Liberation of The Slaves

Chapter 104 – Legendary Ingredients And Newbie Chef

I slumped to my knees like a war veteran returning from the battlefield—except my battlefield was just a house full of dust. Cleaning the entire place took hours.

“Haaa… Finally, it’s done…”

After tucking Selena back into bed like a fragile sleeping princess, I noticed the sky had already shifted into twilight. Naturally, I rewarded myself with a bath to wash away the sweat of divine labor.

Tinkle…

Hmn…

<“Are you two hungry?”>

【I’m feeling hungry too, Master.】

<“Come to think of it… the last time I ate was… the day before the purification ritual?”>

Cleaning the house took longer than expected. I regretted not having breakfast first.

After I finished scrubbing myself down and changed into fresh clothes, an important—and tragic—realization struck me.

<“Aza… do you know how to cook?”>

【Of course not. In heaven, we just manifested food with a thought. A bit of mana and poof—instant buffet. No fire, no oil, no pans, no mess.】

Figures. The divine realm: overpowered in every department, except common sense.

<“...So, Alfia? Nyxia? Either of you know how to cook?”>

Tinkle…

Hmn…

<“Right… Of course you don’t.”>

Their silence said it all.

<“What about the others? Maybe someone else among the five hundred-plus souls knows?”>

Hmn…

Nyxia responded softly, telling me she already asked around. Apparently, even souls who had been mothers didn’t retain memories of how to cook.

They remembered motherly love, grief, and rage.

But not how to make a damn omelet.

In my past life, my cooking skills were limited to boiling noodles and frying eggs. Usually, my mother prepared meals for me, or I opted for online orders or restaurant dining.

【Don’t tell me…】

<“Yes. It’s true. No one in this house knows how to cook. Not even a simple rice porridge.”>

I stared blankly at the wall as the full weight of the crisis settled in.

<“How are we going to survive? Selena won’t wake up until next year. That’s next year, Aza!”>

This… this was the real problem!

Not the curse. Not the hellfire.

But food.

Tinkle…

Hmn…

Their spirits rippled with guilt.

<“No, no. Don’t blame yourselves. It’s not your fault Selena has to sleep that long.”>

【Exactly. Back then, you were just fragments of emotion—no minds, no will. You couldn’t have known anything. It’s not on you.】

They must’ve been blaming themselves again—feeling responsible for everything that happened while they had been nothing more than rage and sorrow given form.

I sighed and placed a hand over my chest.

<“We’ll figure something out. Somehow.”>

I headed toward the kitchen. This was my third time stepping into this kitchen. The first had been when Selena gave me a tour of the house. The second was moments ago to clean this place.

And I was still astonished at the sight.

There was an oven. A proper stove. Three big refrigerators lined up like ancient vaults holding the secrets of gourmet magic. The drawers alone looked like they could house a hundred spices each.

<“…No matter where I look, this place looks like an expensive kitchen even in modern world like Earth.”>

The oven and stove might be normal there, but all those lined-up drawers and three refrigerators? Is this a restaurant kitchen?

I opened the drawers and fridges one by one, and what I found left me blinking in disbelief. There were piles of vegetables I didn’t recognize, baskets of glossy berries in strange hues, bundles of herbs tied in silk ribbons, and more seasoning jars than I could count.

<“Aza… do you have any info on these?”>

【Give me a moment. I’ll search for data on the vegetables, berries, and any recipes involving them.】

I nodded and waited.

And waited.

Minutes passed.

<“…Is it really that hard to find info on them?”>

To be fair, there were a lot of different varieties. She probably had to cross-reference every single one.

After what felt like thirty full minutes of research montage, Aza’s voice finally returned.

【Done. It was surprisingly difficult. Nearly all of these ingredients are incredibly rare. Some are even classified as legendary—virtually unheard of.】

<“…Huh?”>

I blinked.

Rare? Legendary? These?

I glanced back at the refrigerators and drawers. They were packed with the stuff. Piles of ingredients apparently worth more than entire merchant caravans.

<“…Are you sure?”>

【Yes. The herb in the front right drawer is a rare body-strengthening plant—worth five gold per stalk. The purple berries on the upper shelf of the left fridge boost mana and aura absorption—ten gold coins each. The ones below them improve magic resistance—twenty gold coins per berry. That one there boosts mental power. Thirty gold. And that—】

She kept going. My jaw kept dropping.

Five to Fifty gold.

Per ingredient.

And there were dozens of each.

<“This is driving me nuts…”>

Just in case, I ran an Appraisal over a few of them. The info was limited, but it lined up perfectly with Aza’s descriptions.

Apparently, these magical ingredients didn’t spoil for at least ten years. Some could even retain their effects indefinitely. In addition, these drawers and refrigerators themselves are also magic tools crafted by Selena. Probably all these ingredients won’t even spoil for hundreds or thousands of years.

<“So… you’re telling me Selena’s been using these for our daily meals?”>

【…I see. So this is the reason.】

She didn’t answer immediately—just muttered to herself before continuing.

【I always found your stat growth unusually fast. I chalked it up to your intense training—twenty hours a day, after all—but the rate was too extreme, even with your cheat skills.】

<“…Wait. Are you saying the food I ate… actually boosted my training effectiveness?”>

【Exactly. Leaving aside her insane status points, that’s likely how Selena reached over eighty thousand in her attributes, even though she spent her time on various things not only focused on training or battle, but also crafting magic tools and researching her curse. These weren’t normal meals—they were high-grade stat boosters. Practically edible buffs.】

I stood there, stunned.

Selena had been feeding me this kind of food… daily.

Did she know what they were worth? Was she aware she was practically giving me a king’s feast three times a day?

If she did… and still did it without hesitation…

Then maybe… she really does care about me.

Or—less romantically—maybe it was just an investment to get me strong enough to unlock Heavenfire and break her curse.

<“Well… no point in overthinking it. The important thing is we’re very hungry.”>

【Understood. But fair warning—since these ingredients are so rare, there’s no actual cooking tradition for them. Most are used in alchemy. So the only recipes I could find were ones likely created by her—just undocumented. It seems she shared her food with others, and those experiences made it into the database.】

So not only did she cook, she pioneered cuisine with legendary ingredients.

How was this woman not famous?

Also… alchemy, huh? That’s the first time I’ve heard of it in this world. So it does exist.

I made a mental note to dig into that later.

<“Alright then. Let’s get cooking.”>

Even if I could only boil noodles in my past life, I had rare ingredients, spiritual assistants, master chef’s recipes, and cheat skills.

How hard could it be?

And the result was…

Yeah. Very hard.

Four hours. That’s how long we spent in the kitchen, fumbling through recipes like amateurs playing alchemist with gourmet-grade ingredients. The sky beyond the window had turned dark. The air was thick with smoke.

It was a battlefield of cutting boards, burned herbs, exploded berries, and more than a few ruined pots. I was sweating—not from heat, but from stress and shame.

Despite following the recipe to the letter, I still managed to fail multiple times. Either the consistency was off, the flavor was nonexistent, or something just… combusted. I didn’t even know stew could catch fire until now.

I slumped into a chair, arms limp at my sides.

<“The flavor’s kinda bland…”>

I muttered with a long sigh, poking at the bowl in front of me.

It was stew.

Technically.

The ingredients had dissolved into a somewhat thick broth with floating bits of soft root vegetables and slightly purple chunks of mana-boosting berries. It looked edible… probably.

【But at least it’s better than the last five. In fact, this might be the best result so far.】

Aza’s voice carried the tone of a war-weary general declaring a half-victory.

To avoid wasting more of these magical superfoods, I had only cooked a small portion this time. Still, even the “cheapest” stalks and fruits in the mix cost five gold coins each.

That was five gold I had stewed into mediocrity.

I glanced down at the bowl again, watching a slice of mana-carrot slowly sink beneath the surface like a defeated soldier. I felt guilty. Not just for the wasted ingredients, but for Selena too. These were probably things she’d spent years collecting—and here I was, wrecking them like some unsupervised kid smashing premium figurines, thinking they were cheap knockoff toys from a street vendor.

<“…I’m sorry, Alfia, Nyxia. And everyone else too. But for now, let’s just eat this. I’m starving. I don’t think I have the energy to burn another pot.”>

Tinkle!

Hmn.

Alfia chirped brightly, “It’s fine! It’s fun trying new things!”

Nyxia, on the other hand, responded with quiet gratitude. “This is actually way better than anything I ever ate as a test subject.”

Oof.

That hit harder than expected.

Even this bland, purple-tinged stew was an improvement over the gruel she had been forced to eat. That was beyond pitiful. I winced, remembering the dry, rock-hard bread I used to eat when I was a slave in my past life. Compared to that, yeah… this weird mana-stew was basically a five-star meal.

I forced a smile, picked up my spoon, and stirred the stew.

Well… it might not be delicious. It might not even be good. But it was warm, and it was something I made—barely edible or not.

And for now, that was enough.