Cooking?
[Mid-Level Dungeon
Description: This is your Game-like Dungeon!]
"..."
Alex's face darkened when he saw this.
"What the heck is this?" he shouted.
The crowd looked at him when he suddenly shouted like that.
"Ah... I'm sorry," Alex apologized and he immediately used his boost step to go away from that place to hide his embarrassment.
After finding the best spot to hide, Alex took a while to calm his red face.
"System, what the hell with that description? You shocked me just now."
[I don't know Host, I just scan it for you]
"Then, why's the description like that? Are you playing with me?"
[That's the scan result, System didn't do anything]
"..."
Alex wanted to snap but the words stuck in his throat. He sighed and continued, "I know you are just a useless system."
[System is not useless Host, that's the description written in the item. Why are you blaming System for the scanning result of other items?]
"Okay, fine, that was the fault of the dungeon, not yours then," he said nonchalantly.
Alex then went to the hunter guild to submit his cores. The first floor was full of people, especially students. Since this is the last day of the tournament, many students came to submit their cores while some other students who only got a small number of cores decided to sell them to other students because they were usually willing to pay more. Not getting enough cores will result in failing the exam. Knowing that they have to drop out of school, these students usually decided to just make money out of the cores they got. More beneficial than just selling it to the hunter guild at a lower price, they thought.
However, Alex didn't pay attention to any of this. He went to the guild master's office since he was asked to come there right away if Alex wished to sell more cores.
Knock
Knock
Knock
"Who is it?"
"It's Alex, Sir."
"Oh, Alex! Please, come in."
Yuna opened the door for him, "Good afternoon, Sir Alex."
Alex nodded, "Good afternoon Miss Yuna."
"Haha... Alex, today is the last day of your examination, right? Then today, you..."
"Yes... I want to submit the remaining cores I got the last few days."
"I see… Yuna," he then called his assistant.
"Yes guild master, I will inform the teacher," Yuna already knew what she had to do at this point.
The guild master nodded and Yuna left. After seeing Yuna walk out of the room, the guild master asked Alex to just sit while waiting.
"Guild master... how are Alicia and Firia?"
"They are doing good. Since this is the last day, they know you will come back so they went to the inn to 'prepare'. That's what they told me," the guild master gave Alex a meaningful look.
"To prepare?" Alex tilted his head confusedly.
Yuna quickly came back, "Guild master, the teacher is here."
Alex and the guild master turned to look at the teacher. This time, teacher Farida came again to assess.
"Good to see you again, Teacher," Alex greeted her.
"You won't surprise me anymore. After seeing your previous mess... sighed."
"..." Alex was speechless to hear her response but he remained calm.
"It's settled then. Alex, please pour out your cores as usual," the guild master said.
Alex nodded and he quickly rolled the bag as usual. This time the bag wasn't that big since he only got around three hundred cores. The cores were rolling away on the floor.
The guild master then nodded, "The total was 303 rank 4 cores and 8 rank 5 cores."
The rank 5 core was from bosses on the 50th floor.
"The total is 959.000 coins, Yuna please do the rest," the guild master said.
Yuna then nodded, she then grabbed 95 gold and 90 silver coins.
"Thanks," Alex smiled at her as he took the coins, he then turned to teacher Farida.
"Your score is 6560 for a total of 43,480 points. You… you... you even passed the 40,000 points now!!!!" The teacher was still trying to understand what was happening. Alex's score was more than five times higher than the previous high score.
"Thank you, Teacher," Alex's expression hadn't changed much.
Now Alex was wondering what he would do with this money. He shook his head and decided that he would just keep it for now. Maybe he would need this money later.
"Alex, why don't you go back first? 'They' are waiting for you," the guild master said to him. This time, the guild master was referring to Alicia and Firia who were waiting for Alex in the inn.
"Okay, Guild Master, Teacher, and Miss Yuna. I will leave first," Alex said goodbye to them.
Alex went back to the inn and he went straight to his room. As soon as he opened the door.
"Alex!"
When he saw Alicia and Firia were in his room, he was shocked. He gave his room key to Alicia before he went to the dungeon a few days ago. But he didn't expect that both of them were waiting in his room patiently.
"Alicia… Firia," Alex greeted them back.
"You must be tired right? How about you sit down first," Alicia said as soon as she saw him coming in.
Alex obediently sat down. He was still confused about why both of them were in his room and what they wanted to do now.
"We've been waiting for you because we want to do something for you. That's why we decided to just sit in your room," Firia said.
"Yes, we tried our best to cook for you," Alicia added.
"Cook?" Alex's sweat dripped from his forehead when he heard the word 'cook'. He was scared because he knew they were upper-class noble ladies. Could they cook though?
"Here you go," Alicia and Firia brought out the dishes.
Every dish's appearance looked normal and delicious to be honest, whether the meat or bread. After knowing they did better than Alex expected, he sighed in relief.
"I will eat them, thank you," Alex picked up the bread.
The moment a piece of bread touched his tongue, his face suddenly became blue.
***
"I think right now Alex has arrived at the inn and he is trying the food both of them had made," Bernard said.
He recalled when the two girls wanted to borrow his kitchen to prepare dishes for Alex. He was moved by their determination so he let them cook in his kitchen. He went out for a few minutes but he got really shocked when he came back.
He was kind of furious to see all the mess Alicia and Firia created in just a few minutes. All his stuff was burnt either his utensils or cooking material. He got pale and he was angry at that time.
He gave them a warning and he eventually taught them a bit about cooking. After their first success at making decent food, Bernard tried the food. The food appearance was normal like Alex saw, but when he tasted the food, he passed out.
He also wanted Alex to taste the dishes as a paid back for his suffering. Bernard laughed when he imagined what kind of reaction Alex would give once he spooned food into his mouth.
***
Alex couldn't describe what he tasted just now. He could only tell that the food tasted disgusting and he wanted to throw up.
"What do you think? Are they delicious?" Alicia and Firia asked him with a lot of expectations.
Alex was tongue-tied, what should he tell them? This was a tough situation to be in…
"I know it! They aren't good, right?" both of them now looked very sad.
Looking at them, he tried his best to hold the taste. He gulped down all the dishes on the table fastly without saying anything.
Nom...
Nom...
Nom...
"Thank you for the food," Alex finally said.
The two were surprised when they saw Alex eat all the dishes they've prepared wholeheartedly.
"They had a unique flavor, but it was pretty good," Alex commented, he drank a glass of water to neutralize his tongue again.
"They are cooked with the most important ingredient," Alex forced a smile "They have love in it."
"But you two may have gone wrong somewhere with your cooking," Alex continued, "Why don't you two try making it again next time?"
"Hmm," both of them nodded again and again. They seemed very satisfied.
"I'm very full now, let me wash the dishes since you two had done the cooking," Alex said.
"No… no... no… we are the one who is going to wash them," both of them rejected Alex and went to wash the dishes.
After seeing both of them go away, he fell.
He tiredly leaned on his bed, his legs went limp and his body was full of sweat.
"System, what exactly I ate just now?"
[Food]
"I know they are food, but why do they taste like that?"
[System didn't know Host, according to system scan, they can make an average guy pass out once they take a bite. But since Host has a Pure Fire Element, the element protect you and keep your consciousness]
"That's torture! Damn, I will give my element away. If I passed out I will immediately pass the torture time."
Alex then looked at his bed and he was so tempted to take some sleep.
"Should I sleep? Maybe if I sleep they won't give me any strange thing again?" Alex recalled what he just ate and he shivered.
He decided to sleep to run away from Alicia and Firia.
After a while, both Alicia and Firia broke all the plates they wanted to clean. If Alex knew about this, he would be thankful, since they won't cook anymore.
"What… what we should do with this..." Alicia asked.
"..." Firia also didn't know what to do. She thought for a moment, "How about you use your Ice Element to freeze them, then we put it inside a bag and I will incinerate them, leaving no traces of them?"
Alicia nodded, "Let's go with that plan!"
They cleaned up the room and when they passed Alex's bed, they saw Alex asleep and he looked so tired.
Both of them were tempted and Alicia tried to climb Alex's bed, but she was held back by Firia.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Alicia said with a low voice, she was scared that she would wake Alex up.
"I should be the one who asks that, what are you doing?"
"I'm doing my job as his lover."
"And what is the job?" Firia was furious.
"To sleep beside him," Alicia said righteously.
"There is no job like that," Firia snapped.
The two looked at each other angrily.
Alex woke up from the noise and he slowly opened his eyes tiredly.
"Alicia? Firia?"
"Alex," both of them called him.
"What are you two doing?"
"I..." Firia hesitated.
"I want to sleep too," Alicia answered hesitantly.
"You should get some sleep then," Alex nodded casually.
Alicia then went to Alex's bed and her face turned red real quick.
"..." Alex looked at her. "Are you going to sleep here?"
Alicia nodded embarrassedly.
Alex just smiled faintly and said, "Then I will sleep in another place."
Alicia was shocked to hear that and Firia threw a sarcastic look at her.
Seeing Alex wanted to go away, Alicia held him, "I… I will not sleep here. You can sleep here instead."
"..."
She then stood up and dragged Firia out of the room. Looking at Alex in a drowsy and tired state, her heart was in pain. Alicia didn't want to bother him more this time.
Firia wanted to defend herself when Alicia dragged her, but when she saw a solemn angry look on Alicia's face, she stopped and followed the girl.
Alex didn't know what just happened, he was slightly confused about what those girls wanted to do earlier. When he was asleep, he felt his body was really tired. The hunt for power also made his mind feel worned out. He was exhausted mentally and physically. He forgot when the last time he got some decent sleep, was it in the academy? Was it in the dungeon? He shook his head, he never slept there.
He could go on days or months without sleep as he cultivated, but fighting monsters and wanting to get stronger had made his body and mind break apart unconsciously. Normally, he suppressed this tiredness with his willpower, but when he was asleep just now, he realized that his body was no longer able to withstand all the pain and tiredness. Alex quickly fell asleep once again.