Sunset Meringue-Topped Snow Runner Castellan

Fortunately, the faint hesitation Catherine had been nursing in her heart vanished the moment she stepped into the kitchen.

A thick, sweet fragrance of honey wrapped the entire kitchen.

The hot, resonant scent of countless autumn wildflowers and orchard fruit pulsed through the air.

The culprit behind the aroma was, of course, the boy crouching before the roaring wood fire, thin skewer in hand, staring so hard into the oven he might burn a hole through it while he waited.

Coming this close to the source of the smell and still catching not a single whiff of burning meant Karem had finally succeeded.

Catherine approached the oven, her face bright with interest.

"So this is the true form of that dessert you said you'd show me?"

"Waaaaah! A-Atanitas-nim!?"

"Yes. It seems you didn't just dump honey in wholesale under the pretense of making dessert."

"Even if I space out, I wouldn't do something like that."

Karem hastily corrected himself and answered.

Catherine was hardly the sort to miss the momentary, unintelligible word that had slipped out, but that was not important right now.

"All the ingredients except the milk were there. So I made what I could."

"Of course milk wouldn't be at the market this season—they're turning every drop into cheese. Wait. You made it without milk?"

"Yes. It's called castella."

"Castellan. Castellan, is it."

Catherine could already guess that what had gone into the oven was some kind of cake.

But making a cake without milk? How?

Whether she fretted or not, Karem kept prodding the contents of the pans inside the oven.

Feeling the texture transmitted to his fingertips, he set the skewer aside as if the moment had come and pulled on thick oven mitts.

Before the heat could reach his hands he hurriedly extracted all five pans from the oven.

Karem banged the pans against the table a few times with solid thunks, then flipped them straight onto the cutting board.

There was no need to shake them up and down.

Greased by the butter, the castellan separated from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mold under the impact.

Unable to support its own weight, it slid free and revealed itself.

Catherine instinctively squeezed her eyes shut at the sudden sight.

Yet her proud analytical ability had already done its work; the image was engraved in her mind long before she closed them.

The exterior that had met the oven's heat directly was scorched a deep brown, yet it looked all the more appetizing for it.

Perhaps because it had left the mold, the sweet aroma rose even thicker.

Karem ignored Catherine's undignified display, took up a knife, and sliced the castellan into familiar finger-joint thicknesses.

His touch was extremely careful; a single wrong move could crush and ruin it.

Having regained her inner calm, Catherine opened her eyes again.

And as if it had been waiting for that exact instant, sunlight lanced through a gap in the overcast sky, poured through the window, and struck the cross-section of the castellan resting on the wooden plate.

Even Catherine—who over long years had tasted the foods of countless nations and of nations long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fallen—was stunned.

The cause of a yellow deeper than a fresh duck egg was the honey and the snow-runner eggs.

The empty shells and remaining contents of the snow-runner eggs, together with the emptied honey jar on one side of the kitchen, made that clear.

The pale orange cross-section caught the light and, for a single heartbeat, shone as brilliantly as gold.

Looking at the first castellan ever presented on the continent of Europa, she was silently ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠astonished.

She tried desperately to preserve her dignity, yet her body remained honest; in keeping with her physical age, Catherine's arm moved of its own accord and her fingers wriggled restlessly.

There was no way a woman could refuse dessert.

"The dessert for lunch is a bit late, so how about a snack before dinner?"

"Hmm, w-well. Refusing hospitality wouldn't be polite either. Give me that Castellan."

Karem immediately placed a slice of castellan on a bright wooden plate, cut it into a smaller piece, and held it out toward Catherine.

The closer the fork came, the more finely her eyes analyzed the tiny morsel that caught the light and glittered like gold.

Whether cake or bread, holes naturally form during fermentation.

The holes in cheese are the same.

Yet the piece of castellan approaching her mouth now was different from any bread or cake she had ever known.

Its fine structure bound itself together like castle walls so tightly that holes were almost invisible.

Similar to pound cake, and yet so soft.

Despite her impatience, Catherine had been trying to keep her composure—until she could no longer. She quickly put the piece of castellan into her mouth.

From the way it had parted under the fork she had been certain it would be extraordinarily soft.

But she never imagined it would be this soft! It was a softness entirely different from the direction taken by other desserts that used custard.

No—perhaps it was not custard at all. With every chew the holes and walls that supported one another firmly yet delicately collapsed, melting and wrapping her entire tongue.

The more it lost its shape, the richer the honey sweetness the castellan held within revealed itself. Catherine understood why the thing had been named Castellan—castle lord.

Something of this caliber was certainly fit only for a castellan at the very least. No—any noble with a serious interest in gourmet food would charge at it sword in hand.

Then a single question suddenly crossed Catherine's mind.

"Th-the sweetness is one thing. It's soft beyond any comparison."

"Yes. I broke a bit of a sweat making it that way."

"How on earth did you make something this soft?"

Having lived for centuries she had sampled every manner of food, yet even with all her experience and knowledge the castellan before her eyes was astonishing.

It lacked the distinctive taste of cream, and neither its flavor nor its texture matched custard.

In answer to her question Karem simply held out, without a word, the bowl in which he had set aside some meringue.

"This… cloud-like thing…?"

"It's meringue."

"No, that isn't what I asked."

To anyone who did not know better, the meringue in the bowl looked exactly like a handful of pale orange clouds scooped from a clear sky just as sunset began and dropped into a dish.

The pale orange tint, of course, came from the honey.

The cloud-like form came from whipping the egg whites into foam.

Yet in the whole of her long life she had never seen anything so cloud-like.

"Kid. I'm only asking just in case."

"Yes?"

"You didn't use magic, did you?"

"…If I could use magic, would I be sitting here right now?"

That made sense—. Catherine unconsciously smacked her forehead. If he had used magic, or possessed talent, or been a mage concealing his identity, there was no way she would have failed to notice.

No—before she ever did, Gordon would have sensed it first and grilled Karem about his true identity.

A mercenary of that caliber would have read it with pure survival instinct.

"Then what on earth is this—"

"I did use those mysterious eggs over there, but—"

"Hm? Ah, snow runners."

"Snow runners? Ah, that skewer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meat?"

At the tone of someone who had never heard the name, Catherine felt a flicker of doubt, then soon accepted that it was only natural.

Having spent his entire life as a serf in a remote village, of course he would not know.

Moreover, snow runners were an indigenous species that lived only in Iceland.

There were related sand runners and forest runners, but even those inhabited only a few regions of the Europa continent.

"Yes. The meat on the skewers at the inn was snow-runner meat as well. Think of a giant bird the size of a horse whose legs alone are about twice your height, kid. Since Iceland is right nearby, you might even see them when winter comes."

"There was a bird like that in the Seophon Kingdom?"

"Strictly speaking, only in Iceland. Or go to another country."

While feeding Catherine the castellan she herself had renamed Castellan, Karem fell briefly into thought.

A bipedal bird the size of a horse that laid eggs the size of an adult's head—enough for at least twenty servings.

He felt certain he had heard of something like that before.

Specifically… something like an ostrich.

"By the way—you're saying you made this orange cloud from snow-runner eggs?"

"Yeah. Eggs harden when they cook, and foam rises while they're cooking, right? So I figured if I forced the foam up and then set it, it would work."

To be perfectly honest, if she pressed any further Karem had nothing more to say.

After all, his specialty was applying recipes he remembered, not researching food science and its related applied sciences.

I'm a math failure!

Fortunately for Karem, the explanation seemed sufficient for Catherine.

"Huh. To think of creating foam like this with only those. Your imagination is brilliant."

"A-anyway. If we had milk it would taste even better."

"Good. I'll go out this very moment—"

"For now, try eating it a little softer this way."

Catherine had been about to spring from her seat at the mention of a way to make it taste better.

Until Karem plunged a ladle deep into the meringue in the bowl.

"No—don't tell me you're going to put that straight on top and eat—"

"Try it once more this way."

On the long copper spatula rested a scarlet cloud-meringue as though it held the sunset itself.

Without the slightest hesitation Karem thickly spread the meringue across the cut corner of the castellan, rubbing it on in a heavy layer.

The sunset-laden meringue settled over the surface of the golden, sponge-like rectangular prism and covered it like a plain after snowfall.

Even though it had been made from raw egg whites, Catherine had no leisure to feel any discomfort.

After all, who could fail to tremble when faced with such an astonishing leap of thought unfolding before their eyes?

There were as many desserts on the Europa continent as there were nobles.

Of course there were. One of the simplest ways for a noble to display their house's prestige without resorting to military might was to hold a party and present precious dishes.

Yet Catherine would stake her entire life as a mage on this claim.

This would definitely be delicious.

The moment Catherine, who had been about to rise with her hand on the table, relaxed her arms and settled comfortably back into her seat, Karem immediately brought the Castellan crowned with sunset meringue to her mouth.

Even without the topping it had already been shockingly soft thanks to those fine holes.

Now the sweet, soft meringue had worked its way into every last microscopic opening. Sweetness layered upon sweetness, yet it never cloyed.

No—rather, the two seemed to have been waiting to become one, and now they fused completely.

As she chewed the castellan the meringue softly tangled among the crumbled pieces, washing away the last remaining sense of foreignness before it slipped down her throat.

Having reached the realm of agelessness, Catherine could confidently claim she had enjoyed everything enjoyable within the normal bounds of experience.

From spinning round and round beside the bonfire at a village harvest festival all the way to the parties of the royal court, the range had been vast.

After enjoying so much, what remained was only the most familiar.

Perhaps, having lived through too many experiences, she had simply grown detached from stimuli.

Frankly speaking, Catherine had been living through a long sage time.

Yet for the first time in ages that same Catherine felt a genuine desire to monopolize something.

That was why she seriously proposed—no, declared—to Karem:

"You. Become my exclusive chef."

"…What?"

Karem's mind froze for at least several seconds at the sudden pronouncement, mid-bite of castellan.