Mammoth Nose Skewers (2)
Catherine was used to all-nighters and overtime.
Every mage was.
Whether it was an experiment, research, or some assignment, losing yourself in the work until half a day—or a full day—had slipped by was not merely ordinary. It was routine.
Of course, that irregular lifestyle sometimes wrecked their health, but that was purely the mage’s responsibility. It was not as if anyone had held a sword to their throat and ordered them to study. Everyone currently barricaded inside the Mage’s Tower had volunteered for this self-grinding existence.
Besides, with their generous budget they could always patch themselves up in time with potions and magic, so genuine health problems rarely stuck.
Anyway, the long and short of it was this: since last winter, waking in the small hours of the morning had become a rarity for Catherine. Which meant she was hungry.
Naturally. Inevitably, even.
The banquet dinner from the night before and the late snack she had eaten after returning had long since been digested. She had risen on an empty stomach at the crack of dawn and stayed awake ever since, so the hunger only grew sharper by the minute.
No, I ate a whole plate of salmon bread.
You think that fills anyone up? Besides, the young lady took a third of it.
Catherine firmly rebutted the imaginary Karem who was needling her inside her head—the one who was not actually present in the dining hall. Alicia would have nodded along in full agreement if she had overheard.
I’d like something with a bold flavor for breakfast.
She ran her tongue over the faintly dry roof of her mouth. The sweetness of custard and the savory fragrance of roasted Alraune still lingered, pale and stubborn. Her tongue craved something salty and rich. Her mouth and stomach both wanted heavy meat.
All of this was Karem’s fault for preparing that sweet, light salmon bread to soothe an empty stomach at such an ungodly hour. He would have protested the injustice if he had heard, but Catherine did not care. A chef’s job was to cook what the master wanted.
Knock-knock-knock.
“Lady Atanitas. I am coming in.”
“Yes. Enter.”
Creak— the dining-hall door swung open and a fierce wave of aroma crashed over the sole archmage seated inside. A dense, savory umami scent laced with saltiness and a thick, sweet fruit fragrance flooded the room—perfect for teasing a dry mouth. Layered beneath it was a seductive note of fire, free of any bitterness, seeping gently from beneath the lid on the tray and stirring the emptiness in Catherine’s stomach.
“This is the mammoth nose skewers I mentioned last time.”
“The ones seasoned with soy sauce? Then what’s this charcoal smell?”
“I just lightly burned them with sugar to imitate it.”
Even with the lid on, the aroma slipped through the narrow gaps and drifted into the air. Once you used soy sauce—the very essence of umami—there was no helping it. Burning it a little only deepened the fragrance.
“Skewers, is it. Kid. The smell is every bit as excellent as you promised. However.” Catherine tapped the cover with open skepticism. “Even with the soy sauce, some of the original scents are still there. Especially this fruit aroma.”
“Probably seeped out while it was marinating?”
“I distinctly told you the aromas were far too varied and that I disliked it.”
She even made a show of resettling herself in her chair while saying so, which left him in a rather awkward position—yet he could hardly call her out on it.
Karem lifted the cover.
Swish—
“Just taste it yourself first, then decide.”
Deep-brown mammoth nose, simmered until the edges took on a black sheen without actually burning, lay glazed under a thick sauce that glittered in the light of the magic-stone lamps overhead. Every time a droplet of that deep-brown sauce fell, sparse as rainwater clinging to eaves, the aroma seemed to explode into the air.
“I’ve thought this for a while, but I simply cannot understand how those foul-smelling blocks made of mere beans turn into such a versatile seasoning.”
“Honestly, I agree.”
“Hey, kid. You’re the one who made them.”
“I merely prayed.”
Karem set down the utensils for a moment, clasped his hands, and offered a short but conspicuously devout prayer. Meju and everything born from it—soy sauce, doenjang, gochujang. Without the gods’ help none of it would have been possible. A faith he had never possessed in his previous life welled up inside him.
“Even so, just because a chef knows how to make garum doesn’t mean he can actually produce it himself, does it?”
“How is that soy sauce you made any different from garum?”
“That one is fish and this is—”
“That’s not what I meant. Ah, enough. Enough. Pointless talk.”
Catherine waved him off and pointed at the pile of skewers. Without another word Karem took up the utensils, portioned some mammoth nose skewers onto a plate, sliced them into neat rectangles, and held them out.
“Here you are.”
Catherine popped a piece into her mouth on pure reflex.
Ha.
The reason she avoided mammoth nose steak was simple. No matter how delicious the meat itself might be, the aroma simply refused to match. The nutty fragrance of roasted nuts she could accept. But refreshing meat? Her tongue was eating meat while her nose was eating fruit. The mismatched flavors from two senses bred rejection. Then came a forest-fresh coolness that only amplified the aversion, followed by a sudden medley of cheese aromas, until Catherine no longer knew what she was supposed to be tasting.
It was a problem unique to the undead-aged mammoth’s nose—more varied in flavor even than the other cuts.
The taste of the meat itself and the taste that blooms when it meets a sauce are two entirely different things.
Yet in the skewer she had just eaten, that disconnect was nowhere to be found. The forest-fresh coolness that once magnified her revulsion had vanished completely. In its place lingered a subtle, charcoal-like fragrance, as though the meat had been grilled over a wood fire—the very aroma he had imitated by burning soy sauce and sugar. The bright fruit scent still clung to the meat, but now a matching, lingering sweetness rode with it, so the combination no longer grated the way it once had.
“I think it pairs rather well with the sweet-and-salty flavor.”
“So the way I was eating it was wrong. If I had encountered this first—”
“You didn’t have me then, so you couldn’t have eaten this.”
Catherine accepted the point in silence and took another piece. With every chew the sweet-salty seasoning and the meat juices that welled up with it flipped like cards: first the clean lightness of chicken, then the soft richness of pork fading just as a bold beef aroma surged forward. The varied cheese notes of each fat layer, surprisingly, married beautifully with the soy sauce, producing a funky yet nose-tingling uniqueness—
“How is it? You seem to like it quite a bit.”
“Hm. Ahem. Yes. Definitely edible.”
“For all that…”
She was putting it away at a fairly brisk pace. Karem muttered under his breath and simply watched the skewer pile shrink by roughly a third.
“What’s that look for?”
“Nothing. Watching you made me want some too.”
“Come to think of it, kid, there’s no portion for you.”
“I forgot.”
“You? That’s rare.”
“So enjoy it at your leisure. I’ll make myself a separate batch later.”
“Tsk. Leisurely.”
Catherine clicked her tongue with deliberate volume, chewed, and swallowed.
“If it weren’t for work, I would savor every bite.”
“It’s only morning, though?”
Someone who lounged freely all day and then annihilated a mountain of backlog in a single evening—claiming “if it weren’t for work”? Karem wondered whether another work bomb had dropped the way it had last winter.
“I have to inspect the magic tools decorating the castle.”
“Didn’t that finish yesterday?”
“This is the last of the lasts.”
This time he cut a piece twice as large as before and offered it at once. Catherine, who had been fretting in tiny bursts of irritation, accepted it with open satisfaction and took a huge bite.
“I thought this winter would finally be restful.”
“Still, compared to last winter it’s honestly no different from usual. You’re doing personal research on top of everything else.”
“Oh, dear.”
The moment the words left his mouth Catherine gave an involuntary shudder. Half a year’s backlog for dozens of people. Magic tools and commissions left unmanaged for months. A mountain of Winter-Ascend documents and devices.
“That’s enough.”
“Yeees. Just a moment, then.”
“Hm? Hm…”
As Karem reached for a napkin, Catherine hesitated yet carefully tilted her head toward him.
Swish—
Such a small mouth, yet she takes such big bites… ah.
The more the sauce vanished from the corners of her mouth and the edges of her lips, the more her face colored with shy heat. Karem felt much the same. Thanks to Mary he thought he ought to be used to this by now—and yet he never quite was.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while.”
“Thinking what?”
“It feels as if I ought to get used to it, yet I never do.”
“You’re saying that now?”
Even as she spoke, Catherine’s expression regained its usual composure. The instant she felt the flush rising she had already begun circulating magic.
“Strictly speaking, kid, you were attending me the very first day we met. Isn’t it about time you got used to it?”
“While you cool the flush with magic.”
“…How do you know that?”
“Mary let it slip.”
Ignoring the way she bristled at the servant’s betrayal (?), Karem folded the napkin and finished wiping the last of the sauce from her lips.
“I knew it would turn out like this. Such a small mouth, yet…”
“Just attend me quietly. What does it matter if I choose to eat this way?”
“Well, I don’t mind.”
“What?”
Whether the unexpected reply flustered her or not, Karem finished wiping, lowered the napkin, and picked up the utensils again. She was no longer embarrassed to excess the way she had been a few days earlier. She still blushed, yet she leaned into the care as if it were natural—and that felt closer than before.
“So, since things have come to this, if you would also drop the ‘kid’—”
“The kid is getting cocky.”
“Including my previous life I have long been an adult.”
“If you haven’t held a coming-of-age ceremony, don’t even start.”
Karem sliced the mammoth nose skewers with a mixture of irritation and lingering attachment every time that ironclad coming-of-age remark flew at him.
“I really need to damn well hold that wretched ceremony.”
“Kid. Are you sulking?”
“What? I’m not a child who’d sulk over something so trivial…”
“Hmm.”
Chewing a piece of skewer, Catherine raised one eyebrow as if to ask whether he felt no guilt saying that, and met his eyes. Karem focused intently on the appetizing mammoth nose skewers.
“It loses flavor when it cools, so please eat quickly.”
“Where did the person who told me to enjoy it leisurely go?”
“You said you were busy.”
“Of course I’m busy.”
In that instant Karem understood. Whatever he said, she would seize on it and keep teasing. The little smirk that invited him to try again was all the proof he needed. When he pressed his lips shut and simply held out the fork, Catherine gave a slow, magnanimous nod and bit into the skewer.
“I should ask you to barge in once more next time.”
She was still shy, yet she seemed to be adapting faster than he was. In that case the only solution was to adapt in turn. Once he grew used to it, counterattacking would become easier.
“Hey. I think I just misheard something.”
“Yes? Did I say something strange?”
“What was that about ‘barging in’ just now?”
“What? Barge in? Ah.”
Oh no. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud?
“Oh no? Come to think of it, the context is off. You’re missing a word at the front. What were you trying to say?”
“At this rate the meat will all go cold.”
Of course meat lost flavor when it cooled. Even the most delicious meat in the world was no exception.
“Hoh. You’ve almost finished it already, so that hardly matters. Tell me the word you left out of that sentence.”
Judging by the way her eyebrows were twitching, however, Catherine’s interest lay elsewhere. Karem swallowed dryly. She had clearly heard every syllable and was simply toying with him. So this was the feeling of having misspoken in front of one’s lover!
He was not particularly thrilled by the discovery.