16. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Cody
Wednesday couldn’t come fast enough. His date with Morgan was still days away, and he needed a distraction to keep himself busy.
Making his usual rounds with the Residents didn’t take much time.
How to Friendship Level up Doug was still a mystery and Cody had yet to run into Gracie again.
He also needed a break from Bob’s little fishing quest. The last few times he tried, he didn’t have any luck.
It was just him and the silent cottage. He was sitting on the couch, trying to read, but not even a mighty hero breeding bunnykin girls could keep his attention. He kept reading the same paragraph over and over, because as soon as he reached the end, he realized he hadn’t really read it.
He looked over to the kitchen, where the oven sat waiting. He would need to make something for dinner, and he really didn’t want to make another one of those shitty microwave meals. Today was as good as any to experiment with the magic game oven.
He brought up Map and he instantly spotted Doug’s glowing white dot in the middle of the Food Mart, right next to the glowing red dot labeled as Morgan.
Cody was pretty sure the white dot represented a Resident he had yet to earn any Friendship Levels with, and the green dots were for Residents he was working on.
Morgan was the only red dot, and he figured that was because she was the only woman he was romancing.
With Doug working in the Food Mart, that meant he’d have to go all the way to Milltown to pick up some groceries. At least that would kill more time. He put the diner receipt he was using as a bookmark between the pages of his book to save his place and grabbed his car keys.
The drive was long. And boring. And he only had a handful of radio stations to keep him company. It would have been nice to have a friend to chat with while on his little road trip, but he shoved that thought from his mind. He didn’t want a certain someone to think he was being missed.
At the Milltown grocery store, Cody bought a bunch of sugar, flour, milk, eggs, dried herbs and spices, a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies, and various cuts of meat.
After he cashed out and was back in his car, he grabbed each of the grocery items and sent them into his Inventory.
He figured it’d work as it usually did and keep everything perfectly fresh as long as it was in there.
He checked his Recipes and was elated when he saw the long list of white-colored titles, meaning he now had a ton of meals at his disposal.
On the drive back to Cornerstone, Cody tuned into a country music radio station to fill the silence. He’d had plenty of arguments with Knife before, but for some reason their most recent one got extra heated. And Knife had never given Cody the silent treatment before.
During their argument, Knife had called Cody his only friend, which made sense, since he was the only person he could talk to.
But if he thought about it, Cody considered Knife to be his best friend, even if he wasn’t his only friend.
Cody had been a bit of a mess when he first arrived in Velasarin.
It wasn’t every day you got isekai’d into a magical fantasy land and were expected to dungeon crawl for a living.
But he’d had Knife. Since his very first month in Velasarin, he had Knife.
In his mind, commenting on his thoughts, always there.
Helping and explaining things. But also getting lots of stuff incorrect.
They’d had fights before and Cody kind of thought it was their schtick that they talked shit to each other.
They did it all the time. But this was the first time he heard Knife sound that pissed off.
And it was the first time that Knife just up and disappeared.
It was fucking annoying, because Cody was pretty sure Knife could still see into his mind.
He was like a lurker on a message board now.
Always there, reading shit, but never participating.
Cody hoped messing around with the oven would take his mind off Knife being a dick.
And off waiting for his date with Morgan.
He started with something simple: a spinach and cheese omelet.
He followed the available recipe and put a couple eggs, some fresh spinach, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and a slice of cheese in a pan and stuck it in the oven.
Even though it would normally have been a stovetop thing, the game still instructed him to stick the batch of ingredients it in the oven.
Whatever. He clicked on the [COOK] button and five seconds later he had a piping hot omelet.
He devoured the omelet as his dinner. As soon as he was done, he started scrolling through the list of Recipes, making mental notes of what he could make for tomorrow’s dinner. But a pink game box popped up:
[System Notification: You are now entering a Musical Montage. Enjoy!]
“What? No!” Cody shouted.
But it was too late. The sounds of a Parisian accordion mixed with Japanese pop vocals filled the kitchen and, against his will, Cody started cooking on auto drive.
One two…one two three four!
Cook it up!
Cook it up!
Cook it up! Up! Up!
-
Apple pie!
Cinnamon roll!
Extra creamy casserole!
-
Yummy yummy in my tummy!
Cooking food so very funny!
-
Cook it up!
Cook it up!
Cook it up! Up! Up!
-
Banana pudding!
Steak tartare!
Make some jam inside a jar!
Spicy meat loaf!
En-chi-la-da!
Yes, I would love some pasta!
-
Cook it up!
Cook it up!
Cook it up! Up! Up!
Cooking dance party time! Yay!
-
Let’s Go!
Ichi…ni…ichi-ni-san-shi! Let’s go-go-go!
Cooking dance party! Woo-hoo!
So much food inside my belly!
-
Cook it up!
Cook it up!
Cook it up! Up! Up!
-
It felt like he blinked, the music came to a dramatic end, and he was sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by elaborate dishes of food.
It was very similar to the fishing trip with Morgan, where the day seemed to be over far too quickly.
He glanced at the clock on the oven and it read four o’clock.
Three hours had gone by? How? Cody wondered. And why the fuck does this game have musical montages?
He half expected Knife to come up with a probable suggestion, but once again was met with silence. Cody did remember Temica saying something about Henry enjoying music. Was an albino parrot writing music for the game? And what exactly triggered a montage?
Cody was left with zero answers. He had no idea what the logical thought process of a parrot dabbling in game music would be, and it would be crazy to even try and make sense of it.
On the plus side, he had his Inventory, so he started tossing the fully cooked meals in there. He could take them out when he was actually ready to eat them and they’d be as good as the day they were cooked.
Cody sighed and decided to kick back on the couch and try to read again.
Before he opened the paperback, he sent a quick lovey-dovey text with pink hearts to Morgan.
He sat there, phone in hand, staring at the screen.
But she didn’t write back. He frowned and tossed the phone on the couch next to him.
Morgan had mentioned she abided by Doug’s ‘no phones’ rule if she was babysitting Gracie or at work, so it might be a while before he received a reply.
He did a quick check on his Map and saw she was with Gracie at Doug’s place, so that confirmed it.
Cody ended up reading for the rest of the night.
Morgan eventually replied, sending him a good night message right before bedtime with a heart and a sleepy face, so he didn’t call her.
He knew from back-in-the-day experience that the sleepy emoji meant she actually needed to sleep and didn’t want to get caught up talking to him for two hours if he called.
He was a little bit bummed, but he reminded himself he’d be seeing her in-person soon enough.