Dragon Flame Tavern

Nami felt a tremor in her sleep.

She suddenly opened her eyes and sat up, discovering that the wooden bed beneath her had turned into a pile of fragments. How could a perfectly good bed collapse like that?

The system proactively explained: [What changes with your human form transformation is your shape, not your weight.]

Nami frowned. What did that mean? Was she now a charming young lady weighing twenty tons? But when she sat on the tavern chair, the chair was perfectly intact. She didn't think a cherry wood chair was sturdier than a bed.

[Dragon passive skill: Anti-gravity technique, only effective when you're conscious. This is a dragon clan's self-preservation method to prevent treasures from being stolen by thieves while sleeping. You know, dragons always rest on piles of gold coins.]

She used to have a mountain of gold coins, but now she couldn't even scrape together a single one. Nami stood up from the wooden bed fragments. This sleep was ruined. Would she have to find a blacksmith to specially forge an iron bed for her in the future?

The system popped up again, enthusiastically recommending: [The decoration shop has high-quality beds that completely meet your requirements~]

Nami opened the decoration shop with skepticism, frowning at the glittering gold display. What kind of genius artist did this game hire? Looking at this European luxury four-poster bed with its extravagant carvings, excessive gems, and dazzling gold—it was absolutely beautiful!

Nami browsed through page after page in fascination. Gold was a color more dazzling than the sun, sapphires gleamed brighter than stars, and pearls had an intoxicating luster. If she used gold for walls, gems for the ceiling, and crystal for windows... Nami couldn't help but wonder, had her aesthetic taste always been like this?

The price tags matched the materials perfectly. Nami patted her dust-free skirt and walked out of the room. Sleep? What sleep! Work! Make money!

Nami looked seriously at the pile of ingredients before her. It was time to prove her abilities. Yesterday's lettuce salad was purely accidental. Even if a master chef came and saw that handful of yellowed lettuce, they wouldn't have the desire to cook. She couldn't be blamed for being careless.

An hour later, Nami had before her: [Burnt Cucumber and Onion Stir-fry★: 50% completion], [Half-cooked Blanched Lettuce☆: 75% completion], [Sticky Tomato and Ham Stir-fry★☆: 65% completion]

This evaluation was too harsh! In Nami's view, the cucumber and onion stir-fry was only slightly burnt, the lettuce was cooked perfectly, and tomatoes should be stewed until soft!

But the task still had to be completed. She stared at the round tomatoes in front of her, and suddenly a brilliant idea flashed through her mind.

Rusven yawned as he got up. He hadn't slept well that night, constantly hearing strange sounds. First came the cracking sound of wood breaking and the dull thud of heavy objects hitting the ground, followed by sizzling explosive sounds accompanied by a burnt smell. Was the tavern on fire?

He ran out to look and saw the tavern was the same as yesterday. The boss had obviously been busy for a long time, with several plates of vegetables on the table. Nami was looking at a plate of cut tomatoes with a beaming smile, which made Rusven feel somewhat uneasy.

He asked cautiously, "Miss Nami, did you hear any strange sounds last night?"

Nami's expression was very calm: "No."

[Tomatoes with Sugar★: 95% completion]: Sweet and sour, refreshing. Thank the tomatoes and sugar!

[Congratulations on completing the professional entry task: Create a dish with over 90% completion. Reward: Chef skill book [Home-style Cooking Complete Guide] has been sent to your backpack. Please study diligently and serve more customers!]

[Daily task 1 completed: Make an edible dish. Reward: 20 achievement points.]

Nami took out [Home-style Cooking Complete Guide] from her backpack and slapped it on herself, but the skill book didn't turn into light and disappear.

Wasn't it supposed to be automatically learned?

The system repeated: [Please study diligently and serve more customers!]

She actually had to study it! Nami threw the cookbook back into her backpack and turned to greet Rusven: "Time to eat."

Rusven looked at the various stir-fried vegetables before him. The boss was generous—vegetables that were expensive in Mist Town filled the dining table. But eating these first thing in the morning seemed a bit strange, didn't it?

He used his fork to pick up a piece of tomato. Was this some new way of making vegetable salad? Why couldn't he see any other seasonings?

This dish tasted very novel to Rusven—sweet and sour, appetizing. The fine white sugar mixed with the slight acidity of the tomatoes was quite refreshing. The credit mainly went to the snow-white granulated sugar that looked expensive. He hadn't seen such pure sugar even at the most formal banquets he'd attended.

In a small tavern on the empire's border, where the main customers were mercenaries and townspeople, wouldn't cooking like this lose money?

This wasn't something Nami needed to worry about. All the seasonings came from the system shop's self-selected seasoning packs, each weighing a full pound and offering great value. Rusven didn't know yet that what limited the tavern's revenue wasn't the expensive-looking seasonings, but the tavern owner's cooking skills.

After eating, Rusven was full of ambition, ready to work hard to repay the boss's enthusiastic hospitality. When Nami heard his inquiry, she lifted her chin and pointed to a chair nearby: "There's no work. You can sit and rest, or attend to your own business."

Rusven kept looking back as he walked away, indeed seeing Nami bent over studying something, completely ignoring him. Nami was selecting chili peppers. Although the cut fish fillets wouldn't spoil in the cabinet refrigerator, they couldn't be left there forever. She flipped through the cookbook she'd just received from the task and immediately spotted boiled fish. Chili peppers and fish fillets were the perfect combination. Just thinking about the red broth dotted with snow-white fish fillets made Nami feel like she could smell that rich, fragrant aroma.

Her cooking skills were mediocre, but she was skilled at making chili oil. Her family had a secret recipe for making chili oil, with proportions passed down through generations. Nami not only remembered it perfectly but had experimented with it many times.

The quality of chili peppers determined the quality of chili oil. Nami exchanged several types of chili peppers from the system—long and thin ones, bell-shaped ones, and finger-sized varieties of all kinds. She didn't know if these otherworldly chili peppers tasted the same as the ones she was familiar with. She gathered courage, broke off a piece, brought it to her mouth, and tentatively took a bite.

It felt strange. Nami felt her sense of taste had become more acute. While she couldn't be called a complete novice in cooking, she was at most at the threshold level. But now she could accurately distinguish the subtle differences between these similar chili peppers, and had an intuitive sense of which pepper was more suitable for which ingredient.

Had her long-hidden talent finally awakened?

The system poured cold water on her enthusiasm: [Have you considered that it might be because you changed your profession to chef?]

Nami clenched her fist, and the chili pepper in her hand turned to powder.

The chili peppers in her hand were already dry enough, so she skipped the roasting step. Several different types of chili powder with their fragrant aroma were poured into a bowl, sprinkled with a bit of salt and sesame seeds. The oil nearby was heated to the perfect temperature. Nami removed the spices from it and slowly poured the entire pot of hot oil over the chili powder.

With a sizzling sound, bubbles began forming in the bowl, and a domineering aroma spread out. Rusven, who was processing cold thorn bone powder nearby, suddenly looked up, curious about this rich fragrance.

When he approached, Rusven keenly noticed the bright red chili peppers beside the cooking station and immediately gasped. This wasn't his first time working in a tavern, but it was his first time seeing a chef use this type of chili pepper as an ingredient, and in such large quantities.

Humans on the Moro Continent had relatively mild tastes, commonly eating only crisp, almost non-spicy sweet peppers. Rusven had only encountered this type of vivid chili pepper in a border town frequented by beastmen, where it was made into a drink called "Fire Spirit's Kiss"—a punishment for beastmen who lost bets.

Drinking a cup of Fire Spirit's Kiss would immediately cause lips and throat to swell and ache, as if one had shared a passionate kiss with a fire spirit.

Rusven's memory of that time wasn't very clear, so he had some doubts. Did Fire Spirit's Kiss also have this indescribable aroma? Something that made one's mouth dry and throat tight, yet unable to resist flaring their nostrils wanting to smell more.

Nami marinated the fish fillets and set them aside, proactively explaining: "We're having boiled fish tonight."

Rusven's worried heart settled down. Boiled fish, as the name suggested, was just fish soup, right? It had nothing to do with that dangerous-looking concentrated chili extract beside it. Maybe he was overthinking it. That was probably some kind of attack potion the boss had made.

Using such a terrifying potion to attack enemies would surely make them flee in terror.

Simon was buying food for the entire team. He carried two loaves of "Hannah's White Bread" on his back and held a piece of blackened smoked meat in his hand. Their team might spend three or four days in Midnight Swamp, so food was essential.

It was dinner time, and Simon's stomach was rumbling, but he had no expectations for the food he carried. Instead, his mind conjured images of the meat-gravy roasted onions and clam soup he'd had in Eaton City not long ago.

Thick meat gravy soaked into egg-sized onions, with a touch of black pepper and herbs—more flavorful than actual roasted meat. The snow-white clam soup with mushrooms and basil leaves...

A breeze carried the aroma of food, making Simon's mouth water even more. Wait, he turned his head curiously. That direction seemed to be... the Dragon Flame Tavern?