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Michelle and I ended up being the ones to cook.

Princess Eligore was desperately wanting to make breakfast, perhaps to redeem herself, but someone had to look after Finia since she couldn’t move now.

Thus, I assigned her that duty. If I carelessly let her cook, I felt like she’d accidentally add poisonous mushrooms to the food.

“Okay, I’ll leave the soup to you, Michelle.”
“Gotcha!”
“No spider legs and meat this time, okay?”
“…………okay.”

What was that pause? Did she actually plan to put them in? Anyway, any food that Finia, who was the most tired one among us, couldn’t eat was out of the picture.

While Michelle was getting ready to make soup, I was searching around for branches to use as firewood.

Since we made it rain to extinguish the fire, all the branches were damp, but we had Princess Eligore to fix that.

I had her tend to Finia at the moment but it should be easy for her to set fire to the firewood.

I also plucked any edible wild grasses to add to the menu.

“Ellie, can you ignite the firewood?”
“Leave it to me!”

She jumped off the carriage with rough nasal breathing. I put the firewood inside the kamado made of stones, and then Eligore attempted to blast magic at it.

“—Blaze Sphere.”
“Hold right theeeere!!”
“Worry not, I have lowered the output!”

As she said, quite a tiny fireball floated still between the firewood and quickly evaporated the moisture from it. At the same time, the firewood also blazed up with great force and gradually turned to ashes.

“This is quite useful, but for what purpose did I gather the firewood…”
“Huh? Oh, um, of course, wood to serve as live coals was necessary too.”
“Oh well. So long does this spell last?”
“It should easily last for about ten minutes.”
“It’s enough to burn the firewood, but not enough to cook with it, huh?”
“I’m sor—”
“Oh, no, I’m not blaming you or anything!”

She started to feel dejected again, but I quickly comforted her.

It actually required a lot of skill to be able to control the fire intensity perfectly inside the kamado.

Her control could even rival Letina’s actually. Her skill was plenty admirable.

“Let’s put the damp branches and stuff around it and dry them while we can. That will be plenty helpful.”
“I would be glad if I was useful.”
“We all rely on Finia in the magic department, so you really helped.”
“Finia is simply too universal!”

As Michelle said, when Letina was in our group, I feel like we relied on magic a bit less.

But after Finia joined, she took over that field with various magic skills and chores, so we might’ve been getting a little too comfortable with it.

“I’m sorry, if only I hadn’t gotten so exhausted.”
“If you hadn’t stopped that fire, we’d have ended up like this firewood.”
“Ugh, I have no face to show regarding that.”

When I stood up for Finia, this time it led to Eligore becoming depressed.

A meal was supposed to be one of the few fun things during the trips, so save me from this guilt loop please.

“That’s not relevant here! I also gave you instructions without fully understanding your abilities, so let’s call it even.”
“A-Alright.”

Michelle meanwhile stir-fried the ingredients in the pot, then added water to make soup.

I cut the conversation short and used the side of the kamado to make stir-fried food.

It was simple cooking where I just sprinkled salt pepper and other seasonings on the wild grasses that I picked on the way.

Even so, this way we had more variation compared to just eating soup, bread, and jerky.

“I’m done with my tent, so let me help with something.”
“Then distribute this on plates.”
“Okay.”

I had Cloud take over the food preparations while I headed to the carriage to check on Finia.

There I saw her laying down while princess Eligore was bringing the water pouch to her mouth.

“Finia, how are you?”
“I have gotten noticeably better. Running out of magic power sure is tough.”
“I’ve never experienced it, so I don’t know.”
“Your magic power overflowed instead, after all.”

Finia giggled as she answered, and I was relieved to see her recover enough energy to laugh.

“Oh, do you wanna use my magic power again? If things go well, your magic power could recover.”
“Huh? Huuh?! Now that you mention it, that could actually… But wait, that would mean I would be… with Lord Rei—I mean, with Lady Nicole… huuuh?!”

Finia was covering her mouth with a beet-red face. From my point, it was too late to get flustered over that, but I suppose her thoughts on the matter would change when she knew the child she did that with as medical treatment was actually Reid in the past life.

In the first place, my Magic Buildup Disease was healed completely within a year with the help of Queen Blossom’s nectar.

I did continue to faint even after that, but that was due to my originally frail constitution, so there was no way to cure it.

At any rate, it was something from nearly seven years ago, so no one could blame her for forgetting about it.

“Let me thank you for what you did back then.”
“Lor—Lady Nicole?!”

She looked adorable with that flush, so a teasing smile crept up my face.

Finia was thinking of a reply, but she didn’t seem to come up with anything, and just covered her head with the nearby blanket.

Thinking I went overboard, I approached the blanket and whispered “sorry” in a quiet voice.

Given her mild demeanor, I doubted she’d get angry over it, but it was important to apologize anyway.

“Alright, the food will be done soon, so step outside.”

Finia’s weather manipulation spell was still in effect, so it was still raining outside the carriage.

That said, we had moved the carriage under the trees, so the area near the kamado wasn’t wet.

Besides, if we put on raincoats we wouldn’t get wet either way.

“Finia, how is it? Think you can manage to eat?”

At my question, she poked her head from the blanket, gave a quick nod, and hid under it once more.

I felt like calling her a bagworm, but I was the reason she was acting like this, so I decided to hold my tongue and left the carriage.

In the end, Finia’s behavior didn’t improve that day, so when she came out for dinner with a beet-red face, Michelle and Cloud started needlessly worrying about her, wondering what happened.