You've Got to Grease the Wheels to Get By (2)

As a rule, a genius never neglects study, no matter where or when.

'There’s no reason not to study while taking care of Fried.'

A day had passed since Fried was born.

I opened a book in the room where the baby and his mother were resting.

Even during my residency, I studied while seeing patients, so there was no reason I couldn't do the same here.

I was checking the calculations, tracing the numbers with my finger.

“Julian.”

Suddenly, Godmother, who had been resting in bed, called me.

I lifted my eyes from the book and looked over.

Godmother was holding Fried in her arms, still pale as she looked at me.

“What are you studying so hard?”

“I’m reviewing how to spot the flaws in double-entry bookkeeping through the merchant house’s income ledger that the head of the family let me see.”

I answered as I turned a page.

“Then what will you be studying this afternoon?”

“Hmm... probably reviewing alchemy.”

When I turned my head, I met Godmother’s eyes.

Her brow was deeply furrowed.

Her lips were pressed thinly together too, as if something displeased her.

'Is she unhappy that I'm not focusing on Fried?'

That was certainly a complaint any guardian could have.

I was calmly studying in the same room as a baby who had only just pulled through yesterday.

I reflected on my lack of consideration and closed the book.

Then she broke the silence and spoke.

“Why are you calling me Godmother instead of Mom?”

“...”

My hand stopped as I was tucking the book into my bag.

Ah, so that was the problem.

***

Godmother Linie had gotten hung up on something strange.

“Julian.”

“Yes, Godmother.”

“...”

She was trying to get the word Mom out of my mouth somehow.

I could guess why she was suddenly acting like this.

She started acting like this the very next day after Fried, the Nihirit family’s late-born child, was saved, so there was no way I wouldn't know why.

'So she wants to buy up the protagonist while he’s still cheap too.'

When a kid a little over ten years old can do what even most healers can’t, who wouldn’t want someone like that?

She’s probably trying to stake her claim on me while I’m still young.

As payment for saving the late-born child, too.

'It feels good to be recognized as a genius... but I still don’t want to change my surname.'

Still, there was a problem.

The title of the work I possessed was <Schnabel’s Diary>.

If I started calling Godmother Mom, the title of the work would change.

Of course, that was a joke.

The real reason was simply that it felt awkward.

We’d spent ten years keeping our distance from each other. Ten years.

For that to crumble overnight over a single incident was a little... too embarrassing to bear.

“Do you hate me that much?”

Godmother’s voice was weak.

I waved my hands and denied it.

“No, Godmother.”

“Then after all the years we’ve lived together, you’re still calling me that?”

It had certainly been long enough that even ten fingers wouldn’t be enough to count the years.

Come to think of it, as the protagonist, I couldn’t just keep pushing her away like some petty person.

So I compromised.

“Moth...er?”

Godmother’s expression changed subtly.

It was a complicated look, mixed with disappointment and relief.

“… Right. That will do.”

She spoke with a sigh, and closed her eyes.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but it looked like her arms tightened around Fried.

As though she were relieved about something.

*

That aside, Mother needed to recuperate too.

I’d put out the immediate fire, but there was still more to do.

Namely, postpartum care.

Of course, postpartum care does exist in this era, but...

The problem is that it’s the kind of method that would horrify any modern person.

In this fantastical dark-fantasy fusion-punk world, women who have just given birth are encouraged to drink beer or wine.

Hard as it is to believe, it’s true.

Here, alcohol is considered a safer and more nutritious drink than water.

That’s why there’s a postpartum recovery dish called coddle, made by mixing ale or wine into oatmeal porridge and adding eggs and spices.

Apparently, if you mix nutritious liquor with nutritious eggs and tasty spices, milk is supposed to come in better.

'I nearly died of shock when I saw that...'

The first time I saw coddle-based postpartum care in the red-light district, my heart lurched.

They gave the mother alcohol, sealed the room shut so it couldn’t even be aired out, and touched her without washing their hands.

And then if the mother died of puerperal fever or complications, they called it fate.

...I try not to think of the people in this world as barbarians if I can help it, but seeing things like this makes that thought creep up anyway.

'This is why I always have to step in myself.'

Of course, Godmother Linie wouldn’t be recuperating like that.

To do that, I’d have to prepare a recuperative meal myself.

'As for the menu...'

It should be seaweed and abalone.

It wasn’t because I had some 'Korea is best! Asia is best!' mindset that I chose them.

I just chose them because I’m Korean and I didn’t know what else was good for postpartum mothers besides seaweed and abalone.

There was only one minor problem.

Still, I doubted she would happily eat seaweed soup and grilled abalone if I just handed them to her out of nowhere.

Seaweed is easy to get even in this ruined world.

It’s just that, because of the culture, it doesn’t get treated as an ingredient.

As if there weren’t a reason the West called it “sea weed,” it was treated here too as something only destitute people with nothing else to eat in coastal forts would eat.

It was at least easy to force seaweed soup on the mothers in the red-light district.

All I had to do was call it a green potion and make them drink it.

But that method wouldn’t work in the baron’s house.

If I put it on the table, she’d probably treat it like some Cthulhu sacrament and scold me.

Then how should I dress it up?

After a moment’s thought, I came up with the answer.

Risotto.

I just had to make a cream base, load in plenty of cheese, and finely chop the seaweed to mix in.

If I thinly sliced the abalone and laid it on top, it’d turn into a convincing upscale dish.

Seaweed-and-abalone cream risotto. The name alone sounded pretty convincing.

Even commoner ingredients can suit noble palates if you just change the cooking method.

French cuisine doesn’t put on all that fuss over odds and ends for nothing.

Come to think of it, cream and cheese are also sources of calcium and protein a postpartum mother needs, so nutritionally it’s not bad.

On top of that, it could at least cover up the off-putting green color with white.

Decision made.

While Godmother was napping, I left the head maid in charge and headed to the kitchen.

*

On the way to the kitchen.

As I walked down the hallway, I rounded a corner and ran into someone.

A child with striking silver hair and blue eyes.

It was little miss Freya, a year younger than me.

She was the young lady of the Nihirit family, the biological daughter of my godmother and godfather.

So, how should I put it...

'Sworn siblings? Foster siblings?'

I didn’t know the exact term, but anyway, we were basically siblings.

“…Brother.”

Freya looked up at me and spoke.

Unlike usual, the skin around her eyes was red and swollen.

'She’d been crying.'

How scared must she have been while Mother was giving birth?

In this age, it’s common for a mother who goes to give birth to never come back, so she had every reason to worry.

And on top of that, she’d heard that the newborn was in danger all night...

So I reflexively tried to reassure her, but then I suddenly remembered one thing.

'Oh, we’re not really that close.'

Even though we’d lived under the same roof for ten years, I could hardly remember ever having a proper conversation during that time.

I was always buried in my studies and quinine research, and Freya had her own life.

At most, we’d nod to each other when we happened to meet in the hallway.

Or exchange formal greetings at family gatherings.

That was the extent of the distance between us.

'But come to think of it... a protagonist in a misunderstanding story shouldn’t be cold to his little sister.'

How could a character called a saint be cold to his family?

Even if we’d been awkward up to now, I had to establish myself as a kind older brother from here on out.

So I decided to use this chance to get closer.

'Like a gentleman. Kindly.'

I consciously softened my tone and loosened my expression a little.

I was using the same face I had when dealing with patients’ families in a 21st-century hospital.

For the record, it doesn’t matter that I was in trauma surgery and spent more than half my day wearing a mask.

“Freya.”

“...Yes.”

“Are you going to see Fried?”

Freya nodded.

After a moment’s thought, I said,

“Mother and Fried are both fine. So don’t worry too much.”

“...Really?”

“Yeah. I saw them myself, so of course.”

I answered with confidence.

A misunderstanding-story protagonist’s baseless confidence is meant to be used for moments like this.

Freya’s expression relaxed a little.

But there was still some anxiety in her eyes.

“Brother, I want to... help too.”

“Help?”

“Yes. Is there anything I can do?”

Surely it must be frustrating to have a sick family member and not be able to do anything.

After thinking for a moment, I made a suggestion.

“Then will you help me out?”

“Really?”

“Right now, I’m heading to the kitchen to make something for Mother...”

I rolled that still unfamiliar word around on my tongue for a moment, then continued.

“I’m going to make some food for Mother to eat. If you help out beside me, it would be a huge help.”

Freya’s eyes went wide.

“You’re cooking, Brother?”

It wasn’t that she’d suddenly been given something to help with.

She seemed surprised that I was the one cooking.

'Sure enough, it isn’t common to see a noble child holding a kitchen knife.'

With its small windows, poor ventilation, and an age that lacked any concept of cleanliness, the kitchen was a far cry from a modern cooking studio.

It was closer to a grim, all-too-real workplace where you had to keep battling rats and flies.

Naturally, kitchen work came to be seen as lowly labor.

Especially for nobles, to whom dignity was as important as life itself, the kitchen was a forbidden place.

In that sense, maybe it was even a character error for a perfect noble protagonist to come and go from the kitchen.

But on second thought, my character needed a hobby like cooking.

'Because a genius-type protagonist has to be versatile.'

I wanted to be the Da Vinci of this other world too.

An artist, sculptor, architect, anatomist, and inventor. That kind of genius.

That had been the ideal of intellectuals since the Renaissance, and this world wasn’t much different.

The problem was that I had no talent for the arts.

So I compromised with cooking.

After trying it, I found I was surprisingly good at it.

Handling organs on an operating table wasn’t all that different from handling ingredients on a cutting board.

'I knew I’d get called uncouth, but that’s something I can cover with refinement later.'

I know that coming and going from the kitchen might seem like a lowly act.

But in the end, dignity is not about what you do, but who does it and how.

If a commoner digs in the dirt, it’s labor; if a noble does it, it becomes gardening.

Prejudice has no choice but to fall silent before overwhelming achievements and dignity.

And so I could say proudly,

“Nothing to be surprised about. It’s just a hobby.”

“...A hobby?”

Freya tilted her head.

She still didn’t seem convinced.

Well, what ten-year-old would understand the concept of overwhelming prejudice with dignity?

Since this seemed like it would go on forever, I just changed the subject.

“Anyway. Fried is asleep right now, and Mother is resting too. There’s nothing you can do if you go there now. So I’m asking you to help me instead.”

“Then what should I do...”

“Give me your thoughts while I cook.”

“...Huh?”

Freya blinked.

“It’s for Mother, so I should check whether it suits her palate. So you taste it first and tell me if it’s okay.”

She was the taste-tester.

I couldn’t make the young lady of the house do kitchen work, so this should be about right.

Besides, it was a role I actually needed.

My palate was so crude that there was no guarantee it would satisfy the tastes of nobles in this world.

“I can... taste it first?”

“Of course. Who else would check it?”

Freya’s expression brightened subtly.

She seemed to feel like she’d been entrusted with a special mission.

“Okay.”

Freya nodded.

Her eyes were still red, but she looked better than before.

“Then let’s go.”

I led Freya toward the kitchen.