The Abandoned White Magician’s Tea Life

Translator: Sunnyshies

Editor: Ryuubii

Chapter 23 : Breakfast for Three

Unlike Yugo, who is basically a carnivore, Amalia and Leonardo, who are human, need to eat a balanced diet.

‘Leonardo, as I recall, likes a little bitterness, too. If so, let’s try to make the dressing a little more bitter than usual.’

Amalia is not very picky about food, so she doesn’t mind adjusting to Leonardo’s taste.

She opened the lid of the leftover dressing and transferred a small amount of it to a bowl. Then, from the basket full of herbs, she picked out the ones she needed.

The village is basically based on agriculture, but there are herbs, edible flowers, and fruits that can be harvested in the open fields. It seemed that no one in Polk was familiar with edible plants, so Amalia asked Bruno’s permission before collecting them.

Herbs and flowers can be used to make homemade tea when teapots become available, and fruits and nuts can be used to enhance the flavor of tea. Some flowers contain very sweet nectar that can be used as a sweetener instead of precious honey or sugar.

She took some herbs with a nice scent and a slight bitterness, then rinsed them in water and finely chopped them.

This herb does not have a strong smell when it grows, but when it is chopped, the inner juice oozes out and the aroma becomes stronger. The same effect can be obtained by grinding it, but the juice tends to make hands and utensils sticky, so it is easier to chop it.

She added the chopped herbs to the dressing and mixed it. It would take a while for the flavors to soak in, so in the meantime, she washed the vegetables and made a salad, and since Yugo had already lit the stove, she made soup.

She heated up the leftover bread, and when the soup began to simmer, the hallway began to buzz with activity.

“Mom! I finished bathing!”

“You didn’t give Leonard any trouble, did you?”

“Don’t run!”

Yugo ran into the kitchen, jumping up and down, and then Leonardo came in a few seconds later. They both looked like father and son for a moment, since both of them had washed their hair and it was still wet, and they both happened to have golden hair.

Leonardo and Yugo have similar shades of hair color, while Yugo and Amalia are supposed to be mother and son.

Which means―

‘…no, no, the only resemblance is in the hair color, they’re not father and son!’

Feeling embarrassed by her own self-indulgent thoughts, Amalia quickly averted her gaze and stirred the pot with a ladle. If Leonardo found out that she was thinking like this, he would probably give her a strange look.

Soon breakfast was ready and she took it to the living room. She asked Leonardo to take care of the plates, while Yugo, who wanted to help, carried the bowl of dressing.

Today’s menu consisted of warmed bread, soup, salad with special dressing, and the leftover tea from yesterday’s dinner. The black tea had a characteristic of being slightly darker in color and more fragrant if left overnight.

“Did you have any problems giving Yugo a bath?”

Amalia asked while eating her breakfast, and Leonardo, who was tearing apart a loaf of bread, nodded with a smile.

“Yes, he was much less of a handful than the kids in the orphanage…but I thought that since Yugo is a dragon, he would have scales all over his body, but that’s not the case.”

“Hmm?… ah, sure, sure.”

For a moment, she couldn’t make sense of Leonardo’s words, but she soon understood.

Unlike Leonardo, Amalia’s first glimpse of Yugo’s human form is when he was completely naked. So she knew that his body was no different from that of a human child, and that there were no scales or tail marks on his body. But from Leonardo’s point of view, it would not be surprising to see scales under his clothes.

Yugo was drinking a bowl of soup with pieces of meat next to Amalia, but he seemed to have heard their conversation and looked up with a spoon in his hand.

“I’m working hard so that I can study this world as a human being. Actually, it would be easier if I kept my claws and fangs in this form, but I thought that wouldn’t work, so I decided to use the form of a child that Mom would recognize.”

“Me?”

Amalia as well as Leonardo reacted to this first-hand information.

Yugo nodded and said as he took a bite out of his spoon.

“While I was in the Demon World, I could see a little bit of what was going on in my mom’s head. When I did that, I could see what many human children looked like. So, I pieced together that information to create my current form.”

“D-did you really do that?”

“Un… I’m sorry that I took the liberty to look inside your head, mom. But I only saw a small part of it. It’s just a scene that my mom has seen and experienced.”

‘…so that’s how it is. That’s why, despite his ignorance of human life, he didn’t look much different from a normal child, and he can even speak the language.’

If the source of the information was the children that Amalia used to take care of at the orphanage, it is understandable that Yugo’s body structure was the same as that of a human child, except for the color of his hair and eyes, and his exceptionally beautiful face, it could be understood. In the first place, the dragon race and the Demon World seem to be beyond Amalia’s imagination, so perhaps it is uncalled for to go into it.

Afterwards, the three of them proceeded with their meal, talking about trivial things. Yugo wanted to talk actively, but he sat quietly while Amalia and Leonardo talked about the past. Yugo must have been concerned about Amalia and Leonardo in his own way, and was trying not to disturb them.

After breakfast, Amalia left Leonardo to clean up the dishes as she had requested, and went to the bathroom. Yugo had reheated the water earlier, so even though it was the second bath, she was able to soak in the warm water.

‘…It looks like Yugo and Leonardo get along better than I thought.’

Amalia thought as she washed her hair, then she gathered them all up in a towel, and soaked in the bathtub. While she was quietly soaking in the bath alone, she could faintly hear Leonardo and Yugo talking in the kitchen on the other side of the wall.

Leonardo is just a mercenary who uses Amalia’s house as his main residence, but as a person who is taking care of a boy, even though his true identity is a dragon, his presence is very much appreciated. She doesn’t mind helping a five-year-old boy to wash his body or teach him how his body works, but an adult of the same sex will be able to help him more easily.

“…I’m glad Leonardo is here.”

Her mumblings echoed louder than she expected inside the small bathroom, and she sank herself down to her nose, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

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