ITK C423: Distressed Puffer
Platy’s strategy was regrettably not enough to surmount the situation.
“Ngh… And I thought this would work…!”
She looks frustrated, but I’d say she did well for trying hard till the end.
After all, the queen declared that she’d permit the wedding if her last ordeal was cleared.
Being the current queen, Mrs. Mahi wouldn’t do something as foul as to take back her words. Nor does she want her children to hate her for it.
So, this is the final stage.
Clear this issue and be official husband and wife once and for all, Arowana and Puffer!
…Or so I thought!
“Arghhhhhhh!” groans Puffer.
Queen Mahi told her that if she cleared her last trial, she could get married. Thus, she bravely set to work on it, but she seems to have hit a dead end.
Things aren’t going as smoothly as she had hoped, and can’t help but groan in frustration.
“How in the world are pickles made exclusively for a queen?!”
A queen’s special pickles.
This is the final challenge Queen Mahi gave.
She asked Puffer to prove she was worthy of marrying Prince Arowana and becoming queen by making pickles.
But is it just me or the queen’s request is absurd?
What even is a queen’s special pickles supposed to mean?
It’s not like queens and princesses make pickles by themselves.
It’s one of the less likely dishes served to royalty and nobility, so to speak.
Making them as per the ordeal stumped Puffer.
“Ngh! I don’t get it! How do I make pickles royalty-like?!”
She can’t even come up with ideas; she’s just writhing in agony.
Prince Arowana, on the other hand, is watching his fiancée’s pitiful behavior from a distance…
“I’m sorry you have to go through all this trouble to marry me, Puffer…”
He tears up while blaming himself.
Where was he when we were confronting Queen Mahi earlier?
Well, if your fiancée and mother-in-law are at odds, I guess you wouldn’t want to be either one’s enemy…
“Rest assured, Puffer! I’ll go through the ordeal with you! If we work together as future husband and wife, I’m sure we can overcome it, just as we once did when we defeated the Geyser Dragon!”
“Oh, thank you, hun! So, tell me, what kind of pickles suit a queen?”
“I have no idea!”
“Then stay out of this!”
She treated Prince Arowana like a useless husband even before they got married.
Well, he is unreliable in this situation.
Poor guy.
“Queen… Pickles… I don’t see the connection at all. How can they be queen-like? Do we use high-quality pickle ingredients?”
That would be the most direct way to go about it.
Just the fact that it’s a high-class article makes it feel regal.
“Wait, no. Simply creating a sense of luxury is, at best, a rich person’s pickles! It doesn’t express royalty, let alone a queen!”
I feel like there are other problems, though.
Anyway, just making it a luxury dish doesn’t make it the queen’s pickles.
It will not satisfy Queen Mahi.
“I know… I see it now! Mother-in-law is trying to tell me what a queen is all about through this ordeal!”
You’re already calling her your mother-in-law?
“She’s trying to prepare me to support Hun as queen after we’re married! She expects I’ll be a good queen who supports her husband from the ground up!”
I wonder about that…
I can’t help but feel that the only intention is to harass the young woman taking her son away.
But I can’t bear to make Puffer fret about that.
I should give her a helping hand.
“Don’t worry, Puffer! I’ve called in help!”
“Huh? Help?!”
The demon queens, Mrs. Astres and Mrs. Glasya rushed here at my request!
“Oh? The demon queens?!”
Puffer’s eyes light up.
“A Demon Queen is the wife of the Demon King! The queen of the Demon Kingdom! I see how it is!”
She caught on fast.
Yes, the two of them would realize what it’s like to be a king’s wife.
If you listen to them, you can learn about the queen’s secrets and incorporate them into your pickles!
“Wow, saint! You came up with such a brilliant idea so fast!”
“Ha-ha-ha. Oh, yeah, I’m amazing.”
But the demon queens also deserve some credit for being able to come here on such short notice.
Don’t they have their own duties to attend to?
“It’s only natural for us to cancel any prior arrangements and rush here if you summon us, Lord Saint.”
“We’ve been indebted to you heaps! We must seize these occasional opportunities to return the favor!” enthusiastically chimes in Mrs. Glasya with a clenched fist.
Both of them used to be members of the Heavenly Four, so they exude more of a military aura than a queen.
Relying on two such women make me worry a little inside.
“If Puffer eventually becomes Mermaid Queen, she will be of the same rank as us. As queens of neighboring nations, we must help each other.”
“You want to know what a queen is? Leave it to us! We will teach you well!”
“It can be summed up in one word.”
“What a coincidence! I, too, have one indispensable word of truth for a queen!”
“Then let us declare our thoughts at the same time. May they be of help to you, Puffer.”
“You got it! Here goes! One, two…”
What qualities does a queen need?
“Ruthlessness!”
“Muscles!”
…
“EXCUSE ME?”
Then, the battle begins.
“What do you mean muscles? Your mindset is completely that of a muscle brain! You haven’t changed since you were in charge of the Heavenly Four’s warfare, have you?”
“Back at you! Ruthlessness? That’s the worst thing a queen can have! A queen must be affectionate and serene!”
I worry for the Demon Kingdom’s future.
I invited the two of them to serve as references, but they weren’t helpful at all.
This won’t solve Puffer’s problems!
“Muscle… Meat… I see. Well, there is a way to pickle meat. And ruthless… I might be able to make a different pickle with rapid freezing. Freezing things is my specialty as the Witch of the Bitter Cold, after all!”
She actually got something out of it?!
Puffer’s brain has gone mush that she can’t make sound decisions!
She’s only wandering off course!
And to top it all off, the current demon queens are busy catfighting! Is there anyone else who can help us here?!
“Here I am.”
The angel Horkosfon has come.
“I’ve brought you ingredients suitable for making the special pickles. I encourage you to use them.”
“I bet it’s just natto again.”
Horkosfon has become that one character with a predictable punchline.
“It’s natto.”
“We already know that!”
Pickling natto?!
Forget it! But then again… natto’s true horror lies in its endless compatibilities!
In too many cases, we are led to believe it’s a ludicrous idea, but when we try it, it turns out to be delicious!
“But no! It’s time to change your approach to incorporatings natto into everything!”
Besides, today’s theme isn’t concerned with natto one bit!
“But Lady Puffer genuinely seems to be considering my proposal.”
“Huh?”
I turn around to see Puffer mumbling to herself while staring at the natto.
“Natto, huh? It’s risky to directly place it on the bran bed. I think I’ll wrap it in a cloth. I’ll borrow some adamantine silk from Batemy and…”
“Drop that idea this instaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant!!!”
Puffer is losing it!
Can she really clear Queen Mahi’s ordeal with the progress she’s making right now?!
I’ve literally seen a family torn apart by a situation like this. The mom continuously got in the way of her son’s marriage, she even called the church where they had made reservations for the ceremony to say the wedding had been called off because the bride had been caught cheating. Eventually the son went no-contact with his parents and moved to another state to get married, his siblings were so disgusted by her actions they went no-contact, and the dad was so infuriated that his wife had caused him to lose his kids that he divorced her. Now she lives alone, and everyone around her knows that she put herself in that situation so she doesn’t even have any friends to help her through her misery.
And the kicker is that she STILL thinks what she did was right, and that the current situation only proves that her son’s wife was poison.