Clink...
A quiet, gentle, yet stiff sound reached my ears: the sound of a teacup being placed on a saucer. It was elegant and refined. If I had done the same action, the sound would’ve been far more crude.
The ground occupied about sixty percent of my field of vision as I knelt there, gazing at a butterfly resting on the calm spring grass in front of me. A schoolgirl carrying a silver tray walked past me towards the source of the sound. I carefully looked up right about when she began lining two glass bottles atop a white table sitting in the middle of a gazebo.
The bottle on the right contained an amber liquid, my household’s merchandise. The one on the left contained a yellow liquid, my rival’s merchandise. Next to them was a plate of rectangular baked sweets. Judging from the color of the batter, they were biscuits made of refined flour that didn’t make use of any brown sugar. I see... so they planned to compare the taste of the honey by dabbing it on those biscuits.
To think I would be taking such a big risk at a tea party in the courtyard after school—one that could influence my entire future. This is why high society is so...
The girl waiting on them bowed before excusing herself, and the one sitting at the center of the table came into sight: a girl with platinum hair that went down to her waist. This was a classmate of mine.
The ones sitting beside her were noble girls wearing the same Catholic school-style uniform as the one who was waiting on them, but they still gave off an elegant air which made them look like they were from a completely different world. To use a term from my previous world, they were like idols. Setting that aside, the image of them sitting together was like a work of art.
The girl at the center was the source of this competition. Strictly speaking, she was my classmate, but classifying her so simply would probably get me executed. I fundamentally lack any social connections to begin with, and adding on the fact that I’m not a native of high society, she’s far too volatile a person to deal with.
That’s exactly why I kept my distance. She had all sorts of official duties to handle and didn’t attend school much, so I never even talked to her to begin with. That’s why I had a critical lack of information regarding her during this critical moment. What reason does she have to intervene in a quarrel between two commoners, anyway?
And just as I looked up as far as I could to confirm what sort of expression she was making...
“How about composing yourself a little, Ricardo Weinder? You’re being ill-mannered.” The one criticizing me with a sharp gaze was a fellow male student, on his knee on the grass right next to me in the same posture. He wore a uniform made of far nicer fabrics atop his plump body than what I had on. His chestnut hair was well kept to the point where it didn’t move an inch, but I could see a slight contortion to his expression.
He surely didn’t like this situation at all, either. As the heir to the Dreyfan Company, the representative of the Culinary Guild, which also happened to be the largest of all mercantile guilds in the Kingdom, just having my merchandise lined up next to his on the same table was surely an unforgivable disgrace.
Even so, I was in complete agreement that this sudden competition was a bit of a nuisance. Actually, this was way more serious for me than it was for this rich boy. This wasn’t because I lacked confidence in my own merchandise—our Weinder Company’s “copper honey” and the Dreyfan Company’s “gold honey” differ in retail price by a factor of ten. However, there was no actual difference when it comes to the pure quality of the merchandise itself. That’s because I carefully guided its reputation to be like that on purpose.
I don’t care if you’re a royal princess, or an oracle, or an oracle princess, or whatever, you got some nerve to mess with my business strategy on your own like this...
And so, I recalled the hardships of starting up a beekeeping business here in “this” world.