"Good morning, Sylph."

"Waon!"

"Ooh, good girl, good girl! Still, you're really adorable for a wolf!"

"Yeah. And the feel of this beautiful silver fur is amazing."

"Kuun."

The next day, after setting up a large tent by the river, I woke up earlier than the rest of the women’s tent, together with Lange and Dolph.

Thanks to Sylph, the Silver Wolf summoned by Ferry, who kept watch through the night, I was able to sleep soundly. Perhaps bored from the night watch, Sylph wagged her tail as she came over to us.

As Dolph said, the sensation of stroking this beautiful silver fur was incredible. Of course, Sleipnir’s white fur was amazing too, but Sylph's coat was just as splendid. As someone who had almost no contact with pets or animals in my previous life, I really envy summoning magic.

"Alright then, I’m going to make a delicious breakfast, so wait just a bit, okay?"

"Waon!"

The reason the three of us men got up early was to prepare breakfast. I could have gotten up alone to do it, but both Dolph and Lange offered to help. Either way, when I get up with an alarm, I end up waking the other two in the same tent, and it takes time to do everything alone, so I asked for their help.

Of course, the women also offered to help, but especially Berna and Ferry were busy with escort duties during the day, so I decided to let them rest properly.

"Tetsuya, what should we help with?"

"I can’t do complicated dishes, but I used to cook simple meals during my adventuring days, so leave it to me."

"Thanks, both of you. Then could I ask you two to take care of the salad and bacon and eggs?"

Today's breakfast menu is a simple Western-style breakfast: salad, bacon and eggs, and bread. But the bread isn’t store-bought; it's bread we made last night using dough we prepared together, and we'll be baking it in the portable pizza oven.

The bread dough had already been prepped yesterday, mixed with yeast, and left to ferment in a cooler box with ice created by Lange's ice magic. It's all ready—just needs to be baked.

"Whoa, that’s some serious firepower. It’s like watching Berna’s fire magic."

"Heh~ so it’s like laying this gas burner on its side?"

"This is called a torch burner. It’s mainly a tool to start fires. You're right, Lange, it does look similar to the gas burner you’re using."

While Dolph chopped vegetables at the back and Lange heated a frying pan with a gas burner to make bacon and eggs, I was starting the fire for baking the bread, and they were watching.

The torch burner, which became available to purchase when my outdoor shop level hit 5, is also known as a gas torch. It's a camping gear item that turns into a burner by attaching it directly to a gas canister.

Starting a fire from scratch with a fire starter is fun, but since we want to depart early in the morning, I used this. With it, I don’t need to gradually build up the fire from twine to small branches to kindling—I can ignite firewood directly.

In this world where such tools don’t exist, it might very well look like I’m using fire magic, just like Dolph said. For the record, yesterday’s fire was lit in an instant by Berna using her fire magic.

"Alright, now we just need to raise the temperature in the oven."

More time is actually needed to raise the internal temperature of the bread oven to several hundred degrees than to actually bake the bread. Even with the torch burner and wood pellets as fuel, it still takes a few dozen minutes to get it hot enough—that's the one downside.

And since the portable pizza oven isn’t that large, I fired up two ovens just like we did when baking pizza yesterday.

"...Alright, that should do it."

"Oh, smells amazing!"

"Yeah, this looks delicious!"

As I took the bread out of the portable pizza oven, the aroma of freshly baked wheat spread all around. The dough that had been white before was now a beautiful brown color, just like store-bought bread.

"Hot, hot... Yeah, it’s white and properly risen inside too."

Of course, freshly baked bread is incredibly hot, so I used gloves I bought at the outdoor shop. Splitting the round loaf in half revealed soft, pure white bread inside, and the fragrance became even stronger.

"Yup, tastes just right too. Here, you two, have a taste."

"Let’s see... yeah, crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside—this is delicious!"

"Yeah! It’s way better than the stuff they sell at the stores! Tetsuya, you could be a baker!"

"That’s a bit of an exaggeration. But I’m glad it turned out well."

Of course, this wasn’t my first time baking bread. I made sure to do a proper trial run in the town of Al-Flare. If I’m going to make something a little tricky for camp cooking, I always do a trial first. Still, I had Lilia do the taste-testing during practice, so this was the first time for the two of them to eat freshly baked bread.

It might sound like an exaggeration, but the aroma and flavor of freshly baked bread can be quite a shock when you taste it for the first time. Bread from the shops is good too, but fresh-baked bread is a rare treat.

"Looks like everyone else is up too. Let’s have breakfast then."

Maybe drawn by the smell of fresh bread, I heard sounds from the women’s tent. Since everyone was waking up, it was time to start breakfast.