Watch Party
I heard through a messenger sent by Count Klever that the recording of me losing my temper, tearing into the place, and completely remodeling the restaurant had been edited and prepared for sale.
Apparently, it was already being sold to nobles who had placed advance orders, and one would be sent to us before long as well.
At the same time, forty percent of the proceeds from the first wave of reservations arrived with it, in the form of two boxes of gold coins.
At the sight of them, Elysia broke into a grin from ear to ear.
“All right, I’ll split one of these boxes up as bonuses for the Maison Montbell staff.”
“Long live the young lady!!!”
“I hereby begin my worship of Lady Elysia...”
“Hey, I’m the one who earned that money, you know...?”
When I complained, the other staff jeered at me.
“Boo—Kyle the miser.”
“You’re going to be rich anyway once you get married!”
At Baron's last remark, Marie shot him a terrifying look, and Baron, meeting her glare, lurched backward and nearly slipped.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
I had no intention of getting married.
Anyway, a few days later, another invitation to a social gathering arrived from the Reinfeld Marquisate.
“Does the Reinfeld Marquisate do nothing but hold social gatherings and stuff their faces?”
“Kyle, could you please say that a little more nicely...”
This time, there was again a note saying they would be delighted if I came, but I decided not to go.
The reason was simple.
“A chef belongs in the kitchen. What would I be if the guests who came specifically to eat my food that day found I wasn’t there?”
Marie nodded.
“Is it okay to send the young lady off by herself?”
“Bernard is going with her. And today’s order is two Marquis courses with three extra desserts. If I skip out, the rest of you will just suffer more.”
“Fair enough.”
Elysia stopped by the kitchen entrance for a moment before leaving.
Today she was dressed far more formally than usual.
Seeing that she had put on the navy dress she’d bought recently, complete with platinum embellishments, it seemed this wasn’t just a social gathering after all. It was a stage on which the Montbell name would be shown to be on the rise.
“I’m off.”
“Yes. Please travel safely.”
Elysia smiled.
“And you, Kyle, don’t bully the staff too much in the kitchen.”
“I’ll exercise moderation.”
Marie, wearing her goggles while slicing onions, muttered under her breath, “That means moderation by Kyle’s standards.”
“Marie.”
“What?”
“Do you want me to confiscate your goggles?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
Elysia laughed at that and stepped out the door.
“A lot of people are going to be talking about you today.”
“Good things, I hope?”
“Interesting things.”
That somehow made it worse.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
By the time Elysia arrived, people had already gathered at the marquis’s estate.
The marchioness came out to greet us, welcoming Elysia.
“Welcome, Lady Montbell. So the star of the show has arrived.”
“Thank you for inviting me, Your Grace. Kyle is busy directing the restaurant today, so unfortunately he couldn’t come with me.”
“Oh, what a pity. Still, it’s admirable that he’s so devoted to his work.”
The theme of today’s gathering was to watch the recorded consulting session from Maison Montbell together.
If Kyle had been here, it probably would have been called a watch party.
The official title was rather impressive.
Maison Montbell Table Consulting Record: The Swan Under the Crown Edition
But none of the nobles called it that.
Everyone called it this:
Kyle Pratt's Devil's Kitchen
It was a nickname Count Klever had coined, too.
The moment the recording began, laughter erupted all over the salon.
It was the scene where Kyle opened the restaurant door, smelled the air, and then failed to keep his expression under control.
“That expression is truly something else.”
“He was already angry from the very beginning.”
“Trying to hold it in makes it even funnier.”
Elysia lifted her teacup and watched the screen quietly.
Before long, the scene appeared where Kyle asked, after seeing the menu names, whether they had imperial approval for them.
Someone covered their mouth with a fan.
“Offering to change it to the Northern Duke’s Tears was pretty spectacular, too.”
“If the Northern Duke heard that, he’d probably hurl the restaurant owner into a snowstorm.”
“Still, that’s better than His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Does His Majesty already know?”
“Who knows...”
And then, at last, that scene came.
Kyle cut into the cold fish, fell silent for a moment, and then looked across the dining hall.
“Miss Jomari, come on down here.”
The salon erupted all over again.
“That’s when you know it’s over, right?”
“A death sentence for any restaurant owner.”
The laughter briefly died down when Berman began speaking to Marie as if she had no understanding of fine food.
Then the Kyle on the screen rose from his seat.
“No, fuck this.”
The curse rang out through the elegant salon.
And yet not a single person looked offended.
On the contrary, they laughed as though they had been waiting for it.
Kyle grabbed one of the dining staff and asked what they had been taught to say when a guest complained that a dish was undercooked.
He went directly to the customers and asked what they had been made to wait an hour for and then eat.
And then he walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigeration unit.
“Fuck, is this a kitchen? It’s a morgue!”
This time, the entire salon truly exploded.
Even the marchioness had to hide her face behind her fan as she laughed.
“If I saw a kitchen like that, I’d be furious too.”
“Would you say that, Your Grace?”
“I’d call in the steward. Kyle Pratt would just shout.”
Count Klever quietly watched the reactions around him.
At first, he had thought the nobles would buy the recording simply to laugh and pass the time, or perhaps out of curiosity about this new style of restaurant management.
But now he understood.
What people enjoyed wasn’t the consulting itself.
It was the chef who said, on behalf of customers and staff alike, all the things they had swallowed for so long in front of a ruined restaurant and its shameless owner.
And then, in the end, the sight of him turning the kitchen upside down.
This wasn’t something only nobles would watch.
Count Klever looked toward the servants trying to suppress their laughter along the wall.
What if they could sell it to commoners too?
What if they could play these short recordings in inns, tea houses, and tavern corners in the market?
Even if you knew nothing of fine dining, anyone could recognize rotten fish and a filthy kitchen.
A furious chef crushing some obnoxious bastard would be entertaining to anyone.
“Amusement really does ignore rank.”
He muttered it so softly that no one else could have heard.
His expression already looked like someone with the next scheme turning over in his head.
The moment the gathering ended, he began planning how to sell the footage to taverns all across the imperial capital.
To explain this to Elysia, he called one of his attendants and ordered him to prepare the paperwork at once.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
By the time Elysia came home late that night, I was scrubbing the last pot.
It was a little strange for the head chef to be doing the dishes, but Marie had been clutching her stomach and saying she felt awful, so I just took over for her.
Come to think of it, there had been a bit of a smell of blood. Had she gotten hurt somewhere? I had no idea.
“How was it?”
Elysia removed her gloves as she answered.
“It was fun. The nobles all seemed to enjoy it a lot, too.”
I stopped moving.
“What exactly is fun about that?”
“At a social gathering, the only things even remotely entertaining are a ballroom or a poetry recital, and this was way more fun than either of those.”
“Isn’t a ballroom still fun after you dance?”
“After dancing, everyone just ends up talking about the same things with the same people.”
“What about poetry recitals?”
“No matter who’s reading, everyone has to say it’s excellent.”
I fell silent for a moment.
Elysia shrugged.
“And duels don’t happen every time.”
“Why are duels even coming up there?”
“Watching people get angry over ridiculous nonsense and draw their swords is fun, too. Though the Emperor banned them right after his coronation, so we probably won’t be seeing any for a while.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Honestly, I’m a little disappointed because duels are fun. Still, I suppose His Majesty didn’t want nobles dying over stupid things. There are also some crazy people whose heads are full of nothing but duels, like that viscount who came by and ate raw fish last time.”
I stared at her.
“So nobles see me taking down restaurant owners as a substitute for duels?”
“Pretty much.”
She was far too blunt.
Elysia held back a laugh and said, “Still, not everyone was mocking you. They said it was incredibly refreshing.”
“I even dropped a whole string of profanity while I was taking that guy down.”
“That was part of it, too.”
I poured myself a glass of cold water and drank it down.
Elysia leaned against me and added, “It looks like Count Klever is planning to sell the recordings to commoners, too.”
“Why would commoners want to watch me losing my temper?”
“Because it’s entertaining.”
“That’s it?”
“And because it makes money.”
As expected of Count Klever.
Elysia looked utterly satisfied as she went on, “If he sells it to commoners now, it’ll bring in even more money. Kyle, you’re going to be famous for real, you know?”
“I never wanted to become famous like this...”