The Melancholy of the Demon Army Officer
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Shizukuku
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 081 – Kesselring and Maou’s Cooking 5 [A]
“So, Kesselring-sama! What is Kesselring-sama’s hobby?!”
“For me… let’s see. I guess it is appreciating flowers.”
“Flowers! That’s nice! They are beautiful and have a lot of practicality. Some of them can be eaten too!”
“Aah, some of them do taste surprisingly good. They’re not filling enough though.”
“…That sounds like the wrong topic…”
Leonhart exhaled with half-lidded eyes as he listened to the conversation between Kesselring and Galtia.
Today was Kesselring’s welcome party and the usual members, in addition to Kesselring, were gathered in Ssulal’s room.
Kesselring, the guest of honor, also accepted it willingly and seemingly enjoyed the exchange. There didn’t seem anything strange about that.
In that case,
…What was that from before…?
It was about what happened in the hallway earlier. Leonhart had doubts as he remembered the exchange between Kesselring and Camilla.
Why did Kesselring’s temperament suddenly change when Camilla said she served as his partner? The things that Kesselring had talked about were things he had no recollection of, and he felt like Kesselring and Camilla were talking about two completely different things. Leonhart somewhat remembered having a similar exchange before, but he couldn’t remember. Kesselring had expressed her determination so Leonhart accepted it, yet he couldn’t help feeling something was off. However,
…If Kesselring is willing to accompany me into battle, there are more things for me to look forward to in the future…
His expectation for the future was rising and he smiled inside his heart. After all, the number of people he could fight against had increased. Hunty, who fought him regularly, was getting better at it, but fighting against a majin would definitely be more enjoyable. He only got to do it with Camilla and Galtia sometimes, but from now on,
“…Hey.”
“—gh, ah?”
He suddenly heard someone call out to him from the side. He wondered why he was suddenly struck in the stomach, but then he saw Ssulal looking up at him with narrowed eyes,
“What, so it’s Ssulal.”
“You’re not supposed to say ‘what’ there. You’ve been standing here silently with a serious expression on your face.”
“…Ah-…”
It seemed that his thoughts were written across his face. He was too focused on the possible battle that might happen in the future.
But if Leonhart said that honestly, Ssulal would start complaining at him again. Things like how he has to think about the damage he would cause with the battle or something like that. So Leonhart just silently scratched his head. Ssulal put her hand on her waist and exhaled lightly,
“You must have been thinking things like ‘I look forward to fighting Kesselring…!’ — or something like that.”
“…Is that you trying to imitate me? That didn’t resemble me at all, so stop it.”
Leonhart told Ssulal, who wore a pretentious smile, to stop imitating him. It made him somewhat irritated after all.
However Ssulal looked up at Leonhart’s face,
“It definitely feels like that. Rather, the fact you haven’t denied it means you’ve already thought about it, right?”
“…I wonder. Rather than that, we have to prepare things soon.”
“Ah, you’re changing the subject.”
He ignored Ssulal’s words. Ssulal wanted to tease him more, but she eventually moved her hands to resume her task.
And, as the two continued to work on their preparations for the welcome party for some time, the problematic objects were completed. That was,
“…I’ve been wondering about this for a while now.”
“…W-what is it?”
He said it. In front of the worried Ssulal and her finished dishes he said,
“Preparing dishes that are clearly known to be bad for a welcome party, wouldn’t that make the person feel unwelcome instead…? Isn’t this just harassment, something like bullying the newcomer?”
“Uuh…T-that’s… b-but, we’ll never know until we actually eat it…! Perhaps we’ll be surprised and it will end up just tasting bad for them instead…”
“Not even you have confidence in your own cooking…”
Leonhart held his head when he heard Ssulal’s excuse that didn’t even defend her cooking. However, she did have a point so,
“…Oh well. I’ll eat it for the time being.”
“P-please do…!”
Leonhart picked up the ladle with the resolve of a man heading for death row. Although this happened a lot, he could never get used to it. Bluntly said, it was overwhelmingly harder than fighting. However, as he resolved himself,
“—I’m ready.”
While forcing himself to suppress the quivering of his hand, he scooped the stew from the pot and brought it to his mouth.
—At that moment.
“—”
As soon as his taste buds recognized it, he felt a chill run down his spine, as if meeting something that shouldn’t exist.
And while the scenery stayed the same, he felt the appearance of a mysterious existence that he couldn’t describe in front of him.
“—”
Leonhart felt like that existence was trying to say something, but he couldn’t understand its words. The voice that came out of that existence felt terribly jarring and created a great sense of discomfort, as if the contents of his head were being messed about.
Its appearance was some sort of ghastly shape, one that shouldn’t be seen in this world, to the point that looking at it was likely to cause those who saw it to be driven to insanity.
However,
…Is that all?
Leonhart was already used to this much. Therefore he swept his arm in the direction of the strange existence and it quickly disappeared.
The same scenery as before he ate spread in front of Leonhart’s eyes,
“—I see.”
“H-how is it?”
Ssulal worriedly passed water. Leonhart took it and checked his own physical condition,
“…The period of fainting is short. And there were only slight hallucinations during that time. The stimulus isn’t that great, and I don’t feel any after effects.”
He began to explain the phenomenon that occurred during his consumption of the special dishes. He poured the water in the stew and used his free hand to stir it with ladle,
“With this, the people who consume it won’t get into a serious situation, even if they aren’t used to it. Isn’t this okay?”
“I-I see… Somehow, Leonhart seems like he is becoming more and more like Galtia—”
“…No, I’m just getting used to it because I often accompany you to practice, but it doesn’t change the fact that it feels rough.”
He stopped the ladle as he said that. In fact, there were times where he didn’t even faint now, so he was sure he was getting used to it. This was only limited to the mild ones though. Considering how often he accompanied her practice,
…There are dishes that felt a lot more dangerous than this after all… this one feels more decent by comparison.
There were dishes that made him feel he was dying sometimes, and it was scary. And during those times, Galtia felt those dishes were especially exquisite. As expected, his sense of taste is weird. While Leonhart thought of that,
“Anyway, Kesselring should be able to eat this much. Let’s bring out the food.”
“…Yes, you’re right. It’s tradition after all.”
“What an unpleasant tradition…”
While saying that, they pushed the wagon which carried the other dishes and brought them to the table where Kesselring and others were sitting. By the way, Leonhart was the one who cooked the other dishes. Because he had accompanied Ssulal to her practice for so many years, he felt it ironic that his cooking ability was the only one to improve.
…But what I really wanted was for Ssulal’s cooking skills to get better.
Leonhart felt like he should use the word “fixed” rather than “better” for Ssulal’s cooking though. Anyway, they brought out the food and,
“Oh, it came.”
“Leonhart-sama! I entertained Kesselring-sama properly! I want to be praised for it!”
“Okay okay, I’ll do it later. Help me lay out the dishes for now.”
“Certainly!”
As she said that, Carol helped Leonhart lay out the meal. As the dishes lined up one after another, Kesselring was,
“To think you prepared this much for me… thank you very much, Ssulal-sama.”
“…Eh, ah, you’re right. Be grateful for it…”
“Yes.” As Kesselring nodded with a smile, Ssulal felt panicked. After all, Ssulal didn’t expect that she would still be thanked if Kesselring had been aware she was about to taste deadly dishes from now on. It was a reasonable story.
As the others watched over the exchange between the two, Kesselring eventually turned to face Leonhart,
“Leonhart, thank you as well. You’ve gone to so much trouble for my sake…”
“Aah, don’t worry about it. It’s been a while since I’ve cooked and this served as a nice break. Enjoy the food to your heart’s content.”
“I, see. So there is Leonhart’s, home cooking…”
As Leonhart gave a light reply to Kesselring’s gratitude, she was looking over at the line up of dishes and,
“Yes. That’s right, this really makes me happy. I will make sure to taste it properly…”
“…………Make sure you eat my dishes first, okay? Kesselring?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ssulal put the stew in front of Kesselring with a smile on her face. It seems she suddenly got motivated, thought Leonhart as he finished lining up the dishes and went back to his seat,
“Well then, let’s begi— oops.”
The moment he said that, suddenly the sound of door knocking echoed in the room.
Carol who heard it stood up and,
“I will go and open it!”
Then she headed toward the door vigorously. Nobody, including Ssulal, moved to stop Carol from doing so.
After all, the person who was arriving around this time was likely the person that everyone here knew about,
“—Oops, sorry. Did I come late?”
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