THERE IS A REASON THEY SAY FOOD TASTES BEST WHEN IT’S FREE, RIGHT?
Hello, I am Halkara, an elf living in the province of Hrant.
Several years ago, I started a company called Halkara Pharmaceuticals, and luckily, it’s done very well.
As a reward, I often have my lunches at trendy restaurants near the factory. Money truly is a wonderful thing, isn’t it~? I may be an elf, but I like money better than trees.
The restaurant I was going to today was a very popular one near the company called The Sun Café.
Young-looking elf girls had packed inside. The period during which elves looked young was very long, though, so it was hard to tell the difference between people who might be my mother’s age and those closer to their daughters’. While the place might have been popular with young people, I couldn’t say for sure.
I ordered the seasonal lunch plate (one thousand and two hundred gold, and it came with tea and dessert after the meal).
“Sorry to keep you waiting. Here is your seasonal lunch plate.”
A waitress with impeccable posture brought me my food.
She set my plate on the tablecloth, which was decorated with leaf patterns, and some bread and several side dishes were neatly arranged on top. This would look perfect in an illustration!
By the way, a hobby had been spreading recently among girls—they would immediately draw anything they saw that was cute and then boast about it to other people later.
Not only was this impossible to accomplish without artistic talent, but the food would get cold if one could not draw something of quality in a short amount of time. It was a very difficult task. Girls cared about cute things in any era.
I was an elf, so I was relatively familiar with the trends of human girls one or two generations ago, and I’d caught glimpses of how each generation pursued cuteness. I was impressed with how quickly they created those trends.
Meanwhile, elf trends spread slowly thanks to our long lives—once something spread, it did not go out of fashion for a while, so our trends tended to be more easygoing.
In my mother’s generation, pocket veils were apparently popular, which they would use to create strings of numbers in cipher and send messages to one another. Couldn’t you just use words?
Well, that doesn’t really matter; let us take a look at this lunch!
First, the salad. The vegetables were salad thistle, Hrant greens, as well as cabbage and dragon herb. The dragon herb was used as a red accent. The dressing was sour, but there was a bit of sweetness and fullness to it that probably came from honey.
Next was something that looked a lot like jelly… I did not know its official name but guessed it was something fancy-sounding. Yes, that was good, too.
Then…this colorful one was, um, terrine? I think that was what it was called. Yes, it was good.
I tore a piece of the small bit of bread and put it in my mouth. It was crunchy.
I know I’m repeating myself, but it was good. One does not need much of a vocabulary when eating alone. It’s a little strange to start digging up words to describe what you’re eating when you’re alone.
Good. Delicious.
Those were all I needed. And this lunch plate was good. I had no complaints about the flavor.
However—
It doesn’t feel like I ate anything!
I don’t know why, but it makes me really angry!
I acknowledge that the food had filled the plate very nicely, but the portions for everything was so small! I was not a bird pecking at this food, so I wished they would fill my stomach more!
At least the salad was healthy. I would not know what to do with a fatty, greasy salad.
I would get tired of this jelly if there was too much of it, and I did not need very much of this curveball. So there was no problem with that. If god didn’t forgive them for it, I would at least.
But I was not happy with this tiny portion of bread!
A piece of bread about half the size of my fist was just sitting on the plate. Was it supposed to be the main part of the meal? For whom, infants?! I ate more than that for a snack!
Meals were not meant to be fashion statements! They were to live and to eat! None of this was satisfying!
I left the restaurant, and a thought crossed my mind as I looked up at the sky.
“I need to eat.”
I needed to eat a mountain of bread.
Not even an elf got her fill on leaves alone!
With that thought in mind, I finished my work and headed home.
There were five of us in the family—my parents, my older brother, and my younger sister.
I went into the living room and found them all lazing about. That was the best word for them, sprawled across the floor like caterpillars.
You might think it was dirty (well, it certainly wasn’t clean), but elves took off their shoes when they went into their house. You could step into horse manure outside, but inside would still be safe.
I was far and away the breadwinner of this family.
My father was in a constant loop of being laid off and rehired, my brother made his living working part-time, and my sister currently worked at a nail salon but always complained about the pay being low.
I knew if I did not start making money, my family would be in trouble, and that was one of the reasons I started my business.
Time actually moves slower in here, I thought as I looked down at my family. Literally, not in the disparaging sense. I was standing over them, after all.
“Welcome back, Halkara.” My older brother lazily raised his hand.
“Yes, I’m back. You seem to be enjoying yourself. It’s nice that the tool shop closed early.”
“Oh, that… I was fired.” My brother’s expression darkened a bit.
“What…?” I understood him, of course. My comment meant What on the earth are you doing? “You can at least deal with customers at the shop, can’t you? You don’t even have to talk to them constantly… You can handle that much interaction, can’t you? Was it still too much for you?”
“Your brother was late all the time, and that’s why he was fired~” my mother said sleepily, a throw blanket draped over her. It was nighttime, so she could just sleep in the bed instead…
And fired for tardiness… That was indefensible for anyone…
“Man, I honestly thought working at the tool shop would be easy, but it started so early. They open at nine, so I absolutely had to be there at eight thirty.”
“You would make it if you left the house at eight, so if you woke up any time between then and seven, you would be on time like normal, no?”
“I’d wake up, and for some reason, it’d be one in the afternoon for two days in a row. I musta been a night person in my past life, like a vampire or something. That’s definitely it.”
He wasn’t just a disappointment as my brother but as a living being…
My younger sister ignored our brother and was concentrating on painting her nails with something. That was part of her trade, though.
My father was sipping on some cheap alcohol and nibbling on a snack of fried leaves.
He didn’t have much in the way of earnings, either, so he couldn’t really tell his son to get his act together.
Then, my sister sprang to her feet. She had a baby face, but she had graduated from school and was working now. There was about a forty-year age difference between us. I don’t know how many years that is by human standards, though.
“Hey, Sis, you’re off from work tomorrow, right~?”
“Yes, I am. What is it? Do you want to test something on my nails?”
My sister grinned, and her smile was hard to hate. My family had very good looks, and my brother had had many girlfriends. He had been turned down a lot, too.
“Mom said we should go out and eat as a family for the first time in a while.”
“Yes, I did~ I thought it might be nice~” my mother said placidly.
“Oh yes, we haven’t gone out together at all recently.”
The reason for that was because our working hours were all over the place. When my father was working overtime and my brother was doing part-time work, they were often busy on weekends and holidays. When I ordered new equipment and whatnot, I sometimes had to go into the factory and take care of the delivery on a day off.
That was the respectable reason. The other reason was—
—my father didn’t earn very much, so we could never go out to eat very often…
His wages were low for supporting a five-person family. That was because he frequently changed jobs, so he never got many raises.
Even though all his children were of working age, he was still the one paying for everyone’s meal when we went out, so it was hard to support an outing like this. Plus, we ate much more compared with when we were young children, so it cost even more.
That was why everyone was here in such a tiny room…
Soon, I would earn even more money with Halkara Pharmaceuticals, buy a big house, and they all could lie around in a bigger space! Well, they did not need to lie around anymore than they already were…
I would leave that topic aside for later—
We should indeed go out and eat as a family. It would be the first time in a while.
Meals were meant to fill the belly. Without such an effect, all the creatures of the world would die of starvation, so that function was of the utmost importance.
But meals also helped connect people.
“I’m free. Then let us go!”
“Yay! Thanks, Sis!”
My sister hopped and hugged me. What an adorable girl.
“Ha-ha-ha, it’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Thanks, Halkara. I want some mushrooms. Heard there’s a good mushroom shop on West Temple Avenue,” my brother said.
“There’s no use in thanking me, either.”
He must have thought it a miracle that I would come. Even though we had familial troubles, we didn’t fight much or anything.
“Mushrooms are good, too. I can eat so many of them! This is a special occasion, so I will eat all I can since I don’t have to pay!”
Then, my father clearly looked away.
Not that we were looking at each other to begin with, but he seemed embarrassed.
“The truth is, Halkara, I can’t really afford it and was hoping you’d pay, since you’re the richest person in the family… See, your work is going well, and you must have at least ten million gold in savings, right…?”
To think the day would come when my father would seem so small.
“Um, you know I put some of my earnings into the household budget, right? I will not prevent you from using that to eat out at all.”
“I-if possible…I wanted you to treat us with your pocket money… Our finances are rather scant…”
All of them were working one way or another—except the one who just got fired—yet they were barely scraping by. That was strange, wasn’t it?
Also, I was earning money, but it wasn’t like I was adding a hundred thousand gold to the family funds every month. If I did, they might stop working entirely…
I did most certainly already have over ten million gold in savings. I would not deny that.
However, that didn’t mean I was just coasting by, either. Investing in plants and equipment could easily cost that and more. Most importantly, I did not want to blow all my money on these people.
I could not do that yet. If they got a taste of expensive food and luxury, they would become even more useless.
If my brother ordered all the expensive mushrooms he wanted without even a thought to my feelings, I would be so angry…
These people had big appetites, you see. I inherited their same physique, so I knew well how they scarfed down food. At worst, they would find themselves frustrated like I would be at a fancy café.
In addition to that, my older brother’s useless vibe was very embarrassing. We sometimes went to nice restaurants with good service, but I didn’t really want to take him anywhere too nice… He was mortifying…
I thought for a brief moment.
During the intervening silence, I got the impression my father was nervous.
“Um…it’s okay if you don’t want to… We can cancel… Yeah, we’ll cancel… We can go to Piping Hot with the family’s money. They have unlimited bread rolls there, after all…”
That was a place where students went to get their fill. Eating there as a family was embarrassing in a different way…
“Oh hey, I’ve got a hundred-gold discount coupon for Piping Hot.”
Thank you so much for sharing that information, Brother, but I won’t be using that.
I needed a restaurant where I would not be embarrassed to take my family, one not high-class where we would have enough to eat.
“Very well. I will cover all the costs, so please eat all you like.”
My father and brother smiled with an “Ooh!” which stressed me out a bit…
“However, I will be deciding the restaurant. I hope you understand that.”
Then it was my day off.
I brought my family to—
“Now eat as much as you like. Take as many plates as you please!”
CONVEYOR-BELT CARBS STONEHOUSE
5TH STREET, NETTLEVEIN INTERSECTION STORE, WELLBRANCH MARQUESSATE
There was a banner fluttering outside the restaurant that said PLATES FROM 100 GOLD! EAT ALL THE PASTRIES AND SANDWICHES YOU CAN IMAGINE!
“Hey, I’ve never been to Conveyor-Belt Carbs before~”
Mother could accept almost anything, so she had a favorable opinion. On the other hand, the other three looked miserable. It seemed they were looking forward to eating something more expensive.
“Eat ten plates or even fifteen!”
The conveyor belt was powered by a waterwheel, and the lane where the plates sat moved past the customer seats.
Most of the food consisted of flour-based carbohydrates. It was, after all, Conveyor-Belt Carbs.
There was bread lathered in butter and jam, bready side dishes, as well as pastries. There was also a dish made of thin dough that had cheese on top and was baked to a crisp.
To put it clearly, every possible thing was bready in one way or another, and these were placed on the spinning lanes. One could choose whatever they liked from there—hence Conveyor-Belt Carbs.
According to one theory, they say the idea came about when someone in the castle town in the demon lands used a factory processing-line to send pastries down as snacks, but it was unclear if this was true.
“Oh, so it’s not mushrooms. I was looking forward to eating at a specialty mushroom restaurant…”
“Please buy mushroom dishes with your own money, Father.”
“I thought I was gonna get free all-you-can-eat mushrooms, so I didn’t eat breakfast.”
“It’s your fault for assuming we would be eating at a mushroom buffet, Brother dearest. And please find yourself another job.”
“But mushrooms that other people pay for are a different kind of delicious than usual, y’know? Even stir-fried flabby eryngii tastes way better!”
Just find yourself a girlfriend to make them for you.
And so the family entered the shop.
We came a little on the early side, so there were indeed empty seats. We scored a nice booth table.
The nice part about Conveyor-Belt Carbs was that their seating was mostly booths, so we could all sit together as a family. It was perfect for that. It was not easy or comfortable bringing along small children to a fancy restaurant.
I sat the farthest in, next to the conveyor belt. Beside me sat my sister, then my brother beside her. Opposite me was my father, and my mother was next to him. I was the farthest away from my brother.
The belt ran along the opposite side of the table from the aisle, supplying an endless flow of bready carbs. I was enjoying myself just watching.
“I don’t really understand this, Halkara. I just take whatever I want, right?” my mother asked, as any Conveyor-Belt Carbs beginner might.
“Not just what you want! You need to take the plate as well, otherwise they won’t be able to calculate how much we owe!”
“So the price depends on the color of the plate?”
So she knew that. Mother’s knowledge of this was patchwork.
“Some places use color to differentiate prices, but this restaurant generally uses the same price for everything, which means the color of the plate doesn’t matter. Instead, more expensive dishes use more plates. See how that expensive sandwich has two plates underneath it?”
“Oh, I see~ I understand now.”
“There is also a menu over here, so you can order anything specific that’s not on the belt. It’s all cheap, so please go right ahead and eat your fill.”
It really was cheap.
I was thankful for this kind of establishment. We could eat all we wanted here without drawing unwelcome attention.
You can’t just say We don’t have enough bread, so can we please have some extra? in a prim and proper restaurant. There’s no rule that said we couldn’t, but society is filled with tacit understandings.
When it came to places where one could stuff themselves near the factory, my choices naturally narrowed. It was also embarrassing if someone noticed me coming in every day. It’s the plight of a young elf woman, I guess.
Anyway, I just wanted to eat as much as I pleased until I was full! It was time to eat all the carbs I craved!
I did not need appetizers like salads or anything like that. Why not start with the forest blessing pockets (bread stuffed full with slices of rare tree nuts—five plates)?!
I had secured a position right next to the conveyor, so I could move my hand in the blink of an eye and snatch up my prey.
Oh!
Look at that—three plates of the favorite forest blessing pockets in a row came chugging by!
The nuts spilled from the gaps in the bread. Crushed, crackly, and curly nuts were sprinkled over it, adding an accent to the texture of a thick elf akebia steak between the slices—it was a substantial dish! The slices of other kinds of large nuts produced a multilayered deliciousness!
Even within Conveyor-Belt Carbs: Stonehouse, this was the most expensive dish—but it also brought the biggest bang for one’s buck! Now, time to eat!
“Oh, Sis, could you grab that forest blessing pocket for me?” my sister asked.
“I want one, too,” insisted my brother.
What?!
Oh no.
Since I was next to the conveyor, my only role was to grab things for other people!
Actually, should we really be starting off with a five-plate dish?
Would they not prefer to hold off on that for a moment and start with something cheaper?
Oh, it didn’t matter. I had already said I was going to pay. Complaining would only make me seem stingy. There was still one left anyway.
“Go ahead. Don’t eat it too fast.”
Now, for the last one—
“Hey, that looks good.”
My father, who sat opposite from me, took it.
No! They were all gone! And it was my family who took it from me!
“Wooow, this bread looks so good~!”
“Seriously. I think this was a way better choice than a mushroom buffet.”
I was furious with my sister and my brother. Anyone who wants to complain about my narrow-mindedness first has to pay me a thousand and five hundred gold.
“Sis, grab me the quality walnut roll next~”
She was asking me for a three-plater next (three hundred gold)… There were plenty of one-hundred-gold dishes, so I wanted them to choose those.
Had I made a terrible mistake…?
My family did not understand the concept of restraint, so they would gleefully pick all the expensive things. The thought of working up to the better goods was beyond them.
There was now a real danger of this becoming considerably expensive.
If I knew this would happen, I should have chosen a shop where all plates were a hundred or a hundred twenty gold…
If they only picked expensive dishes, our bill would be the same as in a normal, proper restaurant…
As the blood drained from my face, someone reached their hand out.
My mother took two plates at the same time.
“All the portions are small, so it’s better to take two at once~”
Where did she learn to take two at a time…?
Okay…it was time for me to forget about my family. I just needed to concentrate and eat only the things I wanted to eat. My family was no longer here. I lived alone!
“Halkara, grab that premium fluffy wheat roll.”
“For me, too, Sis.”
Except that was clearly impossible!
“Actually, forget the premium fluffy wheat roll, Halkara. Don’t take the root-veggie salad roll next to it. Pretend you’ll take that chicken salad, but then actually just take the first premium fluffy wheat roll.”
“What game are you making me play here, Brother?!”
This is a restaurant, not a memory game!
—Later, my family finally got their fill of Conveyor-Belt Carbs.
As for me, I was so restless that I scarcely felt like I ate…
I had wanted to eat slowly and savor the cooking without being bothered, and I had done the exact opposite of that.
I had no idea that Conveyor-Belt Carbs would lure me into such a trap…
These places were not to be underestimated… Rather, my family was not to be underestimated…
Oh yes, and the bill.
In total, it cost around thirty thousand gold… A course meal could easily cost this much…
I suspect it was my sister’s three steak sandwiches. This was not an all-you-can-eat establishment, so her mentality that she had to get her money’s worth by eating as much as she could was not welcome here. That would change the whole point…
As I paid, I thought quietly to myself:
I messed up…
I had to be systematic when it came to choosing a restaurant.
I fiercely vowed to myself that, family or not, I would not indulge them.
But this would not be the end of this…
To make matters worse, my brother and sister had overeaten, started feeling nauseous during the carriage ride, and vomited when we got home.
How stupid are they…?
Later, I visited Conveyor-Belt Carbs: Stonehouse, 5th Street, Nettlevein Intersection Store, Wellbranch Marquessate on my own.
I would get my revenge. No, I wouldn’t destroy the establishment or inflict other kinds of violence.
When I sat down at my counter seat for one, I briskly raised my hand.
A server rushed right over.
“Excuse me, could I have a strawberry parfait, extra thick pancakes, a fluffy fountain cream roll, and some candied fruits please?”
The server gave me a look that said, Are you eating all that on your own?
“It’s all right. I can stomach it all, so please bring it over!”
Afterward, I indulged in a sweet dessert heaven.
Yes, the sweets at Conveyor-Belt Carbs were also high quality. I would say that schoolgirls stopped by after class just for this.
It also cost so much less than a specialty dessert buffet! I could come here every day!
I took a big bite out of the fluffy fountain cream roll. Cream spilled from the bread as a smile spilled across my face.
The extra-thick pancakes came with butter and honey. Pancakes were said to be the great enemy of a diet, but I would give in to temptation. It was so simple, yet delicious!
I cleansed my palate with the sour strawberries in the strawberry parfait, then gracefully ate the candied fruits. Oh, this was the taste of the upper class!
“I hew ih; ih is beh-her to enhoy wuh’s food ah-hone~! ”
Afterward, my stomach felt heavy from all that food, but I didn’t mind.
This weight was proof of my glorious indulgence.
The End
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