Vol. 3 Extra 06: I don’t miss chawanmushi that much

I want to go to the convenience store.

Even I want to wear my high school jersey to take out the trash. I want to change into pants, put a cardigan on top, and walk to the convenience store.

I want to go to a convenience store brimming with lights and stroll down an empty street.

Listening to a melody that I can’t get out of my head and walking through an automatic door.

Feeling sorry seeing the night shift employee who came out looking like they were in trouble.

I want to grab a basket and head to where the boxed lunches and carton beverages are. I want to buy convenience store sweets.

Wondering what items to choose. Reaching for those time-limited Swiss Roll, only to stop and rethink my decision. I want to stand in the sweets corner and think, Swiss Roll is good… but Mont Blanc is also good… I definitely want the fresh cream.

In the end, I want to choose a fancy pudding. I will put the one with cream on top in my basket.

Heading to the cash register, I pick up a carton of tea without a second thought. My feet and hands moved on their own, I bought the long and thin chocolate candy and melon bread that I hadn’t planned to buy.

While the employee is running the cash register, I want to stare at the hot snacks. Staring at the chicken, which is the only piece left behind because it is a time when people don’t show up. And in my heart, I will apologize to that chicken, I’m sorry that I can’t take you home with me. I bought enough stuff, and my finances are limited. And don’t forget the encouragement that I hope a good person will buy them before they’re discarded.

I want to pay my bill with my smart IC cards. I showed the card I had taken out of my wallet beforehand and declared that I would use it proudly as if I were in a card battle. I will hold it up at the designated spot.

After receiving the bag and thanking them, I will dash out of the store.

“Ah—I miss eating pudding.”

This is a world without convenience stores—the so-called isekai.

I have transferred to another world and was thrown into a place with a different climate and culture, but I don’t have many complaints. It would have been different if I didn’t have my social status and access to magical tools.

Somewhere in a mansion located in Dolknes territory. I haven’t been able to sleep much and have been up until midnight.

In a pitch-black room, I sat on my bed.

I felt hungry, and at the same time, I had a flashback to a memory of convenience stores in my previous life in Japan.

Right now, I am craving pudding with a vengeance. Pudding, pudding, pudding. I miss pudding. I want to be reunited with my beloved sweetheart.

In my previous life, I was unable to have a lover… correction, perhaps it was the pudding that kept me from making a move. No, that’s a lie.

Thinking about something you can’t have is not good for the soul. Let’s forget about the pudding now. It’s all in the past.

As I struggled to erase the pudding from my memory, I heard footsteps. In the silent night, the sounds echoed.

The footsteps stop outside my room, followed by a knock, and without waiting for a reply, the door slowly opens.

“Yu-yumiela-san? Have you gone to bed already?”

“This is unusual. What’s wrong?”

Eleanora peeked through the crack in the door. I had never seen her awake at this hour.

When she realizes that I’m awake, Eleanora comes into the room with a look of relief on her face.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Did you take too many naps or something?”

When I heard that she could not sleep, I would suspect insomnia caused by worries or stress, but this was not the case with Elanora.

She carefully made her way in the dark, wearing her pajamas, and sat down next to me on the bed. With puffed out cheeks, she says.

“I’m not a child who needs a nap.”

“That reminds me, you went to church today to help out.”

As an alternative to me not visiting religious institutions, Eleanora frequently goes to the church in the town.

I remembered. She had gone early this afternoon and returned in the evening.

If it is not because she is taking a nap, what caused her trouble sleeping? Something troubling her? Did something happen at church?

“By the way, what did you do at the church today?”

“When I arrived, lunch was already over, so I helped with the dishes. I was in charge of the wooden dishes.”

When I heard she was washing the dishes, I immediately thought, did she break something? I almost interrupted her, but the measures taken on the other side were perfect.

Does she frequently have episodes where she is helping and doing more extra work? It is good because she is a link between me as the Lord and the church, which is taking care of the children who have no relatives. Eleanora believes she is doing her job well, as requests for assistance have started to come in.

“Wooden tableware can get moldy if not dried properly. It’s an important job.”

“Ah! They said the same thing.”

“They are used to it. What did you do after that?”

“It was time for the little ones to take their naps, and I was putting them to bed. And then….”

Eleanora tilts her head and pauses the conversation. Did something bad happen to her after that? Is that why she couldn’t sleep?

Since she doesn’t want to tell me, I should press her to tell me.

While I was pondering, Eleanora continued her story.

“I put the little ones to bed, and when I come to my senses….”

“When you come to your senses?”

“When I came to my senses, it was already evening. I was alone in the room.”

…She’s sleeping like a baby. After the little ones wake up, she’s still sleeping.

When I couldn’t decide whether or not to point out the fact, she continued.

“Since it was late in the evening, I decided to go home. Before I left, Lily-chan wiped my mouth.”

…Is she drooling?

Imagine Lily with her big sister vibe, wiping Eleanora’s mouth.

“Lily-chan is really reliable, huh.”

“I don’t think so? Lily-chan is a timid girl who cries a lot, but she is very sweet. Everyone loves her, and she is like everyone’s little sister.”

Everyone’s little sister treats you like a little sister? Are you okay?

Putting aside the fact that Eleanora was being cared for by a toddler, I was glad to know that it wasn’t insomnia or anything else.

When I look to the side, wavy blond hair comes into my view. It was beautiful, pudding-like—

“Crap, I remember it again.”

“What’s wrong?”

Who would have thought that seeing Eleanora’s hair would remind me of the pudding I had almost forgotten?

There is no pudding in this world or rather this culture. There might be pudding if we search all over the world.

She wouldn’t know the word pudding, so I would explain it to her by paraphrasing it.

“I was reminded of an old lover. I’d like to meet again.”

“Whoaa!!!”

“Ssh, be quiet. It’s nighttime.”

“I’m sorry. I had always thought that Yumiela-san was devoted to Patrick. If you want to see that person again… do you still like him?”

“I like him. I still like him as much as ever.”

Eleanora, startled, almost shouts again and restrains her own mouth. She then said in a fumbling voice, more quietly than necessary.

“You have Patrick now, how can you like two different people simultaneously?”

“It’s Patrick that I like now, I can’t even compare them.”

“Don’t tell me, that person is no longer….”

“Yeah, he’s far away.”

Incidentally, it was me who went to the faraway place, not the pudding.

Eleanora clearly has a sad imagination. She is completely mistaken, but being considered to have experienced a spectacular love story is irresistibly enjoyable.

“And by an old lover, I mean food.”

Comparing Patrick to pudding is ridiculous. Which one do I like better? Patrick is not as sweet and smooth as I’d like.

All is well if he becomes a pudding. For my happiness, I have to transform Patrick into pudding.

Even without realizing it, happiness is built on the misfortune of others. Human beings are karmic creatures.

Wait, does Patrick need to turn into Pudding at all?

My train of thought runs off in a somewhat strange direction from time to time. Which is more important, Patrick or pudding? Because I started thinking from a place like that, I became like a monster or evil spirit that turns people into candy.

It’s painfully obvious, but pudding is made from eggs and other ingredients, not people. Eggs and milk? It would also have sugar and whatnot. The ingredients themselves are commonly found in this world and can be found at—

“We can make it ourselves! Miss Eleanora, I will make a pudding. …Miss Eleanora?”

Eleanora hasn’t spoken a word since I mentioned my old lover. Could she be angry with me for fabricating a sad story about my past?

When I checked my side with trepidation, I found Elanora, whose eyes had been wide open a moment ago, had fallen asleep on my bed and sound asleep.

We were having a normal conversation earlier, and she fell asleep without showing any signs of dozing off.

Huh. Didn’t she take a long nap?

Waking her up from her blissful slumber would be bad. Shall I carry her to her room? Gently, I lift her with both hands.

◆　◆　◆

And the next day.

I had come to the kitchen to make pudding.

“Teacher! She’s here! It’s an emergency!”

“Hide the ingredients! Don’t forget to hide the knives! The ingredients, the knives, everything is in danger!”

The conversation was between a cook who works in this mansion and his apprentice. As soon as he saw me, that is what he said.

With a familiar manner as if they had been trained several times… no, they finished evacuating the ingredients as fast as they had trained to do and blocked the entrance to keep me out of the kitchen.

“What can I do for you? Yumiela-sama isn’t allowed to enter the kitchen. If you attempt to force your way in, I will call Patrick-sama.”

“…I just wanted to thank you for everything. Thank you for making delicious meals every day.”

“I apologize for overreacting as well. I’m glad to hear the master’s compliments.”

He scratched his head with a disappointed look on his face.

There is no way that a negotiator as good as I am would suddenly get straight to the point. We started with friendly small talk. This is the right time to start.

“I’d like to talk ab—”

“No.”

“…Ah.”

This wasn’t right. Was the timing wrong, or was the negotiation itself impossible?

Aww, I was so excited to make pudding.

When I think about it again, this may be the first time I’ve utilized the knowledge from my previous life for something other than leveling up. Some might think that I should use my head a little more, but it is difficult to apply the knowledge I have acquired in modern Japan.

Mathematics and other disciplines were more advanced in my former life with supercomputers and such. But the scholars in this world use at least Math II B, which I know.

It is unlikely the goods will work. They might have similar products or be impossible to develop for various reasons.

Another reason was that I didn’t want to impact this world culture negatively, but I don’t think the world would change just because of pudding.

While the world may remain the same, the confectionery industry will experience a tremor.

The day is near when I will become a top patissier and open a very popular patisserie.

By the way, a patissier is a confectioner, and a patisserie is a store that makes and sells confectionery.

I have only recently learned the word ‘patisserie.’ After hearing Rita say it, I gave an embarrassing retort, “No, it’s patissier.”

It was frustrating to feel like I lost out on feminine charm. Whenever I hear a word I don’t know, I thought I would make it a habit to look it up.

Okay, I have to make pudding to write the book ‘Another World Sweets Love Story ~Fear the Rakshasa that dyes the battlefield red~ Volume 1: The writhing spirits’.

Should I break into the kitchen by force? But I can see that he would be furious if they called him. Patrick is very strict about cooking-related events since he fell asleep for three days after eating my home-cooked food.

“Please. I really want to eat something.”

“Then, we’ll make it! Yumiela-sama doesn’t need to do anything!”

“If I said I wanted to eat pudding, you wouldn’t know about it, right? I want to make something that doesn’t exist in this world.”

“And the stew you made before shouldn’t have existed.”

All the push and pull didn’t get us anywhere, they even bad-mouthed my stew.

I’m the only one who knows how to make pudding. Can I verbally give them the recipe and have them make it for me?

Since he sometimes makes sweets, he should be able to complete the pudding if he knows how to make it.

“Okay, I won’t do anything. I’ll give you the recipe, and you can make it. Please.”

“I guess I can do that. Pudding? What is that?”

“Pudding is something that has eggs, milk, and sugar in it. You mix all the ingredients.”

“No flour?”

“I don’t think you need flour.”

He must be picturing cookie dough. But there should be no flour in it because I have never seen any powdery pudding.

“They are passable. What about after mixing all the ingredients?”

“…You bake it?”

Huh? In the spirit of ‘once you get started, just go with the flow’ when making pudding, are they baked? I have a feeling it uses an oven, but what about it?

The heat must surely be applied to harden it. Boiling it wouldn’t be possible, would they bake it?

“It looks like we are going to make a scrambled egg.”

“Huh? We don’t need to fry them, they’re just shaped like this. Put it in a cup or something and then let it set?”

“Like an omelet?”

“What? No, no, no, it’s more like—”

I’m not sure how to get the situation under control. If I were to bake it, it would be like scrambled eggs or an omelet.

Then, how do I solidify the pudding? Do I need to use chemicals to force them into shape or something? Maybe gelatin?

Who would have thought that the pudding-making process would be so mysterious? I was beginning to wonder if the ingredients were even correct.

There is a ray of light in my hopeless situation when the apprentice cautiously opens his mouth.

“That sounds like Furaidag?”

“Furaidag?”

“It is a local dish eaten in the north. It’s a sweet egg dish, and while cooking, we rotate the edges to form the shape.”

“That’s it!”

I set my brain to translate Furaidag as pudding automatically.

That makes sense, you rotate it while cooking. Hmm, there was already pudding in this world? The ingredients are not rare, I wish they were more widespread in the Dolknes Kingdom.

The cook also recognized the local northern pudding and promised to serve it tomorrow morning.

I thanked him repeatedly and looked forward to tomorrow’s breakfast.

◆　◆　◆

“It’s tamagoyaki!”

Yup. It was a rolled omelet. It reminds me of my high school lunch box.

It tastes sweet and delicious. But I felt uncomfortable being offered a knife and fork. The proper eating utensils for tamagoyaki are cheap plastic chopsticks.

I thought I was going to have tamagoyaki.

My brain dictionary was revised yesterday. The automatic conversion of Furaidag was changed from pudding to tamagoyaki.

“Tamagoyaki? This was the first time I had eaten it, although I had the name. I like that it’s already flavored. This level of sweetness is acceptable when served with a meal.”

“ I like it! It’s called tamagoyaki?”

Both Patrick and Eleanora seemed to like the food.

But I was filled with sadness. Because if my mother had told me that my snack was pudding and what came out was tamagoyaki, there would be a riot. Siblings would become united to fight the resistance.

“Does it not suit your taste, Yumiela?”

“No, it’s delicious. The salty-flavored ones would be good, too.”

I respond to Patrick without enthusiasm.

Since then, the omelet has become a breakfast dish at our house. In response to my preference for the salty one, they also serve the salty one at breakfast.

◆　◆　◆

Later in the story, ‘I prefer the salty one’ became a negative legacy.

I came up with what I thought was the correct way to make pudding and decided to have it made right away. The pudding will be steamed in a cup, and I left out the information about it being sweet and cold.

When it came out, it was hot chawanmushi. The salty broth flavor is very well matched with the subtle sweetness of the egg. There is also a mushroom that looks like a shiitake mushroom and ginkgo-like nuts.

I quite like ginkgo in chawanmushi because they are so chewy. Haha, it’s chawanmushi, isn’t it?

It was difficult to get a broth that would blend well. After thinking about adding other ingredients, it was just as delicious as hoped.

That’s how the cook and his apprentice describe the dish with a smile. I couldn’t bring myself to say this isn’t what I meant.

Ah, I miss pudding.

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