System Change

Silvi watched in amazement as pots and pans, knives and spoons, and ingredients flew through the air, landing perfecting in front of Daniel, Stephanie, and Raymond. At the same time as the ingredients hit the counter, the chopping began. They were all perfectly in sync as Gregory watched over the crew.

Once the chopping was finished, the vegetables flew into the hot skillets and broth filled pots. Silvi couldn’t help but imagine herself doing these wonderful tasks. She resolved herself to train more than any human, for she would have to, as she was small and without thumbs.

Silvi refocused on her task at hand. Gregory had called this foul vegetable an onion and Silvi was tasked with finely chopping it into tiny pieces. What Stephanie had just finished in mere seconds was a monumental undertaking for Silvi, and she would not fail.

Silvi summoned her chopping knife out of her storage ring that hung on her nose. It was not the ideal placement for a storage ring, but it beat all the other current options. Having it on one of her ears would have been much worse.

The knife clattered on the table beside the onion. Gregory had said that she first had to peel the outer layer off of the vegetable, then use her own judgement whether the next layer would need to be removed. How was she supposed to know? This was her first time personally dealing with any kind of vegetable. Thus far, her experiences of preparing and cooking food was ripping meat out of freshly killed monsters with her teeth, then dragging it to roast over a campfire.

Silvi made it her personal mission to become a master onion chopper on her first day. She would succeed and all the professional chefs would be in awe of her learning speed and superb skills.

Silvi summoned her level 4 Mage Hand and morphed it into a proper hand with a thumb. She had thought about adding more thumbs just to one-up the humans, but soon found that one thumb worked the best.

Gripping the handle of the knife, she floated it over the onion. According to the example that Gregory had shown her, she first needed to cut a small portion off of both the root side and the opposite side, leaving only the ‘bulb’ left. That all went completely over her head. But she watched carefully, and Gregory had taken his time to slowly demonstrate the process, so she wasn’t worried.

She brought the gleaming blade of the chopping knife over the onion, a couple centimeters in from the root. Slowly and meticulously, Silvi brought the knife down. The knife made contact with the onion and bit into it. The movement stopped, the blade of the knife sunk shallowly into the onion, just past the first couple layers of skin.

This was it, the first real moment, the first step on the road to becoming a chef. Silvi cleared her mind and focused. It was just her and the vegetable. She increased the pressure and pushed, preparing to see the knife flawlessly relieve the onion from its remaining root.

Then the onion flipped and rolled atop the knife, which was currently lying horizontally on the table. The onion rolled off the knife and continued rolling, speeding towards the edge of the table. Everything was in slow motion. Silvi watched on in horror as the bulbous vegetable inched closer and closer to the edge.

If the onion hit the ground, it would be over. The vegetable would be ruined, no longer fit to be included in any dish. Nobody would want to eat a floor onion. There was no ‘5 second rule’ like Derek said. The skin was punctured by her knife. It was no longer in any condition to protect the inner onion from outside forces.

Frozen, Silvi could only watch as the onion made it to the edge of the table. One more rotation and it would be over the edge and onto the floor.

The Mage Hand had long since dissipated due to the shock of what happened. Thoughts and ideas appeared in her mind and were rapidly dismissed as not possible. She was fast enough to get to the onion before it hit the ground, but alas, not having thumbs would thwart any attempt she could make to save the onion.

Silvi caught sight of the chopping knife as the vegetable finally rolled over the edge. She knew what she had to do. Abruptly, she vanished. Appearing beside the knife, she bit down on the handle and vanished again.

This time, she appeared on the floor, directly under the falling onion. In an instant, she tilted her head sideways and a small amount of pressure pushed on her face from above. Silvi appeared once again on the table where she first was.

She opened her mouth, and the knife fell out. This time, though, on the end of the knife was the onion. Speared by the tip of the knife like a fish over a fire.

Silvi slowly glanced around at her surroundings, hoping nobody saw her almost failure. The coast looked clear, as everyone seemed too busy caught up in their own personal projects. Gregory was beside Daniel and Jessica, pointing at something Daniel was doing and explaining to Jessica the reasons why he was doing it.

Silvi continued gazing around the kitchen. Finally, her eyes fell on Marie. The girl was staring wide eyed at her, like she was some sort of mystical beast. Well, Silvi was a mystical beast, but she was sure that was not why Marie was staring.

She had been caught. Dread poured over the young rabbit as she waited to be reprimanded. Her eyes met Marie’s, and they shared a moment before the cleaner with short, messy brown hair made her approach.

Marie arrived at her table. The girl looked at Silvi, then the knife, then back at Silvi. Finally, she spoke. “That… that was amazing! How did you do that? You were here.” She pointed at Silvi. “Then there.” She pointed to where the knife used to be. “Then, all of the sudden, you were back here with the knife skewering the onion.”

“I..” Silvi’s childish voice rang out from the active communication crystal. “I just didn’t want the ingredient to touch the floor.”

The girl stared dumbfounded at Silvi. “The onion fell, then in less than a second, you were back on the table with it. Such amazing speed. I barely saw you get the knife and didn’t even see move to the falling onion. You must be so strong.” She shook her head. “You really don’t have to worry that much about a mere onion.”

Marie picked up the onion and knife, removing the vegetable from the blade in the process. Then, her hands glowed white and all the liquid, including Silvi’s saliva that was on the handle, disappeared. She placed both the onion and the cleaned knife back on the table in front of Silvi. “You need to find a way to hold the onion still while you cut it, or the same thing will keep happening. We have both hands and Telekinesis, so it’s easy for us.”

“We have tons of onions and other vegetables.” Marie explained. “If a few of them get bruised or fall on the floor, they can be thrown away. This isn’t a village where every scrap of food is precious, we have professional Botanists. From each onion, they can grow many more in a short amount of time. They are the perfect people to get stranded on an island or lost in a desert with. As long as they have mana and a single edible plant, they have food.

“The reason that you are starting out on chopping an onion is because it doesn’t matter if you mess it up and one of the most needed skills in cooking is the ability to chop and dice something. Not because vegetables need to be perfectly cut up to use, but because of the time saved by doing it properly. Now, that’s not to say that a perfectly diced onion doesn’t taste better than a poorly chopped one, it does. The texture is different and thin slices aren’t as strong as thick slices.” Marie continued.

Marie placed her hand on the back of Silvi’s head and scratched her behind the ear before suddenly pulling back and apologizing. “Ah… s-sorry. You’re so cute. I didn’t even realize I was petting you until I already had.”

“It’s fine. Feels good.” Silvi said.

Marie let out a sigh and pet Silvi again. “Anyway, don’t worry if you mess up a few vegetables. Gregory won’t even accept them unless they are chopped up perfectly. You don’t even want to know the amount of wasted onions and carrots me and Jess went through before we were able to properly use a knife.”

Marie leaned in close and whispered in Silvi’s ear. “The really scary thing is the amount of food you will end up wasting during the actual cooking. So much burnt or undercooked meat and over or under seasoned vegetables that just goes straight into the garbage.” She pulled back and shuttered. “If you want to see Gregory mad, all you have to do is char a perfect cut of a level 120 beast.”

“Well.” Marie straightened up and looked over to the sink. “I better get back to it. Those dishes aren’t going to clean themselves. Just remember that if you make a mistake, it isn’t the end of the world.”

“Thank you for your help.” Silvi replied and Marie nodded before turning and walking over to the sink full of dishes.

Silvi turned back to her freshly cleaned knife and slightly damaged onion. Time for round two. She failed before, but by the end of the day, she would show the onion who the boss is.