Chapter 87: Deals and Dinner

The room was stunned silence at my admittance to having entered the End. Mouth agape in large O’s, surprise clear.

Flor quickly schools his face back to neutrality, confusion still clearly evident on his face. Hearing a light ‘grating’ sound under the table as Flor runs his nails along the bottom of the table. Personally, unaware of what emotions are seeping through to warrant such an odd physical action.

The mayor maintains his look of surprise for far longer than Flor, but eventually schools his face back to normalcy. Both looking at me contemplatively; perhaps for lies, I don’t know.

Eventually, Flor straitens his back and begins to speak. “How could you have entered that dimension before? It’s closely guarded, in fact, hidden from public knowledge.”

Replying in a calm voice, wishing to not stir the pot anymore. “There is more than one portal.” A truthful statement as far as I’m aware. Within the game, several fortresses spawn at certain milestones from the spawn block. I’m unaware if this is still true.

He mulls my answer over for meer moments before replying. His calculative mind finding a flaw quickly. “If others do exist, why don’t you use them; rather than asking for access to our portal?”

“It's simple; I no longer have access to the dimension. I don’t want to go into further details.”

He seems to accept the answer with ease. His façade of calm drops slightly, leaning onto the table with slightly more weight. “Fine, I see no reason to stop you further. Even if it's just an exotic type of suicide.”

Within my own mind, I’m already celebrating my success. Outwardly I keep my calm polite voice if ever so slightly more energetic and higher pitched. “Thank you.”

He simply replies, “Don’t thank me yet, I haven’t ordered your gravestone yet.” His grave humor tickling my funny bone.

Suppressing the rising giggle, I get up, ready to leave. “I’m sure Average here can help you arrange any details as to what my gravestone should have written on it.” To which the mayor replies with a very confused look.

“You're not going to actually die in there are you?” Average asks.

A little more faith in me would be appreciated. “Of course not, I have my methods; not the best at humor are you?”

He quickly regains his flat neutral face. “Humor is for the weak.”

Simply smiling in reply, “Sure buddy.” Donning my helmet before exiting the room. Before turning into the corridor, “Women like humor In men, maybe try it out.” Not looking back to see his reply, walking down the corridor, “That went well.”

Heading towards Cassie's home for a celebratory meal. Celebratory for me, a nice gesture for her. Coming towards the common house, the only difference a number on the side – 13. ‘Knock, Knock.’ Choosing to forgo my rhythmic knocking for a simpler one.

I hear a meek voice from behind the door. “Hello, who is it?” Caution evident in her tone.

“Just me, Aeternum.” To which I got a longer than I expected pause before the door finally opened.

Her voice gaining confidence as quickly as shifting gears. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay; something good happened today so I thought id enjoy a decent dinner… with you if you are interested.” Trying my best to keep awkwardness out of my voice.

She contemplates for a moment, “I ate recently so give me a smaller portion.” Guiding me through the thick wooden door frame. Looking at the door I see half a dozen locks on it. Far more than I last remember; maybe I should tell her burglars like to use windows.

Finding our way to her living room, comfortably sitting on the sofa next to each other. “Are you interested in any food in particular?”

“Hmmm, chicken I want chicken.” She says after a moment of pause.

“Okay, you're in for a treat.” Winking at her, gaining a slight blush from her. Walking towards her kitchen, a simple thing but it will suffice.

First placing a wok onto her stove, to which I fill it with oil and light the fire under it. Not a large fire, a small one to get the process started.

Next, I take out some whole chickens, using my knife I deftly remove the breasts from the bone. Pulling off the skin and slicing them into inch thick strips. Creating a spice mixture of paprika, thyme, red salt, mixed peppercorns, and lemongrass. Combining it all together with a little lemon juice and oil to make a runny paste. Lightly rubbing the chicken strips in the spice mixture before letting them rest. Most of that spice will go to waste as they weren’t marinated overnight but it will be fine.

Taking out some plain flour I add salt, pepper, garlic powder, mustard powder, and a dash of chili flakes. Not too much, adding them bit by bit. Tasting the flour until I feel the spice mix is where I want it to be. Strong flavors, a hint of spice; perfection.

Leaving the flour be, for now, I begin to cook down some thinly sliced red onions. Adding a pinch of salt and a dash of sugar to caramelize them. Setting the caramelized onions to the side before moving onto the next side dish. Stalling for time to let the spices improve the chicken as much as possible in my tight time frame.

Next, I take some mozzarella, cutting it into square 2 cm rectangles. Adding salt and pepper to the cheese before setting them to the side. The final item is onion rings, cutting nice large onions into massive onion rings. I simply add a tiny bit of sugar to the onion for sweetness.

Checking the oil by dropping a pinch of flour inside, finding it bubbling nicely – up to temperature. Removing my chicken, I shake the excess spice mixture off before flouring it, dipping it in water, and then flour it again. Throwing them into the bath of oil to fry; while being careful not to overcrowd the pan. While the chicken begins to fry I use the same process to flour the onion rings and mozzarella sticks. Removing the crisp chicken after roughly 4 minutes, cutting one to find it juicy and cooked.

Placing them on a plate with some soft paper to absorb excess oil. While they cool slightly the sides are fried with the same process, the onion rings until golden brown and the mozzarella roughly 3 minutes.

Heating the caramelized onions before combing it all onto a massive tray. Crispy chicken on one corner and the sides in the other 3 respective corners – “Dinners served”

Walking into the room got a lot of attention from the slightly hungry girl. “Smells good, hurry up and let me eat.”

“Slow down, it's still hot; it will burn you,” I say in vain as she bites into the chicken anyway. Quickly huffing air threw her mouth to cool it down. Being unable to help but laugh at how silly she looks. She throws me a grumpy look.

“What's so funny.” She says, having finally consumed the extremely hot food.

“Nothing, you're just cute.” She quickly averts her eyes; a compliment is a great way to dodge trouble.

As she continues to eat the food, spending extra attention on the onion rings and the chicken. “It's pretty good, the flavors are a bit off… its nice thought.”

“Don’t worry about it, I winged the combination. It would have been better if I had a recipe or time to experiment.” Cursing myself for not using my go-to tandoori flavors; I'm far better at them.

“No, it's good; I love it. It's just an uncommon flavor combination. Accept a damn compliment.”

“Sorry,” I reply meekly.

She just facepalms. I shy away a little embarrassed, eating some fried chicken while I sit in the corner of the sofa. Instead of trying to reason with me she just lightly grasps my arm and pulls me closer to her side. Having already removed my armor it was a rather intimate gesture.

For a time we simply sit there enjoying the hastily prepared food. “So what happened that made you want to have a nice dinner?” She asks.

I was about to speak but thought better of telling her I got access to a dangerous dimension. “I got access to an otherwise restricted area. I can't go into detail but it’s a big deal.” Joy filling my voice with energy. So much better than finding it with ender eyes manually.

“Congratulations sounds like something good.”

“Thank you, well you got a nice meal out of it so who is the real winner here?”

“Definitely me.” She replies with a beaming smile, chicken between her teeth. The meal is mostly eaten by this point, 2 whole chickens devoured between us. Well, she ate more than me somehow, “a small portion my ass.” The mozzarella sticks to my sadness weren’t as good as id hoped, being one of my favorites. I winged them completely so something had to go wrong.

Note to self, use breadcrumbs next time. The batter for fish, flour for chicken, and breadcrumbs for everything else. Not a perfect rule to follow but something to help me remember.

“I've got to ask, why are you always home when I knock. You have quite an intensive job, why do I never find you out?”

“A combination of luck and working from home. A lot of my time is looking over documents and mailing people. So, generally, I go in every 3 days to grab a load of stuff I need to do and complete it at home. I do sometimes spend a day at the main building to complete more intensive work or for meetings but in general, I work from home.”

Mulling over her words, “Wait did I interrupt you during work? If so I’m sorry.”

She chortles loudly. “It's fine, I pick my hours and this is where luck came in. Generally, you see me after or before I begin my work. I've only got a little bit left I’ll do after you leave.”

Wiping the sweat from my brow, “Good, good; wouldn’t want you to get fired.”

“No way, I do far too much work to be fired.” She says confidently.

“Everyone is replaceable, always stay on guard,” I say as she visibly deflates slightly.

“I know,” she says as she shrinks slightly in her large shirt. I really shouldn’t have spoiled the mood but that is rather cute.

Looking at her in the home wear, large shirt and baggy trousers. Hair in a quick bun, guess I came a bit out of the blue. At least she's comfortable around me.

“Hey, Aeternum, what do you do as a job?”

Stunned at the question, it would sound bad if I say I don’t have one. Yet she must be aware of what I've done around town.

“I do… a lot of things but in general to make money I enchant equipment.”

“Wow, that’s so awesome; wish I could do that. So have you made like a super sword or something?”

“Enchanting doesn’t quite work like that and even you could do it with the right tools. But I suppose yes, I did make a super sword.”

“How do you enchant?”

“Well, you need 3 things, lapis, experience, and an enchanting table. The table imbues the enchantments requiring lapis to activate and experience to fuel it.”

She knits her brows slightly, “How do you gain enough experience to enchant lots of things. I don’t know much about it but from what I hear it’s a slow process to accumulate it.”

“Well, let me tell you how to gain experience. First, if you kill monsters you get a lot of experience. Doing manual activities like farming, animal rearing produces experience too but far less. Mining is quite lucrative too, producing experience at every ore like coal, lapis, Redstone, diamond, and emerald. Me personally, I farm a unique berry that naturally contains experience.”

“That’s interesting, does experience have other uses outside of enchanting?”

“Well, I think there is but I've personally only used it for enchanting. I think some things use it as fuel to make you stronger through different methods.” Lifting my arms in a, I don’t really know.

“Cool, I want to be super-fast.” She says in a child-like way.

Soon after that conversation and some light cuddling, I leave her to work. Finding refuge in my bed at home. The covers comfortably embracing me; I love sleeping. Hastily writing in my diary the details for reaching the end portal before I forget. With the final task of the day complete, I begin to fall into a torpor-like stillness; deep asleep.