Side Story 4:
Dacquoise
It had all started when the old lady from the agency came to chat with me. I’d known her since I was just starting out as an adventurer.
“Little Sarah, I want to talk to you about something related to that housekeeping job you asked me to look into a while back. Do you mind?”
The woman had asked me to meet her at a pub I liked to eat at regularly. Rough folks usually stayed away from that place.
“Little Sarah, about that housekeeper you’re looking for…” As usual, the woman rubbed her hip as she spoke to me. “Do you care if they’re a demon?”
“A demon? Hmm. Could you give me the details?”
I was a little surprised by the old woman’s words but soon calmed myself down. It wasn’t particularly rare in the Empire to hire demons as housekeepers when one was gone. In the Kingdom, though, it was unheard of. That was why I figured that there had to be extenuating circumstances or something.
“Well, you see, I’ve been giving jobs to this young lady during the day lately. She’s a hard, serious worker, honest, polite, and strangely well kept.” As she apparently recalled the girl in question, the woman couldn’t help smiling. Her expression soon darkened, though. “At this rate, some dastardly bastard’s gonna catch her in his sights.”
“Look, I totally understand,” she added. “Hiring a demon as a housekeeper is crazy. But rotten folks wouldn’t dare go near your house, right?”
“I suppose.”
I was a little annoyed by how she’d worded it, but I got what she was implying. She wasn’t wrong. The Gold family was big business in the Kingdom. As such, we had connections to adventurers, nobles, knights, mages, and even priests.
Lowbrow punks on the street would never have wanted to get involved with us. As much as I hated to admit it, even I’d avoided trouble thanks to my family name.
“So, what do you think? Yes, she’s a demon, but she really is a good girl. I just can’t bear to see someone like her struggle.”
She gazed at me pleadingly, almost like a mother begging someone to watch over her daughter.
I recalled that I’d heard rumors that the old lady at the job agency was a demon. When she was a baby, her human mother had apparently cut off her tail and raised her as a human. But when she got older, married, and had a demon child, she was chased from her home. At the end of her long, tragic path, she’d eventually started a job agency.
“Fine. I’ll meet with her, at least. I can’t guarantee I’ll hire her, though. Is that all right?”
I couldn’t help being curious about the demon girl that the old woman recommended so fiercely.
“Thank you so much. I’ll give her a map and tell her to come by later.” The old lady’s face wore a bright smile.
As luck had it, Aletta—the Restaurant to Another World’s demon waitress—showed up at my front door.
✦ ✦ ✦
My honest opinion was that hiring Aletta as my housekeeper had been an even better decision than I’d thought at the time.
She was excellent when it came to cleaning, and she was smart. Although she couldn’t read, she had a sharp memory and never forgot anything I asked of her. She also paid a great deal of attention to detail. Besides, the numerous goods and trinkets she received from the restaurant’s master were all so mysterious and wonderful, they piqued my curiosity.
Aletta was also tremendously talented at boiling cobbler’s tubers. The ones she made only had salt and butter on them, but they were surprisingly delicious. When I told her as much, she’d happily explained that the master himself taught her how to make them.
Just by hiring Aletta, I transformed my house from a place where I simply stored things into a rather cozy place to stay.
My little sister, Shia, used to only come by on occasion. Now she practically lived here.