Editing City Series:Volume1 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 2===

When surrounded by the blue sky, a beautiful pond, and a black cedar forest at midday, preparing a pleasant lunch was the only option.

The pleasant aroma hanging in the air only increased that desire. That aroma was of cooking oil.

A young man wearing a lab coat over work clothes sat on the sunny edge of the pond. He currently wore a green apron over the rest of his outfit.

It was Walter.

He sat in front of a fire made by gathering dry wood and a nice sound and smell came from the frying pan in his hand.

He had gathered some nearby stones as a stove, but it was not all that effective. The heat of the fire could not be reaching the frying pan very well, but the smell suggested he was actually cooking proper food.

“That should do it.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“Professor, food’s ready.”

A giant mass of metal floated behind him. It was the dp-XXX or Kaiserburg. The collection of solid machinery and metal pipes was hovering about a meter off the ground.

The man referred to as “professor” was on top of it.

Only the back of his work outfit could be seen from Walter’s position because the man was clinging to the top of the Kaiserburg as if crawling.

“Professor. Food.”

The man still did not reply.

The professor was lost in his work. He had removed one of the Kaiserburg’s outer panels and was fiddling around within the machine while almost climbing inside.

“Hm.”

Walter nodded, stuck his empty hand in his lab coat’s pocket, pulled out a small black communicator, and switched it on.

“Kaiserburg, shake back and forth a little.”

With a slight noise, the ship in front of him shook its head. And quickly.

This panicked the professor clinging to it.

“Whoooaaa! Walter! D-d-d-don’t move this thing!”

“Want to eat something?”

“I-I-I-I’m working right now!”

“Is that so? Then maybe I should have it shake even harder.”

“F-fine, just stop this thing!”

“Are you sure? I feel like having a little more fun.”

“Just stop it! I’ll finish up, so stop it!”

“That’s a shame. …Kaiserburg, stop.”

The ship’s shaking abruptly stopped and the professor sighed while still clinging to it.

Walter placed the frying pan’s contents on a large plate sitting on the ground.

Those contents were bratwurst and pommes frites. The trick to making the pommes frites was to use the oil produced when cooking the flavored wurst.

After checking to make sure it was all done, Walter stood up.

At that exact moment, he heard a metallic sound and felt like his hand almost flew off. A shock had run through the frying pan as if someone had kicked it.

“…Eh?”

He fixed his grip on it and looked at it. There was a fingertip-sized hole in the bottom of the frying pan and he could see straight through it.

“What is it?” asked the professor.

“This is a little strange from a physics perspective, but a hole suddenly appeared in this thing.”

“That’s because you haggled down the price of an already cheap pan.”

The professor’s explanation did not explain much of anything and he wiped his dirty hands on the stomach of his work outfit. He had the plumpness common among elderly men, but he must have had a decent frame because he still looked plenty solid.

“It might be a new form of metal fatigue.”

“But even it was cheap, I’d grown accustomed to this thing.”

Walter looked up and saw the professor sigh, pull a cigarette from his pocket, and place it in his mouth.

As soon as he did, Walter heard a light bursting sound and the cigarette flew from the professor’s mouth.

“…!”

Before the man could turn around with just the filter in his mouth, Walter asked a question.

“So did you haggle down the price of some already cheap cigarettes?”

That was when a sharp voice reached them.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing at our home!?”

It was a female voice and Walter turned toward the forest it came from.