My First Snack Time

“Welcome, Young Master!”

“Welcome!”

The cheerful voices of the Onee-samas echoed through the royal palace courtyard.

Warm sunlight streamed down from the sky.

Several tables had been arranged throughout the beautifully maintained courtyard, and before long, His Highness the Prince slowly appeared.

Apparently, on days with nice weather, his snacks were served in the courtyard.

“Young Master…? Not Prince?”

As I bowed deeply along with everyone else, I murmured the question, and Anne whispered the answer to me.

“It’s customary for the maids to call the prince ‘Young Master’… Now be quiet or you’ll get in trouble.”

Behind the Young Master walked Lady Claire, the head maid.

When the head maid pulled out his chair, the Young Master perched himself neatly upon it.

(S-so cute…)

Even if he was a prodigy, the Young Master was still small enough that his feet did not reach the ground from the chair.

How adorable.

However, unlike the sharp expression I had seen earlier in the audience chamber, he now looked somewhat absentminded.

I wondered if he was tired, but then Christina Onee-sama, head of Team One, stepped forward and placed a plate of sweets in front of him.

“Sacru, Young Master.”

Sacru. It was a type of cake in this country, made by mixing flour with sugar, milk, eggs, butter, and other ingredients, adding dried fruit, then baking the dough.

It resembled a Japanese cupcake, brown and about the size of a palm, with plenty of powdered sugar dusted over the top.

Incidentally, Sacru was simply what this sweet was called in this world.

Unfortunately, I had never known the name of this particular type of confection in my previous life.

There was probably something similar, but since I did not know what it was called, I would simply use the name from this world.

Sacru was also quite a dry cake, so much so that eating it without a drink was rather difficult.

And astonishingly, an enormous pile of them had been heaped onto the plate.

(Huh…? Isn’t that way too much for one person?)

There were probably more than twenty Sacru piled there.

Even if each one was only palm-sized, most people would be full after eating just a few.

Maybe there was some kind of etiquette among nobles where you were supposed to serve far more food than they could possibly finish.

As I thought that, the Young Master reached for a Sacru.

He stuffed one into his mouth, chewed it thoroughly, then immediately reached for the next.

Then another. Munch, munch. He continued devouring them at an astonishing pace.

And while I watched in stunned disbelief, the Young Master occasionally drank some tea and eventually polished off the entire plate without difficulty.

“Wow. His Highness… I mean, the Young Master certainly eats a lot…!”

When I said that admiringly, Anne gave a small shake of her head.

“What are you talking about, Shirley? His snack time… is only getting started.”

Before I could even finish blurting out, “What?”, the other teams began bringing out plates one after another.

And every single one of them was piled high with Sacru!

The Young Master began eating those one after another as well.

However, he did not finish all of them.

He ate around two-thirds of Team Two’s, and about half of Teams Three and Four’s.

Once that was over, the head maid asked him a question.

“Young Master. Would you care for any more of them?”

The Young Master thought for a moment, then answered.

“Two more plates of the first one.”

Two plates!? Two more plates!?

He had already eaten an enormous amount, and now he wanted another two heaping plates of Sacru!?

“The Young Master has an exceptional appetite. He spends extremely busy days, so he requires a great deal of energy. Even for snacks, he can easily eat enough for ten or twenty people.”

An exceptional appetite. In other words, he was a huge eater.

I understood that he was busy. But… I still could not help wondering where all that Sacru disappeared inside such a small body.

While I stared in amazement, Christina Onee-sama, looking faintly proud, stepped forward with another plate of Sacru and placed it before the Young Master.

The moment he started on it, he once again devoured the entire thing in no time.

“Young Master, how was it?”

When the head maid asked, the Young Master carefully wiped around his mouth with a handkerchief and answered in a flat voice.

“It was delicious.”

“Thank you very much, Young Master!”

The moment he said that, all the Onee-samas bowed deeply at once.

I hurriedly copied them, and then the Young Master rose from his seat and departed.

“Wow… So that was the Young Master’s snack time.”

I could not help murmuring aloud.

The Young Master had practically inhaled all the Sacru that the Onee-samas had worked so hard to make.

It had the impact of a storm sweeping through and wiping everything away.

However, for us, snack time was not over yet.

Everyone soon began gathering together at a light jog, so Anne and I hurried after them.

Once we joined the circle, Christina Onee-sama spoke with a grave expression.

“The Young Master did not eat very much again today…”

That wasn’t much!?

My head filled with exclamation marks as the Onee-samas continued their discussion.

“Even though Sacru is the Young Master’s favorite, this was disappointing. In the past, it would not have been unusual for him to eat another five plates.”

“Our team only managed to get him to eat about half again. How pathetic.”

“Perhaps our fruit ratio was poor. Maybe we should select only the very best pieces.”

They listed their points for improvement while I stared blankly, and finally Christina Onee-sama concluded.

“Let us work hard on tomorrow’s Sacru as well. Dismissed.”

Tomorrow!? You’re serving the same thing again tomorrow!?

Ignoring my astonishment, the Onee-samas returned to their regular duties, leaving only our team behind while I struggled to understand what was happening.

“Hey, Anne, about this…”

If I did not understand something, I could simply ask.

That was what I was about to do when a voice came from an unexpected direction.

“New girl. Want me to answer your question?”

The voice was mocking and incredibly sarcastic.

It belonged to Jacqueline Onee-sama, the red-haired twin-tailed maid who had challenged me earlier.

“You were wondering why we keep serving nothing but Sacru, weren’t you? As the head of Team Four, I suppose I can graciously explain it to you.”

I had noticed while watching earlier that, despite being close to my age, she was apparently a team head herself.

She led Team Four, the group whose Sacru the Young Master had eaten about half of earlier.

“How very kind of you… Please enlighten me, Onee-sama.”

“Hmph. Don’t call me Onee-sama. The thought of having you as a little sister makes my skin crawl.”

Jacqueline Onee-sama made no attempt to hide her disgust.

Very well. From now on, I would simply call her Jacqueline.

Jacqueline picked up one of her team’s Sacru and continued.

“Sacru was the favorite sweet of the Young Master’s mother—in other words, Her Majesty the Queen.”

“Her Majesty the Queen… If I remember correctly, the Queen…”

“Yes. She passed away from illness six months ago. His Majesty the King loved her deeply and was devastated by her death. He fell ill himself, and that was why the Young Master ended up being entrusted with governing the country.”

I had heard about that as well.

After all, the entire nation had gone into mourning at the time.

Everyone knew that the king had doted deeply upon his young queen.

“The Young Master also lost much of his spirit after that… So we serve him Sacru, which he often enjoyed eating happily with Her Majesty, hoping it will remind him of those happier days.”

I see. So that was the reason.

Sacru was both a favorite of the Young Master and a flavor tied to precious memories.

The Onee-samas were serving it during snack time because they wanted to cheer him up… Their concern for him had gone into every plate.

“I see. I understand now. Then that means our team will also need to serve Sacru.”

Even as I answered, however, I found myself troubled.

Because I had never properly made Sacru before.

After all, dry cakes were not really my preference.

And while I was at it, I was not especially fond of the type with dried fruit either.

What I liked were moist cakes—strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, things like that.

Sacru was exactly the kind of cake I did not particularly enjoy and therefore not a style I was good at making.

As I thought that, Jacqueline grinned and held out one of the remaining Sacru.

“This is ours. Try it.”

“Thank you.”

It might not have been my favorite, but if someone told me to eat something, I was going to eat it.

I placed it in my mouth without hesitation, chewed carefully, and then involuntarily exclaimed.

“Delicious…!”

Yes. It was shockingly good.

It was completely different from the Sacru I had eaten in town before, with an astonishing depth of flavor.

Both the batter and the dried fruit were of excellent quality, and they blended together in my mouth in just the right proportions to create something truly delicious.

It still dried out my mouth, but as expected of the royal palace, the quality was on another level…!

“Hmph. Just so you know, what Christina Onee-sama’s Team One makes is far beyond even this. No matter how hard we train, we cannot catch up to them.”

So this was from Team Four, whose Sacru the Young Master had only eaten half of.

I could not even imagine how good Team One’s must have been when he had actually requested seconds!

W-wow, just imagining it made my mouth water! I wanted to eat that too!

“Wow, amazing! Wow, amazing!”

“…Hey, you! Who said you could eat that much!?”

Jacqueline protested as I got carried away and stuffed one leftover piece after another into my mouth.

I asked her a question.

“Um, where’s the tea?”

“Why would I give you tea!?”

With my mouth completely dried out, I asked, and Jacqueline shouted with her eyes narrowed angrily.

“But you can’t properly appreciate this kind of confection unless you taste it together with a drink. If you’re telling me to evaluate the flavor, isn’t it only proper to go that far?”

“You little…! Fine! Here!”

Scowling, Jacqueline poured me the remaining tea.

She was surprisingly conscientious.

“Mmm. It’s a little cold, but the tea itself isn’t bad either… Not bad at all!”

“I really am going to punch you!? …Hmph. So? What do you think? Can you reproduce this level of flavor?”

“Urk.”

A groan escaped me.

The Onee-samas had probably been competing against one another every day to refine their Sacru.

Could someone like me, who had barely ever made it before, really jump into that competition and stand a chance?

“The Young Master is an extraordinary gourmet. He won’t eat anything mediocre. Well, I’m sure you’ll have to serve yours eventually, so I’ll be looking forward to the results, Team Five’s illustrious leader! Do your best, ahahahaha!”

Leaving behind her loud laughter, Jacqueline walked away.

What an eccentric person. I did not dislike her.

(Still… what bothers me is how little the Young Master seemed to enjoy himself.)

Would a gluttonous little boy really look like that during snack time?

Perhaps he had become such a gourmet that ordinary flavors simply could not satisfy him anymore?

If that were the case, I would have to work very hard on my Sacru too.

But this flavor might not be easy to imitate.

As I pondered that, Jacqueline suddenly marched back over and spoke, looking slightly embarrassed.

“…I forgot to tell you. You newcomers are responsible for cleaning all of this up afterward.”

She really was an amusing person.