Pointless Vigilance

「Hugo, how’s the oven looking?」

「It’s just about good. What about your side, Ella?」

「Good. Okay, here you go.」

I quickly put the baking sheet lined with cookie dough into the oven and closed the door tightly. After that, we quickly wash the utensils while waiting for the cookies to finish baking. Rozemyne-sama is now making cookies for the children’s room.

In the castle, we work in the kitchen on the ground floor of the north wing. We prepare meals, lunch, and snacks for the tea party. We go to the kitchen of the main building to help prepare meals, but we are in a slightly different position from the other castle cooks since we are in the temple most of the time. We are really Rozemyne-sama’s personal cooks.

「Well, it’s getting interesting, isn’t it? The Royal Academy is a place where you have to be a highly rated chef among the castle cooks, right? I wonder what kind of place it is? I’m looking forward to it.」

Ella is acting so cute after Rozemyne-sama ordered us to accompany her to the Royal Academy yesterday. I cross my arms and ponder. For a castle cook, going to the Royal Academy is an honor to be recognized as a representative of the duchy who can cook for the other domains. Every year, the cooks are anxious to see who will be chosen. Among them, we are the exclusive chef of Rozemyne-sama who are not castle cooks.

……There may be a great deal of jealousy.

In fact, there are many men who want Ella. The castle cooks are predominantly male in their workplaces and Ella is Rozemyne-sama’s favorite. She gives Ella cooking utensils and never lets her female cook go out of her sight. She is always ready to help. Rozemyne-sama is well known to the servants of the castle. Therefore, there are many who try to have a relationship with Rozemyne-sama’s employees in order to catch her attention. I thought of the castle cooks going to the Royal Academy this time.

「We need to watch out for Bale.」

「Huh? What that all of a sudden?」

Up until two years ago, Bale was courting Ella. He’s a gentle man with a refreshing smile. It’s annoying how he can work so well while having good looks. Everyone else is already married, so I think he’s the most troublesome.

「You know, I’ve never been courted by Bale, and he’d never do things that would get him punished at work or where Rozemyne-sama can see. You’d better not make trouble and it make it hard for him to work.」

The first time we entered the castle’s kitchen, it was apparently very difficult for her due to the male-oriented workplace, but Ella is now well respected. If you ask me, she’s still harassed due to her gender, but Ella said it’s much better than the lower city.

「Hey, are you listening? Hugo, you’re going on the first day and I’m moving in with Rozemyne-sama, but I’m telling you not do anything stupid while I’m gone.」

「Yes, I hear you, I hear you.」

……But I still think it’s better to give Bale a warning.

He seems popular with the ladies, and he’s closer to Ella’s age than I am. As someone who had my heart broken so many times, I want to avoid any possible issues just before my marriage.


On the day of the move, I headed to the resting place for the castle workers with luggage to bring to the Royal Academy. There are five other castle chefs with me.

「Oh, Hugo? I look forward to working with you.」

The friendly greetings stopped when the castle’s attendants entered. It seems that we are beginning to move. We moved through the servant’s corridors in a direction I had never seen before. I wanted to ask where we were going, but everyone’s expressions were stiff, probably because of the presence of nobles, and it wasn’t a situation to open their mouths.

「Please be quiet from now on.」

We went up the stairs to a corridor, clearly one for nobles. I really didn’t know where I was being taken. I thought they would prepare a carriage for us servants, but we arrived at a dimly lit room instead. In a room further in, two knights are glaring at me.

「There are six cooks to be transferred today. One more will be transferred on the same day as Rozemyne-sama.」

The attendant had left the room as soon as he had contacted the knights. Unlike me, who had no idea what the knights meant when they looked at us and said, “Three at a time,” the other cooks seemed to understand. My three elders walk with their bags to the center of the complex pattern in the back room. Bale whispered to me, “We go after them. Watch what they do.” I stay where I am.

As soon as the knight did something, flames of unusual colors, like black and gold, shot out from the floor pattern. I don’t think it was a flame because it wasn’t red, but it looked like a flickering movement.

……What? What’s going on!?

While I’m still in shock, the three figures disappear as if surrounded by strange-colored flames. I want to shout, but I can’t. It’s like the first time I flew on Rozemyne-sama’s Highbeast. My voice would not come out.

But the others don’t seem panicked at all, as if this is normal. I try my best to look unfazed to Bale and put on a brave face.

……Calm down. I’ve seen something like this before.

At the harvest festival with Rozemyne-sama, I saw the magical tools used by the nobles to carry the goods collected as taxes. Maybe it’s the same thing.

「Okay. Next three.」

The knight instructed us a few moments after the strange fire was extinguished. By that time, the next load of goods started to be carried into the room.

……Since it was people who were to carry the luggage, they were transported in the same way as the disappeared luggage. They aren’t gone for good. I said to myself as I slowly followed Bale and the others on the pattern.

「Hugo, move a little closer to the middle. Your luggage is sticking out.」

「Okay!」

I didn’t want to think about what would happen to what was sticking out. I got as close to the middle as I could. A strange-colored flame erupts, and my vision blurs. I feel lightheaded, and then I see the room again. It was a similar room, but the knight’s face was different, and the objects in the room were a little different.

「Hugo, don’t dawdle. Let’s go.」

「Don’t rush him, Bale. He’s a little uncomfortable since it’s the first time, right? I’ll go first, and you go explain things to Hugo.」

With that, I leave the room with my bags in my arms, watching his back as he runs away. Just like in the castle, there was a waiting room. Out of the room, I walked down a noble’s hallway.

「It’s beautiful, but I can’t stay calm because I feel so out of place. Let’s hurry and get to the servant’s hallway.」

「They don’t have a passageway for servants around here, probably because they don’t want us near here.」

Bale and I walked down a long corridor, and then we saw a ridiculously large staircase. Near the staircase, there was a man who looked like he was an attendant of the castle, and at a quick glance, he seemed to be walking aimlessly down the corridor.

「What’s he doing?」

「He’s cleaning up before the kids arrive.」

I was surprised to see him manipulating a magic tool while walking gracefully, as I had thought that cleaning up was just sweeping with a broom or wiping with a rag. It seems the nobles are different, while the temple workers were doing the same thing as us.

「The room hidden behind this staircase leads to a passageway for the servants. You see, this mark, just like in the castle. See?」

The passageway leading to nobleman’s quarters has a double border, and the one that doesn’t leads to the servants’ passage. We opened the door and went inside, where we found a much larger elevator than the one in the castle.

「In the castle, each private room has its own elevator, but this one is at the end of the building and is designed to lift several people’s luggage up and down at once. It’s safe for us to use it, and it’ll take food up and down to the ground floor.」

Bale says this to show me how to use it, and lifts the platform by pulling a chain. After he places his own luggage and I do the same, Bale begins to descend the stairs in the same room. I was somewhat relieved to see a familiar staircase for servants.

At the bottom of the stairs, he pulled down the chain, and our luggage came down. When we came to the corner of the staircase room, Bale lightly tapped the wall with his hand and left the room, and started walking down the aisle.

「Here’s the pantry, turn here and in the back is the kitchen. Above the kitchen is the dining room. To get to our room, don’t turn and keep going straight.」

The kitchen is a long hallway. It’s hard to tell where the pantry ends and the kitchen starts. I looked up to where the cafeteria was.

「Looks pretty big, how many people come to Royal Academy?」

「There were about sixty to seventy kids, weren’t there? Including their attendants and servants, we have about 200 mouths. Unlike before, we have to cook according to Rozemyne-sama’s recipe.」

The dishes that Rozemyne-sama invents require a lot of preparation work, and the preparation of consomme and other soup stocks is also a very time-consuming process.

「They’re delicious, but hard to make. And yet, two archduke candidates have joined the Royal Academy this year, and they are going to introduce Rozemyne-sama’s recipes to other territories.」

「You’d better get more cooks.」

「That’s why we asked you guys to come here.」

Until now, there were only five cooks and workers, so Bale said that’s why they added us. The castle cooks knew the reaction of the nobles when they tasted a new flavor. The number of invitations to tea parties and invitations from other estates might increase so much that it would be impossible to continue as before, he said, predicting the future.

「If we are going to present new sweets at a tea party, we need a cook who is familiar with them. I negotiated with the attendants to send Ella to the Royal Academy. I also told them that if we worked together we might get some new recipes… You had two years, so you have more right?」

「That’s impossible. I’m bound by contract magic, and so is Ella.」

In truth, it only prevented me from teaching them the dishes that Rozemyne-sama taught me, but they would simply demand I teach them everything anyways, and I’m not sure if the new consomme recipe based on Rozemyne’s invention will be covered by contract magic or not.

「Contract magic… Rozemyne-sama is very careful for a child. How terrifying.」

「Otherwise, she wouldn’t be the adopted daughter of an archduke, would she?」

Bale replies ruefully, “I see.” As I looked at her profile, I thought it was now or never if I was going to warn him. Ella told me not to, but he just said something about negotiating for Ella, which worried me. And of course, I wanted to brag that I was the one getting married.

「You know what, Bale? I’m getting married to Ella this summer. I already got Rozemyne-sama’s permission.」

「What? Are you still not married? What have you been doing for two years?」

Far from being frustrated, he gave me a surprised look, and I was taken aback.

「You were in the temple until Rozemyne-sama woke up, weren’t you? So I thought you were already married.」

「Shut up. I couldn’t get married until I got permission from the master.」

Even I wanted to do it as soon as possible, but everyone else at the temple said to wait.

「Ugh, is it like that for all her specialists? How annoying.」

「Well, I guess. But anyways, stay away from Ella.」

When I regained my composure and said what I wanted to say most, Bale’s face turned blank as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.

After a few seconds of silence, he starts laughing as if he realized something.

「So that’s why you kept glaring at me? It’s nothing like that. I got married to Nally from laundry two summers ago.」

「What?」

「We’re here together as a couple, so of course I’m not getting close to Ella in that sense.」

Apparently, Bale had already gotten married. It was more than a year ago for everyone, so the only people that didn’t know were us, since we hadn’t been to the castle for two years. My pointless vigilance combined with being the last one to marry made me feel like I had lost completely.

……Shit, stop laughing!


The next day. It goes without saying that Ella gave me a heavy scolding after she arrived.

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