The evening sunset was intoxicating, dyeing the sky a mix of pink and goose-yellow. Beneath it, by the lake in the magic beast forest, wisps of cooking smoke rose from Ron’s group’s campsite.
“Ah—”
Ron sat on a fallen log, feeling lost and empty.
Was the Destiny referring to Lifa?
He wasn’t sure.
But…
“Teacher, why aren’t you eating? Don’t you like it?”
The surroundings were peaceful and harmonious, and the golden-haired girl tilting her head radiated youthful beauty.
The only thing ruining the scenery was the bowl of pitch-black, unidentifiable meat soup the girl had brought over, floating with indescribable things.
“Okay, I’ll eat.”
His plan to convince Isis, which he felt was just one step away from success, had been interrupted.
With his appetite completely gone, Ron responded to his disciple with a vacant look and began to suspect that Lifa might be his natural enemy, his nemesis.
In the last save file, a slip of the tongue had exposed him completely. This time, she ruined his perfect opportunity to persuade Isis to leave.
As the saying goes, the first effort brings vigor, the second brings decline, and the third brings exhaustion.
Looking at the current situation, Ron estimated that trying to use this method to make Isis leave later would be almost impossible.
“Uh—”
Scooping up a spoonful of the meat soup with its mysterious objects, the strange smell snapped Ron back to reality, making him realize what he had agreed to eat for Lifa.
“Teacher, drink it quickly~ Sister Ash just said Lifa did a great job and told me to bring it for you to try!”
“R-really?”
Ron stiffly raised his head. Looking past the campfire stove, he saw Isis expressionlessly putting the clearly disastrous soup into her mouth.
What’s great about it? Isis, you…
“Thank you, Lifa. This… this soup, have you tried it yourself?”
Ron struggled to steady his wrist to prevent the soup from spilling before it reached his lips.
He also noticed that Isis across from him seemed to be glancing this way, with a faint, almost imperceptible smile at the corner of her mouth.
“No.”
Lifa shook her head simply. Ron’s face darkened a few shades.
“Maybe I cooked it for too long. There was only enough soup for two bowls, so I thought the teacher and Sister Ash should drink first~”
Ron was speechless. Perhaps because he understood this was purely Lifa’s good intentions, Isis could drink that stuff without changing her expression.
“Okay.”
Having just experienced the failure of his plan, Ron’s difficult and tragic expression became concrete at this moment because of the bowl of meat soup Lifa had concocted.
However, before drinking the soup, he didn’t forget to observe Isis, wanting to see how she managed to drink it so decisively.
“Gulp, gulp”
Ron put the spoon into his mouth, along with the two unknown solid pieces, not letting them stay in his mouth for even a moment, swallowing them directly into his stomach. Then he pretended to chew seriously a couple of times, savoring it.
“Teacher~”
Lifa’s emerald green eyes beneath her golden hair seemed to sparkle in the sunset. Seeing her bring her hands together in front of her chest and lean forward, Ron knew she wanted praise and compliments.
But.
Ron took a deep breath and silently scooped up more soup with the spoon, extending it toward Lifa’s lips.
“Eh eh eh!”
Lifa understood her teacher was trying to feed her, but with Isis, a third party, present, Lifa could clearly feel the gaze from those blood-red eyes focusing on them.
However, the girl aspiring to be a Hero mustered her courage and accepted Ron’s feeding with a shy expression.
“Cough cough cough! I-it’s awful… sob, such a sour and weird taste!”
As she chewed and swallowed, Lifa’s initially blissful expression gradually turned into a bitter, almost drained face.
“Ha ha ha ha~”
Lifa’s change of expression and reaction were so amusing that Ron’s laughter soon met Lifa’s resentful gaze.
“Ouch!”
“Why do you both like to use your hands so much.”
Lifa first snatched the soup bowl from Ron’s hands and placed it beside her, then stomped hard on Ron’s shoe.
“Teacher, and Sister Ash—why didn’t you just tell Lifa that the soup I made was terrible!”
Lifa walked dejectedly toward Isis, taking away the almost-empty bowl from her hands as well.
“Hmm… I’m not that particular about food.”
Isis casually told a white lie, but her attention remained on Ron and Lifa’s playful interaction just moments before.
“Well, anyway, I’m sorry, Sister Ash. Lifa ruined dinner.”
Lifa glanced at the bowl Isis had used. Seeing it was almost completely empty made Lifa feel even more guilty.
Today was the first day entering the magic beast forest. Ron handled navigation and decisions, and Isis was even quicker and more decisive in eliminating the demonic beasts. Feeling like she hadn’t contributed, Lifa thought of preparing dinner for her teacher and friend.
“It’s fine, I… Miss Ash, if you don’t mind waiting a bit more, I’ll make some grilled meat.”
Ron poured out the meat soup Lifa had just made. The remaining meat chunks and wild vegetables were all dumped into the fire beneath the stove.
“Lifa, you neither understood nor have cooked this type of magic beast meat before. It’s normal to have some issues.”
By looking at the ingredients in the soup, Ron roughly understood the cause of the culinary disaster. While comforting the self-blaming Lifa, he replaced the soup pot on the stove with a flat grill plate.
“Mhm”
Lifa nodded, but then noticed Isis remained in her previous posture, sitting there without blinking.
Oh no! Could… could Sister Ash have been poisoned from drinking it…
The girl thought of the terrible taste she had just experienced. Isis had drunk almost a whole bowl. Worried, she sat down beside Isis.
“Sister Ash… a-are you okay!”
Lifa gently shook Isis’s cloak with two fingers.
“Hmm, I’m fine. I was just thinking about some things earlier.”
Noticing Lifa’s concern, Isis shook her head and, surprisingly, showed a rare smile.
For a long time, she thought she had become completely numb to the lonely journey without her master.
But just now, watching Lifa and Ron interact, Isis remembered when she would still act mature and be stubborn, and her master would often actively come over to cheer her up and tease her.
“Heh heh~”
Ron and Lifa looked at each other, each having their own thoughts about Isis’s sudden laughter.
“Lifa, come over here.”
“Grilling meat is very simple. You’ve done it before too. But this time, teacher will tell you how to grill this magic beast meat to its best flavor.”
Lifa’s thoughts were amazed by Isis’s charm, like ice and snow melting when she smiled. Ron, however, instinctively feared that Isis would cause trouble on the spot after laughing.
Fortunately, it was just a laugh, right?
Somehow, Ron felt Isis’s attitude toward him had changed slightly. Even though they had just had an unpleasant conversation, the gaze she directed at him now was clearly not as cold and indifferent as before.
“Teacher, you’re going to burn the meat too!!”
Lifa shouted from the side. Ron hurriedly flipped the grilling meat.
His intuition told him this trip into the magic beast forest might still hold unknown changes and surprises.