Luid's Cooking Class (4)
Happiness, Luid had always believed, was nothing complicated. Eat well, live well — that was all there was to it. He had zero interest in dispatching villains on someone's behalf or untangling the Empire's assorted problems.
But his actions had a habit of circling back with results no one could have predicted.
"So, is there anything you desire? If you want territory, I shall grant you territory. If you want treasure, treasure it shall be."
The Emperor declared that this whole affair had been of tremendous benefit to the Empire, and that he intended to bestow a suitably grand reward.
Luid was simply dumbfounded.
Tremendous benefit to the Empire??
All he had done was crave tteokbokki and put the kids on ingredient-running duty. That was it. That was the entire crime.
The Emperor's lavish praise was honestly hard to sit through.
"I'm fine, really, Your Majesty. Do eat plenty of good food yourself."
"Haha, worrying for my health now, are you? Here I am drowning in your praise, and you're the one looking after me. You truly are an impossible nephew, Luid. No wonder I can't help doting on you."
Seated on the throne, Lucius beckoned to his aide with a flick of the hand.
Michael hurried over and leaned in close to his ear.
At the Emperor's whisper, Michael's eyes went wide.
"Y-you mean that? Truly, that item?"
"Do not make me say it twice."
"F-forgive me. I shall prepare it at once—"
"??"
Luid felt a flicker of curiosity. The Emperor flashed him a broad, gleaming smile.
"Choosing a reward worthy of Windsor is no easy task, even for me. There is scarcely anything in this world you lack, is there? Anything but this throne itself — and that, alas, I cannot part with."
The Emperor delivered this thoroughly terrifying joke with a shrug of his shoulders.
"And so I concluded that a commendation for Windsor must, by rights, be the very best of what I possess."
What on earth is he planning to give me.
Still, a gift from the Emperor did spark a faint flicker of anticipation. Excessive, perhaps, for having merely cooked some tteokbokki.
Please let it be a blanket…
Luid's face bloomed with hope, his lips parting slightly.
Before long, Michael returned with half a dozen knights in tow. They carried a coffin-like case draped in crimson cloth — and Luid's expression brightened at once.
A bed!
A portable bed, no less! He was already feeling satisfied with the whole arrangement.
A knight gently set the case down, then slowly — very, very slowly — began to lift the lid.
With a soft hiss, it slid open.
Inside lay a cloth so magnificently plush it looked like it would swallow him whole.
It really was a bed! Luid felt an immediate, overwhelming urge to march over and lie down in it right now.
Except…
"This is the Staff of Dellin. As the Thirteenth Emperor, I hereby bestow it upon Luid Christopher Windsor."
The words fell like a bolt from the blue.
The Emperor reached into the crimson case and drew something out. It was a staff.
A staff radiating an immense, overwhelming power.
"The Staff of Dellin…?"
"Haha, look at you. So even you can be stunned speechless. Indeed, it is the very staff once wielded by the great Archmage Dellin herself. There is not another like it in all the world."
The Emperor boasted proudly.
Can't eat it. Can't sleep under it.
Luid sulked in silence.
Taken aback by the lukewarm reception, the Emperor grew flustered.
"D-do you… not like it?"
But even Luid had enough social sense for this. He mustered the most enthusiastic reaction of his life.
"Wow— I'm so happy."
On the way back, Damon was sweeping fallen leaves with a broom.
It was, frankly, a spectacularly ill-suited combination.
"What are you doing?"
Luid walked straight up and asked. Damon met his gaze and answered with perfect confidence.
"Serving my punishment."
"…Punishment?"
"Indeed. The supreme punishment for one of royal blood is humiliation. His Majesty has commanded me to reflect upon myself by performing labors fit for a mere attendant."
The corner of Damon's mouth curled upward.
"But something like this will never break me. My spirit remains unbowed — worry not."
Could you please break a little.
"…Good luck with that."
Still, Luid offered his encouragement. He was just about to walk on when Damon abruptly spoke.
"The tteokbokki. It was delicious."
"Thanks."
For all that, the kid's decent.
Damon was easy to misjudge, Luid thought, but at heart his character seemed genuinely sound. Luid watched him sweep for a moment with an awkward expression, then turned and continued on his way.
The cooking class had gotten a better reception than he'd expected — it even felt a little rewarding, somehow.
Next time… kimchi fried rice.
If he made that for them, wouldn't people literally pass out? Luid gave the matter his full, serious consideration.
Luid's residence. He was chatting with Hershey.
"When on earth is Amelia coming home?"
"I-I was just thinking the same. Could something have happened to her?"
It had been three days since the tteokbokki class. Amelia still hadn't returned to the residence. Neither had Sherry. She'd seemed to follow Amelia along to grade her — and yet the normally meticulous Sherry hadn't sent so much as a single letter.
Did that idiot get lost?
Even the most indifferent person alive couldn't help worrying at this point.
"…Shall we go look for them?"
Hershey asked, a touch too casually.
Just the two of us, off to a quiet mountain range… that's — well, that's basically a date.
Having very much wanted to go on a date with Luid, Hershey argued her case with uncharacteristic vigor.
"I don't know about that."
Luid slyly turned his head away.
Deflected!!
"Amelia's not the type to go around getting knocked about somewhere."
He was worried, sure — but only in the sense of, what if she wandered around lost and went a little hungry.
"Besides, that's the Melan Mountain Range. If it's monsters she's facing, our sister will never lose."
He said it with absolute conviction. Amelia might be weaker than Irene, but when it came to hunting, she had more talent than Irene did. Where Irene brought home a single kill, Amelia would come back with a cart piled high with monsters.
"…She probably went out on the excuse of gathering ingredients, got a taste of hunting monsters again after so long, and just lost herself in it."
"I see…"
Hershey was openly, visibly crushed. She'd just missed out on an event that might have brought them closer.
"Anyway, how are the nobles these days? Any complaints?"
Luid slurped his tea through a straw as he asked. When a noble made noise while eating, it meant one of two things: either a brute with no consideration for others, or someone so comfortable with their company that manners simply didn't matter.
Since the former categorically did not apply to Hershey, it was surely the latter. Her expression brightened again.
"Your cooking class is tremendously popular, Luid. It's all anyone talks about."
"Not my class — just, you know, the general mood. Nobody pushing back against the merit system?"
"Nobles hate wasting time on things that don't benefit them. Rather than spend effort on resisting, most figure they may as well rack up some merit points. Though a few nobles do seem displeased about commoners being taught etiquette."
Teaching manners to commoners. She'd heard that some nobles resented it, viewing it as extending their exclusive privileges to the lower classes. But they were a minority, and most found it didn't bother them in the slightest — if anything, they preferred it this way.
"That's a relief. And the commoners?"
"……There are some insolent stirrings, I'm afraid. According to the investigation we ran through Miho recently."
Miho purred as if to say praise me, praise me. Luid gave her head a gentle scratch.
"These insolent stirrings — is the Countess involved?"
Hershey's eyes went round.
"How did you know?"
"Hmm. Then just leave it be."
It's playing out exactly like the original. Somehow or other.
Luid mused on this, feeling the Staff of Dellin hidden within his robes. In the original story, this was an item Justin was supposed to earn as a reward through a particular episode — a staff so potent that anyone short of a true mage couldn't even use it.
Each time the underwhelming Justin managed to draw out another one percent of its performance, he grew stronger. That was its design.
Needless to say, now that it had landed in his own hands, Luid had not the slightest intention of returning it.
This one, I'm not telling anyone about.
The name Dellin carried enormous weight among mages. In boxing, she was Muhammad Ali; in science, Einstein. Sensational — and the author of countless foundational theories of magic. To this day, the accepted truth was that no mage had ever surpassed Dellin.
Of course, Luid didn't see it that way. He had already surpassed Dellin long ago.
"Everything lies in the palm of your hand, doesn't it, Luid?"
Luid held out his hand. Hershey blinked at the small, adorable hand.
"My hand is tiny."
"……."
That was a joke. Was it not funny?
Luid lowered his hand as if nothing had happened — but a faint flush crept up his face out of sheer embarrassment.
"Oh, right. Luid, when will your next class be? I noticed yours doesn't have a set schedule."
His classes ran entirely on his own whim. When he felt like it, he taught; when he didn't, he didn't. The tteokbokki lesson might well have been the first and last of them.
But now the Emperor had gone and given him the Staff of Dellin, and the man clearly expected great things…
What a pain, honestly.
…Because to Luid, the Emperor was family too. He couldn't bear to disappoint him.
"…I'll hold it as soon as Amelia's back."
"As soon as she's back?"
Hershey was considerably surprised.
"Luid's been so diligent lately."
"Does it show?"
It felt rather nice, having his hard work acknowledged. He was a little pleased.
"Yes! Lately you've been sleeping only fifteen hours a day, and you're only an hour late to appointments now."
…What? Why do I suddenly feel like a hopelessly derelict human being?
Luid blinked. Well — for an unemployed layabout, that much was practically model behavior. It was probably meant as a compliment, so he accepted it with a proud heart.
"Thanks."
Two days passed. Luid immediately reported to his mother.
"She's off playing by herself and hasn't given me a single thought, I just know it."
[Have her report to me the moment she returns. More importantly, Luid. Are you eating properly?]
"Yep."
A few more pleasantries, and Luid ended the call. This time he connected to Irene.
"Amelia won't come home. Scold her."
[That girl is useless. Don't worry, Lui — I'll beat her half to death.]
"Half of a half."
And so another week went by.
It was also a week Luid spent holed up in Amelia's room.
Today, once again, he activated a crystal orb.
"Amelia won't come home."
He didn't even call her "sister" anymore. Inside the orb, Victoria looked utterly pained.
[Luid, sweetheart, this is only the third transmission you've sent today.]
Forty crystal orbs spent today alone.
At gold value, that came to four million gold. Considering the entire fortune of the residence Luid lived in was a mere two hundred thousand gold, it was an astronomical sum.
Worse, that was only what Luid had burned through. It didn't even count the orbs kept at Windsor Castle. Including those, the total climbed to eight million gold — a figure beyond all reason.
[Amelia needs no worrying, as I've told you. There is no one near where she went who could pose her any threat.]
"Who said anything about worrying? I'm not worried at all. She's just annoying me."
[Ahem. …Our crystal orbs at the castle are running rather low, you know. Why not simply leave one connected and spend the whole day talking with your mother instead—]
"So it's the orbs you care about?"
Click.
Luid cut the connection. Hugging his pillow, he glared at the orb with a face full of grievance.
This time he sent a transmission to Irene. As always, she was wearing that smile of hers — the one Luid found distinctly unhinged. Today, though, it felt wonderfully reassuring.
"Amelia won't come home."
[Desertion. Deserving of death.]
"Right?"
[Abandoning a little brother of twelve to run off from home. Unforgivable.]
Luid nodded deeply.
"You're the only one who understands, Irene. Irene's the best. I like Irene the most."
Irene's smile deepened, and deepened.
CRASH!
-L-Lady Victoria!
A commotion echoed through the orb. The door burst open, and Victoria appeared before the crystal, wiping cold sweat from her brow.
[S-son! I believe there's been some sort of misunderstanding—]
"There was never any misunderstanding to begin with."
Luid severed the connection. Curling up on his bed, he muttered:
"…Should I go look for her?"
Absence this long was a problem, no question. And yet he couldn't bring himself to go.
Sherry hadn't come back either, which meant this was some kind of test.
During the black mage incident, Amelia had genuinely hated the idea of him getting involved. If he intervened now, it could wound her pride.
…He hated the thought of family drifting apart.
And yet, at the same time — disappearing this long without sending so much as a single letter was just, just infuriating.
"Just try showing your face."
Amelia entered the residence with a contented smile on her face.
Fufu. I'm a bit late, I know — but with a prize like this, surely even Luid will be pleased.
She had gone to the Melan Mountain Range in search of smelt. Along the way, she'd crossed paths with an old fisherman…
"D'you know it, lass? Atop the highest peak of the Melan Range dwells the Ice God."
The God of the Smelt — the Ice God.
After hearing the legend of that mythical being, Amelia had found herself unable to settle for ordinary smelt.
And so she had wandered the mountain range endlessly, all in pursuit of a legendary fish…
"Ah, Sherry. You've worked hard. Go on and get some rest."
"…Yes."
The moment Sherry heard those words, she collapsed face-first onto the floor.
Amelia shook her head.
"To think my brother's maid would have such poor stamina."
She had not slept so much as a wink in over a week, and that she'd lasted this long at all was nothing short of a miracle — a fact entirely lost on Amelia. Tidying herself up so she could hurry off to see Luid, she opened the door to his room.
"Huh?"
There sat Luid on his own bed.
The moment he saw Amelia, a flicker of gladness crossed his face — before it twisted into something ferocious.
"Why are you here…"
"……."
His mana suddenly roiled. Every object in the room rattled loose and clattered to the floor with a long, grinding rumble.
"GET OUT!!"
The door slammed shut with a bang.
"…Lui?"
Amelia froze, the fish still slung over her shoulder.
The fish thrashed about without mercy.