“I’m off, then.”
“Yes, take care. Have a good time.”
Time really did fly. Leticiel had played with Tina and Deet, and before she knew it, it was nighttime.
She, Nicole, and the twins were currently seeing Ruvik off at the front entrance. He’d promised Claud that they’d get drinks at a bar in Nirvaan that night.
It had been Claud’s idea. Ruvik had seemed unsure, too worried about the manor, until Leticiel heard about the offer and forced him to take the time off. Ruvik already tended to work too much. If she didn’t twist his arm into resting, he genuinely seemed like he might collapse from overworking.
“We’ll stay here a little longer.”
“We’re going to stay a little longer!”
After seeing Ruvik off, Leticiel thought the twins would say their goodbyes, as well… But they betrayed her expectations. Each of them held a cloth bag filled with treats.
“Huh? You aren’t going home yet?”
“Yeah, we’re not leaving,” they said in-sync.
Leticiel had assumed they would take their bags of sweets and go home. Clasping hands, they flew around while holding the hands they weren’t holding up.
“We still want to play, after all,” Tina said, expressionless.
“We still wanna play!” Deet pursed his lips in a whiny pout.
Leticiel smiled wryly. “Well, I suppose that’s fine. You can stay here until you play to your heart’s content.”
“Woohoo!” the kids cheered. Leticiel had no particular reason to force them out, so she decided to let them do as they liked. After landing on the ground, the twins returned to the hall.
“I’m surprised,” Nicole said, letting out a long, deep sigh as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as she and Leticiel followed the children back inside. Her tension had lessened over time, but she still didn’t seem fully comfortable around the spirits. “To think that spirits aren’t actually extinct, and that they’d suddenly appear at the manor…”
Commoners, too, knew of spirits, though through myths and fairy tales. Many women liked the spirits of the fairy tale worlds who spread their wings and flew around. Nicole was one of them. She was so flustered while baking their snacks that she’d messed up the temperature and baking time three different times. So that’s why I heard all those sounds coming from the kitchen, Leticiel had thought when she first heard the story. Everything made sense.
“Yes, I certainly didn’t expect Tina and Deet to visit me out of the blue. But they really seemed to be attached to you and Ruvik,” Leticiel commented. At first, Nicole and Ruvik had maintained a delicate distance from the spirits, their surprise and bewilderment at the spirits’ presence preventing them from coming too close or moving too far away. But after the twins approached them, they gradually joined the play circle.
“That’s, um… They’re still children, so they’re just so cute… Oh, I suppose it’s rude to say that, right?! Erm, um…” Nicole struggled to find the right words, but it seemed like she was unable to.
It’s a good thing I didn’t tell her that Tina and Deet are spirit kings. Leticiel had only told Nicole and Ruvik that they were spirits when she introduced the twins. Considering the amount of surprise that had caused, spirit-fan Nicole might have fainted if she learned their true nature.
“It’s already getting late,” Nicole commented. “I’d better start getting dinner ready, if you have the space for it.”
“Hmm, I had quite a lot of snacks, so I’m not very hungry. But it would be unhealthy to get by on sweets alone. Tina, Deet, what would you two like to do?” Despite how many of Nicole’s homemade goods Leticiel had eaten earlier, she didn’t think they would keep her full until morning. Plus, surviving off of sweets wasn’t good for one’s body. It would likely be best to get proper food in her stomach. She questioned the twins, who were holding hands and kicking a ball around. What would they choose?
“Food? Human food?”
“Food? Something yummy?”
“Yes, I think it would be yummy.”
“Then we’ll eat.”
“I want to eat it!”
The twins responded immediately. She’d noticed it earlier, but the twins seemed very interested in the human world’s food. Were spirits not accustomed to eating things like cookies and cakes?
“Drossell, may we go back to the other room?”
“Drossell, can we continue playing the game from earlier?”
“Of course. I’ll call for you when dinner is ready.”
“Okay!” the twins chimed in-sync, raising their clasped hands together in acknowledgement before padding out of the hall.
“Well, it seems they’d like to eat,” Leticiel said to Nicole.
“All right. Then I’ll get everything ready! To think that I get to cook for spirits…”
“Wait, I’ll help you,” Leticiel said, grabbing Nicole’s sleeve as she headed for the kitchen.
Nicole turned around in surprise, her eyes wide. “Huh?! Y-You will? No, I couldn’t possibly allow that!”
“I’m a surprisingly good cook, so allow me to help.”
“Wha…?! I can’t allow you to cook… Rather, I can’t put you in danger!”
“But Ruvik’s not here today, and it’d be hard for you to prepare everything yourself, right?”
“N-No! Not at all… Wait, my lady, where are you going?!”
“To the kitchen.” Leticiel strode toward the kitchen door. She hadn’t been living in the manor for long, but she knew how difficult it was to prepare meals when there were almost no servants.
She always tried to help Nicole and Ruvik, who cooked together, but they always stopped her. Still, she couldn’t allow them to struggle all the time.
“What are you going to make today?” she asked Nicole while carefully washing her hands.
Seeming to have given up on stopping her mistress, Nicole replied while pulling out ingredients, “Well… Since they had many sweets earlier, perhaps a healthy cream soup with plenty of vegetables?”
“Then I’ll cut the vegetables.”
“Huh?! It’s too dangerous for you to use a knife, my lady! Please stand back!”
“Oh, I’ll be fine.” Leticiel picked up the knife and vegetables and began to chop them with a quick and practiced hand. The speed of her movements had Nicole gaping.
“My lady, why are you so good at using a knife?”
“Because I’m used to cooking.” In her previous life, it would have been outrageous for her to be unable to cook for herself just because she was royalty. She had learned all the skills needed to make camp so she could survive even if she found herself all alone in a forest.
For a while, Nicole still seemed hesitant to let Leticiel hold the knife. She occasionally observed Leticiel while preparing the pot, making the latter somewhat uncomfortable, but not to the point that her work was affected. In the end, she finished cutting all of the vegetables.
Nicole accepted the prepared vegetables from her. While waiting for the meat to come, Leticiel picked up a cloth to wipe up the excess water.
“Then I’ll take these… Wah!” Nicole turned to take the bowl of vegetables to the pot, but she suddenly tripped over thin air and pitched forward, losing her balance.
Without even having time to put the cloth in her hand down, Leticiel reached out for Nicole. Thanks to the physical enhancement spell she’d cast on her arm, she managed to grab Nicole around the stomach right before she fell.
“Nicole, are you all right?” Leticiel asked worriedly, gallantly holding the woman up with one hand.
Nicole took a moment to respond, too preoccupied with figuring out what had happened. “Y-Y-Yes!”
“Good. Be careful.” Righting Nicole, Leticiel smiled softly and nonchalantly returned to her work. She was so cool that Nicole’s heart raced before she came to her senses with a gasp.
“What is wrong with me? She’s my mistress…”
“Nicole, where should I put this meat when I’m done cutting it? …Huh?” Leticiel put her knife down and turned around, tilting her head at the sight of Nicole sitting with her back pressed against the kitchen wall.
BANG!
Just then, the women heard a loud sound coming from the entryway. The sudden event instantly had Leticiel on alert.
“My lady! My lady, are you here?!” Though it was muffled by the walls, she was certain that was Ruvik’s voice. Instantly putting her work aside, Leticiel hurried out to the hall and saw Ruvik, who hadn’t been gone long. He was sweating and breathing heavily, and he’d been in such a hurry that his hair and clothes were in disarray.
Behind him was a young man Leticiel had never seen before. The boy’s face was so pale, she was worried he might collapse at any moment.
“Ruvik? I thought you were going out?”
“M-My lady, it’s horrible!”
“Calm down. What happened? Who is this?” Leticiel ran over to Ruvik and patted his back, questioning him as he gasped for breath with his hands on his knees.
“Ah, that man is…a gardener from the duke’s manor.”
“The duke’s manor?” What business could a servant working there possibly have with her?
The question was quickly erased from her mind when Ruvik urged, “More importantly, my lady, it’s horrible! Claud is…!”
“What?” At Ruvik’s cry, the air in the entrance stiffened, a tense atmosphere filling the manor. Completely erasing all hints of emotion from her face, Leticiel icily asked in a quiet voice, “Ruvik, what’s going on? What happened to Claud?”
Ruvik momentarily shrunk back at his mistress’s unusual aura, but after steeling his resolve he said, “Claud has been punished for an act of disrespect against the duchess. He’s been locked in the cellar under the manor.”
“What?” Leticiel’s eyebrows twitched. According to Ruvik, he had planned to meet Claud at the main gate to the duke’s manor, but the other man hadn’t showed up at the promised time. Ruvik had simply assumed that his work had run over, but he’d realized that something was wrong when he saw a young gardener stumble out of the main gate with a pale face.
“I don’t, um… I don’t know the details of what transpired, but—”
“U-Um, it’s all my fault!” the young gardener standing behind Ruvik said, cutting him off. Leticiel shifted her gaze to him. “I-If it wasn’t for my stupid mistake…”
“Please calm down. Will you tell me what happened?”
“Y-Yes.” Hunching his shoulders, the young gardener began to share what had occurred at the duke’s manor.
It had all started with him breaking a pot with Christa’s favorite flower planted inside. Claud, who had been working nearby, immediately gave him appropriate orders to fix the mess, but Diane happened to see the whole thing and flew into an outrage.
“So she punished Claud?”
“Yes. B-But that’s not all! After that, the duchess slipped on a puddle. Claud quickly moved to save her…but in exchange, he was wounded terribly!” According to him, Diane had thrown Claud into the cellar without any food because he had broken the vase and ruined her dress, even though he had actually saved her. The young gardener had been so upset that he ran out of the manor and asked Ruvik, whom he met by chance, for help.