Initially, Shiina Mahiru was a bit skeptical about Kanna's appetite.
With her small stature, could Kanna really have the same appetite as the super glutton Tohru?
Wasn't this a bit too exaggerated?
"If you don't believe it, Kanna can perform for her. Let's use that pot of soup as the object." Miyauchi Hikage signaled Kanna, who was craving food, to directly show her strength.
Kanna blinked gently at Miyauchi Hikage, while Shiina Mahiru waved her hand at Miyauchi Hikage: "That pot of soup has just been cooked. Even if she wants to drink it, let's wait for it to cool down a bit..."
Then she found that the pot of soup she had just stewed had disappeared in the time it took her to turn her head and say these few words to Miyauchi Hikage. When she saw Miyauchi Hikage gesturing towards the pot and turned back to check, the pot of soup was gone.
Only a trace of soup residue at the corner of Kanna's mouth explained the whereabouts of this pot of soup.
God knows how the other party managed to drink up such a large pot of boiling broth in a few seconds.
But Shiina Mahiru's adaptability had been trained by her cousin.
In the first sixteen years of Shiina Mahiru's life, this world was still very normal. Her biggest worry was not knowing how to gain her parents' approval.
For this, she worked hard for sixteen years to mold herself into a seemingly perfect high school girl image.
Until her cousin Shiina Mashiro, who was a few months older than her and had just held an international art exhibition in the UK at the beginning of this year, suddenly gave up the originally boundless artist path and ran back to Tokyo saying she wanted to become a manga artist. Everything changed.
Originally, according to the adults' ideas, they wanted to entrust Shiina Mashiro to another relative who was working as an art teacher at a high school affiliated with an art university. However, that relative seemed to have failed a blind date in those few days and was drunk all day. So in the end, her father suddenly thought of her living outside and asked her to take care of Mashiro first, and wait until that relative walked out of the shadow later.
But what happened next got out of hand.
She asked her neighbor to accompany Shiina Mashiro to go shopping for popular manga on the weekend, and then they met her neighbor's twin brother Miyauchi Hikage on the way.
Then for some reason, her cousin hit it off with her neighbor's brother as soon as they met. She, who was originally thinking about whether to go to that art university affiliated high school, decided directly to transfer to Toyogasaki Academy.
So taking care of Shiina Mashiro temporarily turned into a formal "job."
Of course, with Shiina Mahiru's personality, she wouldn't care about these things.
And with the help of the two Miyauchi siblings, she basically just cooked more meals and remembered to remind Shiina Mashiro to get up and sleep at home. She didn't have to worry too much about other things.
However, the strange Breathing Technique that Shiina Mashiro suddenly taught them turned Shiina Mahiru's worldview upside down.
It was also from that time that Shiina Mahiru realized that this world was not as simple as imagined.
Including the Miyauchi family, it seemed that there were still records of almost being wiped out by "Oni" (Demons) a hundred years ago. It was a wandering swordsman mastering the Breathing Technique who killed that demon so that their village could continue to this day.
And Shiina Mashiro obtained the inheritance of the Breathing Technique through some channel, and besides her, many girls in Japan also obtained this inheritance, which was why Shiina Mashiro chose to return to Japan in advance.
Anyway, after that, she had been following her cousin to learn the Breathing Technique.
After all, being cousins related by blood to Shiina Mashiro, Shiina Mashiro had quite good talent in Breathing Techniques, and her talent was not bad either, so the progress was quite gratifying.
However, compared to Miyauchi Hikage, there was nothing to be proud of.
While she was still practicing maintaining the rhythm of breathing while sleeping here, Miyauchi Hikage could already change the rhythm of Breathing Technique at will to find the breathing rhythm most suitable for himself.
Later, Miyauchi Hikage began to practice a set of sword techniques that seemed to be able to be matched with the Breathing Technique, but her Hamon was still very weak, and she couldn't adjust other breathing rhythms to perform this set of sword techniques at all.
Even if it wasn't provided, she didn't care about these things. She had already gained a lot from this Breathing Technique and didn't care much about other things.
After that, she occasionally saw Miyauchi Hikage taking Shiina Mashiro out late at night.
At first, she thought these two people were doing something ambiguous outside. She even thought about whether to help cover for them if the family asked.
But thinking carefully, she felt that neither Miyauchi Hikage nor Shiina Mashiro seemed like people who would do these things secretly.
Later she learned that it turned out Miyauchi Hikage took Shiina Mashiro out to eliminate those vengeful spirits wandering around Beika Town.
Miyauchi Hikage also asked her if she had any thoughts in this regard. Naturally, she, who was innately somewhat afraid of ghost stories, wouldn't have such thoughts.
And after Golden Week, Miyauchi Hikage brought her a cookbook left by a special grade chef from hundreds of years ago. Her mind was now on this cookbook.
According to Miyauchi Hikage, if she could fully master this cookbook, she could easily reach or even surpass the level of the Elite Ten of Totsuki in cooking skills.
Originally, Shiina Mahiru didn't take Miyauchi Hikage's words seriously. After all, the Elite Ten of Totsuki were already considered the top chefs in Japan. If just a cookbook could reach this level, then wouldn't giving this thing to her, an amateur cooking enthusiast, be completely wasteful?
Until she saw the cookbook seriously introducing glowing cuisine and instructions on how to cook to make dishes reach that level, she realized that this thing indeed seemed not to be something ordinary people could write.
However, up to this point, Shiina Mahiru actually still had a partial understanding of the existence of the Inner World.
Even with Tohru's arrival, she was only somewhat suspicious and didn't fully confirm the other party's identity, only treating her as a girl who also obtained "inheritance" with Shiina Mashiro.
It was also this week when Katsura Kotonoha came to apprentice that Miyauchi Hikage told her some situations of the Inner World and matters of Jujutsu High so that she and Miyauchi Hikage could be at ease.
Hearing about various supernatural forces and their enemies, Shiina Mahiru realized that Miyauchi Hikage seemed to have gone very far in that world without her and Miyauchi Hikage knowing.
He even seemed to have awakened the power to manipulate the fate of others. Not only did it sound quite mysterious, but this ability also seemed quite incredible to use. Miyauchi Hikage, who had suffered losses from this power, would be a little apprehensive when seeing Miyauchi Hikage these days.
Finally, a few days ago, she received a kitchen knife engraved with a phoenix pattern on the blade from her cousin, saying it was some legendary kitchen utensil possessing the power to purify ingredients.
Anyway, she didn't understand the specific principle, and she wouldn't deliberately buy smelly meat back to process, but the meat processed with this kitchen knife was indeed much more delicious.
Up to now, recalling the changes in her mentality over this month or so, Shiina Mahiru sometimes felt that human adaptability was really strong.
More than a month ago, she was still an ordinary person thinking about how to perform better and gain her mother's approval.
And now, her Breathing Technique could maintain automatic operation all day long. Not only were those strong sports students several weight classes above her completely no match for her physically, but even her thinking seemed much more active than before.
Holding the recipes and kitchen knife that countless chefs dreamed of, she could occasionally obtain some cooking teaching from Totsuki through her cousin's channel.
Relying on these things and Miyauchi Hikage's operational ability, or rather the power to manipulate fate, in more than twenty days, she created a video account with hundreds of thousands of fans, estimated to reach one million fans early next month.
And her goal changed from thinking about how to maintain her perfect image in front of everyone all day to thinking about what dishes to practice according to the recipe for today's video, and how much quantity to prepare to fill Miss Tohru.
Even now, seeing Kanna showing such exaggerated appetite, her first reaction was not to consider where Kanna and Tohru came from as youkai, nor to consider whether drinking such hot soup in one gulp would hurt her body.
Instead, she was thinking that the food expenses of the Miyauchi family seemed to double again.
Tohru alone could finish rice worth tens of thousands of yen in one meal. The rice money for two people a month exceeded one million yen. Counting other vegetables and meat ingredients, the food expenses alone a month were enough for the income of a family of three for a whole year.
It was only because Miyauchi Hikage could pick up money and become rich just by standing there; otherwise, ordinary people really couldn't afford to raise these two big eaters.
Seeing Shiina Mahiru starting to take out other ingredients from the refrigerator to re-prepare other meals without even asking about Kanna's background, Miyauchi Hikage, feeling that she was really working hard, also went up to help process these ingredients while telling the identity made up for Kanna.
"Kanna is a relative from Tohru's side. I think you should have also noticed Tohru's specialness. Anyway, her identity is relatively troublesome for the time being. Just treat her as a princess who came out of a place where supernatural beings gather."
"As for Kanna, because of some reasons in her own family, she came to live with Tohru now. Her external identity is my sister. Last night, she was with Tohru dealing with her identity issues, so she didn't rest well. I'll go catch up on sleep after breakfast later." After informing Shiina Mahiru about the Inner World, Miyauchi Hikage directly used those supernatural powers in processing ingredients.
Ingredients that normal people might need ten to twenty minutes to toss about could be processed in less than a minute in his hands.
Now he could completely learn from that God of Cookery to fry eggs with his palms, including using the Flame of Hamon to accelerate dishes that required a long time to complete, and the taste could fully reach above the standard line.
After all, cooking was about ingredient selection and processing before turning on the fire, as well as heat control and seasoning after turning on the fire. Miyauchi Hikage could easily control these things with his current physique.
This was still under the state where he had just fought with Tohru for a night and his spirit was visibly not very good.
If he was in his prime, he could basically improve the taste of the food to the limit of current conditions.
It was just that it was only the limit that ordinary people could reach.
In this idealistic supernatural world, after reaching the limit in terms of skills, wanting to continue to improve required putting one's heart into it. This was also the basis for making glowing cuisine.
Miyauchi Hikage didn't have any "Chef's Heart." He wasn't picky about the taste of food, nor did he have any idea of putting any emotions into the food he made.
After reading that cookbook, Miyauchi Hikage knew that he had no destiny with the "supreme realm" of cooking. Let people who really liked cooking pursue this realm.
He had Shiina Mahiru by his side, and among the girls who got the diary, there was also Tadokoro Megumi from Food Wars!. He didn't know how far the two of them could go in this regard.
Thinking casually, after helping Shiina Mahiru handle the kitchen work, Miyauchi Hikage thought that the demand for food at home was increasing now, and it was indeed not very good for Shiina Mahiru to work alone in such a big kitchen.
Should he find an assistant for Shiina Mahiru later?
Of course, normal people certainly wouldn't do. After all, his family had too many secrets, which was why he hadn't found a butler or maid until now.
Even Itou Kaiji and Sakakibara Kouichi had only touched some superficial knowledge of Miyauchi Hikage's secrets.
These days, he handed over the cleaning work of the Western-style house to Yellow Temperance.
Anyway, this guy had a large enough surface area after spreading out, and ordinary people couldn't see its existence in Stand state. Even if the dust wasn't organic matter and Yellow Temperance couldn't digest it, after rolling around like this and wrapping all the dust inside its body, it just needed to concentrate on spitting out the indigestible things in one place to dispose of them.
And now considering a maid, the first person Miyauchi Hikage thought of was Katsura Kotonoha. The other party was now an apprentice under him. Guest-starring as a maid to help Tohru process ingredients and approaching Tohru reasonably with this opportunity, Katsura Kotonoha shouldn't have any problems.
Besides that, Kanoe Yuuko, who was still struggling to pay off her debt, was also a good candidate.
Under the suppression of Wonder of U's Calamity Torrent, this half-step special-grade vengeful spirit was now much more obedient. Knowing her current situation, she also knew that if she wanted to gain freedom, she needed to pay off the debt she owed to that damned diary first.
If Kanoe Yuuko was willing to cooperate, then as long as she went to Beika Town to find a few pleasing spirits to accept as little brothers, the daily maintenance of the Western-style house and helping Shiina Mahiru in the kitchen seemed to require no more worry from him.