Melina had never expected to have such trouble with a mere pastry. Sure, the bread dough was tough to get right the first time, and making puff pastry felt like an absolute nightmare at first. But choux pastry was on a different scale entirely, and she soon regretted having wanted to incorporate her healing caramel into something new.

The whole afternoon and evening after she gave the letter to Alistair, Melina concentrated fully on making the choux pastry. Mostly it was to keep her depressing thoughts at bay. But she did want to get the healing cream puffs right as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the first batch was… unusable. Aside from the first few pastries piped by Master Gilbert, the shape for the rest was far too inconsistent. Some were too small to be even considered pastries, and some were too large and had sunken in on themselves. Luckily for Melina, Sienna liked the flavor of the pastries and eagerly ate all of her failures.

The next batch was better. Few rare pastries actually looked the way they should and most were usable enough to be filled. The only downside was that during the piping process, Melina had accidentally squeezed too much dough out the other end, wasting a good portion of it.

"If you can't hold the bag closed then tie a knot at the end," Gilbert grumbled, watching the whole disastrous debacle as he cooked dinner for them both. A soup made from fresh sorrel which Melina had found on the far side of the garden.

"I've tried doing that, but when I tie the knot, some of the dough always comes out!"

"Then don't overfill the bag so much!"

Melina continued struggling with the choux, making a whole heap of them. Apparently, it was alright to make them even a day or two before serving which was great news. It meant she could prepare the choux the previous day and fill them in the morning.

The problem was that if Melina kept adding new things to the menu, she'd eventually run out of time to make them all. She'll either have to stop making some of the older pastries or have to rotate the selection by days. Rotation was plausible but it could leave some customers unsatisfied when they came for that one specific item they wanted.

If only we had somebody to help out. It would make it easier to offer new things, and the kitchen is easily large enough for two or three more people to work simultaneously.

But once again, the problem came down to money. Anyone they would try to hire would cost the money which at the moment, they didn't have. Hiring an apprentice could mitigate this issue, but Melina was already well aware of Gilbert's thoughts about apprentices.

[Skill <Chef's Intuition> has ranked up. It is now Rank C.]

"You're mocking me again, System?" Melina said in a huff. The notification appeared right after she had piped a rather odd-looking dollop of choux.

"One of your skills ranked up?" Gilbert asked, taking a sip of the soup.

"Chef's Intuition."

"Good. Maybe now you'll be able to pipe them properly," Gilbert grumbled.

Melina frowned, however, the following dollops she made indeed looked better than the previous ones. She would like to attribute it to the relentless practice she had. But the System probably had a hand in her improvement.

After eating sorrel soup with boiled eggs for dinner, Melina returned to her cooking experiments. She decided to use the least attractive-looking pastries for testing and practice. The next part sounded easy in theory but it once again involved the piping bag, which made her a bit nervous.

First, she had to make pastry cream for the filling. It felt odd that something she had been using for tarts could be used in another recipe. But on the other hand, it would make things easier. She'd just have to make a larger batch of pastry cream each evening, instead of making a completely new element.

With the pastry cream ready, all that was left to do was assemble the cream puffs.

"You're going to need to use two piping bags. First one for the caramel, then second for the pastry cream," Gilbert instructed.

"Can't I just fill the pastry with just the caramel?" Melina questioned. It would have a better healing effect then, so she'd rather not reduce the amount of caramel.

"Okay, try it," the old baker retorted.

Melina shrugged and did that. As well as she could. It was hard to figure out how to fill the fragile pastries with the caramel. They were airy in the middle, leaving nice empty space for filling. But how to get that filling inside was an issue.

Sometimes when Melina stuck the tip of the piping bag into the pastry, the cream would come out the sides. Sometimes she'd accidentally overfill it and break the pastry. Sometimes she had to "dig" through the pastry to find the empty cavity for the filling.

[You've made <Healing Caramel Puff – Rank D>. You've gained + 10 exp.]

But the first pastry she semi-managed to fill—part of the caramel oozed out the other end—Melina used to test the flavor. The first bite seemed wonderful. It was sweet and delicious, so she smiled triumphantly at Gilbert.

"Keep eating," he urged.

Melina cocked her head but took another bite. It was still tasty. She wasn't sure what he was getting at. Then she took another bite. The sweetness was beginning to overwhelm her tongue. Once she finished the whole pastry, she understood the problem.

"It's too sweet."

"Exactly. That's why nobody just stuffs a pastry full of caramel. Even your ooze caramel is too sweet for that. You need to balance it out with the not-so-sweet pastry cream, although even then you have to be careful. The whole thing might still be too sweet."

Melina decided to try different ratios of pastry cream to caramel, some with more caramel, and some with more cream. The healing ratio corresponded with it, as Master Gilbert checked them. Those with less caramel healed less, and those with more healed more.

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Unfortunately for Melina, the ones with a smaller ratio of caramel tasted better, meaning that the healing effect would once again get diluted.

[You've made <Healing Cream Puff – Rank C>. You've gained + 15 exp.]

[Congratulations! You've reached Level 8.]

"I'm gaining a lot of levels, but I'm not sure if I'm getting closer to the pastry that I want to make," Melina noted, looking thoughtfully at the cream puff.

"It has a decent healing effect. Any smaller injuries would close up in an instant," Gilbert noted as he inspected the pastry, likely looking at its System description.

"Yes, but wouldn't it be better if it could heal more serious injuries too? That's what the Guild would prefer, no?"

"Alright, let's sit down and think a little about this," Gilbert noted, putting the cream puffs down on the table. "Who are you making these cream puffs for?"

The question had caught Melina off-guard. She had been so caught up in the question of whether she could make the healing pastries, that she never stopped to wonder if she should. After all, it would once again paint a target on her back. Pastries that heal injuries, even small ones are bound to take the whole town, no—likely the whole kingdom by storm.

But on the other hand, Sunglow was constantly under attack by various monsters. Potions came in a limited supply so if a larger attack happened, like the previous raid, many warriors would be left injured and the town would become more vulnerable. Any type of healing supplies could easily change that.

"I'm doing it for the town," Melina said resolutely. "If I provide them with healing pastries, they'll be more inclined to protect me when the Church comes knocking."

"So you fully expect a confrontation with the Church?"

"Without a doubt. Heiliger already suspects me. I need to secure my position here, just like you have, so they wouldn't be able to take me away to the Church."

"So what you're hoping to gain from these is protection?" Gilbert lifted up the cream puff.

"Yes. If we sell these to the townsfolk, I'm sure they'll be more favorably inclined towards us too. Not to mention, that it could bring us a nice bit of profit."

"So you're intending to sell these at the bakery?" Gilbert asked skeptically. "You know that if you do that, there will be no going back. The Church will come after you sooner or later. And not just them. The nobles, the royals, heck even other countries will be interested in you. Is that really what you want?"

Melina paused and looked down at the pastry in her hands. She knew that what Gilbert said was right. Of course, she had known it all along, and yet she had still chosen to go to the Monster Realm. She had still chosen to try and make this healing pastry.

"This is who I am," Melina finally said. "I try to avoid trouble, but in the end, I can't just sit back and do nothing when I have the power to change things for the better. I know this whole thing could blow up in my face. I'm pretty certain it will eventually. But it'll also help a lot of people."

Gilbert nodded. "If you've made up your mind then I won't stop you. We'll sell these pastries in the bakery."

"Maybe you should try stopping me," Melina said skeptically.

"What right do I have to do that? I was just like you in my youth," the old baker let out something akin to a chuckle, then looked at the pastry again. "Besides, we don't have to openly announce to everyone that we're selling healing pastries. We could sell cream puffs without your caramel as a new addition, but for those in need we could "slip" in the caramel one."

"Oh! I like that idea," Melina hummed. "People will figure out that we have healing pastries sooner or later, but if we don't advertise them, the spread won't be as fast."

"Exactly. But if you intend to supply the Guild with healing pastries, you'll have to incorporate your caramel somewhere else."

"What? Why?" Melina asked, and Gilbert gave her a meaningful look. It didn't take long for her to understand. "Because these have to be eaten the same day they are made?"

"Pastry cream doesn't kept outside of the refrigerator," Gilbert noted.

"Which means the cream puffs can't be stored or transported reliably." Melina sighed. All this effort and in the end, she still hadn't accomplished her goal. Not fully at least.

Sienna nudged Melina's hand, looking piteously at the many cream puffs lining the kitchen table.

"Yeah, go ahead and eat them."

The wyrm did just that, eating the pastries with gusto. Melina was starting to worry about her diet. Perhaps, she needed to cut down on the amount of sugar the wyrm consumed.

"We need to make them something that can keep for a long time. Something easy to eat and carry around," Melina said.

"Food that can be carried around isn't easy to make. Meat buns are as close as I've come to that, but it's not like you can carry those around in battle," Gilbert noted.

"Something that can be carried to battle…" Melina said thoughtfully. Logically thinking, it seemed like such convenient food just didn't exist. It was too fragile. Even potion bottles could break in the heat of battle. "Wait, I got it!"

"Why is this so difficult?" Alistair mumbled, reading over the recipe for the hundredth time. He couldn't help but get a feeling that the sender didn't want him to figure out the location of the Architect.

Of course, I understand the need for caution. In the wrong hands, this information could bring disaster. But I don't think any person would be able to decode this.

Alistair had tried various decoding ciphers, starting from trying to piece a message together from the first letters and ending with a letter replacement method. He tried to find hidden meanings behind mundane words, but nothing coherent ever came out of it.

Maybe there isn't anything here at all, and the sender is just having a bit of fun at my expense.

But he dismissed the thought. Architects were real and one who knew about them, wouldn't mention them lightly. Part of Alistair wondered why the person writing the letter even trusted him with this information when they didn't know who he was. He certainly would never reveal any information to a stranger through a letter.

"Who are you?" Alistair found himself wondering as he traced the gentle curving of the letters. The delicate handwriting could only make him think of a woman, and the fact that this was written in the guise of a recipe instantly made Alistair think of Melina. The letter even described the recipe for a tart, something the girl had recently mastered.

But it couldn't be Melina. How could she even know the location of an Architect? It is absurd. She is nothing more than a… baker.

Alistair paused. The girl was anything but a baker. She was a System user. Tamer of an ember wyrm, and magic user. It honestly wouldn't surprise him, if she was hiding even more secrets.

"If Melina had written this? How would she hide the message?" Alistair muttered and read the letter one more time. He paused over some familiar words, something he felt she could use as keywords. Something they both knew about. He found more and more of them, and suddenly it began to fall into place.

It still took Alistair a considerable time to decipher the message. Sometimes it felt like he had missed something but after carefully looking through everything, time and time again, he managed to make sense of it.

He knew the location of the Architect. Without hesitation, he took the letter and all his notes and burned them.

"I need to get ready," he said to himself and rushed to get things he might need for a rather lengthy journey. The Guildmaster would probably be mad for him leaving so suddenly, but he'll just say that there was a matter he needed to settle at home. She couldn't stop a nobleman from going anywhere, even if he technically was under her command.

The only thing that made Alistair pause was Melina. He felt like he should go and say goodbye before leaving. He didn't know how long he might be gone after all. But, on the other hand, he knew that if he saw her, he'd ask her if she was the one who wrote the letter.

He wasn't sure how he'd react to Melina's reply no matter what it may be. If she said yes, would he get angry because she didn't tell him? If she said no, would he even believe her? He didn't know.

But Alistair knew that he needed to go and see the Architect, so that would be what he'd do. Once the matter with his odd skill was settled, he'd be able to face Melina with a much clearer mind.

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