Bitter, Nutty, and a Little Sweet
When exchanging gifts, a little consideration usually means weighing a few things—the other person's mood or tastes, whether they already own something similar, and so on.
Karem had never once bothered with any of that.
Back when he was Garam in his previous life, gifts among friends had been simple. A few crisp yellow bills. Affordable brand-name gaming gear. If even that felt like too much pressure, they just bought each other a meal.
It wasn't something they had formally decided. It was closer to an unspoken agreement that had settled into place over time. In this life, the point was even more obvious. Karem had no memory of properly receiving a gift—at least not before he entered Winterhome.
That was why his head stayed tangled the entire time he was out on what was supposedly a date and gourmet crawl.
He could roughly guess why the gifts friends exchanged had become fixed by quiet consensus: experience. Thinking too hard about it was a pain, so you just picked something that wouldn't earn a complaint when it was opened. Once he boiled it down that way, only three options remained.
The problem was that none of them could be applied to Catherine.
She herself had said it. She did not need jewelry—necklaces, rings, any of that. Honestly, he had only been testing the waters. Karem already knew. Her rooms were already full of "special" ornaments she could wear whenever she liked. Add the gifts, fiefs, and commissions that poured in as Supreme Magical Advisor and Tower Master, and the sheer volume of money and jewelry she received was beyond imagining. Preparing some fancy accessory or magic tool was a guaranteed failure.
So after he had eliminated everything else, the one thing Catherine might actually be happy to receive was clear.
An experience she had never had before. Something new.
And the only thing Karem could prepare right away was a single option: a dish she had never tasted.
There was just one snag.
But what kind of dish do you even give as a gift…?
It wasn't all that different from the times Catherine casually ordered him to surprise her. No—wait. They had already offered food as burnt offerings. As long as it looked good and tasted good, there was no reason he couldn't present it as a gift. In that case, it shouldn't be hard. It was no different from what he had been doing all along.
The problem is that that isn't the only condition.
There was the sacrificial offering to present to the god at the coming-of-age ceremony. The requirement that it also carry gratitude toward his guardian. And the little extra note that said guardian was looking forward to it.
Catherine had said it in a half-teasing tone, of course. The trouble was that it never stayed just a joke. Considering that every word she had ever spoken aloud had turned out to be true, the claim that she was looking forward to it was probably fact as well.
Damn. If only there were some way to half-ass this—
Half-ass it? Karem paused, then shook his head at himself. Meeting each condition separately with a dish wasn't that difficult. An offering for a god? He already had a long mental list of candidates, and if none of those worked he could always offer one of the usual dishes with an apology. At least he wouldn't get scolded. He could fry chicken a few times a week and they would leave nothing but bones—or sometimes not even bones.
No, the real thing he had to consider was Catherine. Her demand was the root of the problem.
"Looks like you've got a lot on your mind."
"No. Just got snow in my eye."
"Right, right. Keep thinking hard."
The words dripped with mockery and teasing. Karem shot a flat look down at the very person who had created this headache. Catherine only tilted her head and smiled, as if daring him to do something about it.
"You're teasing me right now."
"Isn't that obvious?"
His brooding continued even after they returned to Winterhome with Catherine, who clearly decided he had fretted enough. If he just kept worrying at a moderate pace, something would surely come to him…
Yeah, right.
Aigoo, his head.
"Ah, this isn't working. Lady Atanitas."
"Hm? What is it?"
Catherine slowed her steps toward the tower and turned her head toward him.
"I'm going to clear my head for a bit and come back."
"Fine. Do as you like."
"I'll be back before snack time."
"Ah, no need to prepare snacks today."
What kind of nonsense was that? Catherine had never once skipped snacks. Even when she was sick she had still demanded them. What was going on?
"What's with that look? It's unpleasant."
"No, but… you're skipping snacks?"
"Skipping snacks? What are you talking about?"
Catherine tilted her head and raised an eyebrow as if she couldn't understand him at all.
"Then the little things we ate while walking around the inner castle weren't snacks?"
"Ah… those were snacks."
Various fruits and ice cream set with cream, thick-cut fries of salted fried fish, clam chowder loaded with vegetables and shellfish, nut cookies decorated with dried fruit, and more. If you counted the usual snacks they had eaten mixed in with actual meals, Catherine was right.
"Huuuuuh. Fine, whatever. I'll take a walk to clear my head and come back."
"Wander around as much as you need."
"I'll return before the evening banquet."
"Good. The coming-of-age ceremony is still a few days off, so think it over thoroughly."
That woman really was going to keep this up until the end… Ugh. Falling for her first was the original sin.
Karem let out a silent, deep sigh and began wandering aimlessly through Winterhome, trying to untangle the mess in his head. But instead of settling, his thoughts only seemed more jumbled by the noise around him.
"Ugh, what a pain this is."
"Shut it. You saw how happy the lord was—of course she prepared all this. The bonus is fat enough, so just close your mouths."
"Ugh, must be lunch—whatever I ate earlier—oh, Karem!"
Karem returned greetings with half-hearted politeness as he passed people who called out to him. Cleanup always took longer than preparation. They had pulled out the countless decorations normally reserved for Winter-Ascend once every few years, used them again after only about a year, and now had to pack them all away again. Of course everyone was busy. And with the coming-of-age ceremony only days away, the bustle was easily one-and-a-half times the usual Winter-Ascend aftermath, even if it wasn't quite double.
"Is there nowhere quiet?"
He grumbled and started to leave again, then stopped. The warehouse torn open for the kitchen, the corridors, the great hall, the open grounds, the barracks, the slaughterhouse—every place was noisy. But there was still one spot that ought to be quiet.
Gordon thought even he had been living a little too peacefully and leisurely lately—almost enough to wonder if it was all right.
"Porororong?"
Flora tilted her head. The lavish autumn leaves blooming thickly in her brown-tinged hair rustled with a dry crackle.
"No, just keep doing what you were doing."
"Porong? Purrrrrrrr!"
The reason was the dryad currently laughing brightly while engaged in some completely incomprehensible dirt play: Flora.
Not that he disliked the peace. Every mercenary's dream was to settle down with a fat pile of money. If you got a little greedier, you added a title with a fief attached. And Gordon had essentially achieved that dream. He had met the ideal lord and superior he had always hoped for. The moment he became a knight under her, he received a title complete with territory, and she had even blocked the flood of reckless marriage proposals on his behalf. On top of that he had gained a fairy wife who was kind-hearted, beautiful, and good-natured.
Perhaps he had simply achieved the dream too early and too completely.
"Sometimes… it just doesn't feel real."
"Porororong?"
"No, it's nothing."
Gordon shook his head and banished the idle thoughts.
"So what are you doing right now?"
She was digging at the soil, dropping leaves one or two at a time, and kneading the dirt… At a glance it looked exactly like a mentally unwell beauty playing in the mud. But experience had taught Gordon to trust his instincts: she always had some other intention.
She was a forest fairy who could accelerate a seed's growth a thousandfold with a single touch and make plants flourish.
This life force…
Every time Flora clawed at the earth and worked the soil, a warm pulse like an invisible heart beating spread outward in waves.
"Pororong?"
When their eyes met again, Flora fidgeted as if embarrassed. Then she whipped her head away, the sprout on top of her head swaying.
"Pororong—!"
She slammed the tightly clenched fistful of dirt hard into the ground, as if pouring every ounce of strength into planting a seed.
What looked like nothing more than meaningless pounding on the earth produced a sudden thump—
The entire floor of the greenhouse, the life force itself, seemed to pulse as one. No—he could actually feel the pulse of life force.
In that instant the life force filling the greenhouse gathered into faint pale-green clusters and became visible.
"Is this what you were trying to do?"
"Pororong~!"
"Uh… so is that it, then?"
"Porong."
Nod-nod, shake-shake. Flora answered Gordon's questions with porongs of affirmation and denial, then wriggled her fingers as if bashful.
Thwack!
She suddenly struck the spot where she had planted the dirt ball. Then she swiftly brushed the soil aside in a cloud of flying grit.
Plop—pop—
Something that looked familiar yet much smaller—a single tiny sprout—began pushing up through the earth.
Suuuuuuuuuk—
In the blink of an eye the sprout lengthened and thickened, sending out branches, and leaves unfurled on every limb. A smaller number of pouch-like flower buds swelled, bloomed, withered just as quickly, and dropped to the ground. In the places the flowers had been, fruit that looked like pale-green peaches began to form.
By the time the sprout had grown into a tree that towered over Gordon and its rapid growth finally began to slow, the pale-green peach-like fruits had turned black, swollen to the size of apples, and ripened into clear heart shapes.
"Huh… never seen this one before."
Gordon examined the mysterious tree that had appeared so suddenly with open curiosity. Flora had already demonstrated this ability several times in the greenhouse, so it wasn't quite as astonishing as the first time.
"Porororong—!"
Flora held out both hands beneath the tree. A soft rustling of wind followed, and fruits dropped one by one into her palms with soft thuds. She gathered them at once, approached Gordon, and thrust one fruit out to him.
"Uh… so you're giving me this?"
"Porong~"
"Hmm… never seen a fruit like this. How do I… this is edible, right?"
A faint scent rose from it—something he couldn't quite put into words, similar to Alrune's Tear yet completely different. Just in case, he had to ask.
At his words Flora's eyes widened as if she had completely forgotten. She quickly gripped the black heart-shaped fruit in both hands and split it open.
Oh, it's a lot softer than it looks.
From the outside it had appeared rock-hard, but the black fruit parted cleanly in half, held together only by dark-brown fibers. The flesh inside was as dark as the smooth skin—shining a deep blackish-brown that looked almost like butter dyed black.
Chomp—
As if to show him how it was done, Flora stared straight at Gordon and took a huge bite of the fruit.
"Mmmmmmmmmm—!!!"
"Hmm… is it that good?"
Gordon watched with a mix of curiosity and mild puzzlement as Flora happily hummed and munched, brows faintly furrowed. Flora hated bitter things. A furrowed brow usually meant exactly that.
She hates bitter stuff, yet she's just eating it?
Spending so much time with Alicia had made Flora resemble her in many ways, but unlike the youngest princess who would eat anything if it tasted good, Flora was a bit of a picky eater. Bitter and astringent flavors especially. That said, she could still devour raw vegetables like a cow. And yet here she was, eating this with such open delight.
Eh, whatever.
Flora, face and hands already smeared black with the fruit's flesh, kept making "eat it like this" gestures at him.
"All right, all right, I'm eating."
"Porong—!"
"Don't rush me."
Gordon took a big bite of the halved black fruit.
Black Fruit (modeled after black sapote)
A picture drawn by ChatGPT for us.