Making Sweet Cookies
It was another peaceful afternoon after classes.
I had been savoring the quiet of preparing dinner, watching the sun sink low, when something found me.
"Huh? Where am I… Hyaaaaah!"
"Carmilla, this person woke up."
A strange scream and a racket from the second floor. To anyone who didn't know the situation, it might have sounded like disaster had struck.
It wasn't that big a deal.
I had simply come face-to-face with an uninvited guest.
"Haa… My precious healing time is being wasted…"
At first I thought a petty thief had broken in. At Luca's frantic call I had dropped the ingredients I was prepping and rushed out, only to find an unexpected figure collapsed on the floor.
I knew who she was.
Her name was Elyse di Rosenberg.
Student Council President of St. Celestia Academy—and, by my standards, one of the more likable hard-working types among the students here.
And for some reason, that very person had been sprawled out in my shop's warehouse barely an hour ago.
From Luca's scattered words I couldn't piece everything together, but it seemed something had startled her badly…
Who on earth?
More than that, I'm rather worried…
The only person I could ask was asleep, so I had no way of knowing what had brought her here. One thing, though, was certain.
This girl looked utterly exhausted.
"Are you feeling any better?"
I asked, studying Elyse where she was wedged into the corner of the bed.
"Ugh, Carmilla… From the moment we first met, I had a feeling it would come to this."
She raked a hand through her messy hair and cast me a look that seemed somehow cowed.
"What on earth are you talking about all of a sudden…"
"Don't play dumb. There are already more than a few suspicious circumstances. You can't just pretend you know nothing and expect this to blow over!"
That was what Elyse said—but all I could see were the dark circles under her eyes.
Was all-nighters just her everyday life?
"You kidnapped me, the Student Council President, your warehouse is full of Flame Grass, you're raising this creature of unknown origin—and you even threatened me with a knife!"
Even the words coming out of her mouth were a jumbled mess…
In the end I found myself wondering how I was supposed to take this girl.
"Carmilla, are we suspicious?"
"Not at all, Luca."
I patted the head of the girl tilting hers in confusion, and made up my mind.
Today, I would let this one rest.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Of course I am listening."
"…Is that so? If you admit the charges, things might go a little more smoothly."
"Charges? Ah. The Flame Grass is a cooking ingredient."
Elyse looked horrified.
"Y-you eat Flame Grass?"
This girl…
Had she never put chili powder in her mouth in her life?
"Heh. Where I come from, that is how it is used…"
Well, it wasn't that strange, really. From the conversation I'd had a few days ago with Wiz, the owner of the alchemy workshop, I had already realized—from their point of view, I was the weirdo who cheerfully claimed to eat gunpowder.
But once you actually try it, it's pretty good.
Should I have her give it a try?
Mm… Something that spicy might be a bit much for her.
I thought it, then held myself back.
"Th-then what about this creature?"
Elyse pointed a finger at Luca, looking thoroughly confused.
This time, though, I had nothing to explain.
I didn't know either.
"It's neither human nor beast… I've never seen anything like it!"
"Who knows. What is she, really. Other than that she is a Beastman, I do not know."
At that, Luca—who had reacted to hearing about herself—declared proudly:
"Luca is a proud Beastman!"
Mm.
I see.
"What even is a Beastman, to begin with?"
That simple answer hadn't told me anything useful, so I asked a more fundamental question.
"Um… Beastmen are strong!"
Strong probably meant physically powerful. I had known that much since the day we met. The sight of her smashing a rock-salt golem with a greatsword was still pretty vivid in my memory.
"And what else is there?"
"And, and also… Yeah. Everyone got scattered."
Saying that, Luca somehow looked downcast.
"Mom, Dad, even big brother… all scattered. So Luca doesn't know where they are."
"Oh dear, Luca. Making you tell a sad story—I am sorry."
"Not sad. Just a fact. But sometimes Luca misses them."
Come to think of it, I knew nothing about this girl's past. She still seemed to be learning to speak properly, so whether she could even explain it well was an open question…
More than anything, the absolute amount of information I had on her was painfully thin. We had only met by chance on the road, after all. Someday I would have to look into it properly, but for now this was all I knew.
"From what I have heard, it seems you have quite a story."
As the conversation went on, Elyse seemed to have calmed down in her own way. She had been listening quietly, and now she looked noticeably more composed.
"I am not familiar with the Beastman race, so I apologize for any unintended discourtesy."
"Luca is generous. Luca accepts the apology!"
Come to think of it—had this girl made it to third year without ever learning what a Beastman was? Given how much of a model student she was, maybe Beastmen had never really established themselves as a chosen race…
"Well, I believe I have cleared up most of the points you found suspicious, so you may rest easy now."
"…So where is this place?"
She covered one side of her face with a hand, looking dizzy and worn out.
"It is a restaurant I run privately. I moved Senior, who had collapsed in the warehouse, onto the bed."
"Ah… a restaurant. So that is how it was. Then the knife you were holding at the time… was just a kitchen knife, I suppose."
"Obviously. I do not use it for any other purpose."
Seeing her lower her guard little by little, it seemed we could actually talk. That was good news. If she was going to meet me halfway, I could move on to the next step.
"More importantly, Senior. You look terribly tired."
Having decided as much, I pointed out the thing that had been bothering me from the start.
"…Is it that obvious? Being overworked three hundred sixty-five days a year, I end up like this from time to time."
"Since you have come all this way, you are welcome to rest a while before you go."
At that, I saw a faintly startled look cross Elyse's face.
"Mm, really? I would like that, but I feel I have already imposed more than enough…"
"Come now. It was only a minor misunderstanding, so do not worry about it. More importantly—is there anything you would like to eat?"
"S-something I would like to eat?"
Gulp.
For some reason, I could hear her swallow from here.
"Um, Senior?"
The Elyse I looked at was having a full-blown internal crisis, pupils trembling. But that struggle did not last long.
"…Cookies."
What left her mouth, quietly, was pure resolve.
"If you could bake cookies, I would like some… but even for you that would be too much, wouldn't it. In this academy, people who can do that are practically nonexistent…"
"Yes, that is no problem at all."
"Haa?!"
My answer got an explosive reaction out of Elyse. I didn't know why she was that surprised. If you ran a restaurant of your own, making sweets like that shouldn't be all that hard.
"Butter, flour… chocolate is a little expensive, but it should be obtainable well enough. Luca!"
"Yep."
"Go to Wiz's Alchemy Workshop and buy a little Bitter Dango."
"Got it!"
"Well then, Senior—I will get things ready, so please wait just a moment."
"Uh, y-yeah…"
The goal was set. Time to begin.
I channeled mana into the oven to start it up and began preheating. Luckily I had butter sitting out at room temperature, so I grabbed that next…
I cut the butter into large chunks, put them in a bowl, and poured in a generous amount of sugar. Whisking steadily, I added more sugar little by little. Once the right amount was in, I beat an egg and worked it in a bit at a time.
It has been a while since I did any baking like this. Rather enjoyable.
I had never been especially interested in sweets, but once I had thrown myself into cooking I had tried it a few times as a hobby. I never forgot a recipe once I had learned it, so the fact that I could still do this was all thanks to knowledge I had stockpiled in the past.
"Next was… flour, was it?"
I sifted a little salt and the flour into the butter mixture I had just made. For several minutes I folded the mountain of flour in with a spatula, drawing it from top to bottom. A faint, tingling pull in my arms later, a respectable cookie dough had taken shape.
"Whew. So this is why bakers have such impressive arm muscles."
I gathered the dough I had just made and set it in the refrigerator to rest for a bit…
And right on cue, Luca came back.
"Carmilla, I bought the thing you said!"
"Well done, Luca."
What I took from her was Bitter Dango—an import from a foreign land, usually used as a stimulant for how incredibly bitter it was.
Unfortunately, that was only how people who had never learned to use it properly judged it. From the image and description of Bitter Dango I had seen in the game, I knew it was nothing less than 100% pure dark chocolate.
"With this, making chocolate is a piece of cake~"
So I immediately set a pot of water on the heat. On top of it I placed a smaller bowl so it could take the heat of the boiling water, then put the Bitter Dango into the bowl and began melting it slowly.
That was the double-boiler method, used for melting chocolate. Of course, I was melting it so I could make it sweet. Dump in the right amounts of butter and sugar, firmly press down that raw bitterness—and just like that, it became proper chocolate.
"Shall we bake them now!"
I rolled out the chilled cookie dough with a rolling pin until it was nice and flat… cut it into suitable pieces, and pressed the chocolate I had just made—cut into neat squares—into the tops.
The oven had finished preheating, so I slid the prepared dough in—and all that remained was to wait as fast as possible.
"Hee, it smells good."
Sitting in front of the oven and swinging her legs in the air, Luca was the first to react to the scent. The uniquely sweet aroma of cookies, warmed by the oven's heat, spread through every corner of the shop.
Watching the chocolate bubble and melt and the cookies bake to a crisp, we waited a long while… until at last a ding rang out, and the wait that had felt like an eternity was over.
"Here, Senior. Please help yourself as much as you like!"
A plate piled high with cookies, and a mug of milk. Faced with the spread I had whipped up in a single go, Elyse wore an expression I could hardly put into words.
"How… how can there be this many cookies…?!"
Her reaction was closer to pure shock, and I wondered if she wasn't overdoing it a little—but she looked happy, so that was what mattered!