Chapter 42
The next evening, Irena Wald arrived after the sun had completely set.
Uncle Bernard said she had walked all the way from the hotel to the mansion alone, wearing nothing but a black cloak and without a carriage or attendants.
Her eyes, ringed by dark circles, were sunk deep beneath her pitch-black hair, and her skin was pale.
She must have been incredibly beautiful once, but honestly, it was difficult to tell whether she was beautiful or not now.
She wasn't deliberately trying to be intimidating, and she was quiet and polite, but every time I looked at her, I felt as though my skin were prickling.
‘Wow, her expression is unbelievably terrifying.’
As soon as she stepped inside the entrance, the candles shook violently.
I saw it, but pretended not to.
A head chef sometimes had to fear the guests more than ghosts.
Ghosts didn't complain about their meals. (Though if one complained despite getting a free meal, killing it again would be perfectly reasonable.) Guests, however, were beings who could evaluate a meal at any time.
Of course, Marchioness Reinfeld was paying for today's meal.
But that was that, while the person standing before me would be the one judging it.
Irena spoke quietly.
“Thank you for inviting me.”
Her voice was low and dry.
Elysia offered her a formal greeting.
“Thank you for coming. Maison Monbel will be preparing today's meal.”
Irena dipped her head slightly, as though apologizing in advance.
“I'm sorry. I've heard that Maison Monbel's food is extremely famous, but I've had no sense of taste for a long time, so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to taste it.”
I answered from the kitchen entrance.
“That's all right. We're not serving you taste alone.”
Irena looked at me for a moment.
“Then what are you serving me?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“Today, I'll serve you something warm.”
The first course was a clear broth.
I had simmered chicken and bones for a long time, skimmed off nearly all the fat, and added only the faintest touch of spices.
The accompaniment was bread torn into very small pieces.
Marie carefully set the plate down.
“The first course. Long-simmered clear broth and warm bread.”
Irena picked up her spoon and slowly took a sip of the soup.
There was no change in her expression.
I watched her face from inside the kitchen.
I was used to reading guests' faces, so I tried to read hers.
Eyebrows, the corners of the mouth, breathing, even the pauses of the fingers—all of them were signals to a head chef.
But Irena barely moved.
After a moment, she spoke.
“It's warm.”
It wasn't exactly an indication that she liked it, but it wasn't a complaint, either.
‘That's not a bad start.’
I hadn't expected her eyes to pop open with a dramatic sound effect like in a cooking manga, so I nodded.
The second course was soft porridge.
I simmered rice for a long time, then added very finely shredded meat and mushrooms.
Once I had made it, it somehow resembled the beef-and-vegetable porridge from my previous life.
‘My girlfriend used to buy that for me when I was sick.’
I made it so there was almost nothing to chew, but enough to leave her slightly full.
Irena ate slowly again.
She stopped halfway through, then picked up her spoon once more.
That alone was a relief.
Marie whispered softly.
“She is eating, at least. But she looks like she can't taste it.”
“I know.”
My heart ached a little.
I had expected it, but seeing it right in front of me still left me feeling unsettled.
Even after adjusting the temperature of the broth, finding the right consistency for the porridge, and coaxing out the faintest mushroom aroma, almost none of it reached her sense of taste.
Cooking for someone who had lost their sense of taste was like talking to a wall.
Still, perhaps the wall wasn't completely closed off.
The third course was roasted sweet potato with small pieces of meat.
Sweet potato cooked long enough for its sweetness to emerge, a lightly salted sauce, and the faintest touch of herbs.
It was a respectable little masterpiece, balancing sweet and salty flavors with a trace of herbal aroma.
This time, Irena chewed for a little longer, but her expression remained impassive.
“I'm sorry.”
When Irena suddenly apologized with a troubled expression in the middle of her meal, I immediately left the kitchen and entered the drawing room.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“I can tell just by looking how much effort you put into this, Chef. And yet I can't enjoy it properly.”
“But you are eating.”
“Yes. It's warm, and it fills my stomach. But I still can't tell what it tastes like. I'm truly sorry.”
I nervously folded and unfolded my fingers.
“Then that's enough.”
In truth, I was deeply disappointed.
A head chef is a greedy creature.
Filling a guest's stomach was important, but ultimately, I wanted to feed them something delicious.
Without that desire, no one could cook for long.
The final dish was the one I had put the most thought into.
Korean soul food, and what I considered the best dish for filling an exhausted body and soul.
If Americans have chicken noodle soup, Japanese people have udon, and Black Americans have fried chicken and watermelon, then Koreans have gomtang.
This time, I didn't have Marie carry it out. I took it out myself.
“The final dish is gomtang.”
Irena tilted her head slightly as she looked at the bowl.
“Is this another soup dish similar to the first one?”
“Yes. But the first was made with chicken, while this is made from beef simmered for a long time. It's a dish from my hometown, and it's excellent for soothing a tired body and soul. My mother used to make it for me often.”
Irena quietly lifted her spoon and brought a spoonful to her mouth.
Nothing seemed to happen.
I was holding my breath.
After swallowing the first sip, Irena picked up a second spoonful and put a little beef into her mouth.
At that moment, her eyes opened just slightly wider.
It was truly the slightest movement.
Another guest might have missed it.
But I saw it clearly.
Her hand stopped, her lips parted ever so slightly, and her breathing slowed once.
Marie clenched her fist beside me.
Irena slowly chewed the beef, then quietly looked down at the bowl.
“The flavor…”
She said it.
Her voice trembled slightly.
“I can taste a little.”
The drawing room fell silent.
Elysia, Uncle Bernard, and Marie said nothing.
Irena took another spoonful, and this time, she closed her eyes.
“It tastes like food.”
I couldn't answer. The feeling was strange.
Whether in my previous life or this one, I had heard plenty of praise.
Delicious, excellent, unforgettable, I'll come again.
By now, I knew how to respond to words like that to some extent.
But the words of someone who had lost her sense of taste saying that she could taste food somehow carried an unusual weight.
Only after a long while did Irena open her mouth again.
“Evil spirits taste horrible.”
I listened quietly.
“It's like someone forcing a rag covered in vomit into your mouth. It doesn't go down easily, and the taste lingers even after you swallow. Whether I drink water, drink alcohol, or chew meat, that taste comes back first.”
Marie went pale, and my stomach twisted a little, too.
Irena spoke matter-of-factly.
“At first, I could taste food as well. But as time passed, it gradually faded. No matter what I eat, all I can taste is the horrible flavor of evil spirits.”
“……”
“Sweetness, saltiness, the smell of warm bread, even the fat in soup—all of it was buried beneath that taste. Even so, when I was hungry, I ate, and I swallowed so I wouldn't collapse.”
She looked at the bowl.
“But just now, for a very brief moment, that taste was pushed into the background.”
Only then did I let out the breath I had been holding.
It was too small to call a success, but it wasn't a failure.
Irena drained the rest of the gomtang straight from the bowl, then set down her spoon and bowed her head to me.
“Thank you. It was the first time in a long while that I tasted something that truly tasted like food.”
I bowed my head in return.
“I'm glad.”
“I'll definitely come again.”
“Reservations may be difficult, but I'll do my best to make sure we can always set aside a place for a hero.”
“If possible…”
Irena scratched her head awkwardly and whispered,
“Before I became a mage, I was just a commoner. So eating with this much formality feels very awkward to me. It would be fine if you simply served me a bowl of this soup.”
“We'll do as you prefer. Please come back anytime.”
After bowing to Elysia and me in farewell, Irena disappeared quietly from Maison Monbel, just as she had arrived.
As soon as Irena left, it felt as though the air temperature suddenly shot up and the room grew brightly lit.
Elysia sank into a chair with a pale face.
“Good grief, she really is an incredible person, but… she's terrifying.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, because people like her exist, we can live this peacefully, can't we?”
“Serving someone like that a meal is a good thing.”
“Yeah. I hope we'll be able to treat her again in the future.”
Come to think of it, she had been an incredibly memorable person.
Someone that important must have had a fairly substantial role in the original novel, but I hadn't read it properly, so I didn't know who she was.
What a shame.
If I had known, I could have treated her even better.