That darn summoned hero bastard might have had control over my slave collar contract, but that doesn’t mean I was going to tolerate his wasteful habits. He was weak-stomached and spoiled to the point where not even the young noblewomen of the aristocracy school where I worked before I became a bandit would turn their fancy, rose-powdered noses at what he ditched. Any sort of offal made him look nauseous. He couldn’t stand the idea of even heart or tongue, even though he couldn’t tell the difference from the rest of the muscle meat (which he ate with delight) until I told him what he had just eaten. Then he paled. Kidneys? Nope. Pig trotters or chicken feet? Might as well be poison. Lungs, liver, sea-salted bone marrow? Nuh-uh. Served him sheeps head once, so fresh it still had its eyes. The ungrateful shit just looked at my art with disgust written all over his smug ikemen mug. Heck, I made him freaking SANGUINACCIO from the finest HIGH ORC BLOOD and CHOCOLATE. Its ingredients were so expensive, it could probably the freedom of a criminal slave like me five times over, but noooooooooo, it had bloooooooooood in iiiiiiit, how scary. But the worst part was how contradictory it was. For example, he ate bacon with relish, so I figured it was safe to serve lardo. But you know why he complained this time? BECAUSE IT WAS PIGS FAT. LIKE WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK WAS IN YOUR BACON. I’LL GIVE YOU A HINT, IT WAS PIGS FAT.
As you could probably guess, I had to do something about this. Forget about defeating the demon king, even the soldiers he was supposed to lead were laughing behind his back and calling him a child! They couldn’t respect someone who would waste food in times like these, any more than I could. Not many commoners can. It hurt his brand, which was why the prince - who was traveling with us for the monster-slaying campaign - leant me his support when I told him my idea. Even if it delayed the effort against the demon king, if it meant the soldiers could respect him so that he could do his job, I was given free reigns. I would turn that little bitch into a respectable man.
The plan was simple, really, and he bought our nonsense without questioning it. All we had to do was convince him how incredibly manly and heroic he would be if he could learn a few specific survival skills! I nearly ruptured a lung trying not to laugh during that conversation! But we convinced him. I was the one to teach him what he ”needed” to know. I was not only a skilled chef, after all, I had also been a bandit and a poacher for years. I could teach him a few things about thriving in the wilds that even the kings rangers didn’t know, and because I was under a slave contract spell, I was unable to harm or abandon him if I valued my life. The slave contract was slightly modified with the permission of his highness, so I gained a few freedoms, like being able to put him in tough spots as long as I thought it would benefit him, and didn’t risk his life.
So I told him that how long we’d be gone depended on how quick of a learner he was, and I brought him into the woods. First was the basics, like harvesting plants and hunting. I taught him to track, snare, and how to identify the most common culinary greens. Once he learned to track and hunt somewhat (he already had the cheat of a high-level archery skill, so it was pretty easy even for him once I beat some patience into his noggins) I could move on to dismantling prey. He had to know this as someone who would need to handle monster materials after all, but my real goal was to get him used to blood. This was surprisingly easy - he was squeamish at first, but he knew that knowing this would benefit him. I taught him to care for his knife, and how to cut up the meat. Then we came across a ”starving village by chance” - more precisely, I led him to a village that had been ordered by the prince to pretend to have their food stores raided - and said that a proper man and a proper hero would hand over his meat to those in need! And the little fucker bought it! Ha ha ha, he looked SO UNCOMFORTABLE when we gave them every morsel of meat, and I’m not sure if it was to his credir or discredit that he didn’t point out that we didn’t have any left for ourselves! ... but, whoops, I told him I’d forgotten that detail but that I still had some venison heart for our dinner and breakfast. He looked like he was having trouble holding it down after he ate, but I worked him to the bone and he was hungry. Plan success. I deliberately put him in some other situations where the foods available were all things he couldn’t handle, but although it was enough to make him eat it to ward off starvation, he would never look at it as just normal food. So it was time for the next part of the plan - I would teach him how to cook! Any manly, heroic wilderness survivalist had to know at least that much! How to properly nourish the needs of a manly, muscular body!! Once again, I nearly ruptured a lung trying to convince him of this shit, but his eyes sparkled so brightly that my guilt was enough to wipe the smile off my face.
What’s the best way to learn how to cook! To cook a lot! To spend all your time cooking!! To serve others and become inspired by their smiles of appreciation, and to face the criticism of paying customers who would not hesitate to point it out whenever the food was not up to their refined standards!!! That’s right - I opened a restaurant with the little shit as my employee!!!!!!! On the prince’s coin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, this wasn’t just nonsense. I HAD told the prince that I would make the little bitch into a man, and restaurant work can be pretty hard. Especially when the head chef deliberately makes it harder. I made him wake up at five to run to the market as ”exercise”, and run all the way back with groceries. I started with a small amount, and didn’t let him know what I increased the amount day after day, until he could efficiently run with some eighty kilos worth of food on his shoulders for the whole hour it took to run back from the marketplace. He probably noticed, but he didn’t complain. Then there was knife care, which of course doubled as caring for weapons and swords. It was great learning material because I could use that to teach him how to care for and install enchantments, in addition to sharpening and strengthening blades, since the kitchen knives had magic in them. Learning the anatomy of animals during dismantling taught him how to aim for his enemies weak spots and where to cut to efficiently pierce through bone, and in the process of cooking all the foods he found so disgusting, he slowly learnt to appreciate them. Perhaps more importantly, though... he learned to appreciate other peoples skills. Now when he had done the grunt work and realized the kind of effort that went into the high level of cuisine he had enjoyed until my training began, even if there was something he didn’t like, at least he stopped complaining. It seemed that this kid had never truly mastered anything before, and looked down on labor. We had a good talk about that one day, and I promised him that before I was done with him, he would master the basics of cooking so that he could use that as a reference of the worth of other things. For the first time, after that conversation, I could see not just arrogance in him but true confidence, and he threw himself at whatever I taught him.
One day, I’d done it. The little bitch could cook now, he didn’t waste food, and he no longer looked down on people. The prince came to pick him up, and the bitch - well, I suppose I should call him the hero - vowed to cook for the soliders to hone his skills further and pursue his dream of mastering something. So I wasn’t needed anymore.
It was only after they took off that I realized... wait.. I was still under contract, and what was I supposed to do with the restaurant...?
