I thought that despite visiting several stores for roast meat and several pastry shops, they wouldn’t eat a lot for lunch.

  Oh, how wrong I was.

  Liane had found a restaurant just outside the main market. From the outside it didn’t look like much; there was a sign saying lunch specials on it: a Buvul fillet, served with garlic grass butter on a bed of puréed tuber. There was spatchcock grumfel, served on a bed of herb-roasted vegetables.

  They alone sounded amazing, but the smells coming out of the restaurant were divine. Baked herbs, butter, perfectly cooked meat, a hint of smokiness, and despite the quiet exterior, when we entered we were hit with the sound of people having fun and eating their meals. It was absolutely packed!

  “Greetings! Table for three?” a small lady wearing an apron said, appearing in front of us.

  Liane nodded. “Right this way!” she said, leading us through the crowded room. Almost every table was full.

  The lady gestured to a table where we all sat down and handed us a thick piece of parchment with more items on it. I was overwhelmed with the choices, but in the end I settled on something that looked very interesting…

  Seared roc, served with a red wine sauce and a bed of wild mushrooms.

  Rocs, I had learned, were one of the large mountainous birds that, despite living on a mountain, preyed on fish from the ocean.

  Micca went for the spatchcock grumfel, and Liane went with something I really wasn’t expecting: a plate of crown snails, served with a thick garlic butter sauce, with a side of fried tubers.

  Finally, Liane ordered a jug of whatever fresh juice they had available, which ended up being a local berry blend, served ice cold.

  Looking around, I tried to take in everything. Most of the customers were adventurers, but everyone appeared to be enjoying their meals. From the seats we had, I could just see the window to the kitchen. Inside, there looked to be five people cooking. I was reminded a lot of the temple kitchen, but it looked far more organised.

  I was completely enthralled by the meals that were constantly placed in the window before they were carried out to the tables. I hadn’t even touched my juice yet; Micca and Liane had been talking about which shops they’d be going to next.

  Eventually it was our turn as the meals came to the window. The bowl stood out as it looked to be piled high with thorny shells.

  The waitress carried all three plates and placed our meals in front of us. All three smelled amazing, but Liane’s looked strange. It was a giant bowl full of snail shells, but the garlic and butter aroma was mouth-watering. It even caught Crisplet’s attention, who had come out of the brazier, giving the surrounding tables a fright.

  Micca’s spatchcock grumfel looked to be perfectly cooked. There was a pristine golden-brown colour all over it, but what really stood out were the roast vegetables underneath. The herb smell from them was so strong I could practically taste it from here!

  Finally, my own. It was a fist-sized piece of roc meat that was sliced up. It looked to have a perfect caramelisation on the skin, making it almost crispy. On top, there was a silky smooth, deep red sauce, and it was all sitting on a bed of what looked to be four different mushrooms.

  I took my fork, taking a bite of the roc with the sauce.

  This sauce was the best thing I had tasted. It was rich, savoury, with a hint of bitterness, but with an unmistakable fruitiness to it as well. The roc was perfectly cooked, still juicy and incredibly tender. The mushrooms—well… again, I never knew mushrooms could taste so good.

  They appeared to be sautéed in a garlic grass butter and herb mix, and they were not too soft.

  Looking up from my own meal, I saw that both Liane and Micca were equally loving their meals.

  “Good, isn’t it!” Liane said, using a pick-like tool to pull the meat out of the shell before dipping it into the garlic butter and taking another bite.

  “So good,” I agreed.

  Micca said nothing, just nodding.

  “You should try one, Trev!” Liane said, holding out another snail.

  I really wasn’t sure about it. The shell was fairly large, with black thorns coming off it. It looked rather dangerous from the outside, and really off-putting.

  “Oh, c’mon. Don’t worry about their appearance; you’re a chef! Chefs should try everything once, right!” Liane said with a grin.

  “Fine. How do I eat it?” I said, taking the shell she was offering.

  After a short demonstration from Liane, I pulled the meat out from the shell, and it did not make it look any better at all.

  “Right, now dip it in the garlic butter and take a bite!” Liane said excitedly.

  I figured it couldn’t taste bad with that much butter, so I did as I was told, taking a bite. My first taste was just garlic grass and butter. The snail itself had a small amount of chew to it, but I expected far more; it was surprisingly tender.

  The meat itself had an almost saltiness to it, but it was a flavour like nothing I’d had prior, so I really struggled to compare it to something. I quickly took the other half into my mouth.

  The second bite confirmed that I really did like it, despite its appearance.

  While I’d been eating the snail, Liane helped herself to a small piece of my meal. I felt that was fair, and to be honest I was just surprised Lily hadn’t shown up in the middle of the restaurant demanding a meal herself.

  “Do you think they’d sell me a meal to take with us so I can give it to Lily?” I asked quietly.

  Liane shook her head. “They don’t let you take it away. I mean, you could probably store it and leave the plate, but I don’t know that Lily will be that fussed. If you’ve not been paying attention, she really is not worried about any cooking besides your own, and only begrudgingly eats food not cooked by you when you give it to her.”

  Micca nodded, putting the bone she had been gnawing on down.

  “She’s right. I tried to feed Lily several times while you couldn’t move in the city, and she wouldn’t touch any of it,” she said.

  Liane added, “And the few times I’ve seen you give her something you’ve not cooked yourself, she’ll normally nudge it a bit and eat it very slowly. That said, if you were to cook these meals yourself for her, I think she’d absolutely love it!”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  For the rest of lunch, I was trying to think of how I would replicate the meals I’d eaten here. The snails seemed the easiest; I imagined I would just need to steam them, then finish them with garlic butter.

  The grumfel looked to be just about butchering it correctly, removing the backbone and flattening it out to cook across a grill. The roasted vegetables also seemed simple—it was just finding really good herbs and then cooking them properly—but I had no idea how they made the outside of the tubers so incredibly crispy while the inside was perfectly fluffy and soft.

  When it came to my own meal, I had seen Geo make a red wine sauce before, and in our testing I couldn’t infuse a stew that had it. However, there was nothing stopping me from making the red wine sauce separately, making the main meal, infusing it, and then just pouring it on top like they had done here.

  Once we had finished eating, Liane paid for the meal and we made our way back to the market, now feeling incredibly full. The first store we came across was one selling cooking equipment, and it had everything from enchanted knives and pots to portable cookers.

  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but the items I picked up right away were a pie tray that looked to hold six small pies. This would be amazing for the pastries that everyone loved to eat.

  I also got a proper lid for my stock pot, with the store owner grumbling that I had likely been scammed since normally you get it as a package deal.

  I also purchased a metal grill sheet, and lastly I discovered they had several mini barrels. It was the same size as the one currently holding the regular honey, and it would be perfect for liquids I wished to save. I purchased all five that he had.

  The next thing I found that I was not expecting was an alchemist supply store selling empty vials of all different sizes, all with stoppers, so I purchased a wide variety of different shapes and sizes. I figured I could bottle up lots of liquid, which would be handy to provide buffs in combat.

  A store we didn’t stop at, but I couldn’t help but gawk at as we passed, was a horse trader. Well, horse trader was too limiting—mount trader? Beast trader?

  Didn’t matter. There were the expected horses, but also several Drakhal, and even two Groval, which I had last seen in Boltron. They looked like buvul, if they were grey instead of brown, triple the size, and made of pure muscle with menacing-looking horns on their heads.

  I looked over to Liane. “We should get Drakhal’s! They look awesome.”

  Liane chuckled and shook her head. “Already trying to get rid of Sable? She’s been good to you! But no, Drakhal are for very experienced riders. They are very temperamental, have an entirely different diet to consider. It’s more than just a different type of horse.”

  I nodded. I had considered none of that. Really just liking the look of them.

  The Groval, however, just scared me, even if they were apparently the most peaceful of the lot.

  Leaving the food shopping to last, we made our way to the bookstore that I had been looking forward to. I was now committed to getting three different types of books from the shop, the first being a book on sauces. After tasting that red wine sauce today, I wanted to learn more!

  The second most important book to me was mythical and legendary beasts. Perhaps I could learn something before Lily showed up with a new friend—or snack.

  And lastly was any book about the history of the kingdom. I had been steadily reading all the ones Milo gave me, and it highlighted just how much I did not know. So if I could get my hands on any new ones, I felt it would improve my knowledge of the world around me, and help me be less clueless when something popped up.

  Approaching the shop, I really got to appreciate the carved wooden entryway. It depicted a scene where there was an adult reading to a bunch of children on one side of the door, while the other side was a variety of different beasts, with wolves, boars, bears, wyrms, and birds of all kinds, all carved into the wood.

  “Crisplet, make sure you stay in the brazier for this store. We don’t need the owner panicking,” I whispered, getting a very small burst of embers.

  It wasn’t until Liane nudged me forward I was broken out of the trance and walked into the store.

  Again, stopping in the doorway as I took in the scene, there were books everywhere, piled high. To the left sat a counter, with an older man sitting behind it, his hair grey with age, reading a giant tome of some kind. The smell in the air had a mustiness to it, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It smelt like… books.

  As we all entered, the man looked up, his eyes landing on the brazier, but he said nothing about it.

  “Hello, young ones. How can I help you today?” a surprisingly soft voice came from the man.

  Beaming that we had started off on the right foot, I rapidly told him what I was looking for.

  “That’s an odd mix, but I believe we should have most of what you require. When you say the beasts, though, are you after tales and myths, or what is confirmed?” he asked, already directing us deeper into the store.

  “Uh, both?” I really wasn’t sure. I suspected what Lily knew to be real; others might consider it a myth. After all, they didn’t know the phoenix even had a name until it came to say hello to Crisplet.

  The man nodded, reaching a shelf and pulling down a very old-looking tome.

  “Right, this book is the Royals’ guide to cooking sauces. It was written by a master chef one-hundred years ago to teach other noble chefs how to prepare the most amazing sauces.” He handed me the book.

  I was scared to touch it. If this book were over a hundred years old, I didn’t want to damage it.

  The old man chuckled. “Don’t worry, youngster. That book is not the original. It is only a copy—still very old—but the original is still in the royal castle, and it’s still updated and used to this day.”

  That made me feel a lot better about it. I opened up a couple of pages, and this book was definitely different from all others I’d looked at prior. There were no stories or notes; it was just straight recipes and methods, with the expected flavour profiles and pairings.

  “This is perfect,” I said with a giant smile.

  “Excellent!” the man said, taking it back before it vanished, and he started walking to his next spot.

  Next, he came to a rather clean and tidy section where there were no piles, and a small table and chair sat in the middle of some bookshelves.

  “These are all books about various parts of our history. Some are very detailed recounts of battles or wars; others are very generalised. What exactly were you after?” he asked, looking at me.

  “Well, I’m not entirely sure. I’ve read several books now on the basics of kingdom history—how it began, who ruled and when. What I was hoping to find out, I guess, was its interactions with the demons, or Ali… the phoenix,” I explained.

  He nodded. “Got it. More foundational than details on specific events. I think I have just the books.”

  A moment later, after looking through the shelves, he came back with two books. Both looked much smaller than the sauce book, and significantly newer. The first one was titled Events that Formed the Kingdom, and the other, Demonic Invasion? And Who Started It.

  The man rubbed his chin. “Follow me. I think I have two books for you.”

  We went deeper into the store, and he shuffled several piles of books away before pulling out an almost pocket-sized book and handing it over to me.

  Looking at it, I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “That is the journal—well, a copy of a journal—of a once legendary adventurer named Morlin. He wrote in that book only when he encountered something he felt was truly worthy of mentioning. As such, all the beasts that are named there are of incredible strength, and many could be considered legendary,” he explained.

  Now shuffling to another part of the store, still talking, “There are beasts in that book that no one else has ever encountered before, leading some to think they were falsehoods. Personally, I think they just don’t want to admit they are real.”

  He reached down and pulled out a newer-looking tome, but a rather large one.

  “This here is a bestiary of all known high-ranking beasts and where they can be encountered. It won’t have mythical creatures such as the phoenix you mentioned, but it includes creatures like wyrms, or the drakes, and the dragon on Mount Divinus,” he started, but stopped at Liane’s chuckle.

  “Did I mention something funny?” he asked, confused.

  She waved her hands. “Oh no, sorry! Just… the dragon and the drakes are no longer on that mountain.”

  The man shook his head. “You jest, surely.”

  “Saw it ourselves. We were there. The Temple of Storm is no more as well,” Liane said.

  I couldn’t tell if the old man was excited or terrified.

  “Incredible! That means there is an ancient dragon on the loose right now, and word has not reached me yet.”

  Heading to the front, he pulled out all five books, and I was ready to haggle for them, using what I had learned today, but when he asked for five gold, I felt a small nudge from Micca.

  “He’s doing you an incredible deal on those,” she whispered.

  Nodding, I just paid him, storing the books away.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see the younger generation so willing to learn. I hope you continue to grow, and you’re always welcome to come back. We take trade-ins as well!” the old man said, taking a seat, pulling out a new book, and starting to write.

  “Before you go, I wouldn’t be able to get your name, could I?” the man asked, looking up.

  Nodding, “Of course. It’s Trevor, and yours?”

  “Morlin.”

  I looked at him, receiving only a wry smile. “Now run along, young ones.”