Monica's Homecoming (1)

Hilda Everett was at her wits' end.

Though she would turn forty this year and remained single, she was a senior official at the Magical Research Institute with a decent income, and thus lived in a neat little house near the royal capital.

She was completely incapable of housework, so she always left it all to her veteran maid. However, the maid took two weeks off for the combined winter solstice and New Year's holidays.

The thoughtful veteran maid had prepared a large quantity of food that would keep for Hilda's sake, but Hilda ruined nearly two weeks' worth of meals in a single day.

"Something's wrong. I was told all I had to do was warm the soup... I only warmed it. Yes, that's right, I only warmed it, so how did this happen?"

The soup, heated at maximum heat without being stirred even once, had boiled over, while the bottom of the pot had burned and turned into a complete disaster.

When Hilda hurried to put the pot away, she did not realize that the handle had heated up as well, and turned the whole thing over with a spectacular flourish.

She was a talented researcher who could handle every kind of experimental apparatus with ease, but sadly, she had not even learned how the pots in her own home worked.

This alone was enough to make a maid collapse to her knees, but the tragedy did not end there.

As Hilda tried to clean up the soup scattered across the floor, she wondered whether she could apply the water magic she had recently been researching to cleaning it...