How to Make Fluffy Bread
“When you say that you want to make fluffy bread, do you mean you want to know how to make natural yeast?”
“Yup, that’s right.”
I pursed my lips and fell into thought. Fluffy bread was my trump card to stay on top of other restaurants. Even if the chefs who knew all of my recipes were stolen away from us, the secret of yeast would remain with me. I had expected the guildmaster and Leise to be our rivals, but they had joined the restaurant as partners—Leise was even teaching Hugo and Todd recipes. In all honesty, I didn’t see any need for me to give fluffy bread to the store.
“I imagine that Sylvester will be looking forward to all sorts of unique foods, so I’ll prepare yeast ahead of time for the meal I’m attending. Hugo and Todd will be able to make the fluffy bread just fine since they’ve done it before, but I’m not going to tell anyone how to make the yeast just yet. Please continue to run the store without fluffy bread for the time being.”
“Huh?!”
The bread Leise made in the guildmaster’s house was hard, as was the bread I ate at Karstedt’s estate. The Italian restaurant would already be attracting customers by serving the kinds of food that nobles ate, which meant it didn’t need fluffy bread.
“And why’s that? Weren’t we gonna start selling it?” Benno asked, his eyes wide. Mark and Lutz looked just as surprised. Benno seemed to quite like the fluffy bread, so he probably wanted to know the recipe for personal reasons, too.
“I had intended to introduce the bread to show that nobody else could make the food that the Italian restaurant was serving, but now that the guildmaster is on our side, who in the world would try to copy us? Who would face you and the guildmaster head-on at once? Nobody. We’re going to stand unopposed.”
“...Ngh, well, I guess you’re right about that.”
There were other stores big enough to do business with nobles, but nobody stood a chance at beating Benno and the guildmaster when they were working together. And since the Italian restaurant targeted such a wealthy demographic, introducing several similar stores would lead to so much overlap that they’d all fail. One also had to consider how hard Benno had worked to prepare the food, chefs, waiters, and so on. Setting up the restaurant required an amount of work and financial investment that most merchants would balk at. Benno had only started this venture due to feeling competitive toward Leise and the guildmaster, but most people weren’t ridiculous enough to step foot into an entirely new industry out of spite.
“Not to mention, I need the fluffy bread a lot more than the Italian restaurant does.”
“You need it? Why? Aren’t you already eating it every day?”
“...I’ve been told that, since I’m the archduke’s adopted daughter now, I need to start new trends.”
In the world of nobles, it wasn’t dignified to follow after those who were beneath you. That wasn’t just Elvira’s personal philosophy, either—it was a fact of life for all archnoble women. The invention and spread of new things created demand, which in turn stimulated the duchy’s economy, and it was the nobility’s duty to keep the economy thriving.
In other words, as the archduke’s adopted daughter, I needed to start coming up with trends that would make nobles want to spend loads of money.
“So basically, that’s the situation. I’m tied up in annoying noble stuff and I need to spread the fluffy bread through the archduke’s castle and the archnobles to secure my position in society. I think it’ll be fine to share the recipe with the Italian restaurant once it has spread through my mother’s faction. If you already have the guildmaster on your side, then you don’t need a trump card like yeast to boost you up, do you?”
“C’mon, the more trump cards I have, the better,” Benno said with a dissatisfied look, before conceding that he understood nobles had their own noble problems to deal with.
“I still intend to make and sell the things I want through the Gilberta Company, so don’t worry about that. You’ll just have to give up on selling fluffy bread in the store from day one.”
“Alright. Nothing wrong with adding to the menu over time.”
Trends flowed most easily from the top to the bottom, especially when it came to high-class stuff. It was easy for me to forget since I made them myself and had them available all the time, but rinsham, plant paper, hairpins, and picture books were all expensive enough that not everyone could afford them. The purchasing demographic was limited to those with money, and since those on top weren’t allowed to follow those beneath them, I would have to spread my new ideas starting from the top.
“In any case, I fully intend to personally guarantee that the restaurant’s slogan that ‘even nobles eat here’ will hold weight. Hopefully that’s enough for you.”
“Wait, ‘personally guarantee’? What’re you planning here?” Benno said with a wince.
Wow. It looks like he doesn’t trust me at all. Well... not that I didn’t know that already.
“During the first trial run, when we have the owners of other large stores eating there, I’ll participate as one of the restaurant’s founders. The new High Bishop giving the restaurant her seal of approval will give you all of the prestige you need, right?”
“Well, regardless of what you’re like on the inside, you’re still the High Bishop and the archduke’s adopted daughter. The customers are gonna freak the heck out.”
“I’ll just be saying hello and then leaving, not participating in the meal myself. I wouldn’t want them to be so scared that they can’t even taste the food,” I said. Just popping my head in and saying some generic line about looking forward to their continued patronage would be enough to do the trick. Plus, if those big store owners started flocking to Benno in the hope of getting connections with nobles and the archduke, it would be easier to get their help when it came to expanding the print industry.
“Either way, I think you should leave as much of the restaurant to the guildmaster as possible. You don’t need to put that much of a burden on yourself, do you?”
“Just to be clear here, the guildmaster isn’t the one joining us; it’s his granddaughter.” Benno was the only adult among those funding the restaurant, so he had said that he needed to give it his full attention, but personally, I got the feeling that it would be totally fine to leave the whole thing to Freida.
“Having Freida on board is pretty comforting—she’ll make sure we’re earning a profit, and her whole family will almost certainly toss in their support as well. I think you’ll be fine taking a step back.”
Despite everything Freida said, her family did take good care of her. And much like Benno, her whole family had a keen nose for profit, and would no doubt throw their full weight behind the Italian restaurant to ensure that they reaped as much financial gain as possible.
“But the moment I take too big of a step back, they’re gonna steal the whole operation, y’know?”
“Um, well... I think you’re going to be so busy with the printing industry that you won’t have any choice but to leave the Italian restaurant to them by the year’s end. You should just be satisfied that you’ll still be an investor and will get some of the money it makes,” I said, looking from Benno, to Mark, to Lutz. They were all wearing expressions that showed they weren’t following me at all. “Benno, you just said that you didn’t think the scholars were motivated enough to make the printing industry a success, right? Well, whether or not they’re motivated doesn’t matter at all.”
“Even though it risks bringing the whole plan down?” Benno asked with a dubious expression.
I nodded. “Just so you know, Sylvester gave an announcement to a bunch of nobles at my baptism ceremony. He said that he expects the printing industry to have spread throughout the duchy within the next twenty years or so, and judging by the evil look on Ferdinand’s face earlier, I’m sure those rude scholars are going to be gone in no time. If anything, you should be worrying about our plans being accelerated even more.”
I had known just by looking at Ferdinand’s face that he was plotting some kind of trap. Hopefully it was one for the unmotivated scholars, but there was a chance that this was all a test to see how useful the Gilberta Company really was—in which case, Benno would be in serious trouble if he let his guard down.
“...Don’t make such a baseless prediction.”
“It’s not baseless,” I declared, firmly puffing out my chest. “It’s a confident assertion based on my past experiences.”
While Benno continued looking at me doubtingly, Mark crossed his arms over his chest. “Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We will hold it very close to our hearts.”
“Mark...”
“Master Benno, no matter how busy we may be, we must not avert our eyes from the truth: it is in our best interest to do as she advises, and prepare ourselves for whatever unreasonable demands we may be given.” At those words, Benno, Lutz, and for some reason even Gil and Damuel, all hardened their expressions.
...It sure is rough to serve under someone who has such unreasonable expectations.
“So, Benno, is that everything you wanted to talk about?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. I want to speak to Gil and Lutz,” I said, leaning forward to get a closer look at them.
Even though I had gone to other cities and the winter mansions of farming villages myself, I had spent most of our journey on a highbeast, and everyone was always really tense because of all the nobles around us when we were riding in our carriages. Plus, it wasn’t as though we had been on a normal trip—all we had done was offer our prayers and then move on to the next place. I wanted to hear what a normal trip had been like, especially since Lutz had finally visited another city, just like he always wanted.
“So, you two... How was your first time visiting another city? How different was it from Ehrenfest? Did the carriage bouncing make you feel sick?”
“Man, it bounced so much! It only took us half a day each way, but on both journeys, Gil was so sick that he could barely sit straight.”
“Hey! You weren’t doing so great yourself, Lutz!”
Their eyes gleaming, Gil and Lutz started telling me all about their first trip. They spoke about how the carriage had bounced way harder than it did when in the city, how the noble scholars had been so smug that they both wanted to punch them in the face, how the other cities were so tiny and had so few people compared to Ehrenfest, how the orphanage was so bad that it reminded them of a year ago, and how they both resolved to give the dead-eyed orphans in rags a new lease on life.
“I see you both worked hard and didn’t give up, even though it was your first time in a long carriage ride. You’ve got my thanks. Gil, I’m not allowed to pat your head outside anymore, but I’ll give you all of the praise you deserve in here.”
Gil ran over and knelt down so that I could pat his head, accepting my praise with a broad, happy grin. “I thought you weren’t ever gonna praise me again, no matter how hard I worked.”
“Well, I can only pat your head in here from now on. Being of a high status is a lot more annoying than I thought it would be.”
Once I was done patting Gil’s head, I went to do the same to Lutz, but he dodged my hand and said that he wasn’t interested. That was a bit vexing, so I gave him another hug instead. Now that I had heard their honest thoughts, it seemed like establishing printing workshops in the orphanages would be a tough ordeal.
“Benno, Mark—what do you think it’ll take to bring printing into the orphanages?”
“They barely have any people, and those who are there are mostly just weak kids. You’ll probably be better off having them make paper instead of doing any printing. It’s pretty hard to use the printing presses that Ingo’s making,” Benno said as he stroked his chin.
Mark gave a troubled smile. “Ehrenfest, where the archduke resides, may be large, but the nearby cities are nowhere near as populated.”
“In that case, it might be smart to divide the paper-making and printing industries. We can have them make paper in this region, while the workshop in the temple focuses exclusively on printing. Or alternatively, we could focus on finishing mimeograph printing as soon as possible. That way, even weak kids would be able to print,” I said, counting my ideas on my fingers as I listed them off.
Benno scratched his head and looked down at me exasperatedly. “Rozemyne, do you have the time to be making inventions like that?”
“Right now? Not at all. That’s why I thought it would be fastest and easiest to just drop the pretext of negotiating with city authorities to find compromises, and instead just use my authority to establish new orphanages with workshops in them, whether they like it or not.” Plus, if I went ahead and added a chapel under the guise of spreading the good word of the gods, I could even make excuses for visiting the orphanages myself.
“Woah there! You’re already going crazy with power?! Weren’t you always talking about how you didn’t like confrontations and stuff?”
“I don’t like confrontations, but this won’t even be one. Considering my status, they’ll literally have no choice but to do exactly what I say. I have a way to eliminate anyone who gets in the way of my book-making, so I might as well use it to make things easier.”
To be honest, there was so much being thrown around that I had to learn—so many orders, jobs, and duties, among other things—that I was sure my brain was about to explode. I didn’t have the leeway to casually discuss matters with the authorities of small cities in order to find compromises or whatever.
If I can use my authority to make my problems go away, then I might as well do just that.
“Who the hell gave a girl like this so much power?!”
“My adoptive father, the archduke.”
“...Gah! There’s no way I can pick a fight with him!”
Benno was cradling his head in his hands, but when it came to matters like this, one needed to have their priorities in order. And my first priority was making as many books as possible. It was a goal that mattered to me more than anything else, so I was willing to use all of the money and power at my disposal to achieve it. Fulfilling my duties as the High Bishop and the archduke’s adopted daughter was nothing but a means to an end, and I didn’t want to waste my time on those standing in my way who were no match against my new authority.
“You might say I’m going crazy with power, but under normal circumstances, a little girl who just finished her baptism ceremony like me would never have this much control. This is only possible since Sylvester is even more impatient than I am.”
That seemed to ring a bell for Benno, and he let out a despairing groan. Mark placed a hand on his forehead as well. As expected, Sylvester’s rampage was giving everyone in the Gilberta Company a hard time.
As I watched them start to seriously discuss with stiff expressions what unreasonable demands Sylvester would give them at the meal, Lutz took out a folded sheet of plant paper. He glanced around, before handing it to me with a whisper. “I figured that I should give this to you before I leave. It’s a letter.”
It was written on the paper that I had bought as Myne, then asked Lutz to give to my family so that they could write letters without needing to worry about the costs. Between Myne’s death and Rozemyne going to the Noble’s Quarter, I had consulted Ferdinand and written a letter to Benno requesting that he organize the arrangement.
According to Ferdinand, the story in the lower city was that a noble had killed Myne, and my family had been given a portion of the money confiscated from him as an apology. But my family had apparently refused to take it, since they would feel like they had sold me for money. I could see them reacting like that.
So, that money and Myne’s wealth instead went to me, and I could use it however I liked. If I sent my family some ink and paper and a letter asking them to write back to me, then they wouldn’t have much choice. And if they sent me letters, then I’d be a little less lonely.
Eheh. I’m so smart.
“This letter was written to the Myne who died, so don’t expect it to be addressed to ‘Lady Rozemyne’ or anything.”
I anxiously opened the first letter from my family, and immediately saw Tuuli’s clumsy lettering scrawled across the page. She wasn’t used to writing yet, and it was her first time using ink, so there were smudges all over the paper. Some letters trailed in the wrong direction, and others were fused together, so the only line I could actually read was, “I’m doing great, Myne!”
“Um, I hate to ask, but... what does this say?”
“Oh,” Lutz began, “that line says that she started studying sewing at Corinna’s workshop. This line here’s from your dad; he says that Kamil’s starting to move his head around. And this bit is from your mom; she’s been real worried about whether you’ve been getting sick or not.”
Dad needed to know how to write for work, and I had seen his handwriting during my time at the gate, so even though it definitely had some quirks, I could read it without issue. But Mom had only just started learning, so her handwriting was even harder to read than Tuuli’s. The worst part, however, was that they had all written on the same small sheet of paper; they had gone through the effort of sending me a letter, and yet I couldn’t even read it.
“...Lutz, could you ask them to use one sheet of paper each? I can’t read it when all of the letters are overlapping.”
“I did tell ’m that. But they just said that it’d be a waste of expensive paper.”
That was something I could definitely see them saying. I had used Myne’s savings to buy the paper and ink, since I knew both would be too expensive for my family to afford. I wanted them to use the paper freely so that I could at least read the letters.
“I’ll tell ’m that you won’t be able to read it unless they use a sheet of paper each.”
“Thanks, Lutz. I’ll quickly write a response. Could you give it to them for me?”
“Sure.”
As I looked around the mostly empty room, thinking that I would need to go and fetch some writing utensils and paper, Mark suddenly pulled out a writing set from his belongings and placed it on the table. “I shall lend you these. It would be best for you to write the letter here.”
“I can always count on you, Mark. It’s amazing how you always know exactly what to do,” I said, before borrowing Mark’s stuff and instantly starting my reply. I wrote that I was busy, but doing great too.
With that done, we had finished discussing everything we needed to keep private, and so exited the hidden room to begin lunch. As Brigitte had already finished, she swapped places with Damuel, and came over to join us.
“How was lunch, Brigitte? Did it suit your tastes?” I asked as my own food was being prepared. Brigitte was a regular noble, and as the Italian restaurant’s opening was drawing ever closer, I wanted as many noble opinions as I could get.
“Absolutely. It was beyond delicious. You have excellent chefs, Lady Rozemyne. I must admit, I’m quite looking forward to being your guard now,” Brigitte replied. Her sharp, refined expression didn’t falter, but I noticed that her amethyst eyes were wrinkled in the beginnings of a smile. If she was going that far to compliment the food, then it was safe to say that she really did like it.
Just as I let out a sigh of relief, I noticed a reddish-orange braid come into my peripheral vision.
“Lady Rozemyne! I made half of this!” Nicola exclaimed, beaming a proud smile as she brought over our plates. Back before I had left for the Noble’s Quarter, she had told me that she wasn’t confident enough in her cooking skills to serve me, but her brimming excitement was enough for me to be able to tell that she had become a lot more skilled since then. I was looking forward to digging in.
“Lady Rozemyne, do you have any new recipes? I want to try making more things. I love tasty food, and the best part about serving you is the food I get to cook. I’ll work as hard as it takes to make even more tasty food!” she declared without an ounce of hesitation.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’ll have some more new recipes written for you by tonight. I trust you and Ella to learn them well.”
But I would first be teaching them how to make natural yeast, under the understanding that they were not to share that information with anyone else. Once that was done, I wanted them to master sweet recipes that would most likely be popular with archnoble women. There were rooms that were apparently kept ice-cold through the use of magic tools, so maybe it would be best to focus on making cold sweets, especially in a hot season like this.
Maybe I could try putting a book together called “Rozemyne’s Recommended Recipes” once the printing industry has taken off...
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