Short Story

Short Story

 

A few days before Sei and the Knights of the Third Order departed for Klausner’s Domain, Albert visited the Valdec family villa in the capital.

As he passed through the gates and neared the front door, a butler came out to receive him with an elegant bow. Albert dismounted from his horse and another servant came out as per usual to take it.

“Welcome. Thank you for coming,” the butler greeted him.

“Sorry for all the trouble each time.”

“Please, don’t mention it.”

The butler took Albert straight to the room Johan was waiting in.

“You’re here sooner than I thought.” Johan stood up to receive Albert as soon as the man stepped into the room.

“Well, we have everything pretty much prepared already.”

They sat on the sofas facing each other, and a maid set out a light meal along with some cutlery on the table between them.

“Do you have enough potions? If you’re not sure, we could always make more.”

“We’re all right. We’ve got more than enough, including an allotment for what we’ll use along the way.”

“If you say so.”

“And if we run low, we’ll just get more at our destination.”

The butler poured wine into their glasses, then Johan waved a hand to dismiss him. Once the staff left, the two men raised their glasses in a toast. Now that they were alone, they could talk without fear of prying eyes and ears.

Johan took a sip of his wine and said, “That you can. If you can acquire the ingredients, you should ask Sei to make them. I’m sure she’d happily do so for you.”

“Oh, I’d rather not bother her with anything like that…”

“I know.” Johan grinned at Albert’s flustered expression.

Albert had, in fact, been planning on purchasing more potions so long as they were available. He wanted to avoid asking Sei to do any extra work. And of course, Johan knew that.

Nevertheless, Johan happily implied Albert ought to use Sei for all she was worth, because he wanted to tease his friend. Albert picked up on this and made a face. “Please, don’t mock me about this.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

Albert glared at Johan, who was stifling a laugh, before draining his own glass.

A few moments later, Johan managed to regain his composure and finished his glass as well. He then refilled both of their cups. “Well, if it does ever look like you’re going to run out, I’m sure Sei will just make more for you even if you don’t ask. You know how she is.”

“She works too hard.”

“I think so, too, you know. I tell her to take days off, but I think working is her idea of taking a break.”

“I suppose she did say she doesn’t work nearly as much in this world as she did in the one she came from…”

It had been approximately a year since Sei’s summoning. Albert and Johan were always telling her to stop working so hard, but she denied that she was every single time they brought it up.

They sighed simultaneously, likely thinking the same thing.

Perhaps the problem was that she lived where she worked. Or maybe it was that the research institute’s employees largely thought of research as their hobby, and Sei wasn’t the only one who spent her off days pursuing more research projects. Being surrounded by such people meant Sei could brush off Johan and Albert’s warnings and keep pushing herself whenever the impulse took her.

“Even when she does leave the institute, she always winds up making something new,” Albert murmured.

“I keep catching her in the kitchen,” said Johan.

“I suppose cooking might seem like a nice change of pace from her regular work.”

Sei did occasionally spend her off days on formulating her personal cosmetics as well. Also, both the researchers and the chefs looked forward to Sei’s kitchen concoctions, so Johan couldn’t exactly ban her from the dining hall.

Not to mention, Sei always cooked new recipes on her days off, often because she was teaching the chefs how to make them. Every time she did this, she would write the recipe—ingredients and all—and reference that memo while instructing the chefs as they worked. At times, she paused in the middle of her work to warn the chefs about tricky steps and so forth. Therefore, the teaching made the cooking process take longer than if Sei were to just make it for herself.

Notably, because Sei didn’t see cooking as work, she was a little resistant to letting it eat into her research time. Therefore, she really only brought these new recipes into the kitchen on her…days…off…

“Oh no!” Johan suddenly let out a moan, head hanging.

“What’s wrong?” Albert asked in alarm.

“It’s just…it just occurred to me. She’ll be with you for the time being.”

“What about it?”

“Her cooking. Her cooking!” Johan cradled his head in his hands.

If Sei was leaving the capital, she was taking all those recipes in her head with her. Johan had never been that particular about food before, but he adored trying every unfamiliar dish Sei threw together.

Part of it was that everything Sei made was utterly delicious, but the other part was that Johan was, at heart, a researcher, and he simply loved getting to experience unusual things.

While the chefs could make every recipe Sei had thus far shared with them, and they regularly offered her recipes on the dining hall menu, Sei’s absence would mean a temporary moratorium on new additions to that menu.

The past year had seen Johan grow accustomed to Sei’s steady introduction of fascinating new dishes, so the realization that he wouldn’t be able to indulge in her repertoire for a while was a painful one, to say the least.

“You’ll still get her recipes at the dining hall, won’t you? What are you so depressed about?”

“But what about the ones she hasn’t yet taught the chefs? I want to try every dish she knows!”

“Well, not much you can do about that.”

“You’re only so nonchalant because you’re not going to be deprived.”

“She’s not coming along to cook for us, you realize.”

“You never know.”

“Do you think there will just happen to be a kitchen Sei can use whenever she wants? She’s going as the Saint. They’re not going to let her esteemed personage anywhere near the castle kitchens.”

Very few people of high social status could cook in the Kingdom of Salutania. The higher their status, the less likely they were to know how—and all for the sake of keeping up their noble appearance.

Sei wasn’t that type of stickler, but as the Saint, her social status was equal to the king’s, perhaps even higher. Albert had a feeling that if Sei said she wanted to cook while they were in Klausner’s Domain, the people of the castle, who didn’t know her eccentricities, would do their damnedest to stop her. And he couldn’t imagine Sei putting her foot down about it in that situation.

“You’ll be on the road as well,” Johan noted. “I heard how she cooked for everyone in the western forest.”

“True, but there are only so many things you can do outside of a kitchen. I doubt we’ll get to enjoy something like you’d be hoping for.”

Albert shot Johan an exasperated look as his friend continued to hang his head. He couldn’t deny that there was a good chance that Sei would cook for them during an expedition if given the chance.

However, the options on the road were indeed pretty limited. Sei could put together a soup or roast meat—which was exactly what she had done on prior expeditions—but that was the extent. There were only so many kinds of ingredients they could bring, too, so Albert doubted there was any way Sei would actually make something like Johan was pining for.

However, at the time, Albert hadn’t really internalized what it meant to be going to the alchemist’s holy land. Klausner’s Domain was known for its vast fields of herbs, including those that couldn’t be found in the capital. There was no guarantee Sei wouldn’t make something new with those unique flora.

Albert only really figured this out after the fact, too—i.e., when they got back to the capital and Johan complained at length upon hearing that Sei had indeed devised a new recipe in Klausner’s Domain.