Chapter 181. Cup Rice (5)
The morning after the war-like Birthday Banquet came to an end. The Y&P Trading Company's lodgings were, quite literally, in ruins.
"Uuugh…… my muscles are so sore……."
Serena groaned and rolled around on the sofa.
"Brigitte…… knead my shoulders a little…… I don't even have the strength to lift a finger……."
"Sister…… I'd love to, but…… my arms won't move……."
Brigitte, too, was sprawled out on the sofa across from her.
They looked nothing like the key figures who had led yesterday's great triumph. They looked more like miners who had just returned from the coalface.
"Stop whining, Serena. Brigitte is one thing, but you're a Viscountess, aren't you?"
Penelope, watching them from the side, clicked her tongue.
"A noble of Britannia shouldn't let herself be seen in such a dishevelled state."
"Ugh…… Penelope, just lie down too. It's really plush here. Once you lie down, you won't be able to get back up."
Serena patted the spot next to her.
"……Should I?"
Penelope, who had in truth been just as exhausted, hesitated for a moment before quietly settling herself down on the edge.
"Now, let go of all your tension. Lean back."
"Haaah……."
Penelope's body melted like liquid and sank into the sofa's backrest.
And so, in the end, three women lay side by side on the sitting room sofa like corpses.
"Serena, get your legs off my stomach."
"But it's comfortable like this."
"Cheeky."
"Penelope, you've got your feet up on Brigitte."
Jurgen sat by the window, letting out a wry smile as he watched the three of them lying there in perfect harmony.
They had every right to be exhausted.
This Birthday Banquet had been a march through hell for every member of Y&P Trading Company, Jurgen included.
Penelope had coordinated with Baron Keystone to urgently secure refrigerated freight trains, directing the transport operation minute by minute to ensure the meat's freshness didn't drop by so much as a single degree. It was also she who had processed the mountain of administrative documents — everything from the plaza occupancy permit to sanitation inspections.
And what about Brigitte?
She had worked hard at the serving stations throughout the day itself, but the real hardship lay in the preparation.
A recipe for mass cooking is on an entirely different level from an ordinary recipe. When making one hundred servings, simply multiplying a single serving's ingredients by one hundred does not produce the same flavour.
When tens of kilograms of meat go into a single pot, the rate at which it cooks changes, and the volume of moisture released by the ingredients changes, making it extraordinarily difficult to get the seasoning right. Even the supreme Brigitte had to pull an all-nighter to perfect the recipe.
And finally, the greatest contributor of all, Serena.
She had torn apart an abandoned printing house and rebuilt it into a hygienic kitchen. She had designed an automated line for producing waterproof-coated paper cups. She had even fabricated the equipment to be used for mass cooking.
Just as Jurgen was thinking he would have to raise Serena's incentive bonus handsomely this time as well——
Knock knock knock.
A knock rang out.
"Gasp!"
"Aaah!!"
The three women who had been lying on the sitting room sofa like corpses sprang up like coils. It was a state that was quite impossible for any lady to show another person.
Serena hastily wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, Brigitte fled to her room, and Penelope smoothed out her crumpled clothes before letting out a small cough.
Shortly after, the door opened and a middle-aged man in an elaborate ceremonial uniform walked in, flicking his moustache.
A royal crest badge affixed to his chest. He was a Court Official who handled the Royal Household's various affairs, major and minor. Behind him followed a Royal Guard carrying something resembling a box.
"Ahem."
He twitched an eyebrow at the sight of the lodgings in disarray, but with professional composure, gathered his expression and inclined his head toward Penelope.
"Are you Penelope Rosemore, representative of the Y&P Trading Company?"
The reason a Court Official had come at this particular moment was obvious without being said.
Y&P had successfully completed this mission. Now it was the Queen's turn to keep her promise.
"Yes, that is me."
Penelope stepped forward, putting on an air of solemnity. She assumed a posture as if expecting a grand proclamation to be read aloud.
But……
"By Her Majesty's command, the Y&P Trading Company is hereby appointed as a Royal Trading Company."
The Court Official placed the heavy box that the attending Royal Guard had been holding onto the table.
"Then, as the delivery has been completed, I shall take my leave."
"……Pardon?"
So it was over just like that?
The Court Official finished his business and cleanly turned on his heel. Then, hand on the door handle, he paused for a moment and added:
"Ahem. By the way — is there perhaps a little left over?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"No, I mean that rice bowl. I heard it was remarkably good."
The Court Official's gaze wavered.
"Ah, as it happens, we did keep a little aside……."
"Oh! How splendid! I shall not forget this kindness!"
The Court Official, beaming, cradled the cup rice tenderly and disappeared.
The front door closed, and only silence hung in the sitting room.
"……."
"……."
Serena opened her mouth with a flabbergasted expression.
"Wha, what was that……? Is that it?"
"It would seem so."
"No, but — a Royal Trading Company appointment ceremony, of all things! Shouldn't they at least scatter some confetti?"
Serena, who had been brimming with expectation, deflated and grumbled. Penelope let out an equally hollow laugh.
Jurgen slipped in.
"It's a commercial contract, not an investiture ceremony."
Come to think of it, the Royal Warrant had also ended in much the same breezy fashion — a rush that felt like 'The honour of the Royal Warrant goes to Y&P Trading Company! — and that was that.
"Still, it feels a little anticlimactic……."
"Nothing anticlimactic about it. Let me remind you once more just how remarkable a Royal Trading Company is."
First, independence.
A Royal Trading Company is, in essence, a trading company with the Queen herself as its backer. Even the Rosemore family, Overlord of the North, the moment they interfered with Y&P, the picture would turn very ugly indeed.
Second, economic privileges. For the next ten years, it would hold preferential supply rights for royal and military events, along with tax reduction benefits on corporate tax within the kingdom.
And most important of all, the third.
Credibility and publicity.
To the people of Britannia, the signboard of 'Royal Trading Company' is, in itself, the finest seal of guarantee. One only needs to gauge how far upward CCC had soared after receiving the Royal Warrant to easily predict what lay ahead.
"……."
At Jurgen's explanation, Penelope's eyes trembled.
She had known all of this already, but the profound emotion was fresh. The days she had struggled and thrashed to escape from beneath the shadow of her family flashed past like a revolving lantern.
"We…… actually did it."
With this Birthday Banquet as the turning point, Penelope had broken completely free from her family's interference. Serena had achieved her career high as the empire's top-paid engineer. Brigitte was…… well, her arm muscles had grown a little stronger, and she had gained the ability to cook in large quantities.
There were also achievements that weren't so visible on the surface.
Two hundred thousand people in Albion. That unspecified multitude had, for the first time in their lives, tasted genuine fine food.
That was where the true value lay.
***
Two days had passed since the Birthday Banquet ended. The capital, Albion, was suffering from a dreadful aftereffect.
The aftereffect of having to work again after a rare holiday?
No.
"There's none? You're telling me there's truly none!"
"My sincerest apologies, my lord. We searched every back alley and……."
"I, I'm so sorry……."
At a high-end salon in Albion. A nobleman with hollow eyes was browbeating his servants.
The servants, who had combed every corner of Albion since the small hours of the morning, were each stumbling about with various foods in hand.
'Has he gone senile in his old age.'
'What are we supposed to do — find a cup rice that was served as a one-off event!'
'We want some too!'
Just then, the door burst open and a servant appeared.
"My lord! I have procured it!"
"What?! Is that so?!"
"Yes! A brown sauce! Meat in a sweetly salted seasoning, served over rice!"
"Ooh!! Wonderful!"
The other servants let out sighs of relief, and gave a thumbs-up to the servant who had just arrived with the cup rice.
Of course, what the servant had brought was not the genuine article. Where on earth were they supposed to find a dish that everyone had scraped clean to the last grain of rice on the day of the Birthday Banquet?
Rather than have this drag on without resolution, it was a counterfeit cup rice cooked in the kitchen to resemble the original.
"Let me have a taste then."
The Count took a spoonful with great anticipation— and promptly spat it out. Ptoo!
"This is not the taste!"
"I am utterly mortified!"
"Again! Go and find it again!!!"
Just one night. The two hundred thousand cup rices that Y&P Trading Company had distributed had addicted the palates of the capital's people. The most terrifying aspect was that the flavour had vanished like a fleeting spring dream.
Y&P Trading Company was preparing to pull out after the Birthday Banquet had ended, and all that remained was the memory of that fantastical savory taste that lingered at the tip of the tongue.
"Go to the Y&P Trading Company's lodgings! No matter how much money it takes — whether you kidnap the cook or buy the recipe!"
"I need to serve that cup rice at my soiree too. Clarisse Rosemore and the Y&P Trading Company's representative are at each other's throats? So what of it?"
"They say there's a similar dish at the Northern Royal Kitchen? Tomorrow — no, go and book a train ticket right now!"
Similar scenes were playing out all across the city.
And it wasn't only the nobles.
From early morning, a remarkable spectacle was unfolding in front of Y&P Trading Company's temporary lodgings.
[ Y&P, open a shop this instant! ]
[ Take my money! Give us the cup rice! ]
[ I'm feeling faint, I tell you! ]
Citizens shaking their coin purses and crying out. They had become bodies that could no longer be satisfied with hard black bread.
Serena watched the scene from beyond the lodgings window and stuck out her tongue.
"No…… this is actually a little terrifying……."
"The most terrifying thing of all is always the contrast effect."
Jurgen grinned.
Two hundred thousand people, no less. Two hundred thousand people had tasted fine food at one and the same moment. The ripple from that would undoubtedly spread at a pace beyond anyone's ability to contain, serving as the detonator of a Culinary Revolution.
Everything had been perfect. The joy of victory, plentiful spoils, and a hopeful future.
"Now it's just a matter of how to manage that……."
That alone remained.
Knock knock knock.
Just then, a knock sounded without warning.
"Who could it be? Oh, perhaps the Court Official has come again?"
Serena hummed a little tune as she made her way to the entrance. Thinking it was probably someone come to ask whether there was any more cup rice left, she opened the door in good spirits.
"Sorry, Court Official. The cup rice is all gone now, so…… oh?"
Standing before the door was not the Court Official.
"Excuse me."
A gentle, low voice. Dark golden hair and a warm smile that disarmed whoever beheld it.
His features resembled Penelope's, but his air was far more mature and exuded an air of refinement.
"I heard our youngest was here."
"Elder brother?"
The man stepped naturally inside and wrapped an arm around Penelope's shoulders as she stood there with wide, rounded eyes.
"It's been a while, Penelope. Your face looks quite drawn."
A warm touch. A tone full of concern. The presence that had sheltered Penelope in her childhood years.
His identity was the heir of the Rosemore Count Family. It was Rupert Rosemore.