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At the end of a meeting attended exclusively by the owners of major shops—those who can afford to pay above a certain level of tax—the old coot of a Guild Master surveyed everyone's faces and spoke up.
"That concludes our agenda, yes? Well, we're holding a tasting event for a new confection we plan to sell in the grand conference room. If you have time, drop by. I've been told they've prepared portions for the attendants you've brought along as well."
At the old coot's words, I stood up and headed for the grand conference room.
The people attending this meeting are all owners of major shops. You could say this is a gathering of merchants with both the money to purchase expensive confections and the eye for quality goods.
If the tasting were held at the Guild Master's home or shop, I'm not sure I'd bother making the trip. But simply moving to another room after a meeting? Sure, I'd stretch my legs for that. The timing and venue were annoyingly well-chosen. This thing was guaranteed to draw attention.
The confection called quatre-quarts, created from information that Mine had leaked out.
On top of that, it was a tasting event that had gotten the old coot's granddaughter fired up—all because of some careless remark Mine had blurted out.
Really, that idiot keeps bringing one thing after another! Stuff that could shake the Market to its core! And she has no idea how hard I've been working to keep her from attracting too much attention, the thoughtless little— When you have a signature product for your shop, you normally want to keep it exclusive. I'd never gone out of my way to publicize a product before its launch like this.
But publicizing a product before launch has its uses—it imprints the original creator in everyone's minds. It's especially effective if it's something others can't easily imitate.
The infuriating thing is, sugar hasn't exactly reached wide circulation yet. In this city, the only shop handling sugar flowing down from the Central District is the Guild Master's. Riding the trend from the Central District, it'll be a strong draw for the noble class seeking sweets.
And by holding this tasting event, not only the Guild Master himself, but also his granddaughter's skills will surely come into the spotlight. That girl's nose for money is inherited from the old man, no doubt about it.
"Welcome to the Quatre-Quarts tasting event. Please select the quatre-quarts you like best and place these wooden tags in the box."
When I entered the grand conference room, several young boys and girls dressed in matching head coverings were lined up, handing small wooden tags—three per person—to the guests as they came in.
"You can place all three on the one you like best, or you can choose three different ones."
I clutched the tags in my palm and looked around the room. Walkers inside the conference room wore the same cloth on their heads, making the event staff easy to identify.
There weren't many guests yet. Everyone seemed to be sizing each other up, and no one had reached for a quatre-quarts.
"So this is quatre-quarts."
Five rows of tables were lined up, each row displaying a different variety. The quatre-quarts were cut into bite-sized portions, but there were more varieties than I'd expected.
"Oh, it's Benno!"
"Boss!"
Coming over with big waves were the culprit herself, Mine, and my apprentice,
I grunted and raised a hand to wave them over. When Mine approached, I grabbed her head firmly.
"Mine, what are you doing here?"
"Ow, ow! I'm helping out!"
"You couldn't tell from looking at this outfit?" She tilted her head in confusion. I yanked the cloth off her head.
"Go change. Right now. Don't make an impression on the merchants who are about to come in here. Do you have any idea why I've been hiding your existence—making the Plant Paper, crafting the hair ornaments? You want to stand out at my shop too? Want me to advertise you in style?"
"Uwah... I'll go change right away. Lutz, stay here, okay?"
I returned the cloth I'd stripped off, and Mine hurried out of the grand conference room at a brisk pace. Watching her go, I let out a small breath.
Mine's mind works abnormally fast for a child who's just finished her
And yet she can't read the room and her thinking is shallow. Maybe that's natural for a child, but with everything else standing out so much, the shallowness and lack of awareness are even more glaring.
It's better for Mine not to attract attention. A child with no backing who stands out won't end up well. Even when my father died and I, barely an adult, inherited the shop, I was dismissed as young and suffered all manner of bitter experiences. A child who just finished her Baptism Ceremony? She'd just be devoured.
"Boss, you're... pretty harsh on Mine, aren't you?"
"Lutz, if you're serious about protecting Mine, remember this: she has no merchant backing, no guaranteed noble patron at the
When I think about her life extension, and about future connections with nobility, entering the Temple is probably best for Mine right now. But the part that gives me a headache is that I can't imagine this situation will remain the same in a few years.
"Huh? But if you're her patron, Boss..."
"On the surface, I'm treated as her guardian since I'm nominally in charge of the Mine Workshop, but our relationship is thin. If I could at least have her as an apprentice like you, there'd be more I could do. But since she's already decided on the Temple, my reach isn't that wide. Your eyes won't be able to reach her as easily as before either. She shouldn't stand out in any strange way."
"Yeah... you're right."
"Besides, you never know what that one's thinking. The moment you look away, she does something bizarre. Strict management is about right."
"Oh, yeah, that's true."
Lutz nodded with a solemn expression. That gesture reminded me of
Since finishing his Baptism Ceremony, Lutz had rapidly started refining his speech, and his posture and mannerisms were beginning to resemble Mark's. Apparently, Mine had told him to use Mark as a model.
Unlike a merchant's child, Lutz lacks many things—his entire lifestyle is different. He's always desperate to close the gap with the other apprentices. You can see it clearly in the way he watches Mark and me intently, trying to absorb as much as he can.
I actually quite like Lutz's drive for self-improvement.
"Lutz, what do you think of this quatre-quarts? As a product, I mean."
"...I think it would definitely sell to nobility. It'd probably be very well received."
"What makes you say that? You don't know what nobles prefer or what they normally eat, do you?"
I pressed him with a sharp question, but Lutz answered without any hesitation.
"Well, the Guild Master has been incorporating as many noble customs as possible into his household's lifestyle for Frieda, who'll be entering the Noble District. Mine told me that. He even recruited a cook who used to work in a noble house. So if Frieda and that cook are confident enough to sell it, I think it will sell."
"Hmm, I see."
I didn't know much about the Guild Master's household. I knew he'd been investing money in his home, but I hadn't known about incorporating noble customs into daily life. I was mildly impressed by this unexpected information. You really can't underestimate what comes from connections between children.
"I'm back, Lutz."
"Oh, Mine."
Mine returned in her apprentice uniform. Now it wouldn't look too strange if I were seen with both Mine and Lutz.
"Boss, this is the quatre-quarts with nothing added. It was the first one I ever ate."
Lutz pointed at the rightmost table as he spoke. He seemed to be recalling the taste he'd had before—his expression was practically drooling, and he gazed at the cut pieces with eager anticipation.
"Ilse is very research-oriented, so it's become much tastier since then. This table has Ferijine added. That table over there has honey mixed in, and that one has walnuts. Over there is the newest creation with tea leaves. Go ahead, try them."
The way Mine explained it all, puffing out her chest like it was her own achievement, was oddly amusing. I huffed through my nose and looked down at her.
"Isn't this variety the result of you dripping information everywhere?"
"Ugh... well, I traded it for sugar, so it wasn't wasted information."
So this kid had managed to secure sugar for herself in exchange for information. Should I praise her for acting like a proper merchant, or punch her for feeding information to the other side? Tough call.
"Besides, I only told them about the Ferijine and the tea leaves. And even that—the proportions were all the result of Ilse's research, so it's not like I'm the only one responsible."
Mine pouted and turned her face away from me. Then she reached for the quatre-quarts arranged on the table.
"Benno, try some too. They're delicious."
Watching Mine pop a piece into her mouth and savor it, Lutz reached for the table as well. There were surprised exclamations from the surrounding guests, so there was no doubt they were good. I put a piece of quatre-quarts in my mouth.
What the hell is this?!
I'd known from the moment I picked it up with my fingers, but it was light—impossibly soft, dissolving away in my mouth. It looked like bread, but bread isn't this soft. You're supposed to eat bread by dipping it in soup.
And the sweetness—nothing like I'd ever tasted before. It was sweet with a solid, well-defined flavor, but it wasn't the concentrated sweetness of honey preserves, nor anything like the sweetness of eating fruit. It was a gentle sweetness that spread throughout my entire mouth. The mingled scent of sugar and butter stimulated my appetite and made me want more.
"Is it good?"
Those golden eyes shone as Mine looked up at me, clearly expecting praise. Honest praise felt irritating for some reason, so I ignored Mine and reached for the Ferijine quatre-quarts.
The fluffy softness was the same, but the aroma of Ferijine spread through my mouth. A refreshing sweetness, easy to eat. Just adding a bit of fragrance and flavor completely changed the impression. I glanced up quickly at the other tables lined with quatre-quarts.
"Ilse is amazing, isn't she?"
Steering clear of Mine praising someone else's cook, I moved to the next table and put the honey-mixed quatre-quarts in my mouth.
Unlike the previous ones, this dough felt a bit heavier, with a rich, coating sweetness. It was a familiar kind of sweetness, and among everything I'd tried so far, this one was the strongest. It would probably be the biggest hit with children and those who prioritize sweetness.
"Sweet, but not too cloying, right?"
Next was the walnut version. It resembled walnut bread and had the most familiar appearance. However, the texture was completely different from ordinary bread. The dough was so soft that the hardness of the walnuts stood out. The soft dough vanished from the mouth quickly, leaving only the walnuts behind. Once you got used to it, this texture might be pleasant, but I wasn't particularly fond of it.
"Hey, Benno. Answer me."
"Shut up. You're noisy."
I silenced Mine, who was buzzing around me like an annoying insect, and moved to the final table.
The tea leaf version gave me a moment's hesitation, but once I tasted it, the fragrance was remarkably refined. Unlike the walnuts, the leaves inside were completely ground up, so the texture was no issue at all. It did taste like tea, but as a sweet confection, it was an odd sensation. The sweetness wasn't intense, yet it was delicious. I thought this one would appeal to men the most. At the very least, it was my personal favorite.
"Which one will you put your tags on, Benno?"
Every single quatre-quarts laid out here was astonishingly delicious. This was sure to spread among the noble class. It was the kind of flavor everyone would want. The gap between these and ordinary confections was so wide it was in a different league entirely.
"Hey, Mine."
"Yes?"
"Why did you hand that recipe over to the Guild Master?"
It was a recipe that could serve as a powerful weapon for breaking into noble society. I wanted it.
I glared at Mine, and she blinked before tilting her head to the side.
"Ilse was the one who actually gave it to them, but..."
"If it's being sold at the old coot's shop, it's the same thing."
With quatre-quarts, that old bastard was sure to strengthen his influence over the nobles even further. Mine seemed to notice my irritation, and she furrowed her brows with a troubled expression.
"Benno, you really don't have a great attitude toward the Guild Master, do you? Why is that?"
Come to think of it, I'd never told Mine about this. Recalling those unpleasant episodes from the past made them flash through my mind.
"That old coot had his eye on my shop the whole time we were growing. Right after my father died, he proposed to my mother to absorb the shop."
My father had headed to his uncle's shop on business and was killed by bandits after his money. The crime happened near the city, so his body was returned, but it was covered in wounds in a horrific state, and my mother was bedridden for some time.
And that old coot came to her with his proposal, beaming with delight.
"Huh? You mean the Guild Master proposed to be her second husband?"
"Yeah. When my mother refused, he subjected us to one petty harassment after another... and it's still going on, actually. You know how applications at the Guild often get blocked or nitpicked for no reason?"
"Oh, right..."
Lutz and Mine, who had been caught up in the crossfire several times, grimaced. The old coot wasn't just after me—he spread his misery to everyone around me too.
"He showed up grinning from ear to ear to pitch his daughter as a marriage match right after my lover died. He tried to pair off my underage sisters with a son older than me. Could you be friendly to someone like that?"
There had been all kinds of outrageous business demands too, but there was no point burdening Mine with those stories. As long as she understood the old coot was a rotten human being, that was enough.
"Well... if you look at it a certain way, doesn't it mean the Gilberta Company is being held in very high regard? I'm not denying the Guild Master is pushy, stubborn, and a pain to deal with, but..."
It was a strained way of looking at it, but Mine seemed to have some awareness of how troublesome the Guild Master could be.
"So why did you hand the recipe to such a difficult Guild Master?"
"Why? Like I said before, I'd promised Frieda we'd make confections together, so we just—"
"But you signed a Contract, didn't you?"
"It's a one-year exclusive Contract. Is that really worth getting so upset about?"
Setting a time limit was actually pretty clever of Mine, but I wasn't confident it would really be honored. That granddaughter could easily sweet-talk her way into prolonging the exclusivity indefinitely.
"...Are you really going to publish it after one year?"
"Yes. Confections shouldn't be monopolized. I want lots of people to make them."
Mine said she sold the recipe in exchange for a one-year exclusive right, but since sugar wouldn't be readily available, the Guild Master's shop would have a de facto monopoly for a while regardless.
I didn't want to fall further behind, but it felt like the gap was only widening again.
"Hey, Mine. You said you know other recipes too, right? Would you be willing to sell any to me?"
"...There's no point selling to the current Benno. You don't have sugar or cooks."
Mine tilted her head with a blank expression.
"What do you mean?"
"Most of the confection recipes I know use sugar. And more importantly, you need skilled cooks. They'd need to be good enough to have worked in a noble household. Otherwise, even if I taught them the recipe, they wouldn't be able to reproduce it right away."
"A noble household...?"
"The ability to use an oven freely is an essential requirement. There don't seem to be any ovens outside of bakeries, and they haven't really spread much, have they?"
Very few households had personal ovens. Unless you were extremely wealthy and a food connoisseur, there was no need for one. Which meant the Guild Master's house had an oven and a cook who could use it freely.
"Oh my, before Benno gathers everything together, I'll buy up all of Mine's recipes. Our cook can't resist new recipes, you know."
Startled by the childish voice accompanied by a tinkling laugh, I turned around. The Guild Master's granddaughter stood there, her spring-flower-colored hair tied at both sides above her ears.
"How do you do, Benno. How do you do, Lutz."
Those challenging eyes looking up at me were just like the old coot's. I'd been hoping that once the old man disappeared, I'd have a better chance. But this granddaughter was not to be underestimated. The way she approached Mine with trick after trick—her nose for money was right on par with the old man's.
Even though I was on guard, Mine simply flashed a carefree grin and waved casually, chatting warmly with her. Seeing them get along so well made me feel no small amount of anxiety.
"Frieda. How's the tasting going?"
"Thanks to Mine, it's a tremendous success. Everyone is praising the quatre-quarts. And since they've been told the recipe will be made public in a year, there are quite a few people looking forward to that."
How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful, you idiot?!
Mine gets deceived by me countless times too, but she brushes it off with nothing more than a puffed-out cheek. Whether Mine could even notice what kind of reactions she should be having—sometimes I worried about that more than she did. She had surely misplaced her sense of suspicion somewhere along the way.
Still, watching from the sidelines, I couldn't bring myself to be so childish as to interrupt two girls of similar age enjoying a friendly conversation. The best I could do was stay within earshot with Lutz, glaring, to make sure she didn't get cornered into any promises or entangled in anything strange.
"Hey, Lutz. How does she stay smiling and friendly in a situation like this where her life is on the line and she's being used?"
"...How would I understand what Mine is thinking? Besides, I don't really like Frieda."
Lutz's face practically spelled out "stay away from Mine." The possessiveness burning in those green eyes—was it for his most precious friend, or had it already crossed into romantic feelings? It was hard to tell.
Still, watching Lutz being so overprotective of Mine brought back bittersweet feelings I'd left behind years ago along with my lover's death, making me feel a strange mix of ticklish and tender.
"Looks like you're going to have a tough road ahead, Lutz, huh?"
"Huh?"
"Keeping Mine is not going to be easy."
I ruffled his hair with my hand as I said those words of encouragement, and Lutz's green eyes flashed with a strong light as he slowly nodded.
"Mine, how's the taste?"
As he spoke, a well-fed woman approached Mine and the granddaughter with an amiable manner. She radiated a sweet fragrance from head to toe and wore the same cloth on her head as the rest of the event staff.
Who is she? Lutz and I were on guard, but Mine's face lit up and she ran over.
"Of course it's delicious. I had one earlier too, and the tea quatre-quarts has gotten really good as well. Ilse, as expected."
"My, thank you."
This woman, who was beaming with delight at Mine's praise, was apparently the cook who worked in the Guild Master's household and had created these quatre-quarts.
With a merchant's instinct, I observed Ilse—this cook who would surely bring in enormous profits. Ilse turned her gaze toward me.
"So you're Benno?"
"Yeah, that's right?"
I didn't understand why the Guild Master's cook would call me out by name. Had Mine done something else again? I frowned, and Ilse looked me up and down.
"Hmm."
Her evaluating stare reminded me of the Guild Master's, and I narrowed my eyes instinctively. I'd been holding back against the granddaughter out of a sense of propriety, but if my opponent was an adult, there was no need to hold back.
"You're the one binding Mine's knowledge and monopolizing it, aren't you?"
"Excuse me? I'm not monopolizing anything, am I? The quatre-quarts recipe has clearly already reached your side."
If I could monopolize, I'd want to, but Mine wouldn't quietly let me. She talks about binding, but a piece of information leaked carelessly by her was enough to overturn the Market. Mine's knowledge was best meted out bit by bit.
"And besides, I'm the one handling all the trouble surrounding Mine. You're the ones scooping up all the benefits, aren't you?"
To protect Mine herself, I'd gathered information from various sources. To strengthen the bond with Lutz, I'd used Contract Magic. To hide Mine's existence, I'd established the Plant Paper Association. There were all sorts of things I'd been doing behind the scenes. The one bearing the brunt of Mine's thoughtlessness wasn't the Guild Master—it was me.
"I think Benno has been ripping me off plenty, though."
I flicked Mine's forehead with my finger as she puckered her lips.
"The money I squeezed from Mine with a pittance? Two uses of Contract Magic wiped that out."
"Huh?"
"...Two Contract Magic uses?"
Mine and the granddaughter stood there with their mouths open, staring up at me with the same dazed expression. I looked down at their dumbfounded faces and shrugged.
"Seriously... no one appreciates how hard I work..."
"Nobody cares about your hard work. Mine said she only hands over recipes to people she's confirmed can reproduce them. Other things aside, I'm the one taking the cooking recipes."
I'd been declared an enemy by a cook now, too. Apparently I was destined to be in opposition with everyone connected to that old coot.
"Who says I'll hand them over."
There was no way I was letting the Guild Master keep quatre-quarts exclusive forever. Within the year before the exclusive Contract expired, I'd get my hands on sugar and find a skilled cook. For sugar, if I traced some distant relatives I'd fallen out of touch with, a bit of creative maneuvering should do the trick.
My mind raced through calculations as I locked eyes with Ilse. Mine tugged tentatively at my sleeve with a worried expression.
"Benno, Benno. Finding a cook is really hard, you know? If you don't have connections to a noble household, it's impossible."
"I don't need connections. What I need is ambition and the ability to use an oven."
She'd need to be skilled enough to work in a noble household, and she'd need to be familiar with using an oven. It didn't absolutely have to be someone who'd worked in a noble house.
"Mine, you once said that if you didn't have books, you'd just make them yourself, right? So what if there are no cooks?"
"...Couldn't you just train one yourself?"
"That's exactly right."
Get the facilities in order, find a skilled cook in this city, and train her into a confection-specialist cook.
"...Let's do this."
Benno's new challenge begins now... something like that.
Mine doesn't know about it, but Benno is working hard on her behalf.
Next time: Mark, assisting the fired-up Benno.