Chapter 76: Morning Set, Once More

Chapter 76:
Morning Set, Once More

At around ten in the evening, with cleanup finished, the Restaurant to Another World closed its doors. After her post-work shower, Aletta changed into the pretty secondhand white dress she’d treated herself to, in honor of the coming spring.

“Nice work today, ladies. Here’s your pay.”

The master handed Aletta a brown envelope. The text written on it read, Wage: twelve silver coins.

“Thank you very much!” Noticing that the envelope was a little heavier than usual, Aletta tilted her head. “Huh?”

“Oh, that’s right! I forgot to tell you. You’re getting a raise,” the master explained, delighted at Aletta’s reaction. “From now on, you’ll receive twelve silver coins every day you work here.”

At first, Aletta could barely wrap her head around the words that had come out of the master’s mouth. After a moment, everything clicked into place, and she raised her voice in surprise.

“Wh-what…?! Are you sure?!”

Aletta had been scolded at previous jobs, and even had her pay lowered. She’d never gotten a raise before.

Her work at Nekoya was something like a dream. She couldn’t have asked for more, and she was already thrilled with what she felt was a high wage. Aletta had never once considered the possibility of a raise, but she could tell that the master was serious.

“Of course! You’ve been at this for a year now, and I can see how serious and hardworking you are. As far as I’m concerned, you deserve this,” the master continued, a big smile on his face.

In truth, he meant every word. Aletta was a great waitress, never getting orders wrong. He could count on one hand how many times she’d broken plates over the course of the year.

Sure, she’d been a bit rigid at first when it came to interacting with customers. Lately, however, she’d become excellent at performing her duties with all manner of guests.

Besides, it’d be a real bummer if she quit because she thought the pay was too low.

The master didn’t know much about how things worked on the other side. However, Aletta—who looked around the same age as the local high schoolers—had become an absolutely necessary presence on Saturdays. They’d brought someone else on recently, but things were still crazy busy at Nekoya.

On Saturdays, Aletta worked all day, from open to close—approximately fourteen hours. If you divided that into her hourly pay, she’d been receiving about seven hundred yen an hour, which was far too low. That was part of the reason the master had given her a raise.

“Well, if you’re sure… Um, thank you so much!”

Aletta was tremendously grateful. For her, this was like a dream come true.

It seemed crazy that just a year ago she’d thought she would literally die of starvation. Now she felt as though she were the world’s most blessed young lady.

“I’ve got today’s goods.”

The master pulled out a bag full of the items Aletta had requested earlier. Seeing the bag, the demon girl regained her composure.

“Thank you!”

She quickly took a silver coin from her pay, handed it to the master, and then took the bag.

***

Aletta’s employer in the other world, a young woman, was a regular at the Restaurant to Another World. She stopped by once or twice each month to indulge in her favorite food, minced meat cutlet. She’d apparently asked Aletta to do a bit of shopping for her, so Aletta used a little of her wage to buy treats and food from the restaurant.

The first thing Aletta had asked for was a tin of cookies from the Flying Puppy. The master had given her one as a celebratory present for getting a job, but now she bought a tin pretty much every week. She also bought a minced meat sandwich, her boss’s favorite food. The young lady apparently couldn’t swing by today, since she had business in town.

That wasn’t all that was in the bag.

“Huh? What’s this?”

Aletta tilted her head slightly, noticing a silver tube she’d never seen before. It was warm to the touch.

“Oh, that? Just a little extra. Leftovers, actually. Hope you don’t mind,” answered the master. “If you could wash the container and bring it back next week, that’d be great. As for the dish inside…”

The word that came out of the master’s mouth was the very first food Aletta had eaten at the Restaurant to Another World.

***

Sarah—a treasure hunter who mostly worked in and around the capital city—opened her eyes at the sweet scent coming into the kitchen. The room was
bright.

With a treasure hunter’s speed, Sarah figured out the situation immediately.

“Oh. I guess I must’ve fallen asleep before Aletta got back yesterday.”

She wiped ink off her cheek with her hand, picking up the blanket that had fallen to the floor. Aletta had probably put the blanket on her while she slept.

Atop Sarah’s usual work table were a bright magical lamp she generally used while exploring and a journal she’d read countless times. A bundle of parchment that Sarah had neatly written on also rested on the table.

All of these objects reflected her current work.

Not long ago, during a random visit to Nekoya, Sarah had reunited with her cousin for the first time in ten years. He had given her his journal.

Inside, penned in fresh ink, was information he’d gathered over the past decade about the Southern Continent.

Sarah had given the journal to her aunt and uncle, using it as proof that her cousin was still alive. They soon returned it to her, and she had taken up her current job.

Long story short, we can’t read this, so could you reproduce it more neatly?

To some degree, Sarah understood the problem with the journal. To a treasure hunter, information was almost as important as one’s own life. Sometimes, you had to protect that information, no matter what.

One of the simplest ways to do that was to record information in handwriting that was basically as hard to read as possible, so that no one else understood it.

Of course, you had to be careful not to write so messily that even you couldn’t read it anymore. Generally speaking, however, the script in treasure hunters’ journals was almost always difficult to read.

Sarah was the daughter of a massively prominent merchant, so she’d been educated properly and knew how to write in neat script. Still, even her journal was full of deliberately difficult-to-read text. It went without saying that her cousin, a more experienced treasure hunter, also took precautions. His writing was far messier than hers.

To make matters worse, he even used the same codes that their great-grandfather had enjoyed using. This meant that, even with the Gold family’s connections, Sarah was the only one who could piece together her cousin’s journal.

This led her to take the job from her aunt and uncle, especially since they’d never been afflicted with William’s Curse. She would translate and reproduce the information that her cousin had left behind.

The reward for the task was no laughing matter, since Sarah’s aunt and uncle were very well-off merchants who dealt in magical tools and items. Furthermore, if Sarah reproduced the journal, she’d get her hands on information about the Southern Continent.

She’d accepted the gig immediately. For the last ten days, she’d holed up at home, copying the journal’s contents in easy-to-read script.

“Agh! I’m hungry.”

When Sarah remembered that the last meal she’d eaten was hard black bread, cheese, and water to wash it down, she left the room. Aletta was in the kitchen, stirring a large pot over a tiny lit stove. Her well-kept blonde hair swayed gently as she moved.

Aletta noticed Sarah standing at the kitchen door. Toasting some bread and cheese carefully, she turned and smiled at her boss.

“Ah, good morning! Breakfast will be ready soon, so just hang on a sec!”

“Thanks a lot. By the way… The soup in that pot there, is that…?”

Sarah hoped the sweet aroma coming from the pot was what she thought it was.

“Yup! The master gave me some corn potage yesterday. I’ll pour you a bowl as well, Miss Sarah.”

***

On top of Sarah’s small table was breakfast for two. She and Aletta sat down at about the same time. Servants normally didn’t dine with a house’s master or mistress, but Sarah didn’t really care about that sort of thing.

She actually preferred to eat with company, so on occasion, she and Aletta broke bread together.

“Once again, I thank you, oh god of demons, for this, my daily bread. I offer you my gratitude.”

Aletta put her hands together and prayed, as she always did before eating. To hide her demon identity when she’d first come to the capital, she hadn’t said grace. Now that that was no longer necessary, she was back in the habit of doing it.

Besides the last bit, the prayer tends to change occasionally. How interesting.

Sarah normally didn’t register that Aletta was a demon, except at times like this, when her cousin prayed to the dark lord.

She’d never undergone any kind of education to become a priestess. She didn’t know whether demons had a set prayer or not. She simply noticed that Aletta’s prayers seemed to differ from day to day. Sticking to a strict prayer formula seemed like something demons might not do.

On the wooden plate was black bread that Aletta had toasted in the oven. Sarah began to eat.

Delish. Just toasting it makes a world of difference.

The surface was crunchy, and the wheat scent was delectable. Bread was best eaten fresh out of the oven, but toasting it like this was great in and of itself.

The black bread wasn’t as good as the white bread Sarah ate with her family or at the restaurant. Still, it was scrumptious. None of the slices were burnt, although someone who didn’t know what they were doing might’ve charred the bread.

After enjoying the toast by itself, Sarah layered toasted cheese atop a slice and took another bite.

The rich cheese’s flavor made the bread that much more delicious. Since Sarah had become an adventurer, hard bread toasted with crunchy cheese melted over an open campfire had become a staple meal.

I would’ve liked to have some of that candied berry stuff…

It had been quite some time since they finished off the candied berries, which were sweet and sour, and paired magnificently with bread.

Sarah’s little sister was evidently giving Aletta money to buy sweets for her at the Restaurant to Another World, so Sarah had decided to use her big sister card to take about half. Unfortunately, the candied berries had vanished in a flash. They apparently also weren’t for sale, which meant that Aletta couldn’t just buy more.

Now then.

After thoroughly enjoying her toast, Sarah turned to the yellow soup in the bowl—corn potage. Although the wooden bowl itself was cheap, Sarah nevertheless scooped the soup up gracefully. She brought it to her mouth and sipped quietly.

It’s kind of sweet.

A sugary flavor made its way through her mouth. It was altogether different from a fruit’s sweetness. Instead, the soup tasted like milk and one of the other world’s vegetables. It created a sweet warmth that fell into Sarah’s stomach.

Mmm… This is the perfect level of sweetness. Delicious.

When she’d still lived at home, Sarah had had trouble with desserts. They were so sweet that they made her teeth hurt and gave her a headache, so she rarely tried them. Later, she discovered that she was quite fond of milder sweetness.

The more Sarah sipped her soup, the more flavors she discovered hidden beneath the sweet surface taste. The salty soup had the smoothness of milk, the savory taste of oranie, and the complex flavor combinations found in all the restaurant’s soups besides miso.

This time, Sarah was enjoying the soup on its own, not as a side dish with her minced meat cutlet. As she let it roll over her tongue, she recognized its quality.

Wait… No matter how you look at it, this soup isn’t the sort of thing you’d just give away for free.

Sarah dipped some toast into the soup. The still-warm black bread soaked up the corn potage, entirely altering its flavor. Each bite of soft bread exploded with corn potage as soon as Sarah put it into her mouth. It was wonderful.

Yeah, this is dang good.

Having enjoyed the potage thoroughly, Sarah looked up and saw Aletta staring longingly at the remaining soup. The adventurer smiled and put down her spoon, grinning at the clearly relieved demon girl.

The corn potage was undoubtedly delicious, but she didn’t mind letting her charming servant have the rest.

“Oh, that’s right! Did you buy what I asked for?”

“Yup! Minced meat sandwiches, right? I got them! I’ll serve them for lunch.”

Besides, Sarah had a feast waiting for her come lunchtime.