Chapter 172

Chapter 172 — Mithril Frying Pan

"Sui, can I ask you to do me a little favour?"

"Whaaat-" Sui-chan looked up at me as I pulled out a frying pan from my Item Box and held it out to her .

"This frying pan, can you make another one for me but a bit bigger, is that OK?" Sui poked at the frying pan with a tentacle before replying .

"Ummmm, I can do this quick-" she replied . Oh, this would be easy? Well, it didn't have moving parts like the excellent mincer she had made earlier, maybe that would simplify things . I handed some Mithril ore to Sui who swallowed it .

"Let's see, this goes here, that goes there, ummm . . . " Sui-chan suddenly extruded a tentacle holding a shiny blue frying pan . "Here, it's finished- . " Oh, that was quick . I took the freshly made Mithril frying pan from her, surprised at how light it felt given its size .

"This feels really good . I'll try it out right now . " I hadn't put away the Black Magic Cooking Stove after dinner so I lit up one of the burners and put the Mithril frying pan on top and waited a few seconds but . . . Oh? I turned the burner up to maximum but the Mithril frying pan wasn't getting hot at all for some reason . I gingerly held my hand over the pan but, nope, still cold even after the burner had been on for a minute and more .

"What's going on?" I muttered as I Appraised the Mithril frying pan .

[ Mithril Frying Pan ]

A frying pan made from Mithril . Because it is made from Mithril, it does not conduct heat .

. . . well if it won't conduct heat then it wasn't going to work very well as a frying pan, was it? I thought it was going to be really good to cook with since it was so light but sadly I wasn't going to be able to use it . I gave some thought to what the Appraisal had said, did that mean that anything made from Mithril wouldn't conduct heat? I had a Mithril knife and short sword made by Sui-chan, oh and the Mithril mincer too . Not conducting heat was a good thing for the mincer, it prevented the meat from being damaged by friction while I ground it up . If I wanted anything else made from Mithril I'd have to give consideration to this particular characteristic of the magic metal, nothing that required heating .

It was such a lovely frying pan, I thought sadly to myself, but totally useless . Could Sui make it into something else? Hmmm, if it didn't conduct heat then it would be good to keep food hot for a long time, but thinking about it cooked food really needed to be left to cool a little before eating, even for Fer and company . Keeping things cool though, that might be useful .

"Sui, this frying pan doesn't work . " I took it off the Black Magic Cooking Stove, still as cold as when I put it on and handed it back to her . I dug into my Item Box and found the cup I used to drink from as well as one of the deeper bowls Fer and the others usually drank from . "Can you make a cup like this and three bowls like this?"

Sui poked the cup and bowl with her tentacle . ""Easy-" she said, swallowing the frying pan . She wiggled and burbled for a few seconds then extruded a cup and three bowls, glowing faintly blue .

"Yeah, done it!-" Sui bounced happily .

"Thank you, Sui-chan . " I said taking the cup and bowls from her . I bought a plastic bottle of iced coffee from the Net Super and poured it into the Mithril cup before taking a sip .

"Oh, it's still cold even without adding ice . " Of course, I'd just poured it into the Mithril cup so I put it aside for a little while, planning to try it later .

"Sui wants to drink some bubbly-bubbly- . " Seeing me drinking the iced coffee made Sui thirsty, it seemed . Voices came from behind me too . I thought you guys were already asleep? But no, when there's stuff to eat (or drink) on hand then they're awake as can be .

"Nuu, I'll have something to drink too . " Fer announced, settling down watchfully beside Sui .

"Meeee tooooo!" Dora-chan started buzzing around overhead, keen not to miss out on anything .

Yeah yeah, cola for everyone . I bought a big bottle of cola from the Net Super, nice and cold and poured it into the Mithril bowls .

"I got Sui to make these for drinks like cola . " I explained as I put the bowls down for everyone . "They're made of Mithril and that keeps the drinks cold . "

"Well, it's still cold . " Fer informed me telepathically as he slurped the cola from his bowl . Once it was empty (but not before, of course) he looked up at me . "Still, Mithril is supposed to be valuable, right? What sort of an idiot makes something trivial like a drinking bowl from Mithril?"

"Hahaha, you're not wrong big fella . " Dora-chan burped politely .

"It keeps the bubbly-bubbly cold and sweet-" Sui-chan said consolingly . Thank you Sui-chan, I knew I could count on you . Just because it's Mithril it doesn't have to be a weapon . Now that I know it doesn't conduct heat I'll get Sui to make cooking utensils that can use that characteristic .

After drinking the cola, both Fer and Dora-chan went back to the beast stables and lay down to sleep . Sui-chan had crawled into her bag as I tidied up . I finished my iced coffee which was kept really cold by my Mithril cup . It worked really well, it seemed .

I slung Sui's bag over my shoulder and headed for the inn's stairs to go back to my room, sighing . Once I got there I'd still have one more thing to do before I could go to sleep myself . If I didn't pray to that bunch of ungrateful deadbeat Gods and placate them with offerings from the Net Super then the whining and moaning would be unbearable . It had gotten worse ever since I received the tenant store upgrade to Net Super, too . I sighed again, it wasn't something I could really put off any longer .