Ch.133Chapter 133 – Are Your Hands the Hands of God?

I went to see the Chancellor and told him about the spice business I had in mind.

My plan was to buy damaged or broken spices that would otherwise be discarded after crossing the sea at a low price, then use my ability to “fix” them and sell them on the market.

To get straight to the point… the Chancellor showed great interest.

“It sounds promising. However, isn’t the timing a bit awkward since we’re currently in the festival period?”

However, he indicated that it would be difficult to discuss this seriously right now because of the ongoing festival.

I was already aware of this issue.

“Come see me after the festival ends. I know someone who can help you.”

“I understand.”

Since the Chancellor offered to help, it seemed I should visit him after the festival ends and things settle down a bit.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t have anything else to do today.’

The demonstration I did this morning was hastily arranged at the Academy’s request.

Even asking people to bring items with memories attached was the result of my desperate attempt to prevent the demonstration schedule from getting messed up.

‘At least I’ll be free until tomorrow morning.’

The schedule I had planned for the Fall Festival would proceed as originally intended.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of demonstrations, but somehow today ended up being the first day instead…

Tomorrow I should focus on showing my ability with simpler items.

It seems the impact of the first demonstration was quite strong, but it should be fine if I explain it as taking a short break, right?

I mentally reviewed the three-day schedule planned to start tomorrow as I headed toward the Magic Dessert booth where Mina and Elena would be working.

I heard the Magic Dessert booth was still crowded with people.

Why? Obviously thanks to the best promoter visiting their booth.

‘I heard that as news spread about reforming a troublemaker, people flocked to visit the place.’

Thanks to that, the Magic Dessert booth had used up all the ingredients they had prepared for three days of sales, forcing them to close shop for the afternoon.

[Mina: So we have a lot of free time today.]

I was currently chatting with Mina through the student management window.

As it turns out, if you register each other’s contact information through the student management window, you can exchange messages.

[Me: Is that so? That’s fortunate. If you have free time, would you like to have dinner together?]

I heard that people using this for the first time take a long time to get used to it…

‘This is obviously just like X-talk.’

Thanks to my memories from my previous life, it didn’t take me long to figure out how to use the messaging function.

[Mina: Sounds good! Should I invite Elena too?]

[Me: Yes, please. It’s better to have one more person than going alone.]

[Mina: Okay! Then I’ll go with Elena. Where should we meet?]

Where to meet? At the main gate, of course.

[Me: Let’s meet at the main gate. Would 5 PM work?]

[Mina: Yes~! I’ll come with Elena! See you at 5 PM!]

With Mina’s reply, I closed the message window.

The meeting time was 5 PM.

Looking at the time now, it was 2 PM.

About three hours of free time.

‘Hmm… it’s a bit boring to just sit around.’

While I was wondering what to do during these three hours of leisure time, I heard people whispering somewhere.

“What? All the bread suddenly burned? Is there a problem with the oven?”

“It’s not that the oven has a problem, but it seems the magic stone’s output was stronger than usual.”

Listening carefully to the conversation, it seems the bread baking in the oven had all burned.

They say the cause was a high-output magic stone. Could they have inserted the magic stone I gave as a service?

That wasn’t meant to be put into magical tools; it was given for training purposes.

“This is terrible. All the bread is burned…”

“We can’t go out and buy bread at this hour. Especially since the noble lords only eat white bread. And they only want soft bread at that.”

It seems these people work in the Academy’s dining hall.

‘Like mess hall soldiers, preparing dinner after lunch hours are over?’

I don’t know exactly how many people eat at Glesius Academy…

But it must be at least a thousand people. Where would they find bread to feed so many?

Maybe it’s because my friend was a former mess hall soldier, but I couldn’t take their words lightly.

‘Man, even thinking about it now is fucking horrifying. You want to sleep just one more hour but you have to get up and cook, prepare ingredients, carry provisions, serve food, wash dishes… then clean the dining hall. And when you finish preparing lunch, you get a short break before preparing dinner again. Imagine repeating that 365 days a year. Worse, it’s like having 20 mothers-in-law above you, and you have to feed a family of 2,000. What do you think?’

Whew, just hearing about it makes me short of breath and my hands and feet tremble.

That’s why I would buy drinks without complaint for anyone who finished their service as a mess hall soldier.

We were all in the same difficult situation, but I think the soldiers who made food every day, finding time and enduring, had it the hardest.

Understanding their hardship, I found myself walking toward them without realizing it.

“Oh?”

“Count Severio? What brings you here…?”

“I was passing by and heard voices that seemed to be in trouble, so I stopped by. Is there a problem?”

“Well, you see…”

When I approached and asked what happened, one person began explaining the situation in detail.

Cutting out all the fat and summarizing it plainly, it was an “equipment operation error.”

Typically, with ovens using magic stones, the output needs to be adjusted according to the grade of the stone.

But today, they ran out of magic stones and hurriedly grabbed one from the storage, which happened to be a top-grade stone.

As a result, the oven’s output suddenly increased dramatically, and what should have been nicely browned bread turned into black coal.

“How many loaves of bread were burned?”

“Enough for 800 people, sir. They judged that there would be fewer diners today because of the festival.”

“Hmm…”

Saying that 800 servings of bread were burned means that the oven can bake 800 servings of bread at once.

Indeed, the output and size of ovens in this fantasy world are impressive.

“Can’t you just buy ingredients and bake again?”

“Baking isn’t the problem. But because of the festival, the market is out of ingredients. We asked, and they said the cart carrying ingredients will arrive tomorrow at dawn.”

The cart with ingredients arrives at dawn.

This is troublesome.

Then there’s only one solution.

“The burned bread, you haven’t disposed of it, have you?”

“Pardon? No, we left it on the trays. It was so badly burned that the trays were red-hot. We were going to let them cool down before disposing of them.”

“Take me to the dining hall.”

“What?”

The dining hall staff expressed confusion at my words.

They probably couldn’t guess why I wanted to go to the dining hall.

“Lead the way. The accident has already happened, so we need to fix it, don’t we?”

Come on, burning bread meant for 800 people and throwing it away? That’s bad karma.

“I promise. You won’t have to throw away all that burned bread.”

◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈◇◈

There are 150 people working in the Glesius Academy dining hall.

The number of students enrolled at Glesius Academy is 2,500, and with staff, professors, and other personnel, it totals about 3,000.

Add to that the graduate students in what could be called the academy within the academy, and there are approximately 3,200 people at Glesius Academy.

Naturally, being responsible for the meals of 3,200 people is a very important task.

But due to the failure to control the oven’s output, they had burned bread meant for 800 people, creating a terrible atmosphere in the dining hall.

Because of the festival, there were fewer diners than usual, so they had prepared less food than normal. Now they had no ingredients to replace the burned bread.

However… a ray of light descended before them.

“Wow…”

“Amazing…”

The spectators could only express amazement and admiration at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

Even the person in charge, who had been severely reprimanded for failing to control the oven output, was mixed among the crowd, watching as Pathos “fixed” the completely burned bread, turning it into freshly baked, warm new bread.

With every three swings of Pathos’s hammer, one loaf of bread received new life.

After 2,400 hammer strikes for 800 loaves of bread, the kitchen was filled with the appetizing aroma of fresh bread.

“Are your hands truly human hands? These are the hands of a god!”

The kitchen supervisor, seeing this sight, gave Pathos the nickname “God’s Hands,” which would later become the nickname that followed Pathos, but that’s a story for the distant future.