“I’m just cleaning… cleaning… cleaning… I’m just cleaning all day long! ♫ ♪.” Lydia looked quite adorable as she pushed a rag across the wooden floors of the old alchemy shop.

With the dolls being sent a message that we weren’t to be intimidated, we began phase two of our plan. This phase was simple: make this place a home. There were two bedrooms upstairs, one for the girls and one for me. We had enough food provisions for a few weeks and since I could conjure water, that wasn’t an issue. The only inconvenient thing was that I needed to conjure magic circle every few hours.

I put Lydia on cleaning duty with me, removing years of dust, picking up, and otherwise making the place livable. At the moment, I was washing all the dusty linens. A few were unusable from being eaten by moths and time, but we found some that were still in decent shape, so hopefully, we’d have clean bedding soon.

“I really need some kind of heating spell. Fireball would probably be a bit of an overkill though.”

I didn’t understand people who wanted wicked magic spells or incredibly fighting abilities. The amount of time you were fighting monsters was minuscule compared to the amount of time you must devote to other things. Cooking, cleaning, relaxing… support magic was way more convenient! I never needed to find a light, since I could just summon light balls. I never was without clean water. I was looking forward to more of such convenient skills.

Once I finished washing the linens and hanging them up to dry on a line in the window, I decided to start dinner. The stove fortunately still had all the fuel I needed and I managed to get it going. I wondered if there were magical stoves that worked without the need for old-school conventions. If it didn’t exist, I was wondering what it would take to invent it. That wouldn’t be a blacksmith, right? Is there such a job in this world as an appliance maker?  Ah, well, I’d worry about that later.

I knew Lydia liked meat mostly, but I didn’t know about Miki’s tastes. So far, she ate very little. Whenever I asked, she’d say she was not hungry. She’d still eat anything I fed her by hand, so I guessed it wasn’t important what I made her, but how it ate. I’d definitely make something easy for someone to digest, even if they are feeling weak. I could ask Lydia to cook, but right now it turned out I was the better cook level wise. I’d like to continue to level this skill when things calmed down a bit. I liked being good at things like cooking. We’d need to eat every day of our lives, so I felt it was a talent that mattered.

In the end, I made some flatbread and rolled it up. I shoved mostly meat in it to tempt Lydia to bite in, but I manage to hide a surprising amount of vegetables. Lydia was a growing girl and she definitely needed her vegetables. I remember my mom hiding them in my meals in a similar way. That’s where I got the idea. I didn’t have a name for my new concoction. I decided to call it a pita-wrapped chicken surprise.

{Cook had increased to level 5.}

{Temperature Gauge has been unlocked.}

Ah… how splendid. The system acknowledged my cooking as well. That made me strangely happy. I attempted to test our Temperature Gauge. It was exactly as described. I could now gauge the temperature of anything. I could instantly tell if a thing was hot or not. Actually, isn’t this heat vision? It’s definitely heat vision like I’m the predator! Although this skill was supposed to be applied to cooking, I had the distinct feeling it’d be very beneficial in other situations too.

I finally brought out my pita-wrapped chicken surprises and gave them to the two girls.

“Mm! It’s good!” Lydia spoke excitedly as she picked the chicken out of the bread roll.

“Ah… just bite the whole thing,” I said helplessly.

“Master…” Miki tugged on my shirt. “Please feed it to me. Ahhh!”

She opened her mouth and gestured to it.

It seemed that I had thought too highly of myself. There were many levels in cook to go.