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“This is Marquis Anson’s private room. That is Margrave Benbow’s. Either of them is highly prideful, so it would be wiser to keep away from them.”
“I see. That goes for you too, Letina?”
“Marquis and Margraves are about the same rank as I. I would rather they did not get in some strange rivalry with me.”
“Oof, yeah let’s just stay away.”

I remained vigilant while Letina explained to me about the residents of the top floor. I was measuring the top floor layout as we walked. This was my ingrained habit in my previous life, but either way, I found out that the room sizes here were bigger compared to the other floors.

“And, this one at the very end is Duke Lamech’s room.”
“You sent Adventurers to investigate this place and they didn’t return, huh…”
“Well, such things happen. I feel bad for those people who accepted the commission.”
“It’s common for Adventurers to lose their lives after making a blunder.”

Letina felt down that she unintentionally sent a third party to a dangerous place. But even so, Adventurers should always be prepared for that, so she was not to be blamed.

Letina of course understood that too, but the fact that she still couldn’t fully accept it was probably one of her faults. For better or worse, she had a strong sense of responsibility.

“Still, it’s quite a nice place here. The dorm mother is a kind person…okay maybe not exactly kind, but she didn’t seem like a bad person.”
“This is a magic academy, after all. They use all kinds of materials, and only hire those who can properly control themselves.”
“I guess that makes sense. Anyway, let’s check the remaining places too.”

They were entrusted with the master key of this dorm which had a lot of high-priced materials. They would not be suitable to be a dorm mother unless they were someone who could not be tempted with money.

“The remaining places…? You already saw everything from the first to third floors, did you not?”
“There are places a fresh transfer student can’t easily enter, right? Places with medicine, for example, are important but hard to get into.”

With that, I grabbed Letina by the hand and escaped from this pandemonium-like fourth floor.

There were few people around since they were currently in classes, but there was no knowing what could happen if we remained together. But I also didn’t wanna leave her alone there, so I chose to escape together.

I brought her to the first-floor kitchen. They taught the fundamentals of pharmacy in this academy too. And medicine had an inseparable relationship with salt and sugar. The Lamech household was suspected of selling illegal drugs, so he was probably ordering large quantities of salt and sugar when compounding them.

But within the academy where that supply was limited, this place was the strongest candidate of where he was getting his supplies.

“Hello.”
“Oh, is it you, Miss Letina!”
“Letina, you know them?”
“Yes, I got acquainted with the head chef on the first day, due to Finia’s matters.”
“Now that you mention it, Finia does love cooking.”

It wasn’t just that.

The other party this time was suspected of handling drugs. There was a possibility that she would be served drugs in some way. I warned Finia to serve Letina her handmade cooking as much as possible as a countermeasure.

For that reason, she would be needing to borrow this place from time to time, so she probably came here to greet the chef first.

“Ah, that lass has great skill! So much so that I’d like to hire her but…”
“I am sorry to say, but she is my attendant. Please give up on that.”
“I suppose it can’t be helped if she’s the mistress of a Marquis’ daughter.”
“S-She is not my mistress!”
“Letina, he is teasing you. By the way, head chef, can my attendant use this place too?”
“And who may you be…?”

The head chef got influenced by Letina’s sociable nature and started happily chatting, but then he finally noticed that I was a new face.

Den could apparently cook basic food already, so it wouldn’t be bad to have him polish his skills here. That said, his skill was far from Finia now, and probably could only cook stuff as crudely as I did in my past life.

“My apologies. I am Nicole who transferred here today.”

So I had to give him a good first impression.

Removing my eyepatch would’ve done the job the fastest, but I was scared of letting a power I myself didn’t really understand run wild. Even the design looked pirate-like, so I overlaid a black cloth on top of it.

Incidentally, when I asked Hastur to replace it with a normal design, he just rejected it with, “it won’t look cool, so no.” He was as much of a pain as Whitey.

At any rate, he would listen to my request as long as I wasn’t impolite, so I decided to just be courteous here. I lightly grabbed the hem of my skirt and bent my knees. Unfortunately, the senior skirts weren’t very long so I couldn’t lift it up too much.

Spreading a longer skirt would have more air but… Actually, who cares about that now.

“Ah, no need to give such a greeting to a cook like me. Still… Well, cooking is my job, but I suppose it’s fine if you are Miss Letina’s acquaintance.”
“Letina, he seems quite fond of you. What did you do?”
“Huh, I simply asked for seconds during the first-day meal.”
“People normally don’t do that, do they?”
“I was very hungry after moving in. And I am a former Adventurer too.”
“She ate her fill without being picky. I felt glad to serve a student for the first time in a while.”
“I should have brought Michelle along if that would be the case. She eats twice as much as me.”
“Uh, Letina, she’s far worse now.”
“Huh, really…?”

Michelle’s appetite knew no bounds. And yet, all the meat only went to her breasts and butt, while her waist remained slender, which was quite hard to believe. She must be contracted with some fishy god for sure. But it wouldn’t be Whitey at least. She was too flat for that.

“That sounds fun. Please bring her over once!”
“If she hears this was a place full of nobles, she’d just run away. That’s what actually happened.”
“Well, it’s true that most of them are intolerable. Still, it’s a shame.”
“My attendant uses quite a bit of seasoning, so would that be alright?”
“Hmm? What a strange thing to ask. This isn’t a place where they would take issue with how many ingredients or seasonings one person uses for their cooking.

Certainly, this kitchen was quite big, considering it was used to sate the hunger of over a hundred students.

The cold room and warehouse I could see deeper in probably stored a lot of ingredients.

Still, this wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

“I see. I was just wondering if they used a lot of salt and such, considering this was a magic academy. There are pharmacy classes, after all.”
“Ah, well, they do sometimes send notices to borrow some. But not enough to considerably diminish the stored amount.”
“That’s good.”

In other words, they were not carrying huge amounts of water and salt from here, huh. Those two were often used in solvents. If this place wasn’t involved, there must be some other route.

Could it be some kind of drug that isn’t made using water and salt?

“Hmm, I still lack information.”
“Huh? Did you say something?”
“No, I’m just a little thirsty.”
“Oh, really? I actually have fruit water here that’s new on the menu!”
“Huuh?”

And like that, I ended up acting as a guinea pig for the head chef.

Incidentally, the aforementioned fruit juice was sour to the point it made me grimace, and grimace like hell I did. Letina burst into laughter when she saw that, and I punished her by stretching her drills.