"Hmm... Marina once told me that shopping is the ultimate entertainment for women, but... she was right."
Stepping out of the Magic Item shop, Elena said this with a radiant smile.
The sky was blanketed in clouds, and it wouldn't have been surprising if it started snowing at any moment.
But the sight of Elena smiling carried a brightness that made it seem as though the surroundings had opened up into a clear blue sky.
His eyes drawn to Elena, Rei nodded with a smile that betrayed a hint of weariness.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. We managed to buy gifts not just for Vihera, but for Marina and Byune too, and... your share as well, Elena."
For Rei, this shopping trip had been a relatively significant expenditure.
However, for someone who had earned substantial profits through bandit hunting, various requests, and selling the materials of monsters he had defeated, an expense of this level was hardly problematic.
...Though he had paid enough to build an entire house.
Even so, getting to see that smile on Elena's face made it a cheap purchase.
Granted, when he said "a house," it wasn't the kind of estate that nobles or wealthy merchants would buy, but rather the sort of home a middle-class family might purchase.
At any rate, having finished shopping and left the store, Rei was unsure of what to do next and consulted Elena beside him.
"Elena, what should we do now? We've bought souvenirs for Marina and the others, so something like food would be fine too, right?"
Elena had suggested that for close acquaintances, something that would serve as a lasting memento was ideal.
In other words, for recipients who weren't as close—at least compared to Marina and the others—souvenirs like food might be perfectly acceptable.
Elena, who had been basking in the afterglow of her shopping success, pondered for a moment before nodding.
"Hmm, you're right. In your case, Rei, you can transport food while keeping it delicious. Also, how about alcohol? Anesis has a fairly well-known sake brewery. I hear the prices aren't all that high, so anyone who receives it should be pleased."
If an ordinary person received alcohol that cost Platinum Coins or Light Gold Coins, they would feel frightened long before they felt any joy.
By Rei's reckoning, it would be like receiving a brand-new car... a luxury car, no less, as a souvenir.
Most people, upon being handed such a gift, wouldn't rejoice—they'd feel outright dread.
In that sense, reasonably priced alcohol from a brewery famous even here in Anesis would likely please anyone who enjoyed a drink.
...Of course, the possibility that some might find the taste disagreeable couldn't be entirely ruled out.
"Then let's go buy some alcohol first."
So said Rei, though with his palate, alcohol didn't strike him as particularly tasty.
Naturally, it wasn't that he couldn't drink, nor would he pass out after a single sip, but he simply could not bring himself to think of alcohol as delicious.
Of course, he understood that this was merely because his palate didn't suit alcohol, or perhaps his taste buds were underdeveloped—what one might call a child's palate.
Moreover, using alcohol as a hidden flavoring in cooking was a well-known practice, and among the dishes Rei had eaten over the course of his life, many had incorporated alcohol in exactly that way.
Thinking along these lines, Rei followed Elena's guidance as they walked down the street.
Whenever they passed a stall selling something that looked appetizing, they would buy it along the way.
(Come to think of it, Elena didn't know about the shop selling Magic Items either, but for all that, she does know about the sake brewery. ...Well, she did say it's a famous brewery in Anesis, so maybe she's visited before.)
Eating a simple dish of nothing more than a grilled potato slathered in sauce, Rei glanced at Elena beside him.
She was eating the same grilled potato dish, but even so, the sight of her eating somehow carried an air of elegance.
Though they were eating the same dish, the types of sauce were different.
Rei's sauce was slightly spicy, while Elena's was sweet and savory.
From what Rei could gather, his sauce reminded him of the salsa his mother had bought from a supermarket deli or somewhere similar back when he lived in Japan.
Of course, salsa wasn't inherently spicy... but at the very least, the salsa Rei had eaten had been.
"Hm? What is it, Rei? You're staring at me. ...It's embarrassing."
Even for Elena, who loved Rei, having someone watch her intently while she ate was naturally embarrassing.
True to her words, Elena looked slightly bashful. Rei glanced at the dish in her hand and said something to cover it up.
"Oh, it's just that my sauce is a bit spicy but still pretty good. I was wondering how yours tasted."
"Hm? Mine? It's sweet and salty. A rather peculiar taste. No, of course it's not bad. Quite delicious, actually."
"...Maybe I should have bought that one too."
It was a simple dish of just a grilled potato, and since they were heading to the sake brewery, he also didn't want to linger too long at the stall. So Rei had only bought his own portion.
Noticing Rei eyeing the potato she was eating with evident curiosity, Elena suddenly recalled something Ara had once told her.
It was something that couples did as a matter of course... or so she'd heard.
In reality, Ara didn't have a lover either, so it must have been something she'd heard from someone else or read in a book.
(Rei and I... my father has implicitly acknowledged our relationship. If that's the case... then... um... it wouldn't be a problem to do something like this... right?)
Posing the question to no one in her heart, Elena steeled herself and spoke.
"Um, Rei. If you're curious about the taste of what I'm eating, would you like to try a bite? L-look. A-a-a-a-a-aahn..."
Looking far more flustered than anyone bearing the title Princess General had any right to be, Elena held her dish out toward Rei.
Rei was bewildered by Elena's sudden behavior, but he could nonetheless understand what she was asking of him.
(No, even before that—why does Elgin have an "aahn" culture!?)
Rei had assumed it was a custom unique to Japan... no, unique to Earth itself, but come to think of it, there was the established fact that several people from Japan had come to this world in the past.
He could easily guess that it was something left behind by one of them.
(If they were going to leave something like this behind, they should have left us recipes for soy sauce or miso or things of that nature instead...)
Staring at the potato Elena held out, Rei thought with a hint of displaced frustration.
But even Rei, for all his complaining, only vaguely remembered how to make fish sauce from having seen it on TV a few times. He had no idea how to produce seasonings like soy sauce or miso.
At Rei's family home, rather than buying miso from a supermarket, they had it made at a shop that produced and sold it.
Using soybeans that the Rei family had grown themselves, no less.
Given that kind of environment, if Rei had seriously wanted to learn how to make miso, he certainly could have.
But never expecting to find himself in this sort of situation, he had never thought to ask.
For the record, Rei knew absolutely nothing about how to make soy sauce.
"Um... are you not going to eat it? It's a bit embarrassing to just hold it out like this."
True to her words, Elena spoke shyly, and Rei quietly surveyed their surroundings.
Naturally, with a figure as prominent as Elena doing something like this, they were drawing quite a bit of attention.
Several passersby had stopped in their tracks, staring intently at Rei and Elena.
So intently, in fact, that one might have wondered whether it was appropriate to stare any harder.
It felt as though they had become a public spectacle, but unable to ignore the potato Elena was offering, Rei brought his mouth to it.
(This is...)
What spread across his palate was a flavor in which sweetness and saltiness were perceptible at the same time, just as Elena had described.
Though it was rather rough around the edges, eating it reminded Rei of teriyaki sauce.
Teriyaki sauce, conceived by the Japanese, was a condiment beloved in many countries—perhaps saying "the world over" was a slight exaggeration, but it was certainly enjoyed far and wide.
Given that, it wouldn't be strange for a similar flavor to exist in Elgin as well...
(Ah, maybe this was also something transmitted by Takumu or one of the others who came to this world, and it survived even in an imperfect form.)
If possible, he wanted to eat teriyaki chicken.
Thinking this, Rei savored Elena's potato—the dish that might as well be called a teriyaki potato.
Biting into the spot where his own teeth had left their mark, Rei savored it thoroughly. At the sight, Elena's cheeks flushed a faint pink.
For Elena, Rei's action must have been more stimulating to her sense of shame than anything else could have been.
...Though Rei himself had no idea his action was being interpreted that way and was simply savoring the teriyaki potato in earnest.
"Um... how is it?"
Eventually unable to bear the silence, Elena asked in a tentative, almost fearful tone.
Her cheeks and ears dyed bright red as she asked—anyone who knew Elena as the Princess General or a duke's daughter would find it impossible to believe she was the same person.
In fact, even the passersby who had been watching the whole scene unfold were hesitating over whether it was truly her.
"Yeah, it's good. Buying this dish was the right call."
"Is that so! Mm, I thought so too."
Seeing Elena murmur that without the slightest sign of noticing their surroundings, Rei decided he should get them out of there before she caught on.
"Here we are."
About twenty minutes on foot from where they had done the "aahn."
They probably could have arrived sooner, but along the way they kept spotting appetizing stalls and buying food as souvenirs, along with picking up items like tableware and vases at shops, which accounted for the time.
Of course, neither Rei nor Elena had any problem with this whatsoever—both had been thoroughly enjoying their date.
"So this is the place. It's quite large."
As Rei murmured, the building standing before them was indeed sizable.
Naturally, it was nowhere near the Duke Kerebel Mansion in scale, but comparing the two would have been beside the point.
The scent of alcohol drifting in even from outside wasn't a particularly pleasant smell to Rei, who didn't care for drink, but to someone who enjoyed alcohol, it was likely a scent that stirred plenty of anticipation.
"Let's just buy what we need and head back. The thing is, I have no idea what kind of alcohol to buy specifically. What should I do? Do you know much about that, Elena?"
"No, unfortunately I'm not very knowledgeable about that either. But if we tell the shop staff our budget, wouldn't they pick out something suitable for us?"
When you don't know something, ask a professional.
Rei nodded in agreement at Elena's words.
Indeed, rather than having an amateur waste time deliberating over what they didn't understand, it was naturally better to have a professional make the call based on proper expertise.
"I know a bit about alcohol myself, but even so, I can't compete with a professional. Besides, the drinks I'm familiar with tend to be on the expensive side, so as a souvenir for you to bring back... they'd be a bit much."
"Fair enough. Let's go inside and ask."
With that, Rei stepped into the shop alongside Elena.
The moment they entered, a far more concentrated smell of alcohol washed over them than what had been drifting outside.
Rei and Elena furrowed their brows slightly, and a person who appeared to be a clerk at the sake brewery approached them.
"Welcome, Lady Elena, Lord Rei. What brings you in today?"
As someone who worked at this shop, the clerk naturally knew of Rei and Elena.
The fact that Elena's name came first was, as expected, because this was Anesis, the city governed by Duke Kerebel.
"Mm. The truth is, Rei and I will soon be heading to Gilm. We came here because we'd like to buy a certain amount of alcohol as souvenirs."
"That's wonderful to hear. Then please allow me to select some recommended sake for you right away."
At Elena's words, the clerk responded with a beaming smile.