The Baking Club That Can't Bake - 1
The three foreign dignitaries the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had marked as persons of interest had all gathered in the same club, and they had even made acquaintance with a figure representing the military strength of the Three Kingdoms. It would not be an exaggeration to say that their full-fledged Academy exchange life had now begun. Though, if I was being honest, I had been thinking that rather often ever since arriving at the Academy. Every time it seemed things were properly getting underway, something new always happened.
"Hahahahaha!"
The Minister's choking laughter came through the communication orb. At the news that the persons of interest had instantly congregated in one club—and that I was that club's advisor—he had burst out laughing in genuine delight. My face soured as I looked at him with a deadpan expression.
"What's so funny?"
"You tell a funny story and then tell me not to laugh?"
My mood soured even further. That bastard. Of all people to be the Minister…
After several more rounds of laughter, the Minister finally managed to catch his breath and calm himself. Watching that unfold in real time was more heartbreaking than I had expected. So my misfortune is your laughter bell, is that it? Once he had exhaled, the Minister was already staring at me with a serious expression.
"So you really have no idea either?"
"I already said so. I truly have no leads whatsoever."
The official report on the phenomenon of key figures flocking to the Baking Club had been filed as "cause unknown." Nothing demonstrated incompetence quite like an Inspector reporting that he did not know the reason, but I could not exactly write, "A pink capybara spread poison through the Academy!" either.
Sometimes in life, incidents erupted for which you simply could not see any angle at all. I decided to treat this case the same way.
The Minister fell into thought as well, stroking his chin at my repeated affirmations. I might have been a man aiming for retirement, but I had never once played games with work-related matters. Knowing that, the Minister had no choice but to regard it as truly cause unknown.
"I still have to pass this news on to the Ministry of Palace Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I need some sort of justification to package it with."
"How about saying that since His Highness the Third Prince is in the club, the other dignitaries who had been fretting over where to go simply gathered there?"
"Then why did His Highness the Third Prince join?"
"That one really has no answer…"
Ainter, who had lived with bated breath ever since the succession dispute, had truly lived like a dead man after the Crown Prince's exhilarating sword dance. And that same Ainter had suddenly joined a club?
How am I supposed to say he did it because he was smitten with a girl.
A sigh threatened to escape me. Was this the feeling of someone carrying a secret that had to be carefully kept alone?
Looking at me like that, the Minister waved his hand and spoke.
"Well, fine. We can just say that His Highness the Third Prince's intentions are still under additional investigation. Since you took on the advisor role from the club's founding, the justification will hold."
"Yes, understood."
"When the communication orb turns purple, know that something's come and answer it."
"This is fucking awful."
Purple meant contact from imperial personnel. If the Crown Prince started keeping an eye on the Third Prince again, imperial contact might suddenly land on me without warning. Please, please not that…
The Minister let out a snort of laughter and cut the connection without lingering. His face vanished and the communication orb lost its light. Silence settled once more in the room. Another day had passed.
The Baking Club's pattern was similar. Not that it had lasted long enough to analyze patterns in the first place.
"Young Lady Luise. If you're not careful, it'll get all over your face."
When club time arrived, it became essentially a Luise one-man show, with the five audience members around her somehow seeking excuses to speak and ferrying various ingredients back and forth. They never involved themselves in the actual baking, yet from a distance it looked as though they were doing something—a strangely peculiar form.
I supposed it was because they had been born standing above others. They instinctively knew how to extract maximum efficiency with minimum action. Of course, up close they were nothing more than free-riding deadweights who knew nothing about baking. Did they even like Luise? Sometimes they looked exactly like group-project members who simply abandoned everything to one person.
I quietly watched the five putting in the occasional cheer for Luise's actions. Guys who looked as though they could make decent money sitting as paid audience members. They might buy a person's goodwill, but advancing romantic feelings? Not a chance. And among those hopeless cases, Erich was still included. Useless guy.
I should give him a hint.
I had intended early on to advise Erich to at least share a hobby by baking together, but not long after thinking it, three new members had come flooding in and I had not managed to speak up. Fortunately or unfortunately, all five were still in a wait-and-see state, so if Erich just pushed a little ahead now, he would immediately become the frontrunner.
Alright. First, pull Erich aside alone.
"I need one person to help move ingredients."
I stood up and drew their gazes. Of course there were no ingredients to transport. Thankfully a porter brought any lacking materials to the front of the clubroom every morning. It was simply an excuse to slip out alone with Erich.
"Erich. Come with me."
At my quick designation, Erich flinched and carefully approached my side. A member who obediently followed the advisor's request. This advisor was extremely satisfied.
I nodded once to Erich and made to go outside when Ryutis raised his hand.
"Will two be enough? If it's work that needs strength, I'm here too."
Why are you butting in all of a sudden.
A guy whose attention should have been fixed on Luise was volunteering. It was suspicious, but I figured maybe he was just an energetic type and let it slide. Understanding the actions of those original-work protagonists was far too high-dimensional a problem for me.
"It's fine. Two is enough."
"Well, if you say so."
Ryutis shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze back to Luise. Seeing how he asked once and left it, it seemed he had only been asking out of courtesy. Yeah, thanks for showing even that much courtesy.
"Let's go."
"Uh, okay."
Now it was time to strengthen this weakest link even a little.
When the sound of the door closing and the two pairs of footsteps faded, Ryutis's gaze briefly turned toward the door.
Karl Crassius.
The name of the Inspector who had come to stay at the Academy in response to the Three Kingdoms. The man he had unexpectedly met as the club's advisor. Having somehow become a member under his management, Ryutis had first heard that name about two years earlier.
It had been during the large-scale personnel reshuffle that followed the Empire ending its war in the North and investing the Crown Prince. It was only natural for the Armein Kingdom—which prided itself on national power second only to the Empire—to keep a close watch on such changes. Thus learning the name of Karl Crassius, who had become a Division Chief at the age of nineteen, had been entirely natural.
The leadership of the Armein Kingdom who received that news concluded that the Empire's manpower shortage was more severe than expected. How desperate must they have been to appoint a nineteen-year-old Division Chief? Still, if a man named Karl had become Division Chief, there had to be a reason for it. Armein began its investigations.
Fortunately, due to the war, succession disputes, large-scale purges and the like, the Empire's counterintelligence network at the time had grown looser than before, and the Armein intelligence department was able to gather information on Karl. And they retracted their previous conclusion.
They could give the Division Chief position to the man who took down Kagan.
Four years earlier, the being who had united the Northern nomads and pointed a blade at the Empire. The Emperor of the nomads, Kagan. Of course the sole Empire of the continent, Crefelofen, did not recognize the title of Kagan and called him a rebel who had challenged the Empire's mandate of heaven. Yet being tormented for two full years by that rebel who did not know his place had been the Empire's humiliation.
And at the end of those two years of war, the one who severed Kagan's head in the final battle was Karl Crassius. Someone else had commanded the Imperial army and crushed Kagan's forces, but it was Karl who cut off Kagan's head in the midst of that battle. Strangely the Empire had not made a large-scale public announcement, yet neither had they thoroughly hidden it, so the intelligence department could learn of it.
But for such a man to be an Inspector.
Ryutis almost let out a snort of laughter. Setting aside why Karl belonged to the Ministry of Finance, it seemed to show the Empire's will that if the Three Kingdoms did anything foolish at the Academy, they would immediately overturn them. There was the face of the Three Kingdoms and their key figures to consider, and because concessions had been received from the Three Kingdoms, the stationing of escort forces was permitted. But that was as far as it went.
If necessary, the Inspector would suppress them by force. And the Empire would also push additional support to protect the talent who had taken down Kagan. Such auditory hallucinations seemed to linger in his ears. Pretending to make concessions while trying to occupy a situation advantageous to themselves was the Empire's main diplomatic method.
Even recalling the Empire's ruthless intent, Ryutis did not pay it much mind. As long as the Three Kingdoms showed no strange behavior, the Empire would have no justification to move. And while he did not know about Later and Tanian, Ryutis truly intended to attend the Academy quietly. So there was nothing to fear.
It was only that he wondered what variable the Inspector's presence in the club—alongside Luise, the woman he had fallen for at first sight—would act as. So Ryutis had slightly raised his hand to try speaking with Karl, and when rejected, cleanly folded the matter. No matter how curious he was, the Luise right before his eyes was more important.
Ryutis looked at Luise's face as she kneaded dough, a bright smile on his own. That face which had first made the heart of Ryutis—who had been trapped in the stuffy, boring royal palace—race.
Advisor-sensei, please take good care of the club.
Because this club could not be allowed to collapse if he wanted to keep seeing that face.
"You like Luise, right?"
And at that same moment, Karl was hammering his younger brother in order to strengthen him.