Malissa tilted her head, then suppressed a smirk. It wasn’t hard to picture what Belmont’s reaction would be to that, and she had to agree that it would have been slightly amusing.

“We’ll see,” Malissa said noncommittally. She set the pan down over the the campfire and drummed her fingers on her thigh. Malissa was dimly aware of Ming heading back into her tent behind her.

After a few more minutes of thinking, Malissa nodded to herself. She reached into her extradimensional bag and pulled out an old set of metal utensils and a bowl. She hadn’t used them in a while, as Arek had always provided what they needed.

She moved the pan to the side and brushed the top of the rock off as best as she could. It didn’t look too dirty, so she set the loaf of bread onto it. A dagger appeared in the woman’s hand and she cut the bread into nine slices and two end pieces, which she set aside.

Malissa took the pan from the fire and poured just enough oil onto it to coat the bottom surface. Then she took two slices of bread and placed them in the pan before replacing the entire thing on the fire.

The oil popped and sizzled against the bread. A flicker of worry crossed Malissa’s mind. She’d never cooked entirely on her own before. If she waited for Arek to get back, the orc would guarantee a successful meal.

Unless Ming had stashed more food away, this was the last of their good supplies. Her lips pursed and she forced the intrusive thoughts from her mind. Arek didn’t worry about his meals failing, so neither would she.

Malissa used her dagger to lift the bread slightly from the pan. The fire was hot, so it had already started to turn crisp and a light golden brown. She used her knife like a spatula, lifting the first piece of bread and setting it on the stone. She picked up the second in the same method, but fumbled while she was moving it.

She dropped the knife and her hand blurred through the air. She snatched the bread from the sky, tossed it onto the stone, and caught the hilt of the knife before her improvised spatula could hit the ground.

It was over before she could even think about what had happened. Malissa glanced from the bread on the stone to her hand, then turned to see if anyone else had noticed it. Unfortunately, the camp was empty.

Malissa sighed and added a dash more oil to the pan before putting two more slices of bread into the pan and setting it back over the fire. She repeated the process until all the remaining slices of bread had been cooked.

It wasn’t perfect by any means. Some of the slices were a little crispier than others, and there was one that was bordering on burnt, but they still smelled good.

Malissa removed the pan from the fire and set it on another stone while she retrieved the cloth package that contained the eggs. She used another dagger to carefully cut it open. It was densely packed, which was probably a good way to ensure the eggs survived the trip.

When it came to keeping food, Malissa was confident that Ming wouldn’t have taken any shortcuts. She wasn’t sure how the mage had planned to cook the raw eggs without the rest of the camp noticing, but she suspected it might have something to do with the miniature fires that had been constantly popping up near their campsites before Arek had met them.

Sure enough, the eggs were in perfect condition. The ice had been packed around several layers of soft towels which in turn cradled the eggs. There were a dozen eggs in total. Malissa took one and sucked in a breath.

She lightly tapped it against the edge of the pan. Nothing happened. She tapped it a little harder and a miniscule crack appeared in the shell. Malissa grimaced and tapped it again. This time, the egg let out a loud crack. She raised it above the pan and pulled the eggshell apart.

The egg slipped into the pan and started to pop and crackle. Even though it wasn’t on the fire, it had retained a lot of the heat. Malissa grabbed the pan’s handle and set it back over the flame before picking up another egg.

She smacked it on the side of the pan more confidently than the previous time. The egg crunched and a small amount of the egg white fell into the fire, sending up a puff of dark smoke into Malissa’s face.

Luckily, the rest of the egg slipped into the pan. Gagging, Malissa waved the smoke out of her face. She picked out a few pieces of eggshell from the pan and sat back, watching it like a hawk.

It took surprisingly little time for the egg whites to start to harden. Malissa used her dagger to make sure the eggs didn’t merge. Then she pulled her sleeves back as far as she could.

“I probably should have worn my apron,” Malissa grumbled. “Damn spur of the moment ideas.”

She stuck the dagger under the first egg and flipped it as quickly as she could. It was a long blade, but it wasn’t the best spatula. She managed to get about three quarters of the egg to fold over.

The bottom of the egg was a tad crispier than she’d hoped for, but it wasn’t black. Malissa prodded and pried the last piece of egg out from underneath itself and into the proper position. Then she flipped the second egg. This one seemed eager to help and fell perfectly into place.

Malissa let out a relieved sigh. Then she cursed and grabbed Ming’s mayonnaise, spinning the top of the jar off. With yet another knife, she rapidly lathered the spicy mayonnaise all over the toasted face of two slices of bread.

She grabbed the pan, practically throwing the eggs onto the mayo covered slices of bread before they could burn. She wiped her forehead, which had somehow become slick with sweat. Her heart was beating as fast as it did when they were in the middle of a fight inside a dungeon.

The corners of her lips curled up in a grin, and she got back to work.