The Northern Mage
"......You're deciding without even hearing what I'll order?"
The mage girl in her fur clothes asked, her eyes wide with faint surprise.
"Our restaurant tailors the menu to the customer's wishes anyway."
"Your life is on the line......? No second chances."
"I just take the order and serve a dish to match. All I have to do is satisfy you, right?"
I couldn't exactly say I wasn't scared of her lunging at me to steal my life, so I wrapped it up in confidence about my cooking.
The girl was visibly flustered. The bold momentum she'd had when she first walked in had deflated. At any other place, she'd have laid out those terms and watched them panic and back off.
"So, what's your name? Looks like you came from pretty far away."
"......Frau. From the Northern Continent."
"The Northern Continent all the way here?"
The Northern Continent meant crossing that sea clogged with drifting icebergs—a place with so much risk of ships running aground that trade was sparse.
Come to think of it, Frau was bundled head to toe in fur. Probably just wearing what she had on back home. A chill aura seeped from the cold mana cloaking her body, so even in this heat, the thick furs didn't faze her.
I grew even more curious about what Frau would order from me. She'd crossed an ocean from the Northern Continent just to place a single food order.
"So, what's the order?"
At my question, Frau unbuttoned the strap on the travel bag slung over her shoulder and pulled something out to show me.
"This is......"
What she held was a chunk of transparent ice, clear as glass. Inside floated a small, seasoned piece of meat. The strong mana humming from it told me this was no ordinary ice.
"I'd like you to perfectly recreate the dish inside this."
"It's just one piece of meat—hardly a full dish."
"I ate the rest. But I preserved this one piece perfectly."
I peered closely at the meat suspended in the crystal-clear ice. Cubed to about the size of two finger joints, it looked richly marinated from the color alone. Like a boneless chunk of braised short rib, flash-frozen.
"So, recreate the original dish perfectly, based on this preserved meat?"
Frau nodded.
I'd figured some special order was coming from the Northern Continent, but nothing this bizarre and challenging. Still, an order was an order.
I asked Frau a few questions about the dish.
"This has to be a home-cooked dish from your homeland, right? Why not just find a place that makes the same thing?"
"We call it Topliya back home. It's home cooking, so every family uses different ingredients and recipes."
"Ah...... got it."
It clicked in an instant. Traditional home-style dishes often worked that way. There might be a standard recipe, but as it passed down through families, flavors diverged. Even dishes with the same name varied wildly—some houses added this, others that. Kimchi jjigae was a perfect example. Every family simmered it a little differently, so the taste was never quite the same. Your mom's version never matched the restaurant's.
"Topliya, huh...... First I've heard of it."
"Can you really do it? It's not too late to back out. I won't hold it against you."
"No, I'll take the order. I just need a bit more info."
"Ask anything. I'll answer."
Topliya. A dish I'd never even heard of. The preserved meat told me it involved well-marinated chunks, but even I couldn't recreate a full dish from that alone. Replicating the taste of something I'd never eaten was borderline impossible to begin with.
"First off, which Topliya are you after?"
I asked Frau.
"To serve what you want, I need to know everything tied to it. Not just ingredients or recipes. What does this Topliya mean to you? Why cross the ocean to find someone who can recreate it?"
The dish Frau craved wasn't ordinary. Tricky recipes or rare ingredients were no big deal with the right skills. But drawing out a flavor buried in someone's memories meant understanding its story.
Take a plain loaf of cheap bread. Simple to make, nothing special. But to someone who'd starved for days and hit their limit, that bread could sear itself into their soul stronger than any gourmet feast. Even later, with better food aplenty, nothing would match that intensity.
That's why I needed to know. To figure out what it would take to recreate the taste Frau remembered.
"This Topliya...... my master used to make it for me often."
Frau gazed wistfully at the meat in the ice and continued.
"She was called the Ice Witch. Feared and revered back home. I was her only adopted daughter—and her sole disciple."
"So the one who made this Topliya for you...... she's gone now?"
"Yes. Mana sickness."
Frau’s face darkened noticeably as she spoke. Mana sickness...... a fatal illness that claimed many high-ranking mages. Magic relied on channeling and conceptualizing mana in the body. But dabble in alchemy wrong, and you could wreck your mana flow. It started with losing the ability to cast, then blindness, deafness, muteness—until death.
I didn't know what alchemy her master had botched, but it wasn't a pretty end.
"Then what's in that ice......"
"Yeah. The last Topliya she made me before she passed."
"So you ate it all but saved this one piece?"
"......Yeah. When it came down to the last bite, I realized eating it meant I'd never taste her Topliya again."
Frau brushed her fingertip lightly over the transparent ice encasing the meat. Magical ice like this wouldn't melt without a steady mana supply, leaving no condensation—just like flawless crystal.
I understood what Frau wanted. Adopted or not, this was essentially her mother's final dish. A tough order, but the challenge of recreating that cherished memory stirred me.
"Alright, one thing I want to confirm—cool?"
"......What."
"You're staking a chef's life on this because that meat is the last remnant of your master's Topliya in the world, right? Melting it to use would make it impossible to restore."
Even for me, nailing an unseen dish in one shot was impossible. I needed to clarify why she insisted on just one chance. If it meant only one dish served, this was doomed.
"......Right."
"Conversely, if I don't melt and use it, I could serve you dish after dish without using up the chance...... that sound about right?"
"My master's Topliya is special. No recipe left. Some generic version won't taste like what I want."
"Doesn't matter. I can get close to your master's Topliya without touching that meat—if you cooperate fully."
"......How?"
Frau looked up, eyes widening slightly at my words.
"You remember your master's Topliya taste perfectly, right? That's why you crossed the sea hunting a chef who could recreate it."
"......"
"First, we'll use your memories to approximate it. Then, when the time's right, we'll use the meat from the ice. You in?"
"Wh-what do I have to do? Can you really recreate it that way?"
"Just eat what I make and tell me how it differs from your master's."
Frau’s eyes wavered. No reason for her to refuse. Her goal was simple: taste her master's Topliya again. That's why she'd guarded that meat chunk with threats.
And honestly, her special order had hooked me. This was basically restoring a lost recipe. Some dishes endured through generations; others vanished. Reviving one by my own hand? That meant something as a chef.
Frau stared at me silently. I had no idea what was going through her head, but I waited for her answer.
A moment later, she spoke.
"......Fine. If it'll really help recreate my master's Topliya, I'll help any way I can."