CHAPTER 43………………………………………………….
Unable to endure the awkwardness any longer, Rujea poked Laseil a few times.
It was a signal asking him to hurry up and get them out of this dreadful atmosphere.
“Yeah… anyway, I’ll go check it out.”
After letting out a short sigh, Laseil quickly left the shop.
Completely forgetting that they hadn’t even bought any food.
To put it simply, running into Yujire happened faster than running into the head maid.
And Yujire didn’t really know the situation of the territory any better either.
That was why Laseil abruptly started talking about the restaurant.
Yujire’s response, however, was much simpler than expected.
“There must’ve been something strange mixed into the meat.”
“A ghost?”
“No. A strange drug.”
After that, he flicked the documents he was holding with a flutter.
“Something felt off—the records from the past month didn’t line up. That means someone bought something behind my back.”
They were lists整理ing the territory’s imports and exports.
Since the land was polluted and self-sufficiency was difficult, the territory relied quite heavily on exports.
Because of that, they put a lot of effort into managing these items.
“Did they think they wouldn’t get caught? Or were they enchanted or something?”
Yujire muttered. Despite his calm-sounding voice, his hands were quite busy.
Seeing him repeatedly tapping the desk with his pen, he was clearly in a bad mood.
Laseil offered him some black tea first, just in case things escalated.
“What? …I’ll drink it, then.”
After taking a sip of the black tea—loaded with two sugar cubes and plenty of cream—Yujire fell silent for a moment.
He usually drank very strong black tea, so this must have caught him off guard.
Still, perhaps thanks to the sweetness, his expression softened compared to before.
“…Anyway, yeah. They definitely mixed something weird in.”
Pointing at the papers on the desk, Yujire continued.
It was a list of items the restaurant had purchased in bulk.
Among ordinary goods like meat and vegetables, tea leaves stood out.
“No wonder the merchants were saying something felt off.”
The amount of tea leaves purchased was unusually large compared to normal.
Who knew what kind of strange leaves might have been hidden among them.
“If it’s that dangerous, shouldn’t the merchants be forbidden from selling it?” Laseil asked.
The one who answered was Elian, sitting beside him.
“The tea leaves themselves were probably fine. They must’ve mixed them in a strange way.”
There were quite a few foods that could become addictive depending on how they were combined.
Sometimes, that alone was enough to make them illegal.
However, such cases never happened by accident.
“So that means it was definitely intentional.”
Unless the ingredients were mixed in precise proportions, the effect wouldn’t appear.
Even the direction of mixing and the number of times were all specifically defined.
“Why would the restaurant owner do something like that?”
“Business probably wasn’t doing well.”
“But it’s always been like that, hasn’t it?”
It was a restaurant they had never once seen crowded.
But it wasn’t so bad that flies were buzzing around either.
There was no real reason to suddenly start mixing strange drugs into the meat.
“Being enchanted is the most likely explanation. Especially in our territory.”
Yujire muttered.
Something like self-reproach seeped into his expression.
“…A territory where we have to consider things like this first….”
“But I still like this place!” Elian shouted, his face buried in the documents again.
“At least everyone here is kind.”
“You were saying just yesterday that you couldn’t work anymore.”
“I got paid today.”
To Laseil, it seemed like Elian valued money more than people.
“The world suddenly looked beautiful.”
“……”
“Anyway, we should summon the restaurant owner. Sir Jaen? When was the owner supposed to be back?”
“Probably sometime this evening.”
He had said he’d gone on a business trip for about a week, so it was about time.
But in the end, Laseil never had to go bring the restaurant owner back.
“Lord!”
The restaurant owner himself came running to the lord’s castle.
“T-the restaurant! There’s something wrong with the restaurant!”
“How is it wrong?” Yujire asked, choosing to question first instead of immediately agreeing.
The owner might have been trying to feign ignorance to dodge responsibility.
“Enshi is cleaning way too diligently!”
“And isn’t that an employee’s job?”
“And the food tastes way too good!”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“And customers keep coming!”
“Isn’t business doing well a good thing?”
“And no matter how much we scrub, blood keeps seeping out! It’s completely unhygienic!”
Rather than saying it was scary, he complained that it was unhygienic first.
Given the mindset of people living in this territory, that wasn’t particularly strange.
“So… why are you only coming now?” Yujire asked, having stayed silent until the rant ended.
“I heard the restaurant’s been strange for several days now.”
“I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but… I think I completely lost my mind. It’s just that…”
A long-winded explanation followed.
Halfway through listening, Yujire came to a conclusion.
“That’s enough. You definitely weren’t in your right mind.”
Even now, it didn’t seem like he’d fully come back to his senses.
Someone trying to hide their guilt wouldn’t talk like this.
“…So I thought, wow, this would taste better if I mixed it. But then something else started bothering me. Normally, when you bake bread, you’re supposed to keep doing push-ups while the dough ferments, but I skipped that part.”
“Push-ups?”
“That’s a method I’ve never heard of.”
Despite Elian and Rujea whispering in confusion beside him, the owner paid them no mind.
“Then I realized I hadn’t sung a lullaby either. You’re supposed to sing a lullaby when you put bread to sleep so it can sleep deeply. If you don’t, the bread might get angry and attack you after it’s baked…”
“The bread gets angry?”
“Attacked by bread?”
With questions like that flying at him, you’d think he’d stop talking—but he didn’t.
“So I hurried to find a way to calm the angry bread before it jumped out of the oven. If you mix the tea leaves properly and feed them to the bread, it gets sleepy. Of course, it deflates a bit, but you can just ferment it again, so it’s fine…”
“Who told you mixing tea leaves would work?”
“I heard it. It appeared in my dream and taught me the formula. It’s good to mix it in with the meat too, so it doesn’t get angry.”
At this point, they were completely certain.
He had definitely fallen victim to a ghost within the territory.
“Sir Jaen! Take him to the head maid.”
Having quickly found a solution, Yujire added one more instruction.
“And check the forest too. I have something to ask the fairies.”
“The fairies?”
Being told to go to the forest usually meant one of two things.
First: checking whether the fairies had caused trouble.
Second: checking whether the forest itself had become even stranger.
As far as Laseil remembered, the fairies hadn’t caused any problems since last time.
And the forest… could indeed be said to have become a bit stranger.
It wasn’t hard to guess which meaning this had.
“Will it be enough if I just do that?”
“Of course. That alone will take plenty of time.”
It sounded like he might get lost in the forest.
I’ve never gotten lost before, though…
Still, if Yujire said it that seriously, there had to be a reason.
Nodding, Laseil first took the restaurant owner to the head maid.
Where should I go?
And for the first time, he experienced getting lost inside the lord’s castle.
He couldn’t find the head maid where she usually was.
“Head maid?”
Was this what it meant to get lost—not in the forest, but in the castle?
Just as that thought crossed Laseil’s mind, he heard the head maid’s voice.
“What is it this time? And what’s wrong with that one’s condition?”
Judging by her tone, she had immediately noticed that the restaurant owner wasn’t well.
Letting out a small sigh, Laseil gave a brief explanation.
“Ah. This much is nothing. I can drive it out.”
There was a light snapping sound.
Immediately after, the restaurant owner’s body collapsed onto the floor.
