“No?! Instead of tearing off her clothes, actually, they laid a cloak over top of her, and she was discovered sleeping there by the cooking staff the next morning.”
“Well, that’s bor— I mean, good.”
“Did you just start to say ‘boring’?!”
Serina let the maid’s question pass with a vague smile.
Serina was the personal attendant of this country’s princess, Liscia, as well as being capable enough to be placed in charge as the head of all the maids in the castle, but there were issues with her personality. She was a bit of a sadist.
What was more, when it came to cute girls, she always wanted to “buwwy” them. Not “bully,” “buwwy.” To toy with them a bit psychologically, nothing insidious; she just liked to do things like make them wear risqué outfits to stir up their sense of shame a little. That her number one target at the moment was her own master Liscia made it all the more incredible.
Still, a necromancer, is it…? she wondered.
At her base, Serina was a woman who was good at her job. If ghost stories were spreading in a castle that had been left in her care, she wasn’t so irresponsible that she could ignore them.
The witching hour, is it…? They say late nights are the enemy of your skin, but… While thinking many thoughts that called for a witty retort, Serina let out a sigh.
— Then, in the witching hour…
Lantern in hand, Serina headed towards the cafeteria. She walked with such a bold stride that you would never imagine she was walking around a castle in the middle of the night. Soon, she arrived in front of the cafeteria.
It’s a little late to think about it now, but… If this necromancer doesn’t appear tonight, I wonder just how many nights I will to have to stay up late…
With a little sigh, Serina stepped into the cafeteria. Fortunately for Serina’s beautiful face, she soon spotted the person in question.
Near the oven in the kitchen there was a light, and by it, someone was doing something. Serina approached silently, peeking into the pot over that person’s shoulder. Inside the pot was an oily burbling liquid and a large number of bones floating in it.
“Heh heh heh… Soon… Soon it will be complete…”
The person stirred the pot, letting out little laughs like that as they did. It was a sight that would have caused other maids to faint, but the capable Serina was able to identify the bones for exactly what they were.
Those aren’t human bones. They’re from a giant boar, perhaps? I see a number of bird and large fish bones mixed in, as well. Also, while it looks unappetizing, that muddy liquid has a tantalizing smell.
Serina resolved herself, and tapped the person on the shoulder. “What are you doing there?”
“Wah?!”
She must have startled the person, because the big round body leapt into the air. When they turned around, she was able to see their face clearly.
“M-Madam Serina?! What are you doing here?!”
“I ought to ask you the same, Sir Poncho.”
Stirring the pot was the man who had received the name of the food evangelist “Ishizuka” from Souma the other day, and who had been appointed as Minister of State for the Food Crisis, Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta.
“What, pray tell, are you doing in the cafeteria at this hour?” she demanded.
“Th-This is… Well…” Poncho flailed his arms about anxiously. He was entirely too suspicious.
Serina was about to press him further, when…
“…What’re you two doing?”
Caught by surprise, she turned around, and there stood King Souma Kazuya.
“There were ghost stories like that going around?” he said. “Liscia is going to get mad at me again…”
After Souma heard about the rumors from Serina, he stood there scratching his head.
“In the end, what was it you were doing, sire?” she asked.
“Oh, well… we were making exactly what you see here,” he said. There were three bowls sitting on the table Souma pointed to. “In the world I come from, it’s called ramen.”
“Ramen… is it?”
As Souma had said, the three bowls were filled with ramen. What was more, it was the oily kind made with seafood and pork bones. Souma offhandedly thrust his chopsticks into a bowl and began slurping the noodles noisily.
“Yep… The soup is almost perfect. But since we’re using gelin udon, it’s a little bland.”
“There’s no helping that. Right now, wheat is precious, yes.”
“All the more reason to resolve the food crisis quickly…”
While watching Souma and Poncho talk, Serina tried her own ramen. Wrapping the noodles around her fork like pasta, she put them into her mouth.
When she did, the rich, savory flavor of the seafood and pork bone broth surged forward. It was thick, rich, and it had punch, yet the taste of the vegetables had melted into the broth, keeping it from being too rich. What a complex flavor this was. It was greasy, yet her instincts demanded another mouthful.
Souma and Poncho watched Serina, smiling.
“I was wondering if we might be able to use the bones and vegetable scraps we would otherwise throw away to make a soup, you see,” Souma said. “I had Poncho studying it. He did it late at night like this, so we wouldn’t disturb the cooks.”
“Oh, it was a lot of hard work, yes,” Poncho said. “It was a dish I had never eaten for myself, after all.”
“I see… so this was the truth behind the necromancer, then,” Serina said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Still, this is delicious…Sir Poncho?”
“Y-Yes. What is it?”
“Could I trouble you to teach me how to make this soup?”
“Of course you can, yes.”
It seemed that Serina, too, had been charmed by the magic of this oily soup.
After that, a ghost story spread saying that there were two necromancers.
At almost the same time, Serina, whose skin had become oddly smooth (an effect of the collagen?) said, “Sir Poncho, about the bones you use in that soup, why not burn and crush them to powder before putting them in?”
“Th-That makes sense! I’m impressed, Serina! You look at things differently, yes!”
“Tonight… If you have the chance to try it, let me taste some.”
“Of course I will, yes.”
When the maids saw the two of them speaking intimately like this, their imaginations ran wild, but that is a story for another time.
Chapter 4: A Day Off in Parnam
It was a few weeks after the first episode of The King’s Brillunch had been broadcast.
That day, a petition was delivered to Prime Minister Hakuya Kwonmin.
The personnel department had been the ones to organize it, but it included names from the royal guard, the maid force, and every other group within the palace. Marx, who was now the chamberlain, and Ludwin, the head of the royal guard, had put their names on it, as well.
Wondering what it could be, Hakuya quickly perused the contents to find…
“…Ah, I see.”
Hakuya agreed with the petition despite himself.
“So, there you have it. I will be insisting you take time off, sire,” Hakuya said.
“There I have what, exactly?” I asked. “I still can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on.”
While I had been working in the governmental affairs office, Hakuya had suddenly come in and said, “Take time off.” Then he’d casually dropped the bundle of papers he was holding onto the desk I’d been working at.
“This is a petition I received from the personnel department,” he informed me. “According to it, ‘When those at the top do not rest, those below them find it difficult to take time off.’ You will find Sir Marx and Ludwin’s names on here, and I, your humble servant, have added my own name, as well.”