She Becomes The Hero In Another World 148 She Explained Herself

"Truly?" She asked.

"Have I ever lied to you?" Robin asked.

"Well, no. But then again, you don't always tell the full truth." Jasmine pointed out.

"But telling it all now would ruin the show." Robin shrugged. "Wait a bit, and you'll know everything." She picked up a fork and dug into the last slice of Ayva's Apple pie.

"Whoah! This is seriously delicious!" Robin exclaimed in surprise. "As I thought, real homemade food is the best~!"

"What other kind of food can there be?" Gerard asked. "Fake food?"

"Well, how to explain..." Robin tapped her fork against her lip. "It's more like food not made by human hands. Have you heard of robots? Mechas? Machines?" Robin asked.

"Mech-Ah! You mean the Mecha Knights!? Guardian Golems born of metal and lightning?"

"What, that sounds so cool..." Robin muttered in surprise, before getting back to the point.

"It's similar to that. But, instead, there's food which is made by creations born of metal and lightning with the sole purpose of cooking food. We call it 'processed food'."

"But, doesn't that mean that food which is delicious will get even more delicious?" Gerard asked.

"If the machines had an intelligence of their own, and the objective to make things tastier, then perhaps." Robin replied.

"But we found that food made this way can only preserve a recipe flavor. It actually has something missing that we never even realized was important to flavor."

"What is it?" Ponzu asked, getting his notebook out.

Robin turned to look at Ponzu.

"Call it the personal touch." She replied, with a grin. "Food not made by human hands also can't truly touch the human heart." She pointed a thumb at her own heart.

"There is no intent to please behind the slight differences in the preparation of the food, no care for the ingredients, no love added to the craft. Food that was made mechanically, would only taste of the mechanical. It didn't bear the warmth of the human heart within it."

"That's why you make all the food you eat?" Ponzu asked.

"That's one of the reasons." Robin nodded, taking another bite of pie.

Before they could ask Robin any more questions, there was a disturbance towards the tavern entrance. Several dwarf kitchen hands carried four still-unconscious dwarves in, lashed to wooden beams. The beams were propped up onto the performance stage on the right wall.

"Angus, How dirty is that dishwater?" Ayva asked.

"The dirtiest. I even dipped a ladle or two from the compost heap into it." Angus replied, setting down the last of four almost black tubs that smelled terrible. The surrounding dwarves moved back a bit to escape the stench.

"All, right, you rascals, are you ready to hear a story?" Ayva called out.

"YEAH" The crowd cheered unanimously.

"To tell this story, I need the help of one other person involved. Robin, would ye be a dear and come up on stage?" Ayva asked.

Robin pointed to herself, as she couldn't speak with her mouth full of pie.

"Yes, you! Get over here!" Ayva laughed.

Robin swallowed her mouthful down, and regretfully left the half-eaten slice of pie on the table. She stepped up onto the stage, and Ayva grabbed her hand.

"The only reason why nothing bad happened to me today, is all because of this person, here!" Ayva began.

"This lad here was just outside, when he noticed these four dwarves suspiciously entering the alleyway. Feeling something wasn't right, he climbed up on the great big pile of crates, and started recording them."

"What did they say?" Called a dwarf.

"They said they wanted me to become a meat shield fer them so that Throm dinnae cut off their heads." Ayva replied. "You know, Throm, the greatest dwarf warrior in all the land, and my husband."

Robin was actually slightly surprised at that bit of news. She knew Ayva was special to Throm, but not that Ayva was Throm's wife. The crowd of dwarves booed at the four unconscious dwarves.

"But this lad here, when he heard that they were after me, with bad intentions, he was very mad. Why he jumped down and knocked three unconscious before they even realized it!"

The crowd collectively raised their mugs in a cheer.

"An' when the last one turned around an' squeaked. 'Who-who're you!?' This'n just knocked em out cold." Ayva pantomimed a startled, scared little dwarf.

That drew out a round of laughter.

"After his head had cooled a bit, he dinnae know just what to do with these four brigands, so he tied em up, an made sure they had nae weapons on them. But, would ye lookit what he found!"

At Ayva's command, four kitchen aids opened the bags they were holding, and placed them on the stage in front of the four dwarves, just as they had been when they were found. The many small blades just perfect for hiding caused many a dwarf's eyes to ice over with a somewhat steely gaze.

"This one here, even had a vial of Klarguns Brew. So you can easily understand just what sort of things they had planned fer me."
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Ayva let that sink in with the crowd. The room fell silent. Klargun's Brew was a concoction in which even a single drop in a barrel can knock you out for a week. An entire vial was enough the make you sleep for five years. Then she let go of Robin's hand, and stepped forward to drive the point home.

"And because this lad dinnae want to cause any alarm, he came ta me. He showed me what he had recorded, an he asked me what I wanted to do with em. WELL LADS? WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO WITH EM?"

The crowd roared out a mixture of ideas that no one could fully hear or understand.

"I'LL TELL YE WHAT WE'RE GONNA DO! WE'RE GONNA GIVE THESE FOUR A b.l.o.o.d.y WELCOME! THAT'S WHAT WE'RE GONNA DO!" Ayva called out over the roaring of the crowds, which only got louder after that.

Robin took this chance to step off stage, and returned to her table, to finish up her apple pie.

"See? What did I tell you?" Robin said. "It was trouble, but not for us." She then bit into another forkful of pie. Christian laughed seeing Robin's blissful expression.

"No trouble for us is no trouble at all." Quinn agreed, cheekily.

The group turned their attention back to the stage, where the kitchen hands, two to a tub, now pitched the gag-worthy liquid down upon the four unsuspecting dwarves.

They awakened sputtering, and gagging at the stench to loud cheers of a job well done.

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After the dwarves were completely mocked in a manner similar to a pillory, Ayva force fed them each a drop of Klarguns Brew, and sent the besotted, stinking piles of sleeping dwarves to be locked up somewhere, until Throm returned.

Then she called Robin back up to praise her again, which nearly caused Robin to blush.

"I have one last question fer ye, lad." Ayva chuckled. "What were ye doin' outside at a time like that, when ye coulda been drinking in here?"

At this, the dwarves, some of whom were already very drunk, raised a cheer in agreement to the good drink.

Robin scratched the back of her head, unsure what to say. "Must I tell?" She asked, in a somewhat muted voice.

"Aye! That ye must!" the dwarves roared with laughter.

"Very well." Robin sighed. "I was trying to calm myself down. In human lands, going outside the taverns is usually cooler than inside, so out of habit, I stepped outside. But, to my surprise, it was much much warmer!"

The dwarves chuckled to themselves at Robin's blunder.

"Then I thought that maybe it'd be cooler in the alleyway, so I took a step in to check, but I was sorely mistaken, because it was an oven in there!" Robin shook her head, fanning her face.

The dwarves laughed loudly.

"And, just when I was about to leave, my exit was blocked by those four sorry lumps for a dwarf. I didn't want to be seen because that'd probably cause them to misunderstand me. I mean, what kinda person do you expect to find in a dark alleyway, right?"

Several dwarves nodded in understanding.

"But, then again, there were four dwarves entering an alleyway, and that is also somewhat suspicious, you know. So I took out my recorder just in case, and what happened next is what you all know." Robin shrugged.

"I was almost baked brown back there."

The dwarves laughter went on throughout the night. Long afterwards, it was always a popular joke among dwarves when they were heading outside to say they were going out "to cool off".