Chapter 168: The Bear Has a Cake-Tasting Party — Part Two

Chapter 168:
The Bear Has a Cake-Tasting Party
Part Two

 

“PLEASE LET ME BAKE THE CAKE,” Nerin blurted out, raising her hand.

“Nerin?”

“I’ve never had anything as delicious as this before. If Auntie Morin and Karin don’t have enough time to bake it, then please let me do it.” Nerin looked seriously at Morin and me.

“But didn’t you come to Morin’s place in order to learn how to bake bread?”

“I’d like to learn to bake bread too, but this cake is delicious. If Auntie Morin is too busy and Karin doesn’t have the time, I can make it. I want to be useful at the shop. I know I just arrived today, so it’s not like I’m one to say anything, but I was baking bread at home. If you teach me how to make it, I think that I’d be able to do it.”

“Morin?” I gave Morin a look. She looked conflicted, but happy nonetheless.

“Karin and I are busy,” she said, “so we won’t be able to help you, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Nerin.

“And you can’t serve anything unappetizing.”

“Yes, ma’am! I’ll dedicate myself to learning.”

Morin seemed happier as she turned to look at me. “Yuna, I’m asking you too. Please let Nerin bake your cake. If she can focus on that, Karin and I will be able to focus on the bread. And most importantly, it would be a waste not to sell something as delicious as this in the shop.”

“I’ll help out too.”

“Me too.”

The kids were raising their hands. Nerin looked at them in delight. It was fine with me. “In that case, I’m leaving the cake to you, Nerin.”

“Really?! You mean it, Yuna? Thank you. I’m going to give it my all.” Nerin happily hugged me.

Milaine nodded. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can help out with when it comes to the Merchant Guild.”

“I’ll look into the cost of the ingredients so we can start selling them at any time,” said Tiermina. “Let me know what ingredients we’ll need later, okay?”

There was plenty of work to go around, so I took them up on those offers right away.

 

“But it is delicious. I feel like I could eat so much more!”

Here I was thinking I’d made tons of cake, but it was gone in a flash. I’d expected the kids to ask for seconds, but Milaine and Tiermina had too.

“Okay, okay. Just remember, if you eat too much, you’ll get fat.”

There was a sound like a crack forming in the universe.

Crick. Crack. The sounds came from everywhere and nowhere. I traced the unearthly noise…and found a group of adult women who had frozen with their forks still in their hands. Nearby, kids still savored their slices of cake with angelic smiles on their faces. The two great extremes of the world…

“Yuna, this makes you fat?” Milaine asked.

“If you eat too much of it, sure. Kinda pudgy, like, around your waistline.”

“You must be joking,” she asked with a strained smile.

“Do you really think I’m joking?”

Milaine gulped.

I thought everybody knew that sweets could make you gain weight? “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t overeat.”

“Of course.”

Milaine skewered some cake with her fork and brought it up to her mouth.

“Which is probably less than your six slices, Milaine.”

“Yuuuna!” Milaine’s shout echoed through the store. C’mon, she had to know that.

“Ms. Yuna,” said Karin, “three should be fine, right?”

“Sure, if it’s not every day.”

Karin looked relieved. I still kind of felt like three was too much, personally, but she’d be fine as long as she wasn’t eating like that every day.

“Shuri, here, say ah.” Tiermina was trying to shovel the leftover cake on her plate over to Shuri. Looked like the word fat was taboo to Tiermina too.

“You’re not fat, Tiermina, so you’re okay.” She’d been bedridden just a couple months ago and hadn’t been eating well, so she was actually too thin. Even though she’d started eating healthier meals recently, she still hadn’t put on enough weight.

Tiemina shook her head. “Yuna, it’s fine while you’re young, but you can’t let your guard down when you get my age. Pounds sneak up on you, dear.”

She looked incredibly serious, but…it wasn’t good for kids to gain too much weight either, right? Moderation was the key to everything.

Tiermina looked at the stomach of my onesie. “And I’d be in trouble if I ended up with a stomach like yours, Yuna.”

I wish she wouldn’t imply that my stomach was sticking out. It wasn’t. It just looked like it was because of the bear onesie. No, honestly.

Fina was trying to reassure her mother from the side, “You’re okay since you’re not fat, Mom.”

“Thank you, Fina,” she said, giving Fina a quick and happy hug. It was pretty charming, but…really? All this drama about cake?

Still, we ended the cake-tasting on a high note. Other than my comment about getting fat, it’d been uneventful. Maybe we really did need cakes that were less sweet…and had a lower calorie count.

 

Nerin was going to work at my shop. She’d be in charge of the cakes, and she’d live on the second floor of the shop.

“Can I really have such a large room? I wouldn’t even mind sleeping in the attic.”

The rooms were pretty large, even for a former mansion. Morin and Karin were the only ones living on the second floor. We’d also moved the first-floor changing room to the upstairs…well, I call it a changing room, but the kids were really just changing into their bear jackets. Although we had an attic, but we still had rooms available, so we weren’t even using it for storage.

“Are you sure?” she asked again. “I haven’t even started working here yet.”

“Well, if you don’t work hard, you won’t get paid any wages.” I’d left the wages and stuff up to Tiermina and Morin. Apparently, they’d decide after seeing her work ethic. Nerin had said that was fine with her, as long as she had food and a place to sleep. My job was to teach Nerin how to bake those cakes ASAP.

 

We started up cake-making practice right away that afternoon. We took the cakes we’d made to the orphanage. There were thirty people living there, so we wouldn’t waste any of the cakes.

Considering she’d come to Morin in order to become a bread artisan, Nerin was pretty good at baking cakes. “Oh, I’ve always liked making treats!”

That was a pretty girly hobby. Unlike your ex-gamer narrator, I guess she was one of the popular girls…and here I was teaching her to bake a cake.

Still, Morin and Karin outdid the both of us. Morin wasn’t just a master at baking bread; she was great with cakes too. She made it seem easy, like the artisan she was. Every motion was quick and efficient. I thought getting the whipped cream on cleanly was difficult, but she picked up on the tricks after making just a couple cakes. Soon enough, we could serve her cakes up in the shop with no problem. Her cakes were already prettier and tastier than mine. Karin was doing a great job with the cakes too.

It was so weird to think that Morin’s husband had been even better at baking bread than her. I wish I’d had a chance to meet him.

Nerin had more than enough talent herself for sure, but she was a few steps behind the other two.

“Why are you making the cakes with me, Auntie Morin and Karin? Please don’t steal my work.”

“They’re a bit like pancakes, so we could apply some of this to our breads. It’s a good way to think up new varieties.”

“Uhh. Then Karin, what about you?”

“I’m studying, of course.”

Morin nodded. “Now, remember: if you aren’t a good student of the bakery like Karin is, I can’t leave you in charge of the cakes.”

Nerin groaned.

“I don’t want to hear it. You’re the one who said you wanted to do this. If you don’t do it right, why, I’ll send you straight back to your father.”

Nerin silently went back to baking her cakes.

Next to them, the kids were whisking away with egg beaters, busy making the pudding we’d be selling tomorrow.

“What’s that you’ve all got there?” Nerin asked.

“Oh! Yuna made them for us. It’s a tool to stir up the eggs!”

Since whipping the eggs every single day was a pain, I’d asked Gold to make them for the kids. There was a mana gem embedded into the handle that made the whisk on the end turn when they held onto it. It made whisking eggs, among other things, much easier.

“Yuna made that for you? Could you let me see that for a bit?” Nerin borrowed a whisk from a kid and started stirring at the eggs. “Whoa, this is so much easier!” She was really getting into it, like a kid who found her new favorite toy.

“Wow. Yuna, I’d like to use one of these too!”

“You can, but just make sure you get the cakes made.”

 

And so began Nerin’s crash course in cake-making. During the mornings, she’d help out with baking and serving customers. Once she had time in the afternoon, she’d practice baking cakes. Fortunately, she was improving steadily. It wouldn’t be long before we could sell her cakes at the shop. She could be a pretty serious worker.

She wore the bear jacket the kids did. When Milaine found out, she had a jacket made specially for Nerin too. Apparently, wearing the same outfit as them had also made her a hit with the kids.

“Aren’t you going to wear one, Karin?”

“I’d be too embarrassed to,” she replied.

Wait, it was embarrassing?! Looked like I needed to have an in-depth talk with Karin sometime.