Chapter 7
***
Raw flesh, bones, innards, blood.
Grease clumps and scraps of leftover food in the dishwater, dishcloths swollen and split by hot water.
In a class society where keeping one's hands clean was the same as having refinement, the kitchen was hardly a space fit for nobles.
Especially in a world like this, where you had to deal with rats and bugs besides.
And yet I stepped into that place, practically a noble taboo.
‘The ingredients... are here, then.’
I laid out the ingredients I had brought with me and the ones that were already here.
Seaweed, abalone, cream... and so on.
‘Got everything I need.’
First, I soaked the blackened, dried-out seaweed in water.
As the dead seaweed absorbed the water, it recovered its original blue-green color and sprang back to life.
While the seaweed was rehydrating, I reached for the abalone.
‘Let's not bother with the innards.’
I slid a spoon between the muscle and the shell.
I separated the adductor muscle and set the removed innards aside.
The innards would be too bitter for a mother who was especially sensitive right now.
And the color and flavor didn't really suit a risotto, either.
Next, I poured oil into a pan and heated it up.
Once the garlic aroma rose, I added the squeezed seaweed and the soaked rice.
I poured in the stock and stirred slowly until the heavy cream and cheese melted in.
I kept stirring without stopping until the rice released its starch and the stock thickened.
Finally, I plated the dish and neatly topped it with abalone slices browned in butter.
With that, the risotto was complete.
“Please taste it, miss.”
I spooned a little risotto into a small bowl and held it out to Freya.
She lifted the spoon cautiously, hesitating over the dish.
Even though the cheese and cream had painted it white, the occasional deep blue-green patches still didn't look familiar to her.
Both the fact that it was a dish made from seaweed and its somewhat potion-like color.
There was more than one reason to make her hesitate.
But Freya soon squeezed her eyes shut and put a spoonful in her mouth.
…!
How is it?
...It's delicious.
That's a relief.
I nodded and plated up a portion for Mother.
If you're going to do it, you might as well do it pretty, so since I'd possessed a fine-dining chef, I paid careful attention to the plating too.
While I was putting all my effort into the garnish, Freya spoke.
“Brother.”
“Hmm?”
“...Could you make this again?”
It was an unexpected request.
“Did it suit your taste?”
“Yes! It's different from the things I usually eat.”
Freya said, looking down at the bowl she had cleaned out.
“Other than things loaded with pepper and oil, this is the first time I've had something this soft.”
Ah, that makes sense.
The food of nobles inside the Wall was usually covered in spices.
Pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and the like.
They did it to flaunt their power by showering dishes with spices that were hard to grow inside the Wall.
Thanks to that, noble food always left your tongue numb and your stomach soaked in grease. Indigestion came free of charge.
What would the soft, savory richness of cream and cheese be like to a child raised on that kind of diet?
Probably something unfamiliar, yet shocking.
“Got it. I’ll make it for you sometimes.”
“...Really?”
“There’s just one problem.”
“?”
I wiped my used chef's knife on a dishcloth and pointed to the kitchen entrance.
My eyes met the head butler, frozen at the entrance.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to set foot in the kitchen again.”
***
Sometimes I think the world has an awful lot of taboos.
Men must not covet the midwife's domain.
Children must not covet the adult's domain.
Doctors must not covet the healer's domain.
This is forbidden, that is forbidden.
By now, it felt like it would be faster to make a separate list of the things you were actually allowed to do.
And today,
I had broken another taboo.
The taboo that a young master would dare to get his hands wet in the kitchen, of all places.
“Young master. Where on earth did you learn something like this...”
“I picked it up while working in the Tanners' Quarter. There weren't any cooks there.”
I answered the head butler's question while letting the still-hot risotto cool.
For reference, the Tanners' Quarter is just a polite way of saying the red-light district.
I couldn't exactly tell Freya, who was standing right there, that I worked in the red-light district.
“Still, such a lowly task...”
The head butler muttered as he looked at the dish I had made.
How is cooking a lowly task?
The words nearly slipped out, but I held my tongue.
‘He wouldn’t understand even if I told him.’
For a chef to be treated like a master craftsman, you'd need something like a French Revolution in another world.
Only after that did chefs finally get to hold their heads up in front of nobles.
But this was a world where the emperor could go toe-to-toe with a dragon in a no-holds-barred deathmatch, so I doubted that kind of revolution would ever come.
So I just framed it another way.
It wasn't that cooking itself was lowly; it was the heart I put into cooking that wasn't lowly.
“Head Butler, this is a medicinal dish for Mother. Making medicine isn't a lowly task, is it?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“If Mother can eat it and regain her strength, I’d even scrub the floors. Isn’t that what a child should do?”
“…!”
The head butler's pupils shook uncontrollably.
He couldn't even manage a reply and bit his lip hard, as if emotion were surging up from deep inside.
He must be deeply moved.
‘Truth is, I also had the whole versatile-character concept going, and I only started cooking because the food in this world was so awful I wanted something edible.’
No need to reveal that truth.
Everyone's got one or two overhyped gimmicks like that.
The head butler took the tray with trembling hands.
The moisture at the corners of his eyes was probably not my imagination.
“Take it while it's still hot. Cream doesn't taste as good once it cools.”
“Yes, yes! I’ll bring it up at once.”
The head butler quickly turned and left the kitchen.
His retreating back looked almost solemn.
At this rate, I almost felt like I had made some kind of last supper.
Freya, standing beside me, looked up at me with sparkling eyes.
“Brother... I think you’re really amazing.”
I shrugged.
Sometimes I think the power of a misunderstanding story is a little too much when you get praised for something this small.
Still...
‘Better than being sneered at.’
In the 21st century I lived in, praise was pricier than gold.
Even if you saved a dying person, it was dismissed as nothing more than the expected duty of a technician who had to earn his pay.
And if a doctor showed even the slightest interest in anything other than papers or patients?
‘Go to sleep instead of wasting time on that’ or ‘You’re getting too full of yourself’—that sort of jab was always flying my way.
You say there are people who aren't like that?
But the nasty comments on the documentary I appeared in said otherwise.
They'd even say, 'You're not even a professor, and you're already getting lazy.'
They really did not hold back on the precious young master of trauma surgery.
When I think of that dry world, this mindless praise feels a hundred, a thousand times better.
“Come on. Let's go up. Freya, you want to eat by Mother's side too, right?”
“Yes!”
“Then let’s pack yours too. And mine.”
For the record, I had specifically left the carrots out of Freya's bowl.
*
I headed for the room carrying a tray.
Ah, not a tray. A serving platter.
Old habits from my past life hadn't fully worn off yet.
When I arrived at the door, Godfather was there.
He had his face pressed close to the crack in the open door, watching Frid and Mother with syrupy eyes.
His fingers, clasped behind his back, kept fidgeting nonstop, as if he wanted to rush in and shower Frid with affection right this second.
Unfortunately, even Godfather couldn't be allowed to touch Frid whenever he pleased.
He was already a premature baby with rock-bottom immunity.
If anyone brought in some outside germ, it'd be fatal.
For at least the next 100 days, only the mother and the doctor would be allowed to touch the baby.
It might seem excessive, but in this era, this is what it takes to save a premature baby.
‘Maybe I should string a taboo rope across the entrance until then.’
Thinking that, I approached Godfather from behind.
“Here to see Frid?”
“Julian...!”
Godfather jumped in surprise and turned to look at me.
His eyes were red-rimmed.
Godfather looked at me with tearful, moved eyes.
“I heard what happened last night.”
“Ah, that's nothing to worry about. There won't be any problem in the future, either.”
I'm right here.
Who am I? The protagonist who would one day be called a saint.
That was when it happened.
Whoomph!
With enough force to crush my ribs, Godfather pulled me into a hug.
I barely managed to toss the tray I'd been holding to the head butler in time. Nice catch.
“Julian! Thank you. Thank you so much...”
His ragged breathing came straight to my ear.
He gripped my shoulders tightly to compose himself, then turned his gaze to the head butler behind me.
“Send back the carpenter you called this morning. There's no need to make a coffin.”
He must have thought Frid wouldn't make it through the night.
In this harsh world, that might be common sense, but it still stung. After all, you still didn't trust me even with the angel of the red-light district watching over him.
...Can I get a title out of this somehow?
“And the wood we prepared for the coffin... right. Better use it as firewood to warm this room so Frid and Linie won't be cold.”
The head butler nodded, sniffing back his tears.
Honestly, what's wrong with everybody?
These reactions are a bit too much for me.
Still, it wasn't the first time I'd experienced this, so I took it in stride.
There were plenty of people in the red-light district who reacted like this, too.
Unlike the 21st century, where survival was a given, in this punk-ish world where death was the norm, maybe that kind of reaction was only natural.
“Julian. But what's this?”
A few minutes later.
Godfather, having finally shaken off the afterglow, noticed the food at last.
“This is... coddle? No, that isn't it. Risotto, then. Did you have the chef make this?”
“I made it.”
“You did?”
The head of the house's brows drew together.
Why was everyone reacting like this?
It's not like I cooked people as ingredients or anything.
The head of the house's gaze lingered over the risotto for a long while.
Deep blue-green seaweed wrapped in cream. Abalone seared in butter, glistening with oil.
It must have seemed like a strange combination. He might have been thinking, Why put seaweed in a dish at all?
A brief silence passed, and then the head of the house spoke.
“…There are three bowls.”
The head of the house murmured.
I nodded.
“Since Frid's condition has stabilized, I thought it might be nice for the whole family to eat together.”
“So you made one for Freya too?”
“Yes. Mother, the head of the house, and Freya. I thought it would be good if the three of you ate together.”
I handed the bowls to the head butler and went over to Mother.
“Leave Frid to me and go eat, Mother.”
Mother started to rise from the bed, then hesitated.
“Julian, what about you?”
“I'm fine. I need to watch Frid.”
…
Mother's eyes trembled strangely.
Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she only nodded.
“All right, I understand. I’ll leave it to you, Julian.”
The head butler and head maid pulled a small table over beside the bed.
It was a table prepared for a mother who couldn't go down to the dining room.
The head of the house sat beside Mother Linie, and Freya took the seat next to her.
I stepped back and went to the side of the crib.
Frid was still fast asleep.
His tiny chest rose and fell rhythmically.
‘Sleep well, little one.’
Leaning against the crib rail, I watched the Nihirit family's meal.
Mother's expression changed as soon as she took a spoonful in her mouth.
“…It's good.”
Freya's eyes lit up as she agreed.
“I had some earlier too, and it was really delicious. Since there was no pepper, my tongue doesn't sting.”
“I know. This is the first time I've had something this soft. This is nice too.”
The head of the house also lifted his spoon.
The one with especially generous innards, at that.
One bite.
His expression stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.
“It's an unusual flavor. Where did you learn this? This is...”
The head of the house trailed off.
From the context, he probably meant to say, 'A taste no noble would know,' but swallowed the words.
He must have worried it might sound like an insult, as if I were being un-noble.
But I didn't really care.
“From the Tanners' Quarter. There weren't any cooks there, so I had to learn directly.”
…
The head of the house stopped his spoon and looked at me.
And then.
“Head maid.”
“Yes, Head of the House.”
“Bring another bowl.”
?
The head of the house gestured toward the table with his chin.
“There's one seat open.”
“Ah, I'm fine. Frid—”
I was about to turn down the head of the house's offer.
But the head of the house cut me off before I could finish.
“Frid is asleep. Would he sleep better if you starve yourself? Or are you planning to fast and pray?”
“That's not it, but...”
“If that's the case, then enough. Bring it, head maid.”
“Understood, Head of the House.”
The head maid turned around.
I stood there blankly, staring at her retreating back.