The Reincarnated Vampire Just Wants to Enjoy Her New Life Chapter 69: A Vampire is a Better Cook Than You

With our confirmations in order, it was probably best to move on and go our separate ways.

Fixing up my outfit, I turned my attention back to my new familiar.

"Alright, looks like everything went well. Now then..."

*Gurgle*

Sarah put her hands on her belly, but rather than be embarrassed by the noise it made, she just looked depressed.

"...Are you hungry?"

"I am. The food in this world is all pretty terrible though, so I'm always hungry."

That explained the look she had on her face. Or rather did that an she skipped out on als a lot? Maybe that was connected to how sunken her cheeks were?

"*sigh* Well, I guess I can make you sothing if you want."

"I'll take it if you're offering."

The way she despondently answered made want to take back my words, but you can't unring a bell, so I just swallowed my complaints.

Aside from that, since there was a good chance that we would be forced to have more dealings with each other in the future, it was probably best to at least make a reasonable attempt to get onto her good side. If I could make her feel like she owed on top of that, all the better.

As long as she didn't beco obsessive like Claret. I couldn't handle a second like that.

"Lets go back to the fountain room first."

While I could theoretically cook anywhere, there was a distinct lack of freely available water in the middle of a dungeon floor, so we quickly made our way back to one after pulling out her sword from a nearly bisected tree. Thankfully that woman didn't have any trouble keeping up a brisk pace that would've put Usain Bolt to sha and we quickly arrived at our destination before I removed my bag to take out so ingredients.

"So do you have any requests?"

"Well, I doubt you can make it with how shitty this world is, but..."

The way she worded her sentence made wonder if she was trying so sort of unsubtle psychological warfare on , or was just plain bad at being pleasant.

"I'd love it if you can make schteev. My dad use to make it all the ti."

"Never heard of it. What is it made from?"

"*sigh* Well, it's a soup mainly made from beetroots, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onion and tomatoes. My dad liked to put in slices of beef and parsley into it as well. It was soooooo good, how it ward you up and filled your belly, and I couldn't get enough of that sour flavour! Ah, just thinking about it..."

"Okay, okay, I think I got it."

While the na was different, the food she described sounded similar to a dish I had once read up on, but never actually made: borscht. I could vaguely rember how it was made as well, though only just.

I arbitrarily removed the ingredients Sarah had ntioned, along with a steak of obsidian bear at I had picked up earlier in the dungeon. I didn't know how it tastes, but it was probably close enough to beef. At the very least, there was no way I could recreate the food she had in her mories that closely, so such a difference wouldn't matter much.

Dicing up an onion while heating a large pot, I threw the pieces inside with so oil to let it fry for a bit while I worked on the rest of the ingredients. Next went the thinly sliced bear at until it got a nice layer of browning on each side before I dumped so water into the pot. I brought that to a simr and then threw in the rest of the vegetables, then a bit more water to cover it.

Raising the magical fla further, I slowly stirred the contents with telekinesis as I casually watched the pot, occasionally removing the scum off of the top.

As the scent of the cooking food slowly wafted, Sarah's complete disinterest slowly changed as she sniffed the air like an animal. Step by step she moved closer to the pot until her face was over it, and I started to worry that the drool dripping down her chin would fall into the pot.

Doing my best to work around her big-headed obstruction, I added so salt and pepper, along with so arbitrary herbs crushed between my palms.

Very soon, the soup was done. There were a bunch more things I wanted to do to get it into a better state, but those would've taken a few hours to do. Between the imdiacy of the need for the along due to my already hungry recipient with the fact that I didn't want to actually put that much effort into this woman's al stopped from actually bothering to do so.

The motives being balanced at about 10/90.

After shooing Sarah from the pot and arbitrarily telekinesising over so of the soup into a hastily made stone bowl, I handed the food over to her.

It took a few second to realize I hadn't given her any utensils to eat with, but by then, she had already tipped the bowl over and started pouring its contents into her gaping maw.

"*fuha fuha!* Ah, it's so good! It's nothing like the crap the stores sell in the city!"

In between puffs of breath to cool down the solids in her mouth, Sarah gave so exaggerated complints. Soon enough, she held the bowl out to and asked for seconds.

With a sigh, I refilled her bowl before she went back to stuffing her face with the bright red soup. This cycle repeated until half the pot was emptied and the woman was laying on the ground rubbing her belly. Even though her armour, I could see it bulging a bit.

"It's not quite how dad used to make it..."

"Of course it isn't. I just threw everything into a pot and let it cook for a bit. There's no way it would be as good as sothing soone made all their life, let alone similar to it."

It was a little uncharacteristic of , but I couldn't help but interrupt and snap at her. For so reason, just watching her enjoy that al annoyed . Most likely, the way we t had left a sour enough impression on that I couldn't help but let it bleed into my actions now that she wasn't a clear enemy anymore.

"No, but, but it was really good. Way better than anything I could do. It's true dad made it for as long as I could rember. He said it was a family recipe, but you got it closer than I ever could without even had tasted it."

"It's by chance. I just happened to know a similar recipe, that's all."

(I hadn't even had a chance to try borscht out in my previous life, and now I'll never know what it even tastes like.)

Going though all the effort of researching a dish that I had grown interested in after showing up in a show I had seen, only to have never actually had tried it after slacking on making it in my previous life felt like a petty, yet real regret.

But after a few seconds, I blinked and realized what I had just thought to myself. Maybe it wasn't that Sarah had left a bad enough impression on to sour our relationship for the foreseeable future, but I was just feeling jealous watching her enjoy the thing that I had looked forward to having in my previous life. Sothing that I couldn't experience now with my new body.

Of all the disadvantages to my vampiric body, this was an unexpectedly massive one. Sure, it wasn't potentially fatal, but it was easy to get caught up in the trap of being envious of sothing that others could enjoy but I couldn't.

It was possible that this was the very reason why I found myself making food for others so much. It was so unconscious attempt to get back a part of what I had lost since my reincarnation, as vain as it was. Maybe it would've been one thing if I didn't know how good normal food could taste, but I did, and it made it hard not to feel envious of people who could enjoy the food I made, and thus I had been trying to recapture a portion of that.

I felt like I could understand how my predecessor felt when she grew obsessed over the envy of the other races raising children and having a family.

Thankfully I didn't share that obsession, but I would probably have to take care and not let food beco my own obsession.

"Anyways, I'm going now. Bye."

Bringing my thoughts back to the occasion, I put away my things, leaving the pot and bowl Sarah had used, and shouldered my bag before turning to leave the fountain room.

"Wait!"

"You can have the pot, if that's what you want to ask."

It wasn't like I could enjoy it after all.

"Thank you! No, I an, that's not it!"

The woman's sudden movent towards had raise my claws as I turned, but I managed to catch myself to observe her actions instead. Claret quickly jerked towards her as well, but stopped when I gave her a small shake of the head.

In the end, my sudden sense of crisis was unwarranted as she only crawled on her hands and knees to to grab the hem of my robes. I was getting a bad feeling from the look she was giving . Too much puppy dog eyes and too little offerings.

"I, I don't have anywhere to go!"

"Don't you have a place here to sleep?"

"I do, but..."

"If it's money, don't you already have a way to earn it here? The fact that you're on this floor ans that you don't have trouble earning money by selling the materials here, right?"

"Yea, but..."

Not really interested in what she had to say at this point, I turned to leave again, wherein she promptly threw her arms around my legs, preventing from taking a step. From the corner of my eye, Claret was looking particularly annoyed and was getting dangerously close to lashing out at Sarah.

"Look, what is it that you want? I'm sure that you don't want to hang around soone you were just trying to kill, right?"

"Well..."

The way she let go and started to fidget in turn once again gave a bad feeling and made nervous.

"Can I go with you?"

(Seriously?)

"Why?"

"Well......the schteev you made was amazing."

I felt like a person who accidentally tad a wild animal with food and was stuck with trying to figure out how to deal with the animal who wanted to co with them.

"You can make it yourself. I'll write the recipe for you."

"No, but..."

"It's not hard to make, and you can take your ti to experint."

"..."

"Here, this is fine, right?"

I quickly raised so stone from the floor and moulded it into a tablet with the recipe etched into its surface before handing it over to the woman.

"..."

She took it, but put on a pensive expression as she looked at the tablet.

The bad feeling I had wasn't going away, and at the sa ti, I wasn't sure that this would be enough to make her go do sothing else.

"Hey, what is it you want to do anyways?"

"Umm, what do you an?"

"Your goal in life, or whatever. If you're not going to do what those guys told you to do, what are you planning on doing then? What kind of life do you want to have for yourself?"

It wasn't like I was a good person to talk about this sort of thing, as I didn't really have much of a personal objective for my life overall, just so short term goals, but I needed sothing to get Sarah's mind off of trying to follow .

"I, I don't really have anything I suppose?"

"Well, what sort of thing do you enjoy? Have you found anything you like in this world?"

"..."

It was clear I wasn't getting anywhere from this line of talk. I needed to try sothing a little different.

"What about your previous life? That thing you did, that ga. Was that sothing you were willing to make your way of life if it was possible?"

"Of course! I loved dal of Valour! It was the most amazing ga ever!"

"So isn't diving in the dungeon a bit similar? While you're not shooting at other people, you are fighting. Isn't staying here ideal for you?"

"...I don't really like hitting things with a stick though..."

(...Fuck.)

While there was a simple solution, it wasn't exactly one that Claret would approve, but it probably wouldn't beco a problem.

Taking out an iron ingot as well as a copper one along with a log of oak. I converted the iron ingot steel by charring so of the wood adding so of it to the ingot. Next, I shaped it into a pipe half as long as I was tall with an inner diater just big enough for my pinkie to fit in. The interior had a helical hexagonal shape to it. One end of the pipe was enlarged to twice the diater and fitted to secure a simple, quick releasing cap. I quickly extruded a few parts of the long pipe, and then carved the log into a long shaft with matching receptacles for the extruded bits. Boring a hole through the combined sections, I riveted a small steel post through the hole, securing it all in place. With so quick additional work, I whittled down the wood to so appropriate dinsions and smoothened the surface.

Finally, I took the copper and remaining steel, and made a few tapered steel cylinders with a thin layer of copper wrapped around them. To add to that, I made tiny jars out of the steel and filled them with water before plugging the tiny jar with the little cylinders.

Detaching the end cap from the assembled pipe, I inserted the little jar plug first into the cylinder before securing the plug once more.

Finally, I shouldered the whole chanism and pointed the open end of the pipe at an arbitrary wall. Mustering a little bit of magic, I flash vaporized the water inside the tiny jar. The water vapour dislodged the plug, propelling it through the pipe, the copper surface scraping against the interior and reforming from a completely round shape to a hexagon as a spin was induced.

As I concentrated on my action and ti slowed, vibrations ran through the apparatus and a little bit later, the plug exited the opposing end and jets of steam erupted in all directions quickly obscuring the flying projectile. As the density of the haze dropped, the airborne plug reerged, visibly spinning around its axis, ballistically making its way through the air faster than anything currently in the room. But it was not so fast that I couldn't follow its motion before it ca in contact with the far wall. The plug deford, pancaking against the hard surface before shattering and spreading iron dust along the wall's planer surface.

Before I knew it, Sarah was staring at what I was doing with bated breath, whereas Claret was full of curiosity, but there was a distinct lack of understanding in her eyes. Alicia was silent, but I could feel her examining every little detail of my little creation, most likely her plastic mind understanding only a little more than Claret.

Satisfied, I made a few more miniature jars and plugs, filled the jars with fountain water then secured the plugs onto the jars before handing over the entire thing.

"Maybe this would make hunting in the dungeon more enjoyable?"

"You made a gun! That's so amazing! I didn't think it would be possible! But..."

"It works by super heating the water inside of the brass. It's done through [Fire Magic], so you'll have to learn to use it. Simply feel out your inner mana, then convert a portion of it into fire. When it cos to making new bullets, use [Earth Magic] to do the forming. It's just steel for the casing and bullet core, and copper for the jacket, so it'll be easy to make once you get a little bit of practice."

"I see. I didn't know magic would be so easy to use, and so versatile. Thank you!"

Taking the simple rifle out of my hands, Sarah shouldered it and tried pointing it around. There was clear excitent in her expression, and she probably wanted to try it out imdiately.

Well, it would have to wait until she learned to actually use magic, but that wouldn't take long.

"After a while, you should start being able to make your own guns. I know that you can make gun cotton mixing cotton with nitric acid, if you can get your hands on that. It might make things easier and work better."

"I see! Thank you so much!"

Taking advantage of the fact that she was still distracted, I turned to make my retreat.

"Well, then, see you so ti."

"Yea! See you!"

"Are you sure it's fine to give her a weapon Master?"

The second she was sure that Sarah was out of earshot, Claret asked the obvious question.

"It's fine. Sothing like that isn't actually that strong in this world. I could probably take a direct hit and it wouldn't even scratch ."

While it was difficult to make any accurate estimations, I was most likely right on that part. It was rely a flying steel rod, and there was no indication that any skills activated with it, so it was literally as strong as it looked. While it could theoretically be enhanced to beco stronger, Sarah's sword was already leagues more powerful than the gun I had made her against .

I doubted that it would surpass weapons that already existed in this world.

Even if it could, I doubted that it would be impossible to increase my own strength to the point that I could surpass the capabilities of any weapon she could make from extrapolating from that gun. In the end, the system reigned supre in this world. With a weapon that wasn't a part of the system, its capabilities were limited by physics, whereas the system wasn't. At least as far as my personal experience had shown that was.

The limits imposed by the two were just too different, and thus unless if the system ended up having so sort of unexpected response with the gun, the future of firearms as an actual weapon looked bleak. It would be entirely relegated just a toy in the end.

That was, unless if I completely misread the situation, which was a possibility, but I was sure that I could deal with it if it had co to. I had bought enough favour with Sarah, and she now owed for providing her a way to move forward. I had a reasonable amount of confidence that she wouldn't turn on as long as I didn't give her reason to.

"Above it all though, I need her to like , to think I'm a good person."

"Master, you are a good person. The best person in the world. You don't need everyone to know that for it to be true."

"Claret, let tell you sothing. It's not true. No matter how much you think it is, I'm not that great of a person. And while it's true that I don't need everyone think I'm a good person, I do need certain people to think that. Sarah's amongst the top. The more she think I'm a good person, the less likely it is that she'll turn against in the future. Rather than deal problems by crushing them myself, it's better to make others not want to cause problems to in the first place."