Chapter 324: Teresa’s Request
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou and Onionpi
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The day after meeting with fellow Adventurers from the [Phoenix] party, I found myself relaxing at home.
[6] It’s nice having servants around.
Speaking of servants, Teresa approached me the other day for an oven for baking bread. [9] Personally, I had only ever used the Magic Stove’s oven or the little toaster ovens back in my tiny Japanese apartment. However, it turned out what Teresa wanted was an actual stone oven.
[9] One of those outdoor things that one usually sees in foreign travel catalogues. Personally, as an avid fan of food and cooking, I’m pretty excited by the prospect of getting an outdoor oven too.
Therefore, I had no objections to Teresa’s request.
[9] We decided to build the oven near the servant’s quarters. Since Teresa was confident that she could make very good bread with a ‘proper oven’.
At any rate, I’m interested to try Teresa’s bread so I’m totally fine with the idea of building a stone oven. [9] Who knows, we could even bake pizza!
[6] Thus, the stone oven project was approved.
According to Teresa, she used to bake bread using the stone oven Alban had inherited from his ancestors. I tried asking Alban for details about the oven but he did not seem to know the specifics of making one.
Hmm…
Well, I could ask a stonemason or a craftsman from the city to make one but I want to try making it with my Earth Magic.
[9] I can just flatten the whole thing into rubble if it doesn’t work.
After collecting as many details from Alban and Teresa as I could, I started by making the square bit at the bottom where the firewood goes. [9] I’m fairly used to making square stone structures by now.
However, the dome shape bit where the oven was supposed to be turned out to be a bit more tricky.
[9] I raised the stone from the ground and tried bending it into the shape I wanted. Bits of it broke off in pieces, sometimes the structure collapsed altogether and I had to turn everything back to gravel and try again.
And again.
And again.
“Hmm, I wonder why…” [3] I was running out of magic by then.
Also, it was almost time for lunch. If I don’t feed my familiars, I’d never hear the end of it. I’ll continue with my work after lunch. [6] It’s not going to take long anyway since I’ve made a lot of pre-made food. [5]
“Oi, lunch time~!”
My familiars rushed over at the magic word ‘lunch’.
We had our lunch in the living room of the main building.
On the menu today was Gyudon with soft-boiled egg over rice. Naturally, I gave my familiars plenty of meat and eggs. Everyone ate happily, devouring several ‘seconds’ as usual.
Dora-chan did his best but while Sui and Fer are still eating, he went belly up and was snoring through an open mouth. A dragon that sleeps on his back is just too surreal, [9] his round tummy looking a lot like a dome…
[9] Hmm? Dome?
[9] My eyes travelled towards Sui as the seed of an idea begin to sprout. When it comes to roundness, no one could beat Sui, so…
[9] Should I… get Sui to help me?
“Sui, would you like to help me make something?”
““Hm~? Of course, Aruji~~””
After lunch, we returned to the site where I had been trying, and failing, to make the stone oven. Fer and Dora-chan also tagged along for some reason.
I guess they were just bored.
My biggest issue now is making the dome.
“What is it you’re making?”
““Yeah, you’ve been making and breaking, making and breaking something here. Is it a new game?””
“It’s not a game, I’m trying to make a stone oven. We can use it to bake bread and other things,” [9] like pizza.
“Oh? So it’s for making delicious things?”
“If I succeed, yes.”
While answering Fer and Dora-chan’s questions, I quickly made the base. That part posed no problem but… the actual oven part kept eluding me. However, this time I have an idea how to counter this issue.
[9] First, I make a solid square over the base. I could make the outside dome shape-ish but hollowing out the inside was the biggest problem. I would miscalculate and cause bits of it to be thinner or thicker in places until the whole structure would collapse in the end.
[9] As it is, I managed to make a little hole in the dome and called Sui.
“Sui, could you go inside that dome and make a hole but be sure not to make the walls too thin, okay? Oh and make sure the bottom is flat.”
““Sui will try~~””
Sui bounced into the hole and began to grow slowly. Acid appeared on her body, melting the surface of the stone as she ‘ate’ parts of it.
““Aruji~~ is this good~?”” [3] Sui shrank back to her usual size and bounced around eagerly.
Let’s see, I looked inside the oven and wow, the surface is super smooth.
“Yes, it’s perfect!”
““Ehehe~””
Sui trembled happily as I stroked her.
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“Sui is so clever, could you help me again? See the outside? It’s got bits that aren’t smooth. Could you make the outside smooth too? In this shape?” I drew a half-sphere on the floor to demonstrate what I wanted.
““Sui, understands~!””
With that, she bounced towards the oven and draped her body over the outside. All the angles and irregular bits were eaten off and smoothed out nicely.
““Is this good~?”” [5]
“Woah! Sui is incredible! Sui is just too amazing!”
““Ufufu. Is Sui amazing~?””
“Yes, Sui is incredibly amazing~!”
“Oi, it’s done, right? Make something good now.”
No, no, Fer-san. I have to make sure this stone oven passed the quality check first. The best person to ask would be Teresa, the only one of us who has experience using one of these contraptions.
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“Teresa,”
I’m in the basement of the main building. [5] Teresa was down here with the others, transferring soaps and shampoos.
Since the building has a basement, we might as well use it to store all the soap and shampoos. [6] I mean, I technically have 13 empty rooms but it feels kind of weird to do industrial work in one of those luxurious rooms…
“How may I help you, Mukouda-san?”
[8] “Well, the stone oven is done, could you take a look at it?”
“Eh? It’s… done?”
[9] Clearly, she was shocked by the speed of our work. Fufufu, magic sure is convenient. Of course, it would probably take me much longer without Sui’s help.
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“Well, what do you think?”
When there was no answer, I turned to look at Teresa, who was staring at the stone oven with her mouth wide open.
“Erm, is it… not good?”
“No! No, no, no, not at all. I’m just really surprised at the quality of this oven build in such short a time. I-is it really alright for me to use such a fine thing?”
“Of course, I made it at Teresa’s request. But, I’d like to use it now and then.”
“The oven belongs to Mukouda-san, so of course, you should use it whenever you want to. I can use it when you don’t need it.”
“Hahaha, then, I’d like to ask you to bake some bread right away. I’d like to taste some of your freshly baked bread.”
“Erm, it’s not possible to make it right away…”
“It’s not?” I was surprised.
[9] “Before making the bread, we must make the bread base. It’s made by soaking dried fruits in water for a few days. Once bubbles start to appear, that’s when you mix the base with flour to make bread.” [5]
“… I see,” sounds like natural yeast. Should I just give her some instant yeast? No, it would defeat the purpose of eating locally made fresh loaves. Well, I guess I could wait.
“When you’ve made your bread, let me taste some.”
“Naturally, in fact, I insist. My bread is excellent.”
“Mommy’s bread is yummy~~” said Lotte-chan.
Still, it’s a shame to waste the stone oven now that it’s made though…
Right, I’ve decided.
“I’ll make tonight’s dinner with this oven. Teresa, could you get it fired up, please?”
The men had been collecting dry branches from the garden, so we have plenty of firewood. As for myself, I’m really looking forward to using a stone oven.
This is so exciting!
[Gumihou: Lol, this is excitement Gumi could get behind.]
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken
[9] Expand on the why and wherefore of the outdoor oven.
Personally, with the proper tools, I could probably build one faster with bricks…
Also, a website on how to make a cheap outdoor oven
http://thecobovenproject.blogspot.com/
https://www.traditionaloven.com/
Gumi wants to build her own stone oven one day, so…