The Academy's Strongest Street Vendor (2)
The day of the hardtack contract with the Academy.
Calius and I finished our preparations and left the company estate. He had packed a small mountain of documents and, talking things over with his attendants as we went, was reviewing every clause of the contract with meticulous care. I, by comparison, had nothing in particular to bring. A single pen for signing would be plenty.
It might have looked as if I had no sense of responsibility, or as if I were dumping the whole thing on Calius. But I was a cook and he was a merchant, and I preferred to think of it as each of us doing our best from where we stood. I would devise solid recipes and supply them. He would grow a business on that foundation. Better to take an expert's help than to try to do everything alone—that had always been my creed.
We were walking toward the Academy when I saw that the protesters from yesterday had gathered again today.
"But what are all these shopkeepers supposed to do? They got driven out overnight."
"Do? What is there to do. It's simply a pity. Commoners getting their backs broken in a fight between nobles is hardly a rare sight."
"Ah..."
Had I been thinking too much like a modern man? If a country allowed protests at all, even modest ones, I had assumed it would naturally compensate the people who got hurt. In this, though, the class system was still ironclad. Calius only shot them a pitying look and shook his head.
Passing the Academy's main gate, I couldn't get the protesters out of my sight. A memory from modern Earth rose unbidden. If anything had changed between then and now, it was the weight sitting in my chest.
How many customers would come today? I wasn't hoping for all of them. Would I even get through half the ingredients I had prepared? If this month ended in the red again, just getting by would be brutal. Could I even make rent?
Running your own shop means fighting uncertainty. Even the sharpest operators can only offer you a chance of dodging ruin. They cannot guarantee so much as an average success. There is a saying, isn't there—if your guts are weak, don't go into business. On Earth, that uncertainty had worn on my heart something fierce. It felt as if someone had driven a sharp wedge into it and locked the whole thing with a very heavy padlock.
My life now, by contrast... honestly, it was pretty enjoyable. My chest wasn't heavy and stifling the way it used to be. No customers, and I lived with that. Customers, and I cooked and enjoyed it. There had been a lot going on lately, and today too the restaurant was an afterthought while I came to close a deal, but still.
Call it the sympathy of shared hardship. I had been through the grind myself, so my eyes kept drifting toward them. Feeling vaguely guilty, I headed for the Academy's main building.
The path, though, was quieter and less alive than I had expected.
"The Academy grounds feel a bit desolate. Everyone off at the protest, I suppose."
"I'd imagine so. The dormitories sit close to the classrooms, so you wouldn't see the students from here."
"Still, there's one heading in over there."
"Hm. A commoner who doesn't live in the dorms, by the look of it."
Right—commoners could enter the Academy too. It was essentially a university, so admission was hardly cheap, but I had heard there were scholarships for commoners. An academy that preached educational equality, at least to some degree, left the door open for poor commoners as well.
But that girl... her steps were unsteady. Something was off. Her brown hair was dry and brittle, and she looked gaunt all over. A question surfaced, and I put it to Calius.
"Does the Academy have school meals? Or do they just buy food outside?"
"Commoners mostly use the cafeteria. Noble children vary, depending on the day. By now I'd wager most of them buy their own."
"Don't tell me cutting off the ingredients included the cafeteria."
"It did. The catering outfit that came into the Academy was one of the merchant houses' businesses too."
No. That is way too far.
So that was why the commoner girl was staggering along, unable to muster any strength. When they said the ingredient supply had been cut, I had assumed only the eateries on Academy grounds were suffering. It wasn't just that. The cafeteria itself had been shut down?
And the cafeteria was what commoners mainly ate. If that stopped, what were the commoner students supposed to do? I didn't know how high prices ran at the Academy, but with most of the students being nobles, they would be steep—steep enough that a commoner student couldn't easily open a wallet.
She had been walking ahead of us, but we caught up in no time. I spoke to her.
"Excuse me. You look worn out. Are you all right?"
"Y-yes? I'm not really all right, but... it's fine."
A black-haired man suddenly talking to her must have seemed suspicious. She eyed me warily. I held out a bag of hardtack from the stock I had brought and said,
"I just wanted to ask you something. Has the cafeteria not been coming out properly lately?"
"No... The headmaster cut off all the vendors, so it's gotten pretty poor. This hardtack... is it all right for me to take it? It's hard to find."
"I've got piles of it at home. Eat up. So what do the commoner students eat, then?"
It was neatly packaged for sale, and hardtack was wildly popular in the capital, so she accepted it without much suspicion. The hardtack's fame probably helped, and so did Calius and his attendants walking with me. They wore the merchant guild's insignia, and his was the only company that sold the stuff.
She tore the package open at once and munched the hardtack.
"Mmm, it's mild and good. Thank you. My commoner friends mostly bring bread from home, or a lot of them have started skipping lunch."
"Doesn't that leave you hungry? Is buying food outside too much?"
"It is, but there's nothing we can do. Lunch break isn't long enough to leave Academy grounds, and the shops inside are too expensive... Ah, I have to go, class is starting. Thank you for the hardtack."
I didn't know how classes ran at the Academy, but she would need to get there early and prepare to study. She didn't break into a sprint, but she went on ahead of us at a reasonably quick pace.
Haah... I hadn't planned on this. I had truly meant to sign the contract and nothing more, then go back to running my restaurant properly.
When I was her age, I got school lunch three times a day.
Students in the thick of their growth. Those kids, far from being too full to eat another bite, couldn't eat because there was nothing to eat. Well... if someone said I was bending on a resolve the way reeds bend in the wind, I wouldn't have a comeback. But what was I supposed to do? The kids were starving.
I had already set the Silbaerin Knights' disastrous mess hall to rights, and Nuardel too, and I was going to look the other way here? That would make even my meddling inconsistent.
If you're going to meddle, at least have a spine about it.
Consistently. I would stick my nose in only when the sorry problem was about people not getting to eat. And few problems were bigger than growing students failing to eat properly. The shopkeepers were pitiful too, but it was better to start with what I could actually do. Getting in as a cafeteria vendor would be difficult, and renting a shop building was a thorough nuisance...
What about a street stall?
It brought back my clueless younger days, when I had watched the movie Chef, lost my mind, and started a food truck. I had barely had my license, and I raised so much hell with the thing that it all ended in a car crash. I really had nearly died back then. I was hauling an LPG tank in the back of the truck. If it had blown, I would have arrived in this other world fifteen years early.
"Mr. Calius. Would it be all right if I added something to the contract terms?"
"Hm? First time you've made a proposal like that. If it isn't unreasonable, let's put it in. What is it?"
I rambled at him about the plan I had in mind and, for the sake of persuasion, the motive behind it. His answer came back.
"Running a stall is your own business, but... do you really have to? The merchant houses' distribution networks are all cut. How do you mean to get ingredients?"
"I'll manage that somehow. You know me."
I can do it. If it's me...
So long as I had the Mana Market, ingredient distribution and everything else was no problem at all. Faced with the confidence pouring off me, Calius bent a little.
"Fine, fine. But why bring it up this late? We're practically there..."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know the cafeteria had been cut off too."
"Haah... Let's go in for now. A merchant being late to an appointment is forbidden. Better to beg a moment's pardon in the middle of the contract."
"Yes. Let's go!"
I was sorry I had spoken late, but now that I knew, there was nothing for it. When we stepped into the Academy's main building, a figure who had been waiting came toward us.
"Thank you for coming all this way, Guildmaster Calius."
"Director of Finance, it's been a while. This is the chef friend I mentioned before."
"Hello. I'm Kang Jinwoo."
"Hm, an unusual name. A pleasure. I am Edman, Director of Finance for the Academy."
So he was the finance director. Hearing the title and looking again, the air about him fit. I shook his hand and followed his lead toward the headmaster's office. He said little until we reached the door, confirmed that we were ready, and knocked.
"Headmaster. Guildmaster Calius and the chef have arrived."
"Come in."
At the reply that came straight back, we opened the antique door. And the person who appeared before my eyes...
Huh? The headmaster? Not a student?
Snow-white hair and snow-white skin. Unlike Eilenna's bright, cheerful blue eyes, pupils of a blue so deep you couldn't see the end of it. They called her the greatest magical genius in history, and perhaps every bit of energy that should have gone into her height had gone into mana instead—she was tiny. In every respect, an appearance that did not suit the post of headmaster.
Ermia Belfast, headmaster of Arcadia Academy.
I had pictured a seasoned elder brimming with charisma... This negotiation might be easier than I had expected?
There was a time I thought that, yes.
Gripping the pen in fingers gone stiff with tension, I finished signing the contract. Only after Calius and Ermia had signed as well did I feel as if I could breathe. I had been steadying my breath while trying not to show it, when Ermia spoke.
"I didn't put it in the contract, but I'll come take a look later. Your mana is unusual. I'd like to study it once."
"Study? My body?"
"Don't be scared. It's not as if I'm going to kill you."
No—when the person rated the greatest mage in imperial history says something like that, it is terrifying. My first impression had been that she seemed like a student, and honestly I had taken her a little lightly, but the more we discussed the contract, the more her peculiar presence overwhelmed me. I can't sense mana, but you instinctively feel a person's pressure, don't you? That uh, that one's a bit dangerous feeling. Ermia was exactly that case. Her aura was so crushing it was hard just to hold my ground.
When I brought up wanting to run a stall, my hands had been soaked with sweat. She had narrowed her eyes a fraction and glared, and I half wondered if she was about to blast me with a Zoltraak. Well, but... if she said she was going to research me, what choice did I have? I just hoped it wouldn't hurt.
"Yes... please handle me however suits you..."
"You've gone bland all of a sudden. Well, fine. Calius. When can deliveries start?"
"We'll deliver within this afternoon."
"All right. For the duration of the contract, deliver on the same date every month."
"Understood."
With the contract fully concluded, Calius and I rose from our seats, and the Director of Finance approached.
"Mr. Kang Jinwoo. There are documents to complete regarding the stall, so please visit the administration office soon."
"Ah, understood."
Only then did it strike me how thoroughly I had been cooking by the seat of my pants until now. The scent of an administrative system, after a long time.
"We'll be going, then. Lady Ermia. Thank you truly for doing business with our company."
"A deal holds when interests align, so there's no need to be so grateful. And... Jinwoo, was it?"
"Yes. That's right."
"Once you open the stall, I'll stop by. Farewell."
A bizarre farewell aimed squarely at me. I was so flustered I couldn't even answer properly, and left the headmaster's office. More precisely, I was put out of it. My body moved on its own, and it didn't feel like wind magic—more as if something had been laid over the surface of me and forced me to move. An unfamiliar sensation either way, and it raised gooseflesh for no good reason.
Calius must have felt the same, because he stared at me, dumbfounded.
"Lady Ermia's charisma is unreal. I was seriously scared."
"I was scared because of you, Jinwoo."
"Well... it worked out, so that's enough, isn't it? Let's head back."
"Right. If we're to deliver by afternoon, we need to hurry."
Calius and I came out of the building in a rush. Not that much time had passed, but the fatigue felt as if half a day had gone by. Were people in the empire's strongest tier really this frightening...
Duke. What are you, exactly.
I knew Duke Kailan ranked among the quite strong as well, and he had treated me so comfortably all along. Gratitude toward him welled up anew.
As we retraced the way we had come, Calius asked,
"So what kind of stall are you going to run? Have you a menu in mind?"
"I have a few ideas... still thinking. I'll need to test them a bit."
I wanted food that could supply balanced nutrition, but nothing suitable was easy to make at a stall. Outdoor tables, even if I set them out, would number one or two at most, so anything awkward to eat was out. Something you could eat simply, that still covered nutrition, at a decent price...
Toast. Not bad.
Not the kind American kids eat, slathered with every cheese under the sun. That hearty one that always comes up the moment you say Korean street food. Thick slices of white bread griddled in margarine until they turned savory and nutty, a fat fried egg tucked between them, ketchup and sugar to blow the stimulation wide open. Folded in half and stuffed into a paper cup so the cup could serve as a handle. Wolf it down with milk, and you couldn't get hungry until lunch.
Breakfast or lunch—I'll make sure you can't go hungry.
The Academy stall's first menu was decided: Korean street toast.