Bitter, Nutty, and a Little Sweet (3)
Flora's reason for getting angry was simple enough.
After all the trouble she had gone to preparing a gift, Gordon had gone and tacked on a string of unnecessary remarks—that this part was like that, that it wasn't bad tasting so much as a little ambiguous. Anyone would have gotten mad at a reaction like that to a carefully prepared present, not just Flora.
In any case, Flora had been quietly nursing a serious grudge. They had squabbled over trivial things before, but this time she was not prepared to forgive him. Contrary to the dryad's wishes, however…
"Porororororong—♩♪♬♪♩"
Her body and her palate were both hopelessly weak.
Flora, not even a full year old, had fallen completely to Karem's chocolate creation (name pending).
"How is it? I made it from the things I told you to try. Looks like it's to your liking."
"Porong! Pororong—! Porong—♩♪!"
Flora poronged nonstop the whole time. But her expression, her gestures, her whole demeanor—everything about her was loudly declaring that she loved it to pieces.
"By the way, Flora, this is all there is for now. What you're eating is the last of it."
"…!"
"If I had a few more of those heart fruits someone gave as a gift, I could make a whole—"
Porororong!
Flora, who had frozen in shock, took off like the wind toward the distant (provisional name) heart-fruit tree the moment the rest of the sentence started forming, her face set in solemn determination.
"Hmm. Well, at least she's not mad anymore. That's good."
Gordon watched her go with a faintly deflated look, rubbing his chin as he stared down at the object in his hand.
The color was a deep brown, neither bright nor dark. The shape was a flat disc about the size of a thumb.
"Just adding a little sugar and milk, and the taste changes this much?"
"What's the most important thing in a dessert?"
"Butter and sugar, right?"
"Close enough. Not just butter—dairy in general."
Karem answered casually as he gave the metal tray in his hands a little twist.
—Clang! The chocolate that had set on the tray popped free as if springing upward. He dumped it straight into a bowl, then immediately piped fresh chocolate back onto the empty tray with a pastry bag.
"You should have just said something nice about it."
"Hey, never mind the flavor—the fruit itself is bitter and astringent."
"It was a gift given with good intentions. Of course she'd get mad if you started critiquing it like that."
"Still, the way it tasted… Fine, fine. I get it."
Ziiing— Under Karem's pointed look that clearly said See?, Gordon caught a piece of chocolate he had flicked into the air with his mouth and shrugged.
"But you can't deny the fruit is seriously addictive. That bitterness is pure flavor."
Well, Karem could at least understand the love-it-or-hate-it reaction to the fruit itself. If he thought only about the taste of the heart fruit, his own feelings leaned toward dislike.
How many people actually enjoy the pure taste of cacao with no sugar and no milk?
It had a faint sweetness and a scent that felt like it could hook you, but the bitterness still got in the way of simply liking it. And yet his hand kept going back for more—that was the strange part.
"So where did this fruit come from, anyway?"
"Hm? What do you mean, where?"
"I've never heard Corvus talking about starting any new crops."
If he had, Alicia the social butterfly would have come running to drag Karem off and demand he cook something delicious with them. That meant the fruit had appeared while the cooldown was still ticking. Gordon's place was out of the question, so if it wasn't Corvus, there was only one culprit.
"Flora made it, right? Or rather—since it's fruit, she grew it."
"I thought she was just messing around in the dirt out of nowhere. Then a tree shot up right there like decades had suddenly passed. Over that way."
As if telling him to go look for himself, Gordon pointed toward one side of the zone. A handsome, vigorously alive tree Karem had never seen before (Flora was currently pounding on its trunk) stood right in the middle of the grassland sector, clearly visible even from a distance. It was blatantly out of place.
"So this fruit is from…?"
"Yeah. From that tree."
"Is that really okay?"
"Huh? Is what okay?"
Gordon's face was pure incomprehension. Which made sense, in a way.
"The greenhouse. It's divided into strict zones by climate and ecology, right?"
"Sure. Dozens of environments, all four seasons in one place. Ah."
"Is it fine for a tree like that to be standing in a grassland full of nothing but the plants and creatures that belong there?"
"…Should we dig it up and plant it somewhere else?"
"No—before that, is it even something we can dig up?"
"Dunno. We'll have to ask Corvus or Flora."
"Conveniently, the culprit herself is coming this way."
Flora on the return trip was different from Flora on the way out. Specifically…
Pabababababak—!!!
Dozens of heart fruits sat in a net woven from vines like a spiderweb, and that net was scuttling after her on eight vine legs like a farming spider.
"Uwah, that's gross!?"
"Yeah, not exactly a pleasant sight."
"That's all you have to say?"
"Try living as a mercenary. That barely registers. Barely."
"If that's what mercenary life is like, I never want to try it."
Of course Karem had once lived by catching and eating wild insects. That did not mean he was friendly with bugs. Survival instinct and pure physical revulsion were two different things.
"Pororong—!!!"
"Whoa. You brought a ton."
Karem instinctively took a step back.
"Pororong?"
Flora tilted her head as if wondering what the sudden problem was, then directed the vine net over to a corner of the outdoor kitchen and set it down. Only after the legs had rewoven themselves back into netting could Karem properly assess the quantity.
"What, you want me to turn all of this into what you just ate?"
He looked at her with a face that said All of it?, but Flora just porong-poronged and nodded vigorously, her innocent face doing its best to look solemn.
"It's not like it's hard or anything."
"Pororong—!"
"You're not planning to eat it all right now, are you?"
"Porong?"
"I mean, if it was just the fruit, maybe. But this stuff is loaded with sugar. If you keep going like that…"
Karem closed his mouth before the thought could fully leave it.
Get fat?
Flora spent every free moment racing through the greenhouse, climbing trees, and doing flips. Imagining her putting on weight was hard in the first place.
Get scolded?
If anyone was going to get scolded over eating, Alicia would have been yelled at long ago. And it wasn't as if she was going to balloon the way Godwyn did.
"Pororong?"
"…No. Never mind. Just eat. Go ahead and eat."
"Porong!"
Karem used divine power to flash-harden the chocolate substitute, dumped it into bowls for the two lovebirds, and sighed as he eyed the dozens of fruits still sitting in the vine net.
"This is a ridiculous amount."
The one silver lining was that, compared to real chocolate, this stuff was terrifyingly easy to make. When ordinary people made chocolate, they usually just melted commercial bars and re-set them. Those commercial bars, however, went through dozens of blending and processing steps that required specialized facilities and trained staff—not something an amateur could pull off.
Heart-fruit chocolate needed none of that. The buttery texture was no joke; drop the fruit into a double boiler and it melted on its own. Add cream and sugar in the right amounts and liquid chocolate appeared as if by magic. Flash-freezing it with divine power meant no refrigeration equipment was required either, and it barely took any time. The only real problem was that she had brought dozens of the fruits.
"Ah, whatever. Just make it first and figure the rest out later. Gordon."
"What. Want me to grab more sugar and cream?"
"Please."
Karem glanced at Flora, who was currently demolishing chocolate. Unlike earlier, she seemed to be savoring it slowly this time; the amount in the bowl had barely gone down. Her face, though, was far redder than before.
Excited? Just how much did she like the chocolate?
Watching her made him want some himself.
"Just one."
"Porong."
Karem popped a piece into his mouth. Right after it went in there was almost no taste or aroma—the flash-freezing at work. But as soon as it began to melt in earnest, the nostalgic flavor of chocolate from his previous life slowly bloomed.
Soft, sweet, with a bitter finish. Thanks to the generous amount of high-quality cream, there was none of that chalky texture either.
"Mmm… Been a while, but yeah. One is plenty."
"Porong?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
Chocolate was definitely delicious, but Karem's tastes leaned more toward the other dishes and desserts you could make with it—choco pies, chocolate crepe cakes, molten lava cakes, Nutella toast, chocolate pudding, brownies, and so on.
There was just one problem. A very serious problem.
I don't know most of the recipes…
Karem loaded liquid chocolate into the pastry bag and silently lamented. In his previous life it had never been an issue. He had money and time; he could just buy whatever he wanted. The problem was that this was not his previous life. And he had never even seen anything like these heart fruits before coming here. If he had known he was going to reincarnate, he would have taught himself or gone to a pastry school just so he could memorize the recipes.
Choco pie, chocolate pudding, chocolate crepe cake, Nutella, chocolate fondue—those were every single chocolate dessert whose method he actually knew and could currently make.
Wait a second.
Karem paused mid-pipe, tray still in hand, and fell into thought.
If I leave it to Mary, she'll figure something out, won't she?
She was skilled enough at baking that she had once whipped up cream puffs after only glancing sideways at a previous-life recipe. Honestly, if he just provided the ingredients and let her trial-and-error for a bit, she would research every one of those chocolate desserts he had been daydreaming about simply because she wanted to eat them herself—and one day she would casually present the finished products. No, she absolutely would.
"Ah, Flora. Could you keep this a secret for a while?"
"Pororong? Porong."
Nod— tilt?
"That fruit. You gave some to Gordon as a gift, right? I want to give someone a gift too. Gifts aren't fun if the person finds out early."
Flora slowly ate another piece of chocolate, blinking, then suddenly half-closed her eyes with a face even redder than before and broke into a wide grin—exactly as if she had already figured out the whole situation without needing to be told.
"That look of yours is weird right now. Anyway. Just between the people here in the greenhouse for a little while."
"Pororong. Pororong?"
"Uh… until the coming-of-age ceremony is over. Just keep it secret for a few days."
Gordon aside, Flora's reaction suggested success so far—but he couldn't stop here. To properly surprise Catherine he needed something even bigger.
Two days left until the ceremony. Plenty of time to recreate the chocolate of his previous life.
"She just porongs, but you somehow understand her?"
Gordon approached carrying a large jar in one hand and a sack in the other.
Thud— thump—
"Here. I'm dumping these. Use them however you want."
"Thanks for the hard work. I just kind of get the vibe."
"Guess it's different because you're her dad?"
"…That's not really related, but sure."
If she had been completely expressionless it might have been impossible, but every porong came mixed with faces and gestures. You didn't need a translator to get the general idea.
"You're pretty good at understanding her yourself."
"Hey. I've been stuck to her side for ages. It'd be weirder if I didn't get it. More importantly—how's the work going?"
"Fine. Just repetitive and annoying."
Halve the heart fruit, double-boil it, mix in the ingredients, pipe it out of the bag, freeze with divine power. Pure simple repetition.
"Oh, and the cream you're using right now is the last of it."
"So that jar is milk?"
"Close enough. I brought it just in case."
"Doesn't matter."
"Yeah?"
Gordon stood with his arms crossed, staring blankly at Karem. Feeling the gaze, Karem turned his head.
"So then. Our dear genius little chef."
Gordon smiled wickedly.
"Just who are you making this brand-new candy for?"
"…I never said a word. You're jumping to—"
"Jumping nothing! Who do you think I am?"
"…"
Even after Karem had turned every last heart fruit into chocolate substitutes, even after he had secured Flora's cooperation for the gift preparations, even after he had gotten Corvus's permission to use the space—right up until the moment Karem fled the greenhouse as if escaping—Gordon's needling never stopped.
"Hmmm. With this Sword Master's intuition, I'd say all you need now is one decisive finishing blow—"
"Pororong—♡"
"Huh? What, you already finished all that? Wait, why are your arms around my ches—"
"Pororororong~♡♡♡!!!"
"H-hey, where are you dragging me… Wait, that cry sounds a little weird—"
*** Attached Materials ***
Chapter 230: Bitter, Nutty, and a Little Sweet (3)
— Chocolate —
This is a picture ChatGPT drew for us.