A few days had passed since his talk with Mayo, but Rei had taken no action against the Spiel Firm.
This was because Mayo had told him that this was their own problem, and that Rei getting carelessly involved would lead to all sorts of complications.
Rei himself understood that he was a famous person in many senses.
He also understood that this was not something he should involve himself in.
If the Spiel Firm had concocted some unreasonable pretext to bring Mayo's firm under its umbrella or absorb it, Rei would not have stayed silent. But this matter was strictly a dispute between merchant firms, and a legitimate one at that.
If that was the case, then Rei sticking his nose into it was an option that could safely be called impossible.
Rei understood well just how much power he held.
But precisely because of that, he understood that he should not wield it however he pleased.
So what was Rei doing now, you might ask?
"Ah, Rei-kun. How about this one? It might be a little mature for you, but I think it'd suit you quite well."
"Ehh, come on, Kenny. I think what would really suit Rei-san is this one over here."
For some reason, he was walking along the main street, browsing through various shops together with Lenora and Kenny.
Is this what they call window shopping? Well, there's no glass, though.
Inside the shops were large quantities of clothing. However, the fact that all of it was secondhand — used clothes, in other words — was different from the window shopping Rei knew of.
Of course, in Elgin, buying new clothes was generally not something one could do very often. For Lenora and Kenny, who earned considerable salaries as guild receptionists, it was probably manageable if they stretched their budgets a bit. But today, for whatever reason, they had come to a used clothing shop.
Besides, even if they're used clothes, some look no different from new ones. What kind of circumstances brought them to this shop, I wonder.
The clothes that looked indistinguishable from new were, naturally, priced higher than the rest. In fact, depending on the item, some were several times — even close to a dozen times — more expensive.
"I was actually looking for a craftsman who makes clothes," Rei muttered quietly, tilting his head at how things had ended up like this.
Asimov had proposed making clothes from Silver Lion fur. Rei had been planning to look around and see if there was a good clothing craftsman available to consider that proposal. But along the way, he had run into Lenora and Kenny, who were on their day off, and one thing had led to another, resulting in them browsing the shops together.
Not that Rei disliked Lenora or Kenny. No, it would be fair to say he held affection for them. What kind of affection it was, Rei himself did not fully understand. Even so, walking around and browsing various shops together with the two of them was by no means an unpleasant experience for him.
Though from an outsider's perspective, Lenora aside, there probably weren't many people who could recognize the bundled-up Kenny as actually being Kenny.
"Ah, Rei-kun. Let's go there next. I hear it's a shop famous for serving delicious herbal tea."
Saying that, Kenny pulled Rei along and led him to a shop a short distance away from the used clothing store.
"Hold on, Kenny. Wait a moment. I'm sorry, Rei-san. Kenny's just so excited because she hasn't been able to go out with you in such a long time."
Lenora apologetically bowed her head to Rei, who was being dragged along by Kenny.
"Don't worry about it. I was thinking of buying something as a souvenir for Set anyway, so the timing works out."
The image of Set playing in the snow with the children near the stables crossed Rei's mind.
Originally, Set was supposed to come along today as well. But the children had said they wanted to play with Set, so they had ended up going their separate ways.
Set had been torn between playing in the snow and going out with Rei, but since Rei had told him to go play with the children, they had split up. Set was drawn to playing in the snow, but since he had ultimately chosen to act separately, wanting to get him a souvenir was very much like Rei.
"A souvenir for Set-chan, huh. Now that you mention it, that shop is known for its delicious bread kneaded with dried fruit, so that might be a good choice."
"That's right. It's a little pricey, but the taste is absolutely worth it."
At Lenora's words, Kenny, who had been pulling Rei by the hand, nodded in agreement.
"Bread kneaded with dried fruit? I've had that somewhere before, and it was pretty good. I don't think it was from that shop, though."
At their words, Rei recalled the taste of bread he had eaten before. Even before coming to Elgin, he had bought and eaten bread kneaded with dried fruit — mainly raisins — from supermarkets many times. But as expected, there was a difference between mechanically produced bread and bread handmade by a craftsman. Compared to the bread he had eaten in Japan, the bread he had eaten here was superior in terms of taste.
Well, even in Japan, bread from a bakery tastes better than what's sold in regular stores.
Raisin bread was one of Rei's favorite foods. Even after coming to Elgin, bread kneaded with dried fruit or nuts remained one of his favorite things to eat.
"That's true. Different shops have their own characteristics when it comes to what they knead into their bread, but many places do it. I hear some shops even bake bread using vegetable juice!"
"Other unusual ones... come to think of it, I remember seeing some bakery selling what they called a luxury meat bread, with Orc meat roasted inside."
At Lenora's words, Kenny chuckled as if remembering something amusing.
What's so funny about that? Rei wondered. For him, even if it didn't go so far as kneading meat into the dough, bread wrapped with ham or bacon was by no means unusual. In fact, many bakeries sold such bread, and Set certainly didn't dislike that kind either.
"Did something strange happen? I feel like that's a pretty common type of bread."
"You're wrong, Rei-kun. I'd never seen bread like that before, and honestly, I thought I'd rather not eat it if I could help it."
"...Hm? You didn't want to eat it? What do you mean?"
Seeing Rei's complete incomprehension, Kenny suppressed a smile and spoke.
"What you're thinking of, Rei-kun, is bread baked with seasoned Orc meat wrapped inside, right? But that's not it. What that shop owner did was roast Orc meat, squeeze out the juices, and knead the meat juice into the bread dough."
"...How was that, exactly?"
Instead of wrapping meat inside the bread, they kneaded the meat juice into the dough. Rei tilted his head in bewilderment at the explanation. He had never actually tasted it, so he couldn't say for certain. Even so, he couldn't imagine that such bread would taste good. It would probably end up quite greasy — that was what he couldn't help thinking.
Seeing Rei's expression, Kenny nodded as if she understood the feeling. In fact, that bread had been put on sale as a trial, but people only bought it once out of curiosity and never gave it a second look after that. Thinking about it, it wasn't hard to imagine what kind of bread it had been.
Even as they talked, Rei and the others kept walking, and eventually they arrived at their destination.
As expected of a shop that mainly served herbal tea and light snacks, there weren't many men around. It wasn't that there were none at all, but the majority of the customers were women.
"Whoa..."
With the majority of customers being women, Rei muttered almost involuntarily. However, though he had little awareness of it himself, with his feminine face, being together with Lenora and Kenny like this, some people might see what looked like three women rather than a mixed group. The fact that Rei was small in stature and wore the Dragon Robe, which obscured the lines of his body, probably contributed to this as well.
Naturally, among the customers there were adventurers and others who recognized Rei for who he was for various reasons. But they seemed to want to focus on their own enjoyment at the moment, and no one in particular tried to bother him.
"I knew herbal tea was popular here, but I didn't expect this many customers."
"Like I said earlier, it's not just the herbal tea — the bread made with dried fruit is famous too. Come on, let's sit down."
Guided by a shop assistant, Rei, Lenora, and Kenny took their seats. They ordered a set of herbal tea and dried fruit bread, and Kenny finally let out a sigh of relief, removing several layers of clothing. Her body, which had been bundled up, became somewhat slimmer. Of course, she couldn't take off all her outerwear in the middle of the shop, so she was naturally still more bundled up than usual.
"Phew, warmth really is wonderful. If only they could make all of Gilm this warm."
"Oh come on, how many Magic Items would you need to pull something like that off? And it wouldn't be about barriers or anything — you'd need to physically cover the whole city."
"I know that! But there are plenty of people besides me who hate the cold, so I'm sure a lot of people would agree! Right, Rei-kun? You're not good with the cold either, are you?"
Kenny turned to Rei with an averted gaze, and he hesitated over how to answer. Of course, Rei didn't like the cold either. But as long as he wore the Dragon Robe, he didn't have to worry about it, and moreover, his body was different from an ordinary person's. Even regarding the cold, he was far more resistant than Kenny gave him credit for.
Even so, from his experiences in Japan, Rei still didn't like the cold. Besides, if he were serious about it, warming all of Gilm was by no means impossible. Given his vast magical power and his attribute specialized in fire, that was perhaps only natural. Of course, that would carry the danger of burning all of Gilm to ashes, so it wasn't something that could be done so easily. Unless something like a great cold wave struck, it would never be put into practice.
"Thank you for waiting. Here is your herbal tea set."
A shop assistant came over and placed herbal tea and bread before the three of them. There were only two pieces of bread, each about bite-sized, which felt a little insufficient for Rei. In the end, he ordered more, and chatted with Lenora and Kenny while bringing the herbal tea to his mouth.
The moment it entered his mouth, a crisp, refreshing sensation spread across his palate. It was similar to mint tea yet different — a sensation that was by no means unpleasant to him.
And next, he naturally reached for the main event — at least for Rei — the bread kneaded with dried fruit.
Perhaps because they had entered the shop right around the time fresh bread came out of the oven, the bread he touched wasn't so hot as to burn him, but it was still sufficiently warm. When he bit into it, the bread entered his mouth with a crisp texture on the surface, and the aroma of wheat filled his mouth, and in the next instant, the sweet fragrance of dried fruit burst forth explosively. As he chewed, along with the sweet texture of the wheat, the sweetness of the dried fruit spread throughout his mouth as well.
Huh.
Through the sweetness and texture spreading across his palate, Rei noticed that more than one type of dried fruit was kneaded into the bread. At least two kinds — Rei, whose sense of taste wasn't particularly sharp, could only tell that much. But even so, he could understand that this bread was delicious.
He would have liked to buy a large quantity to take with him if possible, but he had been told when placing his additional order earlier that there was a limit to how many one person could purchase, and he had already ordered up to that limit. Considering the portion for Set's souvenir, he couldn't eat all the bread here, which left him feeling disappointed.
"This shop's bread is delicious as always. The herbal tea too."
Kenny ate the bread and drank the herbal tea with a happy expression. Lenora as well, nodding at Kenny's words, wore a smile as she enjoyed her tea time.
Liking sweets was probably rather feminine. Though the male Rei also thoroughly enjoyed sweets.
I feel like I read somewhere that people who don't drink alcohol tend to develop a sweet tooth. Or maybe not. Is that it?
Rei wondered. Of course, in his case, when he was in Japan, his father — who was a drinker — would have drinking snacks served with dinner, so even though Rei didn't drink, he liked snack-type dishes.
This day passed without any particular incident, and Rei spent an enjoyable time chatting leisurely over tea with Lenora and Kenny.