Even I had to admit that the inventory was a seriously overpowered ability.
Even with a weight-reduction enchantment, a tent was still a tent. It took up quite a bit of space, so it was hard to carry multiple ones in a bag.
But with the same product, I could store tons of it in a single inventory slot.
Which meant I had several more of those single-person tents in my inventory.
It seemed a bit excessive, but you could never have too many spares.
"Are you so unmanly that you can't yield your sleeping quarters to a lady?"
How absurd.
"Since when are you calling me a man? Where's the pervert who was calling me that a moment ago?"
"Ugh…!"
For the record, I'm not the type to hold grudges or be petty.
This squabble wasn't some childish revenge for what happened during the day, I just wanted to tease Cheon Yeohwa, who seemed to have a strong personality.
When else would I get the chance to tease Cheon Yeohwa? I couldn't even bring myself to talk to her normally!
"If you really want to sleep in the tent, you can sleep with me."
"So, you're finally showing your true colors, you lecherous fiend!"
"Trust me, I'll just hold your hand."
"I don't have an older brother like you! And we are not at all in a position to hold hands!"
"Too bad."
See, her reaction is better than I thought.
It's fun to tease her like a cute doll that shrinks when you press it.
"Then you can sleep outside."
Of course, it wasn't like I was completely unaffected by being called a pervert all day, but it was more fun to tease Cheon Yeohwa.
Cheon Yeohwa didn't seem to expect me to refuse to yield, and I could practically hear her brain working overtime.
"…What do you want?"
Now, Cheon Yeohwa, trying to get me to the negotiating table, had a determined look on her face.
And the way she tightly fastened her collar showed a gap moe that didn't quite match her identity as the Heavenly Demon Sect's young mistress.
"What do I want? I already told you."
"S-sleeping together is out of the question!"
Cheon Yeohwa's face was as red as could be, and it looked like it would burst any second.
But what was this woman thinking?
"Sleeping together?"
"Didn't you say you were going to h-hold my hand and sleep…?"
"I was talking about why you're going to Xi'an? I asked you earlier, but you didn't tell me."
"…What?"
At that moment, Cheon Yeohwa's sharp eyes widened.
"Of course, I was just kidding about sleeping together."
When I jokingly said that with an innocent look on my face, Cheon Yeohwa's expression soured.
"Eek…!"
She glared at me fiercely, looking furious, then turned around and went into the tent.
It was like a cat claiming its spot.
Before I knew it, I lost the tent.
As I stared blankly at the scene of being evicted by the tenant, the setting sun completely disappeared over the mountains.
I was wondering if I should take out another tent to sleep in, when my stomach started growling for food.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn't eaten a single meal since entering the martial arts world. But I had been walking all day, so there was no way my stomach wouldn't stage a large-scale peasant revolt.
'But isn't she hungry?'
Even for a martial artist, Cheon Yeohwa's level shouldn't be high enough to skip meals.
She wasn't on a diet, was she?
"Aren't you going to eat dinner?"
"…"
Cheon Yeohwa, who had made a nest in the tent, didn't answer.
She seemed to be sulking badly.
'Was I a bit too harsh?'
Thinking about it carefully, I thought she might have felt my words were a bit rude for the Heavenly Demon Sect's young mistress.
I think I approached her with too much of a modern sensibility.
But I didn't know how to soothe a woman's anger.
'Would she feel better if I made her something delicious?'
Thinking about how happy she looked every time she ate chocolate, it wasn't an entirely impossible idea.
But what should I make?
'What ingredients do I have with me now?'
For the record, the time inside the inventory stops for food. If I ordered Jajangmyeon and put it in the inventory right away, time would stop and I could enjoy noodles that wouldn't be soggy at any time.
But filling the inventory with delivery food was something I had eaten so much of while living alone that I was getting tired of it, so I didn't want to eat delivery food for every meal here.
Instead, I swept up expensive beef at the supermarket, something I would never even consider eating normally. I also got various spices and butter.
Of course, there was the problem of the inventory becoming insufficient as the number of ingredients increased, but I didn't want to be so meticulous about the ingredients, since I was doing it to eat and live.
The ratio of food in my inventory and bag was 60% high-calorie emergency rations and 40% expensive and hard-to-find ingredients like beef.
For the record, about 40% of the emergency rations were packaged delivery foods. To be honest, there wasn't much that tasted good to fill it all with emergency rations.
But I was too lazy to cook every day, so I didn't want to increase the proportion of ingredients.
Even if I got tired of eating it every day, what I was used to was still the best.
'I've decided.'
The menu for the Heavenly Demon Sect's young mistress today would be 1++ Korean beef steak, using the striploin, which was the least divisive of the various cuts.
Of course, I had never eaten steak before. I'd only eaten brisket for soup.
And of course, I had never grilled a steak before.
But I wasn't worried.
'This isn't a restaurant, I can just put some beef with olive oil and salt on it and grill it.'
I had seen a lot on the internet.
I washed my hands simply, then put a large griddle on the fire. While waiting for the griddle to heat up, I took out the striploin I was going to eat today.
It was about 2kg.
Normally, one serving of steak is about 300g, so this should be enough. It looked a bit much, but I had been eating more since becoming a wizard, and I thought Cheon Yeohwa was a martial artist, so she would eat a lot, so I prepared a lot.
I sprinkled salt on both sides of the beef on the cutting board. I was thinking of sprinkling pepper, but I heard that pepper can be a hindrance when the meat is good, so I skipped it for now.
I left the simply seasoned meat for a while, and generously poured olive oil on the heated griddle.
'Should I put it on now?'
I carefully put the beef on the griddle.
Sizzle—the sound of the meat frying in the oil echoed through the quiet forest. The sound tickled my ears and made me even hungrier.
And there was no way that Cheon Yeohwa, a martial artist with developed senses, could have missed this sweet sound.
It was as if her hearing was tormenting her sense of taste, and Cheon Yeohwa endured by forcibly blocking her ears.
But just then, Kang Hyunwoo melted butter on the griddle, and even her sense of smell began to torment her sense of taste. The savory smell that stimulated her nose was too much for Cheon Yeohwa to bear.
Kang Hyunwoo smiled brightly when he found Cheon Yeohwa, who had come out of the tent like someone possessed and approached the griddle.
"You're out?"
"…Ah."
Cheon Yeohwa's face turned red as if she finally realized the situation.
"Are you very hungry? Wait a little bit, it's almost done."
Kang Hyunwoo didn't seem to see Cheon Yeohwa's reaction, or maybe he was pretending not to, and turned his back again and focused on cooking.
Cheon Yeohwa felt a little grateful for his actions.
Before long, the rested meat was cut into appropriate sizes and placed on a plate.
The garnish was a salad I bought at a cafe. I brought it just in case, and I'm glad I did.
It wasn't a menu that I needed, but I felt bad just giving a woman meat.
"Where did you get this kind of meat…? Is this also magic?"
"Something like that."
Cheon Yeohwa smiled slightly at Kang Hyunwoo's shrug.
"I can't guarantee the taste, but try it. Tell me if you need more."
"…Thank you for the meal."
The smell was savory, and the visuals were cooked just right, medium. I wanted to do medium rare, but I was afraid that Cheon Yeohwa, an old-fashioned person, would be horrified, so I grilled it so that the red color was as invisible as possible.
Yam, I put a piece of meat in my mouth.
'Wow, what is this? It's so delicious.'
Even if it sounds like self-praise, it was really delicious without a lie. It didn't smell bad, and it wasn't tough.
The rich juice and tender texture were fun to chew.
"Um! It's really delicious! I never imagined that you were a cook!"
"I'm not a cook, it's just the ingredients."
Cheon Yeohwa also seemed satisfied with the steak.
We were able to finish the satisfying dinner with smiles.
Except for the fact that we ran out of meat in the middle and grilled an additional 2kg.
After roughly finishing the cleanup, it was finally time to go to sleep. Thinking about how I would be walking all day tomorrow, even if I had fallen asleep earlier, it wouldn't have been enough.
I'm a wizard, not a knight.
There was a limit to maintaining my stamina with magic because I didn't know when I would have to fight.
"Good night."
"…Then where are you planning to sleep?"
"Me? I'm…"
I was worried that Cheon Yeohwa might get upset again if she found out that I had a spare tent, so I put Cheon Yeohwa in the tent first, and I was going to set up a tent a little further away and sleep.
"Anyway, don't worry about me, go in and sleep first."
I was full and tired from walking all day, and I felt like I was going to collapse any second.
"W-wait…!"
I couldn't help but stop when Cheon Yeohwa suddenly pulled on my sleeve.
What's wrong with her?
"Th-that…"
"Huh? Why?"
Cheon Yeohwa's hesitant appearance, unable to speak easily, was unfamiliar.
I hadn't known her for long, but so far, she had a personality that said what she wanted.
The problem was that those words included harshly criticizing others.
"If you have nothing to say, can I go? I'm a little sleepy now…"
"Y-you too!"
Cheon Yeohwa cut me off and put her face close to mine, and her cheeks were redder than ever before.
"Won't you sleep in the tent with me…?"
***
The forest at night was really quiet.
Perhaps it was the season, but there wasn't even the sound of crickets crying.
Thanks to that, my and Cheon Yeohwa's breaths became clearer in the narrow tent as time passed.
"…"
"…"
I was sure I would fall asleep as soon as I lay down because I was so tired, but when I was lying down in the narrow tent with our backs to each other, I couldn't fall asleep.
In fact, the more time passed, the more awake I felt.
"…Are you asleep?"
It seemed that Cheon Yeohwa was the same.
"No."
"Didn't you say you were sleepy a moment ago?"
"I did."
It was strangely impossible to fall asleep.
Was it because I was nervous?
No matter how hard I tried not to touch her, I couldn't help but touch Cheon Yeohwa's back from time to time. Every time that happened, I felt like I was going crazy from the warmth I felt from her soft skin.
'Ah… Primal Lord of Heaven…'
I hadn't read the Tao Te Ching, but there were two prominent Taoist sects nearby, so I tried to enjoy the effect by location.
Just like the feeling of praying in a church is different from praying at home.
Of course, it didn't work.
"…Thank you."
"Huh?"
A slightly trembling voice came from behind my back.
"If you hadn't been here, I would have gone hungry and fallen asleep on the dirt floor again today."
I wondered what she was talking about, but the topic was heavier than I imagined.
"…Weren't you a rich man's daughter?"
"Do I look like one?"
"At least in appearance?"
"Hehe, you're brutally honest."
Her clothes were definitely made of luxurious fabric, but there were signs of wear and tear in places.
She must have been wearing them for quite some time.
"You probably think I'm a troublesome woman who is full of secrets and only looks good on the outside."
"I didn't really think that."
Cheon Yeohwa's body twitched slightly at my words, which came out without a second of hesitation.
"Thank you for saying that, even if it's just words."
A strangely excited voice.
"To be honest, I was suspicious of you."
"Me?"
"To be exact, I thought you were an assassin sent by the First Young Master to assassinate me."
"Was, in the past tense, so you don't think that now?"
"There have been too many openings that I've shown you so far to be an assassin. And…"
What is it?
Suddenly the tent became quiet.
I turned around, thinking that Cheon Yeohwa had fallen asleep, but judging by the fact that her breathing was still erratic, she didn't seem to be asleep.
Why did you stop talking?
"…It's nothing."
Ah, damn it.
"Hey, I don't know if you know this, but do you know what the two ways to piss someone off are?"
"Um? What is it?"
"The first is to stop talking in the middle of a sentence."
"What's the second?"
I'm suddenly sleepy.
"Are you there? What's the second way?"
Until just now, I couldn't fall asleep because I was nervous about being in a narrow tent with Cheon Yeohwa, but now that the tension was relieved, the fatigue that had been building up was coming all at once.
"Why are you stopping in the middle of a sentence?"
"Cough…"
"What's the second way??"
"Umm…"
"Hey!"