by Funa
This girl already has the makings of a merchant!
Then came lunchtime.
Riverside Park was at the riverside. It wasn’t a particularly clever name—just one that was straightforward and easy to understand.
The river had a wide floodplain, on the banks of which plum trees stood in full bloom.
In this country, when one went out to admire flowers, it was the plum blossoms that were most beloved.
Adele, a girl beneath the plum trees, was fluent in the languages of both Japan and this continent.
One might say she took to new languages with a-plum.
“Now then, why don’t we have lunch somewhere around here?” Adele suggested to Ignace as they stood in an open spot among a relatively crowded cluster of trees.
“Ah, good idea. I’ll go and buy us some food and drinks from the kiosk. You just go ahead and pick a…”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” said Adele, stopping Ignace in his tracks. “I, um, asked the lady at the cafeteria, and she let me use the kitchen to make us some boxed lunches. I’m not sure if you’ll like them though…”
Indeed, Adele had no disposable funds with which to be eating out.
When Adele, who was working her hardest to make ends meet, asked to use the leftover foodstuffs—food that she probably would have eaten anyway if she had stayed in her room that day—to make a boxed lunch, the lady from the cafeteria happily consented. She liked to accommodate the girl now and then, and when she heard that the lunches were for Adele’s first date, she was even more thrilled, heaping piles of luxury ingredients on her.
Incidentally, when Adele offered the older lady some of the extras she made to sample, her eyes opened wide, and she asked Adele to teach her how to make the dishes later.
“Huh? But, Adele, you don’t have anything… Oh, right!”
Indeed, this was another thing that all of her classmates had realized. For while Adele did not go out of her way to advertise it, she didn’t exactly hide it, either.
“Now then…”
Pop!
“Wh…?”
He had assumed that Adele would pull a lunch box from her storage space. Based on everything that he had learned about Adele so far, Ignace could expect at least that much.
However, what she actually produced was a table and two chairs, a number of apparently freshly cooked dishes with steam rising off of them, and some teacups. These items, which appeared in an instant, were at least 45 times more substantial than his initial prediction.
“Are you a wizard?!”
“Well, yes, I am a mage…”
Naturally, that was not what Ignace had been implying. He did not mean that she was a regular mage, but rather, the type of wizard who uses impossible magic and only appears in fairy tales.
“Eheheh, the truth is, I can use storage magic. I’ve been keeping it a secret from everyone, but it’s troublesome to carry things around, so I ended up using it today!” she added, smiling.
Ignace wondered, deep down in his heart, Does she really think that no one’s noticed?
Besides, that’s not how “storage magic” works! At least regarding the food not getting cold, and her being able to move it in and out still arranged on top of the table. That is absolutely not how it works!!!
“That was delicious.”
Adele’s homemade meal received full marks.
Though it was not a large operation, Ignace’s family’s business was still fairly successful. They maintained a decent larder in their home, and in order to teach Ignace, the heir, how to recognize good and bad material, they had cooked with reasonably pricey ingredients as well.
It would have been one thing if Ignace was attending the superior Ardleigh Academy, but he hadn’t thought he could be so stunned at the quality of the food produced by an amateur using the ingredients available in the kitchens of Eckland Academy.
She made this food with those ingredients?! If a new cooking trend like this were to spread, then a new market would… No, actually, there would be some way to process and sell this food…
“Now then, I’ll clean things up!” Adele announced, as she and Ignace stood from their seats.
With that, she stored away the table and chairs, along with the now-empty plates and serving dishes.
And then, the two stood there, on the empty grassy knoll.
I’m sure Adele, who has no experience with men, is expecting me to kiss her here! I have to make my move, so that things don’t end between us today—so that she and I have a future!
Ignace made his move. As Adele stared out at the water, he quickly brought his lips closer to kiss her, when…
LADY ADELE, DUCK!
Huh? Oh, okay!
At the voice in her ear, Adele ducked instinctively, while Ignace stumbled forward, his puckered lips thrust out and his arms grabbing at the air.
“Uh—huh? What are you doing?”
“Oh, uh, nothing… Wah!”
As Ignace tried to disguise his own actions, hurriedly apologizing, he was suddenly seized by the shoulders from behind.
Timidly, he turned around, to see…
“Eek!”
It was the class chairwoman, rage clear upon her face, along with a task force of six that included three girls and three boys selected from Class A, who were all seething with anger.
“Will you come with us a moment?”
And so the force dragged Ignace away, off to who knew where.
Indeed, there was no way that Class A, whose members were so overprotective of Adele, would possibly let her be alone with a boy without a chaperone.
“Huh? Um, what just…”
As Adele dithered in confusion, the chairwoman, the last person remaining, walked over to her with a smile and said, “That concludes your practice at dating boys. Now, it’s time for you to practice dating a girl—with me!”
“A-all right? That’s fine, I suppose…”
Going on an outing with a girl had been another one of Adele’s lifelong dreams, even in her previous life, so there would be no complaints from her on that count.
“Well then, let’s go!”
The chairwoman grabbed Adele by the hand and quickly rushed away. She had to hurry before the task force caught on.
“Ah, wait! Please don’t pull so hard!”
Adele panicked at the sudden force with which she was being dragged.
But the chairwoman, blood pounding in her ears, did not hear her.
***
The following day, there were two injured parties in the Class A classroom.
The identities of these two “perverted fiends,” who had been roughed up by the task force, were Ignace and the chairwoman, who was now being held accountable for her scheme.
Ignace was listless, but for some reason the chairwoman was beaming, a cunning smile spread across her face.
Later, Adele thought it mysterious that both of the people who had so kindly gone on dates with her the previous day now both had bruises all over their faces…
By the way, Nanomachines, what was that all about, yesterday? When you told me to duck…
A VENOMOUS INSECT WAS ABOUT TO LATCH ONTO YOUR CHEEK, LADY ADELE.
Oh, so that was it! Thank you. I’ll have to continue listening for your warnings from now on!
YES, PLEASE LEAVE IT TO US, the nanomachines replied confidently.
Adele, of course, had no idea what in the world it was that she had just instructed the nanomachines to do.
For some reason, no more boys ever came to court her.
Adele would not discover the reason for this until much, much later…
Side Story:
Children
“Meow.”
As always, Cricket Eater’s voice came loudly from outside the door.
He could, of course, come in through any open window as he pleased, but when the windows were shut, he would have to plead, “Let me in,” from the other side.
“Just a moment…”
> Marcela paused in her studies and stood to open the door.
Cricket Eater was the cat that Adele had been taking care of.
No, more accurately, he was the cat that Adele had “also” been taking care of. The cat who wandered from room to room in the girls’ dormitory.
However, the cat had taken a particular interest in Adele, and was most often in Adele’s room whenever she was present. When he wasn’t wandering from room to room to beg for food, of course.
And so, the female students all referred to the creature as “the cat Adele looks after,” which is why, after she left, Marcela had been the one to take over that duty… In fact, it had nothing to do with what the humans wanted. It was merely that the cat decided that Marcela’s room would be his next abode.
As she opened the door, Cricket Eater slipped into the room, his tail held aloft.
And then, as Marcela tried to shut the door…
One more shape slipped in afterward. A tiny black cat, with its tail held aloft also.
“Huh…?”
Slip, slip, slip, slip.
One after another, four more of them slipped in.
There were five little black cats in total, all the spitting image of Cricket Eater.
“Whaaaaaaaat?!”
Marcela, flustered, grabbed Cricket Eater with both hands, and lifted him up high.
When she looked hard at the cat, she saw…
“So you are a boy, after all… Then what happened to their mother?!”
Realizing that the cat couldn’t be expected to understand what she was saying, Marcela questioned him with a sort of gestured pantomime. She grabbed up one of the kittens and made a motion like birthing the kitten and nursing it, and then conveyed her question to the cat with her body language: Where did that other cat go?
If anyone else were to have seen this, Marcela would have been quite embarrassed, but thankfully, she was not thinking of this at the moment.
Perhaps Marcela’s painstaking actions were exceedingly clear to Cricket Eater, for it seemed that the cat had understood the question. Cricket Eater’s response to the question was this:
He averted his gaze from Marcela, and simply hung his head.
“Huh…?”
Marcela started at Cricket Eater, perplexed.
“You were abandoned…? And the kids were thrown out with you?”
Cricket Eater looked as though he was about to cry.
“This is a problem… There are six of you. I can’t possibly keep taking care of you in secret like this. Thankfully, it looks like they’re no longer nursing, but unlike you, an adult, they still have to eat special food. Also, sir, will you be able to look after these children the whole time while I’m away at class? If you take your eyes off of them for even a moment… This is hopeless, isn’t it? You’re always wandering around to hither and yon…”
Marcela, hopeless, called for help.
Soon, Monika and Aureana arrived.
“Let’s try and get them adopted.” Aureana, the first to speak, offered a solution.
“Hm?”
“Normally it’s cruel to separate them from their parents, but their mother abandoned them, and their father… he is the way he is. For these children, this is a much better option…”
Glancing over at Cricket Eater, Marcela and Monika silently nodded.
“O-of course! If it is the child of the cat that Miss Adele was caring for, then I shall gladly take on its care!”
It was far too easy.
The kittens were almost devilishly cute. Plus, if they were “the children of the cat Miss Adele took care of,” she could explain it to her father by playing the “when we find Miss Adele” card. There was a chance he might even let her keep them all herself. The third princess was more than capable of caring for a pet on her own, and this was a chance she was absolutely unwilling to pass up.
With that in mind, the third princess, Morena, happily accepted the five kittens into her home.
The three girls were pleased.
“It’s according to plan…”
Just as Morena had schemed, she was allowed to take care of the kittens herself. As the king saw it, when Adele returned, it might win her favor, if only a little, and give them something to discuss.
Morena was fond of the kittens and spoiled them with all her heart.
Then, because the court ladies misheard Morena calling them “the messenger’s cats,” and assumed she was saying “the messenger cats,” as in, “a cat who is a messenger,” other people began to treat them with especially high regard.
And so, this was the result.
After some time, Morena emerged from her kitten-filled reverie and appeared once more at Marcela’s door.
“Please save me…”
Her hair was disheveled, her arms covered in scratches, and five kittens were hanging from her back, swinging from their dug-in claws.
“I’ve failed to discipline them…”
“Ah…”
And so, the Wonder Trio and Cricket Eater, along with the other female students who had cared for cats at home, ran an Etiquette School for Kittens for ten days, after which they returned the cats to the princess’s hands.
Side Story:
Seafood Cuisine
The Crimson Vow had just returned from their swimming and fishing expedition to Amroth.
Between what they bought, and what they caught themselves, they had obtained quite a lot of fish while there.
Now was the time to go wild with fish dishes!
For this purpose, Mile chartered the use of the kitchen and dining room, once dinner was through.
Tentatively, they thought of having a cooking competition, but, when they thought hard about it, there was no way that any of them, having been raised inland, so far from the sea, would be much good at cooking fish. Even if Mavis and Reina were able to at least envision the word “fish,” their hopes of culinary accomplishment were dim.
Because of this, it was decided that Mile would handle all the cooking. The ones who would get to eat it would be Mavis, Reina, and Pauline, along with the matron of the inn, the owner, and little Lenny. And, for some reason, all of the overnight guests at the inn, who had stayed in the dining hall instead of returning to their rooms.
“Why is this happening…?”
This was no time to complain, though. She had to start cooking. Thankfully, her ingredients were plentiful.
Mile’s high-speed cooking began. She even relaxed the limitations she had placed on the speed of her own reflex actions.
Her knife moved faster than the eye could see. Everyone was waiting in the dining room for the food to be complete, save for the owner, who was in the kitchen watching Mile work, his mouth agape.
“Sorry to keep you all waiting.”
After some time, Mile began carrying the completed dishes out of the kitchen.
Lenny and her mother assisted as well.
The owner still had not fully recovered from his shock, and there was no way that any amateurs would be allowed into the kitchen. From both the perspective of restaurant safety and health standards, this was the right course of action.
Gradually, a number of fish dishes were lined up across the tables. They were on large platters, separated by cooking method.
Broiled, glazed, steamed, poached, meunière, fried, tatsuta-age, nizakana, nanbanzuke, pickled… and of course, sashimi.
The sashimi was served with Mile’s recently developed “something like soy sauce,” and, because she could not find anything like true wasabi, western-style horseradish.
To safeguard against parasites, she had flash frozen and thawed all the fish before cooking, and used a foreign-body-removal magic and a cleaning magic on the food.
Because it was flash frozen, there was no expansion of the water crystals or breakdown of cells, so the fish lost none of its delicious flavor.
The first to eat, of course, were the members of the Crimson Vow. After them came the matron and Lenny
. The owner eventually made a full recovery as well. After them, the other guests sampled the rest of the food that remained on the plates.
“This is delicious!”
“It’s so good!”
“Wh-what is this?! I’ve never eaten such a delicious fish dish! Well, in fact, this is the first time I’ve even eaten anything other than dried fish…”
All of the various dishes, as well as the dipping sauce made from a mixture of the pseudo-soy-sauce substance, sugar, and Mile’s recently developed mirin and sake-like liquids—plus the berry sauce she had made from mixing a number of things—all received favorable reviews. By and by, the food piled up on the plates slowly began to vanish.
However.
No one appeared to be interested in the pickled fish or the sashimi.
This was probably to be expected. This place was far from the sea, and it was not a place where you could normally eat raw fish—or at least, not a place where you should. Not if you valued your health and your life.
Even in this world, people did have some knowledge of the parasites that lived in mammals and fish. This was something that impacted their lives, so it was only natural.
In other words, there was no one in this world who would eat raw fish so far away from the sea. That was the sum of it.
“But it’s so delicious…”
So saying, Mile put some of the sashimi onto her own plate somewhat glumly. Then, she put some of the wasabi on top of the fish, pierced it with her fork, and gingerly dipped the bottom of it in a small dish filled with pseudo-soy sauce. The “wasabi” was a bit watery, so putting it directly into the soy sauce would have ruined some of the spice.
Then, when she tried to put it in her mouth…
Yoink! Chomp!
“Huh??”
Someone had grabbed her hand that was holding the fork and eaten the piece that had been pierced on it. It was Mavis.
“Mm, that’s tasty! You really can’t ever go wrong with your cooking, huh?”