Elf? More Like My Partner! (3)
"Wow! Eaten with this red pickled vegetable, it's a perfect match. What do you call it?"
"Ah—that dish is called kimchi..."
The longer the meal went on, the more the stiffness from the start quietly unwound. Veila in particular—the elf who had gone wild earlier on a mouthful of gochujang—happily wolfed down whatever was set in front of her, and it was a pleasant thing to watch. When she showed an interest in the kimchi on the table, I offered her some despite a flicker of worry. From what I could tell, spice was not her friend.
"Mmm, it is spicy, but the soybean-paste stew balances it out so well! It's delicious!"
"Me too, me too—I want some!"
Both cheeks packed to bursting, the elves mumbled their way through doenjang-jjigae and kimchi. Surrealism? What's so special about that? A elf carved like a sculpture, tearing kimchi into soybean-paste stew and going now that's good—that is surreal.
While Iseria and Veila ate with gusto, Seiran wore a look I couldn't quite name. I'm max level at reading a customer's face, and it wasn't that he disliked the taste. He had long since emptied his rice bowl and was only fiddling with an innocent spoon.
"Would you like more rice?"
"Ah—no? I'm fine."
He said he was fine, and yet he kept scraping the empty bowl. Scritch, scritch. The sound scraped Iseria's nerves raw.
"Hey! If you want more, then eat more, Seiran."
"If the young lady says so, I suppose I have no choice. Human. One more bowl."
This jerk was waiting for that.
The moment Iseria told him to eat, Seiran seized the opening and did not let it go. Asking for another bowl in his own voice must have been too embarrassing. No wonder he had kept glancing her way. Well—as the one who cooked it, I was glad to see it enjoyed. I heaped a bowl with steaming rice and set it before him. The instant he took it, the corner of his mouth twitched upward, then was hauled back down just as fast. Hopelessly dishonest. His hand was already ladling soybean-paste stew.
"Mmm. Truly. If it weren't for the young lady, I would never eat something like this... ahem. I wouldn't. Slurp."
"Oh, for—finish eating, then talk."
Seiran shoveled stew like a cartoon kid defending himself through a mouthful of noodles. Eating was fine. Talking while he ate was not. It was disgusting. The meal ended all the same. I had simmered a generous pot for four, and they had finished every drop.
It was late, we were full, and the heater had the room warm. Struck by the triple combo of a food coma, none of us could rise even after the dishes were done. We simply gave ourselves over to a swollen fullness and the heat.
"I'm full. I'm sleepy, young lady."
"I know... I just want to lie down and sleep like this."
"Anyway. What are you two going to do now?"
While the rest of them were loose and drowsy, I asked after their next step. They had come to collect Iseria, hadn't they? Somewhere along the way I had ended up feeding them, but before that they had been fighting over whether or not to return to Nuardel. At my question Seiran and Veila jerked their half-lidded eyes open, as if they had forgotten. Iseria stole the first word before either of them could speak.
"Let me say this up front. I'm not going back. You've eaten it yourselves, so you know, don't you?"
"Ugh... it really is delicious. And meat isn't even the main ingredient, so it's elf-friendly, too. That's nice."
"Ahem. The food was not... unacceptable. However, the head of the house is deeply worried."
Both of them seemed ready to grant the food its due, but Iseria's father was waiting back in Nuardel. At the sudden mention of him, a little of the wind went out of her. She had left home chasing her next hit of dopamine, and still, blood is not a thing you simply throw away. I rose on my own and began clearing the empty dishes. It was her private affair, and it sounded like a conversation only elves would understand. There was no need for me to sit there and endure it.
"Give me a little time to think. Showing up out of nowhere was rude to begin with. You even subdued Jinwoo on your own."
"To suddenly invoke proper principle..."
After a long stretch of troubled humming, Iseria used their rudeness as a pretext and put the decision off. Faced with an argument that was difficult to refute, Seiran and Veila found their mouths stopped. They might have thrown a tantrum about whether a noble elf owed any courtesy to a human, but they had already seen it—my cooking, and how close Iseria and I were. They could not treat me like some ordinary imperial nobody and do as they pleased.
"Haa... very well. Then it shall be four days. If there is anything you must settle, see to all of it within those four days."
"Fine. But you two had better understand something. Even if I go back to Nuardel, I'll only stay a little while before I leave again. Don't even think about stopping me."
"That is not a promise we can make... but very well. For now."
And so the runaway's negotiation was dramatically concluded. Perhaps because a troublesome matter had dropped on her all at once, worry gathered on Iseria's face. She had arrived with light luggage to begin with, so there would not be much to pack. Even so, the coming and going was a hassle, and the thought of slinking home after running away to face her parents sat poorly. That's how you become a real adult, Iseria.
"Four days, is it. There is a spare room on the second floor. We shall use that."
"Huh?"
Wait. Wait. Weren't they supposed to make a cool exit and come back four days later, grim and resolute, with an Are you prepared, young lady? Why did that sound like they meant to stay?
"We will impose upon you for four days. Human."
Wonderful. Another piece of luggage.
Just as I had driven Iseria out the first time she broke into the house uninvited, I meant to chase these two off as well. The elves who had turned up calling themselves an escort, though, were no joke in a fight. Iseria herself was strong enough to flatten any decent adventurer, and these were her guards, so perhaps it was only natural. I am a delicate human, incapable of posing any physical threat to Seiran or Veila.
"Jinwoo, just this once. Please?"
"If you're going to put it like that, Iseria, what choice do I have."
And, at the same time, a human overflowing with compassion. If the elf I lived with said her acquaintances had nowhere to sleep, shouldn't generous me show a little consideration? Yes. That was right. This was honorable—the way dying to a stray arrow in war is a dog's death, while dying in a charge against a renowned enemy general is called a noble end. And so, after that half-forced honorable lending of the house, three days passed.
I did not simply throw those three days away. I stopped by the village to see whether the hardtack was coming along, and mended the parts of the process that were giving trouble. The roughly two thousand servings that came out of it fell a little short of the hardtack I had poured ingredients into without restraint during the Monster Wave. Even so, Calius, the staff, and the villagers who tasted it had nothing but praise. Only the depth of flavor had slipped a little; the signature crispness and the nutty savor were exactly as they should be. Set beside the old brick-hard tack, it was more than competitive enough.
Calius loaded every finished biscuit onto a wagon and set off for the capital. The caravans had been delayed by the Monster Wave, and he declared at the top of his lungs that the hardtack would make up the loss. We were comrades in the same boat now, at any rate. I prayed he would sell every last crumb and come back flush.
Did that mean the hardtack works would sit idle in the meantime? As if. I was not about to halt production after going to all the trouble of optimizing it.
"My thanks. Truth be told, even with the recipe we were short of hands to make it. Buying it from you like this will be better from here on."
"The gratitude is mine. I'll keep the price fair."
Duke Kailan, once he had the hardtack recipe, arranged to meet me before long. The matter was a standing military contract. When they actually tried to produce it my way, the process proved too exacting for the mess cooks alone, and they could hardly pull other soldiers off their posts to plug the gap. So they decided to leave it to the expert. Me.
"Eight copper a serving, six hundred servings in all, so forty-eight silver. I still don't know whether the run to the capital will succeed, so it's difficult to go any cheaper... I'm sorry."
"Nonsense. Let us do business."
Duke Kailan closed the deal as coolly as Silbaerin's crisp weather. In my heart I had wanted to sell at five copper a serving, but nothing guaranteed the capital run would succeed outright. If I meant to keep from falling behind on wages for the people working so hard, it was better to hold a comfortable reserve for now. Once the hardtack took, there would be time enough to revise the contract.
I spent every day scurrying about like that, and what greeted me when I came home was this.
"Jinwoo, look! A new spirit!"
Kyuuing—kiiing—
Iseria was playing with a spirit like a puff of cumulus, two black sesame seeds poked in for eyes. Out in the backyard Veila poured sweat like rain as she drilled.
"Haah! Hut!"
And in front of her, Seiran had unfolded a chair at his leisure and was reading a book.
"Ah, Jinwoo, you're back... huff. W-water, some water, please!"
At least Veila acknowledged me. I handed her the water. Through all of it Seiran flicked his eyes over once and went straight back to the page. That one was the most obnoxious of the lot. While he stayed here he ate more than anyone whenever I cooked, and still he would not drop his guard. Maddening. They were leaving tomorrow anyway. I would endure it.
I turned to Iseria, still amusing herself with the cloud-shaped spirit.
"Iseria. You're going tomorrow—are you all packed?"
"Yeah. I didn't have much luggage anyway..."
"Good. So long as you're ready. Want me to make you something to eat for while I'm not there?"
She flinched. I had only asked in case she came back to Nuardel and started fussing about the food—thinking I might pack her something for the road. For whatever reason, her shoulders shot up tight.
"Ah—n-no. You don't have to."
"No? If you're fine, that's fine."
I decided it was nothing and put it out of my mind. These past few days both Arthur and Duke Kailan had been too busy for anyone to come by the restaurant. From what I heard, besides clearing the battlefield they were busy rooting out corruption in the ranks, keeping a close eye on the affair of the former quartermaster. On top of that Arthur had risen to Sword Expert, and the paperwork of registering the new rank had him swamped. Oddly realistic, this other world.
Pit-pat. Tok.
"It's raining all of a sudden."
"Yeah."
In the middle of that, rain began to fall. A look at the sky said it would not come down hard. It did not look like a passing squall, either; it seemed likely to last through the night. The timing felt just right. I went into the kitchen and started on dinner.
A rainy day calls for jeon. The other day I had served pan-fried tofu, and the three elves had loved it to death, so I had been meaning to do a round of savory pancakes at least once. Jeon is a far simpler dish than people think. It does not ask for a long preparation. There is, however, one rule: don't get greedy. Pile in every ingredient you fancy, and the batter swells to match, and from that moment it is no longer jeon. It is a pancake.
Jeon, properly speaking, is two things. A temptingly golden-brown crust, crisp enough to shatter, and just enough flour to barely hold the fillings together. Satisfy those, and you can pick any green that grows in spring, fry it, and eat every bite with pleasure.
I settled on scallion jeon and zucchini jeon. Both the ingredients and the cooking were simple, and they seemed made for elves who liked their vegetables. Zucchini sliced too thick will not cook through; sliced too thin, it loses its bite, so the middle way. I cut the rounds to about a fifth of an inch. Some people shred the squash entirely and fry it in one great cake, but today I meant to keep the rounds as they were. I salted the slices lightly and left them. The salt would season them, yes, but more than that I wanted osmosis to draw the water out. Once a damp sheen had risen on the surface, I blotted it with a towel and dusted the slices with a light coat of flour. The egg wash could wait until the moment before frying, so the zucchini jeon was ready.
The scallion jeon asked for nothing special. I cut the slender green onions to roughly a finger-joint and a half—about an inch and a half—and dropped them into a mixing bowl. Jeon flour and water, one to one, stirred together, and that was the end of it. The caution was not to mix too much batter in the first place. Just enough to keep the scallions from falling apart. Just enough to glue them to one another. The batter itself should not be thick and pasty, either. Lifted and let fall, it ought to slump and ribbon off in a soft glug. That was the right body.
With the prep finished, I set a pan over a generous pool of oil, brought it to a hard heat, and let a single drop of batter fall.
Sssszzt—!
It cooked up crisp with a cheerful sound. The sign that the temperature had come up properly. I ladled a scoop of scallion batter and spread it flat across the pan.
Shaaaa—!
Hot oil met the moisture in the batter, and the water flashed away. It was nothing more than a simple chemical reaction. And yet that phenomenon had the power to haul a living creature's appetite up from somewhere deep. At the crackling fry of jeon piercing straight through the kitchen, the elves' ears gave a series of sharp little twitches.