Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 3 - Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Sweet Treats and a Novice Traveler

The sounds of trumpets and accordions rang out loudly through the boisterous town square. There was no sense of restraint in the clamor, which cracked and shrieked terribly. The cacophony was drowning out the commotion.

Across from where the people of the country had gathered in pursuit of the noise, street musicians watched the passersby with pasted-on smiles and could sometimes be seen lowering their gazes to the instrument cases by their feet, their faces growing momentarily serious.

The contents of their cases, mouths open wide to the crisp air, were never more than a few coins.

“……Hahh.”

I let out a single sigh from where I was seated on a bench.

This country was beautiful, with its white buildings all in a row. It was satisfying just to loiter for a while. The piercing music and the tumult of shoppers weren’t really a good match for the scenery, but oh well.

Actually, this place was apparently famous as a land of celebrities, where high-ranking people accounted for the majority of the population. Sure enough, the city outside this plaza was mostly enveloped in a calm atmosphere. Or rather, since imposing groups of soldiers visibly patrolled the streets, it came off as rather strict. Anyway, aside from this one section, there was no doubt that overall the town was shrouded in silence.

The noisiness of the plaza could be attributed to the outsiders gathered here.

This was an amazing place, popularly known as Sweets City. In fact, the open plaza was overflowing with shops selling macarons, chocolates, waffles, and all kinds of goodies. Specialty shops lined the streets end to end.

It seemed that the confections made here were popular elsewhere as well, and for that reason, merchants and travelers from faraway countries, as well as many sightseers and tourists, were gathered here, all buying treats.

Either for resale or their own consumption.

“…Oh-ho-ho-ho.”

Seated on the bench, I looked to my side and saw my bag, crammed full of sweets. I had bought as many as I could, using up most of the money I had on hand.

Maybe because the prices were aimed at outsiders, most of the goodies had been ridiculously expensive, but the reviews were all top-notch. They looked as delicious as the price tags would suggest. From what I’ve heard, any kind of confection will melt in your mouth as long as it’s made with a bunch of high-quality ingredients. I just hoped they lived up to their exorbitant prices.

“Miss! My, my, your shoes are dirty! How about a shoe shine?”

“……”

Any place where lots of visitors gather also becomes a popular hangout for weird people, like this bootblack trying to earn small change.

There was no need to worry, though. With folks like that, if you show them your (spare) empty wallet, they’ll usually walk away without another word.

It’s especially effective if you add the word Sorry.

“…Tch.”

By the way, sometimes people were rude and clicked their tongues, regardless of whether I said Sorry or not. I didn’t really care for them.

“……”

The city was full of celebrities, but of course, there were people in this country going hungry on a daily basis.

There seemed to be a wide disparity between rich and poor.

I could see the figure of a child weaving through the breaks in the hustle and bustle, walking around selling unremarkable fruit. She was dressed in tattered clothes, with a sign hanging from her neck that read ULTRA-HIGH-QUALITY FRUIT. ONE GOLD PIECE EACH.

There were also the bootblack boys. They didn’t even appear to be of working age yet.

Then there were the street musicians, making their awful din. Their instruments were so beat up, they couldn’t play properly.

This marketplace for tourists was also a den of opportunity for the city’s poor.

“……”

The majority of the visitors didn’t so much as look at them. I could even see some people who turned them away with irritated expressions, as if the mere sight of them was a bother. It seemed cold, but that was the most common response. Travelers accustomed to wandering the world showed no interest in the poor urchins.

“…Hmm.”

That made it all the more obvious when a novice traveler showed up.

“My, what lovely music! Listen to that authentic street sound, it’s the best! It makes our heart pound more than any other music in the world! We are deeply moved!”

There was a girl dancing euphorically in front of the aforementioned street performers, dropping gold coins from her wallet. She was a blond, wearing excessively showy, Gothic-style clothes, carrying a muted green rucksack on her back, with a beret on her head. She was a strange girl, who called herself “We.”

It seemed she was not an accomplished traveler, as she was running down the list of things that first-timers are sure to do.

First, she paid the street performers right away. Novices have this idea that no matter what kind of music it is, they have to pay the moment it reaches their ears. I was like that once, too.

“My, my! A girl this young being forced to work… How brave! One gold piece for a fruit, hmm? All right, I’ll take all of them, please!”

If they see a pitiful child selling fruit, of course they’ll buy it. Whenever novices find themselves in the presence of a downtrodden child, the value of their money suddenly takes a nosedive, creating a localized deflationary spiral that results in the loosening of purse strings and substantial losses. I was like that once, too.

“Huh? A shoe shine? My, my! We were actually just thinking about how dirty our shoes are!”

Naturally, they also get their shoes polished unnecessarily. The exhilaration of arriving in a new country makes them feel as if trivial things are suddenly urgent matters. I was like that once, too.

In that way, a novice traveler will burn through their funds in no time. Their sense of value, once things spiral out of control, won’t normalize until they hit rock bottom.

Speaking of which, this girl’s rock bottom arrived very quickly.

“Oh? I’m all out of money… And I had quite a few gold pieces to start with, too…”

However, she was quite composed for being flat broke.

“Oh well. I guess I’ll go on a sweets tour for now. Hello, you there, in the shop. I’ll take one of each pastry. Everything, from right to left, please.”

The shopkeeper’s eyes went wide at her imposing attitude and her order, but he packed up the goods as requested.

By the way, the cost was apparently “Ten gold pieces.” I’m sure that’s what I heard. A ludicrous price.

“Of course. Please accept these.”

The girl with the haughty bearing handed the shopkeeper ten pieces of unremarkable fruit, as if the trade were completely natural.

The shopkeeper was understandably shocked by her proposal, and his expression hardened as if to say, “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you see? We just purchased these fruits for ten gold pieces, which means that they have a value of ten gold pieces, right? So please accept them in exchange for these sweets.”

“……”

The shopkeeper was silent for a moment, but before long, he shouted, “Oh noooooo! I found another wicked woman! Everyone, let’s get her!”

At his cry, the music fell silent, the chatter stopped, and men dressed in chef’ s clothes came flying out of every shop on the street, launching themselves at her.

“Huh? Huhhh? Hey! What is this?! Stop it!”

She was quickly apprehended and pinned to the ground by the men, her cheeks pressing against the cobblestones.

“Another wicked woman, huh?!” “Sounds like you were going around ripping off our shops with your wicked ways, weren’t you?!” “Gimme a break!” “We won’t give in to your threats!” “Heh-heh-heh…you got quite a nice body, don’cha…?” “How about we make you pay for your insolence?! Heh-heh-heh-heh…” “Heh-heh…” “Hee-hee-hee…”

Geez.

What a disturbing situation.

“What are you all doing?! We simply tried to purchase some sweets!”

“Shut up!” One of the shopkeepers who had come running looked down at the girl severely. “We know that you ripped off our shops using the same dirty tactic several days ago! Did you think we would let you exchange cheap fruit again this time? As if! It’s execution for you!”

“Execution?! What?! You can’t be serious!”

“Heh-heh…that’s…well.” The man fixed his gaze on her chest.

She followed his gaze, noticed the men’s eyes glinting, then finally seemed to grasp her situation.

Her face went bright red, and she screamed.

“I’ve got it! You’re all planning to have your way with me, right here, right now, aren’t you?!”

“Huh…? Now? No, no, no.” “Of course we wouldn’t do it right here, right now. Have some sense!” “We wouldn’t do that, no matter what.”

“Stop it! We are not that type of girl!”

“What type of girl would that be?” “What is this girl saying?” “I guess she’s an idiot?”

She had muddied the waters a bit, but that didn’t change the lady’s predicament. The men began tying a rope around her. If no one did anything, it seemed they were going to drag her into a nearby shop and assault her.

“……”

Ugh, I can’t just watch.

I stood, picked up a yellow macaron, and after tossing it into my mouth, went and blocked the men’s way.

“Hello there. What seems to be the problem?” I chewed as I spoke.

One of the men looked at me and tilted his head, “Who are you supposed to be? A traveler?”

I nodded. “Yes. I’m a traveling witch. I’ve been watching the situation from that bench over there for a while now… Did she commit some sort of scandalous crime?”

“That’s right. This person here is a wicked woman who’s been ripping off shops in this area for the past few days.”

“Hmm.”

“The rumors are going around. I hear she’s a dirty thief who snatches all of our wares without paying a single coin, using fruit that she bought nearby in exchange!”

“Uh-huh. And that’s why you arrested her? For trying to trade fruit for sweets?”

I was starting to understand, and the blond girl yelled at me, “It was a misunderstanding! We were merely trying to barter the fruits we had purchased for ten gold pieces!”

Quite reasonable.

“I saw the whole scene. She really did buy the fruit at an exorbitant price from the little girl selling it and then thought that she could exchange it for sweets. She’s just an idiot. She’s not a wicked woman or anything, and I’m not even sure she has the brains to carry out a scam like that.”

“…Don’t you all think you’re being a bit harsh? Come on now.”

“That said, everyone, you told me that there’s a rumor going around about a wicked woman, but don’t you have any information about the criminal’s appearance?”

I put the question to the shopkeepers, ignoring their victim’s interjection, and the men stammered, “Um…” then began discussing it all at once.

“Come to think of it, I feel like the wicked woman who came to my place was a little younger than you…” “She wasn’t blond.” “I think she had black hair?” “Her boobs were also a little smaller.” “I feel like she also acted a little more calmly…”

I see, I see.

“Well then, it’s quite clear this woman isn’t the one you’re looking for, so please release her. If you don’t, I’ll call someone.”

That said, there are enough onlookers already that there’s no need to call anyone. We’re in a highly trafficked public square at a busy time of day. Our dispute is attracting an uncomfortable amount of attention, and everyone is listening.

From the perspective of the people around us, who didn’t know much about the situation, this spectacle must have looked as if a group of men without any integrity had unjustly captured a girl, and a witch had stepped in to stop them. Everyone, from the foreign merchants to the celebrities and sightseers who had come to the plaza to buy sweets, was glaring coldly at the men.

“…Urgh.” The shopkeepers flinched.

They seemed to have realized that there was not a single sign the situation would be changing in their favor. Loosening the rope that bound the girl, they assumed the bearing of people with some common sense, and one of them said, “…W-well. From now on, you need to buy things with money, not fruit, understand?” Hastily pushing the crowd aside, the men returned to their respective places of business.

“……”

Not having fully digested the situation, the dazed girl slumped down on the spot and looked up at me. “Um…thanks…?”

“Don’t mention it. What’s your name?”

I extended a hand, and she gripped it lightly, with some hesitation.

“Sabine. That’s our name.”

“Is that so? Well, I’m Elaina. The Ashen Witch, Elaina.”

By the way, I recognize I’m changing the subject, but the wicked woman the men were talking about earlier…

Who on earth could she be?

That’s right. She’s me.

“Huh? Sorry, we are a bit hard of hearing. Come again?”

Well, I had thought it would be a bit of a waste to part then and there, so I was sipping coffee across from the girl in a café in a stylish and quiet corner of the neighborhood, a little ways away from the plaza, trying my best to explain the situation to Sabine.

Of course, it was my treat.

Because she had gone through such an ordeal after being mistaken for me, you see. It was also a chance to apologize.

“So as I said before, I’m the one they’re searching for. I’m the one who’s been ripping off the sweets shops in town. So I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

I wouldn’t have thought such a happy-go-lucky person actually existed, someone who would try to purchase candy with fruit. I hadn’t even considered it a possibility.

Actually, I had originally meant to hand over a little bit of money along with the fruit, but…somehow or other, it seemed the fruit had walked off on its own.

“Why did you do such a thing…? Do you lack the money to buy sweets?”

“No, I have money. I just didn’t feel like paying, so I didn’t.”

“Well! How arrogant.”

“No, no. I’d like you to say that it’s humble instead.”

“But aren’t you fooling people and taking their things? That’s awful. How can you be so calm when you’re acting like that?” Sabine glared at me.

I turned my eyes away as if to escape her. “Well…regarding that matter, you see, there’s a deeper reason.”

“Oh. What?”

“You want to hear?”

“I’d like to know.”

Well, that’s just perfect.

“By the way, Sabine, do you have some time right now?”

“We are a traveler.”

“Meaning?”

“We have nothing but time.”

“Oh-ho.”

In short, you have plenty of time but no coin to speak of.

In that case, it’s even more perfect.

We walked a short distance from the café, flew tandem on my broom over the roofs of all the houses, and arrived at the back gate of the city.

In contrast to the front gate, which was richly adorned, this entrance was rather plain and only just wide enough for a single cart to pass through. I had found it on the first day I arrived in the city while killing time flying around on my broom.

“Here, take a look at that.”

As we peered at the gate from the roof of a nearby house, we could see many of the merchants of the city meeting with a horse-drawn cart.

“You finally made it. Thanks, as always.”

The driver bowed slightly then got down off his cart. He began unloading packages one by one.

“I brought more today. As you can see, they’re all defectives. I did my own examination of sorts, so I don’t think there’s any you can’t use, but—”

One of the merchants peered into a package. It was full of essential ingredients for the making of confections. Fruits and butter, sugar and milk, flour and cocoa.

“What is that stuff?” Next to me, Sabine angled her head in confusion.

“It’s just as the merchant said. They’re defective products. For example, things that were thrown away because of some flaw in the manufacturing process, or things that don’t taste quite right… It’s a jumble of failures. Of course, they’re not high-quality products.”

“…Wait a second. The people of this city insisted that they make their sweets from carefully selected ingredients.”

“Right. Well, to be sure, they are carefully selected.”

Selected for being defective.

“But the artisanal sweets made in this city are famous for their flavor, you know? That’s why we visited this country. We couldn’t resist after hearing the stories.”

“I’ve been on a sweets-buying tour for several days now and have tossed many a treat into my mouth, and they all had very ordinary flavors. You can eat one if you’d like.” I took a macaron out of the bag I had been carrying and handed it to Sabine.

She paused a moment before taking it then popped it into her petite mouth and chewed.

“……”

She made an extremely ambivalent expression.

“…It’s…tasty, but we wouldn’t pay a gold piece for this.”

“Right?” It’s worth a copper at most. “The people who come to this country to buy sweets are just being manipulated by the promotional line about top-quality ingredients.”

“……”

So when you get right down to it, to put it clearly and concisely—“I’ve been buying sweets with fruit and small amounts of money, indirectly alluding to the fact that I know what’s really going on here.”

“…That’s a shock. And here we were expecting to find the perfect sweets. Here of all places…ordinary cheap stuff…? Third-rate goods…? We would at least like them to use some restraint if they’re going to humiliate us!”

“You’re upset, aren’t you?”

“Of course we are! What is this? They’re making fools of visitors! Even worse, why are rich people selling cheap wares? We don’t understand it!”

We had returned to the café. Sabine was pounding on the table wildly, cheeks puffed out in rage. The second coffee of the day was electrifying her spirit.

I took my cup in hand. “Well, I think it’s actually the opposite—it’s probably not that they’re selling cheap things for high prices because they’re rich but rather that the people here got rich because they’ve been able to sell cheap things for high prices in a skillful way.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Just what I said.”

The merchants had been able to bring great wealth and prestige to their city by having the audacity to sell cheap goods for high prices. I suspected the adults sold cheap confections as top-quality items, used needy children to sell fruit, got rich, and were availing themselves of the elegant celebrity lifestyle.

However, there was no doubt that there was, in fact, a wealth gap, and there were people earning their daily income through methods like shining shoes, street performance, and selling fruit at the behest of the rich.

I brought my coffee to my lips. The slightly bitter taste spread through my mouth. “Things aren’t always as they seem, Sabine. I expect you don’t really understand that yet, since you’ve only just begun traveling, but the world is full of people who try to earn money by deceiving others.”

She looked a little surprised. “How do you know that we just began traveling?”

“Because someone accustomed to it doesn’t buy fruit for exorbitant prices from peddler girls. They also shine their own shoes.” Sometimes they pay money to street performers, but at the very least, they don’t throw gold coins at them.

“Huh… But weren’t those children down on their luck? If carefree travelers like us don’t help them, then… Especially the girl selling fruit—she looked like she would be on the brink of death if we didn’t extend a helping hand, didn’t she?”

I slowly shook my head. “Even if you give them money for fruit there, it doesn’t help the children at all. The truth of the matter is that the adults are the ones pulling the strings. The spectacle of poor, unfortunate children walking around selling fruit is enough to elicit tears from outsiders, isn’t it? This country aside, there are nefarious adults all over the world who earn money by exploiting children. They greedily scoop up the majority of the cash the kids collect, leaving only a tiny amount in the children’s hands.”

“……”

“If you really want to help the children, don’t pay them. If nobody buys from poor children, then nobody will force poor children to sell things in the first place.”

At most, the act of buying fruit from pitiful children is nothing more than a temporary salve for your peace of mind.

“…Is that so?”

I wonder what she could be thinking.

She was just staring at the cup in her hands, furrowing her brow.

I had also been extremely shocked when I realized that the evil adults behind the children were thriving.

“Why did you start to travel?” I posed the question, and Sabine suddenly broke into a smile.

“In our country, there are no sweets per se. So we thought we would go on a sweets tour. That was just a few days ago.”

“Oh.”

“That way, we could study the treats we discover in the countries to which we travel. We think we would like to sell sweets in our own country.”

“Uh-huh.”

“…But it seems we haven’t been able to learn anything useful at all here.”

“But you’ve learned a bit more about the traveler’s mindset, haven’t you?”

“Probably, yes.”

“……”

“……”

Then the two of us sipped our coffee for a little while and passed the time in silence.

“Pardon the intrusion! We are soldiers of the realm. We’re going to take the liberty of searching this establishment.”

Our quiet time abruptly came to an end.

Dangerous-looking soldiers burst through the door, shouting. Their thick-soled shoes stomped through the café.

“Wh—wh-wh-what is this? Hey. They look really upset. Was there some sort of incident?”

I leaned close to Sabine, who sat facing me, and whispered, “They’re searching for the wicked woman who’s been popping up for the last few days. To them, the scoundrel is nothing but a nuisance.”

“…Isn’t that…you?”

I put one finger to my lips. “Shh!”

“No, not shh!”

“It’s fine. They shouldn’t be able to find me out.” I took my wand out under the table and applied a little bit of a spell to my hair. “When I was working my way through the sweets shops, I changed my hair color like this.”

Just for a second, I colored my hair black and then quickly returned it to its normal ashen gray. Of course, when I was really in disguise, I didn’t just change my hair but my clothes as well, so there was no way they would find me out.

That’s why, ultimately—

“Excuse me. Recently, we’ve received reports that a woman is committing evil deeds in this area. Do you know anything about that? She looks something like this.”

Of course, I was able to remain calm even when the soldier came over to us.

The likeness that the soldier was holding depicted a young woman with jet-black hair. She wasn’t dressed like a witch in the least. It was just a drawing of a plain girl with black hair.

I shook my head stubbornly.

“You don’t? How about you?”

Sabine was apparently a poor liar.

“Huh? Ah, um…”

“……” I stepped on her foot beneath the table. “You don’t, do you?”

“Eee! N-n-nope!”

The soldier who had approached our table nodded slowly and suspiciously. “Hmm, is that so…?”

I would have been extremely happy if he had left at that point, but somehow it seemed that had not been his only point of business, as he showed me a second poster.

“By the way, as a matter of fact, it seems the princess of the neighboring country has gone missing recently… I don’t suppose you know anything? She looks like this.”

“……”

Oh, how surprising!

The picture I was shown depicted a lovely blond girl. Smiling gently at the camera, she was quite beautiful. If she had donned a beret and Gothic-style clothing, she would have been the spitting image of the person sitting across the table from me.

“By the way, her name is apparently Princess Sabine.”

“……”

Meaning it was Sabine herself.

“They say she disappeared several days ago. They’re afraid that she might have been abducted or something, so we’re making the rounds searching for her here as well. If you have any information, please let us—huhhh?”

Just then, Sabine’s and the soldier’s eyes met, and the soldier held the likeness up next to her face, looking back and forth between them over and over again.

While he was at it, he also looked sidelong at me over and over again.

If he thought Sabine was the missing princess, from the soldier’s perspective, how on earth did he see me, the person with her?

……

Ah, this isn’t good.

“You must have abducted Princess Sabine!”

“……”

I thought that would happen.

No helping it.

Since it’s come to this—

I pulled my wand out from under the table.

I decisively tapped my wand on the floor of the café, and ivy undulated up from beneath it like a living creature, entangling the soldiers.

Immediately thereafter, I ran out of the café, leading Sabine by the hand, but of course, more soldiers were lying in wait for us there. I had left the interior of the café full of ivy, so it was probably too late for explanations. I wrapped all the soldiers outside the café in ivy, too, and escaped toward the town plaza.

We disappeared into the crowd, and I kept my composure as I continued pulling Sabine along.

“……”

Caught up in the moment, I had brought her royal highness in tow during my escape, but giving it some thought, I decided there was really no need for us to run away together.

“Thank you, Elaina, for taking care of us.”

“Eh, ah, sure. Right, that’s exactly what I did.” That’s a lie. “So you’re the princess of some other country?”

“Yes. We started a sweets tour so that we might bring confections home to our country.”

“……” What is with that superficial motive?

“But I never thought they would find out we were in this city… This is bad.”

“Why don’t you go back home?”

“We can’t do that! There are no sweets there! For the sake of all the girls in our country, our journey must not end here!”

“By the way, what did you tell them when you left home?”

“……”

“I see.”

The soldier had said that Princess Sabine had gone missing, so she had probably just slipped away on her own without saying anything. Recklessness can go too far.

“Well, what are you planning to do now?”

“Of course, we’re going to continue traveling. We have only just begun our journey!”

“If you can make it out of this city, that is.”

“That’s right. That is a troubling point.”

Already the news that Sabine has disappeared must be spreading among the soldiers. If she just waltzes up to the gate like this, I don’t think they’re likely to let her pass.

“We are begging you, Elaina. We will be certain to repay your kindness in full if you please, please get us out of here?”

“Hmm…well, I don’t mind, but…”

“If we use the spell that you showed us earlier, I think the two of us can make it work somehow.”

I’ve got a strange feeling about this.

“Well…probably, right…yeah…”

“What’s that? You’re not speaking clearly.”

“As long as you’re with me, I’ve got nothing but trouble.”

“Well! How rude!”

Sabine was completely indignant. But, well, she was also the kind of person who has a hard time keeping up when the situation gets complicated, so I decided that the best course of action would be one that didn’t give her the chance to speak at all.

Hmm-hmm-hmm.

“At this point we’ve got no choice. Let’s use a bit of a secret trick.”

“A secret trick? What are you planning to do?”

“First off, a fantastic technique that will allow me to silence you.”

Then, I pointed my wand at her.

“Stop, stop. We’ve got orders to search all luggage due to recent disturbances… Apparently, the woman who kidnapped the princess of a certain country has gone into hiding. Accordingly, we are searching all baggage—”

Being the middle of the day, a line had formed at the country’s front gate (the ostentatiously decorated one), and soldiers were rummaging through the freight on every merchant’s cart, checking to make sure two women hadn’t slipped into one of them.

Soldiers were walking back and forth along the line, and they finally reached the tail end and came to where I was.

One of the soldiers crouched down in front of me.

Probably so he could make eye contact.

“…Hmm? Why are you leaving the city, young lady? Where’s your mother?”

I was currently dressed as a very young girl of about nine years old. In one hand, I was holding my wand and, in the other, a stuffed teddy bear. I was clad in a Gothic-style dress.

Of course, I had the same ash-colored hair and lapis-colored eyes as always, but I looked about half my usual age. There was no way they would find me out.

“My mother is waiting for me outside the city,” I answered him confidently.

“Huh. Is that so? So you’re going through the gate alone. How brave! Want me to go with you?”

“No, thank you.”

“Eh, ah, okay…”

“Hurry up and get us out of here!” came a small voice from under my arm.

The spell to alter someone’s appearance is very tiring. Furthermore, I was transforming Sabine’s as well as my own. I was already totally exhausted just from waiting in line.

“You’re really something, huh…you’ve got a sharp tongue.” The soldier seemed to have too much free time on his hands. “By the way, that stuffed animal you’re holding sure is cute.”

“You think so? Her name is Sabine.”

“Oh wow. She’s got the same name as the princess we’re searching for.”

“That’s right.” I stealthily squeezed the stuffed animal tighter, preventing it from moving even a little, then laughed and said, “Maybe this teddy bear is Miss Sabine.”

“Ha-ha-ha, imagine… Oh, look, little miss, the line’s moving. Go ahead.”

That was exactly the moment when the merchant in front of me left the city.

I bowed slightly to the soldier and walked toward the gate.

And then, we took our leave.

“Wow…that was easy, huh?” I murmured in a quiet voice that no one could hear.

“So easy,” Sabine murmured from my arms.

You didn’t even do anything!

In this way, Sabine and I slipped stealthily out of the country before parting ways. After that, I have no idea what kind of path the novice traveler followed.

However, I had a premonition that I was sure to meet her again somewhere.

When you really think about it, this was a bit of a pointless story about perpetrating a scam to escape a city that was running its own scam of a sweets monopoly.

There was no climax, there were no dramatic developments, only detached dialogue that’s difficult to even recall.

Be that as it may, sure enough, immediately after I’d arrived in a certain country, I remembered the incident—the incident from a year earlier.

The cityscape was exceedingly ordinary, and neither the roads nor the plazas nor even the palace had a single feature warranting special mention. With not one thing you could call a defining characteristic, the city seemed very unlikely to leave an impression.

The population was neither large nor small, and it didn’t appear to be prospering or failing. It was simply somewhere people lived, a place to pass by.

Despite all that, I had been invited to the palace in that country, and it was as I was being led through the reception room that I remembered the episode from the past.

“How do you find it? This country of ours.”

Joining me in the reception room was the nation’s princess.

A girl with blond hair whom I had met before someplace, sometime.

“It’s ordinary,” I answered her flatly.

She smiled and nodded.

“It is, isn’t it? It’s very ordinary.”

Then she had sweets laid out on the table, completely burying it under all kinds of macarons, chocolates, waffles, and other similar treats.

“But we had a revelation while traveling. We’re happier here than anywhere else precisely because of our ‘normalcy.’”

“……”

“If there are children walking around in dirty clothes, you’d think, Oh, there’s a wealth disparity here. But strangely, if there are only people walking around in neat, clean clothing, you don’t think anything of it. People have a tendency to only notice the bad things. Even when fresh, beautiful scenery meets the eye, if you look at it for a long time, it will fade and become ordinary.”

“I suppose so. The scenery taken in by a traveler all looks beautiful, but that’s because we’re only in it for that moment.”

“That’s why we gave it some thought. When a country becomes completely ordinary, so much as to not leave an impression, that country must be very happy.”

“……”

“There’s no need to force ourselves to make local specialties or anything. I think that being ordinary is both the most difficult and most joyful feat.”

“…So did you give up on popularizing sweets?”

She shook her head slowly at my inquiry.

“Right now, we’re in the middle of distributing cookbooks across the country. If anyone could make whatever sweets they wanted, wouldn’t that be a blessing?”

“Huh.”

“We’re preparing to do just that. We’re in negotiations with nearby countries and have made requests to get the ingredients for making sweets to flow into our land. They’re all defective and inferior goods, but if we can make effective use of them, I’m sure we can spread incredible confections throughout the country for reasonable prices.”

“Wow.”

I see, that’s a clever way of doing things.

“So then, these sweets here are made with the discount ingredients?”

“Precisely.”

“So I’m meant to be the taste tester.”

“Precisely.”

“……”

I feigned reluctance and took a single macaron in my hand.

It had a fresh yellow color, and when I tossed it in my mouth, the fragrance of lemon spread from the front of my mouth to the back of my throat. It was exactly the same flavor as when I had met her one year earlier in that city.

It was a nostalgic, calming flavor.

“How does it taste?”

I quickly swallowed and answered her with a smile.

“Ordinary.”