My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 9 (Light Novel)

"She was so fast!" Regina exclaimed in shock.

"Yeah. Incredible, huh?" Larna agreed.

What did I tell you? Maria is the best.

"Now that we're all here, we should taste them," Regina said, giving each of us a small plate and a fork.

"Yay! Finally!" I said. After pushing around that cart full of food, I was starving. I took the first bite without waiting even a second.

"Th-this is..."

"I-Is it bad?" Maria asked, worried.

"Not at all! It's delicious. I knew that you were a good cook, but this is the first time I got to eat something just as soon as you cooked it. And it's great!" I explained, and Maria's face broke into a smile.

"She's right. This is really good," Regina said, putting a hand to her cheek.

"As if you can tell? I mean, it is good though," Larna said as she moved her fork to take another bite.

Even Sora was murmuring, "Delicious..." as he kept eating, looking impressed.

"I know, right? Maria's a great cook. She wouldn't even lose to a pro," I declared, proud of my friend.

"Lady Katarina, you are exaggerating..." she said, shaking her head as she blushed.

Regina, after complimenting the taste once, had just kept on eating silently. She eventually stood up.

"This is good! You're on par with the professional cooks I've hired before! Maria, get back to cooking! We're going to serve your dishes!"

"Do you mean...right away?!"

Maria was the one who had offered to cook in the first place but, now that she was suddenly told to do it, she looked taken aback.

"Exactly! Right away!" Regina smiled and ignored Maria's shock. "It's almost time for dinner, and I want to serve the things you make. Let's start preparing!"

She sounded so convinced of what she was saying that we, as her employees, could only do as she had said, and so we started preparing for dinner according to her orders.

The Harbor Restaurant was now open for dinner.

I changed into the waitress uniform I'd received and went to the dining room.

Maria was supposed to wait tables with me but now she was working in the kitchen, and Sora was standing in a corner as a bouncer.

The old woman who normally worked here and I were the only two waitresses. Regina was standing behind the counter to serve drinks, so she wouldn't come out among the customers.

The old couple came in about one hour before opening. They were calm, kind people who had been working here since the start of the restaurant, making them almost more knowledgeable about it than Regina herself. The old woman gave me a detailed explanation on what I was supposed to do and then told me to come and tell her if I had any problems. Those words gave me strength, but as I was standing there waiting for the store to open, I felt anxious.

I hadn't worked as a waitress since my previous life, after all. Back then, I'd gotten to the point that the restaurant manager would even praise me for my work, but things were probably different in this world. I wondered whether I would be able to do it...but then again, no point in worrying. I just had to do it!

Right when I'd found the motivation not to give up, I heard the shopkeeper's bell ring and saw the first customer walk in.

"Welcome!" I said with a smile.

The shopkeeper's bell rang as the last customer for the night walked out.

"Thank you! Please come again!" I said before letting out a sigh of relief.

All the anxiety I had at first quickly disappeared as the training and experience from my previous life kicked in, and I somehow managed to finish my first shift as a waitress in this world.

If anything, this was much easier than working at a Japanese family restaurant. There were only a few items on the menu, I could jot down the orders on paper instead of inputting them at a computer terminal, and as Regina had told us before, there weren't that many customers.

"You did well, girl," the old woman who was working with me said with a smile.

"Thank you!" I answered, blushing at her compliment. Just then, Regina also walked out from behind the counter to approach me.

"I was surprised. When I read about your experience, I thought you wouldn't be able to do much at all, but you proved me wrong. The customers praised you as well."

"Th-thank you!" I stammered, blushing even more. I wasn't used to being praised.

"We had more customers than usual today, so I'm glad you were here helping me out," the old woman said.

"You usually get fewer people?" I asked, confused. It wasn't as completely deserted as Regina had said, but I thought that she was just being humble.

"Yes. Usually most of the seats are empty," Regina admitted without batting an eye, "but the news that we're serving Maria's cooking instead of just warming up stuff like usual spread throughout the neighborhood. The customers liked her dishes, so tomorrow could be just as busy as today."

Her eyes were already sparkling at the idea.

When she first explained to us about the restaurant, she sounded so detached, but maybe that was just because she'd lost motivation thanks to the lack of customers.

"Maybe we could even fill the whole place up, like when the restaurant had just opened," the old woman mused as she looked at Regina warmly.

I was looking at the women, feeling happy for them, when Sora came back. He'd been checking outside the store and putting out the "Closed" sign.

"Well done. Nobody seeing you work like that could guess that you're a noblewoman," he told me.

"Hehe, thank you!"

I'd never received so much praise in a single day since I was reborn.

"So, how did things go?" he asked me.

"Very well! A lot of customers came in to try Maria's cooking, and maybe tomorrow will be just as busy too. We'll have to give our best!" I proclaimed, shaking my fists with enthusiasm, but Sora sighed.

"I meant, how did our mission go? Did you get any information on the kidnapping?"

"Ah!"

I was so busy waiting tables that I'd completely forgotten about our mission!

"You forgot about it, didn't you? Just as I thought. You probably had your hands full though, it being your first day as a waitress," he said with scary accuracy.

"S-Sorry..."

"But if there are even more customers tomorrow, gathering information will also be even more difficult," he said.

I thought that the restaurant being busy was a good thing, but that also meant that I couldn't concentrate on my mission.

"You're right... What can we do?" I said, concerned.

"Don't worry," Regina, who was listening to our conversation, intervened.

"Huh?" I looked at her in confusion as she smiled.

"I'll be the one gathering information." she said.

"You? How?" I asked, remembering that, the entire time the restaurant had been open today, she never left her counter in the corner, making drinks. That is, pouring already made drinks from bottles into glasses.

She was only listening to the chitchat of the customers sitting close to her, probably trying to hit on her, and she didn't even seem particularly interested in that. She certainly didn't look like she was gathering any information.

"I'm actually a Wind Magic user, you see. And by using that magic, I can control the vibrations in the air to pick up on distant sounds. I can hear pretty much everything that goes on inside this restaurant," she said, explaining her unbelievable trick.

"And you're gathering information like this all the time while the store is open?"

"Yes. I'm always listening to people talking."

That's incredible! She looked like she was just half-heartedly listening to the customer in front of her but she was actually working! She's a respectable Ministry employee after all, I thought, but...

"Well, to be honest I'm mostly listening to local rumors and such because standing there doing nothing is too boring. I get to learn a lot about this town," she said, making me unsure of what I was supposed to think about her. Was she a respectable worker or not?

"And did you hear anything about the kidnapping?" Sora asked.

"Uhm..." she replied, "I didn't hear anything about that today. But the more customers we get, the more likely we are to find something." She then looked at me and said with a smile, "If you all work hard, I'm sure we'll find the information you need!"

So we basically had to bring in even more customers.

"Anyway, I'll worry about the intel, so you can focus on waiting tables," she concluded before disappearing to the back of the restaurant.

Knowing that I could focus on just one thing was a relief, at least.

When most of the cleaning up was done, the old couple went home, and Sora and I finished tidying the dining area.

Maria was still in the kitchen, preparing for the next day. She looked tired after...