Episode 4: Non-Alcoholic Makgeolli
[Today’s Diary]
Date: July 7
Weather: Heavy rain
Young Lady’s mood: 🤬 -> 😀
ㄴ lololol
ㄴ The Young Lady is angry.
ㄴ More accurately, she’s sulking?
ㄴ Serves that damn bear right!
ㄴ The moment I said that, disaster struck.
ㄴ I decided to make it non-alcoholic, but…
ㄴ She’s way too excited, isn’t she?
ㄴ Should I go to the Finance Department first?
ㄴ I have to ask that knife-ear for help. Can the world just end already?
ㄴ There’s a reason we call her a priss-elf.
ㄴ Ha… this is my karma.
* * *
What kind of place is a kitchen?
It should be a place filled with the fragrant smell of food and warm air, a place where your heart grows warm just by being there.
Generally speaking, that is.
However, at this very moment, the atmosphere was so icy it might as well have been the dead of winter.
“Say that again.”
The Young Lady, the source of that chill, had eyes that flickered as though someone had shoved fire into them.
Honestly, I had thought that damn bear got what was coming to him,
but it felt like I was included within the scope of that rage too, so my heart was shriveling.
“…I drank it all… ma’am.”
“.......”
Wow.
This is seriously damn terrifying.
I don’t even know how many minutes this has been going on.
Someone save me—
“Rio.”
“…Yes, ma’am!”
“Starting today, mass-produce that makgeolli stuff.”
“Huh?”
“Mass-produce it.”
“.......”
…Out of nowhere?
Did the Young Lady know that her body had only just turned twenty?
Of course, I wasn’t exactly innocent, having brought it to her even while knowing that.
‘But pajeon absolutely has to be paired with makgeolli.’
Pajeon without makgeolli?
‘Why even eat it?’
At that point, you might as well eat pizza instead.
“Are you listening to me?”
Oh, right.
We were in the middle of a conversation.
Just as I was about to open my mouth with an oops expression,
the head chef stepped forward first.
“Um, Young Lady.”
“What.”
“Forgive me, but do you remember how old you are this year?”
Wow.
So that damn bear had been deliberately turning his brain off whenever he talked to me.
It was absurd,
but since I couldn’t let it show on my face right now, I bit the inside of my mouth and barely held it in.
“You don’t even know that? I’m thirty-two this year…”
“Pardon?”
“Ah.”
Only then did the Young Lady seem to realize her current state, clamping her mouth shut.
Yeah, I knew that would happen.
‘I thought I was still in that body too when I first came back.’
But soon, she glared at me with a sullen face and mouthed the words.
[Why didn’t you tell me sooner?]
As if I knew she’d do that.
I quietly avoided her gaze and looked up at the ceiling.
Even so, I could feel a sharp stare boring into my chin.
She was going to drill a hole straight through me at this rate.
“In any case, Young Lady, you’ve only just come of age, correct?”
“…Well.”
“Then when it comes to alcohol, how about asking the Duke and Duchess, or some other adult?”
“.......”
“As you know, this friend here also hasn’t been an adult for very long.”
“…I suppose it can’t be helped. I’m sorry for barging in so suddenly.”
Aah.
Just look at how disappointed she is.
She was all drooped like a kitten soaked in the rain,
with tears faintly gathering in her eyes.
As a Young Lady enthusiast, my heart pricked and ached so much I couldn’t bear it.
In the end, I went and did it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and shouted at the Young Lady.
“Non-alcoholic!”
“Huh?”
“…If it’s something that won’t get you drunk, I’ll give it a try.”
I didn’t want to see the Young Lady, still young in appearance, completely wasted on alcohol.
The Young Lady from my previous life had been more than enough of that.
So what I thought of was non-alcoholic.
Well, it probably wouldn’t be completely free of alcohol.
‘But she won’t get dead drunk.’
“Reeeally?!”
“Yes!”
“You mean it? You really, really mean it?!”
Seeing her eyes suddenly sparkle as if they’d been replaced with jewels, I felt like I might have gotten myself into trouble.
“…Yes!”
“Then I’ll trust you and get going!”
Of course.
Those tears that had gathered were crocodile tears.
The Young Lady suddenly brightened, tossed the plate and bottle she had brought onto the table, and went pattering out.
I stared blankly after her and smiled faintly.
However, my eyes were rotted like a corpse had taken up residence in them.
“.......”
“…Can you handle this?”
“No idea.”
Aah.
This is the mortal world.
Is the place my soul is headed truly heaven?
It isn’t?
I’ve committed too many sins to go to heaven?
While I’m still asking nicely, say it is.
* * *
For the next few days.
For a while, smiles never left the lips of anyone in the Netre ducal residence, be they master or servant.
The troublemaking little villainess of a ducal princess, Lucrezia Netre.
Usually, she was forever turning the ducal residence upside down like a cat that had touched water,
but perhaps because something had gotten into her recently, she had been spending each day quietly like a docile water-attribute cat.
To be precise, she wasn’t completely quiet,
but the intensity of her pranks had weakened considerably.
From earthquakes and tidal waves to a swaying bridge or waves by the water’s edge.
Even so, the servants looked fondly at the young lady darting here and there, as if saying that even this was a blessing.
And the young lady herself keenly sensed it too.
As she passed through the corridor, she turned to Marie with a sulky face.
“Marie, don’t people’s expressions seem weird?”
“What do you mean?”
“No, it feels like they’re looking at a cat or dog out on a walk.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re imagining it. Everyone reveres you so much, my lady.”
“Right?”
“Yes.”
However, Marie likely had no idea that she herself was wearing the very same expression.
Lucy narrowed her eyes and stared intently at her.
“Staaaare—”
“Ahem.”
Only then did Marie seem to realize her mistake, breaking out in a cold sweat as she avoided her gaze.
Soon, Lucy whipped around and went pattering forward with quick steps.
“I’ll let it slide this once.”
“Haha, yes.”
The reason they had been moving their legs in such a hurry since dawn
was none other than the brewery that was newly scheduled to be built.
On the day rain had poured down in sheets,
from the day after she had overturned the kitchen once, Lucy had watched with great satisfaction as her guard flashed from east to west.
Of course she had.
Honestly, she hadn’t thought he would actually do it,
so how could she not be moved while watching her guard run all over the place?
She had no choice but to be moved.
‘But the Finance Department actually approved it.’
Leaving aside how he had persuaded that priss-elf,
Lucy was curious how he had convinced her parents.
Then, she soon wiped the thought away.
‘Well, he must’ve handled it somehow.’
She disliked using her brain.
To be precise, she disliked searching for boring, pedantic, and just ways to solve things.
Only one decisive strike.
If she charged ahead, the people around her could fix it afterward.
However.
That did not mean the results were bad.
There were different kinds of charging ahead.
One was crashing in without thinking at all.
Another was crashing in while piercing straight through the heart of the matter.
Of these, Lucy, whose sixth sense was close to that of a beast, mostly belonged to the latter.
Unconsciously deriving a fairly good result without even realizing it.
That was Lucy.
She was simply a beast.
“Is someone badmouthing me again?”
And around a beast, there were always many insults,
and the other party was always nearby.
Click— clack—
A long-eared human could be seen in the distance.
There was only one long-eared human of such beauty in the ducal residence.
The strict elf, Elir.
Also known as the priss-elf.
‘What’s the Finance Department doing here?’
Wearing low heels, she clicked straight toward Lucy and stopped in front of her.
At that, Lucy also stopped and looked up at her.
Even at a glance, there seemed to be a good twenty-centimeter difference between them.
“My lady.”
“Hm?”
Elir, with a stiff expression, watched Lucy’s reaction carefully.
Even if she had become docile recently,
Lucy was still Lucy.
One could never be too careful around her.
“Must you build the brewery?”
“Yeah.”
Haa.
She showed no sign of backing down at all.
Wrinkles formed on Elir’s smooth brow.
In truth, the reason she had hurried to find Lucy was because of financial difficulties.
There might be those who would throw stones, saying, What financial difficulties could an imperial duke’s estate possibly have?
However.
‘At this rate, we’ll really go bankrupt.’
Over the past hundred years, the ducal residence had invested here and there, increasing the scale of its assets considerably.
However.
For some reason, the imperial family had recently begun placing sudden regulations on various business sites.
As a result, the blocked flow of funds had begun pressuring the ducal residence.
And it was far too suspicious that those regulations just so happened to be targeting all the choicest assets of the Netre ducal residence.
‘And now, of all things, approval for brewery construction?’
While Elir had been running here and there trying somehow to resolve the funding shortage,
she had never dreamed her successor would cause such a catastrophe.
‘And that lowly guard who came looking for them while I happened to be away is infuriating too.’
She was practically grinding her teeth.
She had even begun thinking that perhaps she should quit on the spot and leave.
In the midst of that, a certain rumor drifting through the ducal residence fluttered like a butterfly into Elir’s ears.
[The ducal residence’s delinquent has become gentle.]
At first, she had dismissed it as nonsense, but as the days passed, she had gradually come to believe it.
And now, she had come in person to plead with her.
“Could you not try it another time?”
“No, I can’t. I have to do it this time.”
Lucy was firm.
Did she perhaps already know something?
For some reason, her words seemed filled with certainty.
Seeing that, Elir spoke plainly.
“In truth, the family’s finances are somewhat strained.”
“I know.”
But even after hearing that, Lucy’s reaction was indifferent.
‘So she did already know.’
Just as the wrinkles on Elir’s forehead were about to deepen again,
Lucy’s mouth opened.
“That’s why.”
“…Pardon?”
“That’s the reason we have to build the brewery now.”
Her shining eyes were filled with certainty.
“This will become the key.”
The midsummer morning sunlight settled in her eyes and shimmered.