Chapter 358 (1/2)

Saki nodded while grinning cheerfully.

“Oh, I’m counting on you, Reinhart! I’ll be very happy if this region becomes richer because of this.”

“Leave it to me. Would it be okay if I mentioned that the harvesting method is still under research, but that the manufacturing method involves filtering out its impurities and then boiling it down?”

“Yeah, that’s right. As a sample, please take this pot… no, just take half of this pot’s worth of syrup!”

Saki was so hungry, she probably wanted to eat that maple syrup, as she said that with an ashamed expression while scratching her head. Reinhart nodded as he laughed.

“Haha, roger that. You’ve got quite the sweet tooth, as usual!”

After hearing that, Jin quietly uttered a small question.

“Saki, don’t you have any ingredients left?”

He was wondering if there was even a bit of barley, wheat flour, vegetables or even eggs left.

“Hm? There probably are some things left, but… I’m ashamed to say that I’m quite poor at cooking.”

This was the second coming out for Saki today.

“Alchemy and cooking are two different things!”

Saki had suddenly blurted that out as an excuse, but nobody seems to have heard her.

However, it seemed as if Reinhart was aware of what was happening in Saki’s direction because he expressed a bitter smile.

“… It’s true, Jin. When it comes to Saki’s cooking abilities, you’ve only got the ‘lethal’ variant and the ‘certain death’ variant…”

“R… Reinhart! What do you mean by ‘certain death’? At worst, I’m just extremely useless when it comes to cooking…!”

Her voice grew thin as she scolded Reinhart.

“Who was the one that didn’t check whether it was sugar or salt before using it? Who was the one that dropped an open bottle of spices into the cooking pot? Who was the one that served the dish before tasting it even once? Who was it, huh?

“Uuhhh, that was such a long time ago…”

“A long time ago? Come on! You prepared that dish saying it was my farewell gift as I was leaving on my journey! I was shocked! I almost had to delay my departure because of that!

Reinhart’s voice became unusually stern. Jin secretly sympathized with Saki, as he seemed to have had such hard times in the past.

Jin understands this because of his past experiences in the orphanage. Normally, one should challenge basic recipes after mastering the art of cooking, but how many children end up adding ingredients that are not in the recipe, or without measuring first, all of a sudden, without knowing what they’re doing?

On one occasion, he ended up with a sponge cake so flat that it looked like a piece of cardboard, salty chocolate milk, and to top it off, a mint tea full to the brim with mint oil. He thought it would be ok to add a bit of black tea to it, so he put a whole teaspoon in. After that, Jin wasn’t able to eat anything for two days, and what’s more, his whole body had reeked of mint oil for a week.

There is certainly a special kind of people who have no sense of cooking in this world. They mean no harm but have a hard time dealing with it.

Translations by AsianHobbyist Website

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