This Kid's Got Great Reactions
"So you bought the Shrimp Sticks here, right?"
"...Yeah."
Violetta asked it from the doorway of the store, and Seria answered. Ekaterina was with them as well.
She hadn't been particularly keen on coming. Seria, though, had been determined to bring her along, and so she'd had little choice but to follow.
!
The moment the door opened and that unfamiliar scene spread out before her, Violetta—just like every visitor before her—found she couldn't get her mouth to close.
The interior was brightly lit, its layout and arrangement quietly reassuring. Every item for sale sat in orderly rows, the selection was broad, and the packaging, however they'd managed it, was remarkably clean.
"Welcome!"
Catching sight of the girls, the handsome black-haired young man called out a bright greeting. The shopkeeper was younger than she had imagined. Merchants, as a rule, called to mind middle-aged men gone bristly with hair, or plump and easygoing matrons—and the merchants of the eastern territories, Violetta's own homeland, leaned especially hard in that direction.
He's good-looking.
This one, by contrast, had a clear, well-cut face and a tidy air about him. She liked that quite a bit.
"Oh? Professor Delilah...!"
Seria had spotted a familiar face and hurried to greet her. It was the second time they'd run into each other at the store.
"Hello, girls. What did you come to buy?"
Set against the other professors, who all had a stuffy streak, the alchemy professor was friendly with the cadets. Violetta rather liked her for it.
I'm about one step shy of failing alchemy, though...
Feeling oddly self-conscious, she offered a quick greeting and sidled off to the side. Fortunately, Delilah was on her feet almost at once.
"Dante, your customers are here, so I'll be heading out."
"Well, look at that. You can read a room after all."
So his name's Dante. Those two seem pretty close.
"I'll have you know I'm the professor who teaches these girls. Talk like that and my whole image falls apart."
"Come on. Friends are allowed to trade a joke or two."
"You just can't let a single word go, can you. I'm really leaving."
"Take care on your way."
Violetta was still studying the pair with open curiosity—they seemed strangely familiar with each other—when Seria called her over.
"The Shrimp Sticks are over here in the snack corner, Violetta."
"Oh."
What seized her attention in a flash wasn't only the Shrimp Sticks she'd come hunting in order to buy them up by the armful. The shelves were packed with other seafood snacks besides.
"All of these taste like the seafood drawn on the wrapper, right?"
"Um... I've never actually tried them, so I wouldn't really know..."
Seria was answering timidly when another voice cut in.
"They do. Better than plain seafood, even."
The shopkeeper had come up beside them at some point.
"Out looking for snacks that taste like seafood? I've got a few I can recommend."
So saying, he picked up a pale yellow bag.
"This one's shrimp-flavored too, like the Shrimp Sticks, but it'll eat a little different."
"Oh, now I'm curious. Would it be all right if I tried some now?"
"Sure. So long as you pay. Fifteen silver."
To Violetta, a daughter of the nobility, that was pocket change. She set down a gold coin on the spot and tore the bag open at once.
Air rushed out, and with it a scent altogether different from the Shrimp Sticks. It was shrimp, yes—but softer somehow, a rounder, gentler aroma. The shape was nothing alike, either. Where the Shrimp Sticks were long and stick-like, the snack called Shrimp Roe Chips was flat and round as a coin.
Crunch. The texture was superb. There was real body to them, and yet they shattered far more tenderly than the Shrimp Sticks.
"Wow, I like these even better than the Shrimp Sticks!"
"Good, right?"
Looking oddly gratified, the shopkeeper went on recommending this and that. Naturally, she bought every last one and tasted them on the spot.
"Whoa, they're cute..."
Seria, watching from the side, marveled at a snack fried in the shape of a flower crab. As for the taste, what was there to say? The rich, savory depth peculiar to crab came through in full.
"Want me to show you something even cuter?"
Inside the box labeled Whale Pops, alongside the dainty little whales, were starfish, sharks, squid—snacks molded into every sort of sea creature.
"No, seriously, how did they make these so precise? With magic? I don't think even a workshop could manage this..."
"Ahem."
The shopkeeper cleared his throat for no particular reason and hurriedly brought out the next snacks.
"Wow, these Squid Chips are seriously soft. They just melt in your mouth!"
"Don't let your guard down. You'll peel the roof of your mouth clean off."
"It's already peeled, so I'm fine. Oh, and this one tastes like octopus? Jagalchi? The name has absolutely nothing to do with it..."
Hmm. The shopkeeper, who had been introducing the snacks with bright enthusiasm, suddenly spoke as if turning something over.
"Honestly, I'm not sure this one will suit you. But you seem to like octopus, so..."
"Just give it here!"
You couldn't pass judgment until you'd tasted a thing. And not one of the shopkeeper's picks so far had disappointed her even once, so Violetta trusted him completely.
What he set in her hand was a round, hard-looking snack.
Octopus Peanuts?
She read the name on the bag and bit in at once.
Crack. The shell she'd expected to be hard crumbled softly, and the peanut nestled inside crunched between her teeth.
"Mm! This is good too!"
Not once in her life had she thought of eating octopus and peanuts together, but the salty savor of octopus giving way to the toasty, oil-rich peanut made a wonderful harmony.
"Violetta, was it? You really do love seafood. Or is it snacks you like?"
"Both. I've always been crazy about seafood, but eating it as a snack is a whole different thing."
"Glad you like them that much. But..."
The shopkeeper eyed the armful of snacks she'd gathered against her chest. She'd only been sampling, so the bags were hardly any lighter than new.
"You are going to eat all of that, right...?"
Violetta answered without a heartbeat of hesitation.
"Of course!"
This kid's got great reactions.
Seria was quick enough to marvel, but her expressions ran a little plain. This was a different pleasure entirely.
Pink-head, meanwhile, was standing at the lunch display, looking over the triangle kimbap. She seemed to remember the one I'd recommended last time.
"Lunch boxes? You eat rice here too?"
Violetta came up beside her, still crunching away at a snack, and asked.
"Ah, yeah. The dining hall food doesn't agree with me..."
I knew that was a lie, but I let it pass.
Buying dining hall meals is honestly a stretch on her budget.
Put another way, settling a meal at the convenience store was far cheaper than eating at the academy cafeteria.
Tsk. Cafeteria food is supposed to be what you eat because it's cheap...
I clicked my tongue inwardly at the state of the Academy.
"If there's something you want, pick it out. I'll buy it for you."
"Eh? All of a sudden...?"
"I ate all your Shrimp Sticks, didn't I? And you showed me a great place like this. I ought to pay you back."
Part of me had worried she might turn out to be a strange one, but Violetta was cheerier than I'd expected. She seemed to find things a little much now and then, but she got along with Seria well enough, and watching the two of them left me quietly pleased.
Not that I was fond of Seria because she made good bait for hauling in customers. It was just... how to put it. She made you want to look after her. She was cute, for one thing—
...and there was what the principal had said, too.
That I'd handed goods over for free under the excuse of advertising had sprung from the same feeling, though I could hardly admit it out loud. She was my glorious first customer, after all. Of course I'd grown attached.
"There are so many kinds. Which of these tastes the best?"
I'd drifted off for a moment, and in the meantime Violetta had asked.
"Most of them are good, honestly..."
For triangle kimbap, tuna mayo is the one true classic.
"Does this one need to be heated too?"
To Seria's follow-up, I answered while stroking my chin.
"You can warm it or eat it as it is, but if the rice is cold the texture isn't great. Personally, I'd give it a spin."
Fifteen seconds in the microwave. Not a second more, not a second less. Any longer and the gim goes soggy; any shorter and the outside is lukewarm while the inside stays cold, and it gets unpleasant to eat.
"Whoa! It's good!"
Sure enough, Violetta let out a cry of pure delight over the tuna mayo. Well, tuna was seafood too. The mayonnaise's tang cut the tuna's distinctive fishiness while lifting the rich savor another notch—there was no way it could taste bad.
"But what's this wrapped around the outside? It looks like some kind of seaweed."
Trust her to spot it at a glance.
"Dried gim."
"Gim?"
Violetta's eyes went wide. No wonder. Even in my original world, you were hard-pressed to find anyone eating gim outside of Korea and Japan. In a world that seemed to have the medieval West and the early modern era stirred together, there was even less need to say it. To Violetta, who had seen every kind of seafood there was, it would of course be utterly unfamiliar.
Funny she hasn't said a word about the rice. Seria looked like she was trying it for the first time.
Then again, considering rice dishes like paella, a noble might well run into the stuff often enough.
For the record, Ekaterina—who had not spoken a single word from the moment she stepped into the store—was sitting primly by herself at a table, nibbling away at dumplings and steamed buns instead of triangle kimbap.
Now I get it.
The dumplings and the steamed buns had landed square in the heart of the Grand Duke of the North's daughter. The chill pouring off her had grown a little familiar by now, too. Once I decided to think of it as the air conditioning simply cranked to the max, I adjusted.
"Wow, how is every single one of them this good?"
That's the charm of ready-made goods for you.
I answered the marveling Violetta in my head.
"And there are so many kinds, I don't think I could ever get tired of them. I'll have to start coming often."
"Do that. Come often. There's plenty of good stuff besides what you just ate."
"Haa. I don't even know if I can try them all before I graduate."
I could guarantee she couldn't. There was still plenty I hadn't brought in.
Hmm...
Come to think of it, had I been ordering nothing but things that suited my own taste?
"Ah, it's already this late. I've got class, so I'll head out!"
"Thank you for the meal...!"
Once I'd sent the kids off, I looked around to see if there was anything new worth bringing in.
What do kids that age even like...?
"Your Highness, was the meal to your liking?"
Antiope, Second Imperial Princess of the Empire, clicked her tongue at the question.
"Well. Food is food—all of it much the same. Even so, it was not so poor as to be spat out. You may bring the dessert."
But the dessert her attendant set before her fell woefully short of satisfying her desire.
"Haa..."
The princess sighed, and a thought settled over her.
I want something sweet.
Not merely sweet—a dessert so intensely, achingly sweet it would leave her head spinning.