Cream Puffs That Fan the Flames of Rivalry (1)
In his previous life, Karem had almost nothing to do with shopping or fashion.
Clothes were simply whatever his hand grabbed first from the closet.
The few friends he had always teased him for being a fashion terrorist whenever they saw him, but the truth was they were fashion terrorists themselves. It was a pure case of the pot calling the kettle black.
There was no special reason for it. He was just lazy, so he wore whatever he pulled from the top of the pile. If he had at least had a girlfriend, things might have been different.
After elementary school he had gone through an all-boys middle school, an all-boys high school, and then a computer science department. Opportunities to get close to girls simply never existed. Even then, the sum total of his female acquaintances amounted to one or two people he had befriended through game characters and voice chat on the other side of a computer screen, plus one or two coworkers he spoke with purely for work.
Beyond that, the only women he could call “close” were friends or acquaintances of his parents. He preferred holing up at home and hated going out. The household atmosphere was just that dry.
Past-life Karem had not been a shut-in. He simply preferred staying home over going outside; if anything, “lazy as hell” was the more accurate description. His parents were the same way. As a result, Karem had naturally become a homebody in the most literal sense of the word, and as already mentioned, he had zero luck with romantic partners.
Of course the same applied to games. He had dipped his toes into a few dating sims, but they simply were not his taste. If the story was good he could enjoy them the way one reads a novel, but that was about it.
And yet, nearly eleven years after reincarnating as the serf boy Karem, he somehow found himself experiencing the exact feelings of a boyfriend dragged along on his girlfriend’s shopping trip.
“Hmm. The performance isn’t bad. Single-attribute defense and burst output… but more than anything, the design is terrible.”
Rejected. Catherine tossed the bracelet she had been examining onto the table with those words. Moments earlier it had been fastened around Karem’s wrist—one of the magic tools.
The bracelet landed limply atop the growing pile of rejects beside the assortment of other bracelets and necklaces. And that pile was only going to keep growing.
“Let’s see. About half left to go.”
“Lady Atanitas, wouldn’t it be enough to just look at the performance?”
“What kind of nonsense is that, kid? Do you still think you’re some oppressed ten-year-old serf from a backwater corner of Kingsland?”
Catherine closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them, easing the fatigue that had made them ache. She had been staring so long without blinking while appraising the magic tools that her eyes had gone completely dry.
“If you walk around looking like a complete mess, who do you think people will bad-mouth?”
“Well… you, my lady, as my master, right?”
“And you know that, yet you still say things like that?”
“But Mary already picks out all my clothes for me.”
“And knowing that, you still put on that godawful combination first thing?”
This time Catherine pulled her hands away from her eyes and stared at him with pure disgust.
“I never imagined that even the supposedly safe combination of white and black could turn into something so hideous.”
“Yeah… Mary did keep muttering about Titania.”
“Tutatis have mercy.”
Catherine had no idea how she was supposed to fix the fashion sense of this empty-headed specimen—no, wait, she did have some idea. Right, he used to be a serf. If he came from serf stock, maybe it made a certain amount of sense.
Of course, if she ever learned that he had been exactly like this even in his previous life, she would have screamed that his very soul must be cursed, but that was none of Karem’s concern.
“So… sorting these magic tools is part of that same effort?”
“Exactly. Unless the performance is exceptionally good, if the design is trash or the style is hopelessly outdated, that becomes gossip material all by itself.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.”
No matter how hard he looked, he still couldn’t tell the difference!
Karem simply could not see any external distinction between the magic tools Catherine rejected for “ugly design” and the ones she set aside as acceptable. To his eyes, almost all of them looked shabby compared to the dazzling, stylish jewelry and accessories of the modern world. A few pieces did have somewhat decent designs, yet some of those had been selected and others rejected.
“I give up. I don’t understand a single thing.”
“Mm. Good. Knowing when to quit is important.”
“No matter how I look at them, I just can’t get a feel for it.”
“That’s why I’m personally reviewing them for you, isn’t it?”
“…How much longer do I have to keep standing here like this?”
“Didn’t I already tell you?”
Catherine gave a light tap to the still-bulging leather pouch on one side of the table—less full than at the start, but still plenty stuffed.
“We’ve still got a long way to go.”
A wave of exhaustion suddenly crashed over Karem. Not that he had actually done anything. All he did was stand there blankly, swapping one magic tool for another. Yet somehow the whole process was draining him mentally.
“Then at least let me take a short break. I’m dying here.”
Without waiting for her reply, Karem sprawled into a chair. Catherine gave him a look that clearly said Look at this little punk, then shook her head in resignation.
“Mmm. This chair is comfortable.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. The luxurious black wooden chair looked solid yet felt soft; the moment he sat down it seemed to cradle him gently. He almost wondered if the chair itself was a magic tool.
It wasn’t a baseless thought. Even though Catherine’s personality made it impossible for her to stay in one place for long stretches, she still spent most of her day sitting at a desk. And for a desk-bound person, nothing mattered more than a comfortable chair. The one he had claimed offered exactly that level of seating bliss.
As his body relaxed, thoughts began to surface.
I feel like I’m forgetting something. No, I really am.
But what could I have forgotten in that short time?
When he thought about it, there were a few candidates, yet he had already taken care of them. The meju blocks were aging in a straw pile in a quiet corner room. The finished soy sauce was in the cold storage, and the doenjang he had hidden away in secret. He hadn’t even started on the gochujang yet.
So where was this lingering unease coming from?
“Kid. You’ve got a face like a funeral.”
“Tch. I feel like I forgot something—ah!”
“Hm?”
Catherine’s eyes widened at the sudden death-rattle of a shout. But Karem’s mind had no room to care about her reaction. He whipped his head toward the window.
It was still a long time before he needed to prepare Catherine’s lunch. Yet there was one more task he was supposed to handle before then.
Catherine’s snack.
Oh no.
It was snack time right now. This was exactly when Catherine should have been eating her afternoon treat.
Knock knock knock.
Before Karem could even scramble into action, a knock sounded at the door. Mary pushed it open with one hand. In the other she carried a bowl piled high with irregularly round, bread-like things that looked oddly familiar even to Karem.
Well, that was concerning too, but it wasn’t the important part right now.
“Hehehehe.”
“…The way you left earlier looked way too natural. Don’t tell me…”
“That ‘don’t tell me’ you’re thinking of is correct, Junior Karem.”
“Still? I thought you’d given up ages ago.”
“As if I ever would.”
He had blocked every single one of her previous attempts to steal the role, and yet she had waited until he lowered his guard after stopping her morning try and then succeeded right under his nose like this.
Mary seemed to read his thoughts perfectly and widened her eyes as if to say Not a chance.
“After a long, humiliating wait, I have finally succeeded.”
“It’s only been less than a year, though.”
“Be quiet, Junior Karem. The unforgivable insult of snatching a house brownie’s duties even though a house brownie is present! This creation that I poured my heart and soul into—”
“Enough useless chatter.”
“Contractor, do you have any idea how important this is to a house brownie?”
“Doesn’t seem like something I need to care about. Just bring the snack over already.”
To Catherine, the entire spectacle was utterly trivial.
“Understood.”
Hmph. A tiny sound of protest. Yet Mary obeyed the order faithfully. The bowl holding her masterpiece was promptly set in an empty spot on the table.
At last Karem could get a clear look at the contents.
Irregular, slightly bulging rounds of pastry a little smaller than an adult fist. They were stacked in a cone shape inside the bowl. They looked as though they had swollen past their limits and burst open from within, yet overall they retained a soft, rounded form. A few spots showed slightly darker coloring, but the overall pale beige tone gave them a gentle impression.
And most of all—the white, cloud-like whipped cream faintly visible through the crisp outer shell.
Every single feature he could see combined into a dessert whose appearance was not merely familiar but downright intimate to Karem.
Cream puffs.
No—there was pastry and the cream had been piped, but had she really developed these all by herself? Was a house brownie’s obsession with baking really this monstrous?!
Mary seemed to enjoy his reaction. With her usual blank expression she planted her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest proudly for all to see.
“What an unusual shape. Have you named it?”
“I thought of one in advance. CreamPuff.”
“Somehow it sounds soft and fluffy. Did you fill the inside with whipped cream?”
“Yes. I guarantee it will not disappoint.”
Puff pastry filled with cream. Shortened to cream puff.
To Karem the French-style name choux cream was more familiar than the original, but a dessert that had spread across the entire world in his previous life had finally appeared in Europa thanks to Mary’s research after she absorbed his knowledge.
He could not tear his eyes away. Seeing the complicated expression on her personal chef’s face—one heavy with anticipation—Catherine tilted her head slightly.
“You’re quite interested. Judging by the amount, it looks like there are portions for you and her as well. Want to try one first?”
“N-no. Ahem.”
“I don’t mind, you know.”
“Even so, I can’t eat before my superior.”
Honestly, Karem wanted to accept Catherine’s offer. But he still had a conscience. Fundamentally this was Catherine’s snack. Even if he had been distracted by being treated as her living jewelry stand, preparing it had originally been his job.
Mary stood behind Catherine with a blank face but victory gleaming in her eyes, which was irritating, yet it was still wrong for him to eat first.
“If you insist. Though the size is a bit awkward.”
“Contractor, for the first bite I recommend eating one whole in a single mouthful.”
“Then bring it over here.”
The moment the order left Catherine’s lips, Mary instantly reined in her triumphant emotions as if they had never existed and moved from behind her to her side. She carefully speared a cream puff with a fork.
Crunch—
It was not the sound Catherine had expected. The exterior was still crisp, but the interior was completely different. The fork, soaked with moisture from the whipped cream, broke through the shell and then slid in with almost no resistance, far softer than the first impression.
“Oh. Softer sound than I thought.”
“Do you have any idea how much dough, butter, and milk were sacrificed to create a pastry that is both crisp and soft? The tears—”
“Tears, my foot. You ate every single failed batch yourself, didn’t you?”
“They were failures, but they were truly delicious.”
Catherine shook her head as if she had given up, hesitated for a brief moment, and then opened her mouth.
A pastry shell that is both crisp and soft, filled with clouds of whipped cream.
A picture drawn by ChatGPT.