Chapter 183: New Food

Hearing that Sora was going to cook for herself—and that it was something they had never eaten before—the hands holding the remaining pottery bowls silently pulled back.

Sora certainly wouldn’t care for the things they had brought.

Every time she made something, it was so delicious that it made their mouths water.

Sora noticed them putting their things away and looked up.

"Move aside. If you don’t go out, how am I supposed to make Knife-Cut Noodles for you?"

The morning’s secret rivalry among the men was quickly submerged beneath the temptation of Sora’s gourmet food.

Counting the days, it had been quite a while since they had eaten something truly delicious.

At this thought, the group fell silent in unison.

After washing up, Sora went to the Wild Kitchen.

To make delicious Knife-Cut Noodles, kneading a chewy, firm dough was very important.

She scooped some flour into a pottery basin according to the number of people, then tossed in a suitable amount of salt before adding water in several stages.

Just like when she had made Belt Noodles before, the kneaded dough had to achieve the standard of "clean hands, clean dough, and clean basin."

Simply put, there should be no extra flour on her hands, in the basin, or on the dough itself.

After repeatedly kneading and rubbing the dough, Sora finally got it smooth enough.

Next came the resting stage.

Sora covered the dough with cleaned broad leaves and set it aside.

While waiting for the dough to rest, Sora began preparing the side ingredients.

As the days passed, the variety of vegetables available wasn’t as rich as before, but Sora still managed to find some bright green wild vegetables. She kept only the tender tips and discarded the older parts.

Lately, the men had been using the kitchen quite frequently, and without realizing it, a lot of fish and meat had piled up there.

Sora took a piece of meat. She didn’t know who had hunted it, but there was no point worrying about that now.

She minced it with a Stone Knife, then stir-fried it in oil before adding bone broth and letting it simmer.

After preparing the meat sauce, she immediately started boiling a pot of water on the side.

By the time the water began to boil, the dough had rested sufficiently.

Now came the most critical step.

Sora placed the dough in her palm and used a knife to push outward perpendicularly, shaving off willow-leaf-shaped noodles that were thick in the middle and thin at the edges.

Back in the Apocalypse, she could shave noodles while balancing a dough ball on her head and using just one knife.

However, she was currently facing a bit of a problem.

The Stone Knife wasn’t as sharp as an iron one, making the shaving process extremely sluggish.

Sora managed to push a small piece of dough outward with great effort, but it came off as soft and shapeless, almost like a lump of mud.

If it continued like this, the noodles definitely wouldn’t taste good.

Sora thought for a moment before glancing at the men sitting around the round table.

"Which of you can shave tree bark?"

"Shave tree bark?"

Hearing this, the six beastmen looked surprised.

Lucas was especially puzzled.

"Why would you want to shave bark out of the blue?"

Xavier rolled his eyes at Lucas.

"Isn’t it obvious? She wants to shave the dough but can’t."

Lucas suddenly understood.

He looked seriously at the dough in Sora’s hand before shaking his head.

"If it were normal bark, my claws are sharp enough to shred it at any time. But this is dough. If I’m too fast, I’m afraid it’ll break. Kaelira, I can’t help you."

The other beastmen with claws thought the same as Lucas.

Their claws were too sharp. Using them to shave noodles would actually make them move too quickly.

Sora had asked them because she wanted to see whether their Supernatural Abilities could be useful.

But now it seemed they couldn’t help.

What a pity for her Knife-Cut Noodles.

It seemed today’s noodles were going to be a failure.

When she had time, she absolutely had to make an iron knife that could cut through things as easily as butter.

If for nothing else, it would definitely be useful for cutting vegetables.

Just as Sora sighed and prepared to use the Stone Knife to shave the noodles haphazardly, a cold voice rang out.

"I can try."

Sora was a little surprised when she saw who had spoken.

She really couldn’t imagine how a fish without claws could shave noodles.

"It’s okay. If you can’t shave it, I can use the Stone Knife," Sora said tactfully.

Ryan said nothing.

He pulled out a silvery-blue, iridescent scale from his chest, took the dough from Sora’s hand, and began shaving it with a rhythmic swish-swish.

As the dough danced between Ryan’s fingers, numerous noodle slices flew neatly into the pot.

Sora was amazed by the scene.

She had never expected that a fish scale could one day be used like this.

After shaving several times, Ryan looked at Sora and asked,

"Is this okay?"

Sora looked at the willow-leaf-shaped noodles in the pot and nodded.

"Ryan, I’ll come to you whenever I make Knife-Cut Noodles from now on. Those scales of yours didn’t grow for nothing."

Ryan’s ear tips turned slightly red.

Even though Sora was clearly talking nonsense, he didn’t refute her.

A Mermaid’s scales were extremely important. How could they possibly be used to shave dough?

But since Sora had praised him today, Ryan felt that using one of his scales to shave noodles was no big deal.

After the noodles were cooked, Sora poured the broth over them and sprinkled some wild fruit juice to serve as aged vinegar.

Thus, a bowl of fragrant Knife-Cut Noodles was ready.

Needless to say, everyone had a full meal for breakfast.

However, Sora felt that although the Knife-Cut Noodles were good, they were still missing something.

She could try to make it next time.

She didn’t know what had been wrong with her lately, but she particularly loved eating sour things and had also become somewhat prone to sleepiness.

That night, Sora fell asleep on the animal-hide bedding with her eyes half closed.

When she became thirsty during the night, she lifted the bedding and prepared to pour herself a glass of water.

Unexpectedly, as she opened her eyes dizzily, she saw a snake shimmering with a faint light flicker before her.

Terrified, Sora immediately held her breath and backed away.

However, before she could find a safe spot, she suddenly touched something furry.

Sora instantly closed her eyes and screamed,

"Someone come quickly! There’s a snake in this room!"

Hearing Sora’s voice, several people woke up bleary-eyed.

Seeing Sora’s face pale with fright, they walked over.

Lukan asked gently,

"Kaelira, what’s wrong?"

Hearing the familiar voice, Sora’s racing heart finally settled slightly.

She hurriedly opened her eyes and looked at Lukan.

"Lukan, quickly... look, there’s a snak—"

Before she could finish the word snake, Sora realized that she was surrounded by a Gray Wolf, a White Tiger, a Black Bear, a Phoneix, a Merman, and that purple snake that had nearly scared the life out of her.

She immediately understood what she had just seen.

Her face darkened as she looked at the six of them.

"What are you all doing in my room in the middle of the night instead of sleeping? Are you trying to scare me?"

They hadn’t even said a word.

She had almost started crying from fright just now.

That was a giant python!

The six of them clearly realized that Sora had screamed because they had frightened her.

They all remained silent until Lucas finally whispered,

"Since you won’t let us do the Night Guarding, we could only come to your room."

Sora: "?"

So they were here to corner her.

Sora looked at him gloomily.

"What do you want?"

Hearing this, Lucas plucked up his courage and said,

"Why don’t you let us do the Night Guarding? If you don’t want so many people, you can just pick one."

Sora hadn’t expected these people to be so persistent.

However, thinking about the upgrade of that dramatic brain, she didn’t directly refuse this time.

She glanced at them.

"Tomorrow, then! I’ll give you an answer."

...

The next morning, Sora placed a pile of shaved bamboo sticks on the round table.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Same old rules. Whoever draws the first one is ranked first."