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Good morning. I’m Ren.

Ah, I’m exhausted… Really, my blood pressure was ‌low… That’s how it is, but waking up every morning was hard. It makes me feel down…

But I regained my spirit and woke up! I quickly got up and neatly dressed myself… Okay, I’m awake.

I might feel better if I sleep for a few more hours, but I chose not to do that since it would be bad if I ruined the rhythm of my life.

Now then, I boiled hot water while clearing the snow away and prepared for breakfast appropriately like the day before. I hunted a few horned rabbits when I removed the snow, so I used them to make bone soup broth and made rabbit meat pot-au-feu. Together with many vegetables. For the staple food, they could eat their own bread. Triela and the others bought a fair amount of hard bread, so we should eat them before they become spoiled…

By the way, I hunted the rabbits using a sling. Several people woke up early in the morning, so I had to watch myself and not use [Sword Magic]. But then, using a magic sword would blow off the rabbit, and I wouldn’t be able to get its meat anymore. I could just use a sword I hadn’t bestowed yet? I didn’t think there would be much difference, though.

As I was preparing for breakfast, Ryuu woke up early as usual. We had small talks while drinking tea. However, today the leader of the caravan woke up early and joined us, so I also served him the tea.

“Haa… This tea is delicious… It makes me wonder about the blend ratio…”

I didn’t know how to respond if he said that. Do your own research, please. Anyway, why did he come here? It’s more productive to wake up his friends and prepare various things, right?

I gazed at him full of suspicion, and he turned away from me awkwardly. What the heck?

I’m tired of dealing with this experienced merchant, so I left him alone and continued with my breakfast preparation. Hmm, let’s go with this… it’s a hassle to make elaborate items every morning, so I did it appropriately.

“… This dish looks delicious too.”

Even if you said such a thing, I wouldn’t sell our breakfast this time, okay?

I had so many ingredients in my [Storage] that I could even open a store, but the more I took them out, the more unnatural the amount would be. Naturally, I wouldn’t want to stand out for nothing.

This time, I used the rabbit I just caught, but it didn’t mean I could buy it conveniently every time… It’s a bit troubling that they got interested in my cooking.

Anyway, I finished the preparations while brilliantly ignoring him, waking up all the sleeping members to have a meal. By the way, Arle, who couldn’t get up early in the morning, continued to regret not being able to help with cooking. Arle’s blood pressure was worse than mine… I tried to wake her up in the morning, but it had no effect.

When we finished our meal, we prepared to move immediately and continued our journey, still trailing the other caravans.

And today, early in the morning, a flock of stray hungry wolves attacked us. Since there were few of them, the escorts easily defeated them alone. The wolf’s fur could be sold, but the meat was so nasty that they buried it randomly.

It would be nice if a beast or a monster that could be eaten appeared.

While taking a few breaks along the way, we had lunch. Hmm, what should I make… Everyone’s eyes were glittering with expectations, but there were too many things I couldn’t make in this situation. If I feel like it, I could even make a full course meal here. But let’s not do that…

Personally, I wanted to eat sea fish. I had lots of it in my [Storage]. I ate them little by little secretly, but they didn’t decrease at all since I only ate alone… It didn’t really matter since it would not rot, though.

I also had river fish, but hmm… No, it’s too troublesome. Let’s make something else.

I made a pork bone porridge using the orc bone soup I prepared last time. I put in some vegetables and some meat. I made it in a sizable amount, so there’s no way this wouldn’t be enough.

When I took out the saucepan filled with soup, I hid behind the carriage and sneaked it out to make sure I wouldn’t stand out, but the scent caught everyone’s attention. I guess this scent was amazing. But I ignored them.

And the undernourished kids ate quickly. Ah, but there’s a few more left. What should I do… Give it to Norn?

“Um… excuse me. If you have any leftovers, can you give it to us?”

When I was going to give the remaining porridge to Norn and Bell, the leader of the merchant came again. Ah… oh well, whatever.

“There are about five portions left. Are you fine with that?”
“Yes, that’s fine! The soup I had yesterday was very delicious, and I’m starving after smelling this dish… Thank you very much!”

Therefore, I moved the porridge into the pot brought by the merchant. When I washed my saucepan, I heard a cheer from them… Maybe I shouldn’t sell it to them? But it’s leftovers…

As I prepared for our departure, the leader came over again. Yes, yes. What is it?

“Actually, I have a request for you. Could you make our caravan’s meal starting tonight? Of course I will pay the bill. We will also bring all the ingredients. I don’t mind if you cook your friends’ share‌. We will also prepare the ingredients for that. What do you think?”

Ehh… That’s ‌troublesome… Did they like it that much? And delicious meals directly related to morale? Ahh, I could understand that.

Hmm, what should I do? With our current situation, I couldn’t even take my ingredients. It would be appreciated if we could use their ingredients. I only had to be careful, so ‌they didn’t find out about the ingredients, but…

Since they were escorting a parasite like us, refusing this request would spark a lot of problems. Hmm…

“Hm… Are you worried about your friends? Please rest assured, we will protect you properly! And we won’t take any fee for that!”

Mmm… Even if he could force me to cook for him, he didn’t mention about us being parasites and even offered a bonus of a free escort fee! Maybe he also tried to curry favor like what I did?

If possible, I wanted him to raise the offer, ‌but I should know when to stop. I mean, it was great that we could get escorts and free ingredients just by cooking for them! And I’m not great at negotiations, anyway.

“Okay, then I’ll accept that… By the way, all I have to do is cook for your caravan personnel and my friends, right?”
“Yes, go with that. Don’t worry about those people.”