The Rose's Thorn
Putting on an apron to cook a meal for someone else.
Something she never could have imagined before entering the Academy was happening now.
"Count yourself lucky."
Arsha grumbled, embarrassed for no good reason.
Johann watched her with a look of genuine pleasure.
"To think I'd get to eat Miss Arsha's homemade sandwich. I really do feel blessed."
"I-I'll have you know, this is the first time I've ever cooked! So don't you dare complain if it tastes bad! You eat that weird toothpaste ice cream just fine anyway!"
"I pity Miss Arsha for not understanding the magnificence of mint chocolate."
Ears burning crimson, Arsha rattled off the words in a breathless rush — textbook tsundere. The sharp, formidable air she usually carried was nowhere to be found. Johann laughed on purpose, a low little chuckle.
"I'll enjoy this."
Arsha's handmade egg sandwich. A dish no one in the world had ever tasted. Johann took a bite.
"Hmm…"
"H-how does it taste…?"
Arsha watched his face, taut with tension, as if her lungs had been pumped full of air. She'd told him not to worry if it was bad — but her heart clearly hadn't gotten the message.
"Hmm…"
Johann opened his mouth with a thoughtful hum. His expression was quite serious, the look of a judge at a cooking competition. Arsha stared at him with the rigid face of a student waiting for grades to be posted.
"Miss Arsha. What did you put in this?"
"I-I just mashed some ordinary boiled eggs. Seasoned them a bit with salt and pepper."
"Is that really all?"
"A-actually, I used sugar instead of salt. But I dumped in a bunch of salt to neutralize it, so it should be fine, right?"
Dumping in a pile of salt to neutralize the sugar. Johann was left speechless by this spectacular display of culinary incompetence. A violent sweet-and-salty punch was currently violating his tongue.
"And since you wouldn't have much appetite in the morning… I wanted to mix in a little sourness, so I added some vinegar too…. Ah, we didn't have vinegar, so I used white wine instead. If you let wine go sour it becomes vinegar, so it should be similar, right?"
Arsha continued carefully, with an uncharacteristically shy expression.
"We don't have wine in our kitchen either. What on earth did you put in?"
"Th-there was something that looked like a wine bottle…. Well, it doesn't seem like you'll die from eating it. You're still alive, aren't you?"
"That's a terrifying thing to say…. Miss Arsha, would you like to try a bite?"
"M-me? Fine, I'll try it!"
At Johann's words, Arsha took a big bite of her own homemade sandwich. In that instant, an indescribable flavor hit her.
If she had to put it into words, it felt like a riot breaking out on her tongue.
"Gueh!"
If not for the harsh etiquette drilled into her as a noble, she would have spat it out. She might have believed it had just been fished from a garbage can.
"This taste is insane. What is this!?"
"If you're asking me that…"
Even Arsha herself found it astonishing. Her already flushed earlobes turned even redder. She really shouldn't have attempted cooking she'd never done before.
"Heh. Miss Arsha, you might want to practice your cooking a bit."
Johann said this while watching her, her face as red as a ripe apple with embarrassment. And he kept eating the sandwich.
"D-don't eat it! Just throw it away! I'll bring you something else from the pantry. This is your fault in the first place! Making me cook something I've never even tried!"
"No. You made this for me yourself, Miss Arsha. I couldn't possibly throw it away."
Johann ate the sandwich with a composed expression.
At that answer, Arsha felt her heart pound once more.
It was a pathetic dish that couldn't be called tasty even as empty flattery. Even with a taste for bizarre food, eating that with a straight face would be impossible unless you were a monk. The fact that Johann willingly ate it made her feel strangely grateful.
A cook feels the greatest fulfillment when someone says the food is delicious. It hadn't been a compliment on the taste — but Johann willingly eating something that was practically inedible was more than enough to move her.
Arsha sprang up from her seat and pointed a finger at him.
"I-I might be a little clumsy right now, but I'll make you an incredibly delicious breakfast within a week! You can look forward to it!"
It was a declaration as fierce as a challenge to a duel. Arsha swore she would serve Johann the finest breakfast.
"Hmm? Are you proposing to me?"
At Johann's playboy-like comeback, Arsha replayed her own words. To a third party, it was a declaration that could easily be mistaken for a proposal.
"Th-that's not it! Don't get any weird ideas! This is just… my own way of thanking you for the item…! Tch! I'm going to be late for morning class! I'm leaving first!"
Arsha slammed the table and stood. She spun around to hide her embarrassment and bolted out like a gale, her retreating figure like a doe. By his estimate, her affection was probably over 40. Maybe even approaching 50.
Just as planned…
"That's it for today's class!"
At the professor's booming voice, groans of despair spread through the surroundings.
"Aaaah! It's finally over!"
"I thought I was going to die!"
The Swordsmanship Department, along with the Magic Department, was one of the Academy's flagship departments. It had the most students, the best facilities, and naturally received the largest budget allocation. The quality of instruction was widely regarded as top-tier. Especially when it came to basic training, nowhere in the Royal Capital could compare. There was a reason people said completing the Academy's first year was far better than spending a few years as the junior grunt of some knight order.
"Morning class is over, then."
Arsha wiped the sweat from her brow with the towel around her neck. The Academy's physical training had been much harder than she'd expected. Of course, she'd already been receiving even more intense training from her family. It was tougher than anticipated — but it wasn't training she couldn't handle.
Cooking practice. I'll start little by little today.
Johann, who'd eaten her botched sandwich, came to mind. Johann, who'd asked if she was proposing with that teasing look on his face.
She really wanted to hear him say it was delicious.
"Arsha Swordhorn."
A greasy voice called her name. An unfamiliar voice.
A week into the semester, she'd roughly memorized the voices of her department classmates. If a voice wasn't in her database, it was one of two things: another department, or another year.
Given that they'd gone straight to informal speech on first meeting, the latter was more likely. And probably from a fairly high-ranking noble house.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Collin Zauss. The Zauss family — you've heard of us, right?"
A blond man in a pristine white shirt introduced himself that way. The moment their eyes met, he winked — the textbook playboy. He even had a rose clenched between his teeth. Not some counterfeit Casanova like Johann Baker. This was the genuine article.
The Zauss family. A fairly well-known noble house in the kingdom. Not a great noble house, but close enough to the next tier down. A prestigious family quite famous in swordsmanship, with a longer history than the recently risen Swordhorn family.
"I've heard plenty about your reputation. They said you were as beautiful as a steel flower, but the rumors didn't do you justice. Here — I saw a flower that looked just like you on the way, so I picked it."
So saying, Zauss held out the rose to her.
"Look at that. It's Senior Zauss from third year."
"The Freshman Killer?"
"Good grief. I can't believe there are still people who drop lines like that."
"He's decent looking, I guess, but his personality's a bit off, you know."
"Good looking? Him?"
"Johann's raised our standards too high. That face is decent enough on its own. Stand him next to you and he'd turn you into a complete squid."
"You crazy bastard. Picking a fight out of nowhere!"
Collin Zauss was famous at the Academy for any number of reasons. His nickname: Freshman Killer.
True to the name, he was notorious for knocking down naive freshmen. Pretty-faced commoner freshmen were his usual targets, but once he set his sights on someone, he didn't hesitate to reach for nobles either.
Even as Arsha just stared at him without taking the rose, Zauss showed no embarrassment at all and withdrew his hand.
She wasn't a commoner to begin with — she was a noble. And not just any noble: Arsha Swordhorn, ranked among the top rookies alongside Sara Leoris. He'd never thought he could knock her down in a single try.
"Nice weather today. How about a cup of tea? You're not used to the Academy yet, right? I'll show you around campus."
Arsha ignored Zauss's words, turned her back, and walked away. She was the type to give even ordinary people a polite reply, but mixing words with a wastrel like that was a waste of time itself.
"So a rose has thorns, is that it. Interesting."
Even at Arsha's reaction, Zauss didn't fluster; he smiled. When someone pushed back like that, it only stoked his motivation.
He stepped in front of the steadily walking Arsha and blocked her with a wall-pin so textbook-perfect it could have been printed in a manual.
"Don't be so prickly. I just want to talk for a moment."
"Senior. Step aside. Unless you want this to get ugly."
Arsha snapped sharply. Using formal speech was the maximum respect she could offer.
Zauss licked his lips with a greasy expression. As if this was exactly the situation he'd been angling for.
"You're a much more interesting underclassman. Then how about this? Duel me. If I win, you go on one date with me."
"Why should I waste my time fooling around with you, Senior?"
"If you win, I'll never loiter in front of you again. How about it? Not a bad deal, right?"
Arsha let out a sigh. If she didn't teach him a lesson so thorough he couldn't hold his head up, he'd keep being a nuisance.
To get caught by such an annoying opponent.
It was just her luck today.