The big wooden double door swung open and the maid led us into a spacious room filled with lots of large tables and benches arranged in straight rows throughout the room. All things considered, it looked like your typical high school canteen except with a medieval touch to it. Here, with practiced expertise, six other staff members were filling up one central table with food. There were a variety of dishes, from pastries to fruits, to whole roasted birds and even one whole pig carried on a small cart. The only thing that looked out of place was that only one table was filled up with food in this dining room clearly built in mind to easily serve over 100 people at a time.
Oh, and if this is what they call breakfast, I am kind of scared to stay for dinner.
“Please take a seat and feel free to start your meal. Other Heroes will join you shortly.” said our maid and escorted us directly towards the table stuffed with food. Besides giving a small bow, the staff ignored us and continued filling up the table with food.
Without any further prodding from the maid, I sat down and looked around the table. Settling on some slices from a deeply roasted chunk of meat of unknown to me origins, I took a generous serving for myself and dug in.
Not exactly sure if it is the hunger speaking in me, but damn this is for sure the best slice of meat I've ever tasted. Texture-wise, it didn’t even feel like meat, more like fat since it melted in my mouth. I haven’t eaten before stuff like Kobe beef, but from the description alone, I’d say it’s something similar. I looked around the table, there were no sources for the meat or something like mustard. Shame.
While I was already shoving the 5’th slice of meat in my mouth, Arthur just sat down on the opposite bench, facing me, and started carefully picking on the dishes in front of him. He was acting rather reserved but after tasting the food, his speed steadily increased, and very soon he was wolfing down food as if there is no tomorrow, just like me.
“Try those before I finish them.” Arthur shoved a plate with 3 pastries on it to me.
“Thanks” Since there were around 10 pieces at the beginning, I took the entire plate from him. He gave me a stinky eye but otherwise didn’t comment. The pastry was triangular and with a very fluffy, croissant-like texture. One bite into the pastry revealed that it had a sweet, milky white cream.
Holy cow...
Man, why in the heck is this so good! I mean, on the outside, this just looks like a simple pastry with some sweet cream as filling, but damn, the taste is anything but ordinary.
I think that the “Holy cow” was literally milked to create this filling because I have no other idea of why they are so delicious.
“This is for sure the best meal that I had in quite a while." Arthur said while looking at the plate with pastries that was near me, probably already regretting that he decided to share.
“More like ever.” Seeing him looking at the remaining 2 pastries on the plate I smirked and gave him an understanding look. I took one for myself and offered the last one to him.
He snatched it right away with a curt “Thanks”.
Before I managed to take a bite, the big double door to the dining room opened up and both mine and Arthur's head snapped towards that direction. The one who opened the door was a maid. Just like the one that led us here, she had the same classical, french like maid outfit with black hair tied in a ponytail. She also had glasses. More importantly though, behind her was a girl of 19-20 years of age with light brown and rather unkempt hair that reached her shoulders.
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Shortly after the maid and girl entered the dining area, the doors opened once again to reveal another duo, this time a maid and a guy. The guy didn't have any discernible features about him except maybe his rather long black hair and bangs that covered half of his forehead. Judging from his neglected facial hair, I had a suspicion that both were allowed to grow because the guy found it a hassle to take care of it rather than anything else-- a sentiment that I found myself often sharing. He looked younger than me, maybe around 18.
Both newcomers, just like me and Arthur, were wearing a white, large sleeveless shirt and a pair of gray trousers-- with sandals on their legs. Where in the heck did they get those? The sight made me more acutely feel the cold stone on my bare feet. More importantly, though, there seems not to only be a lack of diversity in clothing, but in size too since the shirts and pants that the newcomer duo was wearing were clearly way too big for them. This especially was the case for the girl which was unsurprisingly the most petite out of the 3 of us. The shirt was comically big for her since it reached her mid-thigh and the neck opening looked more like a decollete, though it wasn’t revealing enough to show anything of interest.
The two maids lead the newcomers to our table and said their most likely already prepared lanes of: “Please take a seat and enjoy your meal, your questions will be answered shortly afterward”. After that, the 2 maids together with the other staff retreated to an adjacent room. Kitchen? Most likely.
“Hi, don’t feel shy you two, take a seat.” Arthur took charge and indicated at the place on the bench near him. “We also came not long ago and just started to dig into the food.”
“Yes, thank you.” the girl said and took her seat some distance away from Arthur. The guy on the other hand just sat down near me without a word.
“I am Arthur by the way.” With his hand extended towards the girl and a smile on his face, Arthur introduced himself.
“Alice” She simply supplied without taking his hand.
Not allowing the situation to get awkward, he used his already extended hand and pointed at me. “This is Edward,” he introduced me without any note of annoyance or displeasure in his voice. Pretty smooth.
“Just Ed is fine.” I waved my hand and nodded my head at her. She reciprocated.
“And you…” Arthur trailed off while looking at the new guy.
“Mm? M-my name?” Jerking his head up, the guy looked at Arthur than at me with nervous eyes. His upper body twitched and his shoulders slumped even more than they already were. His body language was pretty much screaming ‘PANIC’ at this point. “You, uh, can call me N- NightKnight.” He then nodded his head 2 times “Yes, NightKnight, call me that.” The affirmation to himself seemed to give him some self-confidence since he straightened up somewhat and even his voice didn’t crack as much. “Sometimes I go for KnightOfNight when the original is not available though I will not mind if you just call me Knight for short.” he concluded with another nod of his head.
“Riight,” Arthur seemed taken aback and at a loss for words though he recovered fast and extended a hand to him “well, nice to meet you… Nait”
“Eh, Night also sounds good I guess. Nice to meet you too Arthur” Nait vigorously shook Arthur’s hand with a bright smile on his face. His personality morphing right before my eyes. “So, you are THAT Arthur, right? The Pendragon one?” Nait asked with a knowing expression on his face.
The Pendragon in question smiled awkwardly, clearly not expecting this kind of development. “No, not really, I am a simple Arthur, not the Pendragon kind.”
Nait took his denial in stride. “There is no need to hide it.” he waved his hand dismissively and smirked at him knowingly once again. “Even if you didn’t awaken your powers just yet, you surely will on our epic quest to slay the Demon Lord.”
“Sure” said Arthur with the same awkward smile plastered on his face while turning his head and looking at me for help.
I couldn’t think of anything to say at the moment since in my head I was celebrating that I am not the only one that thinks that we got Isekai'ed. So in turn I looked at Alice, hoping that she had anything to say-- nope, she was completely ignoring our conversation and was more focused on shoving as much food in her mouth as she can.
Stop. My eyes glittered as I saw something valuable near Alice. Apparently, the stuff put another plate of pastries on the table while I wasn’t looking. Without any more delay, I grabbed the whole plate and brought it near me. Seeing what I have done, Arthur immediately secured his share. I smiled at him and he smiled back.
Alice looked at our exchange in silence and asked: “Are they good?”
“No, not really.” Arthur replied while already shoving some in his mouth.
Apparently, he didn’t sound convincing enough since she snatched one pastry from my plate. One bite into it and her expression transformed into a blissful one. She wolfed down the remaining part and looked at me with eyes that promised repercussions if I didn’t share.
Cute. That’s what I thought while I let her have some more