As I couldn't just keep feeding the fluffballs. Once my MP tank started running low, I moved on.

With the help of Claret, I at least got them to spread out enough to make moving around without interrupting everything feasible.

"Scarlet! You've come at a good time!"

Weaving between the fluffballs, a lone fairy approached me.

"Aurae! Did someone tell you I was coming?"

Usually if she had business with me, she would have waited until I was inside the village rather than at the entrance of the dungeon. Most likely because word of my arrival didn't reach her until then though.

"Well, with the way the spirits were acting, I didn't really need someone to say anything."

"Ahaha..."

It really made me wonder if there was a single fairy in the area who didn't notice, considering the way the fluffballs were acting.

It would be nice if it only happened this one time and they wouldn't do such things from here on, but the future looked pretty bleak.

"Anyways! More importantly! Are you going to make more flans for us? It's been two weeks, and the others are all arriving!"

"Are flans the only thing on you fairies minds?"

"YES!"

(At least make an attempt to deny it. Geez.)

"Fine, I'll make a treat for you guys. In fact, it'll be even better than a flan, but I need a bunch of fairies to help me. I can't make it all alone if I need to make enough for all of you."

"Alright! I'll help! What should I do?"

"Erm, you're the elder. Isn't this the point where you delegate?"

"But if I did that, then someone else is going to get the first one, right? It's even better than the flan, right?"

"..."

(These fairies really don't make any attempt at hiding their greed, do they?)

It wasn't like I couldn't understand, but such bare-faced greed and excitement was off putting in its own way.

(Well, being true to their desires is still better than being two faced.)

"Okay, fine. You can help, and I'll let you have one of the first pieces. But I still need more than just you to help."

"Alright! I did it! And I'll go find a bunch others to help too!"

And with that, the pink winged fairy raced off to find other volunteers.

"Claret, can you help me get things ready?"

"Alright Master!"

 

Once I found a good place to start working, I made a set of tools I needed to make the new treat, then had Claret make copies of them. It was mostly just measuring cups, bowls, pans, special stone ovens to bake the dessert, and stone boxes to cool the dessert in some of the steps. The pans were a little different from usual, as they were of the steel quick release variety. Since the steel needed to be spring steel, it took a few attempts to come up with an alloy which worked well enough. The alternative, baking sheets, was much more difficult to get my hands on, especially the quantity we needed.

Since I was going to make them slightly differently thanks to the inclusion of magic, not all the tools normally needed would be used.

I had been growing better at taking magic into consideration when it came to cooking, so I wanted to push that a bit further since I had people who wouldn't be able to use normal tools in the first place.

"Hey! I brought help!"

As we were finishing up with making all the tools, Aurae showed up with her reinforcements.

Reinforcements. Not helpers, assistants, nor cooking buddies, but reinforcements. Her use of the word 'help' felt incredibly misleading.

The reason for being particular on that word, was because rather than bring a handful of fairies to help out, there was an army of them. Most likely they counted over a hundred.

"What's this?"

"What does it look like? Help!"

"This many?"

"When I asked for people to help make your treat, these were the people who came!"

Rather than get volunteers after asking, it looked more like she just yelled as loud as she could and everyone within earshot rushed over.

"Did you just yell or something?"

"Yup! Look how many came when they heard the were going to help make treats with you! Isn't my charisma simply amazing?"

Rather than this elder's charisma, it looked like it was entirely the work of my previous flans.

"Yahoo! We're gonna get tons of tasty treats!"

From another direction, Orphne showed up with even more fairies. Fortunately it was only a few dozen, but I still had no idea what to do with so many extra hands.

"Just what am I going to do with so many fairies?"

"Oh! We'll stand guard then! Can't let anything eeeevil spoil any of the delicious treats! C'mon everyone! Make sure nobody comes near! We'll be the first to get the new treats!"

"""Yea!!!"""

"W, wait!"

But before I could say anymore, the fairies lead by Orphne raised their spears and scattered around creating a perimeter.

(Why did they bring their spears when they were originally supposed to be cooking anyways?)

But putting in any energy to actually solving almost any question related to the fairies was only a quick way to exhaust yourself. At least that's the lesson I had started to learn. Especially with how Magni splendidly failed to learn it.

"Alright! The rest of you! Form up into groups! I want twenty teams! Try to make the groups equal in numbers as well!"

And with that, the remaining fairies sought each other out and formed groups of five or six.

That was, aside from one.

"What are you doing Aurae?"

"Forming a group with you!"

Wait, seriously?

"Huh?!"

"That's cheating!"

"That's not fair!"

But almost immediately there were complaints being thrown out from the others.

"I am the elder, so if I say I want to team up with Scarlet, then that's how it'll go!"

There were more complaints, but for the most part they died down. Despite her appearance and actions, this fairy really did have the power over the rest one would expect when being titled the elder. Respect on the other hand, not quite so much.

But that said...

"I don't need someone with me. I'm just showing everyone how to do each step, so it'll be better if you join one of the other groups."

"But, but...!"

The little child-like fairy looked at me all teary-eyed, like I had completely devastated her heart. So much for the dignity of an elder.

"I mean, really, I can do my part on my own. It's better to learn from the other side."

I turned my head away from the dignityless elder as I responded.

"But, I want to learn from YOUR side..."

But as quick as their appearances suggested, Aurae fluttered back in front of my face, this time the water works on full blast.

"Yea, but..."

"Pleeeeeeease!"

"Ummm..."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"

"..."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"

"...Fine."

"Yay! I get to work with Scarlet!"

(Just what's with that insanely fast switch?)

[I see. So she's weak to that sort of thing...]

(Hey! My future daughter! What are you doing taking notes like that?!)

From the most unlikely of places, I started to worry about my own future.

But that said, this was hardly the time nor place for me to lament about what was going to come in at least a year's time.

If I didn't start the cooking lesson, there was likely going to be riots. And with faeries being the centre of the riots, I had no way to predict if it would involve burning down half the forest or covering everything in a thick layer of confetti.

I wasn't really sure which was worse.

"Alright, we're starting then! First is this!"

I pulled out a small pile of fresh ingredients.

From then, I instructed the fairies what to do as I demonstrated with Aurae's help.

First of all, I had distributed a series of stone boxes with with a hinged front and shelves integrated inside. One fairy was in charge of heating the ovens up until the whole box was nice and toasty.

Turning back to the ingredients, the hides were diced into small pieces and throw into a large jar. The chopped skin was submerged in water and a little bit of vinegar was added. I made sure that everyone measured everything according to how I did it. Even if I was basing all my measurements off of instinct, it had always worked out quite well. Then, one fairy was in charge of heating the mixture and keeping it simmering while the rest continues to the next step.

While I did have an assistant, I opted to just handle this easy step of simmering on my own so she could do the work of the next step.

Next was the eggs. The eggs were separated between the whites and yolk. Milk, cream, lemon juice, and vanilla was mixed in another bowl. Then once fully blended, wheat flour was added until consistent. After that, the yolk along with some additional eggs were added a little at a time until fully integrated.

Going back to the egg whites, I had one fairy funnel wind into the bowl to beat the liquid. This was Aurae's time to shine, and my chance to escape some tedious work. The whites were beaten with wind magic as air integrated with the liquid, turning into a white froth. Salt and sugar was added along the way, and one fairy would continue doing this until I told them to stop.

The elder looked at me with tears in her eyes when I gave those instructions out. It seemed she realized what was going on, but it was already too late.

I moved on to the next step.

Milk was heated in a bowl then honey was added. Once that was mixed together, eggs were added in addition.

A few of the fairies got pretty excited in this step. Aurae especially kept glancing at me with a look of pure envy on her face, but I reminded her that she needed to continue whipping up the egg whites. I could tell that it wasn't firm enough at a glance.

Unlike last time, I distributed out raspberries and had the fairies crush and extract the juices from them. The liquids were combined to an even consistency and put aside.

It was at this point that the whipped up egg whites looked good, so we moved on to using it next.

Aurae as well as all the other fairies who were in charge of whipping it up looked visibly tired. Though whether that was due to mana depletion or because they had to use so much brain power to concentrate on a single task without wavering, the answer was pretty obvious.

The fluffy egg white mixture was combined with the yolk based mixture. The whites were added to the yolk mix a little at a time until fully integrated.

A series of quick release baking pans were filled with a moderately thin layer of the batter then placed within the stone ovens. Each team got one oven, but due to the quantities we were making, five pans were placed in each. Five, human sized pans, not fairy sized pans.

Even with that much, I hesitated to think it was anywhere close to enough, even for the original group.

Finally, the submerged skins were chilled to room temperature nearly instantly thanks to [Water Magic]. The components had magnificently separated. A thin layer of white fat lay on the top, which was skimmed off. Next, the solids were filtered out with a strainer and we were left with a slightly cloudy liquid.

While it would have been nice to properly filter it, we were lacking the equipment for that, and I wasn't confident in my abilities to make them anyways. For that matter, there were still a few more impurities, but I didn't even know how to start making the tools to remove those.

Instead, I opted to strengthen the flavour to make up for the difference.

The mostly clear liquid was mixed together with a sizable amount of honey, then more raspberry juice was added.

The baking pans were carefully taken out of the ovens and the flan mix was added to the sponge cake before being returned to the oven.

In the meantime, a second set of boxes with hinged fronts and shelves inside were pre-chilled with magic.

After a certain amount of time, the baking pans were taken out of the ovens and we continued our work.

Raspberries were arrayed on top of the cooked flan in the pan, then the raspberry flavoured gelatin was added on top, fully submerging the berries.

At long last, we reached the final step, which was to chill the entire thing.

The moment the last ice box was closed, I announced that they would be chilled for an hour and we should start work on the next batch in the meantime.

The response was, as predicted, extremely bad. The fairies wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labour immediately, and it took some work to convince them that while it was edible, it would taste a massive amount better if it was finished.

We wasted a lot of time arguing, but in the end I managed to convince them.

While everything I had said was true, half the reason why I was doing this was so that they wouldn't get distracted with a finished product waiting for them while they made the next batch. It was my hope that while we were waiting for the second batch to finish, they could enjoy the first batch and be fully refreshed for when we started work on the third batch.

And lo and behold, it worked.

The second batch was ready to be put into the cooler by the time the first was ready to be taken out.

Fortunately the experience of the first batch had made it so the second batch took much less time to make.

A whole bunch of unfamiliar fairies had been lured by the scent as we cooked, but it looked like Orphne was doing exactly as she declared she would, and successfully managed to keep the others from disturbing us while we cooked. Despite the regular glances towards us and unabashed drool.

Of course, the second they saw that we were cutting up the freshly made triple layered cakes, all order and discipline had vanished like a popped bubble and they demanded their share as well. All the ones who were held back by them joined in, curious as to what it was that had gotten so many fairies excited as well as what was making such a tasty smell.

It was a struggle, but I managed to get the fairies to properly cut a serving to each other and they ate using the prepared plates.

The spectacle I saw, was like a small army of fairies ascending to heaven.

Without the literal ascending of course, but that was the sort of expression they seemed to be making.

It looked like all the effort in recalling the recipe, gathering the ingredients and herding the cats, or rather, the fairies into making the cakes en mass was worth it.

Aside from the fact that this was only the beginning, and we still had countless batches more to make.

But before we continue that, there was something I wanted to do during our short respite.

"Claret?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Help me distribute some mana treats to all the new spirits."

I filled her hands with mini mana treats. Rather than filling the bellies of a few, I wanted to let as many of the fluffballs enjoy my mana treats as I could. I could only hope that they'd find it satisfying.

"Of course, Master!"

My familiar spirit's face brightened up and she raced up to the clouds of fluffballs, scattering the mana treats around before coming back down to retrieve the next batch.

In anticipation, of the sheer number of mana treats I would have to make, I took out a jar of blood from my bag and enjoyed some sips in between handing off the mana treats.

The day went on, going from making more triple layered fruit cakes to distributing mana treats to the fluffballs.

The cakes themselves also varied in flavours. There was no way we could prepare enough raspberries for all the cakes, but if we weren't too picky on the flavouring, that was well within our means. Blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, peach, orange, pineapple, a whole veritable variety were prepared, and promptly gobbled up and somehow disappeared inside of those tiny winged bodies.

(These fairies' bellies must somehow have the same properties as a magic bag.)

They weren't like us vampires or spirits. They were more physical than mana based life forms, and what they ate were completely physical on top of that.

But that said, they all danced the same.

Fairies and spirits, just like the day I finally came home, they flew and danced as they ate and drank.

I enjoyed the little air shows they performed in the small breaks I got while baking more cakes. The other fairies were slowly getting more and more sloppy as they received those flower heads filled with nectar and enjoyed them. Due to that, I had to pay more and more attention to make sure they didn't make any mistakes in the process, but aside from some weird deformities in the final products, there wasn't any particular issues with the cakes they made.

As for myself, well, it wasn't really a surprise that the fluffballs figured out who was making all the mana treats for them.

Most of the fairies made a few as well, but the quantity was completely different.

It wasn't like I was competing or anything. I hadn't even realized that they were feeding the fluffballs until a while into the feast. But at least it didn't look like they had any resentment over it. Or rather some of them cheered me on as I made some mana treats during my little breaks.

Even without my prompting, Claret did a spectacular job keeping the fluffballs from swarming me once again. A few got past her here and there, but overall she was quite successful.

I had to remember to give her one of those extra nice mana treats later on.

That said, having entirely new fluffballs circle around me and rub the skirt of my robes like a curious cat was endearing, and I couldn't help but pet many of them. Though their bodies were so light there was almost no resistance, the softness was still very nice against my fingers.

It was only unfortunate that this feast was being done during the day, so I had to be extra careful to avoid exposing my hands.

 

Once all the cooking was done, I enjoyed some time talking about random things with various fairies who were no longer able to fly in a strait direction. Despite the lack of obviously useful information, beyond simply enjoying myself while watching more drunken air shows, I was seriously gathering more common sense of the world.

Even if that common sense was of the drunken fairy variety, which probably deviated quite a bit from the norms of this world, it was still better than not having any whatsoever.

This continued until the sun had finally retreated, and I spent the next little while playing around with the fluffballs overhead.

Now that I didn't have to worry about carelessly being burned while in flight, I pulled back my hood and enjoyed some time with the now satiated fluffballs.

The sight itself was quite surreal. Once I ascended a few dozen meters up, the fluffballs lost all their inhibitions and swarmed around me, blocking off my view of both the ground and the sky. Only nearby trees could be seen, and even then the fluffballs obscured any that were more than a dozen meters away.

But in a sense, that was preferable. The fluffballs were the centre of my attention this time, so anything beyond that didn't matter.

I flew around performing various flight patterns with the fluffballs following me like fluffy streamers, orbiting my body, or just clinging on the best they could and enjoying the ride. When I slowed, they'd push past me with Claret in the lead, drawing large arcs as they circled past, double back around and zoom past me at high speed.

The fun they were having was easily represented in the joyous expression of my own familiar as she lead a large flock of little spirits.

Even when I stopped after having enough playing around and ready to head home, the fluffballs gathered around me, doing their best to beg me to continue playing with them.

Small swarms of them gathered in my sleeves and the skirt of my robes, pushing and pulling on my limbs and clothes as more pushed against my back as we rose up higher and higher, past the forest canopy and into the skies above.

Despite their low mass, despite their low strength, despite their limited ability to influence their surroundings, I was witnessed firsthand to what they could do when their wills became one. Even if the result was simply their begging turning into a new game the moment I stopped resisting.

But as nice as the soft feeling of their bodies against my skin was, as fun as flying around and playing with them was, all things needed to end. Or else I couldn't do what was needed so that we could enjoy ourselves again in the future.

They might not have been able to understand that, but I had no choice but to.

Reality was harsh, no matter what my personal thoughts on it were.

Eventually I pushed my way past their complaints and returned to my room inside of the dungeon while leaving the fluffballs outside.

A part of me wished that they weren't repelled by the dungeon, but another understood that if it they weren't, there was no way my self control would last long enough to do what I had to do.