The Tail End of Winter
The snow that Iceland's winter sky had seemed ready to spit out forever was gradually thinning, and the natives of the land could feel it in their bones from long experience.
It was the sure sign that winter was ending and spring was on its way.
Of course, spring in Coldon was merely cool rather than cold when set against winter, but as already noted, it was still a warmer season by comparison.
And of course, this being Iceland—famous for its barren harshness—it would have been stranger still if the seasons held no petty troubles at all. Karem, however, knew nothing of that yet and had neither the time nor the leisure to care.
Karem had originally meant to make seasoned chicken.
The two most essential ingredients for that were gochujang and ketchup.
No—wait. The origin of ketchup was a nearly unpronounceable fish sauce, so if he twisted himself every which way and begged some garum from Jigmeser, it looked doable. The price would sting, but still.
Gochujang, though—no amount of thrashing about could replace that.
Or rather, he could not even begin to imagine a substitute.
Declaring he would try something, anything, Karem ran experiment after experiment.
Most were failures. A few results were halfway usable, yet even those turned out to be completely different sauces rather than anything resembling gochujang—failures all the same.
If dragging Jigmeser into the hunt for a new sauce had produced this, there was nothing Karem could do about it.
The sauces that did emerge, mind you, were rather spectacular.
He had never once imagined he would reinvent the spicy mayonnaise sauce of that famous grilled-chicken franchise.
He could have simply settled for fried chicken, but the instant seasoned chicken entered his mind he could no longer contemplate eating any other kind first. Obsessed with gochujang, Karem eventually forgot his original goal entirely and devoted himself to researching a substitute.
Every result so far had been a failure.
Still he refused to abandon hope. At Catherine and Mary's request he kept frying doughnuts until the lard was used up, experimenting all the while.
It had not been nothing but bad news, of course.
Whenever Karem thought of the plump purse of coins he had received as payment, a smile rose unbidden to his lips.
The money was the fee he had earned by accepting Alfred's proposal.
In that moment when he had completely lost his mind—something he had rarely experienced in either life—he had truly regretted it. Yet when he considered the bonus, the whole affair no longer seemed such a terrible experience after all.
Naturally, when he suddenly started grinning while they walked, his companions Catherine and Mary stared at him as though he had grown a second head. Catherine demanded an explanation.
"What are you snickering about like that?"
"I'm just ridiculously happy about the bonus, that's all."
At Karem's firm reply a peculiar feeling stirred in her chest.
It's not as though I underpay him, yet if he's this delighted even I start to feel a little...
The thought broke off at Karem's next question.
"But isn't there a forge inside Winterhome as well?"
"Of course there is. A castle that size keeps a fair number of resident blacksmiths. Their skill ranks among the top five in Coldon."
"Then there's no reason to come outside, is there?"
"The work pouring out of the castle plus processing Iceworm byproducts leaves them without a spare moment to stand. I also needed a few things for a commission of my own, so two birds with one stone."
In short, the forge was buried under orders and she herself was in a hurry; there was no other choice.
Karem could accept that. In the domain of the Duke of Iceland, who prized principle and order, asking them to set everything aside would never have worked anyway.
"So, Junior Karem. Have you decided what you're buying?"
"Hmm, I figured I'd decide once we get there. What's missing from the kitchen right now is... nothing, wait—actually, is there?"
The moment he tried to answer Mary, every half-noticed inconvenience of the past weeks came cascading out of the back of his mind.
A whisk, for instance. A skimmer. A grill grate.
They can't possibly be unable to make those. "Can't make them"? Even if I handed over my entire bonus—more than a month's wages—would they still say that? Surely I won't actually spend the whole thing, right?
While Karem was lost in that internal debate, Mary jolted him back to reality.
"Junior Karem. Where exactly is your mind right now?"
"Hm? Yes?"
"We've arrived."
The forge bore not even a signboard and looked dilapidated at first glance.
Yet the blacksmith who owned it was unmistakably skilled.
Simply occupying a place inside Coldon's inner walls already spoke of no ordinary talent. Something else, however, held Karem's attention more tightly.
"Doesn't that sign look a little odd?"
"Hm? Sign? What sign?"
"That thing hanging above the forge over there."
Unlike the great forge itself, which wore every scar of history, the sign looked as though it had been finished only yesterday; not a single letter marked its surface.
It consisted solely of a helmet with a horn thrusting skyward from the brow, and beneath it two single-edged axes crossed and suspended horizontally on a chain.
Yet one clear peculiarity stood out.
Both the horned-helmet sign and the axes were elaborately decorated—gold leaf worked into vine patterns, and faintly glowing characters that looked for all the world like runes engraved here and there.
"It seems a bit over-the-top lavish."
"Of course it is. It's a commemorative plaque that doubles as an advertising board. The person whose offering was chosen at the last Winter-Ascend receives the right to hang it for several years. Gopain, I believe the name was."
"You know the details rather specifically."
"Naturally. I did the finishing work myself; recognizing it is only proper. Enough idle chatter—let's go inside."
That was true enough; the sign was not the important matter.
Karem followed Catherine into the forge, and Mary shut the door behind them at once.
"There are more tools than weapons, actually."
Karem agreed with Mary's assessment.
A great furnace dominated the center of the space, ringed by more than a dozen anvils and neatly arranged blacksmith's tools.
Materials and weapons of every sort stood bundled by type and stacked with tidy precision throughout the shop.
One thing, however, struck them as odd.
"Are they closed for business? There's not a soul here."
"This is no ordinary rest. People have been absent for at least two days—no, three."
I see... wait. How do you know that?
Sensing Karem's incredulous stare, Mary answered with proud certainty even though no one had asked.
"It may look relatively tidy, but you cannot deceive the senses of this professional Brownie. Junior Karem."
"True. More than that, if they were simply taking a few days off there would be no reason to let a furnace this size go cold. Something must have happened..."
While the two humans and one house elf examined their surroundings, a faint voice began to rise from the inner rooms of the forge, growing steadily clearer.
"—Surely Gopain's soul has gone to a better place, so stop grieving already."
"Ahem. You're right. If I let the furnace stay cold any longer he'll leap out of his urn and take a hammer to me."
"Good. Then will you return to work starting tomorrow?"
"I'll return starting today."
"Excellent. Summon the apprentices at once. There's a fair amount of work piled up."
Karem, who had been listening in silence, turned his head sideways.
Catherine—who could not possibly have missed those words—was clutching her forehead.
"So that Gopain fellow has passed on. Won't this be a problem for us?"
"Ugh. What a headache. I should have sent someone ahead to check. Have I grown too complacent lately?"
Mary addressed her mistress.
"Contractor. Shall we look for another forge?"
"No. We only came for a quote, so let's see how things stand first."
"Understood."
From the back of the forge a burly man with a mop of unruly hair and an elderly gentleman emerged.
Talk of souls proved exactly as they had expected.
Govanius, Gopain's son, explained that his father—who had poured every last scrap of strength into crafting the offering—had closed his eyes for the final time in his own bed not long after Winter-Ascend ended.
The furnace had been allowed to go cold because the master craftsman who owned the forge was no longer present.
Once the elderly guildmaster of the Blacksmiths' Guild took his leave, Govanius excused himself to the visitors and saw the man out.
"Hmm. We can save some time, at least."
"That's fortunate, Lady Atanitas. We can simply ask right here."
Having finished the send-off and now hurrying to greet his belated guests, Govanius caught a word in Karem's remark that he could not possibly ignore. He studied the three visitors carefully, then swiftly adjusted his bearing.
"Ahem, ahem! Forgive my rudeness. Might I ask your name—"
"Catherine Marigold Atanitas. I came to place an order. Given the circumstances, you must be grieving deeply."
"Hahaha. He fulfilled his final wish before the end, so I consider it a good death. Do you have something you wish made?"
"I intended only to get a quote for now. Well? Can you make it?"
Govanius accepted the blueprint Catherine held out and at once began examining the design, peppering her with questions.
While the natural process of consultation unfolded, Karem waited his turn in silence. Boredom soon set in; he glanced about and found his gaze locking onto one particular corner.
As befitting any forge, piles of leather and ironware stood everywhere—nails, longswords, shields and armor, maces and arrowheads.
What truly caught Karem's eye, however, were the kitchen knives.
I'm not particularly fussy about tools, but of course good cookware draws the eye.
He steeled himself a moment later.
The knives and utensils already in the Winterhome kitchen were excellent in both condition and quality.
Today's goal, though, was something else entirely...
"Junior Karem. So have you decided what you're purchasing?"
"I'm thinking of a copper whisk, a hand grill—basically a grate—and a skimmer. Looks like custom work will be needed."
"Materials aside, that will cost a fair sum."
"I did receive a bonus, though, so it should be fine."
Karem answered Mary, who had drawn near without his noticing.
Custom order or not, they were only kitchen tools.
"How expensive can kitchenware possibly be?"
"Hmm. It will come to a considerable price."
"Uh... that's not what I expected."
After hearing Karem's explanations, concepts, and rough sketches, the blacksmith's answer fell well outside his predictions.
Govanius nodded with absolute certainty.
"Yes. Copper cookware is expensive to begin with, but these pieces in particular will require a great deal of care."
He then explained every detail one by one, though the summary was simple enough.
Copper is a softer metal than iron by nature, so Karem's designs were possible.
The problem was the sheer amount of labor involved.
In other words, the high cost was almost entirely labor.
"The grill is one thing, but I can make the whisk and skimmer to the standard you want. If I draw the copper this thin, though, I'll be using stock meant for jewelry rather than cookware. And keeping something so delicate from warping under heat will take even more work."
"Ugh. I thought I'd already braced myself..."
Because the work overlapped the jewelry domain, the price ballooned further.
Come to think of it, even in my previous life, brand-name cookware cost a fortune.
Yet the lowest estimate was still half his entire bonus.
He had known the price would be steep, but hearing the figure spoken aloud made Karem's heart sink of its own accord.
The one mercy was that even the highest total would still fall within the bonus he had received.
Come empty-handed, leave empty-handed—so this is what the emptiness of money vanishing feels like.
Having lived without a spare coin for so long after reincarnation, the boy felt the truth of it all the more keenly.
"Junior Karem. If you're that nervous, why not order later?"
"I'll place the order right now!"
After hearing words like that, there was no way he could back down.
Hesitation would only postpone the work forever.
And it was not as though he lacked the funds.
Karem handed over the deposit with trembling fingers and resolved to take a broader view of the matter.
Anyway, if I just think of it as a necessary expense for cooking more comfortably—
"Ahem! Is Gopain in? Wait—why is the furnace out?"
As though determined to yank Karem from his reverie, the door swung open and an old man strode inside.
A thick fur cloak draped his shoulders, a hat pulled low over a flourishing white beard; he leaned on a staff longer than he was tall as he entered the forge and surveyed the room.
"Old fart? What are you doing here?"
"Lady Atanitas. Do you know him?"
"Yes. I know him far too well."
The old man, hearing Catherine's voice, lifted the brim of his hat and regarded her.
"'Old fart,' is it? That complete lack of manners in word choice is pure Kitty."
"I told you not to call me Kitty!"
Wrinkles creasing around his eyes, the old man broke into a sly grin.