“Woah, this is delicious.”

“Right? This is really good. Humans really know how to take it easy.”

“If I knew humans regularly ate food this scrumptious, I would’ve become a contracted beast during my younger years.”

I’m a genius. Using my powers of cooking, I’ve claimed all the treasures of Atlantis for myself! Other than the giant puppet, of course; the ruler’s keeping that, and I don’t think she’d trade it for food. Mm, it’s a little hard to believe, but these underlings of mine have never eaten a properly cooked meal before. Apparently, when they’re beasts, they hunt and eat other things raw. Then, when they’re strong enough to become immortals, they stop eating meat!

I’ll ask again just to be sure. “You guys really don’t mind trading your share of the treasures for my food?”

“Don’t mind, don’t mind at all,” someone said through stuffed cheeks. “It’s no wonder why the elders in my clan always told me not to eat food offered by humans. I thought they were worried I’d be poisoned, but it turns out, they were worried I’d become addicted to the taste!”

I’m pretty sure the guy who spoke is part cat—some sort of tiger or lion. It really doesn’t make any sense to me why’d they limit meat. Actually, then again, the ruler has rules against meat as well. I forgot what the reasons for the rules were, but they made sense at the time when she told me. Regardless, I have to take advantage of these people’s taste buds to the fullest. “If you guys want me to cook an even greater variety of things, why don’t you offer up some things to trade for some homemade lunch or dinner boxes? I’m interested in anything and everything!”

If these beast underlings of mine are willing to trade ancient and rare treasures from Atlantis for some meat I can find anywhere in the Immortal Continent, then who knows what else they’d be willing to give up?

“I hope you know they’re not making these losing deals because they’re idiots,” the ruler’s voice said in my head. “They’re willing to give up some benefits to establish friendly relationships with you. In the future, they might call upon you for help, and you’ll be obligated to support them.”

Mm? Obligated? Why would I be obligated? Don’t tell me it’s something like bad karma because I don’t believe in that superstitious stuff.

“It’ll hurt your fellow squirrels if you don’t fulfill your obligations. Other beasts will lose trust in squirrels, and they won’t cooperate easily with us in trying times. Even though it’s intangible, social currency does exist.”

Hmm…. In other words, as long as the other squirrels never leave the mountain ranges, it’ll be fine if I turn down any requests? Got it. I’m not seeing any problems here.

“What are these little brown stringy flecks on this piece of bread?” one of the beasts asked. She must’ve been a bird because there were a few feathers growing out of her face. Then again, dragons have deer antlers growing out of their heads, so I could be wrong. “They practically melt in my mouth.”

“Oh, that? That’s pork floss.”

“Pork what?” someone with pink ears and a flattish nose asked. Surprisingly, after being burnt to a crisp, most of the beasts recovered really well. There were only a few that didn’t make it like the dragon that was split in half. Speaking of the dragons, they fled shortly after the puppet disappeared. One of them died, and the other was kidnapped by the ruler, it only makes sense they were scared senseless.

“She said it was pork floss, stupid,” the bird-person said with her mouth full of bread. “If you’d stop chewing so loudly for one second, maybe you would’ve heard her.”

The pig-person placed the bun with pork floss on top of it down and looked at me. “What exactly is pork … floss?”

Mm, considering these beasts haven’t eaten cooked meals, it makes complete sense they have no idea what pork floss is. “It’s basically pork that’s been cooked and shredded into tiny little bits with a few seasonings added for flavor.”

“And pork is the meat of a pig, right?”

“Yep.”

“Got it,” the pig-person said and pushed his plate away. The bird-person sitting next to him snatched up his half-eaten buns and placed them onto her plate instead. Ooh, right, I probably shouldn’t have fed the pig pork, huh? But when I asked if anyone was allergic to anything, no one responded! It’s not my fault.

Jingle, jingle.

What’s this? A necklace? “What’s up, Mrs. Mu?” She’s holding her necklace up in front of my face.

“I’ll buy this entire grilled dragon,” Mrs. Mu said and dropped the necklace she was holding. It almost hit the ground, but I was fast enough to catch it with my tail! “I wonder if my Blazing Sun Sect Necklace is enough to purchase it.”

“It’s enough! No take backs!” With this necklace, now I have the whole set of jewelry from the seven great sects! I can’t believe she’s willing to trade her necklace for a corpse I picked up off the ground. In fact, Mrs. Mu was even there when the dragon died! It’s the one that the giant puppet split in half. Since it was long like an eel, I cooked it like how I would cook an eel. I might not know what this necklace does, but I think it’s much harder to get than a dragon, so even if this piece of jewelry is nothing amazing, it’s still a collectible item. Mm, I wonder if anything special will happen if I wear all the pieces of jewelry at the same time. Probably not, huh? I’d try, but I’m too busy converting all my meat into treasures right now!

“Darn, I wanted a piece of that dragon.”

“Hah, would you be brave enough to eat it? If the dragons ever found out, they’d hunt down your whole clan.”

“Why would I be afraid? Look at Big Elder Fluffytail; she cooked a dragon and sold it. If she’s willing to take on such a huge risk, why wouldn’t I be brave enough to buy from her?”

Eh? Was I not supposed to cook and sell dragons? I’m pretty sure someone once told me they were really popular to eat, so how could they be popular if people would get killed after eating them? It doesn’t make any sense. “Next up for sale, aurochs steak! Who wants it?”