Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume SS - Chapter 19

Short Story:

Compliments to the Genius Maid

AT PAUL’S FUNERAL, everyone brought something that carried a memory of him to the feast. Aisha brought a soup of stewed potatoes and beans.

“I didn’t know my dad that well, but when we were in Millis, he was so happy when I made this for him.” Aisha began a story from not long after she and Paul had been reunited.

After the incident in the Shirone Kingdom, Aisha went with Lilia to the Holy Country of Millis. They were protected by Shirone Knights, and so their party arrived safely in Millis, where they met up with Paul. He was happy to see them safe. After that, Paul, Lilia, Norn, and Aisha’s life together in Millis began. Paul went on searching for the residents of Fittoa as he had been, and Lilia helped him. Aisha and Norn began going to school in Millis together. This period of their life would be over in a vanishingly short period of time…but for Aisha, it did not hold many fond memories. 

Paul was so busy every day he never had any time for Aisha. But she did have one memory of him. It happened at lunchtime on just another ordinary day.

That day, Lilia was out of the house. She had gone to deliver some papers to the other side of Millishion to help the search party with their work. Norn had gotten poor marks on her tests, so she was at school taking a remedial class. Aisha, who had excellent grades, was at home, and in a rare event, Paul too had some spare time and had come home before lunch. This, however, was when the trouble occurred.

“Hrmmm.” Aisha finished cleaning the room she was in, then came out to find Paul in the kitchen, groaning. He had potatoes, beans, meat, and vegetables laid out in front of him.

“Master? What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Huh? Well…it’s lunchtime, right, Aisha?”

“Yes.”

“You’re hungry, right?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly…” Paul muttered. He usually had lunch at the tavern where the search party was based. As such, Lilia had gone out without preparing anything for him…and as a result, Paul, who had thought he would eat at home, had come home to find there was nothing for lunch.

Norn had taken a lunchbox, by the way.

“Don’t worry, Aisha. I’ll make something for us right now.”

“Er…all right.” Aisha decided to keep an eye on him.

“Um, right, what’s first again? You cut the ingredients…or do you light the stove first? Rats, where are the pots?”

Paul‘s cooking skills were highly doubtful. He stared down the ingredients, the kitchen knife in his hand hovering uncertainly. Paul had spent some time as a solo adventurer, so he could manage something a bit like cooking. But he couldn’t go feeding typical male cooking to his daughter.

“You know what, how about we eat out? Well, Aisha? Anything you want to—”

“Just a moment, Master.”

“Huh? Oh…” When Paul gave up and tried to suggest going out, Aisha pushed him out of the way at the kitchen bench. Then, she took a spare knife out from the cupboard and rolled up her sleeves.

“Wh-whoa, that’s dangerous.” Paul was alarmed. A small child had suddenly pulled out a knife.

“It’s fine. Watch me, please.”

“What d’you…oh.”

When Aisha started working, Paul’s protests stopped. He stared in slack-jawed amazement as Aisha, with practiced hands, took out a pot, filled it with water, turned on the stove, chopped up the ingredients, and tossed them into the pot. At the same time, she put the bread that sat at the edge of the bench into a basket, tore up some vegetables to arrange in a bowl, then carried it all to the table. Ten minutes or so later, Paul had soup, salad, and bread in front of him. It was a meal that compared favorably to what Lilia usually made him.

“Here you are, Master.”

To Aisha, however, it was simple food and nothing special: soup thrown together from what she’d had on hand, some vegetables she’d torn up and called a salad, and bread that had already been baked. If anything, she had slacked off. 

“I keep telling you,” Paul said. “You can call me ‘Father,’ not ‘Master… Oh, mm, wow…” In the middle of telling Aisha off for being too polite, he let out a sigh of amazement. “Incredible. You can already cook like this at your age, eh, Aisha?”

“What?”

“Like this, you’ll have no trouble finding someone when you’re older,” Paul said, then ruffled Aisha’s hair. It was probably a shock for Paul to discover that Aisha could cook. After all, his other daughter Norn had never so much as picked up a kitchen knife.

“I don’t know, it surprised me when he complimented me just like that.” At the time, Aisha had not been used to praise. Lilia was strict, and Zenith’s relatives, the Latrias, were cold toward her. Even at school, as a child born out of wedlock, she rarely got any praise. As such, Paul’s words had been a shock for Aisha, too.

“I don’t have many memories of Dad. But this one dish, it’s special,” she finished, her mind still back on that day.