Swords, magic, and martial arts

"It smells so good!" Baron wiped his mouth and asked, "Is there any more?"

His bald, large head moved closer to the pot.

Seeing Baron's expression, Rod was speechless. He had been angrily saying he wouldn't eat a single bite.

After Rod and Webber started eating, Baron thought Rod was enjoying dipping bread in the chicken soup, so he tried it too. As a result, Baron and Hammer quickly devoured all the chicken soup Rod had prepared.

"Hiccup, I misunderstood you. I didn't expect it to taste better this way," Baron said, hiccuping between burps.

He and Hammer ate with their mouths covered in oil; they ate most of the chicken. They had complained about it before, but later, no one could tell they were eating it.

Rhodes rolled his eyes speechlessly, only to find that this body couldn't roll its eyes; it could only look upwards.

"What are you looking at?" Baron followed Rod's gaze upwards. "There's nothing there."

Hammer followed Baron's gaze upwards. "What are you looking at? There's nothing there but the rooftop."

Rhodes decided to ignore these two barbarians who were born with little intelligence.

After thanking the owner of the house, Rod and his companions left the village.

Vegetables and bread were hung on Webber and Rod's horses, as they were the lightest, while the horses under Baron and Hammer were already bearing a burden that was not appropriate for their age.

"Could you give me the soup you just made? That way, my tavern will have one more dish to offer," Webber said to Rhodes.

"Of course I can teach you, but you should think about whether your newly opened tavern will be smashed up by those adventurers if you serve food like that," Rhodes warned.

"It's alright, we'll stay there for a few days and eat that bone broth in front of everyone. If anyone dares to laugh at us, I'll definitely have a good talk with them," Baron said from the side.

"Let's forget about it. What if you cause his newly opened tavern to go out of business?" Rod said.

Baron scratched his bald head and smiled sheepishly. "Let's wait until we get there and then figure out a way to help him promote it."

"By the way, where did you learn all this? Why didn't you know it before?" Baron asked again.

Rhodes used his prepared explanation: "I learned it from that necromancer's diary. He spent every day researching how to cook delicious food."

"Unfortunately, that diary was in my spatial ring, and it was stolen along with it. Now I can only write down what I still remember," Rhodes sighed.

"Then could you teach me everything you still remember? I think I'll definitely need it in the future," Weber asked shyly.

"sure."

Rod was starting to wonder if Webber could make the culinary skills he had taught him go far, and if people would travel from several provinces to Webber's tavern to drink chicken soup and eat dumplings.

When we have time later, we can teach him something else, like how to increase the alcohol content of liquor using distillation.

……

Time had passed and it was already July. In just over a week, they would arrive in Dawn Province.

The weather became extremely hot, and Rhodes could no longer bear the warmth of his dragon scale armor, so he took it off and hung it on his horse.

A few days ago, they came across another village, and Rod paid the women there to make several short-sleeved shirts for each of them out of linen.

Summer in the wild was more uncomfortable for Rod than winter in the wild. It had been two days since he last took a bath. After seeing a river, he jumped in and took a bath. He felt sticky and uncomfortable all over.

Although the lack of shampoo and shower gel made him feel like he hadn't washed properly, and he still had some odor and greasy hair, it was still much better than before when he smelled like salted fish.

Rod shaved his hair short again, which had just started to grow a little longer. He didn't know why Baron, who was only thirty years old, was already bald and couldn't grow any hair.

Baron is the uncle of the original owner of this body, which makes Rhodes, who has transmigrated into this body, a little scared. He would touch his head from time to time to see if his hairline had become a little more arrogant.

What if I go bald by the time I'm thirty? Rod has been thinking about this question a lot these past few days, and it's made him so worried that he's lost a lot of hair.

If I go bald, will I be able to control myself and make myself burst into flames like Baron?

During this trip, they frequently encountered caravans and bandits. Baron, who often had fights to fight with, didn't become a chatterbox like last time, and Hammer was in good spirits.

Baron has indeed become stronger than before during this period. It's possible that, as he said, he suffered some injuries, and now that his injuries have healed, his strength has also recovered somewhat.

Rod's riding skills have become much more proficient because he has been spending a lot of time on horseback recently.

Looking at the sun high in the sky, Rod wondered if he should install something like a sunshade next time.

All you need to do is install a few poles next to the saddle, and hang a linen cloth on top of the poles to block the sun. Why doesn't anyone think of something so simple? Are the people here too stupid?

He slapped himself. Was it because of the heat that he became confused?

I was the fool. If I wanted comfort, others would have chosen to ride in carriages. Those nobles' carriages even had a special place to put ice.

This idea is just as silly as my previous thought of installing a windproof blanket similar to that of an electric car next to a warhorse.

"Let's find a place to rest for a bit, and set off again when the sun is a little weaker," Weber suggested, as he was the oldest and his body was weaker than the others.

"Let's go to that grove of trees, we can have lunch there," Rod said, pointing to the grove of trees not far away.

After tying the horses to a nearby tree, Rod and the others sat down to rest.

"These horses eat weeds all day long, they're probably ruined, they can only be used as pack animals from now on," Hammer said.

"It's perfect for carrying such a heavy load every day so they can get used to life ahead of time," Baron said sarcastically.

Rhodes was speechless. Wasn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

He felt that Baron might be heavier than Hammer even without any equipment.

"Let's travel at night and rest during the day from now on. It's just too hot during the day now," Weber suggested.

Hammer and Baron had no objections; as northerners, they were far more resistant to the cold than to the sun, even though this place was considered northern by most of the continent.

"Let's wait until the sun goes down before we set off. We can eat now and take a nap," Rhodes said.

They were all a little sleepy after being exposed to the sun for most of the day and then moved to the cool shade of the trees.

For lunch, I simply ate some flatbread that Rod had made in the previous village. Fried flatbread has a longer shelf life than regular bread. Although it doesn't last as long as bread that's as hard as wood, it tastes much better.

Resting against a tree, Rod missed mung bean soup, plum juice, iced cola, ice cream, and chilled watermelon...

Thinking of this, Rhodes wanted to try the watermelons of the Fish Kingdom and see how they differed from the watermelons of his previous world.

After a short rest, Rod picked up his sword and practiced the White Rainbow Sword Technique for a while. He had been practicing the One-Finger Divine Skill on horseback every day during this period and had successfully improved it by one level. He had used it on a tree before, and with full force, he could stick his finger into the tree. However, even he, who had cultivated the Golden Bell Cover and Iron Shirt techniques, felt a little pain in his hand.

He practiced his swordplay until he was drenched in sweat. Just as he was about to rest for a while before continuing, he heard the sound of horses' hooves getting closer and closer...