Volume 3: Warfire in the Cold Wind Six, The End of Vacation Means the Start of War

  Six, The end of the holiday means the start of war

  "Darling, ah—"

  “……”

  "I want you to open your mouth, not stare with your eyes, it's very ugly."

  “……”

  "Ah - are you going to eat it or not? Hurry up and open your mouth!"

  "No, absolutely not!" Fili covered his mouth and shook his head violently, trying to avoid the strange object in Lenny's hand that looked like a charred roast chicken but was actually poison. The female pastor tried to hold down his head and force it into him, but only grabbed a handful of fake hair. The bald alchemist took an arrow step towards the door, ready to start fleeing at any moment under the pressure of power.

  "Is what I cooked really that bad?" Seeing Phil completely not appreciating her hard work today, Renny immediately changed tactics, pouting and showing a tearful face, coquettishly asking her lover, "Come on, just try one bite."

  If it's that kind of "brave warrior" who would risk drowning to pick lotus flowers for a beauty, then at this time he should calmly eat the burnt food in front of him like a Japanese samurai performing seppuku, and take the opportunity to praise the beauty's cooking skills. Then, before losing consciousness, he should give himself an emetic.

  But apparently Felix had no intention of torturing his stomach for the sake of taking care of the beauty, he made a serious response.

  "It's no longer a matter of whether it tastes bad or not, but rather one of poisoning or homicide. Dear, you'd better try some first, I'll get the antidote ready."

  "Pfft!" Renny couldn't help but burst out laughing, tossing the charred-looking roasted chicken out the window. "You're really not considerate at all, you don't even know how to comfort someone's hard work."

  "When it comes to matters of one's own life, health and safety, I really dare not make any concessions." Phil saw that the deadly weapon had been eliminated, and only then did he let out a sigh of relief, patting his chest as he walked back to sit down at the table.

  "Since you won't eat the roasted chicken, how about some braised beef instead?" Seeing Phil return, Lenny smiled and brought out two large pots, "This is my specialty, I made a lot today, hurry up and have some while it's hot."

  Fili lifted the lid of a pot, cautiously sniffed the smell, and felt that there was nothing wrong. He took a closer look at the meat inside and found that except for being overcooked to an abnormal gray color, there were no other obvious abnormalities. However, considering the impressive roasted chicken earlier, he seriously doubted whether he could survive after eating this pot of stuff. But looking at Renni's expectant and excited expression, he felt that he lacked sufficient reason to decline the beauty's kindness.

  Just as he was worried about this, his eyes inadvertently swept over the bonfire outside. Bam, the only dwarf squad leader in the legion, and his boar cavalry were drinking and reveling in the courtyard of the command post. Noticing that they were eating roasted flatbread, Fili suddenly had an idea.

  "Reni, I say," Phil suddenly showed a benevolent and sympathetic expression, "you've made so much stewed meat, the two of us can't finish it even if we wanted to. Why don't we give some to those Bam people outside? Look at them, they can't even eat meat during the New Year, all they have is roasted flatbread on the fire pit, it's really pitiful. We as superiors should care about our subordinates when we have the ability, what do you think?"

  "Alright, you're right too, let's give some to them."

  Reni didn't suspect anything and readily agreed, while Fili let out a long sigh in his heart and silently prayed for Bam, who was about to become the guinea pig.

  Just after handing over a large pot of braised beef under the name of "comforting the lower ranks" to the dwarves who thanked them thousands and tens of thousands of times, Fili and Reni, who had returned to the upper floor, heard an ominous cracking sound, followed by Bam's scream that was almost as terrifying as a 9th-level magic witch's wail, which nearly shattered everyone's eardrums.

  "General Taylor, come quick and see our captain! This beef is so hard it could cut glass. The captain wanted to take a bite, but ended up knocking out his front teeth!" A dwarf who had just escaped the sonic attack pinched the beef in his hand and shouted loudly, attracting surrounding soldiers to gather around.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Are there spirit assassins?"

  "He's bleeding, shall we call a priest?"

  “……”

  Fili looked embarrassed, while Renie was pale-faced, but she still prepared a healing spell to use on the unfortunate Bamm. The dwarf squad leader, whose face had been twisted in agony, finally managed to calm down slightly and struggled to make an angry accusation against the culprit who brought him such pain.

  "Taylor, Chief of Staff, are you trying to murder your subordinates?"

  "This... I'm really sorry, it wasn't intentional, how does it feel?"

  "What else can I do?" Bam picked up the broken door tooth, and tears welled up in his eyes. "My tooth! Officer, you must take responsibility for this!"

  "Alright, don't worry, I'll specially make a high-intensity enchanted fake tooth for you and set up an automatic cleaning function."

  "Thirty more barrels of malt!"

  "No problem, I'll give you 40 buckets." Seeing the surrounding soldiers watching, Fili knew that now was not the time to be frugal and agreed to this "small" request very quickly.

  Bam was satisfied and shut his mouth, but there were others who wouldn't let it go.

  "Officer, who in the blazes made this stew?" said a dwarf, holding up his portion of meat. "This meat's so tough it needs to be pickled for a month or two at least. The scoundrel who cooked this abomination should be pickled too!" "Hey, who hit me?!"

  The female pastor hummed and threw a snowball at the dwarf's head, then "deng deng deng" ran upstairs. Fili was helpless and smiled bitterly, shrugging his shoulders, and the crowd suddenly showed a knowing look in their eyes.

  From this day on, "Reni's Cooking" was basically equated with large-scale lethal weapons in the rumors of the Giant Bear Army.

  "Wooo... Little Fili, am I really useless?" Renny's eyes were brimming with tears, her voice trembling with sobs.

  "It's okay, it's okay, everyone has things they're not good at. Just don't cook again in the future. Don't mind, don't mind."

  "Waaaah——" Rennie cried even louder.

  Fili, who was completely unskilled at comforting the wounded hearts of women, was at a loss for what to do and paced back and forth in the room, feeling his stomach growl louder and louder, ultimately deciding to solve the problem with practical action.

  "I'll at least cook a little something." He muttered to himself as he walked into the kitchen, then suddenly became stunned, and fine beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead.

  "Is this a stove? It's actually using firewood, how do you light it?"

  "This grill is even iron on the handle, isn't it going to scald when shaken? Forget it, there are too many carcinogens in grilled meat, let's just boil it instead."

  "Cough, cough! How can there be so much smoke? Oh no, the chimney must be blocked!" Phil used a strong gust of wind to blow the thick smoke out of the kitchen window and extinguish the flames. Then he found that the soup was covered with a thick layer of ash.

  "Oh no, not again!" He clutched his forehead as if in a swoon, deeply empathizing with the hardships of a housewife in this era and the miserable state of that chef who was scolded and caned all day.

  "It's okay. I still have magic..." Feri tried to cheer himself up and attempted to heat the pot with a magical flame, however...

  "Bang!" The bottom of the pot was burned through with a big hole, and the scalding hot soup splashed up, landing on Phil's hands and feet, causing him to cry out in pain.

  "Who said cooking with magic is easy?! Next time I'll kill him!"

  ……

  When the two finally managed to eat a dinner that was absolutely inedible but at least didn't require on-site rescue, it was already midnight, and what was originally a clean kitchen had become like a fire scene. The two were silent, until Rennie finally broke the silence.

  "Hey, I was thinking, Xiao Fei, maybe it's better if we hire a maid from now on."

  "Yes, it's true, having you take care of household chores all day is really too tiring, we're both working people after all."

  "Although the dishes are not good, the wine I prepared should be fine." Renny somehow pulled out a delicate glass wine bottle from somewhere, her face red as she handed it to Fili, "Consider this my apology."

  "Champagne from 1980? What a great New Year's gift!" Phil smiled as he pried the cork out with his knife, and it shot up to the ceiling like a bullet.

  "Today is the last day of DR in 1990, cheers for a new year!"

  "Cheers!"

  "I hope to be drinking with you at this time next year..." Phil's words were cut off as Renny's warm lips covered his, and the two of them ended up panting slightly after a kiss.

  "Let's not say such unlucky words today!" Renny refilled the two wine cups again, "Have another cup!"

  "Good." Phil had just brought the wine glass to his lips, when a loud and unpleasant howl made his hand tremble, causing the glass to shatter on the floor.

  "What's gotten into the old Druid that he's hooting at midnight?" He grumbled, just about to find another cup, but the big bell in the lighthouse tower went off wildly, its deep tolling making him jump, and he rushed out of the window to see a string of red warning rockets going up from the beach, along with Rick Torryni's magically amplified command!

  "Emergency assembly! Emergency assembly! The Spirit Fleet has arrived, everyone prepare for battle!"