Volume 1, Extra: The encounter of a young boy. Part 3

Volume 1, Extra: The encounter of a young boy. Part 3

The next day.

It was the weekly holiday, so there weren’t any classes. Most shops excluding the essential services were also closed, but Rutobias went to Café Omusubi with nothing to lose.

Yesterday, Rutobias’s head was full of the sweets even after he went home. What was that white thing made of? He also ate the cookies he bought once he got back, but they only made his heart flutter more and stimulate his appetite.

He had absorbed so much knowledge ever since a young age, but this was the first time he had wanted to learn and know something.

This might be what I’ve always wanted to do, he thought, and he felt a hole in his chest fill up.

The only one who could fulfill his wish was the store owner who made those sweets.

So he thought and so he brought his small wish to the café, but the sign on the red door wrote “Preparing.” The shop was silent without a soul, and Rutobias slouched in dejection.

Deciding to come again tomorrow, he turned on his heel when he heard the clang of the doorbell from behind him.

He turned back to see the store owner open the door, a broom and dustpan in her hands.

“Hm? You’re from yesterday…I’m sorry, we’re on holiday today.”

“…Yes…Uhm…”

Unexpectedly face to face with the person he wanted to meet, Rutobias was at a loss for words. Meanwhile, the store owner tilted her head at the fidgeting Rutobias.

“…Yes?”

“Uhm!”

Rutobias anxiously looked up at her.

“I want to learn to cook the food you serve here!”

Rutobias said breathlessly, surprising the store owner. She quietly stared at him for a while before smiling warmly.

“Please come in. We can talk all we want inside.”

She opened the door with a clang from the doorbell again and invited Rutobias inside.

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“Why don’t you take a seat over there?”

She pointed at a counter seat and put away the broom in her hand, finally moving behind the counter.

“Huh, Miss Risa?”

A man appeared from the back, perhaps from hearing the noise.

“Ahh…Zeke….”

The man Rutobias saw yesterday looked at him, seemed to understand the situation and returned to the back.

“Here.”

The tiny clink of a teacup and saucer hitting each other resounded through the quiet shop. Some hot tea, still smoking, was placed in front of Rutobias.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She lightly replied and poured another cup for herself. She pulled a stool in the corner behind the counter over to sit across from Rutobias.

Seeing her take a sip of tea, Rutobias also drank his tea.

“Now, let’s continue where we left off.”

Once they settled, the store owner began to speak.

“You said you wanted to learn cooking. How old are you?”

“I’m ten years old.”

“So you’re going to the academy?”

“Yes. I’m currently an elementary first year.”

In his heart, Rutobias added “more or less” to his sentence.

“But if I can learn how to cook, I don’t mind if I quit the academy!”

Rutobias had no attachments to the academy where he no longer had any reason to go to.

“Even if you say that…you do know that usually when someone wants to learn cooking, they graduate from the academy’s general education department first before becoming an apprentice?”

“…I’m sorry. I didn’t know the specifics.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s probably rarer for someone to know what they want to do when they have just entered the elementary department.”

Rutobias came to understand how people became chefs by her explanation. He also read between the lines in a negative light.

She was implying that he should graduate first before coming to her.

The store owner saw Rutobias’s clouded expression and smiled wryly.

“As you might have already noticed, it would be very difficult to learn cooking at your age. It doesn’t seem like your parents are chefs, either.”

“…No, they’re not.”

Do I give up here then, so Rutobias asked himself.

Just when he had finally found something, was he going to back down like this?

…No, no way.

“I know how impossible it sounds, but please, teach me cooking! I implore you!”

Rutobias looked straight at her and begged earnestly.

His heart was set alight when he ate the cookies and the cake.

He wanted to make those with his own hands.

“…Your feelings are very clear.”

Rutobias heard a quiet voice from above his lowered head. When he looked up, the store owner was smiling compassionately.

“Then, wait until you graduate from the elementary department. That is my final offer.”

“…That’s…”

“In this country, youth employment is not recognized if it isn’t the family business or if there is no special reason for it. The most important part of learning cooking is practical experience in the kitchen, but as your parents aren’t chefs, you fall under youth employment. Even if you offer to volunteer, this shop would profit off of it. That’s why at the very least, you have to graduate from the elementary department. I’ll try to do something about it by then.”

She seemed to have thought of something upon seeing Rutobias’s earnestness, as the store owner suggested the above conditions.

Rutobias wasn’t sure what she meant by doing something about it by then, but it wasn’t a phrase to cajole a ten year old child.

He decided to believe in her words.

“I understand.”

“Good. Also, you seem to have special talent in you. That’s why you have to go to the academy.”

“…Huh?”

He had never imagined that the store owner, who had only met him twice, would say something he had heard ever since he was born.

“Ahh…well, how should I say this. Perhaps you’ll understand if I say I’m also someone who can see spirits?”

She scratched her cheek sheepishly and whispered, “Basil.” Then a spirit appeared near her neck as if they pushed past her raven hair.

“I also have a contract…although I was kind of forced to.”

She said, poking the spirit’s cheek. They pouted but quickly recovered and grabbed on to her index finger as if to play.

“I can see all the spirits that are flitting around you. I was curious from the moment you came yesterday. After all, you’re only the second person I’ve seen so far to be like that.”

“The second?”

“Yes. My father…stepfather, is the head royal magician. Like you, he’s surrounded by many spirits. Well, I guess he kind of has to or he wouldn’t have his job.”

Rutobias thought of a certain person when she said head royal magician.

The current head royal magician was Gilford Hyde Claude. He was the top magician of the country. It was said that a person of his skill only appeared once every century.

“According to my stepfather, his studies and the academy were boring and troublesome, but he was glad he went. The friends he made there were irreplaceable and well worth all the trouble of going…Well, apparently he skipped most of his classes, though. Food for thought on how that bad skipping habit of his still hasn’t gone away…”

She said humorously, chuckling and taking a sip of her tea.

“…Would it be better if I became a magician…”

He remembered the words he had heard since he was small.

“You will grow up to become a splendid magician.”

As the Marquis of Mathias often produced elite magicians, the expectations on his back from in and out of the family were gigantic and heavy. It was as if his road to become a magician was set in stone.

It was nothing but trouble for him when they decided his future for him. Even so, somehow he couldn’t refuse them outright.

“If you don’t want to, it’s better you don’t.”

She said nonchalantly, as if to throw away all his hesitation.

“If you become a magician like this, you’ll definitely regret it. It’s a different story if you come to a compromise with yourself in the process, though. For example, you’ll do it for money, power, or honor. It’s possible to go on when you become an adult if you can endure the work for the sake of things like that. If you can’t, though, I don’t think you should. There are numbered seats for the magicians in this country, so it would be better to leave those to people who want to do it than fill them with people who don’t want to.”

She was right. If he became a magician, still split about his feelings, even if he compromised for a time, he would be back on square one in the end.

“…You’re right…”

Rutobias mumbled. She smiled, a little troubled.

“But you’re still ten years old, you know? You still have a long road ahead of you. I understand you want to reach the end the fastest way you can, but loitering on the way doesn’t mean that all the time you spent loitering is worthless. There is a lot to learn when you wander, in its own wandering way. That’s the same for the elementary department.”

Rutobias lifted his head.

“I’m not Gil, but studies are not the only thing you learn in the academy. The academy was made to create many future, possible yous. It might seem like a small world, but there are things that can be grown and created only because it’s a small world.”

“…Really? I don’t see how.”

“You might not see it, but trust me. I’ve been through that too, and now I know it is so.”

Her decisive words held an inexplicable weight, and they reached Rutobias’s heart.

Perhaps it stemmed from his respect for her, as she could make things he couldn’t, but her words went straight to Rutobias’s heart.

“Just so you know, I’m not telling you to go to the elementary department just to bully you. I believe that one day you’ll be grateful that you went. Besides, I feel like you might find something you want to do there besides cooking, too.”

“…That’s!”

“Just a possibility. But that would be nice, too. I don’t want to rain on your parade, but there is such a thing as a single moment’s flame. That’s why I think you shouldn’t decide right here and now. Isn’t it better to have more choices, more paths? You can understand that, right?”

While her words were not something one would typically say to a ten year old child, she spoke them seriously. She felt that Rutobias would understand and be satisfied with her answer.

“…Yes.”

“Good! And besides, like I said, you’re still only ten years old. Wouldn’t it be better to be spoiled a little more by the people around you? Time you can spend as a child is already so short, you should try to be as spoiled as you can during that time.”

“I see.”

She smirked as if she were pulling a prank, and changed the cold tea out for hot tea.

“…Spoil, huh…”

As he watched the cup slowly fill with golden liquid, Rutobias had a thought.

“…Uhm!”

“Hm? What is it?”

“…I, I’m really hungry…”

Rutobias made a despondent face and looked up at her.

She seemed to understand what he was going to say and laughed mirthfully.

“And you use it right away, eh…you’re really not to be underestimated. It can’t be helped, I’ll give you something special to eat.”

She asked him to wait a bit and went to the back. After a while, she came back out with a small plate.

“Here you go.”

She said, but Rutobias was disappointed by the sweet fragrance and the plate placed in front of him.

On the plate were five small, burnt brown colored cubes. Rutobias had assumed it would be something like the cake he had yesterday, so the huge difference between expectation and reality let him down.

It wasn’t pretty and it was tiny…he didn’t have to voice his thoughts as his disappointment showed on his face. The store owner let out a chuckle.

“Sorry, sorry. It isn’t as gorgeous as cake but at least try one just for kicks?”

I’ll have one too, she said as she stabbed one with a small fork and popped it in her mouth.

Judging from how easily the fork cut into the cube, it wasn’t hard. Rutobias mimicked her actions and ate one as well.

“…!?”

His eyes widened as a sweet smell spread through his senses and the cube melted on his warm tongue.

“It’s good, right? This is called chocolate.”

“Chock a let?”

“It’s a dessert prototype that might appear on the menu, so keep it a secret okay?”

She placed the fork on her mouth in place of her index finger and told Rutobias mischievously.

“Okay!”

Rutobias flushed in happiness at the thought that he was eating something that wasn’t on the menu yet. He immediately reached for another piece of the chocolate on the plate.

After they finished the chocolate, the store owner talked with Rutobias for as long as she could.

She was called Risa, and Rutobias was surprised when he heard her age. He thought she was sixteen and had just come of age, but she said she was twenty-two.

Opening a business right after she became of age and with that skill…sounded quite far fetched, but it was still surprising to hear the gap between her appearance and her actual age.

She smiled wryly at his astonishment, seemingly troubled by the difference.