Of course, Ren knew that he would face fierce opposition from his parents. However, it was different than expected.
“Yeah, you seem to have reached that age gradually.”
The mother, who gracefully covered her mouth with a fan, shook her head and willingly agreed to join the hero’s party. Rather, it was enough to prepare a gift for the trip.
“Me, mother, this dress…”
“It’s the clothes your ancestors wore when they were with the warriors. Even though the fabric looks a little small, it is surprisingly covered with various kinds of protection, so it will be safer than armor. Wear it and go.”
“However, this, the navel or the pelvis is almost exposed…”
“Go wear it. If you don’t like it, quit.”
I couldn’t deny the firmness and the sentiments that were hidden in it. Ren standing in front of the mirror wearing that outfit, looked around with a blushed face. Like a young girl, her hair that had grown too long seemed to interfere with her activities. Ren took out the dagger from the holster on his thigh, took a deep breath, and cut off his long hair and cut it off his shoulder.
“Lady! This is terrorism against the cultural heritage of mankind!”
Immediately after that, Soria who entered the room trembled as she saw the cut hair.
“I think it will stand out too much. It’s good to be comfortable in activities.”
“Ah, if you had told me, I would have cut it more carefully from the beginning.
“Still, I have to call it boyish because I cut it like this, isn’t it nice to feel that way? It looks healthy.”
“It’s natural for a young lady to look pretty no matter how she style her hair, so that’s irrefutable.”
Forcing Ren to sit in front of the mirror and trim the ends of her hair, Soria complained nonstop. Ren scratched his cheek and listened to the nagging.
“Be sure to take care of yourself. Don’t be deceived by bad people. Be especially careful with men. Don’t fall for it by pretending to be pitiful. The young lady is kind and easy to fall for.”
On the day of departure, Soria, who went out to see off to the hill outside the village, grabbed Ren’s hand and strongly insisted.
*
And Soria’s advice was useful from the very next day.
“Oh, you’re the thief you’ve decided to join! You’re more beautiful than I thought. So, how many babies would you like? Two?”
“Yes?”
It was because as soon as he met the hero and gave a general statement, he held the hand that was outstretched to shake hands and said these things.
“Me, two babies? I don’t think about that…”
“Isn’t two too few, maybe five would be better to form a brass band?”
“It’s over there again.”
The hero who had a bright smile on his face was hit by a stone thrown by someone and fell backwards. It was Karin. She knocked out the warrior by throwing a stone with a neat pitching foam that even the pitcher would cry, and she shook her hand and approached Ren.
“You said that to me as soon as you saw him? Just ignore him because he’s a bit weird.
“I’m still a colleague, is it okay to be hit with stones like that?”
“It’s okay. Because he’s a guy whose only advantage is that he’s useless and strong. Or what, did you even want to have that guy’s baby?”
As Karin fired, Ren scratched his cheek in denial.
“Um, I don’t think he’s a bad person… but I don’t really think so.”
“Then don’t give it any chance, and shoot him right away. That guy is incredibly positive, so he won’t back down even if he beats him for a while. Be careful.
It was the same thing Soria said. Karin shook her head to the point that her hair was shaking as if she was getting tired of it.
After that, Ren took the advice of Soria and Karin to heart, and was able to avoid many situations in which he was pampered by the hero.
*
As for the man I met next, Soria’s advice was not very useful.
“I don’t really want any achievements, I don’t want rewards. I just have a reason to catch the Demon King. If you join me, I’ll do all the chores like meals, guards, etc.”
One day, the Red Mage suddenly joined the party. He introduced himself as Lee Ja-in, and he was a man with a mouth that was frightening. As a member of the thief family, Ren had met a lot of low-level people, but he had never seen a person with a mouth so arrogant as Jain. There, I also saw Karin being arrested and subjected to shameful s*xual harassment. Frightened, Ren thought.
‘Are you a bad person?’
So at first I tried to keep some distance. I couldn’t believe his words that he would take care of all the chores. However, after joining the party, he handled his work with confidence as if he had been a party member from the beginning, and faithfully kept his promise to take on chores.
Until Zain joined, Ren’s duty was mainly for meals. Embarrassingly, the red mage was a better cook than himself. There were times when I was amazed at how such a dish was made in such a barren environment. In the meantime, my impression of Jain has changed little by little.
In the evening, when the camp was set up and everyone was talking in front of the bonfire, Jain was left alone in the back there, cleaning up, preparing for tomorrow’s meal, or repairing weapons. The way he did his job with his mouth shut alone seemed somewhat pitiful.
‘Pretending to be pitiful… not. Never once expressed any dissatisfaction. He did it because he was going to do it. But…’
I tried to look away while thinking about Soria’s advice, but I couldn’t help it that my mind kept getting used to it. Finally, one evening, Ren went to Jain, who was secretly preparing a meal, and talked to him.
“what are you doing?”
To Ren who was behind his back and asked carefully, Jain answered bluntly.
“rice.”
Then he turned his gaze back to Thomas. Do you want to end the conversation with this? Ren was a bit perplexed. I asked again as I leaned over to check Jain’s expression.
“Then, shall I help?
“Okay. Go back.”
“Are you crazy? Everyone has taken over the work so far and didn’t pay any attention to it?”
“What?”
“Are you really doing everything you said you would?
“Huh? It’s the sound of a ghost drinking Cassava Myeongsu pretending to be eating a stinkin.”
Jain scratched his head over the towel and said. The reason Jain decided to take on the chores was for the sake of achievements, although there was a negotiation problem. In order to clear all the achievements of the production series, it was because he could not miss these chores. But I couldn’t explain it. When talking about the game system, the causality was interfered with and the scenario could be different from what Jain knew. As a Jain, it was best to say this.
“Everyone is trying to be nice to me, so don’t come here and go to sleep.”
It was a strong refusal. It was really meant for an achievement, but to Ren, it looked like he was squirming and bouncing. Feeling sorry, she smiled and pulled out a knife and grabbed it.
“Then, I’ll ask you one favor for me.”
“What.”
“Can you teach me how to cook? The pork feet dish I ate yesterday was delicious. I want to learn to cook from you, so let me learn it while practicing.”
In fact, it was a euphemism to say that he would help. As he said this, Jain’s expression, which was like ice, was relieved. Jain put down his sword and said.
“You have a really nice personality.”
“What? They’re all trying to like me.”
“Don’t be shy.”
When Ren shrugged and imitated Jain, he even laughed. Okay, I think my mind has been relieved a lot. Relieved in his heart, Ren smiled brightly.
“Okay then, let’s change the menu today and make the stew we made yesterday again. I’ll show you only once, so keep that in mind.”
Jain, who took out the cutting board and material bag and handed it to Ren, grabbed the knife and put a threat. Ren nodded with a firm expression on his face.
“First of all, this is not a restaurant. It is a field situation. What is the most important thing in field cooking?”
“I don’t know, Chef!”
“It’s efficient. Since we can’t procure ingredients as much as we want, we need to efficiently consume them. So, I’ll cook using the leftovers from yesterday’s meal. Okay?”
“All right!”
“Okay, first, take out the apples left over from yesterday and cut them into eight slices.”
“I did it!”
“Then, take out the brown sauce left over from yesterday and fry it in a frying pan.”
“If it’s a sauce, is this it? I did!”
“Okay then, take out the leftover Wyvern paws from yesterday and put them in the frying pan along with the apples.”
“The leftovers from yesterday…what?”
Ren’s face hardened, faithfully following Zain’s instructions.
“Wyvern’s front paws? That, why is there such a thing?”
There was also a modifier called Leftovers, but I pretended not to hear it because I wanted to deny it. But the reality was cruel.
“What, wasn’t it in that bag? Take it.”
Zain carelessly took something out of the bag and threw it at Ren. Ren’s complexion, who took it in an awkward way, turned white. In Ren’s hand, there was a pair of gray, hairy, scaly paws. It may have been a Wyvern’s front paw, but at least it seemed certain that it was a monster’s paw.
“I, this, what is this?”
“Wyvern’s paw. It was delicious.”
“Hey, that wasn’t a pig’s foot, it was a Wyvern’s paw? No, I was wondering where the pigs came from!”
“I really didn’t see it that way, but I’m a picky eater. That’s good for health.”
“No, you can’t eat monsters!”
“why?”
Jain, who skillfully used a frying pan to stir-fry the Wyvern’s paws, turned off the heat and asked as if he didn’t really understand. Len, speechless, stuttered and answered the question with a question.
“No, you, why, why are you making such strange dishes?”
“Because, that’s…”
Jain patted his chin and started choosing what to say. The reason he did the monster ceremony, especially the high-ranking monsters, was also for the sake of achievements.
In this damn game, Bravely New World, there was a system called ‘Linked Achievements’. When you beat a higher difficulty achievement, the backwards compatible lower difficulty achievement is automatically broken. If you hunt orc lords and cook and eat meat, the achievements of eating meat from orc warriors, orc paladins, and orc archers were automatically treated as cleared together.
If you cook and eat a monster, there was an achievement called ‘The Oldest Funeral’ that allows you to inflict additional damage against that monster. It was a very useful achievement, and in order to break this, Jain has been cooking and eating monsters until now. In fact, in the game, it was a build that should be done of course if you were a dead person.
Unable to explain all of this, Jain decided to keep it short.
“Because it’s delicious.”
“You can’t pick up anything that’s delicious and eat it!”
“Why? You said that you want to learn because you eat well.”
Ren was speechless and looked at Jain as if it was ridiculous. He looked like he didn’t really know what the problem was. His unusual strength, his words and his actions, must have had an unusual background. I thought that maybe I grew up in an extremely deprived environment. For this person, it might have been natural to hunt and eat monsters.
Thinking so, Ren tried to bow his head for a moment. It was her old habit. Thinking about the other person’s circumstances at will, then bending your own opinion. This time, the habit was about to be demonstrated. Jain, who had a happy smile, turned his head back to the frying pan and continued the cooking class.
“Okay then, I’m going to pour the kobold eyeball sauce left over from yesterday…”
“Anyway, that’s not it!”
But this time I couldn’t stand it. Ren shouted and pointed while his face was red.
“Hey, from now on, prepare the meal with me!
From that day on, Ren joined the party as an occasional meal attendant. Occasionally, he came to watch Ja-in and helped cook.
Are we sure MC was no concocting Witch potions