WE DECIDED TO OPEN THE CAFÉ AGAIN
When I went shopping in Flatta with Laika, the people were constructing something in the town square.
Since I’d lived nearby for a long time (three hundred years), I knew what it was right away. That was the scaffold they set up for the Dance Festival. They would toss petals from above to make the festival look more elegant.
“Okay, everyone, it’s almost time for the Dance Festival again.”
“Right you are!” called the villagers setting up the scaffold. “We’ll dance till we can’t no more!”
The Dance Festival celebrating the village’s harvest had been going for about two hundred and fifty years. That being said, there was nothing ritualistic about it—merrymaking was the main objective.
But for some reason, Laika’s gaze was fixed on the ground, and she seemed unhappy. What was going on? The Dance Festival wasn’t the anniversary of killing a dragon or anything like that.
“I want to see you in your waitress outfit again this year, Laika!”
“Please open up the café again!”
The people working on the scaffold were calling to us excitedly, and that gave me the answer.
Oh, I get it…
On the festive day before the Dance Festival last year, we turned the house in the highlands into a café for a day—it was like a cultural festival.
And there, we wore waitress outfits—maid uniforms, essentially—for our customer service.
And Laika was absurdly cute.
I mean, absurdly.
Laika had transformed into the physical embodiment of the entire concept of “cuteness” on that day. You could tell from the energy around her—this was the ideal of a beautiful young girl.
It was almost like she was the spirit of cute.
She was really that fantastic, to the point where I’m going to stop talking about it so it doesn’t get weird.
The people of Flatta looked at her differently for a while—a Laika fan club seemed like a genuinely viable idea. But Laika herself had been embarrassed back then, and she didn’t seem any more excited about it now…
“Lady Azusa, will we be doing the café again…?” Laika asked, her face red.
The way she asked was already cute. Oof, I’ll take three!
Her question was meant to tell me she was embarrassed and didn’t want to do it. I understood that much.
But still.
“Yeah… I feel bad, but you think you can endure it for just a day…? We can’t not do it after a reaction like that…”
We could also do it without Laika, but I didn’t want the shock of responses like, What? It’s just you, great Witch? No Laika? Laika was so popular that it was bound to happen.
But I’m pretty cute, too, y’know? I’m forever seventeen, remember?
Still, Laika was a dragon girl who looked thirteen, and her good upbringing was like an aura around her! I couldn’t win against that! If this were sumo, she’d be the grand champion!
And as long as the customers didn’t get hurt, I’d want the grand champion on the floor all day!
Laika sighed but then immediately balled her hands into fists and opened her eyes wide. A switch had flipped inside her. “Understood!”
“I appreciate it, but you don’t have to get that fired up about it…”
This was where Laika’s personality shone through.
It was probably much more difficult for her to live a slothful and frivolous life. Her body would physically reject any attempt and just make her ill.
“Then we’ll go ahead and work to open the Witch’s House Café again this year! We managed it last year, so we should be fine!”
The people constructing the scaffold heard me and cheered.
“Yay!”
“That’s more the main event than the Dance Festival itself!”
Erm, please place more importance on the festival you’ve been holding for two hundred and fifty years.
When I got home, I told the family about the plan for the café. We had more people than we did during the festival last year, so I needed to run another check by them.
“I don’t have any problem with it! Ghosts are strong enough to carry cups and stuff!”
Rosalie immediately gave her okay.
“Cooking food for guests is a hassle, but if you tell me to do it, Mistress, I will. I can even freeze the annoying customers for you!”
Putting Flatorte in a customer service role might spell trouble…
“A shop? Do what you want. I’ll be growing freely in the vegetable garden.”
I sort of knew Sandra would say that.
I wasn’t planning on forcing her to participate, and what appeared to be her legs were actually her roots. She would probably get tired more easily than the rest of us, and since she looked the youngest, making her work would be a crime.
My daughters and Halkara, of course, said they would do it.
“Well then, we will work toward opening round two of the Witch’s House Café! Thanks for your help, everyone!”
“Yeah!” Falfa and Halkara cheered. They had good attitudes.
“We may as well find a way to make it even better than it was last year, but it’s not a real shop, so you don’t need to rack your brain over it.”
Halkara then shot her hand up. “Ooh! I have several ideas for special mushroom dishes! A full-course meal of thirty-six different types of mushrooms!”
“Oh, that’s dangerous, so let’s not. But thanks for letting me know ahead of time.”
“Whaaat? But, Madam Teacher, there definitely will not be any poisonous mushrooms in it! It will definitely be okay!”
The more someone repeated “definitely,” the less you could trust them. I was starting to feel like this was becoming Halkara’s trademark routine, but she seemed serious about the whole thing.
Actually, the problem was that she wasn’t showing any symptoms of self-awareness…
“Ha-ha-ha, I believe you, Halkara. I’m not doubting you. But there’s always that one-in-a-million chance. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
“That monotone laugh sounds awfully fake!”
What could I do? I mean, it was fake…
“I believe keeping our menu the same as it was last year should be fine. We were only open for a day anyway, so some people might want to order something different from last year. It would be distracting if we had even more things on the menu.”
Laika offered a helpful opinion, and she was absolutely right.
“I, Flatorte, vote for super-extra-large portions of food!”
“You come up with good ideas sometimes. We won’t be adding any more food to the menu, so why don’t we include a super-extra-large portion service?”
Laika sided with her straightaway. The two dragons often ended up on the same page when it came to food.
The next day…
We put in an order for a waitress outfit for Flatorte at the tailors’, and they prepared it for us.
“I dunno—the whole thing just feels tight…”
Flatorte’s tail was whipping back and forth. She didn’t seem to be enjoying it, but whether or not it looked good was a different story.
In short, it looked great on her.
“You look lovely, Miss Flatorte!”
“It is well coordinated. It almost seems like the golden ratio is hidden somewhere.”
Falfa and Shalsha first paid their compliments.
They both were honest with their opinions. If they were saying so, then it was true. And with hearts as pure as theirs, there really was no doubting them. I’m not just being an overly loving parent; it’s the truth.
“R-really…? Personally, I think it’s hard to move in. If I have to wear this, I think I’d almost prefer being totally naked…”
“You can’t be naked! And don’t rip it or anything, okay?! These clothes were expensive!”
Flatorte could be irresponsible when it came to this stuff, so I wanted to be careful.
“It’s all ri— Oops, I almost ran into the jar of blueberry jam. That was close.”
Gah, this is nerve-racking! Putting such a careless girl in these clothes is kind of freaking me out!
Next was Rosalie.
I handled her case with magic.
I’d changed Rosalie’s clothes into a dress with magic in the past. Back then, creating and casting the spell had given me a hard time. Rosalie had to imagine herself wearing a dress; otherwise a ghost’s clothes wouldn’t change.
We changed her clothes more easily this time than last.
Since everyone was wearing the same thing this time, it was probably easier for her to picture them.
“Ooooh! What a floofy waitress outfit! I’ve always wanted to wear something like this! Yay!”
Out of the whole family, Rosalie was probably the most excited about this. Yeah, I guess ghosts don’t get to dress up often.
The further out of reach something was, the more both humans (and ghosts) wanted it.
“Rosalie, if you really like it, I can practice this magic even more. I’ll try and have it so you can have different clothes every day.”
“Wait, Big Sis… That’s too much… I mean, it depends on my imagination more than anything…”
She always hesitated when it came to this stuff.
It was true that this magic depended on both my skill and Rosalie’s, which made it more difficult, but I wanted Rosalie to be able to dress up as often as she pleased. That would be a task for me to handle later.
On the other hand, those of us who had also worked the year before were in good shape.
First, there was me. I was pretty cute. I was eternally grateful for my seventeen-year-old looks. It wasn’t bad at all.
Then Halkara.
“It’s too tight around my chest again this year… Actually, I think it might be even tighter than it used to be…”
“How am I supposed to interpret that? Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”
Why would it get even tighter around her chest over this past year…? She isn’t still growing… What does this mean…?
Pop.
A button from her outfit flew off and hit me in the face.
“…You really did attack me… I knew you were trying to provoke me…”
“No, Madam Teacher! I am innocent!”
I hope she eats a mushroom that shrinks her breasts by accident…
And then my daughters. Yep, very cute.
“The clothes puff out when you spin around in them!”
Falfa was twirling around the room. I’m happy you’re happy, but please be careful of the blueberry jam. Actually, maybe I should just go ahead and put the jam away…
Shalsha sat still in a chair, meditating. Apparently, this behavior of hers didn’t change, no matter what she was wearing.
“……Zzz……”
Oh, she wasn’t meditating—she was just sleeping.
I guess there were times she just wanted to sleep. Get some rest, girl.
* Also, Sandra said, “Not interested. Pass.” And went back to the vegetable garden.
She was a free spirit when it came to this stuff. But she was also a plant, so what could I do?
And finally, it was time for Laika, the one who had gained the most attention last year.
“No matter how often I do this, I’ll never get used to it… I feel restless…,” Laika said, her cheeks slightly flushed. Her feet were pointed inward, unlike usual.
“You looked great last year, and—same goes for this year.”
Every tiny movement she made was simply divine. If I were a middle school boy, I would’ve told her I loved her three times in one day. She’d probably burn me to a crisp the third time around, though.
“Sigh… You make such an elegant picture in that waitress outfit.”
Even Halkara looked spellbound by her.
She was so beautiful, both men and women were head over heels for her.
“Yeah. And there’s something so noble about her. She has grace, unlike the aggressive way you hold yourself, Halkara, which gives your boobs so much power, it makes people want to punch you.”
“Madam Teacher, do you have a grudge against me…?” Halkara asked. That comment had a few more barbs than I’d intended.
“Ha-ha-ha. Of course I’m jealous. Ha-ha-ha.”
“Don’t acknowledge it with that flat laugh! It’s not like I have any say in how large my breasts grow!”
“But I’m still jealous! I’ve brought up my level just by killing slimes, but my chest hasn’t grown at all!”
People always wanted what they didn’t have. That was the way the world worked.
“Well, let’s set your unjustified resentment aside for now, Madam Teacher…” Halkara breezed past that topic. “Don’t Miss Laika and Miss Flatorte look even better when they stand together?”
Halkara had noticed a great detail.
They were standing right next to each other.
“Please don’t stare too hard at me, Lady Azusa…”
“What’s wrong, Mistress?”
They probably just happened to stand near each other, but with Flatorte next to her, Laika’s good qualities stood out even more, and Flatorte’s personality and liveliness came to the surface.
It was like sprinkling salt on watermelon, though I also respected people who took their watermelon with sugar.
“They could take over the world…”
I imagined them debuting as idols.
There were the prim and proper Laika and the all-in-all irresponsible Flatorte.
When they came together, it was like a chemical reaction!
They would be a pair of idols dubbed—the Dragon Girls!
Yeah, I’m not very good with names…
Either way, it was fantastic.
“All right, I guess that’s it for our dress rehearsal today. I look forward to the day of.”
But then a figure came down the hall, as if she’d been waiting for this very moment.
“You are not finished!”
The one coming from the dining room was none other than…Beelzebub?!
Well, I could tell who it was by the voice, even if I couldn’t see her…
But there was one more thing. She wasn’t dressed like a villainous leader like she usually was but like a waitress.
Our clothes weren’t off the shelf, but hers looked almost the same as ours. Maybe there were basic standards for what maid clothes looked like.
“Beelzebub, does that outfit mean you’ll help us?”
“Indeed. I have already asked for time off, so it’s no problem!”
Such willing outside help was hard to come by. She was way too enthusiastic about the café…
“Got it. Then we’ll have you working right from the start this year.”
I had been very thankful for Beelzebub’s mobility last time.
It was all thanks to her that we managed to keep the café up and running until closing time, even when it seemed on the verge of failing.
“It looks like we won’t have any trouble this year, then. Man, I’m so glad.”
“But this isn’t all,” Beelzebub said, puffing out her chest.
What…? Was she going to tell me to add some super-spicy demon food to the menu?
—And then someone came skipping oh so cheerfully down the hallway.
“Hmm, hmm, hmm~ What do you think, Elder Sister? Aren’t my clothes cute~?” Pecora bounced in, wearing a waitress outfit.
“Somehow I knew you’d show up, and I was right!”
It looked really good on her. It wasn’t just cute; it strangely felt like cosplay—like she was dressing up as a Pecora-themed doll.
Regardless—
“Is it okay for the fearsome demon king to interact with customers? This is service work, you know, right?”
I knew painfully well that Pecora wasn’t the type to lounge on her throne, but this was still extreme.
“Of course! I’ve always wanted to try working in a shop~ But if I were to do it in Vanzeld Castle town, someone would come to stop me.”
Of course they would. You’re their ruler.
“And so I thought there would be no cause for worry in the human lands. That’s why I’m here to help you now. Oh, and I hear you had outdoor terrace seating last year, so I plan to greatly increase the number of tables outside this year. We can install a rain cover as well. As long as it’s not storming, we should be in fine shape. We demons can take care of that work, so all of you can just relax.”
“…Oh, th-thanks.”
Can I thank her for something like that? They’re doing redecorating without my permission…
“And we’ve also prepared trial dishes for the new menu. Come out, you two.”
At Pecora’s prompt, Fatla and Vania appeared, carrying boxes. They were even wearing waitress outfits, too.
“The food is in here. Vania has refined these dishes to better suit the human palate, so I am confident they will accept it,” Fatla informed me with perfect seriousness, as though this whole thing was a given.
Of everyone dressed as a waitress, she felt the most maid-like.
Yeah, this was how a maid should be—chic and cool, not working in a maid café and writing “ I love you ” on an omelette with ketchup. The kind to be harsh on her master and scold him when he did something weird (in my personal opinion).
“Leave all the cooking to me!” Vania declared with utmost confidence—deservedly so, since she was actually a cook.
“It felt like we were just putting together something for the cultural festival, and then a pro chef showed up…”
Halkara patted my shoulder and whispered to me, “Erm… At this rate, they’ll take over the café… I think they basically already have…”
“I was thinking the same…”
It was like someone taking 51 percent of a company’s shares and then interfering with operations.
“But it’s just for a day, so we may as well go all out, right? Let’s go for it!”
My attitude took a turn. I couldn’t exactly tell the demons they weren’t allowed to participate now. If I resisted and they opened up their own Demon King and Peons’ House Café next door, we’d have trouble.
“And now we know we’ll be much better than last year. This is perfect. The customers will certainly be satisfied. I guess it’s not a bad thing for an event that happens once a year.”
“You’re right. We’ll give it a go!” Halkara understood, too. “At this rate, I may as well cook a whole lot of specialty mushroom dishes and show the customers how great mushrooms are and just how many there a—”
“Oh, no, please don’t do that. I’m not kidding. I am forbidding the use of mushrooms in the food,” I said, giving her my usual serious look again.
“But we’ll be in a festival mood, so shouldn’t we go big?”
“If we get reports of a large number of people coming down with food poisoning, then we won’t be able to open the café again next year. If you make any mushroom dishes, I’m banning you from entering the building. I’m dead serious about this.”
“You can’t forbid your employees from coming in!”
I had to be very thorough about this kind of stuff, otherwise the safety of our customers was in doubt. I had to protect the lives of our guests!
But there was no questioning that this was going to be a fun event. It was already kind of fun now.
“All right, then, everyone, we’ll give it our all on the day!”
““Yeah!!””
Everyone raised their hands at once.
I really did feel like we were putting on a display for a cultural festival.
And so the day of the event slowly approached, and we started making serious preparations for the Witch’s House Café again this year.
Too serious.
There was a significant number of tables lined up in the highlands.
I’m not talking twenty or thirty—the number of tables delivered to the house was in the triple digits.
Where had they all come from? Well—
The enormous leviathan floating above us.
Vania, in her true leviathan form, had put a large number of tables and chairs and other furnishings on her back and carried them all the way from Vanzeld Castle.
And because of that, the scale of the whole operation had been blown way out of proportion.
As for the construction, Fatla and Beelzebub gave orders to their demon employees—or temp workers, I don’t know—to get it all done.
“That table is out of place. Push it back a little more.”
“If there are any chairs with uneven legs, bring them here. We shall replace them with one of the extras.”
They were important demons, so they were used to giving orders when it came to this stuff.
I was fine just watching the tables spread all over the highlands.
It sure reminded me of a rooftop beer garden in a department store… By now, we were almost as big… Just how many people were they planning to accommodate…? Nothing about it felt like a “cute café in the highlands” anymore.
That would’ve been fine on its own, but it was way too different conceptually from the small, stylish café I originally wanted—it had suddenly transformed into a branch of some major chain.
“It sure is loud… I can’t photosynthesize like this…” Sandra burrowed through the earth and popped up beside me.
“Sorry. The scale of the whole operation’s gotten bigger than I imagined.”
“Hmph. Well, I guess it’s fine if it’s just once a year.”
Sandra sullenly watched the construction for a bit, but then she went off somewhere else. It looked like she had wanted to say something.
Then Laika and Halkara came back. “We’ve placed advertisements for the Witch’s House Café in the surrounding towns!”
The two had gone out to advertise the opening of the café on the day before the Dance Festival.
“Just as you said, we even made sure to place the ads in the faraway towns, although they probably won’t come all this way. I think our range is too wide…”
Laika was uncertain, but I personally believed the range was just right.
“Look how many chairs there are. It’d be sad if they were all empty. With our demon backups, we can do anything, so let’s just give it our all.”
And so came the day of the Witch’s House Café—is what I want to say, but things were getting weird even the day before.
When Laika went to scout, she found that Flatta was overflowing with people.
I mean, it wasn’t too strange for people to arrive a little before the Dance Festival, so there were some stalls out in town the day before the café opened—two days before the main event.
But this was nothing like how it was before.
She reported that the small inns were so overcrowded, people were even sleeping in the halls.
Not only that, but there were also plenty of other people who were starting to camp outside in empty lots.
According to Halkara, Flatta’s neighboring town of Nascúte was also flooded with people arriving in large carriages.
I could already imagine what the big day would be like.
It was early in the morning on café day: five AM.
I’d had a bad feeling about all this, so I went to bed early the night before and woke up at 4:50. And I made sure the rest of the family got to sleep early, too.
I stepped outside, and my feeling was right on the money.
A strange line had already formed, and it went on for so long, I couldn’t see the end of it. If it got any longer, it would actually reach all the way to Flatta…
“Can we even handle this…?”
Maybe we shouldn’t have announced our opening? No, that wasn’t the problem. We wouldn’t have had this many people if that was all we did.
It was probably because the word of mouth from last year’s customers was very powerful.
“It seems our fight has already begun,” I heard Beelzebub say from behind me.
She had already changed into her waitress uniform. She was ready to go.
“Leave this to us. We will treat this as a day on the job, so we will do our work properly.” Fatla appeared then, too. Yeah, I guess this was their job. “I will now go wake up Vania, so we should be able to start working at five thirty. We can have breakfast service as well.”
Wait—sure, some cafés in Japan opened at five or six in the morning, and some people would go to those places every day to have breakfast before work, but that’s not our kind of café!
I didn’t want to make it a local mom-and-pop, hole-in-the-wall spot… I wanted a stylish café…
But that wouldn’t happen anyway, since we were already big enough to be a beer garden…
“But we can’t keep all these people waiting the whole time… I guess we have no choice but to open at seven or so… We’ll take breaks when we need to…”
“All right! Leave it to us! The Demon’s House Café shall flourish!”
“Erm… What did you just say?”
“The Demon’s House Café… Ohhh, right, it was the Witch’s House, wasn’t it?”
She didn’t even realize she was taking over!
“Doesn’t matter! Just go for it! As long as our customers are happy, that’s good enough!”
I made up my mind.
First, I would wake the rest of the sleeping family at six. But everyone except Flatorte was already up by six anyway.
Even Sandra came into the dining room.
“Well, do your best. I’ll just watch the animals slave away.”
“I guess we’re all animals from a plant’s point of view…”
“I won’t mind if you leave me alone today, so just do your job,” Sandra said, opening a children’s book.
Her words were condescending, but her support was genuine.
Okay, time to begin this year’s Witch’s House Café!
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login