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After playing around with Mark and Tom for a while, I headed toward the field, thinking I’d do some soil work, when—
“Hiiyaaaaa~!”
—from the direction of the gate came a scream that unraveled like silk thread.
Wondering what was going on, I hurried back and found a female student collapsed on the ground.
Mark and Tom had wandered over nearby, sniffing her curiously.
“Ah, so Mark and Tom startled you. Yeah, I can see why—that’s a bear and a black panther, after all.”
The girl lying there had semi-long hair and wore something like a small chef’s hat on her head, while her bangs were so long they nearly covered her eyes.
She wore the academy’s standard uniform, but her skirt was unfashionably long.
She was also clutching something like a paper bag, holding it tight as if it were her own child, even as she lay unconscious.
I crouched down beside her and helped her up.
“Hey, are you okay? Pull yourself together.”
When I shook her gently, the girl groaned, “Uu…” and opened her eyes.
Because of her curtain-like bangs, I couldn’t tell where she was looking, but she must have met my gaze—she flinched and hunched her shoulders in fear.
Her mouth opened and closed as she spoke.
“Ah, um, umm… th-the bear and the black lion…”
“It’s not a lion, it’s a panther. They’re both my pets, so relax.”
Mark and Tom sat a little distance away, responding with “Gwooon!” and “Pyaa!”
Even so, she was still visibly terrified.
“Ah… um, umm…”
“So, did you come here to see me? Or were you just passing by?”
She only nodded repeatedly, not quite making herself clear.
“For now, come inside and have some water.”
I invited her into the house and gave her water in a wooden cup.
She didn’t let go of the paper bag, but cautiously stretched out one hand to take the cup and gulped it down.
“Feeling a little calmer now?”
Just from me speaking, she jolted up from the chair.
“Y-Yes! Ah, um, umm—th-thank you very much!”
Hmm. At first I thought she was just flustered because she’d been scared of Mark and Tom…
But it seemed this was just how she normally was.
“I’m Leopin. And you are?”
“Y-Yes! I-I’m Kurumi, from Class 1-16!”
“Class 1-16—that’s the class with a lot of cooks, right? Judging by how you’re dressed, you must be one too.”
At that, the girl who called herself Kurumi slumped her shoulders.
“Y-Yes… b-but, I-I… I ended up becoming a ‘Pastry Chef’…”
Keeping her head down, Kurumi spoke in a small, halting voice.
“P-Pastry Chef… in th-this academy… n-no one n-needs that… I-I think I’ll be ‘expelled’ from my class s-soon… A-And if I get expelled, I’ll…”
Mid-sentence, Kurumi suddenly realized something and looked up in shock.
She shook her head left and right so hard her hair nearly spun.
“A-Aah! S-S-Sorry! I-I wasn’t t-talking badly about you, L-Leopin-san…!”
“Don’t worry about it. So you came to check out the Special Training Class, then?”
“Ah—th-that too, b-but… I-I have a request for you, L-Leopin-san…”
When I asked, “What is it?” Kurumi hugged the paper bag she’d been holding even tighter to her chest.
Then, summoning all her courage, she looked up and said,
“P-Please! I-I want you to share some sweet potatoes with me! B-Before I get expelled, I w-want everyone to eat something sweet…!”
Kurumi’s expression suddenly turned dreamy.
“…Before, when I got to eat your ‘baked sweet potatoes’… They were so, so delicious… The moment I took a bite, my mouth felt like a land of gold… For just that moment, even a useless person like me could laugh together with my classmates… If we could taste that deliciousness together again, I think I’d have no regrets…”
When Kurumi talked about sweets, her speech smoothed out, and her stuttering disappeared.
“You really like sweets, don’t you?”
“H-H-How did you know…?”
“That’s obvious. You talked about them with that much passion.”
Kurumi lowered her head shyly.
“A-Actually… y-yes…! B-But my family runs a super-spicy restaurant, and everyone loves hot food…! If they f-found out I like sweets—and that I’m a Pastry Chef—it’d be t-terrible…!”
“Family circumstances aside, if you want sweet potatoes, I’ll give you some. But just baking sweet potatoes doesn’t really count as making sweets, does it? You were given that skill—why not use it and try making actual sweets?”
“Th-That’s… I-I thought about it m-many times… I-I even bought sugar from the School Store…”
Fidgeting, Kurumi showed me the paper bag she’d been holding.
Written on it in handwritten letters was the word “Sugar.”
“Th-There wasn’t a-anything else that looked useful for making sweets… C-Cooking tools were t-too expensive to buy… I-I tried borrowing from classmates, b-but when I said I wanted to make sweets, th-they wouldn’t lend me anything… W-With no tools and no ingredients… Y-You can’t make sweets w-with just sugar…”
“Really? I don’t think that’s true.”
I replied immediately.
Kurumi blinked, clearly not expecting me to argue back.
“Well, sure—just sugar would be tough, but if you have water too, you can make something.”
“Th-That’s… that’s just sugar water—it’s n-not a sweet… S-Sorry for being rude… B-But there’s no way you can m-make sweets with just sugar and water…”
“Come with me.”
I said only that, stood up, and headed outside.
Kurumi followed after me, flustered.
“Huh?”
When we reached the outdoor cooking area in the yard, I first changed jobs to Stonecrafter.
I compared two rocks I took out of my coat pocket.
“Granite stone is tougher, but its heat conductivity isn’t great… Daio stone would be best, but I don’t have any right now. Guess I’ll use forest stone.”
Deciding on forest stone as the material, I carved it using the forest stone chisel and the Gisu wooden mallet I’d made earlier.
I shaped it into something like a large, deep dish.
Then I shaved Gisu wood into a handle shape and attached it…
“Alright, done.”
When I looked over at Kurumi, her eyes were wide and unfocused.
“E-Eh… wh-what…? N-No way… Y-You made a frying pan in j-just a moment… A-And it’s f-far better than the ones sold at the School Store…”
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