We finished off the taste testing session with some pudding. It was very delicious and made more or less perfectly, so I had no problems with it at all. The fruit toppings also made it look quite luxurious. Hmm, ice cream would do well as a pudding topping too.

「Yuna-dono, thank you for your help today.」

I honestly didn’t know how much my critiques would help them. All I had done was give them my unprofessional opinion, after all.

Also, since quite a few of their cakes were creative and surprising I had obtained many recipe ideas which I could share them with Elena-san to improve the cake menu at my shop.

Not to mention all the breads I hadn’t managed to eat: I could bring those to Morin-san to try out.

「No problem; any time. Everything was very delicious.」

「Thank you! We are really happy to hear that.」

The three chefs looked delighted at my final verdict.

I wasn’t really some masterchef, so they shouldn’t be that excited, though.

Looking around, I noticed that there was a lot of leftover food as they had baked entire cakes but just the two of us ate them.

I proceeded to ask them what they planned to do with the cakes, and they explained they were going to bring them to the castle and distribute it to the soldiers and maids.

I wished they had told me that from the beginning… I wouldn’t have tried so hard eating everything.

I lightly rubbed my belly, deeply regretting my actions.

Due to my full-body suit, I wasn’t sure if my stomach was bulging, but it should be fine as long as it wasn’t seen by others.

Thinking about new recipe ideas I had obtained while rubbing my stomach, chawanmushi suddenly jumped into my mind.

「Oh, that’s right. Zelef-san, this is a newly made dish of mine.」

I said and took out some chawanmushi from my Bear Box.

Zelef-san’s face brightened while suddenly whole room turned to me with darker expressions.

「Yuna-chan… Wouldn’t you also have some for me, perchance?」

Eleanora-san said something terrifying.

I couldn’t believe that she still wanted to eat even after eating all that food…

「You can still eat more?」

I asked her, thinking she might just be joking.

「Of course. I must try this new dish of yours, after all.」

She sounded serious enough…

「Okay, but don’t blame me if you get fat.」

I couldn’t really do anything about it, so I brought out one more serving of chawanmushi.

Noticing Shaila and the other two chefs kept looking at me, I realized they must want some as well.

「Umm, would you like some too?」

「We can?!」

「If you don’t mind giving us such a treat, then please.」

「Sure…」

I took out a serving for each of them.

「This looks quite similar to pudding but it’s warm.」

「The dish uses eggs as well, so that’s why it looks similar.」

Everybody quickly grabbed a spoon and began tasting the chawanmushi.

Most of ingredients were easy to obtain, but the matsutake weren’t as popular as in my world, they were much harder to come by. If I ended up teaching this recipe to others, it would be easier to have it without matsutake included.

「It’s soft like pudding at the same time also also completely different.」

「Yeah.」

「Yuna-san, this is delicious!」

They all appeared to enjoy it.

「There are quite a few ingredients inside.」

「This doesn’t appear to be a dessert dish, though.」

Well, that was left to individuals to decide.

For me personally, it made me want to eat it together with rice.

「Zelef-san, here’s the recipe.」

I handed Zelef-san a piece of paper with the recipe for chawanmushi noted down.

「I do say this everytime, but are you really sure I can take it?」

「Of course. Just make sure you make this for Flora-hime.」

「Okay, but I think you should give it directly to Flora-hime first. If I gave it to her first, she’d think I thought of this recipe myself. 」

Only after I nodded did he take the recipe from my hands.

「Yuna-chan, aren’t you being too kind to children? You’re like that to Fina-chan and my daughter too.」

「You really think so?」

Eleanora-san immediately nodded.

I didn’t have the intention of spoiling them. They were good kids, so there was nothing wrong with being kind to them. If they were selfish, I wouldn’t treat them as kindly. I would most likely just ignore and avoid them.

「Well, Fina and Noa are both good children. Not to mention the children at the orphanage and Flora-hime as well. I wouldn’t do the same if they were selfish and unbehaved, though.」

「Fufu, I’m happy to hear you praise my daughter as such.」

She said with a big smile, clearly pleased with my comment.

Right next to me, Shaila looked over at Zelef-san holding onto the new recipe.

「Head Chef Zelef!」

She said loudly while raising her hand vigorously.

「What is it?」

「Can you please teach me that recipe as well?」

「Obviously, I can’t.」

「No way… 」

Shaila fell to her knees after Zelef-san shot her request down instantly.

Her depressed reaction was completely exaggerated.

「Dear uncle, you’re so unfair!」

She lifted her face, glancing at Zelef-san as she said that.

「Call me Head Chef.」

Zelef-san corrected her again.

Wouldn’t uncle be fine too?

Was keeping a hierarchical relationship that important even with relatives?

「Yuna-san.」

Shaila got up and looked at me, her eyes pleading me to teach her.

「I’m only telling him the recipe so that he can make it for Flora-hime.」

「I will also make it for Flora-hime!」

「There’s no way I can leave the cooking for the royal family to you.」

Shaila’s strong reply was immediately shot down by Zelef-san, making her depressed.

The other two chefs, who listened in on the conversation, also also wore disappointed expressions.

Zelef-san, on the other hand, simply kept reading the recipe while ignoring the three of them.

「So, this dish really uses eggs, huh.」

Lately, a lot of the recipes I had been bringing him used eggs…

「By the way, are you doing okay on the egg front?」

He required eggs fo so many recipes, so I worried he was running low.

「We have a place that we can get eggs from in the neighboring village, so we just had to increase the amount. It was a bit difficult to do so at the beginning, but that was taken care of.」

「I’m surprised they agreed.」

「I let them try some pudding and they quickly changed their minds.」

Did he just say he used pudding as a negotiation tool? I must have heard it wrong, right?

Zelef-san smiled when he saw my bewilderment.

「Yes. They had told me that if I produced a delicious enough dish using eggs then they might consider putting aside more eggs for us. With that, I just knew I had to make a large amount of pudding. We just needed to satisfy all of the villagers to win, after all.」

Feed all the villagers pudding didn’t sound like a normal negotiation technique to me… Usually, negotiations were done through adjusting the price, amount, and length of the contract, weren’t they? Could this even be considered negotiating?

Like, they could have tried convincing the villagers by saying that all those eggs would be used and that none of them were going to waste or something, not feeding them pudding.

Well, I also persuaded Morin-san through pudding and pizza…

The power of pudding had become truly terrifying.

I noticed that everybody already finished tasting the chawanmushi, so I figured it was about time to leave.

「Yuna-san, please visit our shop anytime; we’ll gladly serve you anything.」

Shaila-san said, and the other two chefs nodded in agreement.

「Okay, please take care of me when I come.」

「Yes, we will do our best!」

Eleanora-san and I finally left the shop after that.

Once outside, we were once again met by the giant bears standing guard by the entrance.

I had completely forgotten about these…

In the end, I couldn’t convince them to get rid of them. Moreover, I even taught them how to draw bears on the cakes…

A true Bear shop was going to open up in the capital at this rate.

Shaila had told me I could come anytime, but it would be difficult to approach this place while wearing my Bear Suit.

「So what exactly did you come to the capital for, Yuna-chan? Did you come to visit Flora-hime?」

I couldn’t tell her that I had rushed here because of the Bear restaurant.

Not to mention the fact that I had found out about it through Sanya-san’s bird and then immediately teleported here by using the Bear Gate… There was no way I could possibly explain that to her.

「Oh… Yeah, that’s right. I drew a new picture book so I was on my way to bring it to Flora-hime.」

「A new picture book you say? Flora-hime will be so happy.」

Well, I wasn’t really lying. I did plan to give Flora-hime the picture book. I just hadn’t planned to do it today.

As we chatted, we slowly made our way towards the castle.

「So, what should I do with this picture book?」

「What do you mean? Aren’t you going to give it to Flora-hime?」

「Don’t you want to duplicate it? You probably won’t be able to do that if I give it to Flora-hime first.」

「You thought that far ahead? Don’t worry about it. She’ll let me borrow it if I ask her. You should definitely give it to her first; I think she would be happier that way.」

Just like that, it was decided that Flora-hime would get the book first, and only then would Eleanora-san duplicate it.

「Still, I do want to read it. Can you show it to me now?」

「Sure.」

Eleanora-san’s changed direction and we headed to her mansion so that she could peruse it first.

Suririna-san came over to greet us the moment when we entered: I had last met her when I was dealing with the Golem case but so many things had happened since then. It truly felt like it had been a long been awhile since I last saw her.

「 Yuna-sama, welcome.」

「Sorry for coming unannounced, Suririna-san.」

「Can you prepare some tea for us, Suririna?」

「Yes, I will bring it to you immediately.」

Once we entered Elenora-san’s study, I took out the third volume of the picture book and pa.s.sed it to her.

「The artwork is cute as always.」

She commented and began flipping through the book.

Soon, Suririna-san brought us the tea. We thanked her and both took a sip.

「This girl is Shuri-chan, isn’t she?」

Eleanora-san pointed at the girl in the picture book.

「You’ve met Shuri?」

「Yes, she was with Fina-chan when I visited Crimonia. She’s very cute. Please do come visit me if you bring her to the capital next time.」

「Um… Sure.」

I didn’t have any plans on coming to the capital again in the near future, so when the occasion came by, I noted in my mind that I should bring them along.

Eleanora-san continued flipping through the pages.

「They’re parting from Bear-san…」

Flip. Flip.

「Bear-san saved them from monsters. Bear-san is like a hero. Oh, and Swaying Bear and Hugging Bear appeared. Awww, this is really cute.」

Flip. Flip.

「Oh my, they became small so that they can now live together. I want small bears just like them too.」

She then reached the last page but said nothing.

「What do you think?」

「It’s great. I do have a question though.」

「What is it?」

「What happened to the other people who were riding on the carriage?」

Fina had asked me the same question. Would that part really bring up questions for the majority of readers?

「I didn’t explicitly state it, so feel free to interpret it as you will.」

「Interpret it on my own, huh. You’re touching upon some heavy questions, Yuna-chan. People interpret things differently. The people either got killed after abandoning the girl’s family or they successfully escaped. People can either think it was fine for them to escape because they were in danger as well, or think that they deserved to die since they ran away and abandoned the girl’s family.」

「Do you think I should change it?」

「No, I think it’s fine the way it is. We’ll have to think of an answer if Flora-hime asks about it, though. What do you think we should tell her?」

She said and returned the book to me.

As I said, it was up to how the reader interpret it, so I couldn’t give her an answer.

If they were raised to be brave and helpful, they would most likely think that the other pa.s.sengers should have stayed behind to help the girl’s family.

As for someone who was raised to make quick decisions to help themselves, like merchants for instance, they would probably think that them escaping was the right thing to do.

They might tell their kids that it was due to indecision of the girl’s family that they were unable to escape in time.

Hmm, what would the royalty teach their kids in such a case?

They should first secure their own safety as they were royalty, right?

On the other hand, how could they just abandon their countrymen?

Royal education sure must be difficult…

As we chatted about the contents of the picture book, suddenly there was some noise in the halway and the door swung open. Looking and the culprit, it was Shia, in her school uniform.

「Mother, is it true that Yuna-san is here?!」

「It’s true, so calm down.」

「It’s been a while, Shia.」

「Yuna-san!」

She rushed up to me happily. Not long afterwards, Cattleya, Marcus, and Timor all also joined us in their uniform.

Author’s Notes:

The way Suririna-san calls Yuna has changed: I’ve matched it with the published version, which is 「Yuna-sama.」

Please don’t let this change bother you to much.

It’s been a while since I included the group of four from the school arc.

I forget about some people if I don’t write about them in a while, so please forgive me. lol