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Chapter 2 – 8 (part 1)

The Magic of Sweets

The next day, I ended up sleeping until noon. Yesterday I had helped to bring Geese and the other thieves to the Knight's Headquarters, causing me to head to bed late. I decided to spend time in the city today.

But food comes first! I got changed and peeked inside the bag, where s.h.i.+romaru was gnawing on one of the boar bones.

“Do you wanna eat?”

I asked, and he responded with a big wag of this tail and a small bark. I went down to the dining area but…

“Tenma, there's nothing left from breakfast. You're a bit late!”

I slumped my shoulders after hearing that, then went outside.

I munched on some bread I got from a nearby food cart, while heading towards a certain store. Although it was about 20 minutes away from the inn, this store was said to have the best variety of goods in the city.

My goal was to buy sugar, milk and flour. It had been a while, so I wanted to eat something sweet. While I was at it, I planned on stocking up some too.

First up was sugar… it was a bit expensive though. Well, I have money now so it's probably fine. 10kg should do it, that came to 1,500G.

Next was milk. Since s.h.i.+romaru would also be drinking it, I got 20L. That much milk was 600G.

Then finally, the flour. I can make a lot of different things with it, so I wanted to buy a bunch. Maybe around 100kg. It was 40G for 1kg, so in total it was 4,000G.

The grand total came to 6,100G or so.

After I had finished paying, I put the goods into the bag in order. A number of people around watched my bag with envy in their eyes.

I went back to the inn and got permission from the innkeep to use their kitchen. He had some spare time to burn, so the innkeep followed me in.

“Tenma, what are you planning to make today?”  He said with great interest.

“I thought I would make 3 different types of sweets.” I answered.

“Sweets you say! Will you make some for me?”  said the innkeep's wife, who had come in.

“I have plenty of ingredients so I can make some for you too.”

“Please do!” she said, her eyes sparkling.

I thought, ‘Ah, she's a girl too, after all.'

“Tenma. You're not thinking of something rude, are you?”

she said with a sharp look.

“I wasn't thinking anything!”

I straightened my back and stood stiffly. The innkeep, behind his wife chuckled and muttered, what an idiot.

“Ma'am! You husband seems to want to give his own portion to you!”

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I took my petty revenge. The innkeep, shaking his head said, ‘I never said anything like that', but by that point his wife was going to take it anyways.

While under the innkeeps' sharp glare, I started to make the sweets. I wanted to make donuts, pancakes and pudding.

First up was the pudding.

To start, add the sugar to the milk and heat. When the sugar is dissolved, use ice magic to cool it and mix in a Rock Bird Egg (there's quite a lot of egg so, crack it then mix it up in another container first). Neatly cut the the eggsh.e.l.l into halves, then strain it with a colander while adding it gently. All together it made 4 eggsh.e.l.l half portions.

Put them two at a time into a steamer and steam them gently over low heat.

Lastly, put sugar into a saucepan and heat. When the sugar is melted, add in a little water and the caramel is complete.

Next up was the donuts and the pancakes.

First, fill a large saucepan with oil, and preheat the oil. Next sift the flour into a bowl and mix in a little baking soda. Divide it into two halves and set one aside. Mix together the Rock Bird egg, milk, sugar, and melted b.u.t.ter, then set aside half of that too. Add one half of the milk mixture little by little to one half of the flour mixture.

Knead the dough until it's about the same firmness as one of your earlobes. Form 5cm diameter, 1cm thick circles and poke a hold in the middle of each.

When the oil is hot, put the donuts in gently and fry until they turn golden brown. When they're done frying, remove them from the oil. Sprinkle sugar over their surface and the donuts are finished. There were about 50 in total.

Combine the remaining halves of the flour and milk mixture and mix in starch syrup (or corn syrup).

When it thickens, melt some b.u.t.ter in a frying pan. Ladle one spoon into the pan at a time and fry. When both sides are golden brown, the pancakes are complete. It made about 20 pancakes.

It took about an hour and a half to finish making everything. I put the donuts and pancakes into the Magic Bag while they were still piping hot, then chilled the pudding and caramel with ice magic before putting them in as well.

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To the innkeep's wife, I gave 1 portion of pudding (a half sh.e.l.l) topped with a generous about of caramel, 10 of the donuts and 5 pancakes topped with b.u.t.ter and honey. She was in such a good mood it was off the charts.

I then went to the guild with my newly made sweets. I couldn't find Flute anywhere inside, so I asked another employee where she might be, and they replied she was on break. I thought, ‘oh this is perfect timing then' and asked if they could call on her.

Immediately after I had asked,

“Do you need me for something, Tenmsan?”

Flute said, just as she came out from a room in the back.

“Sorry for interrupting your break. I made some sweets, so I came to share them.”

The moment I said the word sweets! Flute-san's eyes sparkled. I gave her 2 half sh.e.l.ls of pudding coated with caramel, 30 donuts and 10 pancakes with b.u.t.ter and honey.

“Please share them with everyone.”

As I pulled out the sweets, a sweet smell wafted through the air. As it did, the other guild employees, especially the ladies, honed in on the source of the smell. In the middle of them was one person thanking me happily with both hands.

“All of this… Tenmsan, thank you very much!”

As Flute gave her thanks, her line of sight wasn't focused on me, but instead the sweets.

I asked about the reward for taking down the Rock Birds from earlier, and a nearby female employee took care of it. I handed over 20 of their parts as proof of slaying them (beaks), and received 20,000G for it.

When I was leaving the guild, almost all of the female employees (around 10 people) called out to me as I left.

Upon returning to the inn, a person sent by the knights was there waiting for me.

“I'm terribly sorry, but please come with me to the Knight Headquarters.”

I didn't have anything else important to do, so I decided to go right then. I asked about it on the way there, and it seemed that Primera had received a reply from the Duke about the jewels and the thieves from yesterday.

“That was pretty fast, wasn't it?”

I asked, but it turned out that they had somehow borrowed one of the guilds Magic Tools to communicate. The Guild in the city where the Duke resided had another magic tool. They seemed to have been given special permission to use it because of the urgent nature of the problem.

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We reached the Knight's Headquarters, and I was guided to Primera's room.

“Tenmsan, sorry to have bothered you on short notice. This morning, a reply came in through the guild.”

she explained, but I replied,

“I was at the Guild earlier and met with Flute-san, but she didn't mention it at all?”

“Huh? I had asked Flute-san to let you know about it, but…”

she said and tilted her head to the side. Flute had probably forgotten about it because of the sweets…

“Well, whatever. What happened?”

“Oh, right. My father contacted me about the jewels, and said he would concede 2,200,0000G in total for them. That was it apparently.

He had used the word “concede” but, in reality he was saying “this will be a bargain”, like I was almost being forced to accept this offer.

“I see. I'll tell the other three members.”

I said, and took out the box of jewels. Primera called in someone to look them over, and after they had been verified they were placed in a safe. After that, I made a note of it to myself, just to be sure.

“And about the thieves, he seemed to want you to give up owners.h.i.+p of them.”

“Under what conditions?” I asked.

“He'll send someone soon regarding the matter and would like you to negotiate with them.”

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He didn't need to go to the trouble of sending a negotiator, unless he really wanted to get a good price…

“I see. Please notify me a 2~3 days before the negotiator arrives.” I asked.

‘And seeing as I'm here already' I said, while I took out some donuts and pancakes.

“Is it alright?”

I asked, but her eyes were already firmly fixed on the sweets. I told her, please go ahead, and gave her the b.u.t.ter and honey.

“Thank you very much! Bon Appet.i.t!”

Primera said, and popped one of the donuts into her mouth. That was the last thing I saw as I left the room.

While going home from the Headquarters, I thought, ‘they key to women really is sweets', and went to buy even more sugar.

When I got back to the inn, I ate all of the leftover sweets with s.h.i.+romaru and Slalin but… The next day, when I went to speak with the three catgirls, I realized I had run out of sweets… and they sulked about it. Thanks to that incident, I got stuck working hard at making more sweets for two whole days.

After I had spent two days making sweets for the catgirls, Primera contacted me just before noon and let me know that the negotiator would be coming in three days. I asked the catgirl trio about it and they replied, we're no good at negotiating so we'll leave it to you, Tenma!

Hi, Refulgent, your translator here, if you like my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or constructive feedback at Four slimes . com I'd love to hear from you directly~

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