Budae Jjigae of Apology and Reconciliation (2)
Salt is essential to survival.
That much was obvious for any living creature.
The earliest livestock were tamed by humans through salt, and people have gone to war over the stuff when pressed to the worst extremes. Food preserved in salt overcame the basic population limits of civilization and became the foundation for its growth.
Even setting survival aside, salt was bound directly to flavor. A dish without saltiness lacked umami. It offered little stimulation to the tongue. It was monotonous, dull—and human beings were creatures who could not stand boredom.
If they had never encountered a seasoning from the start, that would be one thing. But once a person learned of a condiment’s existence, they would risk their life to obtain it. That was simply how people were built.
For the record, Alicia had been sucking on a piece of steak in one hand even while eating baby food—bread porridge boiled in milk.
There was no scenario in which she would ever dislike budae jjigae, not even if the Demon King’s army descended once more and set the world ablaze all over again.
The budae jjigae she was devouring with fire in her eyes right now was a pot simmered long and deep with every kind of sausage, salami, and salted meat from giant dungeon hamsters that tasted exactly like spam. The umami inside it had soaked into the fat. Naturally, the saltiness from the processed meats had also melted into the broth.
Salty, spicy, sour, and faintly sweet—every chew drew out the rich, deep savor of the cured meats and stabbed at the tongue. The ongoing stimulation was refreshed by the sharp sourness of cabbage, the mild sweetness of onion, and the soft, crumbling nuttiness of the beans. And then there was the thick, savory richness of the cheese that had melted into the broth already heavy with the flavors of every ingredient.
Alicia loved it immensely.
"Another bowl!"
Her head casually shoved aside the worries she had been clutching right up until she stepped into the tent.
"Well, there’s plenty. Lady Catherine?"
"…Just let her eat."
Even accounting for Alicia being a big eater, the pot was enormous. Karem refilled her bowl to the brim, exactly as his master wished.
"If you’re fretting over me, there’s no need. I’ll just pile a little extra on when I prepare my contractor’s midnight snack later."
"I never fretted over you."
"How cold of you."
"Just keep serving."
Alicia paid no attention to the small commotion beside her. She skillfully stacked every kind of solid ingredient, soaked the spoon in broth, and shoveled it all into her mouth in one go.
"T-to think such a luxurious stew that so thoroughly stirs human desire could even exist…!"
More meat!
More sausage!
Soft, chewy, crunchy, snappy—Alicia chewed and swallowed the solids at speed and marveled all over again, even though this was only her second bowl.
The stew she was eating right now was the pure crystallization of every meat-lover’s greed.
Of course, the meat stews that came up to Winterhome were always packed with meat. But she was never allowed to eat only the meat. Elizabeth’s iron decree required vegetables to be eaten as well. Alicia had obeyed without complaint—vegetables weren’t bad, after all. Yet sometimes she still entertained a certain fantasy: scooping up nothing but the soft, thoroughly cooked meat of a meat stew until both cheeks puffed out like fluffy clouds. A wicked little act she had never been able to attempt, because even when Elizabeth was absent, Poppins had always been watching. Asking Karem or Jigmeser had never worked either; other delicious things always took priority.
And now Alicia was a full seven years old. Today, at last, she had fulfilled the desire of picking only the meat out of a meat-loaded stew.
Catherine tilted her head slightly toward Karem, who was watching the scene with a faintly uneasy look.
"Is that what’s bothering you?"
"Yes."
Karem cut a piece of the spam-flavored salted meat in his own bowl with his spoon and ate it. The greasy umami, with just enough saltiness drawn out, carried a light tang of cabbage kimchi.
"If she finds out what this really is, she’ll flip."
He whispered so Alicia wouldn’t hear. He had given it to her because she wanted to eat, but there had been no chance to explain its true identity. Besides, what had Richard even been angry about in the first place?
"Well. The sparks still won’t reach you. The one who handed it over was His Lordship, after all."
"You think so?"
"Hmm."
Catherine chewed salami and cabbage thoughtfully while watching Alicia, then swallowed.
"Probably? I wouldn’t bet on it."
So in the end they might still take the fall for this. The thought of an uncertain future that might come knocking within two days made his head ache on its own.
While Catherine savored the taste for a moment, Mary, who had cleaned her bowl completely, tapped it with her spoon.
"It feels somehow incomplete."
"Incomplete? This heavy, meat-laden dish?"
"That’s exactly why."
After refilling her bowl and tasting it again, Mary worked her mouth, smacked her lips, and almost flicked her fingers before stopping herself.
"Bread—no. Bread wouldn’t suit it."
"Sharp as always."
Salty, sour, spicy, and greasy—the tongue instinctively demanded carbohydrates to wash it all clean. Naturally, rice would pair better than bread. But there was no rice on hand right now, so that was out.
That did not mean there was no alternative.
"How about throwing in some pasta and boiling it once more?"
"Pasta. Like that spicy pasta stew from last time?"
"Something a little chewier and thicker."
"I see. I understand the idea."
"We’ll eat some of the solids first."
To put it bluntly, it was knife-cut noodles. Catherine continued eating the budae jjigae while Mary attended her again, nodding along—then suddenly raised an eyebrow at the crunch of the cabbage.
"How did you cook this cabbage?"
"Is something wrong with the cabbage?"
"It doesn’t have the texture of ordinary boiled cabbage."
She gestured for Mary to serve her cabbage alone, tasted it, and nodded with certainty.
"Sauerkraut? No. Too mild for Eisenwald dwarf vinegar-pickled cabbage… just a pickle, then?"
"It’s cabbage kimchi."
"Kimchi… kimchi?"
Catherine, who had been half-accepting it, furrowed her brow and raised her voice.
"Karem. Are you telling me this stew contains a variant of that pickle you once showed me—the one made with Red Witch’s Finger?"
"Yep. It cooked a bit while boiling, but it’s surprisingly edible, right?"
"How in the world did you turn something that looked repulsive just to look at into this? What kind of trickery did you pull?"
If she had never known, it might have been fine. Now that she knew, it felt unsettling. The pungent garum scent thick with bright-red powder that looked ready to burst into flame—the pickled radish kimchi—was thoroughly, thoroughly unappetizing. Just looking at it made her think of how spicy it would be…
Wait.
Since when have I been able to handle spice this well?
Come to think of it, she liked bold flavors, but she had never been particularly good with heat. A few grinds of pepper at most. Anything beyond that had been too much.
"Stimulation is something one grows accustomed to, after all."
"True. Overuse potions and they lose effect. But what does that have to do with—"
"In that sense, the tongue is the body part most similar to a person."
"…Huh?"
Come to think of it, Karem himself was the one who had demoted the Red Witch’s Finger—a poisonous herb—into a mere spice. And the country he had lived in during his previous life was supposedly one of the most insane about spice.
"I thought so. When you season with Red Witch’s Finger, the heat has been growing ever so slightly stronger bit by bit… so that was why?"
Mary’s mutter, as she refilled Catherine’s bowl for the fifth time, drove the point home.
"You just watched that bastard’s schemes and did nothing?"
"Unless he ruined something, why would I interfere?"
"Guh."
She wasn’t wrong. Catherine herself had hired Karem as her exclusive chef. She herself had given him full authority over the kitchen.
"Unfamiliar ingredients just need to be cooked until they become familiar. By now there’s no one in Iceland who doesn’t eat Red Witch’s Finger."
"…"
"And once you actually ate it, it was fine, wasn’t it? If I’d left the cabbage kimchi out, that would have been its own kind of disappointment."
"…"
If she truly hated kimchi and he had removed it from the budae jjigae, the acidity that cut through the greasiness would have vanished completely. Vinegar? Lemon? Substitutes like that could never replace kimchi’s complex sourness.
Karem was about to continue when he saw Catherine staring at him primly while silently continuing to eat the budae jjigae, and he closed his mouth.
"…"
"Is this a punishment?"
"Yes. You have to acknowledge your fault."
"No, calling it a fault feels a little strange. You’re still eating it just fine."
"The crime of ruthlessly dyeing your master in the tastes of a mere retainer like you—that is the cause of the punishment."
"…When you put it that way, the phrasing sounds a little weird."
Anyone who didn’t know the context would completely misunderstand. Karem coughed silently. Fortunately Alicia was too absorbed in the budae jjigae to have heard.
"One week cooking ban."
A razor-sharp, final verdict.
"Wait a second."
Karem rose from his seat without thinking. In this boring world where the only entertainment was work, the sentence was far too harsh.
"That’s going too far no matter how you look at it. What am I supposed to do for fun, I mean—"
"That’s why it’s a punishment. For the duration, all three meals and snacks will be handled by Mary here."
"That kind of not-really-a-punishment punishment was only for Mary!"
"Oh? So you’re appealing to double the period the same way she did when she tried to walk back her own mistakes?"
The silent, chilly smile that promised to double the term if he said one more word made him feel he really would be banned for two weeks. Karem sat back down with the feeling of swallowing a knife.
"Karem. Is the lovey-dovey over?"
"This is not lovey-dovey."
"Alicia wants to eat pasta boiled in the stew Karem and Mary mentioned earlier."
Alicia refilled her own bowl with solids for the umpteenth time. Mary picked up the pot of budae jjigae—still loaded with solids—along with the ladle.
"Contractor. Does Karem’s punishment begin this evening?"
"Yes. Counting starts this very moment."
"I see."
Mary’s face remained as expressionless as ever. The joy and gloating in her voice were plain in her eyes as well; she gazed at Karem as if mocking him.
"She says so."
"Damn it, you’re happy because the chance finally came—"
"Heh. Then with this, we’re even."
Mary asked leave of Catherine and Karem, started to leave the tent, then spun smoothly and looked down at Karem once more.
"Heh."
"Just go already."
Then, with a deliberate, unmistakable shrug of the shoulders for anyone to see, she walked out of the tent.
"I never thought putting kimchi in would lead to this…!"
"What are you so worked up about?"
"The one who just handed me a punishm—"
"Quiet. Serve until that girl brings the pasta."
Catherine’s bowl was still full of solids and broth. Karem swallowed his resentment and meekly picked up her spoon.
"Karem. Alicia wants to know what midnight snack you’ll make tonight."
Alicia savored the broth with an expression of total concentration.
"Didn’t you hear what just happened?"
"Eh… they said they were boiling pasta, didn’t they?"
"For the next week."
Alicia tilted her head at the solemn, grave voice.
"There will be no happy snack time with Karem."
"…No!"
Alicia started to slam the table, then paused. She neatly finished the remaining broth, then—bang!—brought her fist down.
"Alicia wants to eat the snacks Karem makes! Are you trying to quit being a chef?! I will not allow it!"
Karem was a little moved. All the secret late-night feedings of Alicia had been worth it.
"There’s no need to worry so much."
"Eh?"
"For one week, that cheeky girl will handle everything in his place."
So the delicious snacks would still be there? After a brief struggle, Alicia lowered her trembling arms, picked up her utensils again, and made a faintly disappointed sound. Karem, deflated by the faster-than-a-hand-flip change of attitude, dropped his own arms. Catherine’s urging forced him to lift them again, though.
So what am I supposed to do now?
Karem had never expected to get a vacation this way. It was utterly meaningless. In a world without internet or game consoles, what was he supposed to do with his time?
Cooking was banned, so cooking experiments were banned too. Was he supposed to develop a brand-new hobby starting now?
After feeding Catherine the very last spoonful of broth, Karem slowly ate the lukewarm budae jjigae left in his own bowl, fretting, until a presence outside the tent made him turn his head.
"Hm? Done already?"
"No. The weight of the footsteps is different."
Catherine shook her head. Exactly as she said, the person who peeked through the tent flap was not Mary.
"Atanitas’s house spirit said Karem was here. Ah, yes. Here you are. Alicia is here too."
"Hmph!"
"Urgh. May I come in?"
When Catherine nodded, Richard approached quickly while still watching Alicia’s mood and sat in the empty seat.
"I entrusted that to you with a request. I came to ask whether a menu had at least been decided, but…"
"Uh… we were eating a stew made from it until just a moment ago."
"A stew? You were eating it?"
Richard’s eyes rounded so wide his forehead wrinkled, as if he had never imagined it would already be finished. His gaze locked onto the salted meat in Karem’s bowl—slightly different in color but familiar in shape.
"Then that must be the giant dungeon hamster’s salted meat in that bowl!"
"Ah."
Karem and Catherine reflexively covered their eyes.
"Eh…"
Clatter.
Alicia dropped her spoon. Her small hands began to tremble.
Come to think of it, she had been so worried today that she hadn’t gone to visit with the fluffy-cloud cart. Then this meat… could it be…?
Of course Fluffy Cloud was perfectly fine—had even eaten a pile of nuts and gone back to sleep—but Alicia did not yet know that.
Shock. Her pupils, drowning in horror, trembled as she stared down at her own hands for a moment. Then the tearful, enraged gaze of a hamster swung toward them.
If this went wrong, they really would take the fall.
There was no time for a detailed explanation. Karem reflexively made an excuse.
"His Lordship the Margrave gave us the meat and told us to cook it!"
Of course, the fact that he had heard it tasted like spam and immediately boiled budae jjigae without thinking was also a fault, but Alicia’s mind, reeling from the shock, never reached that far.
"I hate Grandpa!!!"
Squeak! Richard, who had been about to open his mouth, froze in pure panic. Alicia, who had just inflicted a lethal injury of a kind the strongest man in Iceland had never experienced—twice—scattered tears and bolted straight out of the tent.
Master and servant watched her go and quietly, silently exhaled in relief.
A short while later, Mary returned with the remaining budae jjigae boiled into the requested knife-cut-noodle-style pasta. She blinked rapidly at the sight of Richard lying face-down on the floor beside the spot Alicia had vacated.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh—!
Karem frantically waved both hands at Mary in vigorous silent denial.
"Where has the person who ordered the pasta gone?"
Of course, Mary paid it no mind at all.