Dungeon? This Tree? Why Don't You Join Me for Lunch? (Dungeon Core)
Chapter 67: Cooking Tango

Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Cooking Tango

The quinoa really looked like caviar. With the tiny grains inside the puffed-up ones. I was letting it cool.

Oh, maybe I could have used the water for something, but I was too busy doing something I hadn’t done for centuries!

Experimenting!

As I chopped the apples in big pieces and loaded them in the chopper rune, I just wondered if I could finally find him: the one who supplied me with all the runes.

He was a mystery.

I knew it was a he because once, he tried to give me a whole cartoon of chicken eggs and there was a man’s shirt wrapped around them.

Before he began to supply me, I did everything by hand. Even nymphs had to eat, after all.

But enough of that! I had to be prepared to do the impossible!

To make a sugarless, flourless, dairy-free cake!

Something that someone somewhere had surely done, tried to market, and got shot down.

I wasn’t going to market the stuff. I was going to save my friendship with it!

Soon, the apples were nice and chopped. There was an entire bowl out of those two apples. Giants.

But, I guess, had I had only small apples to work with, I would have used four. Or maybe even five!

The thing about me, as someone might have guessed by just looking at me while cooking, was that I used my senses, not just measuring tools.

Because, if one made too much of something, one ended up with more of something.

What was so wrong with having extra pancakes to send off as gifts? Especially when you had someone who used a teleportation rune to make sure you always could send the food to all corners of the world?

For a second, I wondered what Nate would have to say about my runes. And my, dare I even think it, secret admirer?

But then I shook my head. It wasn’t like I was cheating or anything!

Nate, Aron, and the kids didn’t have to know that I led a double life!

Besides, the man was probably a grandpa by now. An old mage, perhaps? The first chopper rune appeared about 150 years ago.

Definitely a mage!

I shook my head. There was no time to think about love now! I had to concentrate!

So, I began to separate the egg whites from the yolks. I knew from experience that a good whisking rune would bring the whites to fluffy peaks, as I liked to call it, even without sugar.

Or anything at all.

Heck, it even went faster than with the sugar! I took the whisk, the rune activated.

Now, most people would use the time to look dreamily into the egg whites and think about their life.

I did not.

No! My brain was already thinking about whether I could use a shortcut!

On the one hand, the quinoa really had the feel of pasta. On the other... what if it got all broken up with the whisk?

I shook my head. No! If I wanted these strange small seeds to turn into cake, I had to preserve their form!

Hm... could I make pizza out of them? If I mashed them up, to use as the base, and then...

I shook my head once more.

The World System’s Blog was sure to hold the answer, but for now, I needed to concentrate!

Besides, Desmond couldn’t eat cheese. What is a pizza without cheese?

I blinked when the whisk activated the automatic timer, something new my secret admirer had supplied me with, and stopped by itself.

I raised the whisk with bated breath. The peaks were there!

"Yes!"

Then I placed the whisk with the remains of the whites still stuck on it in the bowl with the yolks.

Now, some people would add extra whites afterward, but I saw no reason to dirty my spatula. It was extra effort.

Not that it was without merit, but to be honest, this was a test run.

It wasn’t meant to be perfect. It was just meant to pave the way for future experiments!

The nice yellow color of the yolks reminded me of a meadow with dandelions in full bloom. I smiled, as I took a deep breath.

Ok, now for the hard part!

I dumped the grated apples in with egg whites. It was important to be as gentle with the egg whites as one was with a newborn.

Bad things happened if they lost their fluffiness.

Then, when the thing inside looked like very thick batter, I added the raisins.

It was hard to turn the batter!

I bit my bottom lip. This was no bread! This was a cake!

What I did next was not supposed to be done without proper prior experience. And yet, I decided to be brave! To put the fate of the cake in the egg yolks!

I dumped them inside. Then I began to whisk once more.

But still, the batter was too hard to whisk! It was slowly turning into something that was the stuff of nightmares.

I looked at the quinoa.

If I added it now...

But without it, there wouldn’t be a cake!

I dumped it inside. Maybe if I kneed it, turned it into bread...

"Here honey," Nate was holding a bottle of something that had an almond and a bottle of milk next to it on the sticker and a bottle of oil. "You can do it!"

I wanted to kiss him silly at that second. Of course: almond milk! That was no cow milk, or goat milk!

Desmond could drink it!

"Together?" I asked him as I prepared the spatula.

"Together," and he began by pouring just enough oil to make the batter a bit easier to turn. And then, as I continued to turn it, he began to pour in the almond milk.

Slowly, watching my hand. Watching the batter.

I didn’t need to tell him when he needed to stop. He knew. Nate was a man after my own heart!

"Ok, I think we can bak..." I stole a kiss because he was trying to steal my words!

"Bake!" I yelled, as he licked his lips, a dreamy smile reaching his eyes on them.

"Sunshine," I head Aron murmur.

"Yes, ours," Desmond whispered. Probably thinking I wouldn’t pay him any attention this time as well.

But I did.

"Oh," I murmured, slowly turning toward him.

The cake batter still in the bowl.

Forgotten.