"Cooking Hero, the remaining monsters have been subjugated and the people are safe. Do you wish to absorb the monsters or should we burn them?" the commander of the knights asked, pulling Clara out of her trance. She stood up and looked over the battlefield.

"Gather the corpses into a pile, I'll absorb them all. I could possibly get some useful drops from extra monsters, even if they don't unlock me anything," she responded, trying to calm herself down. The commander nodded and returned to his soldiers, who quickly began to gather the mummies into a pile next to the giant golem. Clara picked up some of the mummy corpses and golem's remains and absorbed them. Several new knives were unlocked, including the two she couldn't use before because of her low level.

Withered Mummy Bone Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: +2 attack

Old Mummy Bandage Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: "Second Slash"

special effect: bandage grapple

Butcher Golem's Bloody Cleaver

abilities locked equip bonus: "Knife Rain"

Butcher Golem Rotten Flesh Pot

abilities locked equip bonus: inventory rot resistance (small)

Butcher Golem Core Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: +5 magic attack

special effect: blood aura, magic support (weak)

Dragon Hourglass Sand Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: "Portal Knife"

Unobtanium Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: "E Float Knife"

special effect: g-force nullification (weak)

Clara looked at the list and her eyes widened. She didn't expect to get so many skills all at once and she was still tired from the battle.

Ok, the bone knife is an extra few stats, so I can ignore it for now. Inventory rot resistance probably preserves ingredients in my inventory. The bandage knife gives a second slash, which I guess is second to the one I have. Wait, I should test this out.

"Erst Lid! Second Slash!" Clara exclaimed, summoning a barrier and blasting through it with a follow-up skill. The energy slash cut through the barrier and flew off into the distance for a bit before it dissipated.

Alright, that works. Now what about this one?

Clara swapped to the comically large cleaver and pointed it into the distance. "Knife Rain!"

Instead of using her knife, several glowing knives appeared around her and burst forth into the distance.

Ok, the skill lives up to its name.

She swapped to the core knife and looked over the effects.

Blood aura and magic support? Let's test the magic.

She focused on her mana and tried to form a glowing orb, and to her surprise, the mana began to flow faster and more freely than before. She opened her eyes and saw the magic orb already floating in her hands.

It's not a huge difference, but it's definitely noticeable. This can help me cast magic mid-battle faster. But what does the blood aura do? I guess I'll test it later.

She looked over at the last two knives that she unlocked. They were the knives she got a long time ago, but couldn't use due to her low level. But with her level at 51, she was finally able to equip them.

"Portal Knife," Clara read from the status screen, and a new option popped up.

[Set Waypoint/Teleport to waypoint]

Waypoints:
-none

-none

-none

She tried to set a waypoint and her knife began to glow. Suddenly, a small knife popped up out of the gem and dropped onto the ground. The waypoint list was also updated.

Waypoints:
-Boomerang Island (Empty Field)

-none

-none

Clara picked up the knife and rolled it over in her hand. It was surprisingly light, almost weightless unlike what she expected. She raised it above her head and tossed it in the direction of the village. It flew a lot further than she expected and reached the edge of the village

Waypoints:
-Boomerang Island (Edge of ? Village)

-none

-none

"?"? I guess the name doesn't show up if I don't know it. I'll have to test it out later. But for now…

"Portal Knife," Clara muttered and braced for impact. It was the same feeling as when she was dragged along by Hol, except the light surrounding her had a tint of green instead of blue. With a blink of an eye, the portal skill disappeared, and she was now at the edge of the village, almost 40 feet away from where she stood before.

It works! But there is a 1 hour cooldown and I can only set 1 waypoint at a time. Wait, if I unequip this knife without the bonus unlocked, will the waypoints disappear?

She swapped her knife out for another one and watched as the knife in the ground remained in its spot.

Sweet, so it won't disappear if I swap it out for another knife. Guess I can master this one later then. Now for the last one.

"E Float Knife."

With the command given, a small blue knife appeared before her. It looked similar to the small knife she was summoned with, but it was missing the gem and it was a bit bigger. Clara tried to walk towards the knife, but the knife moved with her.

"Huh… weird," she said, reaching out for the knife. She tried to push it further away, but the knife seemed to be stuck directly in front of her.

What kind of skill is this? What if I crouch, can I use it to chop food at a distance?

As she imagined the knife chopping onions beside her, the knife floated to her side and began to chop the air in front of her.

"Does it… are you mentally controlled?" she wondered out loud, willing the knife to move to her right side. The floating knife followed her thoughts and moved to the other side. Clara glared at the knife in her hand.

Are you reading my thoughts?! This thing reads my thoughts?! WHY DO YOU READ MY THOUGHTS! THAT STUFF IS PRIVATE!

The knife didn't respond or change in any way. Clara shuttered and looked back at the floating knife in front of her.

Well, I guess it has already seen everything. What's the range of this thing?

She thought of the knife moving as far away from her as possible, but it only moved about 3 meters away from her. Clara glanced at her SP bar and saw that the knife wasn't draining her any faster than she could regenerate. Though the bar seemed to fill up very slowly. She saw a small switch appear next to the skill as well.

Clara flicked it and the skill disappeared, but it reappeared as soon as she flicked it again.

I guess this is a semi-passive skill? Will a cooldown appear if the knife is broken? I wish I could change it to a lid or something. That way it can act as a shield. But other than that, this skill will be the easiest to master as I can just leave it on for a few hours, and it doesn't seem to disappear even when I swap the knife. Though I can't turn it back on if I do. And the stats on the Unobtainium Knife aren't bad either. As expected of a level 50 weapon, I guess. I'll have to figure out what g-force nullification does later.

Clara swapped to the dragon hourglass knife and ordered the floating skill to stay above her head. With all the knives looked at, she turned back to the pile of monsters, which now grew in size, and absorbed it. Clara also saw several knights stare at her in awe as if she just performed a miracle.

"Did I… do something?" she asked awkwardly. She wasn't used to a lot of people staring at her, which was also one of the reasons she never played a main character in the school plays and preferred to be on the sidelines with a couple of other people.

"It's just… it isn't every day that we get to see a hero show us their weapon skills. The other two either keep to themselves or go on solo missions, so it's very rare to see someone summon a floating knife or teleport from place to place," the commander explained.

"Oh… I see. Well I uh… I'll get going then," Clara said, moving in the direction of the ship.

"Wait! Shouldn't you give a report of the wave to the queen? Usually one of the other two heroes would do so but… well," the commander didn't finish, but his gaze fell in the direction where the wave crack used to be. He didn't have to finish his sentence. Clara knew what he wanted to say.

You're the only hero we have.

"Right. Did anyone get hurt or killed during the wave?" she asked. She remembered that Ellis reported the lack of casualties to everyone on the ship on the first wave, and she guessed that Hol did so after the last wave.

"A few injured knights, but no casualties. The destruction was kept to a minimum too," he reported.

"Thank you. But I don't have a teleporter set up there," she said, looking at her knife.

"Hol was planning to get us back by Cloud X since his teleportation skill can only take 6 people, including himself," the commander replied awkwardly. He never expected to be instructing a hero on anything in his lifetime and Clara was also not used to being put on the spot like that.

The two of them looked awkwardly at the ground for a few moments before the commander turned towards the direction of the ship.

"Men! Return to Cloud X!"

==}—

The flight back wasn't any less awkward. As soon as Clara walked to the ship she was met by a woman she didn't recognize at first. She reminded Clara of a school president from an anime about girls fighting with scissor blades in both the way she was dressed and her posture.

It took her a few seconds to remember the captain of the ship she has been riding for the past week or so, Ellrona.

The captain didn't take the news very well. It probably didn't help that Cara wasn't the best at reporting things.

"Where is Hol?!" she asked. Looking at Clara.

"He… went to the other side-"

"He did WHAT?!" she shrieked.

"OF THE WAVE!" Clara quickly sputtered out to clear up the misunderstanding. The captain let out a sigh of relief before the expression of panic and fury returned.

"HE DID WHAT?!"

It took several minutes for Clara, and Laura who arrived on the scene later, to try and calm her down. Finally, with the soldiers on board, and the captain back in the captain's seat, the ship took off and started flying to the royal palace.

Clara made a stop at her room and stabbed a portal knife into the corner of the table to set her waypoint. The new waypoint appeared on the list. Clara smiled, satisfied, and dropped onto her bed. She didn't realize how tired she was until her body hit the soft and warm bed. Maybe it was the adrenaline of battle finally wearing off, or the mental exhaustion catching up to her. Either way, she knew she had some time before she had to go to the queen's palace so there wouldn't be any harm in falling asleep for a bit.

==}—

"HOL!" Clara screamed, trying to reach out to the older hero. He had his back turned to her as he walked further and further away from her and closer and closer to the blood-red wave crack ahead. Clara tried to run after him, but her legs felt like jello. She could barely walk forward at all.

"HOL! COME BACK!" she screamed desperately, trying to stop the other hero from leaving. He didn't turn around, or even react to her calls. Instead, Hol walked into the crack, disappearing from view.

Suddenly, Clara could feel her speed increase. She ran into the wave, but instead of going through it, she felt like she hit a brick wall. Clara blinked several times, trying to understand what was going on as a message appeared before her.

[You cannot leave]

Before she could react, a steel wall rose from the ground and blocked the wave. She turned around only to be faced with another wall. Before Clara knew it, she was surrounded by steel walls from all sides and they were slowly closing in on her.

*Crack*

Clara glanced below her with dread, fearing what the sound was coming from. The ground below her began to crack.

She screamed for help, but nobody came. The ground below her gave out and she was left plummeting into the eternal darkness.

But when Clara looked under her feet again, she saw a rapidly approaching grass field. And it was getting closer by the se-

==}—

Clara gasped and fell off the bed, crashing her face into the floorboards below. She took a few seconds to scout her surroundings and noticed that she had the blanket tightly wrapped around her, probably tightened by her thrashing.

Well, that explains the weird… What was my dream about?

Clara frowned as her dream faded away from her. She pulled herself off of the bed and shuttered. Her whole body was covered in sweat and was now exposed to the slightly cooled air of the airship, making her shiver.

Shoot, where was the shower again?

==}—

*Pshhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Clara sat down in the corner of the shower as the warm water was sliding down her body. She was scrolling through the monster drops that Hol mentioned before the last wave. The drops she got from the monsters she absorbed seemed to be anything that related to the monster absorbed, to something completely random. For example, the mummies gave her some bandages, while the slimes gave her cream, herbs, a stick, and even an apple (which was rotten by this point).

The more interesting drops were given by the wave boss monsters.

For some reason, every wave boss so far has given her a chef's hat.

Soul Eater Chef's Hat

Special effects: SP up (small)

Lizard Scale Chef's Hat

Special effects: defense up (small)

Bloody Rotten Flesh Chef's Hat

Special effects: attack up (small)

They all had mediocre stats and a single effect on them but they would fall off if she moved too fast, so she couldn't use them in battle. There were also the Soul Eater Claws and the Armored Lizard Scale Shield. She tapped on the shield icon and a bright light erupted from her weapon's gem.

*Clang*

Clara looked down under her legs and saw a small green shield made of scales with a small shiny steel rim around the edge.

Armored Lizard Scale Shield

Special effects: defense up (medium), agility up (small)

It's light and its defense stat is decent. A bit mixed on the coloring though, but I suppose it'll fit with my clothes.

With all the useful things out of the way, Clara looked at the most questionable item on the list.

Bloody Rotten Flesh Bikini

Special effects: defense up (high), attack up (medium), agility up (medium), equipment decay (strong)

Smells awful and decays any other items that are equipped.

I… I don't know if I should be more disgusted, disappointed, or angry. Just the name is wrong on several levels. It's made of rotten flesh and the thing is so decayed that it doesn't even cover anything, and I can't even use other equipment with it. I don't care if it has good stats, I'm never wearing this abomination.

Clara finished rinsing the shampoo out of her hair, got dressed, and began to make her way to the cafeteria.

"Clara!" Laura called out to the hero with a crystal in her hand. Clara glanced at it curiously. It reminded her of a smartphone in her world, except just a bit bigger. It could probably still fit in a pocket if she had one. Laura put one hand on her knee as she gasped for air and handed her the crystal.

"What is it?" Clara asked, turning it over in her hand. Up close, she noticed that it looked exactly like a smartphone made of crystals. The only other difference was a cluster of stars on its back instead of a bitten-off apple.

"A Long Distance Communicator, or an LDC as it is officially called. But many just call it a mini crystal tablet. This is a new model, shrunken down from the last version. I connected it to my tablet as well, so if you have a signal at a nearby tower you could get in contact with me. To recharge, you just pour some mana into it."

It's basically a crystal iphone.

"But why are you giving me this? Aren't new models expensive?"

"The queen financed it. I thought it might help you since you might travel around a lot more now, with… you know," Laura didn't finish the sentence and instead found the floor beneath her feet very interesting. Clara smiled looking down at the phone in her hands.

"Thank you. I'll put it to good use," she said, trying to find a place to put her phone. Laura seemed to notice Clara's struggle and frowned.

"You know you have pockets in that uniform, right?" she asked, pointing to Clara's side. She brushed her fingers along the fabric and noticed an opening.

…. Were these there the whole time?

Clara, now red from embarrassment, quickly put her phone away into the newly discovered pockets.

"Well, I'll be off. I have to get more fabrics with you and the others burning through the clothes I make. Say hi to the queen for me," Laura replied, walking off.

"Laura…" Clara began. The tailor turned around and was met with a hug from Clara.

"Thank you for helping me out," she replied, patting the back of the tailor. For a moment, Laura felt her own body relax, as if all the world's problems didn't matter for a moment.

"Of course. It is my duty to help the heroes of this world," she replied, hugging Clara back.

Clara tensed up at the mention of her title, and Laura seemed to take notice of this.

"Is everything alright?" Laura questioned, looking Clara in the eyes.

'Right. You're just doing your job,' she thought begrudgingly.

"Laura, Cooking Hero, we arrived at the palace," Ellrona interrupted the two, appearing from behind a corner of the hallway.

"Already? I thought it would take us a day or two," Clara wondered, breaking away from the hug. Ellrona looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"It did take us a bit over a day?" she replied with concern in her voice. Clara glanced at the wave timer and saw that over a day had indeed passed.

I must have been really tired if I fell asleep for so long.

"Nevermind, let's get going. See you later… Laura," Clara replied haphazardly, making Laura raise an eyebrow in confusion. But the captain already led Clara into another hallway so she didn't press further and walked away.

==}—

Clara took a deep breath as she stood in front of the wall beside the throne. She quickly repeated the information of the wave in her mind before pushing on the wall. A strong scent of coffee and sweat had crashed onto her body, making Clara stumble back.

"Elora?" Clara called out to the queen as she peered into the room. A loud thud was heard, followed by the rustling of papers.

"Ah! Cooking Hero!" Elora exclaimed, standing up from her seat. As she tried to walk around her desk, she tripped and collapsed to the floor. Clara rushed to her side but the queen already stood up, although she seemed to be leaning on one foot more than the other.

Clara got a better look at Elora and her eyes widened in a panic. The queen's robes were covered in what she assumed were coffee and ink stains. Her eyes now carried even larger eyebags than before. Her hair was stuck to her skin, which itself was almost as pale as one of the ghosts she fought in the first wave. The small bit of scattered coffee cups has now turned into a large pile of small crumpled paper cups in the corner of the room.

"Queen, how long did you work for? When did you rest last?" Clara asked with growing concern.

"Lat-ter. So how did t-the wave go? I want all the details right n-now!" Elora demanded with a stutter in her voice. Her body seemed to twitch a bit as she pulled a notebook from one of the shelves and sat back down. Elora raised her pen to write down everything. Clara tried to say something else, but the queen basically commanded her to report.

She told her the location where they got summoned, the monsters and boss from the waves, the way she killed it. Clara hung her head low and looked at the floor when she got to the part about Hol. When she looked back up after finishing her report, she saw that Elora was lost in thought, with a look of concentration on her face.

"Sh*t," she muttered, just barely loud enough for Clara to hear, surprising the young hero. "The people have enough to w-worry about. F-first waves, then Ellis, now Hol! And what was he t-thinking?!" Elora yelled, smacking her desk.

"W-well… I believe Hol has left to retrieve Ellis' weapon from the person who stole it," Clara assumed. She remembered that Hol mentioned Midas' name before he jumped inside, so maybe he was somehow able to sense the presence of the other weapon.

"You know w-what? I h-have an idea!" Elora said, suddenly jumping up from her chair.

"Queen, please calm down! You're barely standing straight!" Clara exclaimed, referring to how Elora's body was swaying from side to side.

"We need a p-party! After the s-second wave of Waves. If you can clear the next t-three waves it will give us a b-bit over 2 weeks to both prepare and relax. We can raise the hopes of p-people if we make a party and invite everyone! It'll show the people that we know w-what we're doing and they needn't worry as we got our trusty C-cardinal Hero of the Cooking Tool!" Elora sputtered out, grabbing Clara's shoulders. She quickly moved the girl to the side and began to shuffle through some papers behind her.

"Please calm down. I think you need rest a-," Clara tried to say, but Elora seemed to ignore her.

"I want you t-to be there as the g-guest of honor. You think-k you can make a s-speech? Ah whatever, we canwriteyouonelater. How many party hats do we n-need? Wait, do we need those? What was I… nevermind!" Elora seemed to be engrossed in her own inner world as she began to stumble over her own words and scribble something onto a parchment of paper. Just as Clara was about to say something, Elora collapsed onto the floor and smacked her head against the table on her way down, emanating a loud thud and a wince from the girl.

"Queen! Are you alright?" Clara asked, unsure of what to do. She rushed to the queen's side and raised her body to eye level. Elora seemed to be conscious, but just barely. The energy she had just a moment ago seemingly vanished without a trace as if her last reserves had finally depleted. The queen stared at the floor with lifeless eyes and muttered something.

"I'm… so… tired….." Elora whispered, her body shivering and her eyes filling up with tears. "But… so much… to be done… can't rest… can't…"

"Just stop. You're barely breathing. If you keep going you're going to die!" Clara yelled, grabbing the queen's shoulders and looking her in the eyes. Elora seemed to stare past her as her eyelids began to close.

"Can I… rest… when people… are afraid…?" she wheezed out, her body swaying from side to side.

"Yes. The world won't collapse in a day without you. So please rest plenty," Clara whispered back. The corners of Elora's mouth seemed to twist in a smile as her eyes closed and she leaned onto Clara. The girl looked at her for a moment, watching as the muscles on Elora's face completely relaxed.

She glanced around the room for anything that she can lay Elora on. She found a sofa in the corner and gently laid the queen down. Clara was about to leave, but then she took another glance around the room.

How do you work in this place?

The trash and dropped papers littered the room, and it looks like it hasn't been cleaned in weeks, if not longer.

Well, I can't help out in politics, but I can help with this! Clara thought as she rolled up her sleeves.