Chapter 132: The Bear Eats Pudding

Chapter 132:
The Bear Eats Pudding

 

THE NEXT DAY, the four students still seemed sleepy. Guess they hadn’t recovered from their fatigue?

“We loaded the carriage with the goods,” the village head explained to Maricks.

I looked to Shia. “Goods?”

“The goods we’re going to carry from the village to the capital this time around. I think it’s the cloth and thread you got yesterday.”

Oh, right. Specialty goods. Hooray.

Once the village head finished talking to Maricks, the old man came over to me. “Ms. Yuna, thank you for everything.”

“You already thanked me a lot during the meal yesterday.”

“Yes, but…” The village head seemed to hesitate, but he also seemed to realize that there wasn’t much left to say. “If you’re ever in the area, please stop by. You’re always welcome.”

The head and villagers saw us off as our carriage departed toward the capital. The carriage jostled us on our way out of the village.

“Still,” Cattleya mused, “I never thought we would end up getting into such a mess.”

“Sorry about that,” said Maricks from the front of the carriage.

“It wasn’t really your fault, Maricks. We all decided to save the villagers,” Timol said.

“That’s right,” said Shia.

“You weren’t the only one to blame,” added Cattleya.

“Um,” Maricks mumbled. “Thanks, guys.”

The energy was so weird that everyone couldn’t help but break out laughing—everyone, from us in the back to everyone up front, Maricks included. Yeah. You know what? This was a good group.

“But, Yuna…you’re going to report what happened, aren’t you?” Maricks asked.

“Well, that is my job.”

Cattleya cringed. “Noooo. They’ll definitely deduct points.”

I shrugged. “There’s no avoiding it.”

Timol nodded. “That’s right. It’s essential to know when to give up. I don’t think we were wrong in what we did. I don’t think going to save the villagers was a mistake either. However, we didn’t seek instructions from Yuna, the adventurer, which was wrong on our part.”

“I guess so? But at the time we didn’t think she was such an amazing adventurer…”

“Shia was also in the wrong!” Maricks groaned. “Weren’t you? Keeping quiet and stuff?”

“I told you already, that was part of my test. And thanks to you lot, I’m definitely losing tons of points.”

Everyone sighed.

“Ugh, fine. Who cares.”

“Yeah. The villagers were saved, no one was injured…let’s say this was fine.”

“All thanks to Yuna.”

Hmm. But if I was a teacher, how would I grade this?

They hadn’t abandoned people in trouble. That was a plus.

They’d put themselves in danger even though they weren’t adventurers. That was a minus… Or wait, maybe I should’ve stopped them before they got into that mess?

But I’d been told to let them do what they wanted if I didn’t think it was dangerous. I’d thought it wouldn’t be a problem if it was just goblins. I hadn’t expected the black tiger or the hundred wolves.

This whole middle management thing was not for me.

 

After that, the carriage kept plowing ahead and we ate bread from the village for lunch. Morin’s bread was definitely better though. There was just something different about it. Not that the village was bad, but Morin’s bread was something else. After I finished eating, I was left feeling a little unsatisfied, so I pulled out pudding for dessert. Gotta top off on my sugar.

I started eating the pudding.

“Yuna, you’re eating pudding all alone?” Shia’s sharp eyes spotted me.

“You want some too?”

“You’d share?”

I nodded, pulled more pudding out of my bear storage, and handed it to Shia.

“Thank you very much,” Shia said and dug in. “Oh, it’s delicious.”

As Shia and I ate pudding, Cattleya looked at us in shock.

“Y-Yuna, Shia, is…is that…”

“It’s pudding. You know what it is?”

I took a spoonful, showed it to Cattleya for a moment, and popped it into my mouth. Delicious.

“Do I know what it is?” Cattleya echoed, shocked. “It was a dish served at the king’s birthday celebration banquet…”

Oh, right—I remembered what Noa had said about that business. The hall had gone wild at the banquet when the pudding came out. I’d totally forgotten. “Cattleya, did you attend the banquet?”

“Yes. I still haven’t forgotten how moved I was when I ate it.” Her eyes welled with tears over, uh. The pudding. “Yuna, why do you have that pudding?”

Hmm. I could hide it, but… Then again, I was selling it in Crimonia these days, and people knew it was connected to me because of all the bear decorations. This pudding boat had sailed.

“Yuna made this pudding,” Shia answered before I could.

“R-really?! You’re…you’re the Phantom Chef of the Legendary Pudding?!”

“I…guess?”

Legendary? Phantom Chef?

“Did you know about this, Shia? The king would tell no one who made it.”

“Yuna treated me to some before the banquet.”

Ah, yeah, and we’d chowed down on some pizza together. It hadn’t been that long ago, but it felt nostalgic. Meanwhile, Cattleya kept staring at the pudding I was holding.

“Umm, do you want some too, Cattleya?” I took out a portion for her.

“Are you sure?” Cattleya whispered. “The pudding, I—well, you—but—oh, thank you very much.” Cattleya immediately dug in. “Ahh, this is the taste. It is so unfair that you’ve eaten it multiple times, Shia.”

“Well, you know what’s even more unfair? My sister.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Anyone in Crimonia can buy pudding at Yuna’s shop, so my sister Noa is constantly going there to eat.”

True. Noa even snuck out of the house to eat sometimes. Her maid, Lala, was always irritated about that.

“Yuna has a shop?!”

“Yep. Yuna’s shop is in Crimonia. On top of that, she sells this pudding at a price even commoners can afford. It’s very popular.”

“The legendary cuisine served at the king’s very own banquet…is being sold at an ordinary shop.” Cattleya seemed dumbfounded as she looked at the pudding and me, like I was serving up chunks of the Round Table or something. “A shop? But I thought Yuna was an adventurer.”

“Yeah, but I guess you could say I’m the shop’s proprietor. I entrusted the management of the store to others.” Every once in a while, I’d come up with a new bread idea and have Morin arrange to make something delicious, but that was pretty much it.

“I see. If I go to Crimonia, I can eat all the pudding I want…”

We had limits in place, so it wasn’t exactly a buffet, but…

Shia nodded. “That’s why I want to head back to Crimonia soon.”

“Oh, when you do that, please do take me with you.”

While we girls were chatting, I noticed Maricks and Timol looking our way. Looked like they were interested. Since there was no helping it, I gave them pudding too.