Frieren: Serie's Apprentice

During his rare sleep-in, Gut had a nightmare.

He dreamed that he owed the Poverty Air Conditioner a lot of money for running it all night and was sold to the Warhammer 40K world to serve as "cannon fodder."

However, when his consciousness vaguely awakened, he only felt stuffiness in his chest and could even smell a faint bloody scent in his nostrils.

In the distance, a female voice mixed with knife-sharpening sounds drifted over.

"Even the internal organs were hollowed out. How pitiful."

"Huh?!"

Gut startled awake and immediately sat up.

Looking down, there were no knife marks on his stomach, and his internal organs were all intact.

"Mm—"

A dissatisfied light exclamation came from beside him. Gut looked toward the sound and found an elf covering her head and climbing up from the ground in displeasure beside his thigh.

From her just-disturbed posture and landing point, it seemed the elf had originally been using his chest as a pillow...

Besides that, there seemed to be two thick blankets that had also been flung away by him.

No wonder he felt chest tightness—with such a pile of things pressing on his chest, it would be strange if he didn't feel stuffy.

What about the bloody smell in the air and "hollowed out organs"?

Gut looked to the side and found three junior disciples plus girl Sola all staring dumbfoundedly at him, who had gotten up and flung his teacher away.

In the siblings' hands was a basket of river fish that had been gutted, which was the source of the bloody smell indoors.

At this moment, everyone in the room fell silent, with only Ross sitting in the corner continuing to sharpen the short blade in his hands.

When he went out hunting, he had tied the short blade to a branch to spear fish, but accidentally hit some river bottom stones, so he needed to promptly sharpen the blade and maintain his tools.

Gut: ...

"Scaring~ myself~~"

Under the elf's displeased gaze, Gut had to stand up and promise to make grilled fish for everyone as an apology, finally escaping the pressure from the great mage's stare.

As for Serie, after being forcibly awakened by Gut, she couldn't very well go back to sleep in front of so many disciples, so she had to find a chair indoors to sit on.

It was just that the elf's little head hanging low like pounding garlic really didn't look energetic at all.

On Gut's side, after lighting the indoor campfire, he worked with the girl and junior disciples to skewer the processed river fish, then stuck them by the fire to slowly roast.

After seeing they had prepared about the right amount, Gut took out several small bowls from the refuge cabin's cabinet, then retrieved various prepared seasonings from his pack and began mixing seasoning for the grilled fish on the spot.

While making these, he also took out several extra pounds of salt from his pack and replenished the nearly empty seasoning jars in the refuge cabin.

[Ding!]

[Daily Task: Daily Good Deed completed]

Since he was busy grinding the selected seasonings into powder before the fish finished cooking, Gut didn't have time to draw the reward.

But even so, according to his calculations, the circle of river fish closest to the campfire was nearly cooked and needed to be flipped quickly.

In his urgency, Gut's gaze swept around the room to see if anyone could help him cook.

Teacher Serie sitting in her chair with her head hanging like pounding garlic was immediately ruled out. Regardless of his teacher's cooking skills, just from that posture alone, Gut didn't dare ask her to help—what if she "pounded garlic" her way into the campfire?

As for siblings Hafka and Sola, being great nobles from the Royal Capital, they were enthusiastic about helping but probably had no cooking experience. This could be seen from how they struggled even with skewering fish earlier, and sister Sola even looked sad seeing the gutted fish.

Such psychology obviously couldn't belong to someone with cooking experience.

What about the socially anxious little junior disciple—Zenn?

Hiss, this one also seemed to be a little young master carefully cultivated by his family from childhood. Though not nobility, besides magic, his other life skills also seemed quite unfamiliar.

After eliminating everyone in this circle, there seemed to be only one answer left.

"Junior disciple Ross, please come help."

"Alright." Ross answered efficiently, sheathing the half-sharpened short blade at his waist, walking to Gut and asking:

"Senior brother, what can I do?"

This attitude seemed reliable. Gut nodded, then pointed to the distant campfire, saying: "Help me turn the fish on the inner side, and also check the outer fish, adjusting slightly based on doneness and fire intensity."

"Do you need me to rotate the grilled fish over the campfire?" Ross asked rigorously before acting.

Although Ross's question was somewhat strange, seeing his completely calm and confident demeanor, Gut still confirmed with confidence:

"Mm, that's~ right~"

"Good, I understand."

After reconfirming with his senior brother, Ross walked straight to the campfire with quick, firm steps, quite the master chef's bearing.

Even his subsequent action of pulling grilled fish from the campfire was very smooth and flowing, and when he held the grilled fish and placed it over the campfire's outer flame for precision roasting, there were no problems.

Until the next moment.

Like in Gut's childhood when he and his playmates made bamboo dragonflies fly by spinning them, Ross spread both palms, clamped the fish skewer between his palms, then suddenly began vigorously rubbing up and down.

The fish on the skewer probably never expected that after dying and even having its flesh roasted, it would still suffer such torture.

After the fish rapidly rotated forward several times, what awaited it was even faster reverse rotation.

After being cooked, fish meat structure would naturally become quite loose, and combined with Ross's genius-level forward and reverse rotation, the effect was explosive.

Yes, literally like an explosion.

The loose fish meat, following Ross's rotation, became "flying fish everywhere," like a silver-white rain falling, scattering fish meat fragments throughout the room.

One large piece went straight for the drowsy Serie's forehead with a "smack!" sound, clearing up the elf's eyes instantly.

However, Ross seemed not to notice this scene, still fiddling with the skewer in his hands, making it rotate back and forth continuously.

Looking carefully, Gut suddenly realized this junior disciple had somehow closed his eyes, completely immersed in his own "art," no longer aware of heaven and earth.

Until Gut walked behind him and patted junior disciple Ross's shoulder with a complex expression, saying earnestly: "Junior disciple, restrain your divine powers."

"For this grilled fish work, I have other candidates."

"Hm?"

Only then did Ross stop in surprise, looking at the "charcoal-grilled fish bones" remaining in his hands, falling into silence.

After a long pause, Ross said hesitantly:

"Senior brother, did I not do well enough?"

"No, you did too well! Promise me, don't grill fish like this anymore. It's quite difficult to wash clothes in the wild."

Subsequently, Gut personally completed all the grilled fish himself.

The "flying fish everywhere" indoors and the "sticky fish bits" stuck to everyone's clothes were all magically cleaned by the now-awake Serie.

Although the process was quite bumpy, this morning's fish feast was still enjoyable.

Taking advantage of the pot of fish soup boiling over the fire, Gut opened the system interface and drew his previously obtained daily task reward.

[Random reward drawing in progress]

[Drawing complete]

[Congratulations host obtained special item—]

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Powerstones?

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