Victory Cooking Club: Unpaid Labor If You Join Now! #3
Teacher Dominah. Also known as Medusa Dominah, but to the players of D&A she was more commonly called “Miss Do.” She was twenty-seven years old, single, and because Ludens teachers were paid so poorly she lived alone in a shabby room on the outskirts of the academy. The setting that she suffered from a touch of hysteria flashed through my mind.
“Dominah.”
At my call the woman who looked exactly like her in-game counterpart curved her deep-blue eyes—the same color as her hair—into crescents.
“Look at this child. It is not Dominah. It is Miss Dominah, is it not?”
“Dominah.”
“…This child… Well, never mind. More importantly, you two. Operating a business in a place like this without permission. Who exactly permitted you to do this?”
Her tone was exactly like that of a strict disciplinary officer. Of course, there was no problem.
“We received formal approval from the student council. Lunch period and after school from three until six. Here is the permit. If you truly cannot believe it, you may ask Victorica standing beside me.”
I held out the permit. Dominah blinked several times as she read the text.
“…Tsk. Not bad. Very well.”
Dominah settled herself at a nearby desk. I wondered what she was doing until she asked, “Is there no menu?” It appeared she wanted to eat something after all.
When Nike hurried forward with a wooden board, stammering, “H-here is the menu…,” the woman in black stockings elegantly crossed her legs and raised a hand to stop her.
“Never mind that. Do you accept requests, by any chance? There is something I want to eat right now.”
A request, was it?
“What is it?”
At my question Dominah’s eyes flashed. It was the attitude of a snake eyeing its prey.
The strict female teacher Dominah. In the original story she had been a supporting character who occasionally barged in to torment the protagonist Luke. It seemed she had come to me instead. Very well—bring it on.
“Mmm.” After a long, uncharacteristic nasal hum, Dominah finally spoke as though she had decided.
“I feel like eating something that is white and at the same time black, soft yet firm, hot yet cold. It would also be nice if it were sweet and spicy. How about it?”
How about it? While I pondered, the students around us began to tremble.
“Even Victor is going to fall for it? Dominah’s nitpicking…!”
“More than one or two clubs have been shut down after she found fault with them like that!”
“Last time she lowered the costume club’s evaluation because she didn’t like the clothes they made…”
“Ugh, if the cooking club gets closed we’ll have to go back to that disgusting cafeteria food…!”
It seemed female teacher Dominah’s hysterical inspections were already infamous among the students. To me, however, this was excellent news.
Club activities were an indispensable part of life content. It was common for Dominah to appear while one was engaged in them. On the contrary, her visit served as a guarantee that the club content was progressing smoothly—a check that could not be more welcome.
It felt rather pleasant. Nike, who knew none of this, however, wore a tearful expression. “Victor, what should we do? White and black at the same time, soft and firm, hot and cold, sweet and spicy… Is there even such a dish…?”
Arnoi, the eighth-year student who had been grumbling while working until a moment ago, also shivered violently and clutched at her long hair.
“This Arnoi has not yet tasted fruit shaved ice, it is! If the club is closed now, this Arnoi’s labor hours will have been completely meaningless, it is!”
What an amusing fellow.
Victorica spoke up. “Miss Dominah. No matter how you look at it, such an unreasonable order is—”
“My goodness, Victorica. I merely placed an ordinary order, did I not? There is no regulation anywhere that forbids a teacher from ordering food at a club, is there?”
“But…”
“Or is it something else? Are you looking after him because he is your fiancé? No, I heard he is your ex-fiancé.”
“Kuh…”
Victorica bit her lip, looking slightly flustered. I spoke from behind her.
“Victorica, it is fine.”
Unlike the worried group, my mind was perfectly calm. I had already decided what to make.
“L-look! Victor is starting to cook…!”
“He is really doing it, Victor…!”
There was only one dish I would prepare.
First, boil water. Bubble, bubble, bubble.
Once it reached a proper boil I dropped in the noodles I had purchased at the Underground Market. The waiting time was roughly three minutes. While the noodles boiled vigorously I repeatedly lifted them with tongs, exposing them to air. That was the key. Only after this process could one enjoy a properly chewy texture.
Next I poured in the broth I had prepared earlier by grinding the Bomb Sauce together with dried jerky in the correct ratio. Here the dish reached a crossroads.
Should I add an egg? No—the correct answer was not to add one. Instead I added this.
A tiny amount of ketchup I had prepared beforehand for later use. I dropped roughly half a spoonful into the broth. The result was a savory noodle dish with rich umami.
It is ramen.
“It is ramen.”
The ramen was complete. The noodles had originally been bought for rabokki, of course.
Yet Dominah’s expression as she stared at the bubbling pot was far from pleased.
“Victor, I clearly requested something yellow and at the same time red, firm yet soft, cold yet warm, did I not? This is not that.”
“It is not red and yellow. It is white and black, is it not? You cannot even remember what you ordered.”
“…What?”
“Furthermore, did I ever say I would make such a dish?”
I had never agreed to accept Dominah’s request. I had simply made what I wanted to make. And this was the correct answer.
Female teacher Dominah. Twenty-seven years old this year. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom across Ludens, yet Dominah’s heart was always gloomy. The same monotonous teaching life every day. The only amusement was occasionally tormenting students she disliked. Every morning she rose in her dark room, dressed, and headed to work with her eyes fixed on the calendar marked with payday.
Today is Monday… The day she hated going to work most. Without eating breakfast she headed to school.
On the way she saw students laughing brightly even on Monday morning. Sometimes a sharp pang of nostalgia would hit her—there had been a time when she too had welcomed the start of a new week with joy.
Yes, laugh while you can. You too will grow old in the blink of an eye. Soon enough you will become pathetic, dreamless adults just like me…
Still, it was lunchtime. Dominah stepped out lightly, expecting to teach these fresh-faced youths a dose of “reality.”
The male student named Victor she met was indeed as blunt and rude as the rumors claimed.
Boys like this need to be crushed.
So she found fault with him in the usual impossible way. What came back was a steaming bowl filled with wavy noodles in hot broth.
“It is ramen.”
It was ramen. A dish anyone could cook if they had noodles and soup mix. A cheap meal with no special effects beyond filling the stomach.
To think I would encounter this dish here… Did he aim for it on purpose…?
No, that had been five years ago. There was no way this second-year student named Victor could know about her circumstances.
“Eat. Seeing how sensitive you are, you clearly skipped breakfast.”
It was true she had not eaten breakfast. Faced with the stimulating aroma of ramen on an empty stomach, there was no way she could resist. Yet Dominah could not yield.
Ramen. Twenty-one. Back when she had only just become a teacher and her salary had not yet started coming in, she had boiled one pack every single day. The memory of that shabby, pathetic time eventually made her unable to look at it. Yet now the very food she had tormented a male student into cooking had returned to her.
“I deliberately omitted the egg. You prefer it that way, do you not?”
Yes. Back then she had not even had money for an egg. Things were different now. She had the financial leeway to eat better things than mere ramen.
Even though I live in a tiny one-room apartment on the outskirts, I have always eaten only high-class food. And you offer me mere ramen?
—Gurgle. Her stomach growled. It was because she had woken late and come to work without breakfast.
“Hmph. Just one bite.”
After all, ramen tasted roughly the same no matter who cooked it. She thought she would simply eat a mouthful, offer some harsh criticism to crush his spirit, and be done with it. She lifted the chopsticks and slurped.
“……”
An unexpected depth of flavor stopped her chopsticks mid-motion.
“This taste…”
“I added ketchup. A small luxury.”
Who would have thought someone would put ketchup in ramen? Thanks to it, old memories came flooding back.
Tomorrow is payday. Should I buy some pork for the first time in a while and grill it? But the rent is still tight… Still, just once…
The days when buying a single expensive dish had required a major resolution. Back then she had still possessed dreams. She had possessed hope for tomorrow. How had she ended up becoming such a gray adult?
Everywhere she looked there were only bright young people. If the girl she had once been saw her now—relieving stress by harassing those children—what would she say?
While Dominah was lost in thought, the male student spoke.
“If you do not eat quickly the noodles will become soggy.”
“It is better to let them get a little soggy.”
“……?”
“That way the portion seems larger. If you wish to fill your stomach with one bowl, that is better.”
“I see.”
Dominah appeared to be an elegant woman at first glance. One would therefore assume she liked wine or steak, yet the most effective way to raise her favorability was surprisingly to gift her ordinary “ramen.” The story behind it could be learned only after raising her favorability to a certain level.
It was the tale of Dominah when she had still been a fresh, bright new teacher. The story of twenty-one-year-old Dominah who had lived on nothing but ramen. The story in which she lamented, “Even back then I had dreams and hope. How did I end up becoming an adult like this?” By giving her dreams and hope again, it was a comic story that led her to set a new goal: “That’s right! I’ll aim for a capable younger man and marry into wealth!”
When I was young I had simply thought, So that’s how it is. But after playing the game for more than ten years, I eventually reached Dominah’s age and then surpassed it. I could not help but look at female teacher Dominah with an entirely different feeling than when I had been a child.
Twenty-seven. Dominah had lamented that she was already too old. But when I turned twenty-seven I felt it was not such a great age. It was still young, still an age when one knew nothing. The female teacher Dominah who had seemed so completely adult had in truth still been a young person full of worries and youth. At that age I had still been paying off debt. From my perspective, twenty-seven-year-old Dominah was still at an age where she could try anything. Moreover she was a teacher. She had a stable profession. Therefore she could live with a little more hope.
“Until the day you are buried in the grave, you are always young, Dominah. It is never too late.”
“What are you saying, you little old man?”
Little old man? Originally I was older than you. Not anymore, though.
At any rate, Dominah finished every last drop of the ramen. Students gasped in amazement as she sweated from the hot food, removed her suit jacket, and revealed her white blouse.
“That cold Miss Dominah is…”
“I’m sick of ramen, but… is that one different…?”
Finally she lifted the hot pot to her lips, gulped it down, let out a satisfied “Hah,” and exhaled. She was clearly someone who knew how to eat ramen properly.
I asked her, “It was not the dish you ordered, but how was it?”
“What are you saying? I clearly asked for one bowl of ramen. You must take orders properly.”
“Is that so.”
“However, there are still many points that need improvement. Simply placing desks and selling is one thing, but cooking on a burner atop a desk is dangerous, is it not?”
…She was right. But what could I do when we had no money?
Dominah continued. “Especially you, Victor. What is that manner of speech toward your teacher? It seems you children require intensive guidance. From now on I shall serve as your advisor.”
Well, that was a familiar story. Dominah was originally the teacher who became the club’s supervising instructor. Having an advisor brought benefits such as event invitations, various scholarships, and competition participation rights, so it was better to have one.
Since it had come to this, I might as well raise our intimacy a little in advance.
“Dominah. If you skip breakfast in the future, come to the clubroom. I will at least let you eat one bowl of ramen before you go.”
“Th-this child has no respect for his teacher!”
“……?”
What had I done wrong? At any rate.
In this manner female teacher Dominah was added as the cooking club’s supervising advisor. A smooth start.
At the same time, text floated before my eyes.
Conditions have been met.
Permission to use the Club Management System has been granted.