Budae Jjigae of Apology and Reconciliation
Poppins had stepped out for a moment as well. Alicia took the chance to slip away from everyone's attention and wander the campsite alone for a little while.
It was hardly a difficult thing to do.
Though it was nowhere near as familiar as Winterhome, where she had spent her entire life, it was still only a campsite in the end.
It lacked Winterhome's complexity, and with so many people and shadows about, it was perfect for a brief hideaway.
In truth, her anger had long since cooled.
Alicia loved her grandfather.
That much was an undeniable truth.
After two years apart she had expressed her joy with her whole body, and once again he had arrived bearing gifts—heaps of mammoth meat, no less. What granddaughter in the world could dislike a grandfather like that?
But Fluffy Cloud is just too pitiful.
The image of Fluffy Cloud still shone vividly before her eyes: those clear eyes sparkling as the giant dungeon hamster stuffed every snack she offered straight into its mouth, fur all puffed up and soft.
And then the merciless violence that had come flying at that same Fluffy Cloud.
Richard's hand had left the giant dungeon hamster knocked clean out cold.
Of course Alicia understood the situation well enough.
Even her own eyes had rolled back at the sudden, intoxicating scent of butter that had ridden the wind. Fluffy Cloud's raid on Karem's kitchen tent had only happened because she herself had been so distracted by the smell that she had loosened her grip on the reins.
Worse still, Fluffy Cloud had shed fur all over the kitchen.
That fur had even covered the ingredients and made its way into the cooking.
Even so, it had been far too much.
Alfred had once told Alicia this: the faults of a pet are the responsibility of its owner.
In other words, Fluffy Cloud's mistake belonged to Alicia.
After all, she was the one who had let the scent steal her wits.
Yet Grandfather had knocked poor Fluffy Cloud unconscious. That, Alicia felt, was simply going too far.
At first she had even thought it was dead.
Of course it wasn't truly dead.
Still, that was how badly it had startled her.
Alicia knew what it felt like to have her freedom stifled because of Poppins. Fluffy Cloud, for its part, had only been briefly blinded by gluttony. To call that the price of its appetite felt far too pitiful.
So every time she went to visit Fluffy Cloud she brought armfuls of snacks as well. It still lay unconscious, unable to rise, but even so.
Mmm… Grandfather does seem to feel sorry, too.
Alicia had lived her whole life surrounded by love.
Because of that, she found it hard to hold on to anger for long.
Her older brother Robin, of course, was a separate matter.
That scrawny, sickly weakling who never missed a chance to call her a pig. He had been nasty enough when he was stuck in bed; once he got up and started learning magic he only got worse.
At any rate, Alicia knew perfectly well that Richard would be leaving soon. She did not want to send her grandfather off angry after meeting him for the first time in two years.
"But I did get mad at Grandfather… right—?"
Just then a scent brushed her nose and Alicia's head turned of its own accord.
As the sun began to sink, the smells of cooking rose from every corner of the campsite.
Hot broth and greasy meat. The sharp tang of bad beer. The lying scents of bitter, astringent wine and mead. The smell of butter and sugar just turned to caramel over the fire.
Alicia could not simply pass through the formless curtain of jumbled smells; she swallowed hard.
A rich broth scent thick with savoriness—oily, salty, spicy, with just a hint of sweetness lingering at the end.
Grrrrrr…
While her reason set its worries down for a moment, Alicia's body answered pure instinct.
And so, following the reason that had already surrendered itself to instinct, Alicia headed toward the source of the smell.
Any adventurer who had set foot in a dungeon more than a few times had almost certainly eaten giant dungeon hamster at least once.
To an adventurer a dungeon was a land of opportunity.
It was also a space packed with variables.
No matter how thoroughly one prepared—even with magic tools—unexpected things happened constantly.
Even veteran adventurers could drop dead in a single blow whether they let their guard down or not, and getting lost while fleeing monsters and traps was only natural.
It was not only dungeons, traps, and monsters; isolation after being hunted by fellow adventurers after one's gear and loot happened all the time as well.
For that reason the giant dungeon hamsters that spawned naturally in dungeons of a certain scale were objects of pure love and hate among adventurers.
Meat that had never even been bled properly, let alone butchered.
Even when it had been done right, there was almost never any salt, and the meat itself was greasy enough that tasting anything worthwhile was out of the question.
Former S-rank adventurer, the Great Spirit of Cold Wave.
Catherine was no exception here.
The dungeons she entered matched her skill—high difficulty, high risk. Accidents were inevitable.
On a precious mage's body, tough meat that had never been salted and still held its rigor mortis was never going to sit well.
At least it had no gamey smell, so I could force it down.
Thud— bubble-bubble-bubble-bubble—
Right in front of that same Catherine now sat a pot thick with salted giant dungeon hamster meat.
"…Giant dungeon hamster, you say? Really?"
"Yes. Have you eaten it before?"
"I have. And this is supposed to taste good?"
"In my previous life people would have killed for the chance to eat it."
Karem, in his previous life, had been Korean.
And the overwhelming majority of Koreans loved Spam.
That was why, before the Hallyu wave made budae jjigae famous, he had never been able to understand people treating Spam as an object of hatred and conflicted feelings.
They no doubt had their reasons, but Karem did not care.
Anyway, even the foreigners whose brains had been thoroughly conquered by K-food ate it with relish.
"…There were giant dungeon hamsters in your previous life too?"
"Once it was salted it tasted exactly like Spam."
"Spam."
"It's… well, something like ham made by grinding pork shoulder, seasoning it, and cooking it."
Catherine blinked her golden eyes, then turned her gaze to the table.
Several kinds of sausage and salami, rough meatballs, and giant dungeon hamster meat were arranged generously in a fan shape inside the pot.
Between them a red broth bubbled up vigorously, melting the yellow cheese at the center so that it mixed into the broth and seeped back between the ingredients.
Honestly speaking, the smell was good.
"What about vegetables? Did you just throw in meat?"
"Ah, I laid them under the meat."
"Well… all right."
Karem stopped Mary's hand and took the ladle himself, stirring the contents of the pot.
The carefully arranged meats and melting cheese were thoroughly mixed. Beneath them, wilted onion, green onion, button mushrooms, and cabbage tumbled together with the boiled beans.
"First, a big bowl. Please try it."
With that, Karem filled a bowl to the brim with budae jjigae and held it out; Mary took it and set it before Catherine.
"So what is this stew called?"
"It's called budae jjigae."
"Does the army have something to do with its origin story?"
"Well, something like that. I'm still thinking of a proper name."
Catherine looked at Karem without much interest, then turned her head to the bowl. The name could wait; if whatever Karem settled on sounded strange she could scold him later.
She immediately took the spoon Mary brought to her lips.
The broth itself was a lump of pure savoriness.
It could not possibly taste bad.
Whatever role the giant dungeon hamster had played, a broth that already held sausage and salami and then cheese on top of that was heavy and rich.
The immediate spiciness, the sweetness of onion and green onion, and the subtle fragrance of garlic nicely cut through the greasier parts.
And the first thing to enter her mouth: the giant dungeon hamster meat.
"…Hm?"
Had it tasted like this?
The giant dungeon hamster she had eaten before had been freshly killed, butchered, and roasted—tough. This was completely different.
The meat still held a little spring, yet the lightest pressure of her tongue crushed it. Salty juices and fat then flowed out into the broth.
It struck her tongue hard, but the thoroughly boiled beans mashed and naturally soothed that aggressive edge.
And at the end of the beans came a faint tartness and an irresistible savoriness that stroked the tongue.
"Tomato went in as well?"
"Yes. I simmered the boiled beans briefly in tomato sauce."
Proper budae jjigae was supposed to use Heinz canned beans, after all.
But here there was no Heinz, and no cans either.
So he had roughly simmered some cooked beans obtained elsewhere in thin tomato sauce and thrown them in, just enough to mimic the flavor.
In the end it was not the exact taste of the budae jjigae from his previous life.
Still, it was delicious enough to sit firmly within the category of budae jjigae.
"The combination is better than I expected."
The harmony was not bad at all.
Pleased with the dish, Catherine continued emptying her bowl.
In a way it resembled the rare, luxurious eternal stew that sometimes appeared at inns—loaded with preserved meats such as sausage, salami, and minced meat.
But the taste was on another level entirely.
It was in a completely different class from eternal stew.
"By the way, Young Master Godwin and Young Master William… I sent them over, but they're not here. I told them to get permission first."
"You were the one who sent them?"
Catherine shot him a light glare.
"I refused them."
"Oh. How unusual."
"Not unusual at all. Those two have simply been coming far too often."
Honestly, they had visited too frequently.
For a while she intended to refuse every request from others asking whether they might come this way as well.
Karem could feel her discomfort.
He did not know the reason, but if she said so then it was fine with him.
Catherine muttered to herself, ate another spoonful of the budae jjigae Mary offered, and let out a sigh.
"Hah, this really calls for a drink."
"I thought my contractor would say that."
Mary gave a small laugh, slipped quickly out of the tent, and returned. She set a small jar sealed with cork firmly on the table.
"I prepared mead."
"Good thinking."
At the silent demand for a pour, Mary wordlessly filled a glass with the clear mead and attended her so that Catherine could down it in one go as she wished.
"So, Karem hubae, why are you staring at me like that?"
"Mead wasn't on our inventory list, was it?"
Karem had not lifted a finger for the food supplies.
Even so, he knew every single item loaded onto the carts by heart.
He needed that knowledge to calculate what dishes he could make.
And as far as Karem knew, mead was not on that list.
The only alcohol they had was wine or beer.
"The greasy, spicy broth smell was drifting thickly even outside the kitchen tent. Just in case, I traded a bottle of wine with a knight who was passing by."
Mary ladled a generous portion of solids into Catherine's empty bowl.
"I predicted that if it was my contractor, she would definitely want a drink. And looking at the ingredients, my prediction was correct."
Catherine had been about to praise Mary.
But there was no time for that.
Salted giant dungeon hamster and onion.
Minced beef and button mushrooms.
Different kinds of salami and sausage, vegetables, and meats.
Every time she cleaned her mouth with broth-soaked cabbage and returned to the budae jjigae with her spoon, the greasy yet spicy, refreshing broth base kept changing the flavor without end.
Spicy red chili oil and salty meat fat, plus the residue of the beans, quickly left her mouth sticky and dry.
When Catherine signaled Mary, a glass of high-proof clear mead arrived at her lips right on time.
Through the fiery alcohol a subtle sweetness circled, calming her thoroughly stimulated tongue and bringing her appetite back.
"Hah, I really shouldn't drink too much of this."
"Is it that good? Alicia wants some too."
Karem had been watching Catherine eat with a pleased expression; then his face twisted sharply.
Catherine nearly choked, and Mary closed her eyes as well.
This all-too-familiar sense of déjà vu.
They had not even heard a sound, let alone sensed a presence.
All three turned their heads toward the table where the voice had come from. Alicia was poking just her head out like a mole.
Come to think of it, this stew was originally something the former Duke requested to soothe Young Lady Alicia's mood, wasn't it?
For now, yes. He did bring the salted giant dungeon hamster meat himself, after all.
Then shall we invite the young lady?
While Alicia stamped her feet in place, silent glances passed among the three of master and servants.
Chasing her out the way they had the first and second sons of the Felwinter family felt a little much.
At Catherine's gesture, Mary prepared an extra empty bowl and utensils.
"Kitty. Alicia wants to try that drink too."
"Who are you calling Kitty? Who. And this is alcohol."
"Eh. It's just tasteless water that lies with its smell."
…But was it all right to feed her this?
Karem had briefly forgotten the not-particularly-hidden backstory between the budae jjigae, Richard, and Alicia; his hand flinched while ladling.
— Attachment —
Budae Jjigae
A picture ChatGPT drew for us.