Arcane Chef - Slice of Life x Adventure LitRPG

It didn’t take long for the man’s boss to show up. He looked flustered as he came up the stairs, but after eyeing the group and seeing Jackson, he seemed to rapidly gather himself and then bowed.

“Hello, my name is Ralph. If you don’t mind, let’s move this in-store.” He opened the door of the loot house and entered.

We all followed. After coming into the store and seeing the talons, beak, and feather on the counter, he gave them a quick inspection and nodded. “Right, so you have how many feathers?”

“Over nine hundred,” Milo responded.

Ralph just nodded. “Okay, now the real reason I was called here—the scale, or scales?” He looked up for confirmation.

“Correct. Thirty-nine scales in total.”

Ralph’s eyes widened at that, but he quickly recovered and put on an impassive mask.

“These are in fine condition. They are not overly aged, and almost seem fresh?”

Without letting Milo respond, he placed the scale on the counter. “Sixty gold for all scales.”

Milo just laughed. “Not a chance. You and I know their worth, and you offer one gold fifty silver for them? That’s insulting.”

Milo made it sound like he was incredibly offended by the offer—and maybe he was. I was believing him.

He continued, “No. For everything today—one hundred and ten gold. No less.”

I was absolutely shocked at the amount of money, and only now did it register with me. That drake had hundreds of scales, maybe even thousands, and we were already talking about enough gold to live on for the rest of my life.

Milo and Ralph went back and forth for some time. In the end, they settled for one hundred gold, and after paying, Milo stored the gold immediately. They shook hands, and we took our leave.

Once we made it back outside, it was Jackson who spoke.

“That was some fine negotiating. Merchant training?” he asked.

Milo shook his head. “No, not exactly. My parents were both merchants, and growing up I learned the tricks of the trade, so to speak.”

We walked in mostly silence until we reached the stables. I was still blown away—everywhere I looked, people were helping each other: fixing damaged walls, rebuilding collapsed roofs, and boarding up broken windows.

When we made it to the stables, Jackson said his goodbyes and decided he didn’t need to follow us to the gate, since we were heading straight out. After wishing us luck, he left to head back to the guild and help Kara with the situation there.

As I mounted Sable, part of me was excited to be back on the road. I was also wondering what life would have been like here if I had not joined the adventurer party. Would I be working at another inn? Trying to start my own stall, maybe?

Well, maybe it would be something to revisit in the future.

As we rode out of the city and approached the gates, I noticed that several of the guards tried to call out to us as we rode past, but Hari didn’t stop or look back.

Reaching the rise where I had first seen Boltron, I looked back—and from here, you could really appreciate the damage.

“Wow,” I said. Looking back, I saw an absolutely massive wall holding back what looked like a mountain’s worth of rocks. But the city itself bore a scar that would remain. The once-proud hill that had held the Temple was now a black, smouldering crater in the ground. All the buildings even close to it looked wiped out, reduced to rubble.

I also saw where some incredibly large rocks had either come before the wall was built or made it past, and behind their path was nothing but destruction. Where buildings had once stood, it was now just flattened land.

I really hoped Boltron would recover and become more prosperous than ever.

Turning the other way, away from Boltron, the scene wasn’t much better. Large rocks were scattered everywhere, and the road had been all but wiped out.

As we moved towards our destination, we had to go off the road more often than we were on it to avoid the rocks that now called it home, which slowed our travel down significantly.

It was early afternoon when we made our way down the path towards Divinmere, and even here it wasn’t untouched by the landslides. Several very large rocks had rolled most of the way to the town, stopping short by only a few hundred wagon lengths.

This text was taken from NovelFire. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Upon entering the city, I saw there was minor damage from the tremors they must have felt as well, but overall the town was functioning like normal. People were going about their day, the smithies near the gate were working hard, and the guards didn’t blink an eye as we entered.

It was Hari who spoke up first. “I think it’s best we stay here tonight. Our travel is going to get slow moving through the mountain pass.”

It wasn’t until Hari mentioned it that I remembered—the mountain pass. The village is there. Would it even still be there?

“Do you think Rockhampton will be okay?” I asked with clear worry in my voice.

“Honestly, Trev? No, I don’t think so. But they know the mountain well, and I’m hoping they all evacuated before the worst happened,” Hari said.

“Let’s find an inn. We’ll book a room, bath, and a meal, then grab supplies. We’ll head off first thing tomorrow morning, hopefully all of us fresh. I know none of us had a good night’s sleep last night,” he said as we rode further into town. I saw the market they had set up and, although it wasn’t as large as the one in Boltron, there were plenty of vendors selling food, which relieved me.

It didn’t take us long to find an inn, and getting a couple of rooms was easy enough. I’d need to use a bedroll on the floor, but that would be fine. They also had stables at the inn, so we could store our horses there.

Once we got the keys to our rooms, Milo and Hari stayed behind, and I left with Jen, Liane, and Crisplet in his brazier to get supplies. I was given my cut of the gold from the creatures earlier as well—I now had twenty gold and twelve silvers. Well, actually I was only carrying two gold, because unlike the others I didn’t have a storage device to keep it safe, so Liane was carrying the rest for me.

I remembered from when we first came into Boltron that this place was the hub for many farmers to sell their goods, along with much of the lake fishing. So when we made it to the market, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many options. I really hoped I could find some whole fish here as well.

My first goal was pancakes… finally.

At the first vendor, who seemed to be mostly dealing in poultry, I purchased four dozen eggs and twenty whole chickens, which the man seemed ecstatic about.

Heading to the next stall across, which focused on all things Buvul, I purchased quite a lot of items. First, four very large Buvul rumps. I also purchased a huge portion of Buvul suet, and I was surprised to see that this stall had plenty of other goods, including milk, cream, and butter. So I bought some of everything!

The vendor told me that the Buvul milk was especially high in fat content, since his herd was fed on a rich diet of fresh grasses. I was very excited by it all, and Liane and Jen clearly found that excitement infectious, because before long they were dragging me to another store that had caught their eye.

This particular one was selling Grumfels! At the guild stall they had been delicious, so I purchased fifteen whole Grumfels. Unfortunately, they were already skinned and cleaned, so no butchery experience yet.

Next was a store focused on boar, so we purchased three whole boars. One I got to butcher myself, and we also bought two large smoked boar bellies for breakfasts.

After that, I found a vendor with multiple sacks filled with different goods. From there I purchased rolled grain for porridge, a small sack of sugar, a large sack of flour, a small amount of fire salts again, as well as several dried herbs that were suggested to me. I didn’t recognise them all yet. Lastly, I bought salt and pepper.

So far I had only spent a little over fifty silver, and it reminded me how amazing regular food prices were. It had been a long time since I’d got to spend time in a market like home, like Dunhearth.

I purchased a very large amount of Lake Sugar Reeds, surprising the vendor, but truthfully I really wanted to try making my own drink and then infusing it if possible. That would be amazing if it worked!

I found a store selling honey, and after tasting a little, I may have gone overboard. I purchased two small barrels of it, along with three very large chunks of honey-filled comb.

Next up was the fruit and vegetable shop. I bought a wide variety of items, getting a particularly large amount of mushrooms, tubers, and garlic grass, since those were the things I used most. I also purchased basically every berry the vendor had.

And then finally—finally—I reached the seafood vendors closer to the water. The options were amazing. I purchased two large fish that had not been prepared at all, not as large as the Thunar, along with a bunch of eels. Lastly, the owner sold me ten unprepared lake fish that were not large at all, but all I saw was butchery experience!

And finally, one gold and ten silvers later, I was done.

I looked around to find the others, realising that Crisplet wasn’t in the brazier, and Jen and Liane were no longer following me. Had I really been so zoned out I hadn’t noticed them slip away? Looking around, I spotted them sitting on the edge of a fountain eating meat on a stick, watching me, while Crisplet was perched on the edge of the fountain shooting a beam of fire at falling droplets of water and turning them into steam.

When they realised I had just noticed them, Liane burst into laughter.

Well, apparently… I don’t pay attention when I’m food shopping.

I was really excited with what I got though, so even when I caught up to them I tried to tell them everything I’d bought. Jen just waved me off.

“Trev, we were watching. We know. Just make us really good food, okay!”

I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed, but I knew the first thing I was going to make was pancakes!

Heading back to the inn, I felt good—for the first time in a while. I still had a lot going on in my mind. I still felt like the situation in Boltron was my fault, and I didn’t know how to come to grips with that. But I was excited to cook something, and I never thought I’d be so excited to cook until this moment.

The idea of making a drink with the sugar reeds—or cooking the Galvonson—it was exciting. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to try the drake. I knew it was normally toxic, but my ability specifically said I could cook monster ingredients and purify them, right? So… a little bit won’t hurt, right?

When I entered the inn, Hari and Milo were already cleaned up and drinking as they happily chatted. I was promptly sent to go have a bath, while Liane and Jen did the same in their own area.

Before long, we were all sitting around the table at the inn. It was rather quiet inside, but everyone seemed happy—a vast difference from Boltron.

That night I saw that one of the beds in the room was massive, so I ended up sharing it so we could both sleep on a bed. I had a good night’s sleep, only waking up with nightmares twice.

The next morning we all woke up early—even Liane! Although she hadn’t spoken yet, so I don’t know if up is the right word.

We grabbed some rolls from the local bakery on our way out of town, each of us eating a fresh hot roll as we took to the road early.

As the road curved towards the mountain pass that should have taken us to Rockhampton, the first thing we noticed was… there was no possible way to go in that direction anymore. The pass had completely filled with rocks.

It took quite a while for Hari to pore over the map and attempt to plot a different route around. We would need to take the long path around the base of the mountain, cut through some forested area, and then come back out on the other side before taking the road to Forest’s Edge.

We were lucky it wasn’t in the forest where the fight was happening. Still, Hari did say it was going to be dangerous. That said, Liane looked incredibly happy, and honestly I was pretty happy too. Going through the forest like that would let me use my foraging skills! And maybe I’d find some more amazing items. I was all out of dilwater berries, and truffles, and well… everything!

I was broken out of my daydreams by a little burn on my leg.

“Hey, why’d you do that?” I looked down at Crisplet, who had just sent a bunch of sparks forward.

Looking up, I realised everyone was already moving, and I hadn’t noticed.

I was daydreaming way too much.