Having added locally grown potatoes to thicken the soup, which contained vegetables, various spices, and meat that’d been allowed to slowly simmer, Floedina had put her all into the stew. She’d then poured this onto freshly picked vegetables cut into dice-sized cubes. While it was a very hearty dish, it was nevertheless delicately balanced. She’d used just the right amount of spice, and the sweetness from the tomatoes made it that much better, so that it pushed everything in the dish to even greater heights when it mixed with the vegetables.
This is sure to be a hit even with someone who dislikes tomatoes.
Mira felt that the salad stew stood a very good chance of helping them accomplish their mission. Just like Floedina had said, if someone took but a single bite of it, they’d surely take another and then another.
The issue was getting Alfina to take that first bite. From what she could tell, Alfina wouldn’t even look at it, much less take a bite of it. And so, she poured pressure on Floedina by staring at her as if to ask what the big idea was.
Now, perhaps for this very reason, Floedina had barely touched her breakfast.
As she silently beseeched Mira for the umpteenth time, her face was as white as a ghost. She probably couldn’t hold out much longer.
Your kindness will be rewarded.
Floedina had known all along that this would cause Alfina to pour such pressure on her, but she’d nevertheless been determined to help her overcome her dislike of tomatoes. Knowing this full well, Mira finally nodded back, ready to begin the operation.
Right then, Christina, who had nothing whatsoever to do with their operation, stood up with her empty plate in hand. Walking lightly, she made her way straight to the stew pot.
“The meat was a bit heavier, so there’s quite a bit of it at the bottom of the pot!” she said.
Apparently, she’d moved on from Selestina’s French toast and now had her eyes on getting a second portion of stew meat. Opening the lid to the stew pot with ladle in hand, she began scooping out stew from the bottom of the pot. And, just like she’d planned, she scooped out chunk after chunk of meat that’d sunk to the bottom of the pot.
“Hey, seeee?” Christina said, with a plate piled high with meat in her hand and a joyful grin on her face, in what was a refreshingly honest and unadulterated act of gluttony.
But Mira realized that this was a perfect opportunity. Flashing a bold smile, she said, “Come now, Christina. How about taking some more vegetables as well, instead of just meat? Ya know, I saw you moving most of your vegetables onto Selestina’s plate.”
Watching as Mira stood up after saying this, Christina cried, “Hngh!” and shuddered. And just a second later, with all eyes in the room now trained on her, Christina felt as if she were sitting on a bed of nails.
“I thought I had a lot of vegetables for some reason. So that’s what was going on…” Selestina, the victim of the crime, said. And, picking up her plate of vegetable salad stew, she shot Christina an icy glare.
If anything, it was odd that she hadn’t noticed sooner. Maybe she’d been so busy looking forward to polishing off the rest of her French toast that she hadn’t even had a chance to notice.
And yet, Selestina didn’t seem to have any further punishment in mind for Christina.
Most of the other sisters simply shook their heads. The general consensus seemed to be that such things weren’t out of the ordinary when it came to Christina.
And right then, Mira made her next move.
“Hey, hand it over.”
Seizing the opportunity, Mira walked over to Christina with a grin and plucked the plate of meat from her. She then lifted the lid off of the pot and, ladle in hand, added a load of tomatoes right on top.
“You’ve got to eat your veggies, especially the tomatoes. I picked and chopped those myself. What do you think? Pretty tasty, right?”
Mira then held out the plate, which was now loaded with so many tomatoes that the meat was no longer even visible. Meanwhile, Christina hung her head in despair as she beheld what’d happened to her plate. But at that moment, a shocked voice cried out, “Huh? You did, Master?!”
It was Elievina. Having realized that the tomatoes had been chopped in a rather crude and un-Floedina-like way, she’d reacted quite quickly.
“Then it’d be a waste to not eat all of them,” she said with feigned concern, before standing up with bowl in hand and walking over.
“Oh ho, Elievina, you want some more tomatoes too, do you?” Mira said, grabbing her plate as well and turning to load it with tomatoes.
This rather surprised Elievina, who said, “Ah, Master, I can do that my…” inferring that she couldn’t allow Mira to wait on her. And so, smiling at the rather flustered Elievina, Mira said, “Don’t you worry, I’m already here,” before also loading her plate with plenty of meat and handing it back.
“Th-thank you,” Elievina said, happily taking the plate back. Then, when they saw this, the rest of the sisters all rose one by one.
“At this rate, we won’t have any trouble finishing off the whole pot.”
This was quite a rare opportunity, and so the sisters brought their bowls over so they might get some of the tomatoes that their master had both picked and prepared for them. While they weren’t quite as obsessed as Alfina, they were cut from the same fabric.
Meanwhile, Bruce had also managed to quietly slip in alongside the sisters. This was a rare opportunity for him as well, to be Served by Danblf, the One-Man Army, who happened to be one of the Nine Wise Men and someone he revered.
Alfina, who’d hadn’t moved an inch, finally acted when she saw Mira dishing out the stew. Sure enough, she then began to stare at the plate of vegetable salad stew, which she previously hadn’t even glanced at.
While she had been glaring rather harshly at Floedina, this time, she looked different. Looking as if she were a warrior who’d fixed her mind on her approaching death, she picked up her spoon. Then, raising her spoon up as the headsman might do with their axe, she scooped up a tomato. Looking as if she had no regrets, she opened her eyes wide and then took a bite with the same force as the headsman bringing down their axe.
She then chewed once, twice, and finally three times. Meanwhile, Floedina held her breath and watched her in suspense. She was confident that the dish she’d made would please even someone who disliked tomatoes, and yet, given that the one doing the tasting this time was a diehard tomato hater, she was still uneasy. Praying that she’d like it, Floedina watched for Alfina’s reaction.
So, had it worked? Even if it hadn’t been a success, they couldn’t know how she’d react. Or so Floedina worried until she saw the best possible reaction that she could’ve hoped for.
Swallowing the tomato and then taking a second and third bite, Alfina began wolfing down the salad stew.
“Yes, we did it!” Floedina exclaimed in a low voice, trembling with joy. The operation was an unparalleled success.