The morning began much like any other for Melina. She woke up at the first rays of the sun, when most people were still soundly sleeping in their beds. Looking out of the window, the vegetables and fruits in the garden were growing nicely. It was a perfectly peaceful sight.

But Melina's heart was anything but peaceful. So many things were going through her mind, some good, some not so good. First, there was her relationship with Alistair. Never in her wildest dreams did she dare to hope that her feelings could be reciprocated. But yesterday at the festival, she and Alistair confirmed their feelings for each other and decided to become a pair.

She felt both happy and scared about the prospect. Commoner dating a nobleman wasn't generally accepted, even if Sunglowers might make you think otherwise. Duke Sinclair certainly wouldn't be happy about it, even if he did back off on Alistair marrying the princess.

But even putting that aside, Melina had many things to face in the future. First, the expedition from the Church would arrive in Sunglow sometime in late summer to explore the new passageway to the Monster Realm. Heiliger would definitely return along with them, and at this point, the whole town knew that Melina was not just a normal baker's apprentice.

According to Elowen, the past would inadvertently repeat itself as the Church would seek to sever the connection between the Human and Monster Realms. They were likely already training candidates to become the new [Archmage] and would gain the power that Melina had in her past life.

On top of that, Monster Lord remembered what Melina had done in her past life and was sending assassins her way. Thinking back on it, ever since the time rewind, monsters had always targeted her. During their trip to Pertia and back, the Hobgoblin and Nightshade wolves went after her specifically and ignored everyone else.

"Oh, Sienna… How am I to manage all of this?" She asked her little wyrm familiar, who was still sleeping in her stone trough.

Sienna let out a lazy chitter and stretched out her limbs. She was still a little sluggish after being poisoned by the drow assassin, but she was on her way to full recovery.

"This is serious… Not to mention this…" Melina said and pointed at the ice egg sitting on her desk.

Yet another problem on her plate. In the heat of the moment, she rushed to save the egg, but she didn't think about what would happen afterwards. The egg would eventually hatch. Melina didn't even know what the egg held—she was no expert in monster eggs. The elves couldn't pinpoint what monster egg it was, either, and Etrian thought it would be fun to keep it as a surprise.

"I just hope you're not aggressive," Melina muttered to the egg, gently brushing its icy surface with her finger.

She could feel the mana flow of the creature growing within. It was much stronger than initially, but it was still relatively weak. Melina guessed that it would still be a while before the creature hatched.

"Sienna, what will you do if we have a monster spewing ice around here?" Melina questioned.

The wyrm noticeably shuddered and let out a dissatisfied puff of smoke.

"We can't just throw it out now."

Sienna let out a sad chitter. It appeared it felt sorry for the little creature in the egg as well. But she didn't have a good relationship with cold, so that likely made the wyrm nervous. Ice was her weakness after all.

"We'll figure something out. The garden is large. I'm sure we can find a place for both of you. If this little guy doesn't grow too big…" Melina sighed, and decided that thinking more about the unborn creature would be fruitless. It was time to begin the day at the bakery.

Once Melina washed up and got dressed, she headed downstairs. Master Gilbert was already up, preparing an omelet for breakfast.

"Good morning, Master," Melina greeted him.

"Good morning, Melina and Sienna. How is Sienna feeling?" Gilbert asked.

"Much better today," Melina said, and Sienna chittered in approval.

"That's good. It looks like there won't be any long-term repercussions on her health. But should we be worried? Will more assassins be sent after you?" Gilbert questioned.

"Yes… That is likely. Master, if you don't want to deal with it, I understand. I'll leave—"

"Nonsense! You think the Church didn't send assassins my way after I left their ranks. Ha! I've beaten more of them than you can think of," Gilbert snorted.

"But these guys are sent by the Monster Lord himself," Melina objected.

"An assassin is an assassin, doesn't matter if monster or not," Gilbert shrugged. "So are you adding those festival pastries to our regular assortment or not?"

"Of course! In fact, I want to make a whole line of pastries that could be used by adventurers. I definitely want something against poisons, so I wouldn't have to worry about anyone slipping anything into our food. Do you think it would be possible to create pastries that provide the eater with strength buffs?"

"Calm down! Let's do one thing at a time. You want something against poison, you need to find an antidote first. Something tasty too," Gilbert said, setting three hot omelets on the table.

One had thick slices of bacon—that's how Master Gilbert liked it. One had a generous helping of cheese—Melina's favorite. And the final one was bright red, as it had a whole scorchvine pepper in it, along with chili flakes. It was Sienna's favorite.

"I suppose going into the Monster Realm and trying to find something wouldn't be the smartest option. With the whole assassin business going on," Melina said, taking a bite of her cheesy omelet.

"No, but you might be forced to do that. I certainly don't know of any tasty antidotes. Maybe you know some from your Archmage days," Gilbert asked.

"I wish I did, but antidotes are notorious for tasting atrocious. The more potent they are, the more horrible the taste," Melina admitted.

She wasn't sure if it was even possible to make a tasty antidote pastry. She barely managed to make a tasty healing pastry. Antidote would be so much harder.

"I'll see what I can do with the ingredients we have. Maybe I can make something by combining sapmelons and feyfruit," Melina mused while eating.

"It's worth a shot," Gilbert nodded. "But what are we offering for today? What about those festival pastries?"

"I don't think I could make all of them every day. Besides, people probably don't want to overload on sweets all the time."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Indeed. So what do you think we should do?"

"Sell them on rotation? On Monday, we could sell the Wyrm Eclairs and Sunglow Cream Puffs. Maybe some pear rolls. Tomorrow we could sell muffins and then on Wednesday we could switch to Shimmertarts," Melina offered.

"Sounds good to me. You should probably make a proper daily menu. We'll keep selling bread and savory pastries every day without change," Gilbert said.

"Yeah, many use them for lunch. We should probably offer a larger variety of savory pastries."

"Aren't you biting off more than you can chew right now?"

"Yes, you're right. Let's focus on one thing at a time. First, make a menu of sweet, magical pastries on rotation and then figure out an antidote pastry," Melina said.

"Good! I don't want you overworking yourself again. Your lover likely won't be as lenient if you collapse again," Gilbert warned.

"Yes, I suppose Alistair will be angry…" Melina admitted, sheepishly scratching his cheek.

Gilbert stared at her for a while.

"What?" She questioned.

"You didn't deny that he's your lover this time…"

"I… Um… Yeah…" Melina said, her cheeks flushing red.

Gilbert sighed. "I knew this was going to happen. Just know that this boy comes with his own set of problems."

"Don't all people?" Melina retorted.

"I suppose you're right," Gilbert nodded, then finished his omelet. "Alright, enough chatting. We've got pastries to make."

***

The first thing each morning was making bread dough. This time it would be for their partial rye bread. It sounded a bit weird, but it was basically a cross between regular white bread and rye bread. Not as dense as real rye bread and fluffier, but also healthier than regular white bread.

It had a unique flavor which Melina personally liked as did many people in Sunglow. It wasn't quite as popular as their sourdough bread or pumpkin seed bread, but there were still plenty of people who wanted it.

Another good thing about partial rye dough was the fact that it didn't require as much kneading. Two or three minutes, and it was good to go. This dough would rest for two hours until it was ready to be shaped into loaves and loaded into the oven.

Once the bread dough was resting, Melina turned her attention to choux pastry. She'd have to make several batches of it to have enough for both eclairs and cream puffs. The batches couldn't be too large either, otherwise it became all too easy for the dough to overcurdle or become clumpy.

Thankfully, her high rank in <Chef's Intuition> gave her a good idea of when things were about to go wrong. Like a little tingle in the back of her mind telling her that if she kept the dough on the heat any longer, it would burn.

After the dough was ready, it was time to make the filling. The base for both was a simple pastry cream. Melina still had to be careful while making it. One wrong move and the cream would curdle and would become unusable. Just before the festival, she rushed a bit too much with the cream and it became curdled, forcing them to throw out a whole pot's worth of cream.

But this morning, she was careful, and the cream turned out great. The last thing on her list was the glaze for the eclairs. It wasn't too difficult. Melina had to heat some heavy cream in a saucepan and then melt some chocolate in it. It was a good thing that they made a steady profit from the bakery, because chocolate wasn't exactly cheap. Thankfully, they only needed a little bit for the glaze.

Once the chocolate melted, Melina added a bit of butter and the tiniest smidgen of finely chopped scorchvine pepper. The little heat from it worked well with the delicate pastry cream, but even so, she had to be careful. The pepper was incredibly spicy.

"Sienna, could you light up the oven?" Melina asked, still worried about her familiar health.

Sienna ran up to the oven and let out a plume of smoke out of her mouth.

"It might be too much for her yet," Gilbert said.

"It's okay. We'll light it up the old way," Melina said, reaching for the matches. But Sienna stubbornly shook her head and shot a powerful fireball into the oven.

"You didn't have to push yourself," Melina reprimanded, but hurriedly put firewood into the oven.

Sienna lit it up with a gentle flame, and just like that, the oven was ready for use. Gilbert began loading the first batch of bread into the oven, while Melina piped her oblong eclairs. After fifteen minutes in the oven, they were ready.

While waiting for them to cool, Melina piped the round cream puffs and loaded them into the oven. There wasn't a moment when she or Gilbert would be sitting without work. Initially, this fast pace was a bit hard for Melina to follow. She still remembered the first time she made lamb pastry bundles. She hadn't made anything else that day.

But now, she was far more comfortable at multitasking. Once cream puffs were in the oven, she began filling eclairs with pastry cream. It was still a bit too warm for her liking, but the chill box wasn't cooling it down fast enough, and unfortunately, they didn't have any more time to wait.

Maybe that ice critter could help us out with cooling down the pastry cream. I'd certainly appreciate that since I can't afford the refrigerator anymore after buying the egg.

But currently, it was nothing more than a faraway dream. As she finished filling the eclairs with cream, she pulled cream puffs out of the oven. Then she returned her attention to the eclairs and covered them with the chocolate-scorchvine pepper glaze while using the <Preservation Glaze> skill. This would help the eclairs to remain fresh for far longer.

[You've made <Wyrm Eclair – Rank C>. You've gained + 3 exp.]

Another 30 such notifications appeared, and Melina sighed. Normally, they'd be rank B or even Rank A, but since the cream hadn't cooled properly, the rank of the pastry was reduced.

"What's the long sigh about?" Gilbert asked.

"Oh, no… The rank was lower than I hoped. I think the cream was too warm," she said.

"Yes, that seems likely. Normally we'd make the cream in advance, but with the festival going on yesterday…"

"Can we sell them?" Melina asked nervously and gave one eclair for Gilbert to inspect.

"Rank C, but… Oh, I didn't even notice this before, but you applied an effect to these," Gilbert said.

"An effect?"

"Yes, it says that these eclairs provide a small resistance to fire," Gilbert noted.

"Interesting…" Melina hummed in delight, looking at the eclairs. She had been hoping for an antidote, but a pastry that could resist fire would be equally useful. She decided to experiment with peppers later to strengthen the effect. Perhaps a bit of <Arcane Infusion> was all she needed.

She continued making bread and pastries, which resulted in her reaching Rank D for her <Preservation Glaze> skill. This meant that any pastries made with this skill remained good for 2 days without any refrigeration. She couldn't have asked for a better skill in this hot weather.

She also reached level 24 as [Arcane Baker], meaning that she had one more level left to go until the System would offer her a new skill to choose.

With bread and pastries prepared, it was time for the most tiresome time of the day—service. Although she had grown more accustomed to dealing with customers, it was still tiresome. As she set the pastries on the shelf, she worried whether her magic pastries might suddenly attract somebody dangerous.

But as she went outside and turned on the sign, her worries melted away. Adventurers were marching towards the bakery, chatting and laughing among themselves. At the very front of them walked Alistair, who smiled brilliantly at Melina.

"Good morning," he greeted her with a wave and, without hesitation, pulled her into a hug.

Some whistles resounded from the adventurers.

"Captain, you're being bold this morning!" Barrett said.

"There's nothing wrong with greeting my beloved with a hug, is there?" He retorted, forcing Melina to flush.

"You two are together?!" Barrett explained in surprise.

"I'm surprised it took them so long," Remi shrugged. "But congrats, Melina! Don't you run away from us now that you've got a rich husband."

"We're not married yet!" Melina said through flushed cheeks. "Besides, I got pastries to sell."

Behind the bunch of adventurers, a familiar head of red hair emerged, looking at Melina and Alistair. For a moment, Melina was worried about how Leliana would react.

But the redhead just smiled. "Congratulations, you two!"

"Thank you," Melina replied, but then Leliana pulled on her sleeve gently.

"Don't forget that you promised to introduce me to that silver elf."

Oh! I completely forgot!

Melina had no clue how she would introduce Lelian to Elowen. He was concerned with the world's future and preventing another apocalypse. How'd he react to a human girl suddenly showing interest in him?

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