Interlude II: A Restless Night
“...Hm?”
“What is it, Touya?” I was in Regulus with Lu, since we hadn’t been there in a while. We didn’t want to just head home empty-handed, so we dropped by the market on the way back. Lu said she wanted to get some fresh ingredients for dinner, too.
Gallaria was a massive city, even by western standards, and it had a little bit of everything in it. There were all kinds of foods available, including stuff I’d never seen before.
A variety of smells drifted around the bustling marketplace. One of these smells was one that I remembered quite fondly.
“That smell...”
“What smell...?” Lu tilted her head in confusion as the fragrance gently sailed in on the breeze. I wondered where it was coming from. I followed my nose around the market and finally found it. Without a doubt, it was a smell I recalled from my old world.
It wasn’t too expensive, either. I picked some up, looking forward to enjoying it after dinner.
“What is this, Touya-dono...? It smells interesting, but...” Yae sat and brought the object up to her nose, and sniffed it. When I found them at the stall, they were being properly roasted and sold to customers, but it didn’t smell so strongly when it was raw beans.
“Is this some kind of... nut?” Leen looked at it with a raised brow. Back on earth, the coffee bean was the seed of a plant. It was probably the same thing here. I hoped it wasn’t some kind of evil plant or some kind of creature.
At any rate, it was a coffee bean. I’d found coffee. I had no idea coffee existed in this world. From what I was told, it only grew in certain areas, and it wasn’t particularly popular, so not many people knew about it.
Elze shrugged slightly after looking at the bean in Yae’s mouth, then took one for herself and popped it into her mouth. That was sudden.
“...It’s kind of tough, and not exactly tasty...”
“You’re not really meant to eat it raw...” I’d confirmed via [Search] that it wasn’t poisonous, at least... Given that the vendor in Gallaria was brewing and roasting it himself, I figured that it was prepared in the same way in this world as it was in mine. It certainly wasn’t the kind of bean that you just ate on its own, though.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Sorry for the wait!”
“The deed is done.” They were finally here.
Three of our maids, Lapis, Renne, and Cesca, brought cups of coffee into the room. I’d looked up how to properly brew coffee on the internet and shown them all.
“Oh... It smells nice.”
“That kind of bean smells nice when it’s roasted, yes.” Yumina and Lu seemed enchanted by the scent that started drifting through the room. I personally didn’t think it was that magical, but I was pleased to smell it nonetheless.
“Uhm... Touya? Is the drink supposed to be black like that, or...?” Hilde tilted her head slightly as she looked over the cup. She’d clearly never seen coffee before.
“It’s a spooky black drink....”
“Smells good... Smells good...” Sue seemed curious about the drink. I had no idea why Sakura said exactly the same thing twice, though.
“This is coffee. It’s a drink beloved by many people in the world I came from. You guys should try it. If it’s too bitter, then you can add milk and sugar until it’s better suited to your needs.”
“Ah... Hm... It’s... bitter?” Linze’s expression seemed a little downcast as I spoke. She didn’t seem very impressed, but I hoped she’d give it a go anyway.
I took in the pleasant scent as I brought the cup to my lips.
Mhm, just as I thought. Not as strong as the coffee on Earth, but quite pleasant. Oh... Maybe it is a little bitter though, we probably roasted it a bit much.
“Mm... It’s been a while...” I brought down my cup with a content sigh and saw that everyone was staring at me.
Hey, c’mon! What am I, a poison tester?!
“Blegh!!!”
Everyone tried their coffee, and they all had the same response. I wasn’t too surprised by their reaction. After all, if you weren’t used to coffee, it was a natural response.
“Th-This must be liquid charcoal, it must...”
“Grand Duke... This drink can’t be good for you... I’m sure of it...” Yae didn’t seem very impressed, and Sakura cited health concerns. If I recalled correctly, it was said that the caffeine in coffee wasn’t good for you.
But I also remembered hearing that it promoted fat burning because of something or other with lipids. There were a lot of fad coffee diets, too. Drinking too much was definitely unhealthy, though.
“The taste will change as you add more sugar and milk. It’ll become less bitter.” After I said that, everyone scrambled for the sugar and milk. It wasn’t that much of a surprise, all things considered...
I couldn’t drink it when I was a kid. My father always drank black coffee, so I just gradually got used to it as time went on.
I was incapable of enjoying non-black coffee at this point. Even canned coffee was a little too sugary for my tastes.
“I think I’ll manage if I have sugar...”
“The milk makes it change color, interesting... I think I can enjoy it better now.” Everyone seemed to take their coffee differently.
“You’re amazing, Touya... To enjoy something so bitter...”
“Where I come from, coffee is considered a drink for adults. I guess I wanted to be an adult so much that I just stuck with it.” I laughed a little at Hilde’s bewilderment, remembering being just as amazed by adults who could drink straight black coffee when I was a kid. Still, just being able to handle it didn’t necessarily make you an adult.
“Ah... That makes sense...”
“Hm, Renne? What does?” Renne nodded slightly as she held her silver serving tray across her front.
“When I tasted it in the kitchen, I couldn’t enjoy it at all. But boss-lady and Missus Cesca could drink it fine. It’s because they’re grownups and I’m a kid, right?”
Well, I wonder... Lapis is an adult, sure... But sometimes I wonder about Cesca’s sensibilities... I guess it’s just a matter of taste.
“Ohoh... I am in fact an adult... Very adult. Today I drink black coffee as I wear black lace beneath my dress.” My stupid idiot of a robomaid chimed in with an uncalled for comment. Hadn’t she ever heard of the concept of TMI? Was she even listening? Who the hell decided that wearing black made someone more adult, anyway?
“I thought it was delicious. I’ve tried many deliciously bitter things in the past.” I laughed quietly and nervously at Lapis’ words, desperately mulling over what else she might have had.
She used to work for Belfast’s intelligence agency, so I wondered if she was candidly referring to poison... It wasn’t unreasonable to expect that she’d have been trained in identifying them, after all. She might have even built up an immunity.
“I’m not really sure why a drink so bitter exists... Sweet things are much better...”
“It’s just a matter of taste. Also black coffee is good if you’re tired, it helps keep you up. I used to drink it when I studied at night.” I shrugged toward Sakura as she dumped more sugar into her cup.
You shouldn’t put so much in... You’re gonna have a yucky pile at the bottom at this rate...
“It reduces sleepiness, huh...? I wonder if I’ll feel any effects.” Elze muttered as she poured a little more milk into her coffee. The sugar and milk wouldn’t actually reduce the caffeine content, so it’d probably have an effect. I should have had them drink coffee in the morning, rather than after dinner.
Well, I figured they hadn’t really had too much so it’d be fine. Plus, I had no idea if the coffee beans of this world were the same as the ones from my old world.
The guy I bought them from didn’t say much, and it was entirely possible that there was no sleep deprivation effect. I didn’t really care, so long as it tasted the same.
I smiled gently as I melted away into a coffee-scented wonderland.
“Hey, I can’t sleep! What about you?!” Elze came to my room in the middle of the night. She was grumbling.
“I mean, I’m a little sleepy, but...”
Hmph...
I wondered if this was because of the coffee, but I didn’t really feel tired at all.
“You should be able to sleep if you get under your blanket and count sheep.”
“There aren’t any sheep in my room.”
They’re not real sheep...
I knew that there were different levels of tolerance to caffeine in different people, so I wondered if the effect was just stronger on Elze.
Hmm... I guess I’m calling it coffee, but it’s still something from this world. I know from stuff I’ve been through so far that it doesn’t need to follow a conventional logic or at least the kind I’m used to... I guess I shouldn’t have brewed it up without researching it properly.
As I was pondering to myself, Elze moved a little closer to me. Her face was red.
W-Whoa there!
“I-It’s your fault I can’t sleep... s-so take responsibility until I can!” She was insanely cute. In all honesty, I could have just made her fall asleep instantly using [Sleep Cloud], a Dark magic spell I’d learned in the library... But the mood didn’t quite feel right for that. I was a little sleepy, but I felt like staying up all of a sudden.
“So, what should we do?”
“I think I can sleep if I exhaust myself... Let’s go spar at the training field.”
“W-Wait just a minute! We can’t just go out there in the middle of the night!”
What kind of logic was that?! That wouldn’t be sleeping, it’d just be draining your batteries until you can’t function anymore!
“Then what should I do?” Elze bit back with a growl in her voice. I had no idea what to say... but I gave it a go anyway.
“...Read a difficult book or something?”
“That could make me sleepy, but... it’s boring, isn’t it?”
That’s exactly why you should do it! Boring stuff makes you fall asleep! It’s why I slept through the classes I didn’t enjoy.
“Nothing else...?”
“Hmm... Let me think here. Oh, wait a sec...” I picked up the smartphone from the side of my bed and started flicking through it.
“You could stretch... Listen to music... Have a hot drink...”
“Stretch?”
“Uh... You know, like moving around lightly to loosen muscle tension.”
“I already did all those things. Is there nothing else?”
You even listened to music...? Oh, right... The mass-produced smartphones have mp3 players.
I wondered what there was left to do.
“Oh, wait! How about a movie? That might make me sleepy.” That didn’t exactly seem unreasonable to me. I’d fallen asleep watching TV several times in the past. But that was basically the same thing as reading a book when you thought about it...
Well, there wasn’t really any harm in watching a movie with her. I wasn’t sleepy, but I was down to do that with her.
I chose a movie from my smartphone and started casting it. It was late, so I turned the volume pretty low.
The movie started up. It was a movie adapted from a video game series back on earth, about a prince in Persia. The setting included a vast desert. It was completely different from the game’s plot, though.
“Wow... This is an interesting one.” Elze leaned forward toward the screen. This movie had a lot of parkour-style movement in it, and a lot of high-tension action. It made sense that it’d appeal to a fighter like her.
Thus, we ended up watching a movie together. Elze didn’t get sleepy at all, she just got really engrossed in the movie. I wasn’t too surprised, since it was definitely to her taste.
“That was great!” Elze spoke with excitation in her voice. Her eyes were glittering with joy. It was a lot of fun, but I wasn’t as excited as she was... Probably because I was used to that kind of Hollywood stuff.
“Didn’t get to sleep, huh?”
“Ah... Well, it was a lot of fun...” I had a feeling she just wanted to spend time with me. I didn’t really mind, though. She could be incredibly cute at times like this. I laughed a little when I thought of her gentle face, but she seemed to misinterpret it as me mocking her.
“C’mon! I usually sleep like a log...! Linze is usually the one who doesn’t sleep as well...”
“That’s because Linze is girly.”
“...Linze isn’t the only girly person... I-I am too...”
“Ah, wait! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry!”
Elze stared at me with a pout. All I could do was apologize, as I didn’t know what else to say.
I knew well enough that Elze was delicate and gentle. She had traits that were more traditionally masculine, but behind that was a very pleasant and gentle young woman.
“Were there ever times when you couldn’t sleep so well?”
“Well, uhm... Wh-When I heard scary stories... But that was only when I was a kid, I swear!” Elze grumbled a little bit. I didn’t quite believe her, but I didn’t wanna tease her anymore.
I sighed quietly, then smiled over at Elze... But I suddenly heard a noise from the hallway outside.
We both noticed the sound and turned our heads toward the door.
“What... was that...?”
“I’ll check it out.” I left Elze’s side and headed into the hall with my smartphone.
I opened the door and went into the dark. This area was private, and we didn’t even have guards patrolling... The only people around here could’ve been my other fiancees...
There was nobody in sight. The moonlight came through the window, but that was about it. I wondered if it was a trick of the night, but then...
“Hm?”
I noticed something on the floor, illuminated by the light of the moon. There were pieces of pottery scattered across the floor. There was a little vase that had fallen from a table. It must’ve been the source of the noise.
Still, it was a pretty big stand, and we had placed the vases there in a way that’d make them hard to fall on their own. I wondered if someone had bumped into it and made it fall. On top of that, I found something suspicious mixed in with the debris. I picked it up and brought it close to my eye.
“Coffee beans...?” There were roasted coffee beans on the ground. I looked up and glanced along the floor. There was a trail of yet more beans along the ground. I followed the trail, and the beans continued further into the darkness of the corridor. I had no idea what was going on.
“T-Touya, wait! Come back... Where are you going?”
“Wait there, Elze. Something weird’s going on.” Elze tried to call me back into the room, but I couldn’t ignore these beans. There could’ve been a robber about.
“Run search. Robber.”
“Search complete. No results.” It seemed like there weren’t any results, but that was fair. I had no clear mental image of a thief, unless you counted a guy in white and black striped clothing with a burlap money sack over his shoulder.
I tried searching for intruders, but that got no results either. In other words, the one responsible wasn’t an intruder. It had to be someone that lived in the castle. I wondered if it was Yumina or one of the other fiancees. But what would they be doing with beans in the middle of the night?
“I’m gonna check this out. Go back inside, El—”
“No way! If you’re going around, I am too!” Elze scuttled out of the room and grabbed the hem of my nightshirt... She was totally scared. We followed the trail of beans down the dimly lit corridor.
On the way, we passed by a painting. I suddenly remembered we had a security system.
“Hey, Ripple?”
...Yaaas? Oooh, hey maaaster!?
“Eeek!” A pretty girl appeared within the painting. She had a beautiful ribbon in her pink-colored hair. Elze clung to my side when she appeared.
Her name was Ripple. She was an artificial lifeform created by Doctor Babylon long ago. She currently lived in my castle as a sort of living security system.
“Do you know who broke the vase in the other hallway?”
Nooope. My eye in your private space is gooone. I don’t know who broooke it.?
That was surprising. Ripple constantly monitored us, so I was shocked she’d been disabled like that.
“Are we under attack?”
Ouuut of the questiooon. I’d have told the security guaaards if that was the case.? Ripple puffed out her chest with a prideful nod. She wasn’t wrong, to be fair.
“C-Could it be a g-ghost..?”
“I don’t think so. The castle has a [Banish] effect around it, so it can’t be anything like that...” I realized Elze was looking nervously toward Ripple.
Damn it, Elze, she’s just a painting.
Either way, someone was skulking around our castle. It was definitely not a thief, but I had to figure out who it was.
Ripple couldn’t leave her frame, so Elze and I continued through the dark. I turned on my smartphone’s light, but it actually kind of made the dark castle interior even spookier...
“T-T-Touya... could you cast [Light Orb]...?”
“I could, but it might make things a bit more complicated, you know?”
That spell created a small orb of light that radiated in all directions, it wasn’t one-directional like my smartphone light. I didn’t really want to confuse any patrolling knights with a mysterious orb walking around the castle. I didn’t even know who I was looking for, so I didn’t want to get the guards involved.
The bean trail continued onward. I wondered if there was a hole in the bag or something. Could it seriously have been a bean burglar? The bean trail carried on until a certain door, and then it stopped. That meant the thief had to be in this room. But this was an unused guest room...
Light leaked out from behind the door. I could hear a voice from within. Multiple voices...
“Mm... It’s bitter, you know? Super bitter...”
“I don’t really like it... Ehhh... It’s not bitter, though.”
“You ought to be ashamed if you can’t drink this... Don’t you have pride as a woman?!”
“Your metric for pride is pretty unusual... Well, I can drink it just fine either way.”
“This is delicious... The fruits of the earth’s soil’re truly somethin’ else.”
“Gimme some with sake, yeah?! With sake!”
I peeked through the door and saw the goddess of alcohol acting like an idiot, then I saw the others. As usual, the god of music didn’t utter a single word. He simply strummed his guitar merrily. It was late, so he was playing more quietly than usual.
The drunk idiot had a sack filled with coffee beans. It had a hole in it. The source of the trail, no doubt. They’d taken the beans straight from the kitchen, and took the makeshift coffee mill that I’d made as well. Those idiots...
“Ah... It wasn’t a ghost...” Elze sighed in relief. I was sure it wasn’t a thief, but I was also glad to know for certain.
“Seems like there’s no harm, so let’s leave them be. The little drunk broke the vase, so I’ll make her help in the kitchen tomorrow.” Even gods weren’t free from judgment. Vases weren’t free. Neither was coffee.
Coffee was valuable in this world and fairly uncommon. Still, now that I recognized it clearly, I’d be able to find the beans with my search magic.
I decided I’d get the god of agriculture to cultivate some for me.
Still, coffee needed certain environments to grow well in, so I’d need to figure that out. It was probably doable in the Babylon garden. I’d talk to Cesca or Doctor Babylon about it later on.
When I got back to the room, I heard voices coming from my room. What the...?
I opened up the door and found Yumina and the other girls all in their PJs.
“We can’t sleep very well... It was probably that koffey drink we had at dinner...” Linze mumbled quietly, it seemed like the girls had been waking up all night. I wondered if the beans in this world had more to them than mere caffeine...
Either way, they were all up. There was nothing I could do about that.
“Let’s play, let’s play! I got cards!” Sue cheered merrily. She came over to stay with Yumina.
Cards...?! I mean, I guess, but...
We played board games, we goofed around and even watched another movie. However, nobody showed any signs of sleepiness. I had no idea what was going on.
In the end, I secretly cast [Sleep Cloud] to send everyone off to the land of rest. This world’s coffee wasn’t magic-resistant, at least.
I carried each and every one of them back to their rooms and tucked them gently into bed. I wondered what was up with this world’s coffee... The next morning, fresh coffee was served for us all. Nobody drank any except Karen, who was remaining conspicuously quiet. Oddly enough, from the corner of my eye... I saw her give me a shit-eating grin.
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