleep with Tera just because you say so?"

"E… Eh? Is there a problem?"

"Oh of course there is~ Who do you think gains more in this arrangement? You, or Tera?"

"Ah… M… Me…"

"Mmhmm~ So how is that payment at all?"

She started to panic so I decided to come to her rescue since my goal here wasn't to torture her.

"Ahem… Umm… You don't need to worry, that wasn't the one that I wanted you to repay me with. You had said something about being able to help us obtain kitchen appliances right? We've recently just commissioned a new ship and I would very much like the new kitchen to be decked out. I was wondering if you could help me with that?"

Just saying, when I told Felicia about the ship's kitchens and what I expected from it, she told me that they wouldn't be able to furnish it with the appliances I needed since they do not handle such purchases.

She had thus recommended me to get in touch with a company that specialises in installing kitchen appliances on board ships and have them install them after they have completed the ship.

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That's why I jumped on this chance when I heard Deidre had contacts that dealt with kitchen appliances.

"Eh? Is that all you need though?" She asked, still not bothering to cover herself.

"How easy is it to get top of the line kitchen appliances like this grill for example?" I asked, pointing at the teppan grill that I had just used to serve them.

Her face turned serious, "Ah… Yes, that would certainly be difficult for someone who isn't part of the industry to find… Do you have any specific appliances that you would like to get?"

I pointed to the grill again, "This one."

"Ah, of course. Umm… I'm not too familiar with this grill since I don't use it… But I could give you the contact of someone who can arrange it. Which company are you commissioning your ship from?"

"Dragoon Ship Industries," I answered her.

"Oh, they have a shipyard right in this system, right? Do you have an ETA on when the ship will be completed?"

"In a few days, actually…"

She then took out her personal terminal and started scrolling through her contacts list before stopping on a specific contact.

"I can help arrange an online meeting between you and this company that sells such appliances if you'd like? I could even call them right now if you want?"

"Oh, that would actually help. Don't we need to make an appointment or something?"

She shook her head, "This is a sales contact so they are prepared to answer calls at any time."

"Hmm… And how would they install those appliances?"

"Once we place the order, they will deliver them to your specified location and there will be people who will install it on your ship. If you want, we could even ask them to deliver to the shipyard itself. Shall I call them now?"

I nodded and she tapped on the contact to start the call.

A screen was projected into the air as the call started to ring. It only took two rings before the call connected and the screen changed to show a blank screen.

"Good day! Thank you for calling StellarTech, Household Division! How may we help you today?"

Deidre answered in my stead, "We are looking to order some kitchen appliances meant to be installed on a ship."

"Request received! Please hold while we connect you to the Ship Kitchen Subdivision!"

There was another ring before the call was connected again and a voice that sounded quite similar to the first one greeted us.

"Good day! Thank you for calling StellarTech, Ship Kitchen Subdivision! How may we help you today?"

That was when I realised we weren't talking to an actual human but most likely some AI or something… I thought humanity didn't like using AI or something? Maybe it's limited to personal usage but when it came to companies they did not mind using it?

Or maybe it just differs from person to person…

Deidre continued to answer for me, "We are looking to buy some kitchen appliances that can be installed on a ship."

"Certainly! May I ask what is the ship model that you would like to install them on?"

Deidre turned to me, prompting me to answer.

"It's a custom order C Class Combat Freighter Broadsword."

"Searching… Ship model found! May I ask what kind of appliances is the customer looking for?"

"Stoves, ovens, anything actually."

"Searching… Please provide your cooking licence registration number."

What the heck is a cooking licence? Don't tell me that you actually need a licence to cook in this universe or something?

Deidre took over answering the call again, "C, seven, eight, eight, two, X, one."

"Please hold… Licence confirmed. Here is the list of appliances that you qualify for purchase! Please let me know if you see anything you like!"

The screen changed into a catalogue and she handed the personal terminal to me.

I realised the licence thing most likely showed what kind of cooking the chef was qualified in which would restrict them to what kind of appliances they could purchase or something?

I turned to Deidre, "Are you able to purchase appliances that you are not trained to operate?"

"Oh, I guess so? But you would need to go to a physical store instead of ordering online like this though…"

"Why do they even restrict it like this?"

"Ah… They're pretty expensive to make and some also require special training to use. There has been many variations of the same type of equipment made over the years so in order to make things easier for chefs like myself to find the equipment we need, they would resort to using filters like this for their catalogues."

Ok, the fact that you could still buy appliances despite that is nice… But now I have another question…

"So what are these cooking licences?"

She scratched her cheek, "Ah… That… That's something you get when you graduate from a professional culinary school… It's basically like a proof of our competence or something like that… There's some places that would only hire chefs who have cooking licences as well so there's that too."

Oh ok, I was concerned that it might be some kind of common sense where people with no cooking licences aren't allowed to cook or something like that. At least it's nice to know that we've not reached that level of dystopia here.

Though I guess with things like autocookers and synthfood, having a chef is a form of luxury or even a sign of decadence on the people who hire licensed chefs.

Well, with what Deidre had told me about her school, I'm in no hurry to get a licence anytime soon.

In the first place, since I didn't need one to cook, I saw no reason to get myself one anyway so I guess I'll pass up on that.

Putting that aside… I guess I should just focus on picking what appliances I want to be installed on our new ship~