The Wrong Application. Mint Tea
Once he started to notice it, a distinctive bracing scent that jolted the mind cut clearly through the café’s thick aromas of sweet and savory vanilla, sugar, butter, and milk.
And of all things, it had to be a warm scent.
Karem glanced around and strained his ears.
"When is the cake I ordered coming out!"
"I shall have this vanilla ice cream today. Ah, do not worry. I can manage it alone."
"Thank you for your hard work."
"Oh my, dear. It’s almost too pretty to eat!"
Karem, who had been listening in silence, twitched an eyebrow.
It was unmistakably a wrong scent born of wrong usage.
Yet among the desserts the seated patrons had ordered, the culprit was nowhere to be found.
"Then what on earth…"
"Kid. It’s distracting. Why are you looking around so restlessly? Sit still and it’ll come out on its own."
Catherine tapped the table lightly and scolded him.
"So stop gawking like some country bumpkin who just came up from the sticks."
"No, that’s not why."
"Then?"
"Um… am I the only one smelling this bracing scent?"
"Bracing scent?"
No one else around seemed to react, so perhaps it was only his imagination. He was already mentally exhausted; it was not impossible.
"Now that you mention it, it’s a scent I haven’t smelled in a long time."
"…You know this smell?"
"Yes. This is… Menthe’s Adultery? A medicinal herb used widely across the continental mainland. Wound salves, low-grade recovery potions—it has all sorts of uses."
Catherine spoke with clear conviction.
"So what’s the problem with the smell?"
"Isn’t it a bit… strange for a café to reek of it?"
"Well, saying someone ground a little for a commission feels off, too…"
Only then did Catherine’s expression turn ambiguous as she grasped the anomaly.
Menthe’s Adultery grew wild in the central and southern reaches of Europa—most notably Berseingeto and Serbianus.
It was fairly common, yet other regions never even imported it.
The reasons were simple: there was never any surplus, and substitutes abounded.
Other lands had plants of comparable grade, and though the herb was common, its high utility as medicine meant every scrap was consumed within its native regions.
"There are similar plants?"
"The Seophon Kingdom has its share. Honeywort, sage, and so on."
"Isn’t sage a herb?"
"It’s used as a ‘herb’ as well."
The same herbs stuffed into stews or packed into roast cavities turning up as potion ingredients.
It felt unfamiliar, yet there was no reason to reject it.
Even in his previous life, old spices and herbs had doubled as medicinal ingredients.
If this was simply the extension of that tradition, it made sense.
Click.
"Your ordered Cradle of Roses and marmalade pudding. Please enjoy."
Right on cue, the waiter arrived with their dishes.
The crêpe cake introduced as Cradle of Roses looked quite different from anything Karem had commonly made or seen, save for the sugar powder finer than snow.
True to its name, the crêpes stood layered vertically like petals on the plate, dusted with snow so that the whole thing formed a great rose.
"Not custard pudding—bread pudding?"
"Lady Atanitas ordered one as well. I’ll help myself to a little."
"You’ve got some nerve."
Catherine spoke as if dumbfounded, yet she did not refuse. Karem gratefully accepted the permission and snatched the knife from the waiter’s hand.
"This red tint… rose water?"
Catherine studied the slice Karem had cut.
Thin crêpes and whipped cream stacked vertically rather than horizontally looked like frozen ripples of water sliced clean through.
"The cross-section is different from anything we’ve had before, just like the outside."
"Well, the method isn’t that hard."
"You’ve already figured it out?"
Cradle of Roses. The technique behind the red crêpe cake was neither special nor difficult.
Simply bake the crêpes square, spread whipped cream on only half, fold and roll, then keep adding cream and attaching more until the desired size was reached. That was all.
It was merely tedious and labor-intensive.
"Let’s try the taste—"
Catherine accepted the piece of Cradle of Roses Karem offered from beside her. A moment later her eyebrows drooped as interest faded.
"It has a rose scent from the rose water, but otherwise it’s just an ordinary crêpe cake."
"Even a simple change of concept deserves praise."
"A change of concept. Of course that matters."
While Catherine chewed, Karem swiftly carved a generous chunk of the marmalade pudding and popped it into his mouth.
Syrup sweet enough to make the tongue ache flooded his palate.
Crunch—
The soft bread, heavy with syrup, gushed sweet orange-scented liquid the instant he bit down, exactly like wringing out a sponge soaked full of water.
The bread that had held the syrup so naturally left no shape behind; its loose bonds parted and it scattered completely.
Once his nose adapted to the orange, a subtle vanilla fragrance rose with every chew of the fine particles, and the orange scent returned layered atop it.
That first bite, sweet enough to ache the teeth, left only a lingering savory note of bread pudding by the time he swallowed, and then vanished.
"This is… pretty good."
"That much?"
"Would you like a bite?"
"Sure. But the fork—"
"Here."
Catherine had been about to call a waiter when the marmalade-dripping bread pudding approached from the side; she opened her mouth by reflex and took the fork.
Bread pudding fell into two categories: the savory sort baked with meat juices and fat for a meal, and the dessert sort steeped in syrup.
Naturally, the tooth-aching sweetness belonged to the dessert variety.
In his personal opinion the key to dessert bread pudding was how naturally one restrained that sweetness… wait.
Catherine nodded, savoring the taste—then froze solid.
Wasn’t this the fork he had just used?
She turned her eyes sideways.
"It’s good, right?"
He asked nonchalantly, as if the answer were obvious, and reclaimed the fork. A little marmalade syrup still clung to its tip.
Correct. Until moments ago that fork had been Karem’s.
"You cheeky little brat. Right now this is—"
"It’s flirting."
"Wh-what—"
"Come on, we had an indirect kiss just a few days ago. Feeding you with a used fork is nothing."
At those words Catherine’s head snapped up.
True enough—she had forgotten for a moment amid the whole “I’m a lightweight” confession, but Karem had definitely put his mouth to the same glass she had drunk from.
"…Y-you—"
"I went and did it, and now I’m dying of embarrassment."
"You did it yourself and you’re the one embarrassed…!"
Karem nodded in frank affirmation.
If Iona, the very person who had advised him, had witnessed this, he would have lamented that this was all the progress Karem could manage and that things were moving far too slowly—but Karem felt no shame.
"If you’re embarrassed, don’t do it…!"
"I cannot carry out that order."
"This guy with nothing but useless initiative—"
"Oh? Looks like there’s some sort of event."
A woman who appeared to be the café owner suddenly stepped out alone from behind the counter, clapping her hands. Karem seized the chance to change the subject. Catherine glared daggers, but the owner spoke first.
"Allow me first to offer my deepest thanks to the brave gentlemen and lovely ladies who have graced my café."
The café owner’s glittering cascade of ornate phrases quickly bored Karem, just as it bored most of the other patrons.
Rumble—
Yet the boredom lasted only a moment.
Several waiters appeared in a line, each pushing a cart laden with gleaming covered dishes.
The event was sudden, but the mood remained cheerful.
No one present disliked an unexpected gift.
A new menu item, a birthday celebration, an anniversary of the opening—customers whispered happily among their companions, tossing out every possible guess.
"Kid. Your face looks strange."
"…Hasn’t the scent grown stronger?"
"The scent? You’re right, it has."
"…Don’t tell me."
Karem felt a chill of dread.
The unpleasantly warm, bracing scent he had briefly forgotten intensified the moment the waiters wheeled the carts closer.
What did that mean?
It was painfully obvious.
It meant that until moments ago the kitchen behind the counter had been preparing the very source of the smell—and that the source now lay hidden beneath those covers on the carts.
"—Therefore, please enjoy the latest trend we have attempted here at our café: the tea culture popular in Serbianus that has traveled up through Kingsland!"
Clap-clap—
As if the café owner’s light clap were the signal, the waiters lifted the covers almost in unison.
Whoosh—!
"…!"
And at last the scent he had dreaded exploded outward.
"Just as I thought—the smell of Menthe’s Adultery. It reeks of the stuff boiled into a potion."
Almost no one besides the two of them recognized the fragrance.
"…It’s refreshing, but a bit too unfamiliar for me—"
"What is this smell? Feels odd."
"Is this what they’re drinking in Serbianus these days?"
"Huh. I’ve smelled this somewhere before."
"Popular in Kingsland? Interesting."
Naturally, negative reactions were a tiny minority.
Most patrons looked intrigued.
In Europa the chief means of travel were ships and carriages at best.
Unless one was an adventurer, merchant, or sailor, most people rarely left even their city or village, let alone the region of their birth.
Places like Iceland, where movement was lively, certainly existed, but they were the exception.
So when a culture from the distant continental mainland—and one currently fashionable in another region—appeared, curiosity was only natural.
Click—
"It’s hot, so please be careful."
Karem stared at the cup set on the table.
Inside the clean silver vessel that resembled a mug, a clear light-brown liquid with a yellowish cast trembled gently.
"Never thought I’d smell this all the way out here. And to drink it for pleasure rather than medicine, in a café of all places."
Turning a pure magical ingredient into food.
Catherine, wondering whether this was another case like roasted Alraune, glanced at the unnaturally silent seat beside her.
Karem was glaring at the Menthe’s Adultery tea as if his eyes alone could split the table in half.
"Hey, kid. Snap out of it. Hey!"
"Lady Atanitas."
"Yes. This time at least—"
"I am currently as clear-headed as the day I discovered the Red Witch’s Finger and vanilla."
"That means you’re not in your right mind."
His voice was as still as a river frozen solid in winter.
Heard with the ears alone, it sounded perfectly calm.
It was not that he hated mint.
He did not particularly like it either, yet he felt no violent loathing.
Mint-chocolate brownies, mint-chocolate ice cream, mint vanilla—those were fine.
The ratio, above all, was crucial. Reversing main and secondary was unforgivable.
But tea was not allowed.
Absolutely not.
Consuming mint—peppermint—hot… that could never be tolerated.
"Therefore I shall pay a brief visit to the kitchen that produced this abomination."
Catherine had no chance to stop him.
Karem, silver cup still in hand, shot to his feet. Gazes turned toward him from every side; he ignored them and strode straight for the counter. The waiters, cowed by his ominous aura, hesitated even as they tried to block his path.
If that guy really loses it, he doesn’t care about front or back…!
Catherine pressed a hand to her forehead, dragged it down her face, and followed after him.
But she was already too late.
Bang—!
"Who made this abomination!"
Watching the back of Karem’s head as he shoved open the swinging door behind the counter and roared, Catherine pressed her forehead once more.
The three who had been watching the entire scene through a crystal ball in Winterhome—Olivier, Elizabeth, and Iona—likewise pressed their foreheads.
Attached Materials
- Vertical Crêpe Cake (Cradle of Roses) -
- Bread Pudding -
- Mint and Mint Tea -
These are pictures drawn by ChatGPT.