Moonlit Dinner.

~Luminous~

After Ouroboros killed the wolf leader before Rimuru ate him, then the both of us made the wolves submit, they entered the village borders, yet despite them being allowed to roam as they saw fit, they all huddled in one corner of the village.

'They did try to kill all of them, so it's no surprise if they would be ashamed of showing their faces, especially when the goblins are celebrating their victory on the dire wolves.'

And as for the goblins, they are celebrating their victory, while trying not to be very loud, to not hurt their new friends' feelings.

I was holding Rimuru between my arms as I was going around, looking at what the goblins had prepared. I was disappointed when I found out that they only had poorly cooked meat.

Luminous: "What is this? It's almost raw! Have you never cooked anything in your life before?"

Soon to be named Haruna: "We are sorry, Luminous-Sama. None of us has ever cooked anything, as we were afraid that their scent might attract strong monsters."

'Tch! I can't even argue that what they did was wrong!' Frustrated by their lack of skills and even more annoyed by the horrendous taste, she decided that if no one can cook, then she will do it!

Luminous: "*Sight* Tell me, what ingredients do you have? Any plants, spices, or fruits?"

STB (Soon to be) Haruna: " We have Garlion and Lettuge, and some sweet fruits, Luminous-sama."

At her answer, a small smile appeared on my face, having the chance to show her skills with something more than random meat and some grass.

Luminous: "That would be good."

Rimuru: "Are you going to cook, Luminous? If so, then I'm going with you as well."

the smile on my face grew slightly bigger, I was happy at his request and knew why he asked, I already accepted it in fact, but I decided that he needed a bit of teasing.

Luminous: "Ara~ why do you want to come? Do you perhaps just want to look at me?"

Slowly fighting my grip on him as I brought him closer to my face, making his embarrassment awfully clear.

Rimuru: "N-No. I'm just interested in cooking, and I would like to inspect you as you cook, maybe that way I could learn a thing or two."

'Cute' That was his response in my opinion, yet I couldn't just let him win this easily.

Luminous: "Really? Then was that why you always stared at me every time I cooked the past month? Or was it that you were so absorbed in my cooking that you get jolted when I call for you, even after I put the fire out?"

He's now right in front of my face, wriggling in his place. My smile grew with every word I said and with his actions, to the point it turned into a full-blown grin, with a small redness on my cheeks, which I fail to notice, the same can't be said for Rimuru.

Rimuru: "I give up! You are correct, I do stare at you every time you cook. But can you blame me? You are just too gorgeous! Especially when you're cooking."

Luminous: "No~ I can't blame you~"

What I didn't notice was that my grin covered my whole face and my blush became even bigger, despite me not feeling any kind of embarrassment. Something that, again, Rimuru caught on to.

Moving to the cooking area, I kept remembering Rimuru's human appearance, but unlike how she usually envisions him, sitting in opposition to her at a table with two plates on each side.

This time though, she saw him holding a pan, cooking something with it, while his blue hair danced in the midnight air, creating a beautiful sky flowing behind his back, all the while looking at her with an enchanting smile. (#Luminous_Smiping lol)

While indulging in my imagination or vision, whatever it was, and with my grin and blush becoming brighter by the moment, we reached the cooking area.

It consisted was one of the few last remaining huts, which was repurposed as a food warehouse. In front of it was a campfire -where 17 goblins, 13 female and 5 male- were 'cooking' by putting a piece of meat on a stick and hovering it over the fire for a random amount of time before putting it on one of the make-shift wooden plates.

Luminous: "All of you move to the side! I will be cooking, and you will watch and learn unless I order you to do something. Now, move!"

At my orders, the goblins threw everything they were holding and went to the side of the hut, watching my every move with their utmost focus, hoping to learn as much as they could.

Creating a small pedestal with [Earth Mastery], I looked at Rimuru, took a deep breath, and put Rimuru on the pedestal before moving to the front of the fire.

Luminous: "All of you, give me your attention! As this is a celebration, I'm going to make a feast for all of us, dire wolves included. Because of that, I need all of you to do your best. Here's what I want from you:

"A group to collect and sort all berries in holes over there, each one housing one type of berries" Using [Earth Master] once again, I created a few holes in the ground, close to the food storage.

"A group to collect all the plates, and the last one to get me all the Garlion and Lettage you can find, and clean it. After you are done, I want you all to wash your legs and wait for my orders."

Goblins: "YES LUMINOUS-SAMA!!!" they shouted before scattering, all going to their respective jobs.

'Since everyone is looking, I will make it a sight they will never forget.'

Taking another deep breath, holding it in my chest for a moment, before repeating it again and closing my eyes. stretching my arms in opposing directions, I bent my upper body a little to my right-down corner, before moving my left forward in a crescent motion.

With a similar smooth motion from my other leg, I started rotating and circling, moving my arms swiftly through the air, as a madin through a man's heart, weaving the magicules around me, bending them to my desire.

As a smile grew on my face, engrossing myself in the dance, with a tilt of my hand, and the soft, rotating sweep of my arm, earth melded itself to my wish, and an array of long tables sprouted off of the ground.

With my other hand, waves of wind cut through trees, with precision that would make a surgeon proud, before delicately letting the trees they cut, bringing them closer to me.

Luminous: {Rimuru~} I said quietly, even if it was through our minds, it had another purpose, to make the word's effect greater.

Rimuru: {You look beautiful... Ah!- Ahem! What do you want, luminous?}

Luminous: {Oh? Did I perhaps capture your heart? hmhm~} With my remark to him, a small giggle fled out of my mouth, as I couldn't contain my enjoyment of... teasing him.

Rimuru: {Ahem! So, what did you want from me?}

Luminous: {Ara~ You didn't respond, but changed the subject? Should I take that as a 'yes'? That's a side, I want you to make me a metal pot big enough to hold a [Tempest Serpent]}

"I will help you with that, Luminous-san!"

With her words echoing in my mind, the cloud vile of the moon opened up, letting its concentrated light fall on me, highlighting my dancing, as I make the logs stack atop the campfire, before raging its fire, lighting up a bonfire fitting for the occasion.

With another spine, I opened my eyes, letting them shine and my hair fly, lit by the blazing light at my left side, reflecting the moon's elegant hue, falling on me from my right.

With my hair reflecting the moon's light behind my back, and my arms extended to each of my sides, I glanced at Rimuru, who was sitting on the pedestal in front of me, giving him a heart-filled-smile, before spinning again, completing the last few touches to the bonfire and tables.

Luminous: {Your stare as flattering as you're absorbed in my dancing, RImuru. You don't need to hide the fact that you've fallen for me~ I wouldn't be surprised if you asked me for a date~ I might even accept it from you~}

'You ask me for a date because I won't ask you for a date as I'm sure that I can make you ask me- Ahem. Because teasing you is fun, and you look cute.'

Rimuru: {AHH!!! I give up! Yes, I've fallen for you!}

He shouted in my mind with his tone clearly annoyed, as he jumped up before expanding, spitting out a big metal pot over the bonfire.

Rimuru: {I've said it, are you happy now?}

Luminous: {Hmhmhm~ (this is a laugh) Yes, I very much am~ Now, I want you to give me a big piece of meat, don't cut it or anything, I will do everything myself}

Rimuru: {Hai, Hai.}

He was already back on his pedestal, and from there he threw a big slice of a [Tempest Serpent], but it was unprocessed, just a scaly cylinder.

'Perfect.' With that, I held my rapier while spinning, before leaping into the air and cutting the meat in half, with red strings flowing from it to my rapier.

'I did discover that my rapier can not only absorb the blood of living beings but also dead ones, making it perfect for draining blood while butchering or cooking.'

While it was being drained, a wave of wind went past it, ripping away the scales and skinning it clean.

Fallin at the top of my toes, I rotate while lower my right hand -the one holding the rapier- while launching off wind blades with my left hand, slicing the meat into head-size square pieces.

When my right hand rotated up to my front, directed toward the slices, I jumped into the air, through the slice midair, with a gust of wind behind me.

Reaching the ground again, I inserted the tip of my rapier into the ground, making many spikes cleansed with water form out of the ground, piercing the meat, before sprouting more spikes from the tip of each of them, making airways inside of the meat.

Looking at my around, I found that the goblins has brought everything I asked of them.

Luminous: "Now the preparations are done, let's start with the actual cooking. You there, the ones next to the fruit holes, You washed your legs as I told you, right? Now start mashing the fruits by stepping on the repeatedly!"

At my words, The goblins jumped and started mashing the fruits in the holes, which I obviously smoothed the inside of to not make any dirt get mixed in.

Luminous: "You there with vegetables, I want a group of you to split the Lettage and cover the plates with them. Two groups for the Garlion, the first to grind some of it to dust, and the other group to cut it into slices."

Goblins: "YES LUMINOUS-SAMA!" They screamed enthusiastically before doing what they were ordered with unparalleled focus.

Luminous: "Rimuru, come here, I need your help with something."

Not a moment later, Rimuru was 'standing' next to me on a platform I just conjured above the pot. Before I was able to say a thing, Rimuru threw in the pot a lump of fat, making it sizzle as it melted.

Luminous: "I didn't say anything yet, but you already knew what I was going to ask?"

Rimuru: "You yourself said it: I stared at you when you were cooking, so I would obviously pick a thing or two."

Lumioun: "That's surprising, but I like that, now you can help with cooking. Now I want you to steer the fat around while get prepare the meat."

Rimuru: "Hai hai."

Getting down the platform, I looked at the goblins and the state of the vegetable. Seeing that they are almost done, I decided to go and check on them, as I was going to season the meat with the Vegetables they prepared.

Yet on my way, a familiar-looking goblin came to me with a confused look.

STB Haruna: "Luminous-Sama, I wanted to ask you, why did you order us to ground Garlion to fine dust while slicing the rest?"

Luminous: "From my experience with eating many dishes with Garlion, I found that when it's ground to dust it has a very different taste to when it's just sliced into pieces. And the dust version serves better as a seasoning."

STB Haruna: "I didn't know that, Luminous-Sama. Thank you for informing me"

After her giving me a small bow, I moved the spikes holding the meat closer to the goblins grinding Garlion, as it was already fine dust for most of them, then handing each of them a piece.

Moving my attention to the ones cutting Garlion, I found that all of them had teary eyes, but that did stop their sheer dedication to slicing them as best as they could, despite having nothing other than their hands and rusty knives.

'They sure are impressive when it comes to following commands, no wonder Tempest, or now Valtempes, grew so much before.'

Luminous: "The goblins who are done cutting Garlion, grab all of it and move it up the platform, Rimuru would know what to do with them. As for the rest of you, mimic what I'm doing."

All of them nodded, and with that, I took a handful of Garlion powder with my right hand, and the piece of meat with my left hand.

Lumiouns: "The first thing you usually need to do is to knead the meat to make it tender, but it's already tender enough, so we will skip straight to the next step, seasoning.

"You need to hold some of the spice with your hands, most likely at the tips of your fingers. Now you can just haphazardly sprinkle it over the meat, and that would work fine, but if you want the best result, you have to evenly spread it out over its surface.

"To do that, you need to wipe the seasoning over its surface with your fingers, and here's the hard part: You need to find a perfect balance between being delicate and pressing on it.

"If you press too hard, then all of the seasonings would get stuck in the place you pressed them on, and if you were too delicate, then it won't move, or just get smeared over the small surrounding area to where you placed the seasoning."

A.N/ I did a quick check with an AI, and apparently, everything that I said was perfectly correct lol. I have no experience with cooking at all so I didn't expect it to be correct.

After instructing them, I sprinkled the Garlion powder over the meat, before rubbing it using my fingers -mainly my thumb- in an infinity-sign-looking motion.

Luminous: "Usually, the spices are added after it was cooked, or in a marinating mixture that the meat stays in for hours, letting it absorb all the tastes it could before getting cooked, but as we don't have that luxury, we will have to season each face, since it will be cut into four slices after we are done."

After perfectly seasoning two pieces, I held them with me as I went up the platform, leaving the goblins alone to figure out how to season the meat. Atop the platform was Rimuru, steering the Garlion with gusts of wind, bathing it in the fat-turned-oil.

Luminous: "Rimuru, can you store these two pieces for me?"

Rimuru: "Mhm... So, how long is it going to take for them to be done?"

Luminous: "It won't take much, the juice is almost done, the plates are complete, and the only thing left is the seasoning, but they are fast learners, so it won't take long."

Rimuru stayed silent, as he had nothing to say.

I closed my eyes, letting the cold breeze of the night encompasses me. At that moment, my mind started imagining something. Me sitting in front of Rimuru, with a table between us laid atop it today's meal, only lit by the moon's light.

'That looks nice... Even more so since it isn't accompanied by tingling in my mind and that unclear voice. I this what I want? It doesn't look bad, maybe I should try and make it happen...'

I stood there, my arms folded and my grin brightened by my blush as the taste of sweetness filled my mouth.

The minutes passed like how the wind flew past me, only brought back to the present by the sound of a goblin

STB Haruna: "Luminous-Sama. The meat is ready and the berries are mostly liquid at this point. What should we do?"

Luminous: "Bring the meat and put it in this pot, and leave the rest to us."

I conjured three barrels made out of smoothed stone next to the holes where the juice was made, despite calling them barrels, each was as big as a (water) tank. then used [Water Master] to move the juices to their respective barrel.

Luminous: "These barrels are filled with juice, fill your cups with them and drink as much as you want!"

A minute later, all the seasoned meat was dropped in the pot, with a mouth-watering smell only enhanced by the sizzling sound.

Luminous: "Rimuru, I want you to help me with making the hot air flow each piece since I made holes and airways inside of each of the so they would be evenly cooked from the inside."

Rimuru: "Hai, and you really are an expert at cooking, I'm that even Shuina won't be able to make anything anywhere near as good as what you make with just what we have. You are the best cook that I've ever seen in my life, and I wanted to say... Thank you... For allowing me to experience the joy of your cooking."

Luminous: "Hmhm~ Don't worry, I will cook even better food, and I will make you eat all of it. Besides, if not for you, then I wouldn't be alive, let alone cook."

"///"

We each reverted our attention back to the pot, with a small, barely noticeable blush on us.

A few minutes passed, and with the reappearance of the dire wolves, who were unable to resist the smell, I remembered something.

Luminous: "Rimrur, can you give me two of the pan I usually use? And also the two pieces of meat that I gave you before."

Rimuru: "Sure."

he spat out the four things I asked, and I moved them through the air the same way I did with everything else, by creating a swirl of air underneath them, moving them however I wished.

Cutting the pieces of meat into four slices each, before putting each four into its own pan that was already oiled before lighting a fire underneath them while still midair.

'I don't know why is the fire pinkish red, but I think it has something to do with my skill combination and race. Regardless, this fire seems to be better than the normal one.'

A few more minutes later, the meal was perfectly cooked, so much so that even Ouroboros, -Who I forgot even existed due to how quiet he was- Started wriggling at the smell, too excited and hungry to stay still.

Surprisingly, Rimrur too started to wriggle, but a few moments later, he stopped and sighed.

Rimrur: "Hey, Luminous. I know a perfect spot to have our meal, what do you think?"

When I heard his words, my eyes shone as a grin expanded across my whole face, filled with a blush covering my cheeks. I was overflowing with happiness, but...

Luminous: "Did she nag to do this?"

Rimuru: "Yeah, she said since you told me that I'm going to ask you for a date, and I lost and said that everything you told me is correct, she's nagging me to 'hold' my words and ask you for a date. So, would you go out with me?"

His tone was sarcastic and somewhat disappointed at the same time, I as well felt disappointment, but it's just a joke, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?

'Yeah, I'm only disappointed that I can't teas him since Great Sage forced him to do this. Yeah, that's the reason...'

Rimuru swallowed the pans and everything on them before throwing Ouroboros at me and going down the platform and eating some Lettage.

Rimuru: "Everyone! I and Luminous are going somewhere, and we won't come back for a while. We are sorry for not being able to celebrate with you, but you can go and have your fun while we are away!"

At his words, all of them frowned as they won't be able to celebrate with their lords and saviors, the most saddened one was Ouroboros, who was already missing Rimuru.

'Cute, I wonder if I can make him like me.'

I was holding him in my arms, so patting his head was easy to achieve. patting his head seemed to soothe him a bit, and as he glanced at me and indulged in my pats, his frown lessened, but not completely despaired.

Luminous: "Don't worry little guy, Rimuru will be with you, we just need to get the meat out of the pot and you'll be back with him, though it saddens me that you don't like me as much."

Wiping away an imaginary tear, I wave my arm, moving the meat out of the pan and to the goblins before jumping down next to Rimuru, and Ouroboros jumps from me to Rimuru, rotating around him like a scarf.

Luminous: "You remember what I said, right? Cut each of them into four slices, and don't forget to share them with the wolves."

Then Rimuru jumped into my arms and waved them goodbye before I dashed away at high speed.

Luminous: "So, where are we going?"

"I will send you the location, Master has already planned the whole thing out! So you just have to enjoy yourself."

Ignoring her suspicious remark, I headed in the direction she gave me. Nothing happened the whole way, except for the funny sight of seeing Ouroboros' face being stretched backward because of air resistance as it was trying to stay in the same position, only to fail and slam into my chest.

Ten minutes later, I reached a cliffside with only a single tree, looking over the moon and the forest.

Rimuru jumped out of my arms and into the air with Ouroboros desperately trying to hold into him. Rimuru spat out the same table we ate at a month ago in the cave, with the only difference being a side table and chair, smaller than the main one.

While setting on my chair, Rimuru put Lettage on our plates before putting the snake meat slices atop it with some of the Garlion at its side. He then sprinkled over them Hipukute spice and a piece of butter, completing the meal.

He put Ouroboros at the side table with a big piece of meat for him also with Hipokute and butter, but with a cup of orange juice instead of Great Sage's special 'wine'. Yet he didn't wait a moment, as he instantly shoved his face, devouring it mercilessly.

Rimuru: "Haha~ He's really cute, don't you agree?"

He said before jumping off of the table and transforming and changing into a humanoid shape, which was much more stable than before. When he took a seat, I started to see him as if he had skin and looked like a human, just like last time, but I didn't mind it.

Luminous: "Yeah... He really is cute, especially under the moon."

Rimuru: "So do you, especially with your sliver hair shimmering under the moon, you do really look cute~"

Luminous: "Ara~ Aren't you flirtatious? But I have to say, your flowing hair under the moon's light, and your golden eyes and beautiful face are quite gorgeous in this type of scenery as well~"

He blushed a little at my words, the same blush that I bet appeared on my face at his words.

"///////!!!"

We started to dig into our meals, and enjoying them with this scenic joke date was a nice experience. I did catch him staring and taking glances at my face with a smile, and I also did the same to him, sure as well that he caught me at least a few times.

'Yeah, this joke date is fun'

A flash of an imagination I had before appeared in my mind, the one I had when I and Rimuru were cooking the meals.

'Yeah, It's nice... I loved it... I would like to experience this again...'

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