Interlude: Festival Preparation!
There were various sweet treats arranged on the table.
Cake, pudding, castella, bean paste and syrup, tarts, ice cream, sherbet, pies, scones, jello, and yogurts... A pleasant aroma wafted out through the store.
“Everything looks so delicious! Thanks so much, Aer!”
“No problem!” Aer slowly nodded her head at Lu as she said that. The two of them laughed gently as they looked over the dessert-filled table, picking up a few afterward.
I took one, but I didn’t want to take too many. The two of them, on the other hand, seemed happy to pick through the whole lot. Girls sure like sweets...
Each of the girls had individual preferences for desserts. Yumina liked parfaits, Elze liked castellas, Linze liked ice cream, Yae liked bean paste, Sue liked cakes, Lu liked pudding, Hilde liked cream puffs, Leen liked chocolate, and Sakura liked tarts. There was a lot of diversity as far as their preferences went...
Aer’s café, Parent, was originally situated in Reflet, but we’d opened up a branch in Brunhild. The main building in Reflet was headed by her younger sister, who had recently gotten married. Aer decided to move to Brunhild and manage the new place. Today, we’d been invited to taste-test the new menu. And that was all that had happened so far. Yae was certainly happy to have been invited.
The items on the menu were all recipes I’d introduced to this world, but I was amazed by how faithfully Aer had recreated the items. The ingredients weren’t exactly the same as the ones available back home, but even with that handicap, the stuff she’d made tasted incredible.
Then again, I wasn’t the best one to judge. I didn’t have a big sweet tooth to begin with and hadn’t tried a lot of desserts from my old world.
I preferred stuff like tea, personally... Tea was delicious.
“I’ve eaten a lot... They’re just so tasty...”
“Aha... Just don’t eat too much!” Elze giggled a little after Yumina spoke. I didn’t think she’d be smiling so much if she weighed herself in the morning... Those were thoughts I didn’t dare to speak, though.
I certainly couldn’t find any fault with the stuff Aer had made. They were right, though... The stuff tasted really good. Almost too good.
“Ahaha... I wonder if these could be eaten outside, I wonder.”
“Oh, there’s a terrace outside...” Hilde spoke up in response to Yae’s pondering.
The second branch of the Parent Café was built into a busy corner of Brunhild, it had a terraced dining area outside with a nice little view. It would be nice to sit out there, provided the weather was nice. I was wondering what Yae meant with her pondering, given that we’d passed the terrace on the way in.
“Ah, I did not mean it like that, I did not... I meant more for carrying food around... Food that you can hold in your hand.”
Ah, so Yae was probably referring to easy-to-hold treats like crêpes and stuff. That made sense enough.
“Mmm... That’s right. We’re opening the festival soon, aren’t we? I guess opening up a dessert shop is good, but we don’t have much in the way of food you can snack on while walking around the place...”
“Oh, what about the waffle cone recipe I taught you?” If we had ice cream cones, people could pick them up and eat them as they walked around the festival. That’d probably sell well in Brunhild.
“Ah, yes. It’s one of our main products. But I wonder if we can do more of that...”
“Hey, Touya... Come on. Look it up.”
“Alright...”
Elze urged me to look up some new stuff. I was from another world, but I didn’t know everything that was in it... so if I needed information, I’d turn to the internet.
Hmm... Desserts you can carry... One-handed stuff... Hm... Aha... I wondered if easy-to-carry desserts were so popular because girls liked to snack on sweet things on the go. Either way, it was clear there were a lot of varieties.
“This, this, and this... That should do...” I highlighted a few results from the image search and projected them into the air.
“Amazing...! There are so many... You made all these yourself?”
“Uh... Kind of. The recipes are common in the town I grew up in... I’m not sure how it’ll turn out until we try the recipes...” I gave a vague reply to Aer’s question. Fortunately, none of the images had anything that gave away the fact that they were pictures from another world... My secret was still safe from the general public for the time being.
Aer stared greedily at the floating images of desserts. Lu and the others seemed to get excited as well.
“There sure seem to be a lot of crêpes...”
“I wanna eat that waffle-looking thing!”
“What’s that thin roll-cake...? It looks amazing...”
“And that apple pie stick...! I want to try it... I really do!”
“Mmm... Seems like there’s a lot going on with these things...” I pulled up a few recipes, allowing Aer and Lu to commit them to memory.
“What is this strange fish-like pastry...?” Leen pointed out a taiyaki... I wondered if that’d be the kind of one-handed dessert we could use. You could certainly carry it easily.
Leen was suspicious of what was inside the pastry, so I explained it to her. Taiyaki was a pretty good snack.
“I see. There’s bean paste inside, then...”
“It looks tasty, it does...” Yae was practically salivating. She was also shoveling cakes and snacks from the table into her mouth. That girl was a real sucker for delicious treats... It was definitely a weakness.
“Can you put other things inside it?”
“Yeah, you can. I’ve seen variants with cream or chocolate inside before.”
“That sounds good.” There were a lot of taiyaki variants. I’d even seen more novelty types with things like bacon, cheese, and curry inside.
“Does it need to be fish-shaped?”
“Nope. You can have it as a different shape if you want. In fact, uh... hold on a sec. Here, it was originally more of a round shape.” I searched for an image of some imagawayaki, a round bean paste-filled pastry. It was definitely a simple design.
“I’ll make a mold for you guys. It’s not all that complicated.”
“Great! I’ll get the bean paste ready!”
“Ooh! That sounds good!” Elze seemed pretty fired up. I didn’t realize they wanted to eat it already! Everyone seemed excited, so I sighed and pulled an iron ingot out of [Storage] and began shaping it into a mold for the pastry.
The café was outfitted with a magical furnace from Felsen. It worked like a regular stove, but was just operated by a Fire spellstone. Aer bought it using the profits from the café back in Reflet, and it seemed like she got a good price for it too.
Naturally, she’d bought it from Olba Strand. That guy never missed a good opportunity...
I produced five molds for them to use. They were a little bit heavy for women to use, so I enchanted them with [Gravity] to reduce their weight.
Aer ran into the kitchen, one of the molds in tow. Lu went right after her. That was an amusing sight.
“The festival is going to be quite fun...” Yumina smiled sweetly. It was difficult, but everyone in town was getting ready. It all started as a ploy to give the young king of Palouf some confidence, but I was happy to see how it was all coming together.
“Personally, I am looking forward to the test of martial skill, I am. You will all see how powerful my brother is, you will!”
“My own elder brother won’t be defeated so easily, either!” Yae and Hilde had ostensibly been assigned to the security detail, but they’d have time to check out events. They were no different from anyone else at the event, after all. It was fine for them to take some time out.
Still, I didn’t want the knight order to get too overwhelmed... They had a lot riding on them during this upcoming event. I decided I should probably pay them all a bonus alongside their salary. Then again, I had just given everyone a raise in terms of pay... The knight order’s salary was still being paid out of my own pocket, at the end of the day. Kousaka was definitely helping with national income, but we weren’t pulling in a lot.
We had to use the treasury funds to repair Frame Gears damaged during Phrase skirmishes, and we’d also recently funneled a lot of cash into creating the gate to the Reverse World, along with the mana storage tank. These were necessary expenses, so I had to prioritize them.
The Behemoth Treants were worth quite a bit, so I was glad I’d killed them. I didn’t want to flood the market with dragon materials or spellstones, either... so I had to deliberately hold back on selling that kind of stuff.
Adventurers were still coming and going to the dungeon islands, and they were paying the toll on their way. That was a valuable source of income for Brunhild.
Money made by beach-goers was also added to the treasury... Personally hunting Mithril Golems seemed like easy money to me, but I didn’t want to poach too many strong monsters in other nations. That’d be the same as stealing livelihood from other adventurers. Taking all their spoils wouldn’t be right, since they needed to build up their own fortunes and paths in life.
I was a Gold-rank adventurer, which made me stiff competition for other adventurers. It’d probably be better if I went for Orichalcum Golems. But then again, who knew what kind of economic damage I could do if I recklessly ran around farming money like that...
Achieving gold rank took a lot of effort... Hilde’s grandpa had done the same thing as me, long ago... and he rarely responded to quests asked of him.
Ultimately, money was the root of happiness, but I needed to think very carefully about the ways in which I earned it. It’d be easier if I didn’t need money to make things work...
“We did it!”
Lu and Aer brought a plate through from the kitchen. The pastries on the plate were a little burned here and there, but they looked tasty enough.
“This one is bean paste, and this one is custard. Please excuse the burnt corners...”
“No, don’t worry. The crisp parts taste pretty great too. I like it a lot.” I reached out to grab out a pastry.
Oof, it’s hot!
I bit down into the crispy pastry, and the hot custard flowed out from inside and spread across my tongue. Mmm... Delicious... We can definitely sell these... They’re tasty and easy to eat.
My stomach was full from the cake I’d eaten earlier, so I didn’t want to overdo it.
“Delicious... I could eat this all day... I want to try all the different types... Ah... Khh?!”
“S-Sakura?! Here, tea!”
Sakura had eaten too quickly, resulting in some of the pastry getting caught in her throat. Linze quickly held a cup of tea up to her. She really shouldn’t have stuffed both types into her mouth with both hands... I didn’t think bean paste and custard was a good combo, really.
“You can make all kinds if we change the filling. I’m sure this’ll be popular.”
“We need to practice in order to crisp the edges a little better... It’ll depend on the filling, too.” Aer and Lu were already talking about how to make the product better. It was almost like Lu had become an employee of the place before anyone noticed.
“Ah, I’m sorry I’m late! Ah... Is there anything left?!”
A woman threw open the café’s front door and looked around frantically toward the table that was stacked with treats.
It was Micah, the owner of the Silver Moon Inn. She’d moved from Reflet to Brunhild, just like Aer.
“There’s still plenty left, don’t you worry. I’ll bring some more out now!” Aer smiled and headed back into the kitchen as a few more people came into the café from behind Micah.
Oh no.
“Wow! There are lots of great sweet treats here, you know? Good work sniffing this place out.”
“No big deal. I knew you’d be interested in this kind of stuff, Karen.”
“Indeed... It came in handy this time.”
“Wahoo! Hic! I schmell dessert, hic! Shmells like... Booze! Yahoo!”
Oh dear. The new intruders were Karen, Moroha, Karina, and the drunk little goblin known as Suika. It was an unfortunate gathering of gods.
There were seats and tables available for them, but we’d only just opened the place and there wasn’t even a sign up yet... I had no idea how they’d figured us out. In the end, I didn’t think about it too hard. It was fruitless to question the divine. I’d built it, so they’d come.
“Lu, sweetie! Get me some of that fish pastry, you know? And tea, too! Touya’s paying, you know?!”
“Y-Yes, I’ll get right on that!” Lu took up a serving tray and ran back to the kitchen. She really was acting like an employee... Then again, Karen was her future sister-in-law, so she was probably just doing her best to appease her. Also, what the hell was that about her saying I was paying? Didn’t she have any money? I sighed quietly as Karen explored the menu.
“Oho... So this is the menu. It’s so nice, you know? Everything looks amazing...”
“Hold on a sec, you just ordered a taiyaki! Don’t go overboard...!”
“Don’t worry, you know? How about we tell you something interesting?”
“Huh?” I raised at that. It sounded a little ominous. I was certainly curious to hear what someone like Karen regarded as interesting, though.
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