The Drake steaks were taking a long while to cook, and with fifteen people here, I was about to make something large for everyone when Liane stopped me.

"Just prepare for our group. You have no obligation to prepare for everyone—they'll all have their own food. If you're feeling especially kind, you can prepare a bunch of extra stuff and sell it to them. But see Milo regarding selling it," she said.

I was a little taken aback. I had always just prepared for everyone—could I really charge people?

My plans were thrown off a little by this, as I had intended to just do a giant roast big enough for everyone. And honestly, I was still going to stick to the roast with the giant oven. I pulled the Baelvryn out of storage. I had used it several times already, so it wasn't whole, but my goal today was to remove an entire back leg for roasting.

It wasn't too difficult, but I did need to get Jen's assistance in separating it from the body of the creature, and I certainly gained a lot of attention while doing so. But if the dragon tail and drake hadn't already had them asking questions… what would a bear do?

Once the leg was free, I was happy with the size—it was far more food than I'd need to feed the six of us, or even everyone here if they paid. But I got to work on some sides. I pulled out several onions, tubers, and carrots, dicing them up and placing them in a bowl with some Buvul tallow, which quickly melted as I took it closer to the oven.

Coating them with the fat, using a combination of the dried herbs I had, along with salt and pepper. I knew that if I gave Crisplet Thornroot right now, we'd get the Sanguine Ascendance effect, so I was careful not to do that—just in case the others did eat it.

Once the veg was coated with the seasoning mix and oil, I took them out of the bowl and placed them on a stone plate, ready to be baked. I then took the remaining fat and seasoning mixture and coated the outside of the Baelvryn leg.

Milo had to custom-make a baking tray large enough to hold it, but he was happy to do so.

Lastly, I portioned out twenty rolls. I added the dried herbs to ten of them, leaving the other ten plain without any extra ingredients.

Looking over at the giant oven, by this stage it was glowing brightly—Crisplet had really turned the whole thing into a fiery domain. I took another couple of bites of my roll to get fire immunity again, before starting to take everything in.

I placed all three items near the drake steaks, which were now getting a deep dark brown colour on the outside—and honestly, they smelled amazing. If Lily wasn't attracted here with all the food smells… I didn't know what would.

It took only twenty minutes for Crisplet to signal that the rolls were ready. Taking them out first filled the room with the fresh scent of baked bread. At this stage, I didn't infuse any of them—I just let them cool.

After only an hour more, Crisplet had me move the vegetables to a cooler part, and also signalled that the drake steaks were ready, leaving just the roast leg in the middle of the oven.

Rather than trying to carry both of the giant steaks, I stored them straight from the oven. Coming outside, I asked Milo for a large stone platter to hold them. I quickly had both in front of me—the smell was amazing—and multiple people in the room had their eyes on it.

"Don't sneak a bite of this one. It might burn out your mana channels," I said with a chuckle, before using Infuse on both of them. Once that was done, I pulled out the sickly green orb that was the essence of the leaf-bladed spider.

I promptly used it on one of the steaks, causing a few raised eyebrows—and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about showing off my skills like this in front of so many unknowns, especially after all the warnings.

I'd managed a short chat with Hari while the food was cooking, and he said it was a gamble—but at the end of the day, if I could essentially summon the Shadow Cat at will, that should act as an incredible deterrent for pretty much everyone. The more witnesses to that, the better.

I left the steaks out, hoping they'd be noticed by Lily. Did she need to be inside to sense them?

After another hour had passed, Crisplet gave me the signal that the leg was ready as well. Heading into the oven—and nearly getting burned again before I redid my fire immunity—I stored the leg and brought it out to the main area.

Once outside, I brought it out of storage and placed the vegetables—which were a perfect golden brown—next to the roast, along with the rolls. I then proceeded to use Infuse on each item.

Liane was first in line to help herself, but I noticed that even once she had her food, she sat close.

Sarah was the first to approach, but she didn't try to just take the food. Instead, she came over and asked if she could buy some. I looked helplessly at Milo, who took over and quickly reached an agreement: one silver per meal.

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I'm sure he could have gotten far more if he had leaned into the buffs, but instead he simply asked that their party keep quiet about what buffs they received—and they easily agreed.

Sarah paid five silver, and her party each grabbed some meat, veg, and a roll.

Several members of Greg's group were eyeing us as we ate, but Greg himself was gnawing on a hard piece of jerky. Despite pretending not to look at the roast, I definitely caught him glancing over several times.

It didn't take long—after some whispered encouragement from his party—before he broke. Rising to his feet, he started heading over… but was immediately stopped in his tracks by a familiar pressure.

"It worked!" I said excitedly, rushing over to the butchery room and pulling the tail back out of storage.

Lily hadn't shown herself yet, but her presence was unmistakable—and everyone felt it. Greg hadn't taken another step. In fact, the entire room had frozen.

"Lily! I have food for you!" I called out, looking around in hopes of spotting her.

She finally appeared—right behind me—emerging from my own shadow. I barely had time to react before Crisplet came charging out of the oven in a volatile red colour… only to stop short when he saw Lily, releasing a bright burst of sparks in recognition.

Lily had clearly noticed the little elemental too, but her attention immediately shifted back to the two steaks.

I pointed at the one with the essence. "This one is special. Stronger," I said.

She ate it whole in one bite—then turned her gaze to the second. I realised I had to speak up quickly, or she might just eat and vanish again.

"Uh, Lily, we can't cut the dragon's tail. Is there any way you'd be able to help?" I asked, feeling a little nervous.

She glanced from me to the giant tail, then back at the drake. A moment later, she vanished.

Right before my eyes, the tail split cleanly in half.

She reappeared beside the second steak—but didn't eat it. Instead, she picked it up in her mouth. After a final glance, she vanished—steak and all.

"Terrifying," I muttered.

Looking around, I saw most people still frozen in place. Greg's eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open as he stared between the spot where Lily had stood and the dragon tail—now neatly sliced in two.

Micca looked particularly rattled. I realised this was probably the first time she'd seen the cat—and she was easily the lowest-level person in the room, being that she was still only level fourteen.

Looking back at my own group, I saw Liane already back to eating like nothing had happened. She always seemed to recover the fastest. Jen, meanwhile, was making her way toward Micca—likely to reassure her or check that she was okay.

What surprised me the most was Milo, who was now wandering over to the tail.

"So many lost…" I heard him mumble.

"Something wrong?" I asked curiously.

"So many lost scales," was all he said.

I hadn't even considered that. Knowing I wouldn't be cooking the tail tonight, I walked over and stored the two halves, snapping Milo out of his trance. Gradually, everyone in the room came back to their senses.

Greg just went back and sat down again, and in the end, it was one of his party members who came over to ask about purchasing some food. Eventually, everyone in that party—besides Greg—ended up paying and eating.

Nothing was said about the Cat. Well, nothing loud enough for me to overhear anyway. Quickly, everyone returned to their watch or went to get some rest before their shift.

I stored away everything that was left over, dropped off some more wood for Crisplet to build with, and decided it was time to get some sleep.

Tomorrow, we'd be cooking that dragon tail—and I was excited to see it done.

The next morning, I didn't bother with any fancy breakfast. I just pulled out some of the pre-made fruit pastries I'd bought from the baker. I didn't have enough of them to share with the other parties, but no one seemed to mind.

After that, Jen and I got to work on the tail. I pulled out just one half, and despite it still being difficult, we were now able to cut between the flesh and skin to separate it.

It actually took several hours before we were done, and I was worried the meat would spoil. I remembered lessons from Martin and Geo, who both told me that if you left fresh meat out for even an hour, it was long enough to go bad—but Jen assured me that mana-rich meat lasts much longer in the open than regular creature meat.

Once we'd finished separating the skin from the flesh, I was surprised when Hari came over to store it instead of Jen, like usual. I learned later that it was in case we were targeted—this would put the focus on Hari instead of Jen. It didn't exactly fill me with confidence, considering I still had the other half in my own inventory.

With the tail, I didn't see any need to cut it down smaller and proceeded to season it whole. With something this large, I didn't want to waste all my supplies—but I also didn't want to serve the dragon a bad meal.

In the end, I went very liberal on the salt and pepper, and created a few pockets in the meat where I placed whole onions and some Mana Truffle. Since it was a forest dragon, I figured embracing that earthiness would suit it—if you could even taste such a small amount across meat this large.

In each pocket, I added a small amount of dried herbs. I knew they wouldn't add flavour you could actually detect, but maybe they'd affect the buffs?

Since we weren't going to be eating it… did it even matter?

I ended up not using anything else on it and took it to the oven—where once again I needed a fire immunity buff to get inside. After eating a roll, I pulled out the prepared tail and placed it in the oven. It was the first thing that made the oven not seem comically oversized.

I gave Crisplet more treant wood, which he happily started burning straight away. I noticed that the structure he'd built this time couldn't be called just a building or tower—it looked like a mini city, all made from coal and ash.

Leaving him to his cooking. I'd need to inspect it in more detail later.

I figured the tail half would take most of the day to cook, so I had to fill the time until then.

Maybe now's a good time to pull out that cookbook and see if there's anything I can make?

A fun dessert, perhaps.

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