Otaku Witch

"Huh, Galahad, you’re not using Culinary Magic? So you’re that kind of hardcore manual type, huh."

Dorothy was picking suitable ingredients from the pile already stacked beside the stove. As she chose, she snuck a glance at the petite Knight’s movements beside her, then asked in some confusion.

Galahad was currently holding a chef’s knife, carefully working on a section of Great Dragon tail meat.

Mm, this really was a great ingredient. Even though the homebody witch couldn’t tell at a glance which breed of Great Dragon this tail came from, her eyes were sharp enough to see this was definitely a rare top-grade ingredient. The grain and texture of that Dragon Meat were simply too beautiful—she couldn’t help but sigh at how gorgeous it was.

However, although that unknown Great Dragon tail looked pretty, what truly caught Dorothy’s attention was the insanely good knife work Galahad was showing off right now.

Slice, chop, fillet, slide...

The chef’s knife danced up and down in her hand, nimble as a butterfly. With her movements, that top-grade tail meat was quickly and perfectly processed.

Mm, that was some beautiful knife work.

Dorothy really appreciated it.

Knife work is basic skills for any chef. Even if not every chef with good knife work is a good chef, a truly good chef will never have bad knife work.

Judging from this beautiful display, the homebody witch knew that this halfling witch head chef’s Culinary Arts were absolutely excellent.

After all, that unknown Dragon tail wasn’t the sort of ingredient you could handle perfectly with knife skills alone.

That was Dragon Meat.

Great Dragons have incredibly tough bodies and shocking defensive power. Even after they’re killed, dismembering a dragon’s corpse is no easy task. Ordinary blades can’t cut Dragon Meat at all, and even most Divine Weapons will find it tough going.

Not to mention, the tail meat in Galahad’s hand clearly didn’t come from some ordinary Great Dragon, so it had to be even harder to deal with.

And the chef’s knife in this halfling witch’s hand, while decent quality, was hardly any kind of Divine Weapon—just a standard-issue kitchen knife placed by the stove.

With a knife like that, cutting High Level Dragon Meat clearly shouldn’t be easy, yet Miss Galahad’s movements were light and relaxed.

Aside from her being personally very strong and her knife skills being outstanding, the main reason was that she understood the structure of Dragon Meat extremely well.

It was just like that "Butcher Dissecting an Ox" story Dorothy had heard in her previous life. Kill enough cows, and once you’ve memorized the body structure and muscle grain by heart, dismembering one becomes easy—you just follow the seams between the muscles.

Of course, that’s easy to say in theory, but actually reaching that level of familiarity is very hard. Especially since Great Dragons are not like common livestock such as cattle and sheep. To know Dragon Meat this well—Dorothy couldn’t even imagine how many Great Dragons this Miss Galahad, who looked like a child, had dismembered in the past.

In short, her understanding of ingredients was obvious at a glance.

Good knife work, knowledge of ingredients—that’s already more than half of what makes an excellent chef.

It was just, like Dorothy had asked, she was quite surprised that Galahad turned out to be a manual-type chef. In the Witch World, in this kind of magic world, there really weren’t many chefs who were still willing to cook with their own hands.

The homebody witch looked around at the other stoves in the Imperial Kitchen and found that almost all the Imperial Chefs were waving their Magic Wands, casting Culinary Magic, while the ingredients and utensils moved on their own.

Yeah, Magic was such a convenient thing. It was way more flexible and useful than clumsy hands.

Dorothy thought so too—she also felt Magic was much more practical than bare hands.

After all, she was a lazy person; the whole series of witch Curses was born for the sake of slacking off.

"Nah, I can’t really be called a pure manual type. Normally I also use Magic for cooking. It’s just that when I’m doing some particularly important dishes, I’ll cook by hand. That way I feel I can bring out my full strength. Of course, that’s just my personal habit, Young Miss, you don’t have to mind it."

Only after Galahad finished dealing with the tail meat in her hands did she smile and answer.

Dorothy suddenly understood.

Mm, she got it. So this halfling witch Miss was also one of the "Soul Party"—the type that believes food made by hand has more Soul or whatever.

The homebody witch, meanwhile, was a pragmatist. She didn’t think using hands or Magic was nobler. Whether it’s Magic or hands, that’s all just form. What truly matters is the heart of the chef infused into the dish.

Still, since Galahad had said she only cooks by hand for important dishes, and she’d personally stepped up this time, that meant she considered this sparring match very important.

So, since the other party was showing her this much respect, Dorothy felt she had to respond with equal respect.

Right then, she decided she’d also cook by hand for the first time in a while.

It’s just, she didn’t have such a High Level ingredient as the Dragon tail in Galahad’s hands; and even if she did, with her current strength she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Hand her a chunk and she might not even be able to hack through it.

So Dorothy didn’t stubbornly pick ingredients that were too high Level just to save face and suffer for it.

After all, this was just a friendly match, a comparison of Culinary Arts, not a contest of who had the higher-grade ingredients. An ingredient she could easily handle and that could perfectly show off her cooking was enough. Forcing high-Level ingredients she couldn’t control would actually be worse.