We Are Two as One, Right?
"Minty, I was trying not to say anything if I could help it…"
"Hold on."
"Huh?"
The moment I was about to speak, the protagonist shook his head and stepped in front of me.
…Somehow, watching him stand like that reminded me of when he'd eaten the mint chocolate cheese cutlet in my place, and it looked kind of cool.
No, wait—this time he wasn't asking me to eat it for him.
"Garbage."
"What?"
With that, he flipped the plate over. Mint chocolate cheese cutlets tumbled across the floor, and the atmosphere went ice-cold.
Well, at least he wasn't planning to eat them. Good.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"You told me to eat garbage."
"G-garbage…?"
"Kitchen. Using it."
"Huh…?"
Then he whispered a few ingredients for Fruity to fetch, and actually walked into the kitchen and started preparing food.
Hmm, it's been a while. That completely free-spirited, self-absorbed attitude of his.
Watching him start cooking without a word, not just Minty but everyone present looked flustered.
"Uh…."
So he can cook, too? He'd always just bought food until now, so I had no idea he had skills like this. Then again, none of us cooked, so we never even had a kitchen set up.
In the original game, the protagonist could cook a bit, too, right…?
I remembered the Dessert Club girls calling the player "Teacher" or "Chef" under the pretense of learning to cook from him. Of course, he hadn't been this professionally skilled. But the Dessert Club's cooking was so garbage that even that level was more than enough to dominate them.
"Oh…."
So the thing he'd asked for was meat. He seasoned the thinly pounded meat with various ingredients, then set it aside to marinate. Then he pulled out a frying pan and started sautéing butter and flour.
Is he making the sauce from scratch, too?
He added dark sauce, ketchup, milk, wine, and more, then brought it to a boil. At the end, he stirred in a bit of dark chocolate labeled high in cacao content.
Oh—it already smelled like a delicious tonkatsu sauce.
But why chocolate…?
I had some questions, but decided to just watch quietly for now.
He rolled mozzarella cheese into the marinated meat, coated it in batter and breadcrumbs, and fried it with remarkably practiced skill. He cut the cheese cutlet in half and plated it beautifully. Finally, he drizzled the tonkatsu sauce he'd made over the top, then finished it with a few mint leaves on the sauce.
…Only then did I realize what he'd been thinking when he made this dish.
"Try it."
"…What?"
"It's mint chocolate cheese cutlet. Go on, eat it."
…Is this guy insane?
In other words, he wasn't rejecting mint chocolate cheese cutlet itself. He was just going to crush her by proving she was simply terrible at cooking. He'd made a delicious version of mint chocolate cheese cutlet.
Max-level character assassination.
It was almost scary—he was holding a kitchen knife out toward Minty with pure cruelty.
…Honestly, wasn't I lucky that he liked me? If I made an enemy of him, it'd be a real disaster. What a psycho. A new image of him settled into my mind.
"What even is this…."
"Now do you understand why I called that garbage?"
"……."
Hmm, what does it taste like to get that reaction? When I made a curious face, he immediately portioned some out for me.
No, handing it out like this in this atmosphere is a bit much….
"Huh…?"
But my curiosity won out, so I put the cheese cutlet in my mouth. I'd been worried the chocolate flavor might ruin the sauce, but I only got a faint bitter cacao aroma characteristic of dark chocolate—none of that intense candy-like sweetness of regular chocolate. And the aroma wasn't unpleasant at all; it was honestly better than most store-bought tonkatsu sauces.
Of course, the mint leaves on top didn't quite feel like a perfect match. But they worked as a strongly aromatic vegetable that properly cleansed the palate.
…This is way better than I expected?
Honestly, I'd been thinking his lines and actions were so dumb they kind of broke immersion. But the quality of the food more than made up for all of it. This is why people need to be competent.
Minty fed some to Gourmand as well, then fretted for a long while. In the end, she admitted defeat and bowed her head.
…Even those idiots could tell this was way better.
"…Chef!"
"Hm?"
"Please take our guild as your disciples!"
"Uh…."
He looked at me with a troubled expression, but I gave him an "oh well, go for it" okay sign. What can you do? You started this, so take responsibility.
Normally, someone in Minty's position would despair or get angry after something like this. But Minty was so mentally tough and pure that in situations like this, she'd earnestly try to learn cooking instead—what a remarkable girl. That's why she kept her club president position despite all her crazy stunts: her popularity ran deep.
Though in the end, she only ever made grotesque dishes.
…That's how it went in the game. Of course, this time the protagonist's personality and skills were different, so the possibility of a different ending did exist.
Well, in the game he never took care of them like this.
He just taught them cooking—he never actually incorporated mint and chocolate into the dishes. So as they went through the process themselves, every attempt turned into a grotesque-food accident. If he guided them to add mint and chocolate within appropriate bounds like this, maybe their skills would improve as they learned.
Things sped up a bit.
Normally, this event should only have created some closeness with them. Then afterward, by visiting their guild and such, naturally building rapport, once it became known that the protagonist could cook—and was good at it—he'd become their cooking teacher….
Well, there's nothing wrong with the plot moving faster like this. This way, we can have them farm dungeons in exchange for cooking lessons. Which means our resources will grow faster.
"Alright. Fine."
"R-really? Thank you! I'll do my absolute best to learn!"
"Ah, Master. Come to think of it, we had something we could give Minty, didn't we?"
"Yeah."
"Let's give it to her while we have the chance."
From the last Deadly Battle rewards, we'd secured enough of Minty's Affection Gifts to raise her by 25 points—enough to make her a 2-Star and deploy her right away. Well, we'd have to explain this system to the Dessert Research Club when we had time. But for now we could only acquire Minty, so the detailed explanation could wait.
"A-a gift?"
She seemed quite flustered receiving a gift right at the start when she was supposed to be the student. And that gift was her favorite mint chocolate essence, no less. Her good feelings toward the protagonist would shoot right up.
"Th-thank you."
"Congratulations for now, but to become Master's disciple, you'll need to serve him like we do."
"Serve him?"
"Simply put, you work for free."
"Ah, I see."
"Unpaid, but in exchange, Master will train you."
"I-I will! As a disciple's duty…!"
Seeing her like this, Minty really was a cute and decent girl in her own way. If only she wouldn't make grotesque food. Frankly speaking, Gourmand had ruined everything.
"Is that really okay? Calling him 'Master' sounds almost like submission. Do you need to go that far just because you're a disciple?"
Just when I thought things were going well, Tobacco appeared out of nowhere and threw a wrench in it. She always acted completely indifferent, but deep down she cared about Minty and the Dessert Research Club members. She was probably trying to protect Minty.
Well, Minty had a head full of flowers so she agreed right away—maybe Tobacco's reaction was the normal one. Even without male-female relationships, this was a world where yuri couples with dangerous sexual appetites existed. To Tobacco, who knew the darker sides of relationships, this probably sounded like some dangerous slave contract.
"Ah, that was something that could cause a misunderstanding. We just wanted help with combat."
"…Is that so?"
Honestly, if we requested it, other guilds would have to go along to some extent. After all, defending this place was the job of all Major Units. But that was only for emergencies—I planned to work them even in peacetime, so I was asking permission for that part.
"Of course, it's not easy work, so being careful is right. But we're not some shady organization that forces sick people to work, so please rest easy."
"…Alright."
Well, looking at it long-term, these were important battles to protect this place. I figured some sacrifice on our part was unavoidable.
…Thinking about it, this was a problem that didn't exist in the game. In the game, once you unlocked a boss with Affection Gifts or gacha pulls, you could work them however you wanted. But in this world, even if you unlocked someone with Affection Gifts, that only strengthened their abilities. Unless you force-fed them fake memories like what happened to me, there was no real reason for them to sincerely follow the protagonist.
Of course, in the story they were close enough or respected him enough to go into those battles without hesitation. Could I really expect this guy to have social skills comparable to the original game's protagonist? This time it worked out by chance, but there was no guarantee other guilds would be the same.
If things get too ambiguous, I might have to play the protagonist role myself.
Like when I won the brooch this time, I might have to step in for him and push things through. Well, thinking about it that way, it's not that different from now. The two of us playing the protagonist role together wasn't something that started yesterday.
"You should be grateful I'm here, Master."
"Yeah, I know."
With our fingers tightly interlaced, it somehow felt like we were more of one…. He seemed to notice I was conscious of holding his hand, and slowly let go. Then he asked if I didn't like it.
"…I don't know."
I said that while taking his hand again. He tilted his head as if he couldn't understand, then interlaced his fingers with mine one by one. The shiver that ran down my spine in that moment told me my affection level had gone up again.
Why is my affection level already at 30?
…I was starting to not understand my own heart anymore.