Chapter 54
The Mage Tower’s monthly priority reservation was used for the first time.
Marie sighed the moment she saw the reservation list.
“It’s mages again. Can’t we tell them in advance that somersaults are forbidden this time?”
“It would be a little harsh to restrict a guest’s reaction to the meal.”
“What if they hit their heads on the restaurant ceiling?”
“We’ll have to charge them for the repairs.”
Marie shook her head.
I wondered whether this was really all right, but it was already too late.
There were more Mage Tower guests this time than the last.
Two white-bearded elders, three young researcher mages, and the head of the Department of Applied Material Sensory Research, the department that had sent Estelle.
They all looked less like people who had come to eat and more like people attending an open laboratory demonstration.
That was why I created an entirely new course.
The Great Chaos Course, priced at 550 gold.
Marie asked the moment she heard the price.
“Why 550 gold?”
“More expensive than the Duke’s Course, but cheaper than Battle of the Sea.”
“That’s how you decide the price?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s pretty arbitrary.”
“It’s not arbitrary. It’s positioning.”
“Does using that word make everything okay?”
“In business, pretty much.”
The Great Chaos Course wasn’t on the regular menu.
The nobles who had tasted molecular gastronomy—or rather, magical cuisine—in advance had reacted rather differently, so I created an entirely new special course that used the new technology in every dish.
The entire course was molecular gastronomy.
We trapped aromas, separated temperatures, turned sauces into pearls, made the color and flavor of the broth contradict each other, and put hot and cold things on the same plate.
It was a deranged course.
Which made it perfect for the Mage Tower.
Estelle had barely slept since the previous day.
Estelle’s disheveled hair had become even more disheveled, and her eyes behind her thick glasses gleamed frighteningly.
“The aroma-preservation membrane has been stabilized. We have three types of sauce pearls prepared: tart, umami, and sweet. The temperature-separated cream can last for up to six minutes, but considering the flavor, it would be best to serve it within four minutes and thirty seconds.”
“Good.”
“And the color-reversal soup was successful.”
“How does it taste?”
“You’ll have to check it, Chef.”
I tasted a spoonful.
It looked like a bright blue soup that would be sweet and sour, but it tasted deeply of roasted meat and onions.
It felt as though my brain had malfunctioned for a moment.
Was this what people called brainrot? I wasn’t sure.
‘Let’s think of it as soup made by boiling Tralalero Tral… whatever.’
“It’s good.”
Estelle’s face brightened.
“Really?”
“Yes. It isn’t unpleasant, and it’s strange.”
“Is strange a good thing?”
“For today’s course.”
Marie muttered beside me.
“The name Great Chaos really does fit.”
It did, but even chaos needed to be designed.
If it was genuinely a mess, guests would pay money and get angry.
Good chaos shook the guests, but had to hold them with flavor in the end.
Their minds could be confused, but their tongues had to be convinced.
That was the core of this course.
The mages took their seats.
They were inspecting the table even before the first dish arrived.
“There’s a thin layer of residual magic.”
“There’s no magic in the plates themselves. It seems to have been used only during the cooking process.”
After the bread and amuse-bouches were served, the first dish was based on the concept of an ancient forest.
A transparent broth was served in a small glass bowl.
It had no aroma on the surface, but the moment a spoon touched it, the thin aroma-preservation membrane Estelle had created broke, and the scents of freshly torn herbs, roasted mushrooms, and wet earth rose all at once.
It was, in a sense, a salad made of liquid, served instead of an ordinary salad.
One of the Mage Tower elders laughed immediately.
“Ah, so that’s why you call it a forest.”
He put the spoon in his mouth and closed his eyes.
“The aroma enters first, and the flavor follows. You separated things that should normally arrive together.”
The young mage spoke with an almost excited expression.
“It’s astonishing that you turned a time lag between the senses into a dish.”
Marie whispered softly when she heard that.
“Does that mean it’s delicious?”
“Probably.”
The second dish was the blue brainrot soup we had tested earlier.
Judging solely by its vivid blue color, it looked as though it would taste of fruit or flowers, but in reality it had the rich flavor of roasted meat, onions, and western butter.
Estelle had changed the color with light-refracting magic, but hadn’t touched the flavor.
The mages paused with their spoons raised, then ate.
They burst out laughing the moment they took a bite.
“My brain was fooled.”
“No, my eyes were wrong first.”
“Interesting. It takes one breath for the flavor to overcome the color.”
The white-bearded mage’s body began to float slightly again.
Marie immediately looked horrified.
“He’s going to do another somersault.”
Fortunately, he rose only a handspan this time.
The elder ate another spoonful of soup in midair, then said seriously,
“This should be used as lecture material. The professors at the White Tower who specialize in light magic will love it.”
‘Please don’t.’
Actually, would it be all right if they did?
Since their monthly priority reservation was involved, I decided to cut them some slack.
The third dish was fish accompanied by sauce pearls.
The fish itself was simple.
It had been cooked at a low temperature to keep the flesh tender, while the skin had been crisped separately.
The kick this time came from the sauce.
Red pearls, yellow pearls, and transparent pearls were arranged on the plate.
The red ones tasted tangy, the yellow ones carried the aroma of butter, and the transparent ones had a powerful umami flavor.
The guests could choose their own order.
I deliberately had Uncle Bernard explain it.
“Each pearl bursts in your mouth and changes the flavor of the fish in a different direction. The order of the dish changes depending on which one you eat first.”
The mages’ eyes lit up.
The mage who ate the red pearl first marveled that the fish had become fresher, while the mage who ate the yellow pearl first said the aroma of butter wrapped around the fish’s flesh.
The elder who ate the transparent pearl first fell silent for a moment, then said,
“The sea suddenly grows deeper.”
The fourth dish was a small meat dish.
Its name was Fire Burning Backward.
The meat was warm.
But the cream served alongside it was cold, while the spiced foam on top felt warm only inside the mouth.
We had deliberately made the actual temperature and the temperature perceived by the senses diverge.
It was the dish Estelle had worked hardest on.
The mages fell silent as soon as they tasted it.
This time, analysis came before laughter.
“There are three layers of temperature.”
“No, four. The tip of the tongue and the roof of the mouth react differently.”
“Fascinating. Very fascinating.”
It seemed the highest praise mages could offer wasn’t delicious, but fascinating.
Still, the plates were left spotless.
That was enough.
The fifth dish was meant to clear the palate before dessert.
Things that looked like tiny transparent ice crystals were placed in a small bowl.
They melted the moment they entered the mouth, spreading a herbal aroma and mild acidity.
It was the result of using cooling magic and an aroma-preservation membrane together.
One of the mages spoke immediately after eating it.
“Rain is falling on my tongue.”
I was still confused about exactly what the mages were researching.
Apparently, they conducted scientific research while writing about it in the style of the humanities.
The final dessert consisted of two parts.
The first was the already-tested cold milk cream inside hot bread.
But today, I had modified it slightly for the Mage Tower.
When the bread was cut open, a very faint white mist rose over the cold cream, carrying a mixture of milk, honey, and roasted-nut aromas.
The mages leaned forward almost simultaneously the moment the bread was cut, then ate it with obvious enjoyment.
This time, they spoke less.
Even scholars became quiet for a moment when they ate something truly delicious.
Seeing that, I felt relieved.
The very last dish was a dessert only true mages might appreciate.
A single small spoon held a tiny pearl that was almost black.
Its appearance gave no clue what it was.
When eaten, it began with bitterness, followed by sweetness, and finished with the faintest saltiness and the aroma of milk.
It was meant to condense the entire meal into a single bite.
Estelle had worried about it until the very end.
“Isn’t it too strange?”
“It’s the Great Chaos Course.”
“That’s true.”
“Then it should taste confusingly delicious.”
The mages raised their spoons.
And for a while, no one said anything.
The white-bearded elder closed his eyes.
The young mage had been holding a notebook, but lowered it.
The head of the Department of Applied Material Sensory Research gave a tiny laugh.
“This…”
He began to speak, stopped, then said after thinking again,
“It feels as though every dish we ate today has appeared one more time at the end.”
I chuckled quietly in the kitchen.
The meal was over.
The mages didn’t rise from their chairs.
They were all thinking about something.
Some were looking at their plates, while others floated magic circles in the air and analyzed the structure of the sensations.
They all wore deeply satisfied expressions.
“Great Chaos, huh?”
“It’s a provisional name.”
When I answered, he shook his head.
“No, it suits it well. But it isn’t disorderly chaos—it’s chaos with order hidden inside.”
The mages nodded among themselves.
“Are you thinking of making it an official course?”
I looked at Elysia.
Elysia already had the expression of someone who had finished calculating the numbers.
“We can make it available as a special option when the Mage Tower uses its priority reservation. However, it’s still too soon for ordinary guests.”
“Why?”
“It requires an explanation, the preparation is difficult, and some guests won’t accept confusion as happily as you mages do.”
The mages accepted that explanation.
Apparently, they knew they weren’t ordinary.
The somersaulting elder laughed.
“Then it’s only right for the Mage Tower to be the first to eat it.”
“Yes.”
Elysia spoke gently.
“And the Great Chaos Course costs 550 gold per person.”
The mages didn’t even blink.
“That’s cheap. I was prepared to pay up to 2,000 gold without any negotiation.”
‘The Mage Tower really does have a lot of money.’
Elysia’s eyes gleamed for the briefest moment.
The price would probably go up next time.
After the meal, Estelle nearly melted into a corner of the kitchen.
“We succeeded.”
“You worked hard, Estelle.”
When I said that, she pushed up her thick glasses.
“Next time, I want to separate the textures themselves. Something that looks crisp on the outside but flows like liquid when bitten, or something that looks like liquid but can be chewed.”
“Sounds good.”
Marie immediately cut in.
“We’re done for today.”
Estelle stopped.
“But the idea I just had…”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow…”
Estelle once again regarded the word with wonder.
Elysia spoke as well.
“Kyle, that’s enough for today.”
“I still have some things to organize…”
“Just organize them.”
“What about the experiments?”
“No.”
She was adamant.
I obediently nodded.
A good employer also knows when to stop the chef.
And Elysia was a good employer.