Chapter 49
[The liquor was not brewed perfectly. Nectar does not form.]
At first, one attempt after another ended in failure.
Then, at some point.
[A total of 500 ml of the liquor you brewed has been made perfectly. Nectar has formed.]
It was only a tiny amount, but a portion of the liquor in the barrel had achieved ‘perfection.’
In that case...
All I had to do was control the bacteria to follow that perfection.
I kept working toward perfection all night.
And at last.
[About 2 L of the liquor you brewed has been made perfectly. Nectar has formed.]
[About 5 L of the liquor you brewed has been made perfectly. Nectar has formed.]
I wasn't getting it right every time, but my success rate was incredibly high.
“Hey.”
“...Yes?”
This guy was completely out of it.
I had let the heir to Pétrus, a guy named Jean, try it, and he'd been sitting like that for nearly ten minutes.
Then, all of a sudden, he spoke.
“I... I don't think I can keep making wine.”
“...What did you say?”
What was this now?
“I've lived believing that Pétrus wine, though not the only wine, was one of the best. But just now... the moment I tasted that, it crushed any hope that I could ever come close, let alone surpass it.”
...I think I may have made a huge mistake.
Still, I couldn't just crush the potential of the heir to one of the most famous wineries in the world.
What should I say?
“That... wasn't wine. It was...”
Ah, that's it.
“How did you know?”
“...Pardon?”
“It isn't wine.”
“No, how could that possibly make sense...”
“Think about it. It had a complexity you can't get from wine, right?”
“...Yes.”
“And the flavor and everything else didn't feel like the wines you usually make.”
“...That's true.”
“That's because it isn't wine.”
Jean was struck speechless, his expression indescribable.
At last, he let out a hollow laugh and asked,
“A-Are you making fun of me?”
“I'm serious.”
“You made it with nothing but grapes, and you're saying it isn't wine?”
“Can you be sure it was made with nothing but grapes?”
“Then are you saying you added something else?”
I did—my undead bacteria.
And the Nectar that had formed in the finished product, too.
But I couldn't tell him that much, so...
“You don't expect me to spill my trade secrets, do you?”
I just smiled and said,
“Since this isn't wine, you can keep making wine, Jean. People experience things differently. Someone might be more moved by your wine than by anything I make.”
“...Unless your palate's completely numb, I doubt it.”
Even I thought I'd taken it too far.
“Ahem.”
“Anyway, I understand now. It seems you took some kind of new approach.”
Maybe he understood, because a little life returned to his glassy eyes.
“That's right. Just because handball and basketball are both sports where you throw a ball with your hands doesn't mean you can play them the same way.”
He didn't seem all that convinced by my analogy, though...
Still, Jean clenched his fist and said,
“Rather than that... I'll think of it as a goal. The ultimate goal my wine should aspire to.”
“...I sincerely hope you achieve that goal someday.”
Still, what a relief.
If the heir to the famous Château Pétrus had given up making wine...
And if I were the reason...
I doubt I would've gotten off with just a scolding from Zephyros.
Anyway, when was that guy getting here?
He was flying in on a private jet, so he wouldn't even have to transfer in Paris. He'd come straight to Bordeaux.
Suddenly, I was curious about how Zephyros would react to tasting liquor infused with Nectar.
How would he react?
**
As they say, speak of the devil, and he appears. A few hours later, I got a call from Zephyros saying he'd taken a taxi from Bordeaux Airport and was on his way.
And when Zephyros arrived...
“Master Ryu!”
“It's been a while, François!”
The owner of the winery, Jean-François, who'd barely shown his face after exchanging greetings with me when I first arrived, came tearing out to greet him, practically in his socks.
Not that he was actually wearing socks.
“Why have you been away so long? I almost forgot what you looked like!”
“Haha, now that I've retired, I need a reason to come to France.”
“That's disappointing. Do you need a reason to come here?”
“That's not what I meant, haha.”
They were practically best friends.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No, when did you get so close with the owner?”
“Try buying wine in wholesale quantities almost every year. There's no way we wouldn't get close. I bought Pétrus by the case for every vintage. I think we even had a barbecue party at this winery a few years ago.”
“Ugh.”
“Hunter Ryu, you're far too modest.”
The heir, Jean, chimed in from behind with a smile.
“He's also earned the Master of Wine qualification, the highest level of wine expertise—something only a handful of people in the industry have achieved. If someone in the wine business doesn't know Master Ryu, you have to wonder about them.”
Wait, was Zephyros really that impressive?
“This young fellow's really buttering me up! All right, I'm in a good mood. Bring out all the vintage stock today. Feel free to gouge them, too.”
“Haha, I'm afraid we may have to go easy on our wine. The gentleman here has done something incredible.”
“...Did you cause trouble?”
“Well, I did cause a bit of trouble.”
Though I might've caused trouble on a pretty big scale.
**
Zephyros's reaction was more or less the same.
But a little more down-to-earth.
“I've tasted it before.”
“...Pardon?”
“It was only once in my life, but I have tasted something like this. Of course, this is much richer.”
“W-Where?”
Wasn't I the only one brewing Nectar?
“When I was young, by chance, at a winery in Georgia.”
“Georgia?”
That was an unexpected country.
Honestly, I didn't even know where it was.
“Georgia is the birthplace of wine. The earliest traces of winemaking in the world were found there.”
Jean's explanation finally made sense of it.
Oh, so Georgia...
“Oh.”
“The problem is... there was only one bottle among all the bottles in that winery and all those jars called qvevri. I tried every bottle from the same vintage, even the ones bottled from the same jar, but none of them tasted like that one. The winery owner had tasted that wine from that bottle with me, too. And...”
He let out a small sigh and slowly shook his head.
“He spent over a decade trying to recreate that taste, but in the end, he died without achieving his goal. I met him now and then, and toward the end, when he'd become a complete wreck, he said this to me: ‘Human achievement is sometimes touched by the divine. But that's only luck. Those who presumptuously try to reach for the divine will only fall.’ That's what he said.”
When I heard him say it was touched by the divine, I flinched a little.
It was just like what I'd seen in the skill description.
Then, could it be...?
“Um, Jean. You said you were a Brewer, right?”
“Yes.”
“How many wines does the System judge to be ‘perfect’?”
“...About one bottle a year? And it seems that only happens in years considered to have the finest vintages. We call it ‘Unique en Son.’ In English, I suppose it would be ‘One of a Kind.’ Unfortunately, there hasn't been one in any recent vintage.”
One of a Kind, huh.
“How many bottles does this winery produce?”
“At least 40,000.”
“That's on the low side for a winery.”
Still, one in 40,000.
And even that might or might not happen, depending on the vintage.
Good heavens.
‘Perfection’ was harder to achieve than I'd thought.
And how much had I made so far...?
Even if this was a top-tier winery with excellent grapes and a wonderful natural environment...
At this point...
It was clear that the synergy with my original class was insane.
Once I came to my senses, I gave Jean a stern warning.
“You mustn't get any strange ideas!”
“Huh? Ah...”
Jean smiled bitterly and nodded.
“Luck is just luck. No one in France would think that Unique en Son could be deliberately reproduced. Perhaps they did in the past, but not anymore.”
Good. He'd understood.
This was basically a cheat code.
A sparrow trying to keep up with a stork—in other words, a normal player trying to follow a cheater—wouldn't just have their legs torn apart. They'd quit the game for good.
**
The next day.
Kim Segyun and Zephyros left the Château Pétrus winery and boarded a flight back to Korea.
But...
“Leaving something like this behind... haha.”
Jean looked at the ‘God's liquor’ Segyun had left behind as a gift, at a loss for what to do.
Even after I told him to take it, he insisted on leaving it, saying he could just make more.
He must've said that without realizing how painful it would be for wine producers.
Even so, he couldn't help sighing.
Was this how Salieri felt when he looked at Mozart?
No matter how much he said he wouldn't let it bother him and would keep working...
If he kept it right beside him...
If he even kept drinking it...
He might go out of his mind.
This reckless man's kindness was nothing but a huge burden to Jean.
After staring at it blankly for a long while...
A thought suddenly came to him, and he tilted his head.
“...Why should I be the only one to suffer?”
Wine lovers around the world should share this pain with me.
A thought bordering on malice flashed through his mind.
And...
Malice aimed at tormenting someone had always driven humanity forward.
This time would be no different.
**
Le Nouveau de Dieu Petrvs (Luh Noo-voh duh Dyeu Petrüs)
When Château Pétrus announced it would release a limited-edition wine under that name, the wine industry went into an uproar.
It meant ‘God's Nouveau Pétrus.’
But if you stripped away all the embellishments...
It was just nouveau wine.
“Ha! Pétrus must've lost its mind! Nouveau!”
“We can't let this stand!”
To put it nicely, it was nouveau wine—in other words, wine that hadn't been properly aged in oak barrels.
So nouveau wasn't even considered real wine.
A typical example was cheap Beaujolais Nouveau, sold in bulk in places like the Beaujolais region to foreigners who didn't know wine, or as cheap booze to get people drunk.
Of course, in the history of Château Pétrus, they'd never sold unaged nouveau.
And yet Pétrus was selling nouveau.
Worse, they planned to sell it at the insane price of over 100,000 euros a bottle.
Voices of criticism rose throughout France.
At the same time, though, there were people who were curious.
Did Pétrus really not realize that releasing nouveau for 100,000 euros was bound to get them cursed?
If they were willing to damage their reputation by selling it anyway, could there be another reason behind it?
So, amid half curses and half anticipation, Le Nouveau de Dieu Petrvs was released onto the market.
There wasn't much of it.
At most, around twenty bottles.
Even so, they sold out in an instant.
The buyers had purchased it on the strength of the Pétrus name, despite their doubts.
Among them...
was Roger Parker, the world's greatest wine critic.
Well, even a wine critic couldn't just burn 100,000 euros.
His patron had bought it for him and asked him to review it.
News that he was reviewing it drew the attention of wine lovers around the world.
Would he pan it or praise it?
How could anyone praise mere nouveau?
Amid all the arguments...
A one-line review appeared.
─This isn't wine. This is God (God). Pétrus has created God.
At that moment...
The value of the 100,000-euro wine skyrocketed.
It even sold for 3.8 million euros at auction.
That 3.8-million-euro bottle of wine was here now.
“Grandpa! Here's your birthday present!”
Sophia Heinrich proudly presented it to her grandfather.
Kaiser accepted the wine bottle with a wry smile.
He was wryly smiling at his granddaughter, who had just paid 3.8 million euros for a wine that had cost a mere 100,000 euros until recently—and at the fact that all that money had ultimately been his.
Even so, he gave a small sigh at his only granddaughter's gift and nodded.
“All right, let's drink.”
He casually uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into glasses.
An indescribable aroma rose from the glasses.
“...Heh.”
As the former strongest Hunter in the world, Kaiser had tasted every fine thing the world had to offer.
Even for him, the aroma coming from this wine was something he'd never smelled before.
“Grandpa, try it!”
“Y-Yes.”
Kaiser calmly took a sip.
At that instant, a System message appeared before his eyes.
[You have drunk a beverage brewed by a god! Your faded faith briefly finds its light again!]
One of the reasons he had no choice but to retire.
In truth, this had weighed even more heavily than his aging body.
It was his faith as a Crusader, which had only grown duller the more he became entangled with the secular world.
But...
Could a mere bottle of wine really make that faith shine again?
“...Sophia.”
“Yes? Wow, this is really delicious...”
“Did you say this wine... was made by Pétrus?”
“Yes? Yes, it was.”
“Let's go.”
“...Where?”
“To France.”
At that moment... the giant, who had briefly regained the light he'd longed for, rose to his feet.