The Donut Knight (1)

That incident occurred three days after I served the Young Master three-flavor bread.

The Young Master had taken a particular liking to chocolate and said he wanted to eat it every day, so Anne and I had been spending our nights making chocolate until very late.

The Head Maid had kindly exempted us from our other chores so we could focus on that, which made things manageable, but even so, there was no hiding our exhaustion.

That night as well, I stayed up late preparing things for the next day, locked up the kitchen, then headed toward my room with a lantern in hand and my eyes half-closed with sleep.

The Royal Palace was pitch-dark at night, with barely a sound to be heard.

And there, beneath a sky where the moon had hidden itself behind the clouds, leaving only my lantern to illuminate the darkness,

I encountered it.

Someone suspicious, dressed entirely in black, came sprinting down the corridor.

“Huh? W-Who are you!?”

When I raised my lantern toward him, the black-clad figure lifted a hand against the glare. He was rather small, but judging by his build, he was probably a man.

I could see that his face was concealed by a mask.

Hmm. Yep, definitely suspicious!!

“Tch…!”

With a click of his tongue, he lunged straight at me.

And in his hand was… a knife!

Wait, am I about to get stabbed!?

No, no, no! There are still so many foods I haven’t managed to recreate yet!

I can’t die now, just when I’m finally getting started!

My mind screamed frantically, but my body refused to keep up.

Just as I thought, This is it, a voice rang out from farther down the corridor.

“What is going on!? What are you doing there!”

It was the clear, commanding voice of a young man.

Someone wearing magnificent metal armor had shouted from the far end of the corridor.

Startled, the man in black turned around, freezing for an instant.

Then, in the next moment, he rushed past me and fled.

“An intruder! An intruder! To arms, everyone, to arms!”

The armored man raised his voice, and the area instantly erupted into commotion.

I heard the hurried footsteps of the soldiers who must have been on night watch, racing this way and that.

“There he is!” “Don’t let him escape!” came the shouts.

As I listened to all that, I thought,

(Wow, that sounds exactly like something out of a period drama! ‘An intruder! To arms!’ and everything!)

I was thinking about it as though it had absolutely nothing to do with me.

…While sitting limply on the corridor floor because my legs had given out.

“Are you all right?”

The armored man called out to me.

His face was… startlingly handsome when seen up close.

He had a high nose, finely shaped eyes and lips, long blond hair, and a sharp, elegant profile. In my previous world, he could have been an actor or a member of Jo○ny’s… No, with such distinctly Western features, he could have made it all the way to Hollywood. Though, of course, after being reincarnated, I myself had ended up with perfectly Western features too.

“Y-Yes, you saved me… Thank you very much…”

I hurriedly tried to stand, but it wasn’t going very well.

There I was, looking utterly pathetic as I braced both hands against the floor yet still couldn’t get up, like a newborn calf. The armored man gave me a refreshing smile and said,

“There is no need to force yourself to stand. …But what was a maid doing out at this hour?”

“Y-Yes, I was preparing tomorrow’s snack for the Young Master. I’m sorry.”

“Oh? That is admirable. There is no need to apologize. Being devoted to your work is a fine thing.”

As we spoke, I somehow managed to lift myself partway up, and the armored man offered me his hand.

With his help, I finally got back on my feet, and as he looked in the direction the man in black had fled, the armored man spoke.

“Still, was that man a thief who infiltrated the Royal Palace? Allowing such a person to enter is a failure on our part as knights. I apologize for frightening you.”

“Oh, no, not at all.”

As I answered, I gently slipped my hand free from his, since he was still holding it.

The armored man… the knight, looked mildly surprised before continuing.

“Did you see the intruder’s face?”

“Unfortunately, he was wearing a mask… I do think he was a man, though.”

“I see. Well, he will likely be captured soon. I must join the search. Lock yourself in your room and stay there.”

“Ah, please wait. Sir Knight, may I ask your name?”

I called out to stop him just as he was about to hurry away.

The knight looked surprised again, then smiled and told me.

“Lawrence. I am Lawrence, Commander of the Knights.”

“Thank you very much, Lawrence-sama. I am Shirley, a newly appointed maid. I promise I will repay you for this.”

I said that while pinching the skirt of my maid uniform and dipping into a curtsy.

Lawrence-sama smiled as though amused and replied,

“You are an unusual girl. Do not worry about it. Protecting all of you is part of my duty.”

And with that, Lawrence-sama strode briskly away.

Watching his retreating back, I found myself wondering,

…Did I just say something weird?

“No way!? Shirley, you were rescued by that Lawrence-sama!?”

The next day.

Anne and I gathered in the kitchen early in the morning and began preparing the day’s snacks.

When I told her about the previous night’s commotion while we worked, Anne stared at me in shock.

“Yeah. It would’ve been dangerous if he hadn’t shown up. But what do you mean by that Lawrence-sama?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean!? Lawrence-sama was chosen as Commander of the Knights at a young age because he’s incredibly skilled, and women all across the kingdom admire him for how handsome he is! Don’t tell me you seriously didn’t know!?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t just say ‘nope’! How can you live your whole life as a woman and somehow grow up without knowing Lawrence-sama!?”

Well, by staying shut inside the house and doing nothing but cooking.

But there was no point saying that, so I continued chopping chocolate as diligently as I could.

“Anyway, Lawrence-sama isn’t the main point. The thief who attacked me still hasn’t been found. Apparently, the soldiers are continuing a full-scale search because he may still be hiding somewhere inside the palace.”

Oh, right. This seems like a good place to explain the difference between knights and soldiers as positions.

In this kingdom, knights were generally people born into noble or otherwise high-ranking families.

Soldiers, on the other hand, came from the common people.

Even the lowest-ranking knight stood above an ordinary soldier.

Apparently, a commoner could sometimes become a knight by earning enough distinction, but that was a story for another time.

While I was thinking about that, Anne stared at me as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“You had such a fateful encounter with Lawrence-sama and you seriously don’t feel anything as a woman…? If it were me, I’d take advantage of the opportunity, hug him on the spot, and make it a memory to treasure for the rest of my life.”

Ah, I see. Now I understood why Lawrence-sama had looked at me strangely back then.

He was probably wary of exactly that sort of reaction.

If he was really that popular, then most women probably reacted just like Anne did.

But I was a woman who cared far more about food than romance.

Even back in school in my previous life, while my classmates squealed over photo books of Jo○ny’s idols, I sat off to the side reading cookbooks and practically drooling over them.

As I thought about that, the kitchen door opened and Jacqueline’s team came in, squealing excitedly among themselves.

“What a wonderful day! I can’t believe I crossed paths with Lawrence-sama first thing this morning!”

“Ahh, that gorgeous blond hair! That beautiful face! What a treat this early in the day!”

“I wish I could have tea with him just once…! Ahh, I’d love to make a memory just for the two of us!”

Wow, déjà vu.

This had exactly the same energy as my classroom in my previous life.

As I thought that, Jacqueline noticed us, tossed her red hair, and deliberately came over to make a snide remark.

“My, my, you two really are something. Just because the Young Master liked it once, you’re stupidly making that chocolate stuff every single day now? Talk about a one-trick pony.”

“That’s right. Chocolate takes a ridiculously stupid amount of time and effort to make. It’s hard for just the two of us, so would you like to help?”

“What!? Of course I’m not helping! Why would I ever help you two!?”

Thank you for giving me exactly the answer I expected.

So I decided to take a chance and say it.

“What if I taught you how to make chocolate in exchange?”

“Wait, Shirley!?”

Anne cried out in surprise at my words.

Jacqueline looked shocked too, but she quickly turned away and said,

“Hah! Are you an idiot? As if I’d ever let someone like you teach me…! Don’t insult me!”

“I’m not insulting you. I need more hands too, so I thought we could make a deal…”

“Shut up, shut up! We’ll serve our own snacks, and you can keep making that creepy black candy of yours until the Young Master gets sick of it!”

With that, Jacqueline stormed away looking furious.

After confirming she was gone, Anne leaned close and whispered into my ear.

“Shirley, what were you thinking!? Chocolate is our specialty! You created it, and it’s completely captured the Young Master’s heart! You have to be crazy to casually teach another team how to make it!”

“Ahh…”

Guilt. No, Anne, I didn’t invent chocolate.

In my previous world, it was unbelievably common, sold very cheaply at stores that stayed open twenty-four hours a day, and practically anyone could eat it.

If I could just explain that, I would feel a lot better, but I would probably only be treated like a lunatic, so there was no way I could say it.

Then again, witches existed in this world, so perhaps I could claim that I was secretly a witch too.

In that case, what would happen to my position?

Would they treat me as a Court Witch? And if they did, would I be allowed to research cooking more freely?

Well, whatever the case, even if I claimed to be a witch, that would still be a lie. In the end, I would only be lying either way, so I kept drifting along with the status quo.

I’m sorry, person from my previous world who invented chocolate. You were probably the Chocolate Baron or the Chocolate Cardinal or something like that.

“But Anne, we can’t keep making chocolate every single day with just the two of us forever. Aren’t we starting to hit our limit?”

“…Well, that’s…”

“If we teach the other teams while chocolate is still valuable, we can build a cooperative relationship with them. If I want to make all sorts of things in the future, having people willing to help us would be useful.”

When I said that, Anne’s eyes widened.

“All sorts of things…? Shirley, you have other snacks you can serve?”

“Of course. I still have plenty of recipes. Chocolate itself has endless variations. Making chocolate bread isn’t the only thing you can do with it.”

Besides. If I were being completely honest, I wanted to eat chocolate made by the other teams.

The older maids were all highly skilled cooks.

If I taught women like them how to use chocolate, what kind of snacks would they create…? I could hardly contain my excitement.

And naturally, when it came time to taste-test them, that would be where I, the person who taught them chocolate, came in.

I would carefully savor and enjoy… ahem, evaluate their work.

That way, I could cook whatever I wanted to my heart’s content while also getting unlimited opportunities to sample everyone else’s cooking. An unbeatable arrangement! Ahh, it sounded like a dream!

“Shirley, hey. Your drool. You’re drooling.”

“Oops. Pardon me.”

I had gotten lost in my sweet fantasies, and drool had begun dripping from the corner of my mouth.

As I wiped my mouth clean with the handkerchief Anne offered me, I brought our wildly derailed conversation back on topic.

“Anyway, apparently we’re supposed to be careful because the intruder might still be somewhere inside the Royal Palace. The Young Master will have guards with him all day too. Those poor soldiers must be having a rough time.”

“Well, of course they are. Letting an intruder inside means people are going to ask what kind of security they were running. The Young Master is merciful, but in another country, every single person responsible for security would definitely have their head go plop.”

Their head going plop. And she probably didn’t mean that figuratively.

A world where people could be forced to take responsibility with their lives was terrifying.

“Apparently there will be guards at snack time today too. It sounds like things are going to be awfully tense.”

And so, Anne and I chatted away without a care in the world.

But that day’s snack time held a development far beyond anything we had expected.