That Wonderful, Delicious Red One (8)

The young master simply declared that if it was sour, he did not want it, and promptly went back to eating his Frankfurt sausage.

Well, this was fine for now. Someday, I could teach him how delicious tomatoes were on their own.

Then, when the timing seemed right, I gave Anne a signal.

Anne nodded and brought over a long, slender bun that had been lightly toasted over the fire, with a Frankfurt sausage tucked inside.

“Young Master, this is called a hot dog!”

“…A hot dog…?”

Just like ketchup, the term hot dog did not exist in this world.

So I simply introduced it as a hot dog.

It must have sounded like an awfully strange name.

I had actually wanted to make something more like a Mo○ Burger-style hot dog.

But I decided that if I visibly piled chopped onions and the like into it, the young master would probably refuse.

So this time, I kept it simple: a Frankfurt sausage and cheese in a bun, topped with ketchup.

The young master stared at its unfamiliar shape for a while, but eventually took another bite, and once again his eyes widened.

“Oh… I like this one too! It’s delicious!!”

Apparently, it had pleased him.

Well, of course it had. Children loved ketchup.

If you served them Frankfurt sausages and hot dogs absolutely covered in the stuff, there was no resisting them.

And grilling them over charcoal only made them even better.

There was simply no way they could taste bad.

When eating something like this, it was practically a child’s duty to stuff their face until their mouth was stained bright red.

I watched him with a broad smile, wiping the young master’s messy mouth every so often.

“Whew… I ate too much. That was delicious.”

The young master said that only after finishing every last one of the dozens of Frankfurt sausages and hot dogs we had prepared.

And that was after he had already eaten the senior maids’ snacks. In my previous world, the young master would surely have made a name for himself as an eating champion.

In any case, today’s snack time had been a resounding success.

I had successfully converted the young master to ketchup.

“Shirley. I truly like it. From now on, serve me more snacks that use this ketchup.”

“Yes, Young Master. There are still many more dishes that can be made with it. Please look forward to them!”

When I said that, the young master gazed steadily at my face, then broke into a radiant smile.

Ahh… Adorable.

But then the young master made sure to drive one very pointed nail into me.

“But I still do not want vegetables themselves.”

“Understood.”

Of course. I had no intention of forcing you to eat them.

But… someday, you would come to love vegetables so much you could hardly stand it.

I guaranteed it, Young Master.

After all, there was no way someone like you, who already understood the joy of food, could remain ignorant of how delicious vegetables could be forever.

And when that day came, I would put everything I had into cooking them for you.

And with that determination in my heart, today’s snack time came to an end.

…However, the problem began after the young master left to attend to his work.

“Jacqueline, what was that earlier?! You were obviously trying to sabotage us! What were you thinking?!”

It was Anne. Anne had completely lost her temper and was confronting Jacqueline head-on.

Jacqueline answered her with a cold sneer.

“My, Anne. That is quite a way to speak to someone who is both your senior and a Team Head.”

“So what?! I don’t care! You seriously need to stop getting carried away!”

Anne’s emotions exploded.

The other maids watched anxiously from a distance.

Fights like this probably did not happen very often in the peaceful little world of the palace maids.

“Anne, it’s fine now. Everything worked out, so you don’t have to be angry…”

“No, Shirley! You’re always, always too soft! If we don’t say something clearly, she’ll never stop! This is unacceptable!”

I tried to calm her down somehow, but Anne was too worked up to listen.

I looked around desperately for someone to help, but Christina, who should have been the highest-ranking among us, was merely flustered and pacing around helplessly.

Come on, Christina-onee-sama! You are no help at all!

“Hmph. What do you mean, ‘unacceptable’? I only told the truth about what you did. What exactly was wrong with that?”

“It was the way you said it! You said it with so much malice! What would you have done if the young master had genuinely hated it because of you?! We worked so hard on it…!”

“Hmph. That disgusting condiment? Trying to stand out by catching the young master’s attention with some bizarre food… You two really are the worst!”

Anne shouted with tears gathering in her eyes, and Jacqueline snapped back with words dripping with spite.

Aaaah, I was really terrible at dealing with this sort of thing…!

“That is enough, both of you! You are maids whose duty is to serve the young master. What kind of disgraceful behavior is this?!”

At last, Clara-onee-sama, the Team Head of Team Two, could no longer stand by and intervened.

Ahh, Clara-onee-sama, you are a goddess! An absolute goddess!

A woman with courage every bit as impressive as her chest!

“Jacqueline, I understand where you’re coming from, but you were in the wrong just now. Apologize.”

“…!”

After being scolded by Clara-onee-sama, who outranked her, Jacqueline shrank back for a moment.

But in the very next instant, astonishingly enough, she even began snapping at Clara-onee-sama.

“No. Clara-onee-sama, you actually approve of them…? I suppose that explains why you shamelessly served donuts they came up with.”

“…What did you say?”

Whoa…

Clara-onee-sama’s voice dropped, and her eyes narrowed sharply.

Jacqueline had turned into a runaway train. She smashed straight through the line that should never have been crossed and continued spewing hateful words.

“At first, none of you accepted this woman either, did you? So why are you all treating her normally now? Don’t you think it’s strange that some… some commoner girl who appeared out of nowhere gets to curry favor with the young master using bizarre snacks?!”

“J-Jacqueline, you…”

“Christina-onee-sama, please stay out of this!”

Christina-onee-sama finally tried to step in.

But Jacqueline, now like a rabid dog, snapped at her too, making her let out a tiny frightened yelp.

Onee-sama… You’re weak!

“We’ve all worked hard this entire time, haven’t we?! As maids of dignity and honor, we have always served the young master the finest snacks! And now… now this freakish food girl gets to come in and do whatever she wants! Doesn’t that frustrate any of you?!”

When Jacqueline said that and looked around, the senior maids quietly averted their eyes.

Part of it may have been that they simply did not want to get involved… but perhaps part of it was also silent agreement.

Nothing Jacqueline had said was entirely wrong.

The young master had taken a liking to us thanks to chocolate and donuts, and every day he ate large amounts of whatever Team Five served.

But that also meant he was eating less of what the other teams had prepared.

We had changed an environment where everyone had always served nothing but sacru.

And when I thought about how the senior maids on the other teams must have felt being compared with us, the successful newcomers… I could understand why it would be painful.

Jacqueline must have felt the same way.

But there was still one thing that absolutely needed to be said.

“Jacqueline, I understand what you’re saying. But… don’t do this in front of the young master. The young master needs a peaceful snack time. We must never make him watch us fight.”

“…!”

When I said that, Jacqueline fell silent with a frustrated expression.

The young master was always busy. Though only a boy, he had been forced to carry the tremendous burden of an entire kingdom.

How could we possibly show someone like him an ugly quarrel between maids?

“If you dislike me, I can’t do anything about that. But—”

“…Shut up.”

I tried to continue.

But Jacqueline muttered those words and fixed me with a hate-filled glare, silencing me before I could finish.

Then she shoved me hard.

“Ah…!”

“Don’t stand there acting like such a good girl! I know, you know! I saw you… secretly giving presents to Lord Lawrence!”

What?

That came completely out of nowhere.

Wait… She saw me?

But why was she bringing that up now?

That had nothing to do with what happened with the young master.

“You walk around pretending you’re not interested in him at all…! People like you are the ones I trust least! You coward! You’re a devil! Get out! Get out of our place! Leave… just leave!”

“That is enough, Jacqueline!”

Jacqueline tried to grab me, but Clara-onee-sama stopped her.

Meanwhile, I could only remain where I had fallen, staring blankly.

I wasn’t used to this… having so much hatred directed straight at me.

Eventually, Jacqueline was restrained, and tears streamed down her face as she spoke.

“I’ll never forgive you… I’ll crush you. I swear I will.”

…She scared me.

I was terribly afraid of her.

And all I could do was remain silent.

“…Huh. So even you peaceful-looking maids have things like that happen, huh?”

That night, after all that commotion.

Agata spoke as we sat together around crackling firewood.

“I was surprised too. I never thought she hated me that much.”

I answered while stirring the pot bubbling over the fire.

We were inside Agata’s hut on the farm.

Apparently, she used it to store farming tools and temporarily keep harvested produce.

It was a peaceful night.

The sound of insects echoed through the silence, and the farm was wrapped in a gentle atmosphere.

There, the three of us—Agata, Anne, and I—sat around a vivid red tomato hot pot.

Tonight, I had decided to treat them to dinner both to report that the ketchup had been a success and to thank Agata for her help.