I’m the Future Crazy Male Lead’s Mother Chapter 51

“Big Sis, where are we going? Can’t we do it at the training grounds?”

Leon asked as he followed behind me with a blank look in his eyes.

Behind him, the Black Hawks followed in two neat lines, like kindergarteners tagging along.

Their eyes were also filled with curiosity.

“Ahem. Rice cakes that you can’t eat at the training grounds, huh? Then are we going to eat garaetteok prepared using a different recipe this time?”

I had dragged them out of the training grounds while they were happily grilling lamb skewers and shouting about their usual pursuit of the culinary path. It seemed the Black Hawks were expecting me to give them some new kind of garaetteok.

Leon kept firing questions at me without even bothering to wipe the drool dripping from his mouth.

“Then are we going to cook the garaetteok with different seasonings this time?”

Hmm. Well, in Korea, rice cakes were often used as cooking ingredients.

I listened to his questions with one ear and let them go out the other as I continued walking with an indifferent expression. Our destination was a temporary storage shed built beside the area where we had made the rice fields.

“Hmmm. What could there be? A dish that you put garaetteok into. Ah! I feel like a tremendous idea just flashed through my mind.”

“…….”

“A dish where you put garaetteok into a red sauce and boil it! What do you think? It sounds like it would be spicy, sweet, and absolutely delicious!”

“……!”

How the hell did Leon know about tteokbokki?

I abruptly stopped walking, and Leon, who had been cheerfully approaching me, screeched to a halt.

“Oops. Big Sis, be careful. I almost trampled you.”

Leon let out a deep sigh while pitifully covering his broad shoulders with both hands.

“Argh! You bastard. Can’t you get away from me?”

“Ah, my nose!”

“Why did you stop all of a sudden?!”

Since I had stopped in shock at the mention of tteokbokki, the Black Hawks following behind me had toppled over like dominoes.

I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen it.

I quickly moved my legs and started heading toward our destination again.

“It’s not like that, Leon.”

“What? What do you mean, it’s not?”

“It’s not food.”

“Gasp!”

Leon gently covered his mouth with his hand like the tragic heroine of some old movie.

“Did I misunderstand? Sob.”

I looked at him pitifully as he prepared to wail about how terribly sad he was, then casually added,

“I’ll correct myself. It is food. But…”

“But?”

“Let’s say we’re just not ready to eat it yet…”

“……??”

I could practically see two question marks floating in Leon’s eyes, but I ignored him and turned around.

“Just follow me for now.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Yaaay!”

At Leon’s thunderous reply, the Black Hawks followed behind us, each of them squealing excitedly.

Did I bring them along for nothing?

If I hadn’t seen the serious side of the Black Hawks during the ‘Day of the Rift,’ I might still have regarded them as nothing more than trash.

But they were quite capable, and they also provided a fair amount of useful labor when it came to farming. So whenever something related to agriculture came up, I actively asked for their help.

No. This is too much for me to do alone.

The amount of rice I had harvested from the Viscount Evanroar estate earlier was considerably larger than I had expected, so I needed plenty of labor for what I was about to do.

“All right, everyone, come inside.”

I entered the temporary storage shed with the Black Hawks.

“Whoa…”

“Big Sis, what is all this?”

The moment the Black Hawks entered the shed, they widened their eyes and started making a huge commotion. Once I had confirmed that they were all inside, I pointed at the rice laid out before us.

“This is rice. We’re going to thresh it properly to obtain rice seeds, then go through the threshing and milling process to get the rice that we’ll use as an ingredient for garaetteok.”

“Ooh!”

“From now on, we’ll split into a team that threshes the rice to obtain the seeds and a team that sorts those seeds.”

The Black Hawks, who had gathered around me before I knew it, had their eyes sparkling.

“This is amazing! You mean those tiny things turn into that delicious garaetteok?”

“Yes.”

I gave a brief answer to their childishly enthusiastic questions before dividing them into two teams.

Normally, we wouldn’t need to do this just yet, but just in case.

There were two main tasks I wanted to accomplish today.

First, sorting the rice seeds.

Second, raising seedlings from the selected seeds.

According to my plan, neither of these tasks needed to be done yet. We could have waited a little longer.

But Elston might come up with a way to accelerate the growth of the rice, so I needed to prepare in advance.

It won’t hurt to do it ahead of schedule.

Among the two groups of Black Hawks, I assigned an assistant to the team that would thresh the rice to obtain the seeds.

“Lady Cilia!”

The white-haired veteran—or rather, Butler Carl—strode confidently into the storage shed looking for me.

“Oh, you’re here? These are the people.”

Carl nodded with a determined expression.

“They’re very sturdy slaves… Ah, no. Very strong and impressive knights.”

I decided not to tell him that these people were the Black Hawks. If I did, Carl might be so shocked that he’d burst the carp extract packets he was clutching in his hands.

For Carl’s sake, I decided to keep the Black Hawks’ identities a secret.

“Oh! Is this gentleman going to teach us how to obtain rice seeds?”

“Yes. Learn carefully.”

Upon seeing the Black Hawks’ sparkling eyes, Carl gave them a meaningful smile. With some undried carp extract still smeared around his lips, he spoke ominously.

“Heheheh.”

“This is excellent. Very good. Then, everyone, take that rice and follow me!”

“Yaaay!”

It was an ominousness I hadn’t seen back when Carl and I had spent an entire night threshing rice together.

Carl seemed indescribably delighted to have slaves—or rather, new workers—and left the storage shed singing cheerfully to himself.

In the now-empty storage shed, I looked at the remaining Black Hawks and pointed toward a large bowl.

“See here? There’s salt, right?”

Just as I said, the bowl was filled with a generous amount of salt.

“Why is there salt here, Big Sis?”

Leon, who had remained with the seed-sorting team, tilted his head in confusion.

I took the bowl and poured about half of the salt into a large basin of water I had prepared beforehand.

“We’re going to dissolve the salt in the water to make saltwater. We’ll use this to check whether the concentration is right.”

I picked up an egg that had been placed nearby.

“When you put this egg into the water, if it lies sideways on the surface, that means the salt has dissolved to the right concentration. Now, fill the basins in front of each of you with water and give it a try.”

“Uh… yes!”

Leon answered uncertainly, but I knew him.

He might look like the least trustworthy one of the bunch, but despite appearances, he was actually the best worker among them.

Just as I expected, Leon adjusted the saltwater concentration much faster than the other Black Hawks.

“Big Sis. What do we do now?”

Next, we had to put the rice seeds into the water and sort out the ones suitable for planting.

“All right, then, next…”

Once I explained how to sort the rice seeds, Leon understood immediately.

Thanks to the Black Hawks and Carl, the seed-sorting process proceeded smoothly.

 

***

 

“All right, that’s enough for today!”

“Haaah…”

Thanks to the Black Hawks, we finished much faster than I had expected.

By the time we had quickly finished sorting the rice seeds and even raised the seedlings, the outside was glowing red with the light of sunset.

“Good work, everyone. Get home safely.”

Everyone bowed their heads to me wearily, trudging along while draping their arms over one another’s shoulders.

For some reason, it felt like I was seeing a sense of camaraderie between comrades that hadn’t been there before.

“To think there’s this much hard labor involved before we can eat garaetteok…”

Leon passed by while muttering something into his notebook.

I patted the exhausted Carl, who was holding an empty carp extract packet in his hand, and headed toward my room.

“I-I think this is as far as I can go, Lady Cilia.”

Cough!

I gave Carl’s trembling hand a sympathetic look before letting him go.

Even after making full use of the Black Hawks’ labor, Carl seemed to have had a rough time.

For some reason, I was suddenly filled with guilt.

Even though Carl had volunteered to help in the first place, I decided that from now on, I should let him rest.

With that resolution in mind, I opened my bedroom door.

“Cilia! You’re back?”

The moment I opened the door, I heard Cedric’s voice.

When did he get here? If I’d known he was coming, I would’ve added him to today’s rice-seed-sorting work. What a shame.

“Wh-Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like a starving predator looking longingly at the food that just appeared in front of it…?”

Did I really look that murderous?

Oh, my.

“You’re such a joker.”

As my hand casually flew toward his shoulder, Cedric recoiled in horror.

Thanks to that, my hand sliced through empty air.

“W-Wait. Cilia. Before that, what’s that on your shoulder?”

Is this guy really trying to change the subject like this?

But Cedric was pointing at my shoulder with such exaggerated alarm that there really seemed to be something there.