Tondemo Fanfiction – 032- Alternate Mukouda (Part 2)

Alternate Reality Mukouda (Part 2)

 

For Want of a Nail

This is a different AR Mukouda from Part 1

 

Transmigration sucks.

Seriously, all those stories about characters transmigrating into novels and games, and getting into all sorts of adventures, are just the shit.

Isekai sucks.

At least, my transmigration experience sucked serious butthole.

It was bad enough arriving in this place as a random extra. Then, after deeming my skills practically useless, they chucked me out with a handful of copper pieces. Which was a total diabolical move because I have seen the sparkly things on those fat fingers and lobes. I may be a complete noob when it came to jewellery, but it had to be worth more than a few gold coins per stone, right?

Yet, they shoved me out of the way with just a bag of coppers.

Anyway, after buying some information from random kids through meat skewers, I got myself a bit of money by selling my clothes and leather bag. It was more money than that stingy excuse of a kingdom gave me.

With this money, I got a small room and accessed my one and only special skill, the [Net Super].

Luckily for me, I could actually buy stuff from this [Net Super] with local money. More importantly, I have access to things that could not be found in this world. Naturally, thoughts of becoming a rich salt merchant immediately danced in my head, but I held the urge back.

The last thing I wanted was to be captured by the unscrupulous leaders of this shitty kingdom. So, instead of shooting off to a cushy life immediately, I checked out the fastest and most reliable way of getting the heck out of this shitty place.

 

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3 gold coins.

The fee for a freaking stagecoach out of this kingdom is 3 whole gold coins!!! I sold my clothes for 3 gold and a bit, but had spent some on local clothing as well as my room, which set me back to 2 gold and 2 silver coins!!!

How tragic is that?!

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I gave the stagecoach owner my best smile and said, “Can’t you let me on for 2 gold coins? There’s only me and this small bag…”

“Can’t, the road’s too dangerous, and we had to hire more people to escort the coach,” said the man. He actually looked apologetic, which did not improve my mood since I couldn’t properly hate him for making my life difficult.

“Look-” I was cut off by a shove from the back.

A fat merchant rushed past me, tossing a leather bag at the stagecoach owner. “Here! Get me out quickly!”

“Well, the coach’s full,” said the stagecoach owner. “Sorry, sir. Maybe you can catch the next coach instead.”

He did not look optimistic.

There was a next coach, but it cost a whole 5 gold to get on a cracked and rickety caravan. I can’t believe that they actually charge money for people to ride in that hazard.

However, since I had no money, I couldn’t even afford to sit in that thing…

 

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I signed up as an Adventurer.

Look, I’m the last person who would willingly fight a monster, but the thing is, I can’t risk my well-being with those sharp-eyed merchants. I already took a chance selling a very, very small bag of salt, and from the way those eyes light up, I just…

I can’t risk it.

I made a whole 2 gold, but since even a rickety caravan costs 5 gold to ride on, I had to make more money. In a discreet way. Hence why I signed up as an Adventurer, I had also moved out of the inn to stay with a friend I had made. She was a director of an orphanage and, uh, I bought my way in to stay with them with a small container of minced meat and paid the rest of my room and board by cooking for them.

The orphanage director was a nun from the Church of the Wind Goddess, Ninril-sama. I chose this church because it was tiny and weather-beaten-looking, and run by a couple of elderly nuns who looked like they wouldn’t ask me too many questions. Also, it’s because I did not recognise their robes. Believe me, I was shocked to see the robes of some of the priests running the wealthier churches. The same ones involved in transmigrating me into this shitty world.

Yup, that’s a nope for me.

Anyway, besides working as a cook, I also moonlighted as a forager Adventurer, using my [Appraisal] to ‘cheat’. After the first couple of times getting odd looks from the receptionist, I learned to get the street kids to help me sell the herbs and flowers. It was better if it looked like the kids had a working system than having me being ‘lucky’ too many times.

It took me nearly a week to gather my savings up to 6 gold coins. After leaving a couple of pots of stewed minced meat on the stove, I rushed off to the stagecoach area.

To find that the kingdom had closed its borders.

“… What the heck!! What!!!” I shrieked. My screams were drowned out by the loud protests from others around me.

I would have loved to protest with them, but the sight of shiny armour made me shrink back into the crowd on instinct. That’s right, I have learned to fear armoured men on the streets.

The last thing I wanted was to catch their attention. I slunk back to the orphanage, finding that a couple of the boys had gotten into the pots of meat. Oh well, at least they had eaten well. To avoid suspicion, let’s cook nothing but vegetables and potatoes for the next couple of weeks.

 

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I was found out.

To be precise, a jealous neighbour, probably the nosy one with a sharp sense of smell, caught a whiff of me cooking meat one day and outed me to the guards.

To make a long story short, guards came to shake us down and found half a pot of cooked minced meat (which they confiscated) and captured me for ‘questioning’. I confessed quickly. What was I supposed to do?

I, Mukouda Tsuyoshi, came from peaceful Japan!!

Ugh.

I confessed to having a small [Item Box] and gave up another small jar of meat, declaring that that was the extent of my [Item Box]. Luckily, no one thought to send me for [Appraisal]. Instead, I was conscripted into the war effort…

…as a cook.

I guess not even the armed guards think that my stick-thin arms and legs were useful for the fighting side of the war effort.

It was not so bad being the cook. At least I was always near warm cooking fires. The ingredients that were given were shockingly subpar, so I had to do a lot to improvise. I want the people who eat my food to at least receive some joy…

 

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com ~

 

I was reassigned to cook for the General.

What the heck? What the heck?!

Apparently, the people found my food more delicious than anything they ever had, like, what kind of sad lives have you guys been living?!

Ughhh.

There was to be a banquet tonight for ‘moral’, and I was tasked to throw together something elegant and delicious. What the heck?! While in the middle of a war?!

Oh? The crown prince will be here? Nooo!!! Ugh, what if he recognises me?!

However, I had no choice. This was beginning to feel like my life back on earth, back to working on projects for a petty supervisor at a black company…

Hahh…

I eyed the Red Boar meat simmering in the pan. At least the meat looks decent. While I cooked up more meat, my mind started to wander.

Maybe I can arrange for the supervisor to ‘steal’ my recipe and present the dish as his own creation!

Yes, I’m such a genius-

“Oi, human, what is that you’re making?”

“Eh?”

 

[Gumihou: Fufufu, guess who that is~]

 

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