Lunchtime

Dong dong dong──

“Alright… that’s it for today’s class… Good job everyone…”

“Thank you for your hard work!”

“Thank you!”

“Have a good day!”

While I was answering questions about Isolde and today’s class, the bell signaling the end of class time suddenly rang out.

Knowing that ending class as soon as the bell rings is the best for students at such a young age, I announced the end of class as soon as the bell rang.

And at these words of mine, the children immediately bowed in greeting and ran out of the large playground.

“Hey, run quickly!”

“If we’re late, we won’t be able to buy meal tickets!”

“Hurry, hurry!”

At the sight of the children running not just simply, but somewhat aggressively bumping into each other, Isolde tilted her head.

“Those kids. Where on earth are they rushing to in such a hurry?”

“Well… it’s lunchtime now…”

“Lunchtime?”

At my words about lunchtime, Isolde tilted her head again. Seeing her blinking her eyes as if she still didn’t understand properly, I summarized the reason simply and explained it to her.

“I cook during lunchtime… and my booth is so popular that daily meal tickets are limited to 300…”

“Ah, I see. I understand if that’s the case. Certainly worth running for.”

Perhaps because she had eaten my cooking over the past five days. Isolde nodded in understanding at my words right away.

Then, as if her mouth was watering at the thought of my cooking, Isolde swallowed her saliva.

It wasn’t an incomprehensible reaction. Even judging objectively, the food made by me, a Lotus, was guaranteed to be of the highest quality in taste, and on top of that, no matter how much you ate, your weight didn’t increase, so it was thought to be the best cooking.

‘Although it became a bit troublesome because of that…’

However, due to this cooking, my booth, which had become popular, was limited to receiving only 300 meal tickets per day due to complaints filed by cooks from other booths to those above.

How petty. It’s their own fault for lacking skills as cooks, yet instead of improving their cooking skills, they make it so students can’t freely eat my cooking.

But looking at it differently, since it reduced the amount of cooking I had to do, even though I could solve the meal ticket limit problem by talking to Mira, I deliberately didn’t solve it.

They reduced my work on their own, so why would I need to speak up and return it to how it was originally?

To begin with, I only needed to feed my cooking to the main characters, so I was secretly giving separate meal tickets beyond the limit only to the students who were main characters and cooking for them, so there was no problem.

If someone heard this, they might say that the discrimination against extra students and favoritism towards main characters is too severe, but I’m just pursuing efficiency.

After all, it’s more beneficial to spend that much more time on the main characters instead of paying attention to extras who will at best be able to handle about a hundred demons during the Human-Demon War.

That’s not to say that I particularly ignore or mistreat the extra students, and rather, when I do interact with them, I treat them well, so isn’t there no problem?

Anyway, to bring the conversation that briefly went off track back to its original point and state the conclusion, because of the limit on meal tickets for my booth, other extra students are rushing to the cafeteria like that to submit meal tickets to my booth and eat the food I made.

And because of this, since all students run at full speed, unlike in the past when there was time to prepare ingredients, now there’s no time for that, so I was using Mu to prepare in advance.

“Shall we check now…”

It wouldn’t be bad to check once since the topic came up.

Although it was a place I was about to go to anyway, I wanted to check in advance, so I connected a telepathy spell to communicate with Mu, who would be in the booth in the cafeteria.

『Telepathy』

The magic power in my body moves briefly and connects. Feeling this, I opened my mouth after confirming that all the students had left.

“Mu, can you hear me…?”

[Yes, Mother.]

“Have you finished all the preparations…?”

[Yes! All the preparations are done. Now I just need to cook according to the orders.]

“Good, then I’ll head there now…”

If the preparations are all done, there’s no problem. Since I had entrusted it to Mu in the first place, there was no way the preparations wouldn’t be done by now.

For Mu, who would risk her life to complete my orders, finishing the preparations for cooking was something that should naturally be done.

Now all that was left was to move to the cafeteria and cook, so just before composing the transfer magic to the cafeteria, I asked Isolde, who was standing next to me.

“Do you want to come along…? I’m thinking of going to the cafeteria, but if you don’t want to, I’ll send you to the professor’s office… But if you come along, you’ll have to stand still next to me…”

Originally, I would probably have dragged her along without asking her opinion, under the pretext of surveillance, like Morgan who would probably be in the cafeteria with Mu now, but if I teleported her to the academy’s professor’s office, there was no need to take her along.

Since there was a surveillance magic in the professor’s office that only Mu and I could undo, just placing her there would allow me to monitor Isolde.

For Isolde, it was one of the few rest times where she could be away from me, so I thought she would naturally say she wanted to go to the professor’s office, but the words that came back from Isolde were completely different.

“If I come along, can you make some food for me?”

“…Huh?”

So different from what I had expected, I blinked my eyes for a moment thinking I had misheard, but Isolde’s appearance with her eyes shining brightly and a small trickle of drool at the corner of her mouth proved that her words just now were not a lie.

And at Isolde’s eyes that seemed to express a wish to hear the answer she wanted, I nodded slightly.

“Well… since I’ll have some leeway if I cook with Mu… I can give you some…”

“Then I’ll go.”

“……”

Isolde immediately shouting yes at my words that I could give her food.

At her appearance that was not just a severe gap but overflowing, I made an expression of disbelief, but Isolde ignored my gaze as if she had never acted that way and tapped her staff on the ground with her usual cold face and gestures.

“I’ll help with constructing the transfer magic. Let’s go quickly.”

“…Yeah.”

Although she speaks with a pretend cold face, her voice is full of urgency as if shouting that she wants to eat the food right now.

I answered awkwardly to that and deployed the transfer magic circle to the coordinates of the cafeteria, and the transfer magic that was instantly spread out with Isolde’s help enveloped me and Isolde while bursting with bright light.

Taming Isolde with food… it might not be bad to think about it seriously once.

---

Recently, lunchtime is nothing short of a battlefield.

Or more precisely, the booth run by the Lotus cook who appeared a month ago.

Ever since the number of meal tickets for this booth, which is extremely popular among students, was limited to 300, lunchtime has turned into something akin to war.

The lunchtime war that happens every day at the academy.

First, the signs of this battlefield about to open begin to show from the moment the second period class ends.

Around the time when the second period is about to end, students tremble, each twitching their bodies.

Not because of cold or needing the bathroom, but because they are tensing their bodies to run to the cafeteria faster than anyone else.

And when the bell signaling lunchtime finally rings, at that moment, students burst out simultaneously like arrows from their classrooms, the large playground, and the practical training grounds.

Of course, if a professor who continues the class even after the bell rings is in charge of that time, students must humbly accept that they cannot eat the food made by Lotus, but occasionally there were students who ignored the professor and rushed out.

Anyway, once all the students finish their classes and start running to the cafeteria, from this point on, the curtain of the real war rises.

“Everyone get out of the way!!!”

“Agh, you’re going to blow everyone away with magic?! Did I really say that?!”

“Hey, take that guy’s wand! You’ll be expelled if you use magic here, idiot!!!”

“Who pulled my hair?!”

“Everyone out! I haven’t eaten for two days even before the Sky Island incident!!!”

Whether from the main building, the annex, the large playground, or the practical training grounds. No matter where they come from, there is only one path leading to the cafeteria.

The single path to the cafeteria connected to the central walkway of the academy.

Therefore, students starting from different places collide here, and occasionally, minor acts of violence occur, resulting in street fights.

Some might say that students who can use magic have an advantage because they can fly through the sky, but that’s just speaking without knowing.

“Oh, look at that one flying!”

“Hey, block it! Throw a scabbard or something!”

“Where do you think you’re flying like a fly!!!”

Since both sides of the central walkway were blocked by the walls of the main building and the practical training grounds, it was fortunate if they didn’t crash into others while flying up, and all sorts of attacks from the ground were directed at flying students, so foolish magicians who tried to fly had to give up on eating Lotus’s food that day.

And if they run to the cafeteria while fighting like this, even the students who came running so chaotically entangled will line up in order based on the student at the very front.

This was a special measure taken by Mira, the dean, because it would become too much of a mess if they were let into the cafeteria as is.

“Everyone line up properly!”

“Anyone who doesn’t line up one by one and jumps out will be sent to the very back.”

The line formed under the guidance of the student council, which holds the greatest power in the academy after the dean and professors.

Once they line up like this, only the first 300 in order can purchase meal tickets and submit them to Lotus’s booth that day.

The remaining students who didn’t make it into the 300 could only eat food from other booths while shedding tears of blood.

This is how the war to get into the top 300, regardless of senior or junior, ends only when they reach the cafeteria.

But of course.

“Teacher! Here’s the meal ticket.”

“Ah, Kana? Arin, Shati, and Riana came too.”

“Hello.”

“We came right after class ended!”

“Thanks to you, we can have a delicious meal comfortably without getting involved in such a vulgar fight. Thank you.”

This was not a story that applied to the students who were main characters, getting involved in such a battlefield.

Kana handed over the meal ticket to Lotus through a hole opened in the back of the cafeteria along with her friends Arin, Shati, and Riana, and ordered the menu.

Looking around, the children sitting at the back of the cafeteria were Pina and Park from Class C, Fran from Class D, and a few students she hadn’t properly introduced herself to yet.

While looking around at them, Kana inwardly felt relieved at the noisy sounds coming from inside the cafeteria.

Along with the feeling that it’s fortunate to be able to eat food so comfortably like this.