Playing as a Tank

After sleeping soundly until my eyes opened naturally, I groggily got up to see the blue sky of early dawn.

Only after blinking for a long time with a mind that hadn’t fully returned did I remember that I should have gone back to Asha, and cold sweat automatically leaked out.

“…Surely she hasn’t already filed a missing child report.”

For a moment, my heart sank as I could so easily imagine Asha searching for me in panic.

Right after that, I noticed the existence of the bracelet with location tracking function that Asha had given me just in case.

Almost simultaneously, I discovered Asha sleeping on the bedroom floor.

That meant, fortunately, I had avoided the worst-case scenario.

A sigh of relief unconsciously escaped from me.

However, separate from my relief, my stomach suddenly began working hard, screaming that it was one step away from dying of hunger.

At this rate, Asha might wake up from my growling stomach instead of an alarm.

“Hmm…”

After much deliberation, I finally decided to rummage through the refrigerator without the homeowner’s permission.

But just enough to satisfy my hunger moderately.

No matter how hungry I was, there were certain lines I shouldn’t cross.

I got to live in this nice house for free, so it would be incredibly inconsiderate to eat everything just because it looked delicious.

“But there are only raw ingredients…?”

However, for some reason, there were no ‘foods’ that could be eaten right away in the refrigerator.

The only thing available was milk.

Everything else required manual preparation, measuring, and cooking according to recipes—things that didn’t contain even a grain of artificial processing.

Only then did one piece of information about Asha that I had learned in my first playthrough flash through my mind.

“Ah, right. Cooking was her hobby.”

Come to think of it, my first meal was also potato soup made directly by Asha.

Unfortunately, since my mind was filled with guild membership issues during my first meal, I don’t really remember what it tasted like…

But seeing that I had been eating it obediently, it must have been quite delicious.

Anyway, so what’s the conclusion?

“…Good thing it’s an induction stove. But does this also operate on magic stones?”

If I wanted to eat something, my only option right now was to cook it myself.

Thankfully, with X years of living alone, I wasn’t completely ignorant about cooking.

Most of the ingredients in the refrigerator were also top quality.

Come to think of it, this would be my first dish made by hand in this world, so I decided that even if it was simple, it shouldn’t taste bad.

They say the beginning is half the battle. If you start successfully, you’re already halfway to success.

Since there were some cooking-related achievements among the ones I needed to accomplish, I decided to gauge how skilled these small, soft hands were on this occasion.

The first thing I attempted was bacon toast.

Moving my hands according to what my head remembered rather than my body, I succeeded in coating the bread with egg wash.

The problem came after this.

No matter how much I looked at the meat stuffed in the refrigerator, I couldn’t tell what kind of meat was what.

All I wanted was ordinary pork bacon, but unfortunately, in , there wasn’t just one or two types of pigs.

If I happened to choose a type that required special cooking methods, I could get food poisoning.

If it were a one-time severe illness, my regeneration stat could somehow cover it, but dot damage like food poisoning would keep hurting me bit by bit.

My stomach would ache then heal. It would prick then regenerate. There wouldn’t be such torture even in actual torture.

Therefore, I decided to change my course from bacon toast to French toast.

After all, I was just trying to make a simple breakfast, and it didn’t seem worth gambling with the risk of food poisoning.

So, using a dining chair as a support, I turned on what might be an electric induction or magic stone induction, and then, sizzle.

“Oh.”

Not long after, I flipped it before it could burn based on intuition, and a French toast that perfectly matched the description “golden brown” was born.

After finding blueberry jam instead of bacon and spreading it on the golden-brown bread, I took a bite, and sure enough.

“…Incredible.”

A taste that was hard to believe was my first cooking spread throughout my mouth.

But going one step further, I poured a little milk into a flat bowl and slightly moistened the toast.

Literally, a taste that melted in my mouth appeared.

With the savory taste lingering on the tip of my tongue, I finished two more toasts, devoured one of them, and only then did my fleeing hunger return.

I wrapped the remaining one in a transparent plastic pack and placed it on the dining table.

It was about time for Asha to wake up, too.

It might taste inadequate to someone who piles top-quality ingredients in their refrigerator and has cooking as a hobby…

But it definitely wasn’t something that could be called tasteless.

After leaving a note next to the toast saying I was going for a walk outside, I left the house.

With steps that began to circulate with a bit of energy, the first place I headed was the [Request Office] located on the first floor of the guild headquarters.

It was a place true to its name, primarily responsible for arranging various requests for hunters affiliated with the guild.

On the outside, it was just a more sophisticated and systematized bank counter than usual, but anyway.

“Hello!”

Filled with the liveliness characteristic of a child, I began to make my presence known to the guild staff while walking around here and there.

One way or another, these were people I would continue to meet in the future. There was absolutely nothing bad about becoming close in advance.

As expected, when an unfamiliar child started darting around the center of the request office, they began to show interest one by one.

The bracelet I was currently wearing on my right wrist.

That is, the portable device made exclusively for the Lunatic Guild served as my ID, so there was no need to introduce myself separately as a new guild member.

There was only one thing I hadn’t thought of.

“Ah, so you’re the guild master’s attachment doll!”
“At-attachment doll…?”

The fact that rumors about me had already spread throughout the entire Lunatic Guild headquarters.

Seeing how naturally they recognized me, I realized for the first time that the saying “words without feet travel a thousand miles” wasn’t just a saying.

By the way, how did they know about me? Did Asha spread rumors while I was asleep?

“The guild master has talked about you so much. There’s probably no one in the Lunatic Guild who doesn’t know you, Lua.”

What followed was a sentiment that seeing the person they had only heard rumors about felt like seeing a celebrity.

Apparently, my existence had been known for quite some time, not just from yesterday when I first set foot in the Lunatic Guild headquarters.

Testimonies even popped up from all over saying that she had been proclaiming my cuteness even during guild staff interviews.

But why to that extent?

At that level, isn’t it beyond just being close sisters?

Even in the first playthrough, where we were the most precious childhood friends to each other, it wasn’t to this degree…?

“The reason why the guild master cherishes you is simple. It’s because you, Lua, are fatally cute.”
“That’s right. If I could just touch your soft, squishy ears, I would give up my liver and gallbladder!”
“…Really?”
“What are you guys saying to a child…”

In the end, they all got scolded by a team leader-level guild member who couldn’t stand it anymore.

Nevertheless, due to the earnest requests of the request office staff—which were close to desires too excessive to show to a young child—I finally volunteered to play the role of a living doll, half-resigned.

…Is this considered becoming closer if anything?

Blink, blink.

Since the child who had been sleeping soundly on the bed until just before Asha herself fell asleep had evaporated, her reason simply stopped functioning.

Although the aftereffects of processing documents that had piled up until past midnight still remained, she didn’t mind and hurriedly got up.

So, from the time she began a game of hide-and-seek with only the seeker, calling the name she had called countless times once more, how much time had passed?

/I made toast diligently. It’s delicious, so try it. I’m going for a walk outside for a bit./
“Toast…? Lua? How?”

She was slightly surprised by a note she found by chance and the toast next to it.

Right after that, she cautiously took a bite of the toast, which looked quite skilled for a child to have made.

“…Why is it delicious?”

Her reason stopped functioning once again at the taste that was beyond what she had expected.

Almost simultaneously, several photos were transmitted to her portable device.

Specifically, they were among the photos uploaded to the Lunatic Guild’s exclusive anonymous board, but that was fine.

The reason being…

“[Just welcomed the guild master’s attachment doll at the request office], [I really want to kidnap], [Soft-soft-soft-soft-soft]…. What is all this? Why is the child who said they were going for a walk there again?”

Because the titles of the posts with photos of her child attached were quite suspicious, even setting aside the photos taken with the request office staff.

In the end, unable to ignore the ominousness that was rising by the second, she urgently moved her steps to where the child was.