Our journey started rather normal. We stayed in inns and walked on a reasonably well cared for road. On the third day we entered the wilderness.

  In this case it simply meant a forest. The trees were rather tall and the further we went the less light penetrated the treetops. I could see creatures moving around, keeping their distance.

  Lucy licked her lips. “What sort of tasty monster do you think lives here?”

  “Hopefully they will have blood!” Shani commented.

  Lily studied her map. “I think we might enter spider territory soon.”

  “Spiders? Do you think they will have spidersilk? I have some left but it would not hurt to get more.” I mused.

  Lily shook her head. “The prized spidersilk comes almost exclusively from the black forest near your county, my lady. What we will find here is the devouring forest spider. They are hiding in the trees to ambush their prey. They do not build webs, instead they spit a sticky substance to immobilise someone. Afterwards they jump on their prey and bite it while it tries to escape. They inject a fluid that dissolves their insides and drink the result.”

  “How can it only dissolve their insides? And not their skin?” I wondered.

  “Sorry, I do not know that. I am not sure which parts are dissolved.” Lily answered.

  The spider's sounded scary. In my past life such a story would give me nightmares. Now? I mostly wondered if that poison would be great for making smoothies. What if you combined it with a bunch of tasty fruit? You would not need a blender and it might add some spiciness! It could also ruin the taste. An experiment was in order.

  “If we use our aura we could keep the local wildlife at bay. Animals and monsters understand strength.” Lilith suggested.

  “What? No! We need smoothies! For science!” I declared.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Lilith frowned. “What is a smoothie?”

  “While I am unfamiliar with the term I do have a recipe for a stew…” Lily commented. She was now browsing a book that she had retrieved from her storage.

  Shani’s bunny ears drooped. “Spiders don’t have real blood…” She mumbled.

  “I want to taste a spider now.” Lucy said, her tail wagging happily.

  “A smoothie is essentially a bunch of stuff blended together. Like, you could take a few different fruits and grind them into a paste. You combine that with some liquid, like milk. You end up with a thick drinkable substance that tastes delicious. You can also have them cold by adding ice cream or crushed ice. If that spider poison can dissolve organic things we could use it to dissolve something tasty.” I explained.

  Technically milk would make it a milkshake. Or were milkshakes a subcategory of a smoothie? Well, it did not really matter. Hopefully we could create something tasty.

  “I am intrigued.” Lucy said.

  “I… I would not mind trying something like that.” Lilith admitted.

  I grinned. A win for food science!

  “Let’s hunt some spiders! How do they look?” I asked.

  “They are a mixture of green and brown to blend in with the trees. They are not that easy to spot. We could bait them.” Lily suggested.

  “I could fly up and stab them!” Adhira offered while waving a tiny spear around. I suppose the stabbing would be supplemented with lightning.

  “Hold on, if we kill them with lightning will it impact the taste? Should we just use force? Or will magic improve the taste?” I asked.

  “I do not know. You can cook them, so fire, in moderate amounts, should be fine.” Lily said.

  Lucy shrugged. “That just means we have to hunt more and find out.”

  And so the hunt was on! We rushed forward and split up. Lucy decided to hunt in her fox form. Actually… I turned into a panther. I could climb pretty well like that. Why wait for something to ambush me? I would come for them!

  I charged up a tree and jumped from one to the next until my senses noticed movement. The first spider I met did not have any time to react before I bit down.

  Mmmh. Juicy. Oh. Oooops. I ate it. Well, the spider was about as big as a turkey. Of course, a spider had a lot less meat. Well, while I was distracted with my snack a second spider tried to hit me with its web. I managed to dodge and simply crushed that one with a paw. Then I stored it quickly, hoping to keep the poison from leaking.

  Overall it was fun to hunt. In the evening all of us met with our prizes. I saw parts of a web covering some of Sir Francis' armour. It seemed as if he got hit. Erin was smirking at him and he kept blushing. There might be a story there but food was more important.

  Lily collected the corpses and started cooking. It would be interesting how different magic affected the taste. A preliminary test concluded that fire was ok. Lightning, in the right amount, was really nice. But both methods risked losing the poison.

  I had some glass jars in my inventory and thankfully they were able to withstand the poison. It only dissolved organic things. Sadly my selection of fruit was limited. I did not have any ice cream either. But I could use magic to freeze something. Hm. I did have some bananas. Maybe combined with ice…

  I was happily mixing while Lucy watched closely. The result was surprisingly good. The dissolved banana created a very creamy drink. The poison added a lovely spiciness. It would have been even better with chocolate. Or vanilla ice cream. Or both.

  Once I was satisfied I created more smoothies and handed them out. It was very well received. We also enjoyed Lily’s stew and some nice ale I had in my storage. It was a great evening.