“Shun-oniichan, you were amazing!”
“That was so cool!”
“Haha, thanks.”
When I returned to the food stall, Shiro and Fran rushed up to me, buzzing with excitement. Looks like I managed to show them something worth seeing.
“Shun-san is truly an incredible person. Your cooking’s great, and you’re that strong, too.”
“As expected of Shun-sama.”
Sylvia-san and the head attendant praised me for my impressive fight with Sue.
Mm, it felt nice to be complimented—but I didn’t really have time to bask in it.
“You were something else, kid. Gimme two meat sandwiches.”
“Great food and skill. I’ll have five rice balls.”
“Got it. Please wait just a moment.”
I turned back to the grill, already moving on to the next order.
Because I’d returned to the stall, an absurd number of customers came flooding in all at once. I hurried to grill meat and shape rice balls as fast as I could, but the line just wouldn’t end. Honestly, the exhibition match from earlier felt easier than this.
Of course, everyone else working the stall was just as swamped.
And then, at last, the moment I’d been dreading arrived.
“I’m sorry—we’re sold out.”
“No way. Well, guess I’ll come back again tomorrow.”
“Looks like you’ve gotta line up early if you want to eat at this stall.”
As the disappointed customers drifted away, I let out a quiet breath, my arms finally getting a moment’s rest.
We ran out of ingredients and had no choice but to close up shop. When we put up the Sold Out sign, the customers left with regret written on their faces.
All the matches had just wrapped up as well, so the timing couldn’t have been better.
As we were going through the closing procedures, Sue and Horn came over to the stall, both wearing exhausted expressions.
Did something happen?
“What’s wrong with you two? You look really worn out.”
“Actually… after the exhibition match, we started getting hit on a lot.”
“Even that muscle head who lost to Ao tried to flirt with me.”
“Ah… yeah, I can see how that’d be rough.”
‘Rough’ didn’t even begin to cover it.
“It was way worse than that. One of them even proposed.”
“Sue-oneechan blasted him away with magic.”
I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.
Yeah… that really did sound exhausting. And wow, a marriage proposal of all things. No wonder Sue was completely worn out.
I can practically picture it now, Sue blasting an overconfident fighter away with magic.
At that point, all you can really say is, good work surviving that.
With the stall fully closed, we headed back to the mansion together with the attendants.
“Still, the customers never let up today.”
“There were so many people.”
“We sold a lot.”
It was our first time ever selling out, and honestly, it had been nonstop chaos.
Between Ao’s match and the exhibition bout, the publicity had clearly paid off.
“Tomorrow there are fewer matches but the crowd will be larger.”
“After all, it’s just the two semifinals and the final.”
The real issue wasn’t the length of the schedule, but how many people would show up.
Thinking about that, we arrived back at the mansion.
“Thanks to the exhibition match today, we were able to apprehend quite a few suspicious individuals.”
“All we can do now is pray that nothing happens tomorrow.”
“That’s a long shot though. Of course, security will be tight.”
I spoke with the Margrave. But more than anything, tomorrow passing without incident is what matters most.
I’m particularly worried about the magician who’ll be fighting Ao.
Today’s opponent had overslept and performed so poorly that the match told us almost nothing. It hadn’t been useful as a reference at all.
No matter what, tomorrow would depend on Ao rising to the occasion.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
Previous ⚜ Table of Contents ⚜ Next
Yume Neiji's Works 