Chapter 5: 4 days after accepting the quest.

The morning after accepting the king’s request to treat her daughter’s anorexia. Princess Elizabeth’s bedroom.

I offered her the breakfast I had carefully cooked.

“It is breakfast. A dish called egg benedict.”

“Tsk. Even as a hero you do useless things. Since you cannot eat much anyway, just anything roughly…”

“Please do not say that, and try just one bite. It is such a pretty dish, is it not?”

-Slyly.

“It is certainly pretty but…”

The breakfast menu was the best brunch I could think of, spinach egg benedict.

The soft-boiled poached egg wrapped in savory golden hollandaise sauce looked beautiful as if clad in gold.

It was my prejudice, but a dish that women would likely like.

Yet the princess’s expression was not particularly eager.

“…It looks greasy. I feel like I will vomit if I eat it.”

“Just one bite, even if only for the sake of His Majesty the King.”

“……Hoo. I cannot refuse a handsome man’s request either. Fine. I will eat just one bite.”

“Yes. First split the egg, then soak the yolk thoroughly into the bread and eat.”

Looking down at the plate with a sullen expression, the princess only moved her hands after I mentioned even the king.

Choosing a fork and knife from among the unnecessarily many kinds of cutlery, she soon slowly cut the benedict.

Even to me who knew little of etiquette it was a motion that felt refined.

‘It must be hard eating while observing all that one by one. Poor thing.’

-Drip.

“…Oh.”

‘Fufu. Still the reaction is good.’

The poached egg that dripped radiant golden yolk the moment the knife brushed its body.

The princess unconsciously let out an exclamation at that beautiful sight.

It was a good sign.

-Slice slice. Stab.

With an entranced face the princess cut the well-toasted bread, the soft spinach, the crispy bacon, and the soft poached egg and stabbed them with the fork.

Only after thoroughly coating them with the homemade hollandaise sauce full of savory butter and the yolk did she bring the fork to her mouth.

It was a slightly larger ‘one bite’ than I had expected.

-Munch munch.

‘Indeed…’

The princess began slowly chewing with the food pushed into her mouth.

Whether it tasted better than she had imagined, a fleeting light of interest brushed her eyes.

-Chew chew.

“…….”

‘Oh, surprisingly little rejection reaction? This might be solved easily?’

I had heard it was serious anorexia, yet the princess was eating more deliciously than expected.

For a moment I held hope that she might eat it all saying it was delicious but……

Regrettably, the moment she swallowed the food in her mouth she set down the fork and knife like a knife.

-Clatter.

“It is delicious. I ate well.”

“If it is delicious you may eat a little more…”

“No need. Even now I forced myself to swallow.”

“…Yes. I will see you again at lunch. Princess.”

The egg benedict I had made so diligently remained more than ninety percent as is.

I left the princess’s room holding the almost untouched plate.

A woman who had been waiting continuously in front of the door spoke to me the moment she saw me.

“Angel-nim! How was it… Umm.”

“As you can see. Sir Arthur.”

“To leave even food that looks this delicious unfinished…”

Looking at the plate in my hand and lowering her brows in disappointment was the one-armed female knight who had been the protagonist of yesterday’s arm regeneration show. Arthur.

Since this morning when she shouted ‘I will offer my sword to Angel-nim! Please accept it!!’ she had been following me around continuously.

“That even Angel-nim’s miracle cannot reach, it is mortifying.”

‘…Hearing it over and over, this injeolmi bean rice cake of a fellow? Even when I tell her not to call me angel she keeps doing it.’

Even though I told her not to no matter how much, steadfastly calling me angel was a bonus.

Yet Arthur made a truly regretful expression.

The sight of the puppy-faced beauty looking as if about to cry appeared quite sorrowful.

“…….”

‘Sigh. I endure it because she is pretty.’

After inwardly pouring out curses like injeolmi bean rice cake and such, seeing Arthur’s expression contort made my heart weaken.

I decided to deliver hopeful news that would make her face brighten fully.

“Still she ate more than I expected. Fufu. The beginning is good.”

“…Is that so?”

“Yes! Although the princess left some, she said my cooking was delicious, did she not? It means she can eat up to one bite deliciously, so it is a good thing.”

“Hoo.”

I had worried that with anorexia serious enough to cause heart failure she might vomit while eating, yet unexpectedly she ate well up to one bite without particular rejection.

Moreover according to what I heard from the king yesterday, she was not deliberately refusing meals but simply could not eat much.

She somehow forced one bite but from the second bite she truly could not eat. Eating outside of original meal times was completely impossible so feeding her in multiple portions was also impossible.

——Considering all this, it was reasonable to think that the princess’s anorexia flared up from the second bite.

Eating only one bite in total across an entire meal, not even by menu.

A restriction terrible enough that suffering from malnutrition felt only natural.

But…

“If she can only eat one bite, then I just need to keep cooking the best one bite possible. Foods delicious enough that someday she will want to eat the next bite.”

“……Angel-nim is truly Angel-nim. How can you be so manly.”

‘I am saying I will do an Indian-style rain ritual of feeding until it works, why that reaction?’

When I organized my thoughts and revealed the quest strategy policy, Arthur’s expression was dyed with emotion.

…Until eating the hot dog her expression had been vacant and blank, yet was she actually a character with such varied expressions. Like a human golden retriever.

“I told you not to call me angel. At any rate, I will return to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Sir Arthur, please go do your own work now.”

“My work is to protect Angel-nim! I even received permission from His Majesty the King! Please order me anything!”

“You are not listening to me…?”

Afterward I left the inner palace together with her who clung tightly to my side.

The clue for solving the quest had already been grasped.

After that I spent every day enjoyably yet busily.

Because the cooking skill was a skill more fun to experiment with than I had imagined.

And… my main experiment subject was of course the princess.

“I ate well again today. Honestly I thought it was a waste of effort, but as expected you are a hero.”

‘Look at how her complexion improved. The effect is certain.’

Only four days had passed since the day of accepting the quest, yet she had already escaped the ‘malnutrition’ status.

This was entirely thanks to my cooking skill.

…How did malnutrition resolve so quickly when she only ate one bite each time?

[Additional Effect : Fairy’s Blessing (Legendary, Unique) – It is the blessing the great fairies bestow upon travelers’ food…! It makes even a small piece of bread nutritious enough to endure a day’s journey!]

I did not know either, but I found this in the cooking skill description window that had no end no matter how far I scrolled.

It was a skill like a parody of a certain legendary ring movie, but at any rate the effect was outstanding.

Filling the lacking nutrients with the fairy’s blessing, and recovering the body that could not adapt after suddenly receiving nutrients while suffering from deficiency with ‘Over Heal’.

Just by repeating these two routines, the haggard princess had already returned to the level of a somewhat thin person.

‘Now then… shall I check the status a bit? View.’

-Ding!

[Elizabeth von Hohenstein’s Current Status : [Anorexia] [Depression]]

‘Oh, besides malnutrition the lethargy has also disappeared?!’

When I briefly peeked at the status window, even her lethargy had already vanished.

A smile formed on its own at that sight which seemed to symbolize the saying that a healthy spirit dwells in a healthy body.

“But I feel strangely stronger…….”

“Perhaps it is just your imagination? Fufu.”

[Additional Effect : Jupiter’s Blessing (Mythic, Unique) – The blessing of Jupiter, god of the sky. While the blessing is maintained, the absolute values of all stats rise unconditionally by 2.]

‘This effect is certain too.’

Moreover she ingested my buff cooking for the first time today.

This buff was a broken buff that raised all stats by a full 2 each, and unconditionally at that, in a game where the maximum status was 10.

Having applied such a buff her physical condition was the best so far.

Unlike the past when she was so frail she was confined to the inner palace not knowing when she might collapse, now a little walking around would not affect her at all.

‘As long as the anorexia remains if I leave she will soon return to the original state.’

“At any rate, Princess. Shall we go then?”

Yet since the quest completion was still far I steeled my heart to do my best until the end without relaxing.

Afterward I held out my hand toward her.

It meant going to attend the ‘event’ that would be held in the royal palace, the reason I had even applied the buff today.

And———

“Yes. Let us go.”

-Grab.

Suddenly the princess wrapped her arm around my waist and clung tightly.

Despite being twenty-five years old her somewhat slender yet sufficiently soft chest pressed firmly against my shoulder.

At that sensation I forgot even keeping the concept and let out a stupid sound.

“…Hueeeng!!?”

“………Hero?”

‘Wh-why is she like this!? I almost broke the concept for a moment!!’

Unlike me, the princess looked at me with an expression as if it were nothing.

I spoke while desperately maintaining the mask.

“Um, that, I… I apologize, but your chest is touching…?”

“Ah… Pfft. And here I thought it was something. You are not perfect either, hero. To blush over a mere woman’s chest.”

“No, that is, um…”

“Endure until the audience chamber. When a royal escorts someone it must be like this.”

Even though I said her chest was touching, she began walking as if it were nothing.

At the ‘escort’ performed with the monstrous strength of strength stat 6.5, no, 8.5 after receiving the buff, I was dragged powerlessly without even being able to resist.

Feeling the soft sensation for the first time in my life to my heart’s content over my shoulder.

Thoughts like ‘Why is the woman doing the escort’, ‘You should be the one embarrassed, why the opposite’, ‘Is this genders reversed’ could not even be afforded right now.

———And a short while later.

Around the time we stood in front of the audience chamber, my face had turned red to the point it could not heat up any further.

‘Appropriate amount of water, three tablespoons of sugar, 1.5 kilos of short ribs for braising, seven tablespoons of soy sauce, cooking wine…….’

It was a mere ten minutes before the ‘Divine Beast Descent Ceremony’ that would greatly affect the adventures ahead.