Convergently Evolving Pastry
The restaurant on the Horizon of Iceland, escorted by soldiers, knights, and warriors of Adobis and Winterhome, was lively and warm.
Of course, it had not been this way from the start.
First, Godwin.
From the very first meeting, there was no way he could feel kindly toward Nepaneck, who casually needled the father he loved and respected. And he could not understand why his father simply sat there and took it.
Worse still, she looked down on his homeland and belittled it outright!
Granted, if Adobis’s prosperity was anything like the stories he had only ever heard, then Iceland truly was a barren and impoverished place.
Then the teachings he had received over the years flashed through Godwin’s mind.
Words were not to be taken by the words alone; one had to weigh atmosphere, expression, tone—everything.
Only then did he realize that Nepaneck’s speech, however provocative and dismissive in tone, was ultimately born of concern for Alfred and for Iceland.
Not that the sourness in his chest improved any for the understanding.
William was much the same.
Sensitive to others’ feelings as only a child of his age could be, he had already sensed Nepaneck’s goodwill. Yet the language that came out of her mouth diverged so sharply from that goodwill that it left him thoroughly confused.
William was still too young to parse aristocratic rhetoric.
Unable to hide his honesty, he flushed whenever their eyes met or they spoke, as if the mere exchange embarrassed him.
But the moment stories of the world beyond Iceland began to spill from Nepaneck’s lips, the entire atmosphere flipped.
They might be scions of a ducal house—
—yet neither of them had ever set foot outside Coldon, let alone Iceland at large.
One was the family heir; the other was simply still young.
To those two, the tales told by a dark-elf girl from a desert kingdom far across the sea—not even a neighboring province—could not help but set their curiosity ablaze.
Of course, by dark-elf standards, Nepaneck was no longer a girl at all.
When the speaker paused a moment to wet her throat, Alfred spoke.
"Must you speak so sarcastically to children who are still young?"
"The atmosphere has loosened, so it hardly matters, does it? Besides, the older one seems to have figured it out—late, but still."
"Even I, who know that, get riled up at times. That’s why I’m saying it."
"Oh my. I’ll be careful, then."
When Nepaneck smiled with that tinkling tone of hers, Alfred tore into the date palm in front of him as if he simply could not stand it without chewing something.
It was a little something to idle over and double as table decoration now that the snacks served before the meal had been cleared away, leaving the table looking bare.
Ah, right. There was the meal.
Nepaneck lifted her glass and soothed her dry throat.
Adobis, where the cultures of East and West gathered. And among them, the royal cuisine of Adobis—where only the most carefully selected delicacies assembled—was something she tasted every single day. No matter how carefully Seophon Kingdom prepared, there would inevitably be shortcomings.
The rumor that Seophon Kingdom’s food was terrible was a joke bordering on contempt, famous enough to reach even Adobis. But that applied only to the realm of commoners.
People with money had no reason to eat like that.
Any chef of real standing in Seophon Kingdom was one of two things: foreign-born, or trained abroad.
So it was never a question of skill.
It was geography and ingredients.
Even the most fertile land in Seophon Kingdom ranked nowhere near the middle of the entire Europa continent. There was no helping it.
Cooking might rise or fall with a chef’s ability, but the quality of the ingredients could not be helped.
Even if provisions were brought in from the continent, distance remained a problem. Magic itself could not completely halt the decline that time inflicted on quality.
And yet a few of the snacks brought out this time had been genuinely worth a second look. A new trend from somewhere on the Europa continent I simply don’t know about?
"So, Duke Alfred. What on earth are those?"
"Hmm? What are you referring to?"
"Don’t play dumb when you know perfectly well."
Among the familiar fruit bowls and the assortment of biscuits and cookies, two snacks had flaunted their presence as if demanding to be noticed.
Meringue cookies that crumbled and vanished in the mouth like frozen clouds; fruit-milk pudding that slid down the throat with a softness the world itself had never known; and pie.
"The vessels holding the pies. Those are pastries, aren’t they?"
"You noticed right away, as expected."
"Pastry is recorded as having been transmitted from ancient Adobis to Europa in the first place."
Even to her—who had come from Adobis, the very homeland of pastry—the pie served among the snacks this time had been a shock.
Pastry was the synonym for crispiness.
No one disputed that, and even after its invention, pastry had been reshaped by countless chefs and refined within Adobis royalty and nobility.
Before coming to Iceland, Nepaneck had tasted a pastry pie newly developed by the royal chef and presented to the New King.
She had never forgotten the almost ecstatic impression of that moment.
The texture that changed without pause from the outermost layer inward.
Crisp, yet soft; chewy, yet moist at the center.
When her teeth met, the crust began to tear—going beyond mere crumbling into pieces, almost disintegrating as the layers separated.
To handle two opposing domains at once, each sheet of pastry had been as thin as a feather, and the filling at the very heart had been soft because it held the moisture of its ingredients perfectly captive.
And every texture, every taste, every impression she had felt then was the same now.
No—because she had encountered it so unexpectedly in Iceland, it struck her even more deeply than it had in the palace. Wounding to her pride.
Realistically, it could never have spread to another country.
Even when she left, fewer than twenty people knew of it.
Those who had tasted it, including the great God-King himself, numbered fewer than ten.
To someone who was always the one doing the teasing, a surprise party like this was not especially welcome.
Alfred knew that perfectly well, and it felt as if a long-standing blockage in his chest had finally cleared.
"So—what tricks exactly did you pull?"
"For the record, I have never directly sponsored anyone."
"Then are you saying someone with techniques like these simply rolled in of his own accord? Don’t you think that’s even more absurd than claiming Iceland’s wheat imports from Adobis dropped because of a bumper harvest?"
"Of course. I merely hired the supreme magic advisor last winter."
"Hmm? Hmm."
Olivier, who had been sitting quietly savoring the Adobis dry wine Nepaneck had provided, shifted his gaze as attention swung toward the seat beside him.
Whether or not he was under the eyes of two great nobles and a great mage—
—Catherine, who had been accepting the seeded and finely torn dates Mary was feeding her like a baby bird, let out a small sigh at Olivier’s glance.
"My lord. Are you dumping this on me?"
"But wasn’t it you who hired Karem as your exclusive chef?"
"That isn’t wrong."
"And it was your chef who scattered all those cooking methods and recipes through my kitchen."
"I should never have allowed the little one to hold those exchange meetings, should I?"
While the two lords and their vassal volleyed the matter back and forth, Nepaneck’s stiffened mind was racing over a fact she had never expected.
From the context, “little one” was no nickname or title—it meant exactly what it said. Which meant the chef who had developed those three dishes was a boy who had not even undergone his coming-of-age ceremony yet…?
"Little one? Don’t tell me linguistic changes have taken place in Seophon Kingdom without my knowledge?"
"Nepaneck. Nothing has changed from the last time you visited."
"The little one is now ten—no, winter has passed, so eleven."
There was no way anyone would lie in a setting like this.
"…Sun God almighty. Don’t tell me he comes from a family that has served as chefs for generations?"
"He was an ordinary young serf from a serf village in a remote manor of Kingsland. He ran away because he could no longer endure the oppression of the village and his parents."
"Atanitas. Wasn’t that something Karem was trying to hide?"
"He says he doesn’t particularly care anymore."
Catherine had been skeptical at first and now simply took it as given—but Nepaneck was hearing it for the first time in this very seat, and she found it hard to believe.
Bloodlines held power.
It was not an absolute law, yet in a world where magic truly existed and monsters roamed, it was a principle that held to a considerable degree.
Many clung to it blindly; Nepaneck was not one of them.
As the closest aide to the current God-King of Adobis and the royal treasurer who traveled the world, she had seen people plunge from the pinnacle of class into the abyss, and she had seen people rise from the bottom with nothing but the strength of their two hands and two feet to become kings.
Thus she had long understood that the environment surrounding a person mattered more than bloodline.
But with only the facts she had just heard—how could someone produce cuisine of that caliber at such a young age?
Before talent even entered the picture, the environment had offered no support.
Nepaneck shook her head with a tattered smile.
"Did that chef receive a god’s blessing or something?"
Alfred and Catherine instinctively averted their eyes.
Because Nepaneck’s words were half right.
He had drawn a god’s gaze. No—since the offering had been accepted, he had been chosen as well, hadn’t he?
But to speak of something so sensitive—
"A god’s blessing. It might not be wrong."
"What!?"
You’re just saying it outright?
Godwin, who had been debating whether to eat a date, set the fruit down with a stiff face.
"Who else could create such an astonishing sauce with nothing but common vinegar, eggs, and oil?"
"Young Master Godwin?"
"That’s right, Lady Nepaneck. You rather liked it yourself, didn’t you?"
"Me?"
"Yes. That white sauce you dipped the vegetables into."
Nepaneck flinched.
Among the snacks that had filled the table until moments ago had been not only desserts but light appetizers before lunch. She had simply dipped the long-cut vegetables served with white sauce out of mild curiosity—yet who could have imagined a flavor like that?
From the faint acidity and oiliness she had guessed vinegar and oil, but eggs? She had been certain it was some kind of processed nut.
"If I may dare say so, mayonnaise is a miraculous product that could never be explained unless Lady Skadi herself had bestowed a blessing upon that little Karem!"
"Brother, mayonnaise tastes good, but it was a bit fishy to me."
"William! How can you say such a thing? As expected, you’re still nothing but a picky-eating little brat!"
"It’s just that you stuffed yourself with mayonnaise until you turned into a fatty and your eyes spun."
"This is a pouch of knowledge!"
Just as siblings will quarrel over the smallest things, Godwin and William began picking at each other’s weak points over a matter that would have seemed trivial to anyone else.
Was it fortunate, at least, that the setting kept it from escalating into a physical brawl?
Faced with the spectacle his two sons had suddenly put on, Alfred reflexively struck his forehead.
"Nepaneck. It seems my sons are still young—I apologize."
"Not at all. They’re still young boys—or rather, you said the eldest is of an age to undergo his coming-of-age ceremony soon, didn’t you? It’s nice to see them so lively."
Of course, the sentences she spoke did not mean exactly what they said.
When Nepaneck, with a touch of venting, delivered the remark so that it sounded only positive, a vein rose on Alfred’s forehead for an entirely different reason.
Making a spectacle of yourselves in front of a guest, you brats…?
Fortunately for the two brothers flaunting their brotherly affection, no loving thunderbolt of parental wrath descended.
"My lord. The meal is fully prepared. May I serve it at once?"
"The guest is waiting—hurry."
"Oh my. Duke Alfred. I’m not in a hurry at all?"