As I dash through the greenery of the forest to get to the nearby river and fill bucket-kun with water, I ruminate over the fact that I have only one set of clothes and they were looted from a dead girl, soaked in rancid old blood and splattered with zombie brains and pelted by skeletal fragments. When I reach the river and fill bucket-kun to the brim with kira kira sparkling shining fresh water, I've already made it an objective of mine to obtain a proper wardrobe, or at the very least, a change of clothes.

I dash back to the beach where Grom is still snoring away to the tune of the gentle ocean waves. Now is the hard part, so I take a few deep breaths and focus my mind before using [Mana Sense] and [Telekinesis] to mold the sand into a large bowl shape and fix it in place.

Then I cast [Conflagrate] on my sand bowl construction. When conflagrate is about to run out, I recast it. It seems the temperature is a bit too low right now, so I focus and will more mana into my next conflagrate.

It seems to work, making my flames blast hotter and hotter. Soon enough the grains of sand start hardening into glass. Not pure and translucent glass, but something more along the lines of fulgurite, rough and rocky. Still, it will do.

I step back and admire my handiwork. Gordon Ramsay would definitely ask me what the fuck I was doing, but I don't care and pour the bucket of water into my makeshift cauldron as I fufufu in self-satisfaction.

Next I pour the bones into the water along with some rotten brown lumps of flesh. It should be repulsive, but it looks appetizing to me. I reach inside the water and crush the boners with my hands. Once I've crunch-crunched all the bones into small bits, I nod to myself, turning to Raven-chan and her two lieutenants.

”Raven-chan, take your squad and hunt something to eat for Grom. A rabbit or two, maybe a deer or something, I don't really know what's delicious around here. Capiche? Comprende?” Raven-chan cocks her head and I sigh. ”Do you understand your orders?” I say, giving up. Raven-chan squawks and dips her beak once.

”Good good, go now before Grom wakes up.”

Turning back to my improvised fulgurite bowl, I reach into the brown bone soup and cast conflagrate continuously. The bowl-shape of my impromptu cooking implement reflects the fire into the air, making a huge pillar of fire as tall as the nearby trees. My mana is being depleted steadily, but it's not a problem.

I still have 83% left and I've been cooking it for awhile now with my innovative pillar of fire flambé technique. I'm not sure I'm doing it right, but stuff is happening and bubbling away and the fire is flaring up quite a bit so I keep doing the boner broth flambé with a smile. Peace fills my heart as I stand at the beach casually staring out at the ocean next to the pillar of fire. Life is good.

Cooking with Alyce-chan 101. Dead corpse, check. Dirty homemade cauldron, check. Pillar of fire secret technique? check. What could possibly go wrong? There's no doubt that I will make the best tasting boner soup ever with my innovative pillar of fire cooking technique, okay? Goddamn it!

Before I notice it, Raven-chan and her two liutenants have already made a triumphant return.

Raven-chan drops a small deer in the sand next to me with a cry of success and her liutenants deposit two mostly whole rabbits, or so I think until I try to pick one of them up and its head comes off. Oh well, I guess I can add it to my soup. In fact, isn't that a great idea? Could this be the secret ingredient that will get me a michellin star?!

I sneak over to Grom and liberate the glowing blue sword from him, then I promptly proceed to decapitate the other rabbit and the deer and add their heads to my soup. Fufufu, this is definitely gonna be the greatest stew ever. Wait, when did it become a stew? Isn't it boner broth? Ah, I don't know. Let's call it the Alyce-chan special concoction and forget about the ingredients. It smells nicely of death and corpse, so it's making my mouth water and a bit of drool is drip dripping onto the ground, but I am ignoring it because I am a fine and elegant lady, and a cultured women such as myself definitely does not drool like that, you know? Definitely not, okay? Goddamn it!

Still, I can't stand around here drooling all day since I gotta prepare Grom's rabbits and deer. I'm not exactly the greatest cook, but after some time I manage to hack some respectable looking chunks of meat off the deer's flank. I go to the forest and chop away at some wood, make a firepit and spit the two rabbits over the fire like a pro. For the slightly jagged cuts of deer, I warm up a rock and fling the meat on there. If Grom thinks it's unhygenic he can just go make his own chunks of meat, hmpf. With everything sizzling away, I keep my Alyce-chan special concoction boiling with the occasional blast of [Conflagrate]

Ping! Through continuous use of fire, you have gained Fire Manipulation 1 and taken your first step on the path of mastering the element of fire. Ping! Conflagrate has leveled up Ping! Acquiring the fire manipulation skill has unlocked a Witch job specialization: Fire Witch.

Fufufu, cooking is the best after all, with it I can even level up my skills! Maybe I will become a famous gourmet in this world? What a lovely ideal. I even received a new job specialization of fire witch, sounds cool! Although I don't get why the cook class hasn't been unlocked yet, how strange.

I hope a sour Gordon Ramsey copy won't appear and start cussing at me... well, actually, I might like that. I think it would be more nightmarish if a Gordon Ramsay clone appeared and suddenly started talking nice, and instead of saying fuck he said duck, and instead of saying goddamn it he said gosh darn it and dang nabbit. That'd count as traumatizing content, right? Alyce-chan is right about that, you know?

Immersed in my cooking, the sizzling meat and the boiling Alyce-chan special, I fail to notice the exact moment when Grom wakes up. I only know that one moment I am laughing to myself and conflagrating my soup whilst managing the sizzling cuts of deer and the spitted rabbits like a master chef and the next moment a groggy Grom stands before me, trying to get sand out of his beard and muttering to himself under his breath. Everything is as usual then, good good.

He's definitely not eyeing me oddly, okay? Goddamn it!

Grom simply stares at my boner-kun soup with a shudder, not saying a word. I stopped using my state of the art pillar of fire cooking technique as soon as I saw Grom, but I knew the jig was up and that the cat was out of the bag.

I gain my feet, straighten my back and walk over to stand in front of Grom with arms akimbo. Facing him, I furrow my brow and affect my most serious expression, complete with eye-twitchy twitch and thin hard line mouth. ”You definitely won't tell anyone about my super secret, awesome cooking technique, right? Riiiiiight?” I say, cocking my head and staring up at Grom, hopefully impressing upon him the seriousness of keeping the pillar of fire technique a secret with my striking Alyce-chan Akimbo stance.

Grom's expression is neutral. He slowly shakes his head. ”Good good, now please take a seat.” I say, indicating that Grom should plop himself down somewhere in my vicinity. I notice his eyes drifting from my Alyce-chan special to the sizzling cuts of deer meat and the rabbit spits, but he obediently rests his laurels before me as a proper servant should. Good good. My hairy meat slave is obsequious today as well, fufufu. Then again, how could he not be? It's a given that you will obey the overloli, right? I'm right, you know.

I clap loudly to get his attention and his eyes focus on me. ”Today, we will be learning how to cook! Are you ready everyone?!” I shout and look around. Grom's perfect poker expression stares me in the face.

I cough into my hand. ”We-well, so first what you do is take a glowing blue sho-ho-shword and you hwack away at the animals that you ordered your Raven-chan squad to capture.” I explain, looking over to Grom to see if he is following along. With blank, empty eyes he nods once.

”Excellent! So after that you should have some nice pieces of meat. Of course, you set aside the heads for the Alyce-chan special, but the rest of the body is fair game! Like this, like this!” I say, miming myself cutting off the rabbit heads and hacking away at the deer with extreme elegance and throwing the decapitated heads into my makeshift fulgurite cauldron with skill such as only the most adroit of baseball pitchers exhibit whilst handling his balls. And no! That's not an innuendo, okay? Goddamn it!

It must be my imagination that Grom shudders at my cooking demonstration. Surely my eyes are playing a trick on me, since there's no way that Grom would shudder, right?

Yeah, no way. Haha...

”Now, I know what you may be thinking. Alyce-chan, won't it take a long time for me to cook my own delicious food with expert skill, just like you have?!” I say, cocking my head to the side and waiting for Grom. He nods and I clap my hands together again.

”Aha! But while you weren't looking, I prepared these already. No need to wait, be grateful dog. Fufuf---aaah no, I mean, please enjoy the meal.” I say, and bow deeply. Silence greets me but I stubbornly stay bowed, forcing my upper body in horizontal alignment with the beach. Finally, I hear a thump thump as Grom claps his meaty fists together with a dull sound.

I look up with a grin to find him staring at me blankly like all life has left him. He claps a few more times before his arms drop limply to his side. He looks like a soulless doll, but it's really not my fault, you know? I'm acting perfectly normal!

”That was it for the Alyce-chan cooking course. For now, please enjoy your meal. I must taste-test the special concoction so excuse me.” I say, gesturing to the meat before turning my back on Grom and walking over to my sand-glass cauldron and the boner-kun broth within.

I look into the fulgurite bowl to find that my boner-kun broth and animal head special has somehow congealed into weird, indescribable greyish-brown jelly goo. Most of the water has evaporated, but there is a little left. This leaves me in a conundrum, as I do not have a utensil with which to guide the goo to my quivering, puckered lips for easy suctioning down.

But I guess I do have an abnormally long ghoul tongue that I haven't tested out yet. I look over at Grom, who has begun examining my expertly cooked meat and perfectly spitroased rabbits with some slight trepidation. He has a dubious expression on his face, but I shrug and leave him to it, burying my head in the fulgurite bowl which should effectively obscure my visage from view.

Next, I extend my long, prehensile tongue and use it to lick at the goop in the bowl. As soon as my tongue touches the goop, my mouth starts watering and I desperately lick and slurp the goop.

What a nostalgic feeling. Although it has only been a short while since the Lintball expedition, it still feels nostalgic, okay? Goddamn it!

I may have made a few weird sounds during the slurpy goop consumption process, but it shouldn't be anything too extreme, you know? Still, when I raise my head from the bowl, I find Grom staring at me with wide eyes.

”What?” I ask, puffiing my cheeks and pouting. He simply shakes his head and takes a bite of the meat I prepared.

Ping! You've eaten a skeleton minion lvl 31. +1 str +1 dex +1 cons

Hmpf, well it's better than nothing, but still, what a pathetic yield. Perhaps this is normal though. My perspective might be a bit skewed and I guess I shouldn't really count on being handed extreme stat boosts left and right without leveling up, which reminds me that I have a slot open for a secondary jobclass. It seems like this little Alyce-chan is progressing quite nicely, you know? Ohoho.

When I think about the fact that the Witch class has been upgraded from apprentice witch, and that I have Fire witch specialization available, the choice is kind of obvious. Besides, Fire Witch sounds cool and should be useful since my fire affinity is pretty high. Although my death affinity for necromancer is 100% it doesn't count because it was a god given cheat, okay? Goddamn it!

The fire Witch class might work well when I have to blend in with people, since I think it would be wise to hide my death and darkness affinities. I might be a bit of an airhead sometimes, but even I know that I shouldn't go around saying to people 'hey guys, I'm a ghoul high warlock necromancer, but I'm friendly. Oi, why are you running away from me? Don't call the guards!'

With that in mind, I do the logical thing and sit down in my ultra super lotus meditation pose and make a hnnng sound. Grom ignores me, eating my delicious homecooking in silence.

With furrowed brow and a powerful hnng, I will myself to accept the Witch class and the fire specialization too, hoping that system-chan will hear my plea and cut me some slack.

I don't know how this stuff works, okay? System-chan please help!

Ping! Congratulations, you've become a Fire Witch, able to bend the element of fire to your will. Since you've never been an Apprentice Witch of any coven, you have gained the appropriate qualifications necessary to create your own Witch Coven. Class Description: A Witch focuses on indirect magic, enchantments, enhancements, crowd control spells and trickery. Whereas the mage class is straightfoward in their attacks and defense, the witch class is crafty and tricky to deal with. They attack like vipers and defend like monkey-turtles. They buff their party and debuff their enemies and are in general a good choice for any party to bring, because although they possess less direct firepower than a mage, they bring group buffs and crowd control and can hold their own in straight confrontations aswell. Coven: Covenless. You are currently covenless, and since you advanced to the rank of Witch outside of any known covens, you cannot join a coven but must make your own. Coven Description: A Coven is like a class specific guild and allows for sharing of spells and class insights. It also grants privileges to its members aswell as to the head of the Coven. The Coven leader may set tasks for her Coven members to complete. She functions like a guildmaster. Coven Membership is very beneficial, and as the Coven grows in power, so too do the witches that are members of said coven. The higher the level of the coven, the more special powers are unlocked. Ping!You've learned a new spell: Fireball 1 Ping! You've learned a new spell: Blazing Barrier 1 Ping! You've learned a new spell: Blast Wave 1 Ping! You've learned a new spell: Fire wall 1 Ping You've learned a new spell: Fire Enchantment 1 Ping! Due to your mastery of summoning magick, you've learned a new spell: Summon Fire elemental 1 Ping! Due to you being a Fire Witch, your Fire Manipulation skill has leveled up. Ping! Due to you being a Fire Witch, your profinity with Fire has increased by 10% Ping! You have 2 talent points available, spend now? Ping! You have 2 trait points available, spend now?

I get very dizzy from the relentless system-chan ping ping assault, but somehow through the onslaught, I manage to retain my consciousness.

”Wahahaha! Brilliantly goodly great!” I exclaim, unfolding my legs and feet from the lotus pose and standing, a huge grin plastered across my face. Grom looks over at me and I notice that he seems to have finished eating.

”With this, have you forgiven me yet?” I ask, tilting my head at Grom. He stares at me a moment before sighing and nodding.

”Aye lass. In truth, I was just tired. Been a long couple days fer me ye see, what with me family stabbin' me in the back and that lickspittle o' an archlich trying te take over the world.” I nod my head and try to affect an understanding expression, although I don't really get it.

”I see, I see. Anyway I just got my second class, so I should've gotten a bit stronger. I have quite a few spells now. I wonder if I will have time to cast them all.” I muse to myself. ”I guess I have to pick my favorites.”

Grom looks over at me. ”You're as absurd as always. Only you can say that. Normally, spells and skills are few and far between and ye have te level up and master your class te get more. How many spells do ye have now then lassy?” Grom asks, also standing up and retrieving his glowing blue sword from where I discarded it after using it to gently relieve my ingredients of their heads.

I cock my head to the side and check my spells. ”I've got 14 spells, though not all of them are super useful.” I say and Groms eyes widen.

”What the fuck kind of class gives that many spells.”

”I thought that was normal. I got High Warlock and Fire Witch as my classes.” I say, turning towards the forest.

”WHAT?” Grom shouts and I jump, looking back at him. ”Jeez, don't shout like that Grom. A little bit of pee almost came out! Although I'm an undead so that doesnt happen to me, but still! Be considerate of my phantom bladder!”

”Lass, you better keep that te yerself. Also, with a level below 100, you got the Witch class, not to mention a specialization which usually only appears around level 150 so let alone telling someone ye be undead, ye can't reveal yer classes casually. Furthermore, that High Warlock class... I've never heard of such a thing before, but I know warlock only becomes available if ye be a mage of atleast level 200 and have unlocked certain achievements.” Grom says.

”Well, isn't that good then? It'll be easier for me to defeat boner-kun if I have powerful classes and lots of skills, right?” I ask.

”Aye, but ye shouldnae underestimate an arch-lich lass. They be high leveled monsters of at least rare quality, and depending on the amount of souls they've enslaved in ziggurats, they could become nearly undefeatable. Sides, it's not just the Arch-lich ye be fighting, but its armies too.” Grom says, his expression serious.

”Which reminds me lass, we gotta get te town te warn people, set the defense in motion. The lich-bastard should already be on the mainland, which means time is short.” Grom says.

He sounds worried, so I nod seriously even though I don't really get it. ”There's a town close by. We have to walk through the forest for a bit before we get there but it shouldn't take long. We can head to the river and follow it upstream until we hit the road, then go from there.” I say.

”I see. But how do ye know that.” Grom asks, preparing to leave by tidying himself up a bit and dusting off his beard, trying to extricate the last of the sandgrains from it as he straps the blue sword to his hip.

”I sent my Ravens out to scout.” I say, also gathering myself and preparing to leave. I step up beside Grom and we walk up the beach towards the edge of the forest. ”Ravens ye say? Not just the one?”

”My skills leveled up and I became able to summon another two, although those are smaller and have yellow eyes instead of red eyes. My original Raven-chan is the best for sure, but the Raven-chan lieutenants are good as well. Soon I'll have an army of birds, wahaha!” I say, laughing theatrically, one hand covering my mouth.

Although I'm having a glorious moment, I forget I'm walking on sand and trip over my feet.

Groms hand shoots out and catches me before I can faceplant in the sand. I look over, my face red. I cough into my hand a few times and thank Grom and we proceed into the forest.