Don’t Take Life Too Seriously; You Might get Food Poisoning

I let out a tired sigh as I wrote down another measurement. That Linglang! If not cranking out redundant calculations, he had me running off to fetch measurements, such as in this stairway, where I now found myself. At least he used the hozenlo system of weights and measures, a system akin to metric, so everything was nice and logical.

"There you are, Olavir!" A female voice broke me out of my tedium-induced stupor. I turned to see a maid servant standing at the bottom of the stairwell. Did I know her? Of course I did. I knew all the servants by this point. This one, I think, was technically Sistilla's personal attendant—like Tissa to Amillia. Only Sistilla insisted on asserting her independence, so this girl usually only handled the things she really, really didn't like to do, poor girl. What was her name again?

"Lady Sistilla told me to bring you to the kitchens as soon as I could." She started climbing the stairs. I stretched out, cracking my neck. 11 years old is too young for such aches.

"Sorry, but Linglangs has me taking measur—!" She grabbed me by the arm and dragged my splayed body down the stain-polished stairs.

"You can do that whenever, Sistilla is ready for you NOW." Sistilla's assertiveness must have rubbed off on her servant, because she continued escorting me despite my protests. I nearly tripped down the stairs several times—not that it would have mattered, as she already carried most of my weight. The plight of being a juvenile small creature; I was at the beck and call of anyone with enough insistence to use physical force. Well, I guessed I would rather cook than measure stair width.

We entered the markedly superior kitchen for the noble occupants, with copious amounts of counter space, several engraving-powered heating apparatuses, to say nothing of the tools and strangely shaped containers I had never seen. Several cooks bustled about, preparing tonight's dinner. Even still, the kitchen seemed empty as their activities only required a corner of the kitchen, while still giving themselves plenty of elbow room. One had to wonder why they required such a large space. Probably just the noble need for grandeur. However, it served well today, as Sistilla had requisitioned an entire corner to herself with no disruption to the diligent chefs.

"Olavir! Great timing!" Sistilla exclaimed, looking up while stirring a basketball-sized cauldron. "I just finished preparing something, so you can gauge my level of proficiency." I don’t think I had ever seen her so eager, and she wasted no time pouring whatever she had just concocted into a ceramic bowl.

I started having doubts. She had claimed—or at least implied—she had no cooking proficiency. And if she were starting from zero, I could show her the basics. But if she could stir a pot, she had at least as much skill as I. Now that I thought about it, asking me to teach cooking would be like asking someone who could whistle a tune to instruct you in opera singing. I already regretted my decision to help.

"Here! Tell me what you think," She said with a smile and placed a bowl of... Wait, what the hell was this!? An unnerving shade of purple radiated from the bowl and bubbled like lava from Bowser's castle. I would tell you what it smelled like, but the odor paralyzed my olfactory receptors and caused my eyes to water. What dwelled within this concoction? Whatever it was, it would be great for disposing of a dead body, or a living body, if you were particularly sadistic.

"Well, go ahead and try it." She encouraged me, standing with her hand clasped loosely in front and awaiting my judgment while wearing an over-the-top smile. I looked back from her to the alien amalgamation and curled my lip.

"I'm not sure what I did to offend you, but if you wanted me dead, surely there are easier methods…" Did I think Sistilla wanted me dead? It was safe to assume she at least wanted me to suffer, though perhaps she underestimated the lethality of this "food," which could more accurately be described as a poison. "Was it the Norboro children? If so, I assure you, I meant no offense."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Her smile faltered, looking confused and a little perturbed.

"Look, this is clearly poison. If you wanted me to ingest it without question, then you should have made it less obvious." Wait, maybe I should be more conciliatory... "Once again, I sincerely apologize for whatever offense I have given," I said and gave a deep formal bow. Just to be clear, I wasn't begging for clemency. However, I did have a generally favorable opinion of Sistilla and would like to maintain amiable relations without having to drink poison hemlock in recompense.

"...Poison!?" Her smile fell, vanquished, and she staggered back like I had just tried to stab her. Now I started to doubt myself. Was Sistilla such a good actor? Quite the opposite, she seemed to wear her emotions on her sleeve.

"Surely you realize..." Guilt crept onto my face. "That this is not edible... At least not if you wish to live." She recovered a little, standing up straight, but now with a defensive quality to her posture and a shadow clouding her features.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… It is this unnatural shade of purple. And..." I pulled the spoon out to judge its viscosity, only to find the end of the spoon mostly dissolved. Strange that it didn't affect the bowl... Maybe because it was porcelain? Wait, wasn't the cooking pot…

A loud hiss issued from the stove as the bottom of the cook pot gave out. We twisted our heads around in time to see the substance spilled across the counter and began eating through various tools. Luckily, it didn't seem to burn through the counter itself, being made of granite or some such.

Sistilla folded over in defeat. "This is even worse than last time..."

"...Last time?"

"Yeah," She looked up with a sniffle. "Last time, it only paralyzed the tongue for a month. It didn't melt the spoon or cook pot..."

"So you did intend to punish me!"

"No!" She shouted. "Sigh, I thought it would turn out different this time. Guess the cooks were right to refuse me." I looked over at the cooks on the other side of the room. It hadn't noticed, but they were eyeing us with worried looks, and pressing as far to the other side of the kitchen as practicality would allow.

"Okay, just to be clear. You had no malicious intent towards me?"

"Of course not! Why would you even think that??"

"Maybe because you are making food with acid made for etching glass?"

"I didn't put any acid in the food," she said blankly.

"Then how did you make this??" If not acid, the main ingredient had to be demonic toe fungus.

"I just did as the chef told me." I raised an eyebrow. "Really!" She asserted.

"Alright!" Arguing would get us nowhere. "Show me your process, and we will go from there."

"OKAY!"

And so the process began. She gathered the ingredients: meat, various fresh vegetables, some of which I had eaten before, some beef stock—which I checked beforehand... I watched as she began the one-hour-long alchemic process, methodically chopping and adding the ingredients to the cauldron and stirring when appropriate... And that is all I can say.

By the end, through forces unknown to man or mortals, she had somehow managed to transform farm-fresh ingredients into something that looked like it was scraped from the bowels of the Event Horizon. I looked between the leftover ingredients—so fresh, so pure—and the end result: a crime against nature. I couldn't even tell you when it happened. It was like that missing frame back when sparring with Moonlight Guardian, only worse.

"How did you do this...?" I looked on in dumbfounded amazement.

"I don't know..." She said, voice breaking. "I just did as I was instructed..."

I scratched my head. I couldn't say anything. All I could do was question my understanding of reality. But one thing was certain: this was not something I could fix.

"I'm sorry, Sistilla. There is no way I can help you with this problem." Tears were now leaking from her eyes. "B-But! If you ever wanted to get into the poison trade, yours would be second to none!" This only caused her to start sobbing. Of course it would. I've never been much for consoling.

"Now how will I ever be a proper wife for Prince Orland..." She said between sobs.

"...Wait. Is that why you are so upset?" She nodded her head. "But you're a noble. I don't think the inability to cook is a deal breaker. If I'm not mistaken, the only responsibility a noble woman has is to produce children..." Wait, that is insensitive, isn't it? Not to mention highly demeaning of female value. "Sorry..."

She didn't seem to mind, though. "How else can I show my love?" She whimpered. I could think of several better ways, but wisdom prevailed this time, and I held my tongue.

"I told you, Sistilla." Her servant said abruptly, having returned from wherever she had gone after delivering me. "It was a bad idea to denounce Lilaquith, and now you are cursed!"

"...Cursed?" I said, not hiding the condescension.

"That's right," she said, confident in her diagnosis. "It's not wise to overtly disrespect a god, especially in their own temple." I still wasn't sold on this "god" idea, and I was especially sceptical of their ability to levy curses upon blasphemers.

"Are you saying this... Lilaquith, gave Sistilla a curse that turns her food into S-tier poison?"

"Well, my guess would be that it actually applies to all forms of homemaking." A curse that made you terrible at running a household? It sounded ridiculous. Then again, that would explain the children from yesterday…

"I didn't even intend to offend Lilaquith!" Sistilla spat out suddenly. "I was just angry at Father, who was..." She trailed off.

"Offering a prayer to make you more amenable to domestic life?" I suggested.

"Yeah! He had no right to ask for such a thing!" Her temper dried those tears in a hurry.

"...You spit on her statue," She said bluntly. "I was there. And it wasn't just a little saliva either. You dug deep for that loogy." Sistilla blushed and turned away. As much as I wanted to discredit her assessment, I was at a loss for how such a culinary transformation was possible.

Sistilla eventually said through inflated checks. "Then what should I do about it?"

"Well, I would reckon you would need to pay a visit to a temple of Lilaquith and ask the priestess what you can do to atone."

"Hmmm..." It didn't appear as though Sistilla relished the idea, but she looked to be giving it serious consideration through her stony visage.