Volume 1, Chapter 21: My business was met with obstruction.
“Zeke, could you bring this out?”
“Yes. Miss Risa, here are the new orders!”
“Excuse me! I’d like to order now?”
“Yes! I’ll be there right away!”
One month after Café Omusubi opened, two weeks after Zeke became an employee. He completely fit in with the store, and was making rapid progress in making sweets. There were madams who came to the shop with their eyes on the handsome man, so he was actually contributing to the customer count as well.
The store was doing well, perhaps too well. At first the customers were mostly Tasia’s friends, but rumors slowly spread by word of mouth and lately there were customers who caught wind of those rumors. Thanks to that, while the bread takeout was still the center of sales, dine-in customers had increased. Zeke and I were kicked into high gear handling all the work.
“Excuse me~ what is a swiss roll?”
A pair of two schoolgirls looked at the sweets of the day written on the blackboard and asked.
“It might be hard to understand with just words, so let me bring out a sample for you.”
I learned this month that in a world unfamiliar with sweets, it was easier to show people the food they were interested in.
“This is a swiss roll. Next to it is a chiffon cake and pudding.”
“Wow! I don’t know what to pick!”
I showed them the sweets on a tray, and their eyes glimmered with excitement as they discussed what to get. More young customers like these girls had also been coming in. It seems a girl who had come with her mother talked it up at school. No matter the world, girls enjoy trying new cake.
“I’ll go with the swiss roll!”
“Then I’ll have the chiffon cake!”
“Right away.”
I bowed with a smile and headed towards the kitchen. While there were now two people working at the café, it was thriving way past our expectations and we were going into overdrive trying to handle everything. I was happy the café was so popular, but on the other hand I still had much to teach Zeke, and I also wanted to develop new menus. The days sped by in a whirl as I thought these things.
It was right around then when there was an accident at the previously smooth sailing Café Omusubi.
When I went to work in the morning, Zeke was in front of the store sweeping with a broom. I smelled something rotten when I approached him.
“Morning, Zeke. What happened?”
“Good morning. There was kitchen waste spread on the ground.”
The dustpan in Zeke’s hand did indeed have kitchen waste in it. No wonder it stunk. Especially right now, in the summer, the smell was horrific.
“Thank you for cleaning it up.”
At any rate, I wondered why there would be waste in front of the store. Was it a prank?
However, I didn’t think too deeply about it back then. Similar pranks continued to happen to the shop. There would be large amounts of mud on the door and the windows, or we would receive large amounts of fodder that we hadn’t ordered. The pranks continued, and Zeke asked if he should use his old connections with the chivalric order to have them patrol this area too. I didn’t want it to blow up into something big, but if this kept happening I would have to ask for security. Even so, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Angelica from next door also said she witnessed some suspicious person. She conjectured that perhaps it was the work of some girl who had feelings for Zeke? To which Zeke simply looked nonplussed and confused.
Should I wait for the pranks to stop, or should I catch the suspicious person…right when I was weighing my options…
One day, I left home relatively earlier than usual. When I neared the café, I saw someone hunched over the storefront. Their gray hooded robe and rummaging actions screamed suspicious. Just when I was going to call someone, I glanced at their hands.
“Wha…fire!?”
I let loose a shocked exclamation, and the person flipped around to face me. In their hand was a magic tool like a lighter, and a wooden stick that was just lit.
Why? What is this person doing in front of my shop?
“What are you…”
I started to say, when the fire on the stick suddenly flared and burned brighter. It rose a yellow ocher colored smoke with a stinging smell. It seemed to be a special type of wood. The fire ate up the wood and reached the person’s hand in an instant, leaping to their robe.
“Eek, hot!”
The person threw away the wood and took off their robe to show a girl in her teens. She had orange colored hair in a bob cut and she was around my height. She repeatedly rubbed her left hand, which had been holding the wooden stick.
Distracted by the suspicious girl, I didn’t see where the stick was thrown.
Over the stinging smell wafted a burnt smell, bringing me back to my senses and I looked towards the origin to see smoke rising from the pile of wooden crates at the edge of the store. Those wooden crates were specifically used for stocking vegetables, so they were thoroughly dried with every delivery for sanitary reasons. It was obvious what would happen if fire sprung up near those crates.
The crates caught on fire and began to burn brightly.
“Fire…! What should I do!! Water…water!!”
I have to put out the fire! I thought, but my body wouldn’t move. Where could I find water again!?
“Miss Risa!?”
I turned towards Zeke’s familiar voice.
“Zeke, what should we do! The store, the fire!! Water…!!”
I grabbed his hand and tried to explain, but I couldn’t speak through the confusion.
My store is! Going to burn down!
The place where I belong is…
I stared blankly into the crackling flames. After coming to this world, I met the people at the Claude’s, opened this shop, and got Zeke as my employee…the memories flashed before my eyes.
After a while, Angelica came over from Silas’s Magic Tool Store next door, noticing something strange.
“Eek!! A fire!? Dad, get some water!!”
Ignoring Zeke and I who were standing still as trees, Angelica shouted and attracted the attention of neighbors and passersby. They frantically began to put out the fire. With Mister Gunt in the lead, the men in the neighborhood heaved water-filled buckets to the store and dumped them over the fire.
A few minutes later, thanks to their quick efforts, the fire was stopped without spreading. The crates were completely burned up, and there were charred marks on the wall, but thankfully the building did not catch on fire. Seeing that everything was all right, all my strength left me and I sat on the ground, still holding on to Zeke’s sleeve.
“Are you okay, Miss Risa?”
“…I think I’m just relieved.”
I laughed dryly, and Zeke stared at me with a painful expression. Then I saw that girl out of the corner of my eye.
“Ah, that girl is…”
I muttered, and Zeke seemed to understand as he nodded and went towards the girl. When Zeke approached her, she tried to escape, but quickly gave up when Zeke grabbed her hand and she was obediently dragged back here.
“For now, let’s head into the shop.”
After thanking everyone who helped beat down the fire, we entered the shop. Worried, Angelica also came in. She asked me if I was okay and noticed that there was a new face in the group.
“Hm? Aren’t you Chester’s daughter, from Chester’s Bakery?”
It seems Angelica knew this girl, who was currently keeping her head down like she swallowed something sour.
“Angelica, could you do me a favor and bring this girl’s parents here?”
“Ah…Yeah, sure.”
Angelica noticed the change in my tone and quickly left the shop.
“Were you also behind the pranks?”
My voice rang out in the quiet shop. The girl kept her silence and continued to stare at the floor. I sighed heavily and looked at Zeke. He folded his arm and got up from the counter he was leaning on.
“While you’re free to stay silent, this will be probably reported to the chivalric order either way. You’re the one who committed arson, no?”
Hearing Zeke’s words, she snapped her head up.
“That’s…”
Right when she opened her mouth, the door slammed open. A panting middle-aged man stood in the doorway.
“Helena! What are you doing!”
He stomped into the store and hit the girl’s head with his fist, then pushed her head down to kneel on the ground with him.
“I deeply apologize for what my stupid daughter has done!”
Zeke and I were taken aback by the girl’s father’s forceful energy and looked at each other. We calmed the apologizing man and, for now, had both of them take a seat. According to the man, he, Paul Chester, was running a bakery. His single daughter, Helena Chester, was sixteen and had just come of age last month. Chester’s Bakery was blessed with the opportunity of being a royal purveyor. However, recently due to my shop, Café Omusubi, opening, his sales were suffering and there were less and less orders coming from the royal family.
As the store owner, he knew of this shop and had purchased the recipe from the Ashley Company. However, it was so different from the methods passed down in his family so he couldn’t make it very well. While he was doing that, his daughter Helena seemed to have misunderstood something and began to hate Café Omusubi, even pulling pranks on it.
It seems Helena thought that the recipes sold by the Ashley Company were taken advantage of and monopolized by this shop. In addition, Helena had just been fired from the maid job she had been hired as an apprentice, so she was desperate.
“I didn’t mean to set the shop on fire!”
The quiet Helena finally opened her mouth. Her eyes were glossy with tears, but she bit her lip to keep herself from crying. Apparently she only wanted to raise a scandal about smell at the shop using a kind of wood that gave off a stinging smell when burnt. I remembered the smell.
Zeke seemed to know about the wood, and he said they often used it to repel bugs and monsters when they performed outdoor maneuvers. One of its characteristics was that it was very flammable wood, but it seems Helena lit it without knowing that, thus leading to it flaring up to her hands and her throwing it at the crates.
“I mean, I thought our bakery would fall out of business the way this was going! We had been lauded as the royal purveyor for generations! But lately everyone seemed to completely change and say our bread wasn’t good…Our customers were decreasing too…”
The words that seemed to squeeze out of her infuriated Mister Paul. He opened his mouth, but I raised a hand to stop him.
“Have you had the bread at this shop?”
She shook her head at my question. I told her to wait a bit, and put the bread from yesterday into the oven to bake. That was how little Helena knew of Café Omusubi, especially of the food here. That’s why I would have her eat the bread here and understand how different it was from the bread at Chester’s, so she would accept it.
Some ten minutes later, I placed the bread in front of her.
“Here’s our bread. Please try some.”
Helena gingerly reached for the hot bread. I also offered some to Mister Paul, who was watching her on the side. Helena blew on the bread to cool it a bit and took a bite.
“…Tasty.”
She quietly mumbled.
“I’m glad you could understand that.”
At my words, Helena bit her lip with the bread still in her hands.
“Even if it wasn’t on purpose, though, you still set fire to my shop. Hey, Zeke, what is the punishment for arson according to the chivalric order?”
“It’s a heavy crime. Some jail time is guaranteed.”
The girl snapped her head up and turned white as a sheet.
“I’m really, deeply sorry!! Of course we will compensate you for your losses, but please, anything but that! I’m begging you.”
Mister Paul lowered his head again.
“Please raise your head. Rest assured, I don’t plan on doing so.”
“Really!?”
Relieved, Mister Paul’s stiff expression softened a little.
“However, I’m not such a good person as to let you off for free.”
Trembling with fear, Helena listened closely for what I was going to say.
“First, I will have Mister Paul learn the recipe to make this bread.”
“…Huh?”
Everyone except me was taken aback by my words.
“Not for free, mind you. There are two conditions. First, I want you to sell the same amount of bread as you usually sell at your shop every day to me for one ril, excluding the holidays. Second, while you are allowed to sell the bread at your shop, you will sell it at the same price as we do here. Of course, the bread will have to reach a certain standard for quality assurance.”
At a glance, these conditions seemed completely in favor of my shop. After all, compared to the bread they made previously, they had to sell something labor and time intensive to me for one ril, which I would sell for 2.5 ril.
However, this was beneficial to Mister Paul as well. First of all, he had been selling rock hard bread for one ril. While the new bread would still be sold for one ril to my shop, he could sell it for 2.5 ril at his store front, so his profit per roll of bread should be increased as well. Since the bread here sold so well at 2.5 ril, even if the price was more than double the rock hard bread, it shouldn’t turn customers away.
“Is that really okay?”
Mister Paul seemed to have understood this and asked me, slightly suspicious.
“Yes. I opened this shop to spread new food and recipes, so there is no better way if that would help spread them faster.”
“Is that so…I couldn’t have wished for better. Thank you so much.”
I felt a bit ashamed to have someone so much older than me bow his head to me so many times. Meanwhile, Mister Paul seemed happy with just learning how to make bread, and he smiled for the first time today.
“Next, Helena.”
After Mister Paul calmed down, I turned to Helena, who flinched and cowered into her seat.
“You will be working at this shop.”
“…Huh?”
“Wait, Miss Risa! Why!?”
Ignoring the shocked Helena, Zeke objected and leaned towards me.
“Well, right now you will be volunteering. It’s only natural to pay for your crimes with hard labor, right?”
“That’s true, but…”
“Besides, it would do well for Helena to know more about the world. Even if you’re sixteen, you’re an adult. You take responsibility for the things you have done now. You were under your parents’ wings until now, but that won’t work from now on. That’s what I believe it means to become an adult. While I understand Mister Paul’s feelings and the situation at your bakery, I won’t favor or be biased towards you. In other words, I will forget what you have done today, and treat you as an employee moving forward.
I made eye contact with Helena, and she covered her face with both hands and began to cry.
“…I’m really, sorry…! I’ll do, my best…”
Awareness of her crime, the trouble she brought on her family, the bad influence on her family’s bakery…The burden on her shoulders from this case was so heavy, it was unclear whether she understood everything that happened at the moment. However, I felt like the tears she was shedding were proof that she at least understood a bit of it.
Less than a month after opening, Café Omusubi was forced to close temporarily for a week.