The weekend passed quickly from the training camp day where the test of courage took place.
During the weekend lunch, while I was alone processing ingredients in the club room, someone came looking for me.
“Is it Enio? Did you come to have lunch?”
“No, not really. If we’re being specific, is it true that Victor is alone?”
“I’m not alone. Kongkong and Elizabeth are here.”
━Bzzzz.
“Oh, I see. Are you really alone then?”
Not alone, indeed. Kongkong and Elizabeth are my precious roommates who must not be absent now.
When I tried to defend them, Enio swiftly pushed something in front of my face.
“Victor, there’s nothing like this in the club room, right?”
It was a tray with snakes drawn on a black background.
To be precise, it was a square wooden box wrapped inside the tray.
The square wooden box was so blackly varnished that you could tell it was an expensive luxury item at a glance.
“What’s this? It’s a very nice box.”
“Open it.”
When I opened the square box, I saw densely packed fruits and halved eggs inside.
Is this 「Spring Sauce Bulgogi」?
For a moment, I thought I made it, but I didn’t.
“Enio, you made this yourself.”
“Recognize it? How is it? I think I did pretty well.”
“Excellent.”
On the night of the retreat.
Before the date changed, I checked all the club members’ cooking skills.
The way to check cooking skills was simple egg boiling.
It would have been nice to test with a more sophisticated menu, but Ludens eggs were the only cheap ingredients available.
Victoria said.
━Can you tell how good we are at cooking by boiling an egg?
Yeah.
You might wonder what cooking skills you can assess by boiling eggs, but it’s surprisingly simple yet difficult.
Adjusting the water temperature to peel the eggshell well.
And being careful not to overcook the egg too hard.
―Oh…! Why does Arnoy’s boiled egg end up with both the shell and the egg white completely gone…? This way, it becomes not an egg but just a shell…!
Seemingly trivial, but Enio unexpectedly showed talent in a task that required considerable care.
Indeed, a skilled heroine. If I couldn’t put the “Hammer of Swords”, which had the highest success rate in item crafting, into the party, I could use her as a substitute.
However, I wasn’t pleased.
Enio is a ghost member.
A ghost member who doesn’t participate much in club activities showing talent in cooking the most?
Should I waste 100 points from the 120-point club points and give Enio the “Lesser Cooking” skill?
She seems to have talent, but wouldn’t it be right to pass on cooking skills to Nike or Arnoy, who are more active in club activities than Enio?
But.
In the end, I passed on the “Lesser Cooking” skill to Enio.
Nike is busy just going to search for ingredients in the Mysterious Forest.
Also, Arnoy has no talent for cooking, and just running errands is too much for him.
So, I warned Enio, “It’s a skill that costs a lot. If you get this skill, you’ll have to work harder in club activities than now.”
And what she brought back was this lunch box.
“Victor, how is it? The dish I made. I’ve been working hard since morning to give it to you, Victor, who is not just anyone else.”
Enio explained with a subtle tone.
“The fruits here are Mega, obtained by fighting ants in the dungeon with my sisters. And these are eggs from the mainland. And this bulgogi is…”
“The quality is good. Is it 「Grade A Marbel」 by any chance?”
“Victor, you recognize it as expected.”
Enio seemed confident.
Of course, if she used the ‘Grade A Marble’, which is one of the top-tier meat ingredients sold in the store, she could naturally be confident.
She’s giving me this kind of thing.
“What’s the catch?”
Is she still trying to extract important information about the Arkwright family from me and carry out undercover work?
As expected, Enio was as tenacious as a snake that wouldn’t let go once she bit.
Enio proudly added an explanation.
“There’s no catch. Rather, didn’t I tell you, Victor? I said you wouldn’t regret giving me this skill. Isn’t this well-made? It seems like it could sell well, right?”
“……”
“And even if you didn’t give me this skill, Victor, if you asked, I could have worked harder in club activities.”
“I can tell even without tasting it. This is going to be delicious.”
“Really?”
“True, but your lunchbox is a failure, Enio.”
“T-th, what… what…”
Enio seemed extremely flustered.
Did she expect me to praise her?
“You sell lunchboxes in the club, they should be cheap and affordable. Eggs? Okay. Fruits? Fine. But how much was the price of this ‘Grade A Marble’?”
Enio blushed and mumbled her lips.
“500,000…”
“Yeah, that’s an amount ordinary students can’t easily afford. This can’t be put on the market yet.”
“…”
Enio’s ear tips turned slightly red.
Did she get angry at my criticism?
I wanted to soften my words a bit, but Victor’s tongue was so harsh.
Still, I sincerely expressed my gratitude.
“Still, thank you, Enio. I’ll make sure to enjoy this.”
It would be a waste not to eat something made with expensive ingredients.
It was a bit overcooked in some parts, but it was delicious.
The taste was different from the Tier 3「Dried Meat」 that I usually use.
Wow.
“Passing grade without a doubt. If I could eat this every day, life would be blissful. Making and eating this kind of food every day is a goal in my life.”
This is sincere.
Living a healing life while eating delicious food every day.
That’s my dream.
However, Enio was very bewildered.
“Eating my lunchbox every day is a goal in life? That means… perhaps…”
Shiiing– a strange noise sounded.
It was like steam escaping from a boiling kettle.
As I turned my head, Enio, whose ears, neck, and even forehead and cheeks were flushed, was breathing roughly, looking at me.
It was clearly the face of someone extremely angry.
…Why did she get angrier when I praised her for being delicious?
Tap-
Enio turned around and dashed out of the club room.
* * *
“Oops…! Arnoy failed to boil eggs again…! The white part collapses along with the shell again…!”
Arnoy broke more than five eggs a day.
Although boiling eggs is a more difficult task than expected, she practiced for days, but she still had no talent.
“Arnoy, you’re better suited for serving than the kitchen.”
“…What do you mean?”
Exactly what it sounds like.
Still, Arnoy was very good at serving.
Indeed, a nymph born as the errand runners of the gods.
If the scale grows larger someday, it would be worth considering hiring a few more nymphs like Arnoy.
“Nike, did you pick enough herbs in the Mysterious Forest?”
“Yeah, yeah! I’ve collected about two boxes so far! With this, we’ll have enough for a hundred servings!”
“Not enough. Collect ten more boxes.”
“T-ten more…?”
To boost sales at the soon-to-be-opened club fair, we needed more inventory. With that feeling, our schedule was set until the fair.
“Victor, how about this? 「Assorted Fruits」. I just cut and put together various fruits. It became a Tier 3 dish.”
Enio, who had cut fruits in the kitchen and put them in a cup, handed it to me. She discovered and made the dish without me telling her the recipe.
“This should be light and easy to eat, right? And it’s affordable.”
“Excellent. Now, the only thing left is the seating issue. Domina, is our club booth scheduled to be near the main stage as I requested? Did you manage to reserve it by waiting in line from dawn?”
I asked Domina to queue up from dawn to secure the core position of the club booth.
Domina, rubbing her sleepy eyes.
“We’re in line for the second spot. We won’t know until we go there. But the second spot in line has always been near the main booth every year.”
“That should be sufficient. As a reward, I’ll make budae jjigae for breakfast tomorrow. Feel free to come over and eat.”
Two days until the club fair.
At first, there were many worries, but once we got on track, preparations went smoothly.
It’s strange how things are going too well.
My life couldn’t be this easy, could it?
Being prepared for the possibility that if luck is too good, the fall might come sooner or later is my way of life.
And indeed, my expectations turned out to be grim.
“We’ve been ousted from the central booth…?”
The area near the main stage, where the club fair in the park was held, was bustling with people and had the highest foot traffic. Securing a booth there meant success by more than half.
“Our spot was definitely supposed to be in the front, right?”
When I asked Domina, the meticulous female teacher, she clicked her tongue and shook her head.
“There was interference.”
Interference?
There’s only one person who would interfere with me.
With the club fair just days away, there was no time to investigate further, so I immediately went to confront the culprit.
“Victoria, what on earth happened? You are interfering with me.”
As I questioned her, Victoria, who had been sitting in her office with her elbows on the desk, calmly looked up with her golden eyes shining.
“…Why would you think I interfered with you? I accepted your request for a meeting. It’s out of the blue to accuse me of interference.”
“Don’t play dumb. We’re talking about the club booth.”
“What on earth are you talking about? I placed your club booth in the A-1 zone in the center, right? Of course, it was arranged according to the proper procedure based on the waiting list.”
“Double-check it.”
At my words, Victoria muttered, “Who does he think he is?”, and opened a drawer.
Afterward, she flipped through a huge, thick book and muttered, “What?”, in a strange voice.
“Booth A-1, row h… Ludens Gourmet… ?”
A-1, H-row was originally supposed to be our spot.
But the name occupying that spot was none other than the “Ludens Gourmet Society,” a club.
Judging from her reaction, it seemed that Victoria herself only just realized the situation.
It wasn’t about Victoria abusing her power to retaliate against me for breaking our engagement.
I asked.
“Who are these Ludens Gourmet Society people?”
“They’re from the De Winter House.”
“House De Winter….”
“You also know well. Who is the daughter of the De Winter family?”
“Is it Rebekah?”
I heard it from Nike’s story.
Rebekah of the De Winter family wanted to destroy the Leshgad Forest where Nike lived, so the cute creatures living in that forest, the ‘Mokemoke’, were in danger of extinction.
“Rebekah’s ‘Ludens Gourmet Society’ was the runner-up in the club fair section last fall. With that authority, she was given the right to pre-emptively choose the location of the booth this year.”
“Did she use that right to snatch the spot for our club’s booth location?”
It’s a story of someone with priority taking away the opportunity for pre-emption.
It smells a bit fishy, but it was legal and legitimate.
Of course, Victoria narrowed her brows as if she couldn’t understand.
“However, row H is a bit off-center even in Zone A. What’s the reason for using pre-emption rights in a place like this? She could have aimed for row A just as well.”
I know the answer to that well.
“She’s trying to pick a fight with me. No, she’s determined to pick a fight with my club, that’s it.”
This was a showdown.
