Chapter 167: Eating

She was the Elven Princess, Ethan never expected to run into the Elven Princess in a place like this, he looked down at the girl before him and nodded politely.

"You must be Mr. Ethan, right?"

"You know him?"

"My royal father mentioned you, you are the only human..." Indeed, besides Ethan, there were no other humans in this world, it wasn’t strange that she knew him.

"Why are you here?" Mirelle stood beside Ethan, looking around, a dignified princess should have guards around her, yet, aside from that lavish carriage, there wasn’t another soul in sight.

"Were you attacked by monsters?"

"...It wasn’t monsters."

"Then it was someone else? What exactly happened?"

The princess hemmed and hawed for a long time before taking a deep breath, she looked up at Ethan, her eyes filled with fear. "Among my original guards, some of them tried to kidnap me."

’Marquis Karloitz.’ Ethan was certain of it.

He looked at the trembling Irena and smiled wryly, although he had no interest in political struggles, Marquis Karloitz’s target was the Great Forest, from that perspective, they were enemies, and since they were enemies, he couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, if Marquis Karloitz wanted the princess, then he absolutely couldn’t let her fall into his hands.

"Should we help her, meow?"

"Then let’s help her."

"R-Really?"

"However, our help is limited, after all, we have our own destination..."

"Your destination is...?"

"We’re going to visit Marquis Ambric’s territory first, and then we’ll leave the Elven Kingdom and head to the dwarven city in the Black Mountain Range."

"What a coincidence, my destination is also Marquis Ambric’s territory."

"In that case, let’s travel together, we’ll ensure your safety along the way."

"Th-thank you..." Perhaps due to being chased earlier, or perhaps because of her current situation, Irena was still visibly shaken.

Ethan figured Pearl could calm her down, so he handed Pearl over. "Pearl, keep Her Highness the Princess company and talk to her."

"I understand, meow~" Perhaps thanks to Pearl’s fluffy touch, Irena’s complexion looked a little better.

"Why don’t you rest in the carriage for now?"

"Thank you..."

"And the driver..."

"I’m not a driver, I’m Her Highness’s maid, the driver, he..." Hearing the maid’s sorrowful tone, Ethan could roughly guess what happened, the guards had likely met with disaster.

Ethan offered the maid a few words of comfort and had her get into the carriage as well.

"What do you plan to do?"

"We’ll just hitch the carriage to the flatbed cart and pull them together." With the Blood Jade Beast’s strength, pulling both the flatbed cart and the carriage shouldn’t be a problem.

Ethan connected the carriage and the flatbed cart, then tried to control the Blood Jade Beast, the massive Blood Jade Beast let out a low growl and pulled the carts forward with ease.

"Won’t this consume too much mana?"

"As long as we let it rest after walking for a while, it should be fine."

"Don’t push it too hard, if worse comes to worst, I can help pull the cart." Mirelle smiled and patted Ethan’s shoulder, she climbed into the driver’s seat of the carriage, as expected of a high-class carriage, even the driver’s seat was lined with soft cushions, Mirelle lay on it comfortably, eating dried fruit.

Seeing this, Ethan couldn’t help but chuckle, then climbed onto the flatbed cart.

"What about those horses?"

"Don’t worry." Mirelle used her spider silk to tie the horses up, making them obediently follow behind the flatbed cart.

"Where is our next destination?"

"Let’s go to the Seed Vault first." Ethan had promised someone he would deliver the rice and exchange it for other seeds.

"What seeds do you want to trade for?"

"Let me think... let’s trade for some barley."

"Barley? What use is that thing?"

"It can be used to brew beer."

"Oh, beer, the dwarves’ favorite alcohol."

"You know about beer?"

"I’ve seen a few dwarves enter the Great Forest in the past, and the beer they brought was incredibly delicious..."

"That’s wonderful, when I go to the dwarven city this time, I’ll bring some beer back for you."

Ethan also wanted to compare the dwarves’ brewed beer with his own to see the difference, Mirelle was a seasoned alcoholic — her evaluation should be quite reliable.

"Haha, then I’ll leave it to you!"

"No problem, let’s speed up then."

At dusk.

Ethan and his group arrived at an abandoned campsite and stopped to rest.

"Are we spending the night here, meow?" Pearl poked her head out of the carriage and asked Ethan.

The Blood Jade Beast’s mana was almost depleted, it was time to rest, Ethan nodded.

Mirelle jumped down from the carriage’s driver seat. "Are we resting already?"

"Let’s eat dinner first."

"Hehe, I can’t wait, Ethan, what are we eating tonight?"

"We’ll just eat what we usually have."

"We have some dry rations here too." The maid brought out a bag of dry rations from the storage compartment at the back of the carriage, these were high-grade dry rations exclusively for the royal family.

But Mirelle curled her lips in disgust. "You guys eat that; we want something hot."

"It’s alright, Your Highness, you can just eat with us," Ethan offered.

"Will... will that be too much trouble for you?"

"Not at all, cooking for two more people isn’t a hassle."

"T-then, thank you." A long-absent smile finally appeared on Irena’s face.

"You seem to like Pearl a lot?"

"She’s fluffy and very talkative, we’ve already become good friends."

"That’s good." Irena’s personality seemed pretty nice, if Liora were here, they would probably become good friends too, Ethan thought to himself that if there was a chance in the future, he definitely had to introduce them to each other.

As he thought this, he began to start a fire to cook.

"What are we eating tonight, meow?"

"Omurice."

"I’m looking forward to it, meow, Irena, the omurice Ethan makes is super delicious, meow~"

"You mentioned before that Mr. Ethan’s cooking is incredibly delicious, I’m really looking forward to it more and more."

"I hope I won’t disappoint you."

"Even if it isn’t tasty, I’d still look forward to it."

"Haha, understood, you can go rest for now."

While the others rested by the fire, Ethan began preparing dinner.

This was Irena’s first time seeing someone cook so fluidly and smoothly, she stared intently at Ethan, her eyes filled with curiosity.

"Do you know how to cook?" she asked her maid.

"I only know how to make a few simple dishes, I’m afraid I could never learn to be as skilled as him in my lifetime..." The maid, just like Irena, was full of praise for Ethan’s culinary skills.

Ethan moved quickly, before long, several servings of golden omurice were ready, he drizzled them with a sauce simmered from Moonlight Tomatoes, then handed the first portion to the princess. "Eat it while it’s hot."

"Are... are the others not eating together?"

"I’ll be done with theirs right away."

"T-then... I won’t stand on ceremony..."

The golden omurice, paired with the bright red Moonlight Tomato sauce, looked incredibly tempting, compared to the dishes in the royal palace, this one seemed somewhat ordinary, yet for some reason, Irena was full of anticipation for it.