"Boss!! We got another order for ten fish-shaped pastries!!"
"Tell them to wait a minute!! The molds are already packed full!"
Oxford’s street of food stalls.
The kind of place packed with foods that perfectly preyed on the winter chill, making people and fairies alike feel like eating something warm.
Hot dogs, potatoes, corn—those were standard. But here, even bizarre things like sardine pies were releasing their own distinct aromas, and today, one shop seemed to be having a very lucky day.
"B-Boss....."
"What?! I’m busy putting them in and turning them right now!"
"Th-the thing is... the Fang clan said this wasn’t enough to fill them up, so they added another order for about fifty fish-shaped pastries....."
"........I’ll turn up the heat, so hold on a little longer!! Three minutes on low heat, then a few seconds on high should do it!! And this is supposed to be a snack in the first place!!!"
Whether he was overjoyed by the flood of orders or not, heat was pouring from the back with a whoosh and a scream, and the pickpocket girl who had somehow ended up working with Nakamura—Ainsel, according to her—was sweating buckets as she dealt with the demanding customers telling her to hurry up and bring out the pastries.
Nakamura wondered why this had become so popular.
He had only come to Oxford planning to do a little business and earn some startup money for his travels.
So he had made and was selling fish-shaped pastries, a winter snack from his past life based on taiyaki, which did not even exist in Oxford yet, much less in the Fairy Kingdom thirty years ago in the Japan where he had once lived.
"Why the hell is business this good?!!!"
Unexpectedly, business was too good.
No, it was beyond good—it was being swept up to the point that it would end up in Gloucester’s "today’s trend" section.....!!
Damn it, come to think of it, fairies were obsessed with new things, and fish-shaped pastries really were something that had never existed in the Fairy Kingdom before.....!!!
"Then why are so many people crowding in hereeeee?!!!!"
"B-Boss.....! Another hundred fish-shaped pastries have been ordered.....!!"
"Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!"
Why are there so many of them cominggggg?!!!!!!!
*
"C-closing time! That’s it for today!! We’re out of ingredients!!"
"Aww, what? It’s over already....."
"Tch, what a shame... I’ll have to come earlier tomorrow....."
About twelve hours later,
the fish-shaped pastry stall’s runaway success, fueled by good luck and crowd psychology as lines piled on top of lines, finally came to an end when all the ingredients they had stocked up on ran out.
"Hah... hah... damn it, I’m dying here..... I never thought I’d have to keep my arms moving this much since the forge....."
"Haha... but business went well, so isn’t that a good thing...? By the way, could I have some water...? My throat hurts a little....."
"Oh, right. Here....."
The moment he handed over the water bottle, she gulped it down with desperate force.
......Yeah, there really had been too much work today, hadn’t there?
But then......
"You’re an upper fairy, aren’t you?"
".......Huh, wh-what?!!"
He had thought something was odd from the very beginning.
She was a pickpocket, yet she didn’t even know the back alleys properly. Her speech was polite to everyone.
Besides, if she were a lower fairy, she should be devoted to her own purpose to survive—but when he had said, "Want to work with me?" she had answered with a bright "Yes!"
......If her goal had been to gather money, she wouldn’t have returned the money she had stolen from him. And if her goal had simply been the act of stealing, she wouldn’t have agreed to work with him.
Then the only thing left was an upper fairy—someone with enough room to stray from her purpose a little.
"Your reaction says it all. You’re hiding your mana with a Mystic Code, aren’t you?"
"H-hahahaha.... I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.....?"
"No use lying, sir. I may look like just some blacksmith, but I know enough to tell when someone’s using a few Mystic Codes."
Ainsel looked like she was sweating even more now.
It was really more of a hunch than hard proof, but... couldn’t she at least keep a poker face....
"Th-then what about you? What’s your purpose that lets you do this here?! If you’re from Norwich and a blacksmith, shouldn’t this be hard for you?!"
"As you can tell from my mana, I’m basically an upper-tier nobody too, so it doesn’t cause me much trouble. And my purpose, in the first place, is simply the act of ‘doing business.’"
Of course, that was a lie. I’m human, after all. I’m not bound by a purpose alone.
Besides, like I said before, I’m disguising my mana with a Mystic Code. I’m making it look like I have enough magical energy to pass for an upper fairy, so I won’t seem out of place wandering around.
"So at the very least, I’d like you to tell me this. Why is someone around the level of an upper fairy being bossed around by me?"
"U-uaaahhh....."
Ainsel’s eyes darted back and forth.
She was probably repeating a collision of thoughts and arguments in her head, trying to figure out how to answer a question she hadn’t expected.
"Th-that is... well....."
"Well?"
She hesitated a little. Her expression said she was wondering whether she should really say it, but after a few seconds she seemed to make up her mind and opened her mouth.
"......I ran away from home."
"............Huh?"
????????????????
"I mean... I ran away from home... My father is still alive and well, and it’s not yet time for me to take up my role, so... haha...."
"......No, no, no, wait, hold on a second. Ran away? And your fath-?"
......As far as I knew, for fairies, father or mother were basically titles for one’s predecessor who held the same purpose, and if that was an upper fairy, then.........
"........Could you be from some high-ranking.....?"
"..........Haha... well... I’m the next chieftain of the Mirror clan....."
..........Why would someone like that run away from home and be working here?
"......Could you be lying...?"
"Huh? Lying?"
......No way, if she was that bad at hiding her feelings, her expression would have changed ages ago.
Damn it, this was bigger than I expected... the Mirror clan, who stayed in the northern lake region. And the next chieftain at that, why would she come all the way down here to the south.....
No, on the other hand, I could understand it. The Mirror clan could see the future, after all.
So the reason she kept telling me not to leave that alley back then was because she had seen the future, and knew that was the only way to properly escape that multi-level marketing scam.
"Hmm... so then, do you not have to go back north? You’re the next chieftain, aren’t you...."
"Well... I wanted to look around places other than the north or Oxford first... and also....."
"Also?"
"N-nothing!!"
She waved her hands frantically and trailed off. So she didn’t want to say it..... Still, she wanted to look around other places, huh.....
"Well, that works out nicely."
"Huh?"
"No, you see, I came out of Norwich because I wanted to travel around the Fairy Kingdom and do business wherever I could. Since things have turned out this way..... would you like to wander around with me and do business? Our final destination can be the north."
Even better. This worked out well. My ultimate goal was to travel the Fairy Kingdom anyway, so having a companion would be nice. Of course, if she refused, there was nothing I could do about it.....
"Yes! I’d love to!!"
Good. With that, I had one more travel companion.
"In that case....."
"In that case?"
"Could you tell me your name? Come to think of it, I’ve only been calling you Boss or you, and... I never even heard your name."
......My name, huh.
Come to think of it, I had decided on one, but never actually said it.
...Right, I should say it. If I kept using Nakamura, I might end up exposing that I was human.
Hoo..... Then,
"Capris. My name is Capris. I may be wearing a hat, but my name is Capris all the same."
........Sorry, but I’m borrowing your name for a while, Capris.
From now on, it’s my name.
"Yes! I look forward to working with you from now on, Mister Capris!"
"Yes, I look forward to working with you too."
Miss Ainsel smiled when she heard the name and said she looked forward to it. ...Mm, it was a little unfamiliar.
Still, since this was the name I’d be using from now on, I’d better get used to it properly.
Yeah. Right, that’s how it should be.....
......By the way, I really need to make more fish-shaped pastry molds already?!!
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