A few days before Sei and the 3rd Knight Order left for Klaussner.
Alberto visited Earl Waldeck’s villa in the Royal Capital.
The butler came out to greet him with an elegant bow when he passed the gate and approached the front door.
He got off his horse, and another servant came and took it like always.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Sorry for everything.”
“Please, don’t mind it.”
He was immediately guided to where Johan was waiting when they had finished their greetings.
“You’re early,” Johan rose from the sofa when he entered the room and greeted him.
“Yeah. We’ve finished with most of our preparations.”
He sat on the sofa opposite to Johan, and the maid began putting snacks and cutlery on the table.
“Do you have enough potions? If you don’t, then I can give you some more.”
“It’s fine. We’ve received more than enough, even if we count the ones we will use on the journey there.”
“I see.”
“I can get more from Klaussner if we do run out.”
The butler poured wine into the glasses on the table and then Johan waved his hand at the butler as if instructing him to clear everyone out.
They raised their glasses and toasted after everyone left the room.
It was only the two of them here now.
They could talk freely without having to worry about others.
They drank the wine and Johan spoke, “Oh yeah. You can always ask Sei to make you more potions if you have the ingredients. She’ll do it willingly.”
“Ah, no, that wasn’t what I meant……”
“I know that wasn’t what you meant.”
Alberto became flustered, and Johan laughed.
Alberto was going to buy potions at Klaussner if they had run out.
He didn’t intend to ask Sei for potions unless it was one that he couldn’t obtain.
Of course, Johan understood that this was what Alberto was thinking.
Nevertheless, he merely wanted to tease Alberto for saying something that others could misinterpret as him working Sei too hard.
Alberto also realised that Johan was teasing him and became blank.
“Don’t tease me.”
“Sorry, my bad.”
Alberto glared at Johan who was chuckling and tapped the glass he was holding.
After a while, Johan, who had managed to stop laughing, gulped his wine down and poured more wine into the two glasses.
“Well, Sei would probably make potions for you anyways when you run out, even if you don’t ask her. It always happens.”
“She works too much.”
“I think so too. I even tell her to rest, but she says that she is resting while working.”
“She said it’s more laid back here than at her previous workplace……”
Alberto and Johan have told Sei many times that she works too hard, but she always denies it.
They must have been reminded of it at the same time because they both sighed even though they weren’t trying to.
Her workplace might also be the reason behind this.
Working was the same as a hobby to people working at the research institute, so they still did research during their time off.
She lightly brushed them off even if they said she was working hard, probably because she was surrounded by those kinds of researchers and continued to work at her own pace.
“She’s always making something even if I give her time off.”
“I always catch her cooking.”
“Yeah, she says that cooking is a nice change of pace.”
Potions weren’t the only things Sei made on her day off.
She made cosmetic products for herself and cooked.
The chefs and researchers enjoyed it when Sei cooked, so Johan hadn’t asked her to stop.
Lately, Sei used most of her days off to make new food, because the chefs had asked her to teach them new recipes.
Sei always wrote down the ingredients and directions whenever they were going to make something new.
She would explain the procedure while looking at the note and then they proceeded to cook.
She would occasionally stop to warn them to be careful about something while she was cooking.
Sei didn’t think of cooking as work, so she was a little opposed to having her potion research time shortened since food took a long time to make.
Therefore, she started making new food in her time off.
“Ahhhhhh.”
“What’s wrong?”
Alberto looked suspiciously at Johan who suddenly raised his voice while his head was down.
“Nothing. Oh yeah, it’ll be put on hold for a while.”
“What will?”
“Food, of course. Food.”
The word cooking had popped up in their conversation, and Johan was extremely troubled because he had remembered something.
Sei was leaving the Royal Capital for a while so he couldn’t eat any new food.
He didn’t care much about food, but he liked eating the exotic dishes that Sei came up with.
One of the reasons for this was because the food she came up with was delicious and the other reason was that he was a researcher at heart and loved to experience new things.
The food recipes that Sei had made up until now had been passed onto the chefs in the research institute’s dining hall and were also included in the menu.
However, new recipes wouldn’t appear as long as Sei wasn’t here.
Not being able to taste unknown flavours was tough on Johan since he had gotten used to eating Sei’s cooking in this past year.
“Your dining hall also provides the food created by Sei, doesn’t it? Why are you that depressed?’
“Well, yeah I guess it does, but they don’t provide food I’ve never eaten before. I want to eat new food.”
“Well, it’s not like you can do anything about that.”
“How dare you think of it as someone else’s business. You’re fine. You get to go there with her.”
“Even if you say that she’s coming with me, don’t you think she would be restricted from cooking over there?”
“You can’t say that for certain, can you?”
“Do you think that there’ll conveniently be a kitchen for her to use? And she’s going as the 【Saint】. She probably can’t ask the feudal lord to lend her a kitchen, now can she?”
It was rare for a person of high status to cook in Slantania Kingdom.
Sei didn’t give off this feeling, but the position of 【Saint】rivalled that of the King.
Alberto thought that for argument’s sake, someone at the castle would stop her if Sei said she wanted to cook.
He didn’t think that Sei would forcefully do something if someone said no.
“I don’t know. She might if it was outside. I heard that she helped with the cooking at the West Forest.”
“Yeah, but there’s a limit to what she could cook outside. I don’t think she would make any of the food that you’re expecting.”
Alberto looked at Johan in surprise because he still wasn’t backing down, but he couldn’t deny that Sei might cook if they were outdoors.
However, the things she made during their subjugation breaks didn’t amount to much.
The best thing she could make was probably soup and grilled meat.
In that case, she had already made it before in the previous subjugation.
Alberto also thought that there was a limit to what she could bring with her, so she probably wasn’t going to make the new food that Johan was looking forward to.
However, he didn’t notice that the place they were going to was a sacred place for pharmacists.
It was a major medicinal herb production area, and herbs that couldn’t be found in the Royal Capital were found in Klaussner.
There was no proof that Sei wouldn’t come up with a new dish with those herbs.
Alberto realised this when he returned to the Royal Capital and heard the grumbles of Johan, who had heard that Sei had created a new dish in Klaussner.