The Gourmet Innkeeper: Cooking Monsters in a Fantasy World-Chapter 297: The Talking Baby

What...

His pupils shook but, at the same time, his brain was too busy absorbing the statement that he pushed it aside for a moment.

Besides, it was much more likely she was mumbling random things, so he dismissed it for now. There were a lot more things to discuss here.

First of all, she could already talk? 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Syl gave him an awkward smile. "Well, it seems like she can talk already...and can recognize us."

This... was all quite confusing. But then again, perhaps the baby could hear their conversations while inside the shell. Then a lot of things would make sense. Kind of.

Maybe the girl was just really smart to surmise who was who, as well, and create full sentences despite her lisp, and looked like a toddler when she was literally just born. Yes, it makes sense, makes sense. Probably.

"My baby sister is so cute...your brother’s name is Finn, very handsome Brother Finn," he said. He couldn’t help but want to pinch her cheek, but she glared at him.

"I’m nodda beibee!" she told him, a very serious expression on her face. "Imma big guyul."

"I-I see...a big gurl, huh," he said, voice softer than usual. "Uhmm...what would you like to be called?"

"My name is Weewee."

"Weewee?"

"Weewee," the little girl said, correcting him with an adorable pout. Syl’s lips twitched. "I think she means Lily."

"Ah, Lily," Finn said, smiling at the cute baby. "Who gave it to you?" he asked just for a conversation starter. He expected her to have just heard it somewhere. Unexpectedly—

"Mummy did."

The teasing smile on Finn’s face was wiped off. "What?" he asked, voice cracking. "What do you mean—"

This, combined with the earlier statement, made him more certain there was something in her statements.

Lily looked at him oddly, then ignored him, turning to Syl, hugging her softness. "Hungwee..."

Finn flinched, feeling guilty for not thinking of it. He was still reeling from her answer, but pushed it aside for now.

"What would you like to eat? Milk?" he asked. At this point, he couldn’t assume she was a clueless infant, and he interacted with her like a young child.

The girl pouted, as if offended by his suggestions. In his mind, he wanted to say, since you talk so well, why don’t you just tell me?

Fortunately, he did not say these thoughts out loud. He could tell the girls would give him a bad look if he decided to give attitude.

In the end, he led them to the kitchen so he could prepare a meal. There was gruel and soup in the kitchen, and he served this first, with Syl helping feed the child. This was her first meal, and she shouldn’t have anything too heavy or with too much spice.

A few others saw he was in the kitchen and immediately offered to use up points (most gathered them by foraging for some items, especially from the Level 2 areas).

Finn thought for a while and decided to humor them, but only the first 10 people. Ranran and Micc were called in to assist him, and they were able to prepare the dishes in half an hour.

He decided to make spaghetti now, and he already had pre-made pulled noodles in the cellar. He had long been handling matis sauce, so the lovely taste of spaghetti sauce wasn’t something impossible for him. It was on the sweeter side though, and he reckoned it tasted more like spaghetti using banana ketchup rather than tomato ketchup. He partnered this with fried chicken that used his special spice blend.

For the baby, he prepared milk, mashed thornroot with a few vegetables, as well as a lot of soft fruits. He had no idea what she could eat, and based on the sassiness she had shown in the few sentences she spoke, she might get offended if he treated her like a baby.

He was a young man who had never taken care of a baby. What could he do?

As for Ranran and Syl, they agreed that the baby can, in fact, eat the mashed thornroot. Ranran had served houses as a nanny before, while Syl had watched Athie grow up as a baby and, although unusual, Lily was truly showing the physique and intelligence of a young child rather than a baby.

As such, they all ate their meal happily with more than a few eyes fixed on the cute baby, who was...struggling to feed herself neatly.

Syl had offered to feed her, but the baby refused, telling her she was no longer a baby and could feed herself. She just watched what Athie did and slowly followed him, with the boy actually slowing down so she could follow.

Eventually, she managed to get the whole content of the spoon in her mouth, unlike the previous attempts where at least half ended up on the table, on her bib (Ranran placed it the moment she realized the child would be feeding herself), or on her face.

Very cute.

"How old do you think you are, anyway?" Finn couldn’t help but ask, lazily resting his chin on his knuckle. She was literally just born, wasn’t she?

"Fow!" she said, chewing on her mashed thornroot.

The system had mentioned that the ’egg’ had been around for four years. By this time, he was really starting to believe what the child said, no matter how odd it was.

At this, his eyes flickered as he looked at her. "And what did you mean by Mum gave you your name?"

...

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A/N: Curious. How many of us are girls here? After the short Oasis Story (prob will be less than 400 Chapters, and definitely WILL have better pacing than this one), I’m publishing an FL Alien + Natural Disaster Apocalypse story.

I’m curious since I know many girls prefer reading on the ML Side of the platform, and I am wondering how many of you I can pull to that story lol.

As always, as long as it’s posted in FL side, there is romance, but definitely not the focus.