Kingsland, To the Royal Territory (2)
Catherine and Alfred's premonition proved true.
The reconnaissance party that had set out at the crack of dawn returned around midday. They reported discovering an underground dungeon half a day's journey from the site where they had hunted the giant mimic.
The scale of the naturally formed subterranean dungeon defied imagination.
Even as a contingency, they could not risk cutting straight through it.
While the command fretted over the procession's route, word of the dungeon's discovery spread through the entire campsite in an instant.
Of course it did.
What, after all, was a dungeon?
Large or small, to an adventurer it was a realm of the unknown and treasure that always paid out rewards—something no one could simply walk past.
Traps, monsters, obstacles, and every other danger might lurk within, but anyone who worried about that sort of thing never entered a dungeon in the first place.
Whatever the cause, the scale itself was enormous: the entire underground of an entire region had turned into a dungeon, swallowing coastal cliffs and forest whole.
No one knew how dangerous the place might be, yet not only the adventurers but everyone else began to feel their chests tighten with anticipation.
"Whoa, if it's that huge the loot's gotta be fucking delicious."
"And we have to just walk right past it."
"What? What the hell are you talking about?"
"What are you talking about? We're on a job right now, you idiot."
"Ah."
Exactly.
The adventurers currently traveling with the procession fell into three categories.
First were those hired for the escort detail—meat shields, in adventurer slang—tasked with intercepting attackers in place of the knights and soldiers.
Second were those who had taken escort contracts from the merchant caravans that had latched onto the procession for various reasons, hoping for scraps.
Last were those who, for one reason or another, needed to reach Kingsland yet found every party full, and so simply trailed after the column.
Contracts could be broken at any time, of course.
But just as every mushroom in the world is edible—though some can be eaten only once—whatever followed was entirely the individual's responsibility.
It was safe to say there were "almost" no lunatics crazy enough to abandon a duke's commission, accept the penalty, and bolt for a dungeon.
Thus most of those heading for the dungeon were either the ones who had ditched their merchant escort contracts or the uncontracted hangers-on who had simply followed along.
The adventurers who, until leaving Coldon, had been the envy and jealousy of everyone for landing the duke's escort job now found their fortunes completely reversed.
This side was certainly more stable, yet the mere thought of dungeon spoils still made mouths water.
"Go work yourselves to death!"
"You bastards born of scavenger fucking! Cancel like this and I'll report you to the guild!"
"If that makes you feel better, be my guest!"
"We're going to the dungeon!"
Despite the merchants' coaxing and threats, a considerable number of adventurers headed for the dungeon.
The merchants could not hold them.
The conviction that a big score inside would go a long way toward softening whatever discipline came later proved remarkably persuasive.
Whatever the adventurers' and merchants' circumstances, a day passed after those who would leave had left and those who would stay had stayed. Rest was over.
Having revised its route from the coastline to the inland path, the procession resumed its march.
Frankly, Karem was bored.
The thrill of leaving Iceland and the novelty of the Seophon Kingdom's capital had lasted only a moment.
The excitement of travel had settled, and into the empty space, as always, slipped the emotion that had departed: boredom, shouldering its way in.
Karem had tried to fight it at first.
There simply wasn't much he could do.
The carriage had been modified in various ways so that the interior was wider than it looked from outside, yet still not wide enough for cooking or experiments.
Reading books only occupied a day or two.
Everything at Karem's level had long since been finished; only Catherine's specialized magic tomes remained.
Beyond that there were only the toys and fairy tales for little children that Alicia had left behind after a visit.
(The sheer cruelty of those fairy tales had made Karem blanch.)
Yet, as the famous line from Jurassic Park put it—life finds a way.
Karem eventually discovered a method for conquering the boredom.
Crunch—crunch—crunch—
He began peeling the thin inner skins from walnuts and almonds.
"...Is that actually fun?"
"Of course."
"Hmm."
Apparently bothered by the sound, Catherine snapped shut the book she had been reading.
"Ah—please be careful."
"Huh?"
"The skins will scatter in the wind."
Grumbling at Catherine, Karem dragged the basket heaped with skins closer to himself. The baskets of peeled and unpeeled walnuts and almonds swayed.
"Then Mary would be the only one enjoying herself."
Ignoring Mary's gaze that seemed to plead for him to spill something for her to clean, Karem took up a needle and focused on the walnut in his hand.
Peeling a walnut's inner skin was difficult work. Slip while freeing the skin that clung tightly to the kernel and the needle could gouge the nutmeat or stab your own hand.
Almonds were no better.
In fact they were worse; their skins clung even more stubbornly than the walnuts'.
"But you don't need to go that far, do you?"
Mary tilted her head without ever taking her eyes off the skin basket.
"There is an easy way to peel them."
"Soaking them in water?"
"Yes. The skins come off all at once and you wouldn't need to concentrate like that."
Mary spoke as if she truly could not understand.
Karem, however, had a reason.
"Because then they peel too easily."
"Haa?"
"It's the same reason you refrain from using spatial teleportation and brownie magic inside the tower."
"Ohh. If that's the reason..."
Mary nodded as though she understood, though her gaze never left the pile of skins.
"...Why are you staring at that so hard?"
"Oh, I was merely hoping that someone might suddenly open the door or make a mistake and send the skins swirling into the air like autumn leaves."
"Not a chance."
"Just a possibility. A possibility."
It was hard to brush past when Mary's eyes remained locked on the heap. Karem slowly drew the skin basket farther from her with a wary look.
"Why are you being so cautious?"
"I'm being cautious just in case."
"To doubt me so. Truly regrettable."
Even with her expressionless face, genuine pathos colored her words, yet Karem never lowered his guard.
She's waiting for an opening.
Ordinarily it would not have mattered if he simply tossed the skins about; Mary cleaned the tower anyway.
But this was different.
Peeling nut skins was a process whose entire purpose was killing time.
Picking up walnuts and almonds, stripping their skins, gathering kernels with kernels and skins with skins—every single motion existed solely to relieve boredom.
"Useless nonsense."
Catherine glanced between Karem and Mary, reopened her book, and shook her head.
"Useless? Contractor, how can you say such a—"
"Want one?"
"Sure."
"Hing."
Catherine merely tilted her head and accepted the white, smooth kernel Karem held out, popping it into her mouth.
Crunch—crunch—
"Definitely stronger and nuttier than eating them with the skins on. Oilier, too."
"The bitterness usually comes from the skins."
"Hmm. Skinned nuts."
"Shall I prepare a snack with everything you've peeled?"
Mary said it as she finally looked away from the skin basket. Seeing that, Catherine gave a small snort of laughter.
"Your true feelings are showing."
"My punishment also ended as of yesterday. Therefore I may now legitimately intervene in the actions of Karem Hubae, who prepares the contractor's meals and snacks."
"Fine. Make something. Make it. Though I'd prefer something different..."
Something different—here we go again. Ever since the early days after entering Coldon, Catherine had periodically demanded he "show his skill" or "surprise her," orders that always left him in a bind.
Karem shook his head and wordlessly offered the kernel basket to Mary. She took it and fed Catherine one nut after another the moment her mouth opened.
"Well, when we stop later, shall I try something I learned from the Adobis New Kingdom chefs last spring?"
"Ah, come to think of it, there was that."
Snacks of the Adobis New Kingdom—practically the pinnacle of novelty. Catherine, who had been about to return to her book, lifted her head.
"Didn't you say you had no confidence in baking and pastry? Strange how the results are always excellent despite that."
"I've improved compared to before. Still lacking, though."
"Yet you claim you'll bake Adobis New Kingdom sweets. You must have some method prepared?"
"Yes."
Karem answered with firm confidence.
"As Mary said earlier, my vacation is over too."
"It was not a vacation. It was a punishment."
"Catherine-nim called it a vacation."
"I invested it with the meaning of punishment, so it is a punishment."
Mary protested as though deeply wronged, but no one paid her any mind.
"Anyway, since I have a dough specialist, I can make as much as I want."
"I never saw any particular practice. You must have learned quite a bit back then?"
"Not really. The cooking of the Adobis New Kingdom was similar to the desert countries of my previous life."
The desserts of the Adobis New Kingdom were as varied as one would expect from arrogant dark elves, yet they could be summed up in three traits: insanely sweet, pastry dough thinner than paper, and an insane quantity of nuts.
Those same traits existed in my previous life as well.
All three closely resembled the desserts of the Middle Eastern cultural sphere.
He had not learned much during their brief exchange, but the atmosphere and characteristics would be close enough.
And before he could recreate the breads and sweets of either the Middle East or the Adobis New Kingdom, one important premise had to be met.
"Mary. Can you make pastry thinner than parchment?"
"How thin, specifically?"
"Thin enough that the other side shows through."
"All of a sudden?"
Mary suddenly smirked and lifted her chin.
"Of course it is possible. Anticipating just such an occasion, I studied in advance the cookbook Karem Hubae obtained from the Adobis chefs."
"As expected of the all-purpose house elf Mary."
"At last you acknowledge it. In that sense—"
"Don't start with the ridiculous suggestion that I hand over the snacks and meals entirely to you."
Chet—. Mary clicked her tongue for all to hear.
"It did not work this time either. But listen carefully, Karem Hubae. Looking at it, the dough is the most important part of Adobis snacks—"
"Then it's exactly the same as every other time we've made snacks."
"So for the other work—eh?"
"That's right. The hard, tedious work with the dough is yours. The rest is mine."
At a glance it sounded like nothing more than a trash statement dumping the hard and annoying labor on someone else, yet it was the product of a solemn mutual agreement.
Karem was relatively unconfident with baking and pastry and hated boring work.
Mary, on the other hand, loved work so much that if none existed she would invent some for herself—a full-blown workaholic.
The "trash" arrangement was therefore a genuine win-win. Even so, Mary found it insufficient and, whenever she spotted an opening, tried to expand her share by encroaching on his territory, so he could never fully drop his guard. It happened every single time, and that was precisely why he remained vigilant.
"But it is frustrating. I contracted earlier than Karem Hubae...!"
"Uh-huh. Even so, I won't yield the cooking."
"I want more work than this."
"Tsk. This is already the result of plenty of concessions."
Mary tried every angle to enlarge her portion, yet as always the attempt ended in failure—thwarted by Karem's refusal and Catherine's tacit approval.