บท 70: Taste of Freedom
"Get your pizza! One buck a piece! Or hell, take it for free! It ain't costing us nothing!"
Yu leaned against a wall and narrowed her eyes at the pale haired teenager speaking in a volume that just didn't match his expression... which was creepy as shit but she was used to it... Anyway, was this really what they were supposed to be doing?
"Is this really what we're supposed to be doing?... Like y'know, I thought we were saving humanity or something..." She commented offhandedly, crossing her arms under her chest like she had something more than mosquito bites.
Gudako, standing nearby, just shrugged her hands with vacant almond eyes, "It'll be fine, senpai..." The girl's head mechanically turned Yu's way, "Besides, do you think anyone can stop him?"
"I guess you're right." Yu nodded slowly, scratching the back of her head.
They'd arrived in the city a while back, having to sit through the hero's welcome Rome's people gave an Emperor that was mocked and belittled in modern times, and then Nicholas had pitched the idea of his stall in the middle of the biggest market in the city.
The Emperor... somehow agreed... talking about how it would do her people good to relax a little and gave them a man who would appropriate whatever they needed... She then left, declaring that they would be back soon.
And it really was the biggest market considering the hustle and bustle all around even though the sun was setting, painting a rather picturesque sight... unfortunately, all her companions were some variant of the Neanderthal species so they couldn't properly appreciate the diversity and colour.
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"Ey Emiya, why is no one coming over?" Nicholas looked over at the cook behind the stall, preparing pineapple pizza with traces of dried tears on his face... The dude was being all weird cause of some weird cooking principle and how he was making him desecrate food.
The servant stared at him pensively for a few moments before sighing, "Have a look around, if you can't figure it out. I'll tell you."
Nodding, Nicholas looked around.
"Nothing wrong here."
Their stall was the one you usually found at festivals.
"We have hot and cute chicks as serving girls." He gestured to Kiyohime, Jalter and Marie... the latter teaching the former two about how to greet customers, "And we also got the best cooks in... er... a shitton of timelines. Besides, Gudako and Yu fucked off so there's no buzzkills or creeps nearby neither."
They even had BB as a poster girl, sitting on top of the stall and playing with her feet... Hell, Mashmallow herself was handing out fliers.
"We're foreigners you dumb fu-..." Archer cut himself off and wiped his face with a hand before letting out an exasperated sigh.
Nicholas tilted his head in confusion.
Was it really a big deal that someone wasn't native?
Wait... was that why people were just staring at them from a distance like some sort of zoo showpiece?
Sighing, Nicholas headed into the back of the stall, "I didn't think we'd need this but... eh, some people feeling racist today."
The teenager leaned down and pulled something from an isolated compartment. He then sauntered over to the outside and fixed it on one of the stall's supports by literally punching a nail into it.
"...Master, I think that's a bit..." Emiya was left at a loss of words.
Even Martha, who'd been silent up till now and just humming and cooking, was brought out of her dreamy state, staring in awe.
And not without good reason.
Nicholas... had fixed a plaque to the stall that read,
'Authentic Roman Cooking, approved by Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.'
A few moments passed in silence before a lone brave soul decided to test fate and walked up to the stall.
It was an average dude with greying hair and judging brown eyes wearing a knee-length and short-sleeved tunic. He inspected all of them, even Nicholas, before letting out a judgmental grunt and walking up to the counter.
"What up, dude? You can have yours for free as the first customer." Nicholas greeted the man with bright eyes, snapping his fingers and gesturing at Emiya.
The man in question just shrugged and got to doing what he knew best.
Cooking.
Even though he, from the bottom of his heart, believed the dish he was making to be a desecration of all that was sacred.
With everything ready beforehand, and a bit of magecraft, it took Emiya only a few moments to prepare a pizza that would take the world by storm... if only he didn't have to put pineapple on it.
Still, he was but a pawn and so, he served the food on a ceramic plate.
"Yes, nice. There we go, now we can get famous selling this shit and have it appear in history." Nicholas pumped his fist, startling the customer... The man seemed to ignore their eccentricities and just inspect the food.
"...But you hate it."
"Oh yeah, I loathe it." The pale haired teenager gave a vigorous nod, "But now, when the italians see it. They'll have an existential crisis and we all know how they get with those... They'll explode and we'll prevent WW2."
A master plan with no flaws if he said so himself.
"But... this is like a war crime man." Emiya silently cried into his hands.
Nicholas flashed him a smile and gave him a thumbs up, "It's not a war crime if you had fun. Shut up and cook 'fore I tell BB to give your balls the testicular torsion status effect."
Archer shivered as a cold ran down his back, "S... She wouldn't do that."
Unfortunately, when he looked up at the girl in question to confirm his thoughts, she only gave him an eerie smile that reached her ears as the answer.
"This dish..." Their 'discussion' was interrupted by the customer who poked the pizza before narrowing his eyes.
"It what?"
The man looked at Nicholas briefly before continuing, "I do not know why but it deeply offends me."
"Pft-..."
Emiya was launched into the sky by an uppercut from Nicholas.
Nicholas just sighed and relented instantly, throwing the pizza into the trash, "Sorry man."
The customer gave a small, approving nod as Nicholas turned to Martha with eyes glistening with tears over his master plan being so easily foiled.
Of course, this prompted a wholly different response from the Back Alley Saint who immediately got into a boxing stance, "The hell did you say to my boy?!"
"Silence, wench. It is not your pl-"
Of course, THAT got the poor man clocked across the cheek and sent into an early sleep by Nicholas himself, "Ain't nobody gonna talk to my girl like that."
Of course THAT made the two stare at each other mildly embarrassed.
Up until Nicholas coughed and brought himself out of it by smacking his own face, and snapped his fingers, "Oi BB, we're rebranding. We sell hotdogs and burgers now."
"Gotcha!" The girl giggled and gave him a small salute, before snapping her own fingers.
-
When Nero arrived at the place she'd alloted to her newest general for his recreational activities at night (being a great admirer of the arts and leisure herself), she hadn't exactly expected his little hobby to be so booming that it would have a crowd the likes of which she would hear about in her palace…
It was strange, but also made her glad, because it made her people glad.
She also wasn't expecting someone to open an impromptu bath some distance off... which also somehow had a much larger crowd than she'd thought it would.
"Umu, a crowd befitting my general." She nodded with closed eyes, hands at her waist, "My soldiers, investigate what seems to draw my people so!"
Her two guards nodded and started mingling with the crowd.
"You could just ask, you know?"
"Indeed I could, but they too need to allow themselves a break... They've been working tirelessly for my sake." She nodded again, without looking back at the 'stranger' who'd appeared after her soldiers left, "Well then, do tell my general... what draws them so?"
"The taste of motherfucking freedom. I had BB spawn the supplies." Nicholas answered with a trace of pride in his tone, "You can't really compare addictions from your time with ours."
"Umu, but why the bathhouse?"
"I spiked their drinks with laxatives... the ones that were there back when we were setting up. How dare they ignore what senpai put so much effort into? Hmph! Hmph! Hmph!"
Nicholas only shrugged when the Emperor turned around to stare at BB in speechless awe.
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Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
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