“Hello, I’m Coralie!” the little girl approached Pip, who was leading the children from the herb gardens toward the gates of Minas Mar. After they escaped from the forest Pip had been the oldest pupil of Karina left and became their leader.

They were on their way to a snowball fight with the Tijaahk children, like every day in the afternoon, when a new face, a girl a few years younger than Pip, approached them with an excited expression.

“Can we be friends?” she asked innocently in her high-pitched voice.

“Hello, Coralie. I’m Pip, are you new in Minas Mar?” the girl asked her friendly, but also a little vigilant. Pip had gone through too much to not find a girl wandering around the halls of Minas Mar suspicious.

However, taking into account the safety measures she knew and those she most likely didn’t know into account, it was impossible for someone to infiltrate her, which was why she answered the little girl with a smile.

She also couldn’t help adoring the little girls, friendliness to other children was an inherent trait of those that learned the magic of nature under Karina.

“Yes! My mom and I came earlier. My Mom is going to work here and went to look at her new workplace...”

“Then why are you not with her but wandering around here?” one of the girls from the group, who was about Coralie's age, asked curiously. All of them were orphans who had lost their parents.

Although they had found a new family with Karina and the others, it didn’t stop them from missing their parents. Missing her own, the thought of someone leaving their parents' side seemed weird to the girl. Pip was also interested in the reason why Coralie was wandering around alone.

“B-but you have to promise not to get mad,” Coralie suddenly said hesitantly.

“Promise,” Pip swore one hand on her heart. “Promise!” the other children followed her example.

“Actually, Mom told me to stay in the room and that she would be back soon, but my Uncle told me there would be other children here and I could finally make more friends...so I got excited and didn’t want to wait,” Coralie explained shily.

“Can we be friends?” she finally exclaimed.

Pip’s heart ached a little. How lonely must the little girl have been, to act like this?

“Hmm, so you want to join us?” Pip acted like she was pondering about it, while looking Coralie up and down. She had wanted to tease her a little, but looking at her big, bright eyes, Pip couldn’t help her heart soften.

“Alright, we are on our way to a snowball fight, then you can also get to know the kitties. But first, we have to find your mom and ask for permission;” Pip said responsibly. As the oldest of the bunch, she had to make sure they wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Where does your mom work?” “The kitchen! My mom is a great cook. Her food is almost as good as the food we got from the Oathguards,” she bragged(?)

“Ther’s a new chef?” “Your mom can cook?” the crowd of younger children exclaimed chaotically, hearing the news of a new addition in the Kitchen, the uncontested realm of Old Man Link, the Gourmet Demon.

“Alright, let’s go look for you Mom then,” Pip brought order to the crowd, and they set off to visit the cafeteria.

…

“Hmm, interesting. The taste is...acceptable,” Link mumbled after tasting the food their new hire had made for her first evaluation. Sherry was originally a learned chef before she got the corresponding class and it showed.

Link had gained the class of a Gourmet Hunter because he was originally someone always on the hunt for good food. The time when he used his parents’ money to tingle around the best restaurants of Urth felt like a different life at this point.

The point is, that Link learned cooking from his skills alone, making it quite interesting to him, to watch a talented, traditionally trained chef work. There were many things she did, he found unnecessary since monster ingredients had to be treated differently from the materials they used to work with, but the taste proved her right.

Link was a lv.8 craftsman in , while Sherry still had to break through to the craftsman tier, yet the taste of her food was not much worse than his own. Of course, he was vastly superior if he used the legendary items, but practical skill-wise, the gap was not as big.

It made a small nick in his ego, he had developed as the best chef in Minas Mar, but Link also wasn’t petty enough to dislike her for it. Instead, he was hellbent on absorbing her knowledge and making even better food in the future.

“Very good, I’m glad someone with your skills joined us,” Link finally said after tasting the several test dishes Sherry had made for him to taste. The gourmet could reliably say that she was the best chef in Minas Mar, apart from him.

“Thank you very much. I’m happy I was able to join;” she said with a light laugh.

“Hello, Link. Does a lady Sherry happen to be here? There is someone that wants to see her,” the voice of a young woman interrupted the two.

“Pip? And what is it that?” Link asked, looking at the girl who held Pip’s hand.

“Coralie! Didn’t I ask you to stay in the room?” Sherry exclaimed surprised, but not angry.

“I’m sorry if she made any trouble,” she assured, quickly hugging the little girl that readily dove into her arms.

“Your mom is so pretty!” “And she can cook!” “Wow!” the crowd clamored. Only then did Sherry notice the crowd of children following the girl called Pip.

“Did you already find friends?” She asked Coralie with a loving smile.

“Y-Yes?! We want to go out and have a snowball fight, but Pip said we have to ask you for permission first,” she mumbled in her childish voice.

Sherry looked up at Pip and the children behind her.

“Is it safe to simply go outside and have a snowball fight?” she asked worriedly. Back in Y-City she always had to be careful, since they had been living in a place that was barely managed. There was always a chance for monsters to appear in the streets.

“There is no need to worry. The children always play outside the main gate. There are more than enough guards and Asterion, the gatekeeper,” Link assured her.

“Really?” “We are finished here. We can go with them so you can make sure yourself.”

…

“Wow, it’s a big cow!” Coralie exclaimed while Sherry blushed at the sight of the muscular Minotaur training in front of the gate. There was also a group of children with cat features waiting.

“Pip! You are late. What were you doing?” a boy with big cat ears and his face covered in gray-black fur called out to Pip, who was standing beside Sherry.

“It’s a big cat, too!” Coralie exclaimed excitedly. It was also Sherry’s first time seeing the Tijaahk.

“Who is that?” the boy asked when he was called a cat.

“She’s a new member of Minas Mar and our new teammate;” Pip answered confidently.

“Yeah, be nice to her. Her mom is a great cook!” one of the younger boys cheered.

“What can she cook?” “My Mom makes great cookies!” Coralie bragged.

“Okay, you can join, but you have to bring cookies next time!” The catboy demanded, prompting Coralie to look at her Mom with big puppy eyes.

With a laugh, Sherry nodded. With her permission and bribe, the kids ran off to throw themselves into a chaotic snowball fight. The chef and the gourmet stayed back, talking about this and that, while they watched the children play.

This time it wasn’t just Asterion who hogged the attention of people watching him train. There were quite a few glances at Link, as it was rare for the man to leave his kitchen and talk to a woman for this long.

Had spring finally come for the hunter, too?