I bore significant resentment towards my past self.

  My life had been comfortable, yes. I had grown up with servants to take care of my every need. I’d never had to deal with the consequences of my alchemical work, be it the processing of materials or the brewing itself. Household magic, like cleaning spells, had never even registered in my mind as something I should learn.

  Yet now, as I stomped over to the river and attempted to wash off the deer blood staining my arms and clothes, I resented my past self for never putting in the effort.

  I muddled through as best I could, managing to eliminate the fresh blood and the most obvious stains. I couldn’t quite get the smell out of my nose, though. That didn’t put me in a particularly good mood as I returned to my tent to work with the meat and other useful ingredients I now possessed.

  The work itself was shockingly easy. I could have crafted some kind of highly nutritious food even before I started using my beetle friend to render ingredients. With his helpful flames, the process was so simple that it seemed too good to be true. I kept wondering if and how the whole operation might blow up in my face someday.

  The base food was reduced to a highly nutritious and only somewhat revolting paste. That paste was combined with the other ingredients, and the mixture was then pressed into balls.

  And that was it.

  The only troublesome part was the taste. I needed to find a mix ratio that wouldn’t make Grafton choose starvation as the more desirable option. Unfortunately, this required me to try some of the ‘food’ I was making.

  Fortunately, I succeeded! I somehow managed to put all those ingredients together and create a spherical food unit that tasted vaguely bland, with only a hint of ginger to it.

  Better still, I made sure that one ‘food unit’ in every sixty contained a much, much higher ginger content than the others. I failed to keep a smug grin off my face as I prepared this little surprise for the human elder. I also refused to try those particular units, because the concentrated ginger counted as a biological weapon.

  Not to say it wasn’t healthy. Quite the opposite, in fact. After tasting the normal units myself, I realized that I didn’t need to bother with a digestion potion. Ginger would have been one of the main ingredients for that, too, and my new product already contained a sufficient supply of the ingredient.

  So, if Grafton actually ate the especially ginger-y food units, he could gorge himself immediately afterwards without trouble. He wouldn’t be suffering any ill effects.

  As long as his taste buds survived the process, of course.

  Once I’d finalized the recipe, I took a break for some dinner preparations. I set aside the best cuts of meat from the deer in a separate container. Mixing some herbs, spices, and oil, I added the smallest amount of concentrated torture juice I could manage. Then I poured the mixture over the meat and left it to marinate.

  I paused for a moment, sighing as I considered what I was about to do. I then braced myself and made a separate batch of marinade with a much higher torture juice content. I had no doubt that Alys would love the concentrated version. Besides, it cost me nothing other than permanently staining one of my ingredient storage boxes.

  I was not going to risk putting anything else in that box ever again, just in case.

  The rest of my day was focused purely on production. I was hopeful that my food units, which I was tentatively calling ‘nourishment supplements’, would work quickly. I also needed to account for the sheer amount of food Grafton could put away.

  I ended up with four large boxes, each filled to the brim with highly nutritious, spherical food units. Yet I honestly could not estimate how long even such a large supply would last. How much stew did he consume from Arandel’s kitchen every day? I would have to consult with my favorite elf on the subject when handing the nourishment supplements over.

  For the time being, however, I had a much more important job to tackle: preparing dinner for Alys and myself!

  Packing up my equipment, I took my two boxes of marinating venison and made my way back to the house, only pausing for a moment to check whether Alys was already done for the day. My answer came in the form of immense heat radiating from the large hole she’d made next to her house.

  With a smile, I went inside and began cooking. She would probably come inside once she smelled the food.

  Yet even when the aroma of cooking meat permeated the house, strong enough that I suspected Nasha could smell it all the way from town, Alys made no appearance. I reluctantly left the skillet on the stove and went looking for her.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I knew for a fact that she got rather absorbed when she was having fun. Whether the source of that fun happened to be woodworking, drafting schematics, or kisses, she always tended to lose track of time.

  Sure enough, I found her right where I’d last seen her, with the heat now much more intense.

  “Alys? Alys!”

  I had to shout several times before I finally got through to my dragoness. When she did respond, she did not sound particularly enthused.

  “What?!”

  “That’s a fine way to speak to your kobold when he’s made you an excellent dinner. Get your scaly hide out of there and come eat!”

  “You’re awfully bold for a kobold whenever you’re outside my fire breath range!”

  “I am awfully bold while inside your fire breath range, too. That doesn’t mean you should let a very satisfying meal languish. You need to stop for the day anyway. It’s getting late.”

  “Fine! I’ll be up in a minute,” she groused. I’d heard children use that exact tone after being told they couldn’t have any more sweets.

  “Hurry, will you? If the food starts getting cold, I’m not going to forgive you.”

  Of course, the food wasn’t even off the stove yet, but she didn’t need to know that.

  Satisfied that she would reach a stopping point soon, I went back inside and gave the food one last check. The venison slices had turned a delightful golden brown. I stirred in the bit of marinade I’d set aside at the beginning, then started plating. The portion without the torture juice was admittedly larger than the alternative, but I was willing to make the sacrifice of letting Alys steal some food off my plate.

  “Hrrrmmm….” The happy rumble announced Alys’ entrance as her eyes instantly focused on the meal, a smile stealing over her expression. “That smells amazing. I was going to be upset if you pulled me away from my work over nothing, but this is fine.”

  “I should hope so. How did you not smell the food cooking?”

  I was genuinely curious. Her sense of smell might not be as keen as Nasha’s, but it was definitely impressive, and our meal had an almost overwhelming aroma.

  “I was using my breath. I can’t smell things properly while I’m doing that, so I only caught on when you made me stop,” she explained, rubbing the tip of her snout with a small grimace.

  I paused and narrowed my eyes at her. “Alys, have you been using your breath too much?”

  She looked away guiltily. “No?”

  My eyes narrowed further.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “Maybe a little. I’m not using it at full strength! I can keep that intensity up for a long time. It just strains me a little. Nothing some of your honey ginger candies can’t take care of.”

  “Those aren’t supposed to be an excuse for you to overexert yourself. Again.”

  I sighed, taking a seat as she slipped into her own. I noticed she hadn’t put much effort into cleaning up. Dirt still clung to her clothes. She was also staring at the food so fiercely, I was afraid she might ignite it with her gaze alone.

  “Less talking, more eating!” she grumbled.

  “We will talk about this later,” I warned her. “But yes, please: help yourself.”

  Not even bothering with the cutlery, she immediately speared a slice of meat with her claw and launched it into her mouth. Her jaws snapped shut.

  My dragoness froze.

  For a moment, her face was utterly blank. Then an expression of wonder settled over her features. Slowly, she began to chew, obviously savoring the taste. When she finally swallowed, her entire body shuddered.

  A small gout of flames escaped her as she directed a surprisingly earnest look my way.

  “What did you do?” she whispered.

  “What?”

  Her expression was rapidly turning ravenous. “What did you do?”

  Even as she stared into my eyes, her claw shot out again and tossed another morsel of meat into her maw.

  I bought myself some time by cutting a bite of venison for my own consumption. Then my eyes closed as a sigh of contentment escaped me.

  The taste was exquisite. The torture juice was not something to be taken lightly, but in combination with the other herbs and spices, the flavor had permeated the meat in a way that was immensely pleasing.

  I opened my eyes to find my dragoness still staring at me.

  “Elaborate a little? I just made a meal for you,” I answered coyly.

  “Lianthorn…”

  She took another bite, as if she couldn’t even stop herself long enough to finish the sentence.

  I swallowed, too, though I just gulped down air. She never called me by my full name.

  “What did you do?” she hissed.

  I swallowed again. “Remember what I told you about the beetle’s abilities? I just took some of the fruits you gave me, put them through the beetle’s flames, and then used the resultant juice to add a bit of flavor to the food. I included much more of the juice in your portion, of course.”

  My dragoness sighed around another mouthful of venison, then shook her head at me in exasperation.

  “Those fruits… My grandmother didn’t just grow them for the taste. They help with all sorts of stuff. I can feel that my breath is stronger now after eating this. Not by a lot, and not permanently, I don’t think. But even the strain I was feeling is almost gone.”

  “Ah. That’s good, then.” I pulled out a small jug of the concentrated torture juice and held it out to her. “Here. I had some of this leftover, and I was planning to give it to you anyway.”

  Alys’ eyes immediately snapped over to the jug. I had a strong feeling that if I tried to take it back, she would bite my fingers off to retrieve it. I wasn’t that foolish, so I placed it in front of her and then backed off.

  It is never wise to get between a dragoness and something she obviously craves.

  She snatched the jug up and poured half its contents down her throat in one gulp. The sound that left her mouth next forced me to look away, my cheeks burning.

  We hadn’t yet gone any further than cuddling and kissing. I did not need this kind of temptation at the moment!

  “All right, that’s it,” the dragoness growled as she slammed the jug down, her eyes burning into me. “If you can make stuff like this for me, I am definitely not letting you go. It’s official. You are mine.”

  “I thought I already was?”

  My smile was more than a little smug. I couldn’t help it. I loved the way she was looking at me, all possessive and intense. A human probably would have been unnerved, but thankfully, I wasn’t one of those.

  “You are mine more, now. Double mine? Arrrghh, this is your fault! I can’t come up with words that make sense right now!”

  She snarled at me, then descended upon her meal with renewed ferocity.

  There are few joys greater than watching a loved one as they enjoy something you made for them. I feasted on that joy, forgetting that my own meal even existed.

  Eating could wait.