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After escaping from Reibana with his teleportation magic, Itski headed back to Granleuche, while making a stop at Fort Napretep, which was located on the western edge of Berlomot.

That fort stood at the border between Berlomot and Granleuche.

Inside the fort, he left the kitchen while pushing a cart with food on it, carrying it to the fort’s main office. There, he knocked on the door and entered once he received a reply.

“Sorry for the wait.”
“It’s here!”

A young man sounded elated by his arrival. He was Fred Easley, the castellan of the fort, as well as the appointed hero by Granleuche.

“I’m really sorry for making you do this when you’re already tired from your mission.”
“It’s nothing. There’s plenty of times when I also miss the food from our previous lives.”

Fred quickly made some space on his desk so Itski could unload the plates from the cart. They were all dishes from Itski’s past life, recreated with ingredients available in this world.

“Well then, time to eat.” Fred quickly began eating, smiling happily as he tasted those nostalgic flavors. He was also a person who had reincarnated from the same world as Itski. “Yes! This is it! I’ve tried so many times to explain these flavors and foods to the cooks here but they never get it!

“Ahh, I get what you mean. I’ve struggled with that too. This world is pretty behind compared to ours after all.”

“Yeah, exactly!” As he complained about the things he had to endure since reincarnating, Itski just nodded along. Some time later Itski also voiced some of his own grievances.

After Fred finished his meal, Itski began carrying the empty plates back to the kitchen, until he ran into a familiar person in the hallway. She was Rachel Zelk, the daughter of a relative of the Zelk family, and acting as the saintess accompanying Granleuche’s hero.

The moment she saw Itski, she trotted up to him. She had a short and thin body, with long curly golden hair that adorned her cute face.

“I didn’t know you were here, Itski!”
“It’s been a while, Rachel. I had some business overseas, and decided to visit the fort on my way back home.”

Rachel looked delighted to see Itski again, and he replied with a smile as well.

“I see. Did Sir Fred eat from those plates?”
“Yes. He insisted that I make some food while I was here.”
“He’s always like that. I get that your food is really good, but you aren’t his private chef or someone working for him…”

For Rachel, Itski was the lover of Leontina, the oldest daughter of the main Zelk family. It seemed almost exploitative to have someone so important, who had just returned from an arduous job overseas no less, cook for a single person.

But he did not really seem to mind that kind of treatment.

“Making this food involves just a little bit of technique and it’s good enough. If you want, I could teach you how to make it too? They say that love starts from the stomach, after all.”
“Huh? Wh-What love? I don’t really feel anything for Sir Fred…”

That caught her by surprise, her cheeks reddening and her eyes darting around nervously, and Itski chuckled a bit seeing that.

“I never said you’d be making it for him though.”
“Ah!”

When Itski mentioned that, Rachel seemed to snap out of it, and then shortly realized that she had essentially told on herself.

“Ughh, you’re always such a bully!”
“Sorry, sorry.”

Rachel began lightly pummeling Itski like a spoiled child, and he just raised his palms to block her.

“Ahem, anyway, that’ll probably have to wait until next time.”
“Really? I wouldn’t mind starting now if you want.”
“No, Leontina won’t be pleased if you stay here for too long and return late.”

Saying that, Rachel grinned teasingly, and Itski could only shake his head, knowing that her assessment was right.

✦✧✦✧✦

As soon as Itski came back to the Zelk mansion, he figured he’d report to Leontina straight away, but she was still away on duty. With nothing else to do, he went to his room and started analyzing the data he had gathered about the kagura dance in Reibana.

He activated the remote view spell he had used there and replayed the recording. Then he carefully analyzed the movements of each of the maiden’s limbs, trying to determine their intent.

By rewinding, playing, rewinding, and playing again countless times, he began to understand it better.

“This flow of mana… Is she using her movements to draw out a magic circle?”

The kagura performed by the Urado family in Reibana had resembled a form of arts rather than a spell, as he had noted during his time there. But after carefully analyzing the recording he was starting to notice all of the hallmarks of an actual spell.

Reverse engineering the whole process would take a long time, but this was something Itski was researching out of his own curiosity, so he could not enlist the help of workers from the Platiboros Company to help with it.

“That’s alright, usually having to put in more effort makes the results worth it.” Saying that to motivate himself, he was about to continue when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Itski, it’s me.”
“…The door’s unlocked, come in.”

Putting away his papers and releasing the remote viewing spell, he replied to that voice he knew so well.

The door opened and she, Leontina, the master of the mansion and Itski’s lover, entered the room.

“Welcome home, Itski! I’ve missed you!”
“It’s good to be back, Leti. And I missed you too.”

Itski stood up to greet her, and she smiled happily to see him. Leontina was extremely strict while executing her missions, but her soft side would really shine whenever she was alone with Itski.

“Oh right, I picked up some reports from Fort Napretep on my way back too.”
“I see, thank you.”

Itski opened his magic storage and took the documents out, and Leontina took them from his hands. She began reading through them, a smile slowly forming on her lips, until eventually she could not hold back anymore and broke into loud laughter.

“Ahahahahah, you did it! I knew you could do it!”
“Huh, what happened?”

While Leontina laughed happily, Itski was confused as to why she was praising him.

Itski would sometimes accompany Leontina with the forces of the third knight order on their missions, but that was merely to help Leontina directly, as he was not a knight. On top of that he had been researching other countries overseas recently, so he had not helped the knights in any way either. There was no reason for his name to be in those reports, and he knew better than to read them without permission.

“Do you remember when I asked you for ideas to secretly topple other kingdoms?”
“Ahh, I think I mentioned spreading drugs and corruption and things like that¹? But that was just what came to mind first, and I’m no politician.”
“I’m aware of that, that’s why I took those ideas so the army could refine them, and put them to practice.”
“Which means…”
“That it was a resounding success. And the data is actually quite funny.”

The hero Fred’s revolution in Berlomot had restructured the whole country, and the mass emigration gave Granleuche the perfect way to send spies and undercover agents everywhere.

Those spies were all part of the plan based on Itski’s ideas, and began destabilizing all the countries that accepted refugees.

“But those were all small countries. I doubt it’ll work nearly as well on our actual target, Seperion.”
“That country has a stronger government than most after all.”

Itski had spent some time undercover in Seperion. Public safety was well taken care of, and the economy was strong, so his stay there had been rather nice.

“Either way, we’ll just keep going with the same plan. I’ll be counting on you when the time comes, Itski.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Heheh, that’s good then. Take it easy now so you can recover your strength. The head chef heard you were coming back, so he looked pretty excited to cook one of the dishes you taught him for dinner.”
“I’ll be looking forward to that.”

Itski enjoyed cooking, so often he would spend his free time in the kitchen. That obviously made the cooks there curious about what he was doing, for better or for worse, so Itski ended up teaching them some of the things he knew. At first, it was difficult to find the right ingredients in this world, since everything had a different name, but with enough effort he was able to replicate some of the dishes from his past life.

Thinking of that also reminded him of the complaints of Fred in Fort Napretep.

‘I’ve explained to them how tofu or miso is made, but they never get it.’

Fred kept going on about the people of this world being unable to understand, even when he explained how food was made in his past life, but Itski knew that something was lacking in those explanations.

He had no idea of how beans were actually crushed to make tofu, or the additional ingredients needed for miso to ferment.

Overall, his knowledge was severely lacking, and not just when it came to food. He had only obtained his position as a hero due to his physical ability and maturity that seemed far ahead of his age, which made sense as he had reincarnated there. But he was oblivious to that fact.

“No one can make sense out of such a rough explanation…” Itski snorted in a mocking way, but then he looked down disappointed, realizing that such an idiot would likely become one of his relatives in this world.

Also, he had kept it a secret, but Itski would always make his own tofu, and he had found soy sauce and miso in Reibana.

“What’s wrong, Itski? You look distracted.”
“Oh, I was just thinking that having proper knowledge is always important.”
“Well, yes it is, but why were you thinking of that all of a sudden?”

Leontina still looked a bit confused, so Itski decided to tell her about his conversation with Fred.

1. Robinxen: ARE YOU SECRETLY BRITISH?! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO DESTROY CHINA?!