Slacker Life (Free Trial Period)

The R&D Food Session

"How do you guys know that I'm coming?"

"Hmph! Are you even my friend? If I'm not the Mercenary King, I wouldn't have found out that my friend is coming here to cook. And we're here to eat delicious food!"

"Wait? How do you know that I'm coming to cook?"

"Uhm... Cough! T-this winie iss gg-ooodds. Hehhheheh. Hiccup!"

Bud instantly diverted his attention to the drink and pretended to be drunk. While Cage clicked her glass with Taylor's, acting as she was totally uninterested in that conversation. Ron sent Bud chills with his benign smile while Beacrox acted as if he was annoyed with the crowd and offered to leave for the kitchen first to prepare. Raon was circling round the ceiling and Choi Han averted his eyes from Cale. The cats were busily digging in the desserts that were served by Beacrox. Cale scanned all of them and felt the atmosphere was weird.

'Hmmm. Odd, very weird. Others are acting fine but Choi Han Raon, their behaviors are telling me that something is very wrong.'

"Young master-nim, shall we head to the kitchen now?"

Before Cale can interrogate Bud, Ron cleverly suggested them to start working as he put an apron over Cale. Although they had become much closer now, Cale still listened well to Ron. Except for the uninvited guests, all of them hurriedly followed Cale to the kitchen before his suspicion kicked in again. 

When they can no longer hear the footsteps, Cage exhaled in relieve. She then punched Bud on his arm. Instead of complaining, he looked apologetic and quietly rubbed his sore arm. She then whispered in a low voice to him.

"Bud, my friend, please be more careful next time. We can't let him know about that."

Taylor nodded his head in agreement before adding on.

"If he knows about us having a private group chat that shares his daily schedule with everyone, we'll be dead."

"Alright, I'll be more careful next time. But I think it'll be fine even though he finds out later since it wasn't us who made it. It's created by the crown prince." 

Bud replied to them as he filled their glasses with wine. Cage thought what Bud said could be right. She loosened up and chugged down more wine. Taylor and Bud followed suit, and they had completely forgotten about the group chat crisis. 

When they reached the kitchen, they were amazed with the preparation works. It was clean, tidy and organized. Just onions itself, there were diced, sliced, and quartered. The chili powder that was requested by Cale had already been made ready for use. Even the noodles were steamed, then fried or dehydrated as samples for making instant ramen. Beacrox and Lock proudly showed the cooked noodle samples to Cale. As the kitchen was off-limit to the other staff of the inn, Raon had turned off his invisibility. 

"Wow, human, is this noodles? They look different to the noodles that we usually eat!"

- They look good. How I wish I can taste them!

Raon and the glutton exclaimed their excitement at the experimental noodles.

"This is called ramen. They are springy and can absorb the flavors from the soup well. Most importantly, they only require short cooking time."

- I didn't know you're so knowledgeable in food production line, child.

"Wow, that's amaziing, human!"

"This is the best invention nya~"

"Uh-huh, I think you can start selling this product soon nya."

While the glutton and the children chimed in their opinions, Ron had sharply caught Cale off. This had directed everyone's attention to Cale.