odorekijin

“A Priceless And Delightful Red”

[Wizards’ Manor—Lounge]

Mitile: Hello Master Sage, um, do you have a minute?

Akira: Hi Mitile! I’m free as a bird right now.

Mitile: Do you remember this “White Day” event you told me about some time ago? Well, today, I went out to get you a gift, so…

Here! Please accept this… if you want it, of course!

Akira: Woah, thank you very much! And this is… an apple? Look at how big it is, it’s at least as large as my own face.

Mitile: It is! I picked the one that had the nicest shape, shine and largest size. Take this as my "lagniappe" to you, Master Sage!

Akira: Your what now?

Mitile: D-Did I say something bad? I’ve heard that these "lagniappe” things are priceless and can make someone really happy in your world.

At least that’s what the previous Sage taught the twin lords, who then told me about it.

Akira: I see…

Mitile: But they didn’t really seem to… understand what these “lagniappes” were so… So I bought the most delicious Royal Apple I could find instead!

Akira: (I mean, sure, the words sort of sound the same, thinking they’re both related to the fruit isn’t too far fetched... whatever, it's still a cute mistake.)

Mitile: …Um, are these “lagniappes” things in your world something completely different?

I got it all wrong, I’m sorry…!

Akira: No, no, please, you don’t need to apologise, really! You tried to figure it out and gave it your all, and that touches me very much.

Mitile: Master Sage… You’re so kind, thank you. I hope you’ll enjoy it then!

TRANSLATION NOTE

　The original pun relied on the homophones ナス (nasu, “eggplant”) and ボーナス (bōnasu, “bonus”). Instead of Mitile offering an eggplant, I opted for an apple (æpəl), which shares its final phoneme with lagniappe (lænjæp). While lagniappe isn’t an incentive compensation, it does carry a similar “little extra” that the bonus (implied to be “bonus pay”) has. I picked red for the apple, as it is the most common colour in our collective mind.