The time in the kitchen lasted until late night.  The nymphs had made some steaming racks out of bamboo that were quite useful.  Everyone got some practice making sticky rice.  Alex even got to take a pair of stackable racks for steaming back to the carriage in exchange for helping show them a new way to prepare rice.

 

Alex wanted to talk to Ki to see if she knew anything about why Charlotte decided to get up and start walking around on her own but sleep seemed like a better option.  It was a short walk through some light rain to get back to the carriage with Fufi in tow.  The bird and magical girl cleaned up and went to bed. 

 

The following morning, Alex and Fufi went straight to the kitchen. Alex lit a fire in the stove and scrambled some eggs.

“How’s this?” Alex placed a simple pepper and mushroom omelet on a plate.

 

“Hmm, can you make it cuter?” Fufi critiqued.

 

“Fine, let me try again.”  Alex repeated the process only this time cutting up some sausages to look like squids, going so far as to put some ketchup on them to make beady eyes and a mouth.  Added to that, Alex made a ketchup smiley face and some ketchup hearts on the omelet.

 

“Hmm, they are about the same thing.  But one is kinda embarrassing.” Alex eyed the two omelets.

“Try them and check your stats.” Fufi gestured a wing at the plain looking omelet then the cute one.

 

Alex shrugged, took a bite of the first omelet, and ate it. A quick check of her phone showed no bonus. Then Alex took a bite of the second omelet, which tasted the same, but the magical girl felt a wave of... something. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

 

Name: Alex Parker

Class: Magical Girl

Sex: Female

Race: Human

Strength: 11

Constitution: 10(+1 for 1 hour from consumable)

Dexterity: 17

Intelligence: 7

Cuteness: 16

Skills:

Cleaning: 2

Cooking: 1

Dancing: 2

Tailoring: 4

Toymaking: 1

Feats: Empower Doll

Spells: Animate Doll

Lesser Grow Plants

Traits: Mental Resistance: 3

 

“That gave me a temporary increase to one of my stats!” Alex showed the phone to Fufi.

 

“Behold the importance of cuteness!” Fufi flapped her wings in a dramatic manner.

 

Alex made a few more decorated omelets for the crowd.  “Okay, I think I am starting to get the hang of this but I don’t want to spend too much time cooking.  I’m not in the right outfit.  In the right outfit I think I can do even better.”

 

After cleaning up the pair headed back to the warehouse.  It was time to create a chef’s outfit.

 

Like most things, Alex started with a sketch. “Let's see here.  What things make an outfit say chef?”  

 

“An apron?  They can also double for maid outfits.” Fufi craned her head over Alex’s shoulder.

 

“You must really like maids Fufi.” Alex sketched a collared shirt with a double row of buttons.  Next was the hat.  The magical girl sketched a poofy hat that a typical chef would wear from a couple different angles.

 

“Oh that hat is fun.  It is all puffy.” Fufi regarded the hat sketch.

 

“Now for the bottom.  I was thinking some striped pants?  Something that if food gets spilled on them it won’t be super obvious.” Alex sketched out a pair of drawstring pants.

 

Fufi hummed. “Would they be better with some ribbons or frills?  I think that would make it cuter.”

 

Alex shook her head.  “We are going for the chef look not the magical girl look here not everything has to be sunshine and rainbows.”

 

“Fine, I’ll reserve judgment until the final product.” Fufi huffed.

 

The last thing to sketch was the apron.  “Okay, I’ll compromise and we’ll have frills along the edge of the apron. Also, we’ll need to use the loom to make another bolt of stripped cloth.  My tailoring skill says that trying to put stripes on a white piece of cloth is just going to make it look like a poor quality tie dye.”

 

“It is too bad we still haven’t found a cobbler.  I don’t think your wooden sandals or dance shoes are going to be a good match.” Fufi brought up a recurring problem.

 

Alex thought that dying some thread would set them back for a day.  However, it seemed like someone had been busy.  Not only were there more spools of thread on the shelves that Charlotte had stocking, many different colors dotted the shelves. “Wow, someone has been busy. I suppose that means that I should make more than one outfit.”  The magical girl pauses.  “Well, if this works out. I should keep with the theme of sharing.  I should make another outfit and leave it in here for someone else to use.”

 

“Sharing is caring.”  Fufi approved.

 

Alex groaned.  She picked up a generous stock of black and undyed linen thread and headed to the loom.  Other than the handful of people, the warehouse didn’t have many occupants.  Charlotte was outside soaking up the rain and the sun.  A lot of people liked to stop and admire the wooden spider girl who had rooted herself in the dirt and was soaking up the rain.  Not wanting to get distracted, Alex loaded the shuttle and began weaving.

 

Weave weave weave.

 

The shuttle went back and forth with superhuman speed.  Alex’s tailoring skill created some thin black and white stripes.  The minutes went by forming more and more linen stripes.  After around an hour a bolt of cloth was ready to be taken from the loom.

 

Cut cut cut.

 

Alex cut some legs out of the cloth.

 

Sew sew sew.

 

With a needle and thread, Alex sewed the legs together, hands blurring, moving almost at the speed of a sewing machine.  Some smaller bits needed to be cut out for a waistband and a draw string.   Another stitch on the bottom of the legs made a nice hem above the ankles.

 

The next step was the coat.  Luckily Charlotte had provided a fresh bolt of white linen cloth.  Alex decided to switch it up a bit and used wool thread for the sewing.

 

Cut cut cut.

Sew sew sew.

 

The chef shirt came along quickly and easily.  The only problem was that there were no buttons in the warehouse.

 

“Bah, I forgot about the buttons.” Alex searched the shelves in vain.

 

“What kind of buttons do you need?  We could ask around and see if anyone can help.” Fufi offered a vague solution.

 

“Just some circles of wood with some holes in them.  Let me try something.”  Alex walked to the wall where a wooden trunk grew up.  Alex placed a hand on the living wood and activated the ‘grow plant’ skill, visualizing some button shaped pieces of wood that could just be popped off.  Instead, the plants just budded some leaves.

 

“Darn, Ki makes that seem so easy.”  Alex slumped.

 

“She’s also got years of practice over you.  Want me to go ask her for some help?” Fufi craned her long neck.

 

“Let’s save that for last.  I still have a hat to make.” Alex sometimes fell back into old habits.  The old Alex lived in a cabin in the woods alone and felt pride in being self-sufficient. The early days where they spent the night in a hovel held up by some logs and rusty metal were a grim reminder of how difficult things could be when going alone.

 

The hat was a little tricky. The headband part came together with some cutting and sewing.  But making it so that it is floppy on the top took a couple tries.  The first hat was very uneven and didn’t look right.  The trick was to be very careful in how the poofy part was attached to the headband.  If the stitching wasn’t uniform with the radius it would come out lop-sided.

 

After making two chef hats, Alex repeated the process for the shirt and pants.  By the time someone came in asking if they wanted to take a break for lunch the only thing missing were some buttons that needed to be sewn on.

 

They had lunch in Ki’s office.  Surprisingly, a box of wooden buttons was sitting on her desk.  

 

“Hey, buttons, did you make those?” Fufi waddled up to the box of buttons.

“Yes, a little tree told me that you needed some buttons.” Ki smirked.

 

“Thanks, I tried to use some plant magic like you did but it didn’t work out,” Alex said.

 

“Don’t worry about it. Manipulating plants is as much of an art as skill.  It takes a lot of trial and error to get good at it.”  The green-haired nymph handed the box of buttons over.

 

Alex inspected them.  They even have four small holes in the center. “That is the last thing I needed to finish the outfit.  You are a big help Ki.” 

 

“Think nothing of it.  I see that you’ve adopted my cousin's practice of sharing everything. I'm sure one of those nymphs that like to spend all their time in the kitchen will love to try something created by the ever-interesting magical girl in our midst.”

 

They made some more small talk and Alex bid Ki a good day.  Taking the box back, the pair of outfits had the buttons sewn onto them in minutes.  Alex was eager to try out the outfit and see if it gave the buttons she hoped for.

 

“Oh darn, I realized I forgot something.” Alex rolled her eyes.

 

“What did you forget?” Fufi asked.

 

“I forgot to make an apron.” Alex picked up the paper that most definitely had a sketch of an apron.

 

“Ah, I was enjoying your tailor that I forgot as well.” Fufi chirped.

 

Making an apron was a lot easier than any of the other parts.  Alex cut some bolts of wool into the pattern and went at it with a needle and thread.  In less than an hour they got the pair of aprons finished.

 

Alex got changed and pulled up the stat app on her phone:

 

[Chef’s outfit +3 cooking]

 

“Oh look Fufi.” Alex showed the phone to Fufi.

 

“Nice, that’s the first one you’ve made with three skill bonuses.  Good job.”  Fufi danced around.

 

Alex placed the spare outfit on a wooden hanger and hung it on a spot for communal items in the warehouse.  It wasn’t hard to find a spot for communal things because the entire warehouse seemed to be communal.

 

As ready as she could be, Alex headed back to the dungeon and entered the portal for a second time.

(hmm, which one is better?)  Trying to get a chef shirt from a prompt is tricky.