The Hero Expelled for Cooking Too Well Opens a Legendary Tavern in Another World - Mix ruins, medicinal herbs, and everything together

Last night, before the stove, I made a vow. Starting tomorrow, I'll begin repairs. When those words left Arnt Reid's mouth, he truly believed them. Even if he couldn't wield a sword, no one could match him in cooking. With those hands, he could surely fix a single inn building. Such baseless confidence shattered quietly—and spectacularly—in the morning light, though he had no inkling of it at that moment. The morning in Viesen Valley was quiet. The tributary of the Brühl River flowed thin and clear, birds sang, and wind rustled the treetops of Hexenwald Forest. That was all. When he stepped into the plaza, morning dew wet the stone pavement, and the outer wall of the Grünhaide Tavern gleamed dully in the sunlight. This inn, whose name meant "green wasteland" in the old tongue, had been an abandoned ruin unused for over twenty years. Arnt Reid had bought it for one hundred twenty Legna—spending three months' worth of a commoner's wages—but seeing it in daylight, the damage was worse than imagined. A hole in the roof. Two window panes broken. One door hinge coming loose. Plaster peeling from the walls in places. (I'll start with the walls. If I reinforce them by nailing boards, it should hold for now.) Arnt dragged wooden planks and nails from the corner of the plaza and gripped a carpenter's hammer. It was heavy. The weight distribution was completely different from a kitchen knife. But tool handling was just a matter of practice—or so he thought as he pressed the nail's tip against a peeling section of wall. First strike. The nail went in about halfway. Plaster crumbled down, but that was within expectations. Second strike. The nail sank a bit more. More plaster flaked away, larger this time. Third strike— CRASH!!! The wall around where the nail struck collapsed entirely. Chunks of plaster tumbled to the ground, and dust rose like a white smoke screen toward the plaza. Arnt instinctively stepped back, staring at the hole in the collapsed wall. Morning air blew through from the other side. An old man sitting at the plaza's edge slowly looked up. Raising his white-streaked eyebrows, he watched Arnt through the dust. "...That's not hammering a nail, is it? That's punching the wall," A villager beside him nodded. "Indeed." Arnt looked at the collapsed wall and thought for a moment. "...I'll change my approach," He spoke curtly and headed toward the inn's exterior stairs, hammer in hand. He'd switch to roof repairs. Working from above meant stopping the rain first. That was the priority. The stairs creaked as he climbed, and he stepped onto the roof's edge. The slope wasn't too steep. If he carefully proceeded while identifying rotted wood, there should be no problem. As a cook, Arnt was confident in his eye for assessing ingredients—the difference between fresh fish and spoiled fish, between perfectly ripe fruit and one that looked good but was a dud. An eye honed by years of experience. That eye was utterly useless with wood. The board he stepped on cracked silently. CRASH!!!! Not silently, actually. It made a tremendous sound as it broke, and Arnt's body was sucked down through the roof hole. It took less than a second. He didn't half-understand what happened until he hit the kitchen floor on his back. There was a hole in the ceiling. Sky was visible through it. Morning light streamed in. Arnt lay on his back on the floor, looking up at that sky. "...The roof hole got bigger," [he murmured] He felt the presence of onlookers increasing outside. He could hear the footsteps of village children peeking from outside. Someone was holding back laughter. After a while, Arnt slowly got up. His back hurt. Probably a bruise. But he could move. Gathering himself, next—right, water. The kitchen needed water. He'd draw water from the well. Surely he couldn't fail at that. He stood before the old well beside the Grünhaide Tavern. He tied a bucket to the rope and slowly lowered it. He felt it reach the water surface. He pulled it up. It got heavier. Water was in it. Good— The bucket's bottom was gone. SPLASH!!!! The rotted bucket's bottom, unable to withstand the water's weight, gave way. All the water spilled out in a straight line from Arnt's head to his feet. Water dripped from his hair, his clothes soaked through. The morning air suddenly felt cold. The onlookers finally burst out laughing. Arnt stood still, listening only to the sound of dripping water. Collapsed wall. Hole in roof. Soaked through. Three in a row. Time elapsed: about two hours of morning. Everything except cooking— (I'm really, completely useless at everything else.) He dropped to his knees on the plaza's stone pavement. Water still seeped from his clothes. Then he heard footsteps. Light, quick footsteps. Mixed with the faint rustling of leaves as a basket swayed. "Um, are you alright?!" [a voice called] He turned toward the voice to see a girl with a medicinal herb basket on her back entering the plaza at a light run. She had pale purple hair tied back in a single ponytail that swayed with each step. Her fresh blue-green eyes widened as she saw the soaked Arnt. Her small frame, around 160 centimeters, carried a large basket filled with a herbalist's tools, and a small herb tattoo was visible on her right ring finger. She'd apparently just returned from the forest—her cloak's hem was stained with soil and grass. The girl glanced at the villagers for a moment, then crouched beside Arnt. "The village chief said there was a commotion... I'm Valder Elina. I'm an apprentice herbalist in this village. Being an apprentice to the Emerald Vase Society—a formal organization under the Flägel Kingdom's Herbalist Guild—is the credential requirement, but there's no formal herbalist in this village, so I... um, but that's not important right now," [she said] Elina cut herself off and looked at Arnt's back. Her eyebrows furrowed carefully, her gaze observant. "I heard you fell from the roof. Can you show me your back?" [she asked] --- Sitting in a kitchen chair, Arnt pulled up the back of his shirt. Elina stood behind him, checking the bruise's condition. When she pressed lightly with her fingers, a dull pain shot through him. "...It's a bruise. The impact went deeper than just the skin surface," [she said] Elina spoke carefully, then lowered her basket and began searching inside. Three small bottles emerged. "This is Herb A—dried and crushed Ruu grass, most effective for surface inflammation. For the bruise's exterior, this is optimal. Yes, that's decided," [she said] She began opening one bottle's lid. "...No, but," [she paused] She stopped. "Considering the depth of internal bleeding, Herb B with stronger penetration might be better... Arunka grass extract. This reaches deep into the skin. This might be better," [she said] She put the Ruu grass bottle back and took out another. She began opening that one too, then stopped again. "But if prioritizing skin penetration, preparing the surface first would be better, so applying Herb C's Karasina oil first, then layering Herb B... but that takes time, and Herb A has better immediate effect..." [she continued] She kept taking out and putting back the three bottles. Her meticulous nature was completely backfiring. Arnt waited quietly while feeling the pain in his back. One minute passed. Two minutes. Elina's muttering continued. "Um," [Arnt said] "Yes!" [she responded] "Is one... about to be decided?" [he asked] Elina looked at the three bottles. Then at Arnt. Then at the bottles again. "...If I mix all of them, at least one should work!!" [she declared] It was a declaration with absolutely no basis. Arnt couldn't help but smile wryly. "That's surely—" [he started] She poured all three types into her palm and applied them to Arnt's back. A cool sensation spread. Then, gradually. Slowly, the dull pain from before began to fade. The heat subsided. It was definitely working. Arnt placed his hand on his back, surprised. "...It's working," [he said] "Ah," [Elina responded] Elina pulled out her record book with a perfectly composed expression and quickly wrote something. "Herbs A, B, C mixed—bruise treatment effect confirmed." "Could you... explain your formulation theory to me sometime?" [Arnt asked] "Empirical knowledge," [she answered immediately] She couldn't explain it herself, apparently. But somehow it worked. Arnt remained silent for a while, accepting that fact. --- When Elina finished the treatment and began putting away her tools, she suddenly looked around the kitchen. "...Um, I don't need thanks, but could I look at the kitchen a bit?" [she asked] "Of course, please," [Arnt replied] With permission, Elina stood before the shelves and began gently touching the ingredients. Arnt watched, wondering if she was interested in ingredient and herb components as an apprentice herbalist, when Elina stopped at one corner of the shelf. "This is... Ruu grass, right? The same as what I just used. I use it for fever reduction," [she said] "In cooking we call it Karasina. It adds spiciness, so we use it in dishes," [Arnt said] Elina's eyes widened. She moved to another shelf and picked up a root vegetable. "This is Arunka grass root, isn't it? It has digestive-aid properties," [she said] "That's like burdock. When stir-fried, it releases a nice aroma," [Arnt said] Elina stared at the root vegetable for a while, then turned back to Arnt. Her blue-green eyes held a look of surprise and interest. "Cooking and herbs... the ingredients overlap, don't they?" [she said] "Now that you mention it, they really do," [Arnt replied] Arnt looked at the shelves again. Karasina, burdock, root vegetables, dried leaves. Each had uses in cooking. But from a herbalist's perspective, they all had medicinal properties too. For Arnt, it had always been too obvious to notice—a perspective he'd never considered. Between them lay a brief silence. A moment where their separate worlds first overlapped. --- Evening came. Arnt made dinner from the remaining ingredients. Simple vegetable soup and multigrain bread. Nothing fancy. But he cut the fresh vegetables carefully and simmered them slowly, watching the heat. Standing before the stove, nothing else mattered. This alone never changed, no matter what failures came before. The moment the soup was complete, the kitchen seemed to glow faintly. Arnt didn't notice that light. He thought it was the oil lamp. He called to Elina—"before you leave"—and arranged dinner on the table. Elina sat hesitantly, saying "you shouldn't have..." She took the spoon and scooped up some soup. She stopped moving. Spoon in hand, she froze. For several seconds, she remained still. When Arnt began to ask "what's wrong," tears welled faintly in Elina's eyes. "...Since I came to this village, I've been working hard alone," [her voice trembled slightly] "After leaving my master at the Emerald Vase Society, always alone. Gathering, formulating, diagnosing. It became normal, so it wasn't... difficult or anything like that, but," [she continued] She set down the spoon and looked down slightly. "I've never had warm food like this before," [she said] It wasn't about the taste of the cooking. It was the fact that someone had made it for her that struck her, and Arnt understood that somehow. But he couldn't quite put it into words, so he simply answered. "The vegetables were fresh," [he said] Elina laughed a little. Her face became something between crying and laughing—hard to describe. Then the dining hall's window rattled. Three familiar faces appeared beyond the unbroken window. Village aunties. They'd reached their limit, and the entrance door swung open forcefully. "Oh my!!!!!" [one exclaimed] Elina jumped up. "Elina, your face is so red! Getting treated by a young man~!!" [another said] "N-No! I treated him! It's backwards! The direction is completely backwards!!!" [Elina protested] She stood

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Episode 2

Name: The Hero Expelled for Cooking Too Well Opens a Legendary Tavern in Another World
Author: Novelia

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