Chapter 32 - Peta-chan’s Cooking
“Why would a kingdom fall apart just because it has an infinite food supply? That sounds like nothing but a good thing, right?”
Peta-chan, who had been quietly listening to the knights talk, voiced what seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.
From a short-term perspective, a farm that produced endless food really did sound like nothing but a blessing.
But in the long term, it was clear that the rot would start from the hearts of the people themselves.
After all, we’d seen it time and again in the real world—how grotesque people could become when they were raised to believe they were entitled to everything they needed, simply because someone else provided it.
“Yeah... she’s completely right, when you put it like that. It makes total sense. But I didn’t see it until she pointed it out…”
Wait, hold on. Isn’t it the same girl who led the balloon thing?
What was the deal with this girl Auf, anyway? According to the data from the vice-captain, she hadn’t even bathed in the fifth-floor spring, and all we really knew was that she was the third daughter of a duke.
She might have used the second-floor bath, maybe—but that place was always so crowded that it was impossible to keep track of who came and went.
She could’ve been one of the noble girls who came in under the vice-captain’s escort, but there were far too many of them to know for sure.
Well, whatever. Honestly, she’d done a lot for us—like discovering the hard-to-find spring on the ninth floor early on, or pointing out that making food easier to access might not be the right call.
From the dungeon’s perspective, she was practically a support character. After all, if the dungeon never got cleared, that would be a problem for us too.
“Master, after watching them eat all that food, I’m starting to want something savory too—not just sweets! Give me something real!”
Heh... Even if she didn’t feel full, this was still a bit much. Where was all that food even going? Most likely, she was using dungeon miasma to form and consume the food, which then simply turned back into miasma afterward.
The Master Room worked like a mental space—a projection of the mind—so anything imagined could be summoned and eaten. But it didn’t fill your stomach. It was like dreaming vividly of eating without the physical reality.
“Alright then... Since the knights are making a stew, I think I’ll make some pork miso soup on this side.”
“But why would infinite food be a bad thing?”
Hmm... How was I supposed to explain the delicate web of foundational research that underpinned the growth of civilization?
It felt like answering a barrage of “Why?” questions from a kindergartener—no matter how carefully I explained, the full depth probably wouldn’t get through.
“Well, to put it simply—if everyone on the surface starts depending on this dungeon for food, they’ll forget how to grow it themselves. And when our lifespan ends and the dungeon disappears, nobody will know how to produce food anymore. The kingdom would collapse.”
In reality, I doubted agricultural knowledge would be completely lost. It was more likely they'd be conquered before that happened. But that was too complicated, so I just gave her the most boiled-down version I could.
“Hmm... oh… Yeah, I guess that could destroy the kingdom. Oh! This pork soup is tasty—the broth’s really good!”
Well, at least she seemed convinced. That was a relief.
Might as well use this as a segue into the next stage of her education.
“If all you ever do is receive the finished product, you’ll eventually forget the steps that go into making it. For example, do you know how to make that pork soup?”
“Huh? Umm... You just chop up the ingredients and boil them, right?”
As expected, a completely half-hearted answer. I grinned and, without a word, summoned a mountain of ingredients and cooking utensils for pork miso soup.
“Alright then—how about you try making it yourself?”
Peta-chan’s palate had matured quite nicely by now. The next step was to deepen her appreciation of food culture by having her cook it herself.
There were still two whole days before the knights would reach the hot spring, so we had plenty of time to kill. A little cooking class would be the perfect way to spend it.
“Oh, I get it. By actually cooking, I’ll understand food more deeply. Sounds fun—I’ll give it a shot!”
Peta-chan never really rejected ideas like this.
Life as a dungeon core, once construction was finished, was basically an endless loop of boredom, boredom, boredom, boredom, and more boredom.
So when something fun or interesting came along—be it play or study—she almost always dove in headfirst and gave it a try.
After taking a long, thoughtful sip of the pork miso soup I’d made, savoring each ingredient as if analyzing its composition, Peta-chan stepped up to the ingredients I had laid out before her.
With a confident, “These should be about right,” she casually separated the ingredients and, mimicking the way the knight girls had prepared their stew, began tossing them into the pot one after another without a hint of hesitation.
There was no need for fire here. In the Master Room, things like water temperature could be controlled freely.
Hey now, wait a minute. I was fully expecting her to freeze up in front of the ingredients and go, “I don’t knooow what to do, Master~!” and then immediately beg for help.
But no—this girl just dove straight into cooking without a shred of doubt. What the hell?
“I think to get that flavor… I’ll need this and this!”
With a beaming expression full of self-assurance, she added the seasonings as she pleased, at whatever timing felt right.
Why? How could she look so confident, cooking like she actually knew what she was doing? What was her basis for being so sure of herself?
It was that fearless, reckless confidence that only the innocent and ignorant could pull off—a youthful arrogance that marched forward without knowing fear. Watching from behind, this old man couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious.
“All done! My pork miso soup is complete!”
“That was way too fast! There’s no way it’s fully cooked!”
“Fully cooked?”
“...Well, this is a learning experience too. Go ahead, try it.”
At my prompting, Peta-chan took a sip of what she proudly called her pork miso soup.
The moment the crisp crunch of half-raw onions echoed through the room, she froze.
“Masteeer… what is this…”
Her voice wavered, her face on the verge of tears.
“That’s what happens when you don’t simmer it long enough. You need to let it cook for at least another ten minutes.”
The confidence from earlier vanished completely. Now she simply stood there, staring nervously into the pot as it simmered away.
“Think it’s ready now? Let’s give it a taste.”
Since I’d watched her cook it from start to finish, I already had a pretty good idea of how it would turn out.
I’d introduced her to miso soup before, but I never actually taught her what miso was. So instead, she’d simmered the ingredients using salt and soy milk.
In other words, what we had here was basically a salty soy milk hot pot.
That was her attempt to recreate the taste of miso soup.
Honestly, it was kind of impressive. For a first try, she’d understood the flavor of soybeans well enough to aim in the right general direction and come up with something that wasn’t too far off the mark.
I figured I’d offer some kind words and tell her, “Hey, this actually tastes pretty good in its own way,” as I scooped some of the broth into a bowl.
“...Huh? Where’s the stuff?”
The ingredients were completely gone. There should’ve been pork, carrots, potatoes—a whole bunch of things in there. Where the hell had they gone?
Bewildered, I took a sip of the soup—and immediately, an inferno erupted in my mouth, as if someone had poured molten iron straight into it.
“BWUUUUUUUGH! What the hell is this?!”
The searing heat was so intense I briefly wondered if my tongue had been incinerated. But thankfully, while it felt like I’d just been blasted by hellfire, my Master-body was totally unharmed.
“To make sure it really simmered thoroughly, I set the temperature to around 1,000 degrees...”
Are you out of your damn mind...? Water doesn’t even get that hot—wait. Actually, maybe it does.
With high enough pressure, water can exceed 100°C—that’s the whole principle behind pressure cookers.
And since the Master Room didn’t play by normal physical laws, if she wanted to simmer something at 1,000 degrees, then yeah, she could.
This wasn’t a joke video titled “Making Pork Miso Soup in a Blast Furnace!”—get serious!
“Listen! On the surface, water only boils up to 100 degrees Celsius, okay?! Next time, we’re doing this step by step. I’ll explain everything, so just follow along, alright?”
“...Okaaay.”
On the monitor, the knight girls were happily eating what looked like a beautifully finished stew risotto.
Meanwhile, Peta-chan sat there pouting, glaring at them like a grumpy cat.
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