Bonus Short Stories

Kelvin, the Three Girls, and Meat Skewers

After a certain event involving a lot of alcohol was over, Kelvin had a stroll around Gaun with Rion, Shutola, and Ruka. Melfina and Gerard had been with them earlier on but then left because they had other things to do. It would take too long to go into the details of what it was that had pulled them away, so we shall leave that out for now.

“Oh, it’s the meat skewer place from yesterday! Kel-nii, over there! That one!”

“What? You wanted to eat some, Rion?”

“Master, Master! I want some too!”

“Um, if I’m honest, so do I, dearest brother.”

The three girls, who were currently going through growth spurts, seemed to have been drawn by the mouthwatering scents given off by the skewers in the hands of the people walking ahead of them. Just yesterday, the same fate had befallen Melfina, prompting Kelvin to order twenty portions for her. The other girls had probably held themselves back out of consideration for how tired the stall owner was.

“But that skewer is pretty big, isn’t it? It’s American-sized... Or I guess it makes more sense to call it Gaunian-sized. None of you have an appetite like Mel’s. Are you sure you each want one?”

“Don’t worry, dearest brother. Those skewers all have three blocks of meat on them, and there are three of us. It’s true we may not be able to finish an entire skewer each, but we can definitely finish one together!”

“Shutola-chan’s so smart! Master, I can eat one block!”

“And Kel-nii, if push comes to shove, we have you to finish it if we really can’t.”

“Fair enough. I do actually have space in my stomach right now. All right. Give us one skewer please, sir.”

Kelvin, who had acquiesced to the girls’ pleas, turned to the stall owner and placed an order.

“O-Oh, you’re from yesterday...” The owner, who apparently remembered Kelvin due to how impactful the previous incident had been, looked slightly shaken. “A-Are you sure you don’t need to add a zero to your order, sir?”

“Nah, we’re good today. It’s these girls here who’ll be eating it.”

“Please grill it nice and yummy for us, mister!”

“Yummy!”

“Please and thank you!”

“What cute customers we have here! You got it. I’ll put my heart into grilling this one!”

The beastkin man was considerate enough to put each block of meat onto separate skewers. The juices sizzled with such a heavenly melody and fragrance that everyone nearby immediately began salivating. When he was done, he wrapped each portion in a large leaf and handed them over. The girls happily accepted them and leaped about in sheer excitement.

The group quickly found a place to sit. There was just no beating the experience of eating a meat skewer while sitting on a bench.

“So yummyyyy!” all three cried in unison.

Kelvin watched his companions warmly, thinking about how enjoyable such moments were too.

“Here you go, Kel-nii.”

“Hm? You’re already full?”

“Nope, I just want to share. Say ‘ahhh...’”

“Ha ha, what an Efil-like thing to do. Ahhh...nom.”

“What?! We’re pretending to be Efil-sama?! Master, I wanna do it too! Master, say ‘ahhh!’”

“Um, um, d-do I have to do it too? Dearest brother, um, please say ‘ahhh...’”

At the time, Kelvin thought he heard Gerard’s tearful roar in the distance, but he decided to pay it no mind. Instead, he focused on enjoying the half-eaten morsels thrust before him.

“Mm, this really is delicious...”

Efil, Ellie, and Curing a Hangover

“Eurghh...I feel so sick...” Sera moaned like a zombie.

The day after unwittingly getting thoroughly plastered and going on a huge rampage, she woke up with a splitting headache that she thought would kill her. Gone was her usual energy, replaced by torturous moans and groans, with her face permanently twisted in agony.

“What should we do, Efil-sama?” Ellie asked.

“Congee is best for hangovers,” Efil replied. “We will have to start by selecting the best ingredients. Come with me to the market.”

“Understood. Shall I bring Ruka as well?”

“No, we’ll let Ruka accompany Rion-sama and Shutola-sama. They’re all at the age when they would prefer playing with each other, so let’s leave them that time.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Efil-sama. But the way I see it, you have just as much right to play as they do. I was much rowdier when I was sixteen.”

“I-I have Master, so I can do without playing. Oh no, look at the time! If we take too long, Sera-san just might pass away for real. We must hurry!”

Efil bustled off, her cheeks blushing slightly as Ellie looked on with a warm smile. The two headed for the marketplace in search of high-quality ingredients.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Oh dear, we ended up buying too much.”

“You become far too enthusiastic when you see rare ingredients, Efil-sama.”

About an hour later, the two maids returned to the inn. They stared at everything they had bought, all laid out on the counter in the kitchen they had borrowed, realizing they had gone just a little too far. However, food wouldn’t ever go bad inside Clotho’s Storage, and there was no such thing as “too much food” with Melfina around, so there wasn’t much of a problem.

“Well then, let’s begin cooking. Ellie, can you fetch me the miso in Clo-chan’s Storage?”

“Here you go.”

The pair got to work. Although Ellie was more than twice as old as Efil, she knew for an absolute fact that the younger girl was by far her superior in working as a maid, especially when in the kitchen. Ellie had much, much more experience with actually cooking, but the difference in proficiency was so remarkable that this detail didn’t seem to matter. The moment Efil picked up a knife, ingredients on her cutting board shone with a blinding light, throbbed with life, and leaped with energy. Or at least, that always seemed to be the case—that was just how incredible it was watching her cook.

I feel like I’m starting to faintly hear the ingredients speaking to me as of late... No, I must be imagining it. I’m imagining things.

This power of Efil’s even affected those cooking with her, greatly expanding the range of what they were capable of. Ellie knew that her food always came out more delicious whenever she made it alongside Efil, even if the other girl never even touched the dish in person.

“We have finished.”

“It’s shining, Efil-sama.”

“Is it? It appears normal to me.”

Ellie thought she saw the congee in the bowl giving off a golden-yellow glow. Was it a visual hallucination, or was it real? She felt like if she let down her guard, she would even see a halo.

Without further ado, the two brought the dish up to Sera’s room.

“Ugh...”

“Sera-san, we made you congee. Please open your mouth. Say ‘ahhh...’”

“Ahhh...” Sera feebly opened her mouth, prompting Efil to feed her some congee with a wooden spoon. After chewing slowly and swallowing, the demon opened her mouth again, asking for the next spoonful of her own volition this time.

“Ahhh...”

“Here you go.”

After this exchange was repeated a few more times, the bowl was entirely empty.

“I’ve recovered! Your congee really does wonders, Efil! Thank you!”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Even a severe hangover was no match against a bowl of Efil’s congee. It was Ellie’s goal to catch up to Efil’s cooking ability and one day make food that equally outstripped even medicine in recoverative efficacy.

Today, too, Sera proved unnecessarily full of energy.

Sera, Cake, and Hot Milk

Due to unavoidable circumstances, Sera ended up with a terrible hangover that left her in what seemed like eternal agony until Efil’s handmade congee finally liberated her. Once freed, she leaped out of bed, charged with energy, and went off in search of Kelvin. However, he had apparently gone out. Gerard, Melfina, and the three young girls were absent as well.

“Where did everyone go, leaving me behind?!”

Sera huffed in indignation, having already forgotten about the dozens of times she had nearly killed Kelvin the previous night. However, there was no point crying over spilled milk. The demon girl instantly changed gears, then realized she was feeling peckish. The only thing she had eaten was Efil’s congee. Although her appetite wasn’t all that large, that one bowl had not been enough to fill her up. Efil seemed to be occupied with teaching Ellie something, and Sera didn’t want to interrupt them. Consequently, the only option available was to find food outside. Without hesitation, she headed out into the city.

“Extra! Extra! There was an upset at the annual Beast King Drinking Competition! Get your extra here!”

A beastkin hawker seemed to be selling a newspaper on a corner of a major avenue. Sera’s ears picked up the term “drinking competition.” Having woken up with the worst hangover in memory that very morning, she grimaced and firmly decided to steer well clear of the event.

“Oh, right, there’s that delicious confectionary café that Goldiana told me about the other day. It just so happens to be in the exact opposite direction from that drinking something-or-other too! I should go check it out as a potential date location with Kelvin!”

Having decided how to fill her stomach, Sera, who had a great memory, made a mental map based on what she had been told and set off at a brisk pace.

“This must be it!”

She did not make even one wrong turn. Upon arriving, she immediately grabbed a seat and checked out the menu that the waitress handed her.

“There’s a surprisingly large selection! Hmm...”

As her eyes scanned the page, a certain item caught her attention so strongly that her eyes widened. Named Blood Cake, it was a cake topped with a sauce made from blood orange and raspberry. This item, which looked like a cake covered in blood, had perfectly spoken to her sense of aesthetics as a demon. She turned to the waitress with sparkling eyes.

“Give me a Blood Cake!”

“Give me a Blood Cake!”

Another female voice happened to order the same thing at the very same time. Sera couldn’t see the other person, as the booths were separated by partitions, but the voice indicated that she was sitting back-to-back with the speaker. While mentally applauding the other girl for her marvelous taste in food, she considered what to drink.

I did just recover from a hangover, so I should probably get something that’s easy on my stomach!

Having made up her mind, she pointed at the menu.

“Hot milk, please.”

“Hot milk, please.”

Even the waitress could not help but smile in response to such a rare coincidence. Sera nodded several times, impressed once again by the other girl’s tastes.

◇ ◇ ◇

“Phew. That was delicious. This place really is a gem!” Sera smiled with satisfaction, mentally thanking Goldiana for the recommendation. She resolved to bring Kelvin there someday, then finished off the last mouthful of milk in her glass.

“Check, please.”

“Check, please.”

A smile naturally came over Sera’s face. It was quite a stroke of fortune meeting someone who was so in tune with her. The urge to peek over the partition flashed through her mind. However, because it would be rude to do so, she banished the thought. She actually had a surprisingly firm grasp of common sense, at least in comparison to the other members of Kelvin’s party. Having decided to honor etiquette, she simply paid and walked out.

Sera headed back to the inn, her crimson hair billowing in the breeze. At the same time, a smaller girl exited the café, hair the same shade similarly blowing behind her.

“Huh? Did those two customers come separately? I definitely thought...”

“I know, right? They were so alike! Both their looks and orders!”

“Heeey, there’re still lots of customers here! It’s too early to stand around and chat!”

“Sorry, boss!”

Several days later, these two red maidens would meet again on the stage of the Beast King Festival. Only they would know whether they ever learned what had happened today.

Dahak’s Prettia-chan Observation Diary

The prideful black dragon, Dahak, eldest disciple of “Grim Reaper” Kelvin and son of the Darkness Dragon King, had something that he was struggling with. Nothing else had ever distressed him or shaken his heart like this in his more than hundred years of life as a dragon. Even now, in the middle of the Beast King Festival, he was hiding in a bush, crawling on all fours and writhing in agony.

“Ohhh, Prettia-chaaaan! You’re so pretty today, I think my eyes are burning up! Like, literally!”

This dragon in human form had taken advantage of the short break he had to come peek at “Peach Ogre” Goldiana Prettiana. He had used his own ability to grow a plant to hide himself in so that he could stare at Prettia elegantly enjoying a cup of tea. When taken this far, his actions very much bordered—no, were actually very much within the realm of stalking. If his target had been a normal girl, she just might have had him arrested.

“No, I need to gather myself. Being mesmerized by the sight of my beautiful goddess is fine and all, but I have to remember my duty. Today’s tea is...Darjeeling. Gotta write that down.”

Surprisingly, Dahak was capable of telling teas apart based on their color and fragrance alone. This was an ability he had picked up as a way to get closer to Prettia, who he thought loved tea above all other drinks. Every once in a while, he slipped away from the main group—some of those times, it was to train for this. Due to his ability to control nature, his compatibility with tea leaves was extremely high, and his efforts were paying off. Well, they were, but...if this was how he used this newfound ability of his, there was a case to be made that it was a pearl before swine.

“Hmm, so she’s drinking not just one tea today, but several. As expected of Prettia-chan, she’s so generous and impartial with her love even towards tea leaves! She’s so much more of a goddess than any other goddess!”

Dahak was a “real man,” so he was always direct with his words. However, if he went any further, he just might earn the ire of a real goddess, Melfina. So he simply focused on writing down today’s observations in his notebook, his face the very picture of seriousness.

At that moment, however, a mischievous wind passed by Prettia’s seat. His pretty pink skirt flew up with perfect timing. It...flew up. It did.

“Pfffft!”

Blood jetted from Dahak’s nose, and he fell unconscious on the spot. He lay there on the ground for quite some time before someone found him.

Just what had he seen in that instant? What had been reflected in his eyes? What manner of weapon was it that he had been assaulted with? This was a highly confidential secret that only he would ever know.

This is important, so it bears repeating: this is a secret that must never be revealed. There is no need to reveal it.

“Dearie me, what a naughty wind and a naughty boy.”

Golden Sage and Silver Saint

Back when they were young, Princess Shutola Trycen, the First Princess of Trycen, and Colette Deramilius, the Oracle of Deramis, had attended school together in Lumiest, the Academic City, on the Western Continent. As one of the most distinguished education institutions in the world, many students came from families of royals, nobles, or extremely influential powerbrokers. Even while among those of such eminent standing, however, these two successors to the heads of the major powers of Trycen and Deramis on the Eastern Continent commanded unparalleled attention.

This pair had met a few times before, but Lumiest was where they first experienced throwing themselves into studies side by side. Neither of them were very athletic, but rumor had it their academic ability placed them among the top students the school had ever seen. In fact, they ended up skipping multiple grades. The names “Golden Sage” and “Silver Saint” sprang out of nowhere and stuck. It was the first time either of them had encountered someone as brilliant as themselves, so they naturally grew interested in each other. They also happened to be very close in age and quickly hit it off and grew thick as thieves.

“Shutola-chan, what is your dream for the future?”

“Me? Um...this is a secret, okay? I want a biiiiig teddy bear like this! So big that I can’t put my arms all the way around it!”

“Aww, that sounds so wonderful! Now I want one too!”

“What about you, Colette-chan? Tell me!”

“Following your example...I’d want a life-sized figure of Melfina-sama. If possible, I’d want three copies—one to preserve, one to use, and one to proselytize with. By all means.”

“You’re so greedy, Colette-chan! But I think that’s a really nice dream.”

When alone, the pair had a lot of fun innocently talking about things they would never mention in front of other people. Despite possessing knowledge rivaling most adults, these girls certainly struck a very picturesque image when happily chatting and laughing like those of their age, prompting others around them to send warm glances their way.

“Also, I want to marry my daddy in the future! And esteemed brother Azgrad too!” Shutola’s smile was the very image of childish innocence. Making such precocious claims was a privilege of those her age.

“And you call me greedy, ha ha.”

“There’s no way I can choose between them! Who would you want to marry, then, Colette-chan?”

“I have only one person in my heart: Melfina-sama. I will dedicate my whole life to her service.” Colette’s smile was more one of conviction than innocence. This Silver Saint would eventually have the opportunity to bring the full weight of these emotions of hers to bear, but let’s not talk about such...um...matters of religious piety at this time.

“Colette-chan is so faithful!”

“I am the Oracle, after all.”