The next afternoon.
“Ugh… the Empire is really cold.”
As she walked through the bustling streets, Leje trembled slightly.
The harsh climate, coupled with the winter season, reminded her of some northern country from the world she originally lived in.
“Really? I think it’s just about right.”
“You’re from a cold region anyway.”
As Rudell said this while wearing relatively thin clothes compared to Leje, she narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
In fact, the climate in Weinstein County was notoriously harsh even within the kingdom.
At least, there was the advantage of being relatively cool in summer, but in winter, most of the territory was typically covered in snow.
Considering that other territories in the kingdom had a milder climate similar to Duke’s Duchy, Weinstein County was justifiably labeled a land of extreme cold.
“Haha, is that so?”
“Anyway…”
Rudell let out an awkward laugh at her reply, and Leje sighed a short sigh, as if to say he was hopeless.
As the two continued along the road for a while…
“So? Where are we going now?”
“Um… I don’t know either!”
“…”
Rudell looked at her in disbelief at Leje’s nonchalant response.
What do you mean you don’t know?
Though he wanted to ask her that right away…
“Don’t look at me like that. Sometimes it’s nice to just move as we go, you know?”
“Well… I guess that’s true.”
Since her personality leaned more towards spontaneity than planning, it was understandable.
Nodding at her words, Rudell continued down the road…
“Rudell. Can I link my arm with yours?”
“Of course.”
At her following question, Rudell nodded.
If it had been the old Rudell, he would have hesitated to answer.
But there was one drastically different aspect between him back then and now.
“Now that we’re officially dating, you know.”
“D-Don’t say it so openly! It’s embarrassing!”
Leje’s face turned red in surprise at his reaction, and Rudell smiled silently.
“Ugh… Seriously…!! Why are you getting so cheeky?!”
While making low groaning sounds as she watched Rudell, Leje hesitated but wrapped her arm around his.
Embarrassed, she averted her gaze, but her intertwined arms seemed unwilling to part.
“This reminds me of when we were kids. Right?”
“Back then, I had a hard time being dragged around by you.”
“If someone saw us, they’d think I forced you to come along.”
“You did force me to come along.”
As memories of their childhood suddenly came to mind, the two chuckled.
Despite being such trivial chatter, Rudell found this moment immensely enjoyable.
Could this be what it feels like to like someone?
After thinking that, they continued down the road for a while…
“Rudell! Let’s check that out over there.”
“Hm? What’s that…”
Leje’s eyes sparkled as she pointed to a nearby stall, and what Rudell saw when he turned was something unbelievably familiar.
Before his eyes was a small street vendor.
On a large iron plate surrounded by oil, something very familiar was sizzling and being cooked.
That something was dough made from flour, topped with sugar and nuts, cooking away.
“This is…”
Hotteok.
There was no other way to describe what was right in front of them.
“It looks delicious, don’t you think?”
“Welcome! Would you like one?”
As the delicious aromas wafted around and it was being cooked, Leje’s eyes sparkled, and the vendor asked Rudell.
“How much?”
“One silver.”
“Hmm…”
One silver for a hotteok.
That was a price that made no sense rationally.
Of course, like anywhere else, it was common for merchants to charge tourists more.
“Make it 50 coppers.”
“How about 90 coppers?”
“60.”
“80.”
“Let’s settle on 70 coppers.”
“Agreed.”
After a tense standoff, the price negotiations concluded, and Rudell pulled out seven large copper coins as he handed them to the vendor.
The vendor, having received the coins, handed over the hotteok wrapped in paper, and with that, Rudell and Leje turned to leave.
“Was it really necessary to haggle like that? It’s not even that much, right?”
To Rudell and Leje, one silver was hardly even money.
The Lagrind Dukedom had always been famous for its wealth, and Rudell’s Weinstein County had recently amassed significant wealth from a business venture.
For them, one silver felt comparable to seeing a mere ten or fifty won coin in modern times.
“It’s more a matter of pride than price. Just sitting there and taking it feels beneath us.”
Rudell haggling with the stall owner was essentially an issue of pride.
“That’s true.”
“And getting 70 coppers is already quite a hefty price. Selling it at that means they’re still making a profit.”
“Oh… I see.”
The basics of negotiation are to take a shot and see what sticks.
The back-and-forths merchants have also align with this principle in the long run.
“The basics of negotiation are to just take the plunge. It’ll come in handy for you later.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Nodding at Rudell’s words, Leje brought half of the hotteok he handed her to her mouth.
Nomm. As she bit into the hotteok…
“Oh!! This is delicious!”
“Not bad at all.”
He remembered always stopping by the hotteok vendor after work to grab one.
Recalling those old memories, Rudell savored the taste of modernity for the first time in a while.
Before long, they had both devoured the hotteok…
“Here, here’s a handkerchief.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
Wiping the oil from their mouths, they started walking again.
*
After that, Rudell and Leje wandered around various places in Pensburg.
Not just major facilities like the Imperial Central Museum or the Imperial Zoo, but also small hole-in-the-wall shops and shabby pubs.
They were genuinely moving as the mood took them.
As the day faded, it was now time for the sky to turn crimson.
“Ugh… that was fun, right?”
“It was. There’s so much different from the kingdom, it’s interesting.”
Leje casually stretched out, appearing tired, and Rudell nodded.
Experiencing a new culture was always fascinating.
Since he had never gone on trips abroad in his previous life, this schedule in the Empire was like his first overseas trip.
“What do you want for dinner? Should we eat out or cook ourselves?”
“Um… I prefer homemade food. You cook well.”
“Well, saying I cook well might be a stretch…”
His cooking experience consisted mainly of makeshift meals learned from living alone.
However, this situation was only possible because the culinary standards of this world were rather low.
“Anyway, I prefer something made from scratch.”
“Alright. So what should we make?”
After a moment of thought, Leje replied, and Rudell began considering what dinner menu to prepare.
First, cold food was a definite no.
Unless it’s his home country, which has a lot of people who enjoy iced Americanos even in winter, cold food in cold regions would definitely be hit or miss.
“Something warm would be best. If there’s soup, even better…”
In that case, a warm soup dish would be the safest bet, but the problem was that broth-heavy dishes weren’t that common in this world.
Not soup dishes, something warm and not too difficult to make.
In that moment, a dish suddenly flashed through Rudell’s mind.
“How about curry?”
“Curry? That’s a spice, right?”
Leje gave him a puzzled look at Rudell’s question.
This was understandable because curry does exist in this world as well.
However, contrary to what we know, it was generally used as a finely ground spice added to other dishes.
What Rudell wanted to make was the dish most people think of when they hear curry.
That is, curry rice.
“Um… I experimented and ended up with a dish I made before. Should I try making that? Is that okay?”
“I’d love anything you cook. The stew you made before was amazing!”
“Then that settles it.”
If he does it well, he might even be able to use it in his business.
With that thought in mind, Rudell smiled and headed toward the marketplace he had scouted with Leje.
