Once Rest committed to hosting a takoyaki party, he immediately set about gathering the necessary ingredients. Luckily, he already knew the recipe, having made them in his previous life.
He hadn't been blessed with the kind of wholesome, loving family that held takoyaki parties at home, of course; his experience came solely from prepping and selling them at a school festival.
"I’ve got the octopus, the wheat flour, and the dashi... but there's no way I'm finding red pickled ginger here," he noted.
Scrounging up what materials he could, Rest stood before an iron plate and pumped himself up. "Alright, let's do this!"
Even with the octopus and other ingredients secured, one vital component was missing: a takoyaki maker. Specifically, an iron plate pockmarked with round indentations.
This wasn't something he could simply pick up at a local shop. While it wasn't a particularly complex piece of technology, and a skilled blacksmith could likely whip one up in a few days, Rest didn't want to wait.
(But I want a takoyaki party now. I want to eat them this very second!)
Yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki—there was something about sauce-slathered, flour-based street food that was utterly irresistible. Once the craving took hold, there was no stopping it.
"First, I'll need a large iron plate. Then... I'll just reshape it to create the indentations for the takoyaki."
He had sourced a cooking plate previously owned by the late Queen Dowager. Apparently, Shoko Sanada had spent her final years by the sea, enjoying seafood grilled on this very iron. Feeling a brief flash of exasperation at how thoroughly the woman had enjoyed her retirement, Rest focused his mana and channeled the familiar sensation of fire magic.
"Fireball."
A sphere of flame flickered into existence. He layered the magic of Compression over it, shrinking the ball until it was roughly the size of a single takoyaki.
"Now, time for the heat..."
He brought the miniature sun close to the plate. The metal began to glow, but it refused to soften enough to reshape.
"Metal only yields when it's hot enough. The trick is finding the right temperature..."
Rest had zero experience with metalworking, so he had no idea what the ideal temperature for smithing was. That meant one thing: trial and error. He slowly cranked up the fireball’s intensity.
"Oh? There goes the color."
As the temperature rose, the iron plate shifted through the spectrum until it reached a brilliant white. He didn't let himself get impatient; too much heat would turn his project into a puddle. He proceeded with painstaking care.
"It’s sweltering... I’m lucky I’m by the shore."
The cool sea breeze blowing in was a godsend. It threatened to cool the plate, but it also kept Rest from collapsing from heatstroke.
"This seems like a good state. Now for the hard part..."
He had assumed that simply heating the plate would make it take on a shape resembling a takoyaki mold, but reality proved more stubborn. The iron was white-hot and malleable, yet it remained flat.
"No problem... this is within expectations. I just need to strike the plate while it's soft."
Applying physical force to the softened metal should do the trick. Since he wasn't about to punch it with his bare hands, he reached for a different spell.
"Wind Control."
He used gusts of wind to hammer the iron. As expected, the shape began to warp. However, it didn't form the neat, hemispherical molds he needed; it just bent the whole plate.
"Damn... this is harder than I thought. Maybe if I narrow the focus of the wind... Huh?"
He struck it again, but the indentations remained elusive.
"Maybe if I hit it from the other side? Whoa—it’s turning into a monstrosity!"
He had thought this would be a simple task, but the iron refused to cooperate, leaving Rest to struggle and sweat through hours of frustration. He spent the rest of the day alternating between heating and hammering. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, he finally had a usable takoyaki pan.
Today's ordeal had taught him one valuable lesson: craftsmen were truly extraordinary. He had been made to realize just how incredible blacksmiths were to be able to manipulate metal so effortlessly.