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The banquet ended in great success.

The guests invited to Winterhome departed, returning to their places, and the splendidly decorated Great Hall regained its original appearance thanks to the servants who cleaned up all night.

Finally, the employees of Winterhome could take a break. Including the cooks.

This was something that would normally be out of the question.

There was a severe shortage of cooks due to the business trip.

With manpower lacking, not all the cooks could take a break at once.

Someone had to cook for those who remained.

However, the banquet proceeded without a hitch, and Alfred, who achieved more than expected, granted an exception for the cooks to rest as a reward.

Of course, that meant they could only take turns.

Still, due to the lack of personnel, they had to enlist the servants, but the cooks were able to savor a long-awaited sweet respite.

Of course, Karem did not fall under that category.

He was, after all, Catherine’s personal cook.

Not belonging to the main kitchen of Winterhome, but to the Wizard’s Tower.

Moreover, there was only one person he cooked for.

Karem brushed off the half-serious pleas for help from the other cooks.

“…Ugh. I’m dying.”

And he was indeed half-dead.

Lying on the bed in his own room.

His bones ached.

Muscles tingled from head to toe.

After a day passed, the fatigue from several nights of overnight work came rushing in all at once as the tension eased.

They say that when a person is too hungry or sick, they can’t even sleep.

Of course, Karem wasn’t that sick, but he repeatedly tossed and turned about six times, waking up as the morning sun began to rise.

Still, he somehow managed to get up in the morning.

Though his eyelids felt as heavy as lead, when he tried to move his limbs to get out of bed, they trembled, almost pulling him back into the covers.

Karem moved only his eyes to look around.

The once dark room was now beginning to show a faint hint of blue.

It was still very close to pitch black, but it was a sign that the sun was starting to rise.

A few months ago, he could have just succumbed to sleep.

But now it was the end of summer.

His internal clock was shouting that it was time to wake up.

However, today, the exceptionally soft bed did not want to release Karem’s weary body. Unlike the warm bed and blankets, the cool air weighed heavily on him from above.

‘Ah, I have to get up. I need to prepare breakfast for our Sir Atanitas; I must get up now.’

Contrary to his thoughts, his body groaned like a Lower Undead, refusing to rise.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Karem, junior. Are you awake?”

“Ughhh—”

“Hmm, I thought the Contractor and I were perfectly in sync.”

Mary entered the room with a lamp and nodded as if she expected this.

“What, what is it, aaah.”

“Oh, I’m saying that Karem junior won’t be able to get up, just like a vampire doused in holy water. You’ve suffered too much for someone so young.”

“Ugh, ughhh—”

“Hmm, you don’t even have the energy to speak. Now, open your mouth.”

Mary took out a small glass vial from her cloak.

The contents of the transparent bottle sparkled with a brilliant yellow hue under the lamp’s light.

Pop—!

With the lid popped off, Mary poured the contents into Karem’s zombie-like gaping mouth.

“Okay, okay. It’s a potion. Drink it all in one go.”

“U-uuuhh.”

“Are you asking what went into it? Wings of a lion butterfly, amber ground beetle, firefly… what other bugs could there be—”

“Uhh? Uhh uhh? Uhh uhh uhh??????”

“Well, you did say you’ve eaten plenty of bugs before, right? Consider this as an extension of that.”

“Uhh! Ugh! Uhh!”

“Ah, ahh. You mustn’t keep your mouth closed. The Contractor said you must drink every last drop without leaving any behind.”

Do you think I enjoyed eating that! He wanted to shout, but Karem obediently swallowed the contents of the vial.

It was a subtly sour and sweet flavor reminiscent of an ion drink.

For some reason, it felt refreshing all the way down his throat.

This yellow liquid potion, containing at least three different types of bugs, was surprisingly, really surprisingly good. It even felt nostalgic.

After emptying the vial, Karem sighed.

“Whoa! You’re telling me bugs were in this?!”

“That was unexpected. Is it tasty?”

“Er, well, it fits my palate perfectly. But preferences may vary.”

“Hmm, I thought almost all the ingredients were bugs.”

Mary corked the empty vial and examined it for a moment.

“Well, it’s not very important, so let’s move on. By the way, it seems to take effect quickly, just as the Contractor said.”

“Effect, oh. Now that you mention it…”

“Shall we see if you can get up?”

“Uh, uhhh.”

His joints throbbed, and his muscles twitched.

The heavy feeling he had just moments ago was nowhere to be found.

It felt as if he had simply taken a long nap.

Karem experimented with moving his surprisingly light body about freely.

“What on earth did you make me eat?”

“It’s a stamina potion. You’ve been working hard these past few days, so I was asked to deliver it to you early in the morning.”

“Wow, did you really have to feed it to me directly?”

“You didn’t even have the strength to speak, so you don’t need to be modest.”

Mary put the glass vial back in her cloak and regarded Karem lightly.

“After all, you’ve been suffering so much at such a young age. Why not take it easy today? Just for today, let me handle the tasks you would usually take on.”

“Hah, do you think I would fall for that?”

“What do you mean? I purely have Karem junior’s best interests at heart—”

“Who doesn’t know you’re trying to sneakily take my job?”

Tsk!

Even with the person involved right there, Mary audibly clicked her tongue.

“Surely, the plan was perfect.”

“How could I not know when you do this whenever you get the chance?”

With a look of disappointment radiating from Mary, Karem felt dumbfounded.

This job-obsessed House Fairy is not to be underestimated.

Anyway, with all the fatigue washed away, Karem stepped out of the room without hesitation, crossing the dark corridor to enter the kitchen next door.

As he entered, the cooks in the Wizard’s Tower were busy preparing food, and a gigantic pot of mushroom soup was simmering steadily while a massive mound of dough for bread was resting.

“By the way, are you going to bake that dough?”

“Yes. We ran out of bread two days ago.”

“But we could have just taken bread from the kitchen—”

“That’s right. I went to the kitchen after the banquet ended yesterday, but the baker said he took a few days off.”

“So you just decided to bake it yourself?”

“It’s been quite a while since I baked bread myself, so I thought I’d go ahead and prepare it in advance yesterday evening.”

Speaking of which, looking at the large quantity of bread dough made Karem’s appetites surge.

No, how can a chef hold back when there’s such convenient dough just sitting there without having to go through the boring and daunting dough-making process?

“Mary. Do we have leftover tomatoes or paste from the feast?”

“We don’t have tomatoes, but there’s about half a jar of paste left.”

“Then, that’s good.”

“It should be sitting right where it always is in the warehouse.”

“Yep.”

Then the answer was found.

Time to make pizza.

Using all the leftover tomato paste, garlic, and onions.

Along with various herbs and kinds of cheese, he grabbed plenty of beef and headed back to the risen dough while Mary tilted her head curiously as she got up.

“Are you going to make some sauce, perhaps?”

“It would have been nice to have fresh tomatoes. If not, I’ll have to make do. Well.”

“Then it’s pasta, huh?”

“N-no.”

“Yes?”

“Pizza. Pizza.”

“Ah, a dish from Servianus?”

The process of making pizza is incredibly simple.

Spread the sauce on the flattened dough, add toppings, and bake it; done.

The procedure is so simple that it’s a widely consumed dish among all classes in this world, attributed to the almost-Italian Servianus, and Karem had eaten it several times in the main kitchen of Winterhome.

Of course, back then, there was no tomato sauce.

However, just like any other baking, while the process seems straightforward, executing it is highly difficult.

Depending on the dough’s consistency and the oven’s temperature, you’d have to constantly adjust its position to regulate the heat until fully baked.

And there are no ovens where you just press a button to finish everything—no matter how magical the kitchen in the Wizard’s Tower is, Karem’s skills wouldn’t allow him to bake a delicious pizza. Except for one type.

With minced onions and garlic sautéed in Akusare Mushroom oil, he poured in the tomato paste with a bit of water along with various spices. He mixed in the ground and sautéed beef and cooked it down to make the sauce.

Then Karem quickly grated a mountain of cheese to pile it up.

He did this lightly because of this.

Salty cheese with salty sauce—if you do that, it’ll turn into a lump of salt instead of pizza.

While he baked the bread, Mary watched Karem’s movements.

Not a pizza or a pie, isn’t this similar to pelmeni?

But as curiosity flickered in Mary’s gaze, it quickly soured.

“Um, why do you have that look as if you’ll finish baking all of that?”

“…Is this really pizza?”

“Yes. It’s pizza.”

“How on earth does that look like pizza.”

Bending slightly to adjust the position of the dough in the oven with a skewer, Mary observed the whole production process of what Karem insisted on was pizza.

Spread the sauce on the wide dough.

Of course, it had to be done quickly to ensure the sauce cooked evenly.

He spread the previously made sauce evenly over the surface.

No one wants to eat a pizza with uneven sauce, so this is the same.

He threw down a generous layer of cheese so that the sauce didn’t show on half the dough.

Something seems off about this. Let’s just watch.

Then he folded the dough in half and twisted the ends; was this seriously a pizza?

“This looks like a pie.”

“It’s pizza.”

“No, if you’re being nice, it looks like baked pelmeni. It’s similar to the empanada I saw before. That was fried.”

“That’s calzone. Please throw this into the oven and bake it for me.”

“No matter how I see it, it looks just like a pie. Should I bake it until it turns golden brown?”

“Yes.”

Every time Mary called it a pie, Karem corrected her.

But Karem couldn’t blame her feelings either.

After all, even in his previous life, whether calzone was a pizza or a pie sparked as much debate as the “sauce on top or sauce on the side” controversy in Korea.

It was probably a debate that wouldn’t settle until the world ends or the pizza’s homeland perishes, yet Karem insisted it was pizza purely out of habit.

But is a similar debate going to arise if I flow back to the homeland?

While Karem was caught up in such deep contemplation, the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked bread started wafting out from the oven.

Amidst the rich aroma of freshly baked bread, another enticing scent mixed in.

The appetizing sourness and the buttery aroma of cheese.

Mary squeezed her eyes shut, taking a deep breath.

Just as a cat can’t pass by a flowering dogwood tree, how could a House Fairy overlook the smell of freshly baked bread?

Yet she was a professional House Fairy.

She mustn’t touch the bread meant for others.

Hadn’t she baked her own share of bread for that very reason?

However, as the enticing scent combined with the mouthwatering fresh and tangy aromas stacked up, Mary’s heart began to race.

Now that she thought about it, maybe it wasn’t pelmeni or pie.

“Karem junior. I’d like to correct myself.”

“Yes? What about?”

“Calzone is indeed a pizza.”

“When it’s done baking, would you like to have one?”

Mary did not refuse.

She only expressed a slight objection that she would want to eat it after Catherine’s meal ended.

 

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