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Cloud expected me to teach them, so when it was thrown at him he couldn’t refuse.

The trio looked bad on the outside but they weren’t that bad on the inside. They were like mischievous children, so to speak, who had grown as is and the things they did also escalated with it.

If they understood that we were superior to them they would obediently listen to us.

“Well, I guess I can’t say anything since I also forced my way to become her disciple. I’ll give you some training if you’re fine with me.”
“We’re fine with that. As long as we can grow stronger.”
“Then this topic is over. I don’t wanna discuss bothersome stuff during our meal.”

Plus, it was Michelle cooking for once. I wanted to avoid boorish topics.

“Food’s ready!”

Michelle called out just then as if it was calculated.

It was a brown soup with the aroma of seasonings. Then it was poured onto the rice. It was a simple meal.

But meals like this were delicious because of their simplicity.

She distributed small dishes with cooked rice poured with the piping hot soup to everyone.

Once it reached everyone, I casually thrust my spoon in it and carried some to my mouth.

The stew wasn’t quite perfect due to doing it crudely outside at night, but that part couldn’t be helped.

In exchange, the umami of dried vegetables and jerky that were rubbed in seasonings had seeped into the soup, making it taste quite rich.

The fresh wild bird meat was quite chewy and delicious too. And above all, this white meat tasted great.

“Ohh, Big sis Michelle can cook too, huh!”
“It’s delicious. Just as much as big sis Finia’s!”
“Munchmunchmuch!”

The trio was praising it highly too. Also, that last one, you should speak properly.

The soup had something else aside from the bird meat and jerky.

It was white meat similar to bird meat, but the long and thin texture of it was extremely similar to it. If I had to say, it felt similar to marine products like a crab…

“Michelle, what meat is this?”
“Hmm? It’s the leg meat of the Giant Spider.”
“Pffft?!”

Hearing her answer, Finia, spurted out what was in her mouth.

I reflexively stiffened and stopped chewing. Michelle did say she was bad with insects back then, didn’t she?

“Hmm? I mean, insects aren’t that delicious. But look, if crabs are delicious, I thought maybe spiders are too.”
“Wait a minute, why are you testing that now?!”
“Huh, because there’s an opportunity? We got fresh ingredients so I had to cook it quickly.”
“So that’s why you decided to cook so suddenly!”
“Ehehe, I mean, big sis Finia looked like she wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Of course, Finia would’ve found it unreasonable to cook a spider when she hated them.

The person in question was silently removing the spider meat from her soup. It was sweet of her to do it without saying anything in consideration of Michelle.

“Huh, this was a spider? Adventurers really do eat everything huh?”
“Don’t use Michelle as a standard. She’s non-standard in various ways.”
“Really?”

Both her marksmanship skill and her gluttony were far outside of the norm for Adventurers.

At the same time, her simplicity wasn’t something an average Adventurer had. What she did now was probably no more than a prank in her mind.

In every sense, Michelle’s existence was as far from “normal” as you could get.

“Sorry, big sis Finia. You can leave them if it’s too much.”
“Um, this is tasty… but I just can’t do it. I’ll leave them. Sorry for doing that when you went out of your way to cook it.”

Honestly, this was on the level where Finia could’ve flipped out in anger. Yet she was even apologizing to her, so you could see how good her personality was.

Anyway, Michelle, I hope that trio didn’t influence you to do a prank like this.

“I tried to stop her, you know.”
“Speaking of which, you were with her when she picked those ingredients, huh? Did you realize it then?”
“Yeah.”

Cloud should have noticed her picking up the spider meat since he was together with her.

“In other words, you’re an accomplice, huh?”
“Huh, no, I mean… maybe I am?”

Pressed with my question, Cloud’s gaze wavered instantly. Seeing my wrath, Michelle started getting flustered. Above all, doing that while knowing Finia would hate it was the worst.

“You two, sit on your knees there.”

I made them sit and pulled out the punishment pole and stood in a daunting pose.

Their prank went too far this time.

I had to have them reflect properly, so I needed to harden my heart. Otherwise, they could become like the trio.

Michelle and Cloud obediently sat in front of me.

Why was she sitting with her hands stuffed between her legs though?

That made the part sandwiched between her arms stick together and form a big valley.

This valley was deep enough that Cortina would have no way of reproducing it. Rather, in her case, no valley would even be formed no matter how hard she tries.

Plus the way she was looking up at me with puppy eyes.

“Aghh! This friend of mine is far too unfair!”

I ended up hugging her chestnut-colored head and started rubbing it, forgetting the sermon.

Her hair was glossy and fluffy enough to not lose out to Cortina’s tail. It was probably thanks to the hairdressing product of “Whitey” that she’s been using since she was young.

“N-Nicole?”
“Lady Nicole, that’s not fair. Hug me too.”
“I’ll do that later, Finia. Mm, she smells like a puppy~”
“Is this supposed to be scolding?”
“Cloud, you shut up.”

Cloud got silenced by my words and hung his head. He looked quite like a puppy in these situations too.

Apparently, that was well received, so he was quite popular with the city girls. The girls of this world should really improve their taste.

Setting that aside, Michelle’s lecture came first. Once I hugged her to my heart’s content, I collected myself and returned back to the daunting posture.

During this incident, I ended up bonking Michelle’s head with the pole — something that rarely happened.