The sound of Rena’s heart shattering echoed all the way here.
To the point that she, the busiest chef, abandoned multiple dishes to rush out.
Then she yelled at Iria.
“W-What are you doing to the guest right now?!”
“Service?”
“That—how is that service?! Get your foot off right now?!”
Iria, pressing the guest’s face with her foot, tilted her head as if asking what the problem was.
Then she pointed at the smiling guest’s face and said.
“See? They like it.”
“······.”
Do they really like it?
Rena stared back and forth between Iria and the guest with a puzzled expression.
The guest gave a thumbs-up with their face still pressed on the floor.
That meant they were very satisfied.
“Um, are you okay…?”
“This is the best shop of my life.”
“Ah… Yes…”
Rena glanced at him in disgust for a moment before giving up on thinking about it.
Other guests showed no signs of discomfort. She started to wonder if she was the one being too rigid.
‘Is this the trend these days?’
Either way, it was good that they liked it.
She was incredibly concerned, but since she had no idea where to start with the complaints, she decided to leave it alone for now.
For the time being, she would just watch.
*
Iria’s antics continued even after that.
She would squirt ketchup on guests’ heads and brandish a knife at them, engaging in behavior that was incomprehensible to regular folks.
Of course, it wasn’t intentional. Trying to follow the manual Rena had given her, it just ended up like this since things didn’t go as planned.
Guests whispered about the beautiful employee with the cold, expressionless eyes acting crazy.
Iria wandered around the restaurant, greeting the guests in turn. This time in front of a customer who ordered omurice, she lifted the ketchup.
Drawing with ketchup—it was one of the items from the manual Rena had taught her.
“······.”
Of course, Iria had never successfully done it properly.
It was hard enough to control the force to squirt ketchup, and now they wanted her to draw. It was quite a challenging task for her.
Maybe this time she’d succeed. It felt like it was about time to make something decent.
Thinking that, Iria squeezed the ketchup with her hand, just as a disaster was about to unfold again.
POP!!
Ketchup exploded from the narrow entrance, splattering everywhere and leaving red stains on both the guest and Iria’s clothes.
The ketchup stained her silver hair and skin so pale, it looked like blood—but this time, it was just ketchup.
Iria paused for a moment, not moving.
“······.”
“······.”
There was a brief exchange of glances between the two.
Iria was thinking about how to handle this, while the guest was too intimidated to speak.
For some reason, there was a slight feeling of intimidation emanating from her, covered in the red stains. The contradiction of her cute face and the red stains felt bizarre.
That sense of disparity even led to a bit of fear. Somehow, it looked quite fitting on her.
Holding a knife intended for chopping fruit, she looked almost like a murderer.
“Why are you so spaced out?”
Of course, whatever feelings or thoughts he was having were completely visible to Iria.
Though not with other feelings, the fear directed at her was something she was all too familiar with.
Originally, monsters were developed to sense human fear. It was strange not to notice someone so obviously terrified.
‘Can’t scare the customers.’
She thought it was necessary to calm him down.
Iria slightly leaned forward to meet the guest’s eyes.
In her hand, she held a handkerchief.
“With things this messy…”
She gently wiped the guest’s stained face with the handkerchief. Their faces were incredibly close.
“Ugh… It’s too close…”
The guest blushed furiously and tried to cover their face with both hands.
But soon, Iria grasped their hands, so there was no way they could hide. Iria’s expression remained unchanged even as she pulled them closer.
Only her unreadable, expressionless face was prominent. The guest gulped, swallowing dryly.
The fear they initially felt for Iria began to shift into something different in no time. An uncertain emotion even they couldn’t pinpoint.
With their faces so close, they felt Iria’s sweet breath lightly brushing against them. Their heart raced like crazy.
“Don’t hide your face. It’s still not clean.”
Her soft voice resonated in their ear. Whispering so closely, she sounded sweeter than anything.
Nonetheless, Iria continued to wipe the ketchup from the guest’s face with the handkerchief.
When she finished wiping off all the ketchup, she released the hand she had been holding.
That wasn’t in the manual, but she figured they seemed to enjoy it, so she did it. After all, she had to fix her blunder.
Iria coughed awkwardly and then spoke up. The ketchup spilling wasn’t what she had intended, anyway.
Moreover, she couldn’t even wipe the stains off their clothes.
“Service? Yes.
You didn’t pay for laundry, but I guess it’s still service.
Probably.
Throughout the process of receiving customers, a multitude of incidents occurred, but surprisingly, no one expressed dissatisfaction with the service.
Instead, they generally received good reviews. It was just that Iria’s actions were not normal; she was actually capable of reading what customers wanted and acting accordingly.
Initially, some expressed doubts, but gradually, they realized her intentions were harmless.
She was the S-class beauty who accurately matched customers’ tastes. It was hard to find anyone who disliked her.
Perhaps because of that.
Once they successfully satisfied the first batch of customers, the A-class booth became quite famous.
Remarkably so.
The number of customers was enough to rival, or perhaps exceed, Class B.
As they busily served customers, lunch time arrived before they knew it. The A-class booth briefly stopped operations for a break.
“Phew, let’s take a short break… Thanks for your hard work, Iria.”
Rena sat down in a chair, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
She had prepared all the meals for the flood of customers attracted by Iria’s popularity.
At this moment, Rena looked utterly exhausted.
For a while, she leaned back in her chair, gasping for breath.
Iria fanned Rena while asking.
“Are you feeling a bit better?”
“Ah, thank you. I feel a bit better.”
She didn’t appear to be much better. Her whole body hung limp.
The fact that Rena, who usually exuded positivity, was slumped like this, made it clear how harsh the kitchen environment had been.
Even though she was naturally a positive energy person, she revived relatively quickly from her exhaustion.
“By the way! You didn’t do anything strange to the guests, right?!”
“······.”
Iria thought she hadn’t particularly done anything strange.
She nodded. She had just followed Rena’s manual. She did what customers wanted and provided basic service.
The basic service menu included drawing with ketchup or feeding cake to customers, among other tasks.
Of course, given Iria’s clumsiness, she mostly served customers what they wanted instead.
Iria could tell what the guests wanted.
Regardless, she reported everything that had happened up until now. What kind of guests she had served and how she had responded, roughly.
Hearing this, Rena sighed in relief.
Although she had received sporadic reports of odd happenings, they eventually turned out to be resolved later.
What methods she had used, though, were a mystery.
Or perhaps it was simply that her pretty appearance allowed her to get away with anything she did.
For whatever reason, it was clear that Iria was an unusual individual. Honestly, Rena hadn’t anticipated her ability to boost the nearly failing shop’s sales to this extent.
“Ah, by the way, Iria.”
Taking a deep breath, Rena called over the girl sitting next to her, her curiosity piqued.
No matter how many times she looked, this girl’s appearance never became familiar. The silver hair radiating a mystical air and the red eyes that seemed off-limits to gaze into.
Iria tilted her head as if asking why she was being called. The simple action was enough to show she was not ordinary.
One might say there was a unique atmosphere that defied description. Rena often referred to this as “Iria-ness.”
Today, like usual, Iria was radiating her own peculiar vibe, and Rena asked her a question.
It was so out of the blue that this time Iria looked surprised.
“Um… Why did you squirt ketchup on the guest’s head?”
“······?”
“It’s just that I heard some rumors and got curious, so I asked.”
The booth was buzzing after comfortably finishing serving a large number of guests. But that moment was shattered by the abrupt inquiry.
She had been feeling pretty good about herself.
But she didn’t mind too much. Iria briefly recalled what had happened earlier.
“I think it was a mistake while trying to draw something.”
“So why were you threatening the customers with a knife?”
“I tried to chop the apple like I did earlier, but everyone seemed scared.”
“Hmm.”
Very Iria-like.
Although her eagerness as a worker was admirable, Rena thought that being her true self suited her best.
This sparked Rena’s curiosity about Iria even more. Though she felt this frequently, she wanted to know her better than ever.
So she casually threw out a question.
“By the way, there will be fireworks on the last night of the festival at the academy.”
“······.”
“Let’s safely get through this day and go see them together.”
Hearing this, Iria pondered for a moment.
Her deliberation didn’t last long. Since she generally struggled to understand human emotions, her thoughts leaned toward logic.
“Sure.”
There was no good reason to refuse.
After also grabbing another piece of cake, Iria had just pulled herself out of a memory from the past.
At this point, there was somewhat of an unstable feeling about her. She was aware of it, so it wasn’t something to easily brush off.
To clear her complicated thoughts, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to go out for a bit.
Today felt like one of those days.
