Chapter 6: Dinnertime

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Dinnertime

 

THE sunset illuminated castle shifted from orange into black, signaling the change of time to night. Aki parted ways with Leo and headed for the castle dining hall with a twinkle in her eyes. According to what Leo said when she left, the castle’s dinner was prepared in the dining hall on the first floor and was organized for everyone to come and take their food when they wanted to.

I wonder what kind of food will be served in an imperial castle’s dining hall. Excited, Aki naturally hurried to the dining hall. Is food served in a castle going to be like a seven-course meal including hors d’oeuvres, soup, a main course of fish, a course of meat, and a fancy dessert? Or will it be a more casual atmosphere of picking your favorite item off a menu? Either way, I’m sure the food served in an imperial castle will be more delicious than anything I’ve tasted.

With her imagination running rampant and her stomach growling for food, Aki overzealously trotted through the grand hallways. Between her summoning, this new world, the conversations with Johann and Elias, and Leo summoning her equipment, her day had been packed full of new experiences, none of which included food. In short, she was famished.

“All right, I’m going to eat my weight in food!” Aki enthusiastically said to herself. The clamor and chatter of castle life blared from a room at the end of the hall she was walking.

Thinking that was the location of the dining hall, she followed the sound of the boisterous voices until she arrived at a pair of widely thrown open mahogany double doors leading to an excessively spacious room that could have been a dance hall. The dome-shaped ceiling seemed to pierce through the sky with its height. Chandeliers let off a gentle orange glow; each one hung from the domed ceiling with a fixed space between them. The wall facing the courtyard was made completely out of glass, letting the diners enjoy a view of the tranquil nighttime castle.

However, Aki was in no position to admire the beautiful scenery. A fair amount of wooden long tables lined the inside of the dining hall and were fitted with a considerable amount of seating to accommodate many people, but every table was packed with soldiers, students, and people donning various exotic clothing styles.

O-Oh no, is there nowhere for me to sit? Not expecting she wouldn’t find a seat, the reality depressed her and her stomach growled loudly, finally reaching its limit. It was a hard blow when she just got her hopes up that she could eat something and relieve a little of the day’s stress. She wanted to cry. The delicious smells floating around the room invited further dismay.

I might have to leave and come back later… Aki sighed and turned to leave with her shoulders drooping, when someone softly placed their hand on her shoulder.

Startled, she turned around to be graced by vibrant silver hair. The Priest Johann stood there and smiled at her when their eyes met.

“Thank you for everything you did today, Aki. Are you about to dine too?” he asked with his head tilted.

Utterly depressed, Aki nodded with her head hung. “Yes… That was my plan, but I didn’t take into consideration how busy it would be…”

“Indeed. The time we can dine is predetermined by the castle, causing it to always be busy by default. I am about to dine myself. Would you care to join me? Elias has saved seats for us farther inside.”

“Oh? Elias saved us seats?”

Aki completely assumed the Hero would dine separately from the rest of the castle.

Johann chuckled, seeming to know what she was thinking. “Yes, he did. The Hero is not royalty. Plus, Elias requested to eat with the rest of the people. Our seats are this way. Please follow me.”

She followed Johann through the long dining hall, maneuvering around tables and people, until he stopped in front of a table next to the ceiling-to-floor length window at the deepest part of the dining hall. She peered around his back to see a large table for four occupied by Elias who sat in the chair facing them.

“Thanks for today, Aki… Um…” Elias paused, his ears turning pink as he looked away from her. “Thank you for earlier too.”

Realizing he was referring to the time they spent alone in his room, Aki caught his contagious blush and started fidgeting.

“No, I should be thanking you…” she mumbled, looking restlessly around the room to keep her eyes off him. Their behavior didn’t make sense to Johann who watched them curiously.

“Is something the matter, you two? Did something happen?”

“Nope, nothing at all!” Elias and Aki’s voices spectacularly overlapped. They looked at each other and away at the same time too. The furrow in Johann’s brow only deepened before he shrugged, deciding he wasn’t interested in prodding too deeply.

“Well, whatever happened is no concern of mine as long as we can sit down and eat. Aki, please choose what you would like to eat from this menu.” Johann opened the folded menu up in front of Aki once she sat beside Elias.

Three main categories were written in large print toward the top of the menu, with several sides added at the bottom. She glanced at Elias’ hands to see a half-drunk cup of what smelled and looked like coffee sitting there. He had eaten before they arrived.

“What did you eat, Elias?” Aki asked, intently staring at the menu.

“Me?” Elias pulled the cup from his lips and happily looked at Aki. “I went for the steak. I love steak the most.”

She smiled softly back at him over her menu. Shortly afterward, a waitress came to their table to take their order. Aki went with the same steak meal Elias had, with an ulterior motive to regain her stamina with meat. Conversely, Johann quickly closed his menu and ordered the a la carte salad on the side menu. She knew it was meddlesome, but Aki worried he didn’t eat much. She watched the waitress leave with their orders before questioning him.

“Say, Johann, are you only having salad for dinner?”

Johann blinked at her question as if to say what does it look like to you? “Yes. I’m a vegetarian. Salad provides enough sustenance for me.”

“Johann is a light eater after all,” Elias chimed in.

There’s no issue with him being a vegetarian, but a salad doesn’t sound like enough food. Johann is still young, so he needs to eat more to grow big and strong. Fear of a rebuttal a hundred times fiercer than any she had ever heard kept Aki from stating her thoughts aloud, but her honest opinion was that boys should eat more. She protested with her eyes, to which Johann averted his gaze. With how smart he was, he saw right through what she wanted to say.

The three of them passed the time with idle chatter until the waitress carried over the food they had ordered. Aki watched her full of anticipation as she heartily placed the hefty plate carrying the gigantic steak down with a thud. On top of the massive white plate sat the gigantic steak weighing close to seven ounces, surrounded by large cuts of carrots, potatoes, and other hearty vegetables. She didn’t need to worry about being hungry again for a while.

“Wow! This looks amazing! So much yummy looking food!”

Johann looked up from the salad he was about to stab with his fork at Aki’s overexcitement for her steak. “Please do not overeat and develop a stomachache. After all, tomorrow we depart on the journey to defeat the Dark Lord.”

“We do?” Aki’s mouth fell open and a piece of the steak fell off her fork onto her plate. “Ah, sorry about that,” she shamefully apologized and reiterated her question back at Johann, “Pardon me, Johann, but we leave for the journey as soon as tomorrow?”

I don’t think we should twiddle our thumbs away at the imperial castle, but I was under the impression we would at least talk about the journey and prepare for it tomorrow—not leave!

Elias brought his coffee cup to his lips and nodded in Johann’s stead, “We do. We’re worried about your little sister, so we changed our plans to depart as soon as possible. Things might be a bit rougher on you with us rushing everything though. I’m sorry for all the haste.”

“No, don’t be! I want to see my sister soon too, so I’m actually grateful for you changing your plans to accommodate us. I will do my utmost best to not get in your way!”

Their forethought pulled at her heartstrings. They must have had things they needed to handle beforehand yet they sped up their plans to leave sooner. Aki gratefully lowered her head to them. A large hand suddenly plopped on top of her head and ruffled her hair.

“Whoa! Wh-What is that?!” Alarmed, she put both hands on her head and lifted her face to find Leo standing in front of her with an amused grin.

He looked at everyone’s faces and casually lifted his right hand in greeting. “Yo, looks like everyone’s here. I’m so impressed you’re deepening your friendship before we embark on the great adventure awaiting us,” he jested. A large paper bag filled to the brim with different sweets rested on top of his arm against his chest. Aki wondered where the mountain of sweets came from and if some fan gave them to him.

Leo flopped into the open chair next to Johann and flipped the paper bag upside down, messily spilling the cookies, pound cake, candies, and unknown sweets across the table. In no time, he tossed sweet after sweet into his mouth and munched away.

Aki watched Leo expressionlessly stuff his cheeks to the brim with sweets in dumbfounded awe. “Hey, Leo, are you not going to order anything to eat?”

Since he came to the dining hall, he probably came to eat dinner. Yet he suddenly started snacking instead of eating a real meal.

Leo blinked as if to say her comment was unwarranted. “Huh? I’m not going to order no measly meal. These sweets are my dinner.”

“They are?!”

“Yeah. Taking in high amounts of sugar is the fastest way to replenish magic. And let me make this clear, I’m not sharing with you ever.” Leo reached his hands out and locked them in a giant, protective circle around his sweets.

“I don’t want any.” Aki shook her head and put her hand to her mouth in disgust. The gigantic steak had filled her to the point she felt like her stomach was going to burst. She could barely keep the food down—she was in no state to even think about adding sweets on top of it.

Their eating habits seem questionable. Elias seems to eat a balanced meal, but Johann only ordered a salad and Leo’s meal of snacks can’t even be called a meal. I believe it’s important for the Hero Party, with its responsibility to the world’s fate, to take better care of their health. Couldn’t these eating habits become lethal someday? Aki tossed a sidelong glance at the three men discussing the next day’s journey, and secretly clenched her fists.

Managing their health might be an important task for the Hero’s Secretary! First, I need to start by getting Johann to eat more and Leo to eat real food. Persuading idiosyncratic people like Johann and Leo to eat right is going to be backbreaking work, but they say a healthy body starts with the right food.

Aki turned her gaze onto the starry sky lit courtyard and mulled over the upcoming journey. The next day she was finally going to embark on a journey to take her sister back from the Dark Lord’s hands. Naturally, she was anxious about what was to come, but the scariness of adventuring in a world she knew nothing about was alleviated by the presence of the kind Elias, caring Leo, and smart Johann. She planned to work her hardest to do whatever was in her power to help all three of them, even if it just amounted to partially lighten the burden they were forced to carry.

The curtain was about to rise on Aki’s protracted adventure.