High School Girls Love Sweets (3)
The day Joy and I were set to visit Stoffe's shop had finally arrived.
I stepped outside in my usual attire, and the moment I laid eyes on Joy, I couldn't help but gawk.
Isn't she trying a little too hard?
At first glance it looked like a simple black dress with no adornment whatsoever, but the longer I looked, the more it revealed itself as a garment of unmistakable elegance and luxury. High heels she never normally touched, gloves on her hands, and even a butterfly pin fastened in her hair.
If she walked into a social gathering right now, people would be fawning over her—Lady Joy! You look stunning!
It's just a dessert shop, so why all this effort?! At this rate, what does that make me, showing up in my uniform like always?
"Good afternoon, Lady Aln."
Um, Joy? Isn't this a bit much?
"Airhead Lady. Are you off on a date with someone other than me? What's with all this finery?"
"It's Stoffe's shop, after all. One can't possibly go there with a casual heart."
Her seriousness was such that even a joke wouldn't land, and I realized she had no intention of changing her outfit.
"Actually, I find you the curious one, Lady Aln. I thought you disliked flashy things, back in the day?"
The "back in the day" Joy spoke of probably referred to before I possessed this body. The old Lucy would have loved flashy things—she'd turned her own room into a hell of frills and only ever wore outfits that looked like they came out of a magical girl cartoon for little kids.
But not anymore. I have absolutely no desire to wear clothes like that. If someone asked me whether I'd rather flutter around high society in frilly dresses or face a Minotaur one more time, I'd pick the latter without a moment's hesitation—even knowing it meant staring down death itself.
My tastes have changed.
"Sorry. I'm not a spazz who gets all worked up like you, Airhead Lady."
"Ah. Is that so?"
At my barbed tone, Joy showed a flicker of irritation, though she kept it off her face. Was she putting up with it because I was the one bringing her to Stoffe's today?
Let's just go.
"Shall we, Airhead Lady?"
Stoffe's dessert shop was one of the many establishments lining the streets of Soul Academy. Players on the Soul Academy community forums commonly called it "the shop that sells aphrodisiac cakes."
The reason was simple: from the moment you could bring an NPC along as a companion, stopping by this shop during free time to share a cake together was the single fastest way to raise affection in the game. A meme born from the question, What on earth do they put in that cake that eating it alone spikes affection?! was interpreted and warped in all sorts of bizarre directions, until eventually it transformed Stoffe's dessert shop into some salacious den of vice in the community's imagination.
Well, that's the kind of story you'd find in conspiracy-monger posts or on sketchy occult boards. When I actually visited during the Academy entrance exam, it was nothing more than a perfectly respectable dessert shop. I'd tasted the cakes and drinks they served—ordinary and delicious, with no strange effects whatsoever.
When we stepped inside, a clerk practically sprinted over to greet us. One of us was a Duke's daughter and the other a Count's daughter, so an enthusiastic reception was only to be expected.
"Welcome! Lady Partran, Lady Aln. Please allow me to show you to your seats first."
When I pulled out Stoffe's Special Ticket and showed it to the clerk, who was bowing politely with his greeting, the entire atmosphere shifted in an instant. His mouth still wore the same smile, but his eyes were different. Examining the ticket from every angle with the careful scrutiny of an appraiser of precious metals, he eventually tucked it reverently into his breast pocket and spoke.
"We will escort you upstairs."
The clerk guided us to a private room within Stoffe's shop, asked us to wait a moment, and withdrew.
"Goodness. To think the day would come when I'd set foot in Stoffe's private room."
Joy...
"Airhead Lady. Why are you making such a fuss?"
"It's worth fussing over! They say only truly precious guests are ever permitted inside Stoffe's private room!"
She was so giddy that Joy had, to some degree, thrown off her villainess mask. Watching her peek around the room with the corners of her mouth turned all the way up, she honestly just looked like a slightly feral high school girl. If the corners of her mouth drooped even a little, she'd look exactly like a villainess hunting for something to complain about.
While Joy and I were idly chatting away like that, the door opened and an old man in a snow-white baker's uniform made his appearance. His bleached-white hair and the creases etched across his face attested to his considerable age, but his robust body told a different story. Despite his years, not an ounce of excess flesh marred his disciplined frame—a testament to how meticulously he maintained himself.
"Welcome, Lady Partran, Lady Aln. I am Stoffe, proprietor of this establishment and, more than I deserve, a man they call a master of desserts. I shall do my utmost to ensure your time here becomes an unforgettable experience."
The moment his words ended, the door swung open and staff filed in, setting tableware and dishes before us.
To be perfectly honest, I'd never been all that fond of desserts. I didn't dislike them, but the desserts I knew were mostly the kind so sweet they made your tongue sting—one or two bites were enough to tire of them. So when I heard we'd be having a full dessert course, I worried. Worried whether I could actually enjoy every last bit of it.
But that worry turned out to be utterly pointless. If the desserts Stoffe served had been that kind of mass-produced junk, how could he ever have been called the finest artisan on the continent?
He opened with an appetizer whose light tartness awakened the palate. Then came something cold, sharpening the tongue's senses. After that, something warm arrived and melted body and soul along with it. The course was a masterpiece of meticulous buildup detonated in a final, overwhelming crescendo—so astonishing it bordered on miraculous.
Everything I'd eaten until now had merely been an imitation wearing dessert's face. I'd only ever known those fakes, and that was where my prejudice came from. If every dessert in the world had been like this, would my teeth have stayed white?
If this was how someone like me—who always treated dessert as just okay—was reacting, imagine Joy, who'd loved sweets from the start. She had tumbled headlong into the fantasy of Stoffe's desserts, looking for all the world like she was under hypnosis. Moving her spoon with a soft, dreamy smile, she had become a machine so thoroughly entranced that she couldn't even hear my voice.
Seeing her that happy made bringing her here worth it. Well, I suppose that's exactly why it raises her affection so fast. Speaking of which—what was Joy's affection at right now? It was certain we'd started at 40 or below. Add saving her life last time to this outing, and we should be over 60, right?
No, wait. Considering I'd been calling her Airhead Lady, plus the whole Pitiable Prince incident... probably lower than that. Even so, it was clear that of everyone I knew, Joy was the closest to affection 70. We'd agreed to tackle the dungeon together this time, so if I used that as an excuse to spend time with her, hitting 70 before finals would be more than doable.
With that, have I secured one person for clearing the quest that the incompetent Chief God handed down? The other one just needs me to seduce the scrub once Alsaetin retrieves the necklace, so the quest is basically in the bag.
Haha! You see that?! Take a good look, you heojeop Chief God?! No matter how endlessly you nitpick and sabotage, I can clear your quests with room to spare! If you want to mess with me, you'd better bring some—
No. No, I'm sorry. It was nothing, Lady Armadi. Please pay it no mind. This whole affair only worked out because You watched over us. I never forget my gratitude, truly.
...Strange. Was there alcohol in Stoffe's desserts? Why am I saying things I never intended to say?
Anyway, now that I no longer need to worry about the quest bestowed by our noble and venerable Lady Armadi, it's time to prepare for other things. The main story of Soul Academy is about to kick off, after all.
I wonder who'll become the Evil God's Apostle this time.
Two days had passed since we'd tasted Stoffe's desserts, and Joy still couldn't get that moment out of her mind. Setting foot inside Stoffe's private room, a place no one could enter unless foreign royalty came calling. Meeting Master Stoffe himself, who rarely emerged for anyone else. The parade of fantastical desserts that appeared the instant he greeted them. The happiness that flooded her mouth with every movement of her spoon. That day's experience ranked among the happiest of Joy's seventeen-odd years of life.
But just as that memory glowed, so did the debt weighing on her shoulders grow heavy. The promise to enter the Academy dungeon together on the day it reopened pressed down on her more with each passing day.
What if something went wrong again? What if the professors' preparations produced some error? Each day, Joy found herself hoping for some stroke of luck to push the date back—but alas, the Academy's professors were competent.
And so, today, the Academy dungeon opened right on schedule. Clutching the staff her father had given her as an enrollment gift in both hands, Joy was making her way toward the dungeon's entrance.
Sigh. Why did I have to cave to my own greed and make such a reckless promise? Should I just tell her now that I can't do it? That I'll help her some other way? But could I ever offer her something worthy of Stoffe's Special Ticket?
"Airhead Lady."
As her tangled thoughts slowed her footsteps, Joy turned at the sound of her name. There stood Lucy Aln.
Clad in steel armor, she looked exactly as she had on the day of the entrance exam. The mace and shield in her hands. Her hair. That confident, infuriating grin.
"What's with the raccoon eyes? So scared of the dungeon you pulled an all-nighter, scaredy-cat Lady?"
Joy very nearly nodded along on reflex before catching herself just in time and forcing an awkward smile.
"I had a bit of a restless night."
"Really? Well, no matter. Even if you're hopeless, Airhead Lady, I'm here."
Joy stared blankly at Lucy's back as she strode boldly ahead, then belatedly hurried after her. And so, half by choice and half by circumstance, Joy arrived at the Academy dungeon and came face to face with its entrance.
In that instant, she remembered.
The thousands of eyes staring her down. The witch's unpleasant laughter blocking her path. The gloomy voice drifting from somewhere far away. And the endless abyss she'd glimpsed the moment she faced it all.
"Airhead Lady."
Only when Lucy's voice reached her did Joy snap back to reality—and realize she was sitting crumpled on the ground.
Ah. This is... um...