"It's already late, I should prepare the bathtub..." My mother said that before she left the living room and went into the restroom through the kitchen.
Needless to say, my mother was not aware of Tizmilly's real identity. For her, Tizmilly is only a girl I brought home as a job partner for my in-development restaurant.
She was strangely attached to Tizmilly since I brought her to our home yesterday, but well, guess it's good then if they were getting along well?
I sat across Tizmilly and faced her.
"I just bought the building," I opened the conversation, "I think the location is good since it was near the main road... What do you think?"
I placed the house plan of the building on the table for her to see. Tizmilly grabbed it and seriously checked it. Her nervousness gradually faded away as she immersed herself.
"As you say, the location was indeed good."
She nodded before she raised her hand and pointed at the entrance of the first floor.
"But the entrance was not wide enough. This is the entrance, the first thing our potential customers see when they enter our place, so we need it to be more attractive and comfortable."
"If we left it that way, the entrance would become too cramped and make some hesitate to enter. Though you indeed could use the second floor to welcome them, the effect wouldn't be ideal if we didn't deal with the entrance first."
I scratched my chin.
"You're right... That means that we would need to spend more on renovation. Added to that with furniture, cooking tools, and all kinds of utensils we would need later... 1 gold, no, maybe we would even need to spend 2 gold more?"
Tizmilly placed the house plan back on the table.
"Just to be safe, perhaps you would need to prepare at least 3 gold coins before opening the restaurant..."
I noticed that her voice had quieted down, so I looked at her face, and then I saw that face again. Face filled with guilt.
I sighed.
"Are you still thinking about that?" I asked her.
'That' I mean here was about opening the restaurant. Since I got the idea to open a restaurant after I saved her, Tizmilly seems to think that I created this restaurant for her. In reality, it was all but a misunderstanding.
"I mean..." She stuttered while clutching the hem of her dress.
"I had made a calculation before I accepted your offer. For you to open a restaurant, you would at least need 10 gold coins. 5 golds for the building, and the other 5 golds for other stuff. I at first thought you were a son of a merchant, so I thought it would be manageable for you, but..."
"... I was actually just a commoner." I finished her words.
Tizmilly nodded.
"It was already a miracle for you to possess 6 gold coins to purchase a building with this good of a location. 3 more gold coins would be..."
Tizmilly bit her lower lip.
"As I said, you misunderstood it."
I interrupted her.
"I decided to create a restaurant is not for you. It's for me. I thought it would be fun if I create a restaurant with the Villainess... Em, a former noble lady, so I just do what I want. And I have it, you know? The additional funds we needed. We still have 8 more gold coins to spend."
Tizmilly widened her eyes, her lips agape.
"V-villainess?" She asked.
"Ne-nevermind..." I replied.
...
The day ended quickly.
We took a bath alternately, before we sleep in our separate rooms.
The next day, we immediately visited the nearby carpenter and blacksmith to order what we needed. The renovation would be roughly finished in one week or so, said the carpenter, so we wouldn't be in business immediately.
But it also aided to our advantage, since now we have one week to train our clueless-in-cooking Miss Villainess.
The instructor would be my mother, with me as the assistant.
We gathered around the table in the kitchen with aprons all on as my mother explained about the first step Tizmilly needed to become a skilled cook.
"You have zero experience, right?" My mother asked Tizmilly.
She looked embarrassed, but still nodded.
"Don't get embarrassed," My mother comforted her, "I also had no experience in cooking before I married Theo's father. He was the one who taught me how to cook. And now, I had become so good at cooking that most chefs around Dungeon City wouldn't be able to compare to me!"
"I always wondered why Mom didn't just open a stall or something with that high-level skill, really."
Seeing her bragging in front of Tizmilly made me couldn't resist the urge to comment.
My mother could only laugh in response. Of course, I knew the reason. The King was still furious toward the Roost Family at that time, so since all the recipes my mother knew were the secret recipes known only to Roost Family members, it would be bad for her to make a living out of it. After all, who knows from where the wind would reach that crooked king from the Tarram Kingdom?
"Let's start with making a soup. It's simple and easy, so it was very newbie-friendly."
After she stopped laughing, my mother immediately started the lesson.
Tizmilly gulped, but she looked determined to master the art of cooking. That's good.
"Theo, brought the ingredients!" My mother ordered, and I replied strongly, bringing over the ingredients we had prepared since yesterday.
My mother walked over to the table and began introducing every ingredient needed for making the soup.
"The main ingredient would be this mushroom called Mirte Mushroom. This mushroom is chewy like meat if cooked properly and is cheap, so it would be perfect for our soup. It could also be used for the broth."
"Then we have chicken meat, broccoli, potato, and carrot as the additional ingredients."
"For the spices, salt, pepper, garlic..."
After the explanation ended, we moved to the next step, which was the preparation of ingredients.
My mother showed Tizmilly the proper way of cutting and peeling the ingredients, while I was assisting Tizmilly in the process, and showed her how to arrange the prepared ingredients in a clean and orderly manner.
The next step is, of course, the cooking process.
My mother first ordered me to prepare two pots filled with clean water, and activated the stove by inserting a fire elemental gem and setting the fire at the right degree needed to boil the water.
The rest was beyond my job, so I just watched from the side as my mother instructed Tizmilly to follow her steps as she inserted the ingredients one by one.
In the end, though the soup Tizmilly made wasn't as good as my mother's, she was actually not that bad at cooking. If I have to say it, then maybe she has the knack for cooking. She's talented.
As expected from the Villainess who always showed up to block Ahlia and her party in the game. She is truly a girl filled with high-level talents. What a waste the prince and her family had made by throwing her away.