Better Than Sweetness Is Even More Sweetness (1)
Slurp—
"Wow. It really is delicious."
"Right? It's a wine my family's been making for generations. Of course it's good."
We had watched the entire heart-stopping spectacle of winemaking—shock, awe, and all—and now we were tasting what Eilenna had made, right there in her winery.
"The wine is called Elseriel. In Elvish it means 'Fruit of Light,' and the—"
"Ah, ah, stop. Please, no more proper nouns."
"Hmph."
Eilenna Liliendra, her full name. Esera, the grape. And Elseriel, the white wine pressed from it. I cut her off just as those blue eyes lit up and the explanation gathered speed.
Slurp—
Another mouthful followed.
Peach. Apple. Hmm... is that pineapple?
I closed my lips and pushed a breath up toward the back of my nose—once, then again. The aroma met the membrane and came on thicker, more present. Ripe peach and pineapple took the lead, with a bright apple note quietly holding them up from underneath.
Sweet as sin. This stuff's lethal.
The flavor lived up to that fruit perfume, and then some. I won't pretend sugar's sweetness doesn't count, but there's a particular joy only the sugar in fruit can give. The wine wrapped my tongue in an easy, high-sweet elegance, and my face loosened before I noticed.
Crunch—
Wine alone gets dull, so I took a slice of firm, well-ripened peach to go with it.
Tsk. Still a little disappointing...
The white Eilenna made sat closer to a dessert wine in sweetness. With a wine like that, the pairing ought to meet it—something sweet of its own. Cheese would do as well. Most whites get along beautifully with cheese.
She was an elf. Young and lovely to look at, yes, but she had surely been making wine longer than I had been alive. She must have tried it with cheese somewhere along the way. So why only fruit?
"Lady Eilenna. Don't you have anything else to eat with it?"
"Hm? Something else... do you want an apple?"
"You don't take cheese?"
"Ah. I'm not fond of cheese."
She said it without hesitation.
"Milk and butter are fine, but I can't eat cheese. The smell. I'm not even sure it goes with wine..."
"Ah."
What a sad state of affairs. Then again, cheese split human opinion cleanly enough. Elves, who ate mostly plants, would only be stricter about it, not looser.
Slurp—
I drank like I'd gotten hooked, one mouthful after another. The wine truly was wonderful, but hogging the good pairings all to myself felt a little mean. More than that, after hearing her out, I felt sorry for her.
A dry white can sit reasonably beside a meal or a salad. The wine she made, though—Elseriel—was a dessert wine that boasted sweetness at its peak. Put it next to dinner and it would only knock the main course off balance. Dessert was the right pairing, but look at the elves. Weren't they cheerfully eating that rock-hard, dusty elven hardtack, Elskit, and calling it delicious? In a world like this, fresh fruit was probably the next-best dessert. The World Tree guaranteed the sugar, so it did taste good. It simply couldn't draw the wine out to its full potential.
While I was turning all of that over, Eilenna spoke.
"Hey, Jinwoo. Take a few bottles of Elseriel when you go."
"Sorry? If you're offering, I'll accept with thanks, but... why so suddenly? Did Lord Elioren threaten you?"
"Heh... I did no such thing."
"Ah. My apologies."
Elioren, who had been quietly drinking, sounded genuinely wronged. Well, the moment he'd whispered in her ear earlier she had shrunk in on herself, so of course I'd assumed a threat. If not that, then what? What whim hands out wine as a gift? I asked with nothing but honest curiosity, and Eilenna, shy, looked away from my eyes.
"It isn't because of Elioren... After the tour, I could tell that even as a human, you know quite a lot in detail. The truth is, not every elf makes good wine."
Once the gate was open, the reasons came pouring out.
Elves had the World Tree. They made wine by coasting on the ocean-deep grace it bestowed, so anyone could turn out something passable without laboring over variety, terroir, or the timing of the harvest. Eilenna hated that attitude.
"Elves live a long time. Longer than you humans by a completely different measure."
"Yes. That's true."
"And through all those years, the World Tree is there for us to lean on. That's the problem."
"A problem?"
"Yes. We settle into things too easily, and we stop growing."
She let out a long sigh and went on.
"The ingredients taste good on their own, so we don't cook. Talent comes naturally, so there's no great need to train in magic. Wine is the same. Make it carelessly and it still comes out fit to drink. I hated that complacency."
"Ah..."
I understood her. Unlike the other elves, Eilenna burned to make wine and to get better at it, and the world around her kept blunting that drive.
"Honestly, I only make wine this good because of what the Liliendra family can do. But you looked different, Jinwoo."
"Me?"
"You're a cook, and still you came at wine with real fervor. You knew the whole process. And terroir... was that the word? I grew grapes without ever thinking about a thing like that. You don't even look that old, and knowledge that wide is proof of your passion, isn't it."
Haa...
All at once, something heavy and sincere had spilled out of her. An awkward quiet settled over the tasting room. There was too much praise in what she'd said for me to answer lightly. Even Elioren seemed unused to seeing her like this; surprise showed plain on his face.
So she had been carrying a worry this deep. I searched my head for words that could meet honesty with honesty—but she got there first.
"Ah, ahaha! I went and said something useless. Sorry. Anyway... seeing you stirred me up quite a bit. The wine is my sincerity about that."
"Then... I'll take it gladly. Thank you."
"Oh... look at the time. Shouldn't we be heading back?"
"You're right. It'll be evening by the time we reach the manor. Sir Jinwoo, shall we go?"
"Ah. Yes."
I gathered up her sincerity by the armful and left the house. Even on the way out, a few slices of peach left on the table kept tugging at me.
They say even the brush of a sleeve is a tie of fate. Judging by the talk we'd just had, this one was certain. When I see someone giving their whole heart to their work, I want to put my shoulder to it somehow. I don't know about anyone else. I am that sort of person. And besides—I'd already been handed several bottles of wine this fine.
Aaah. I didn't want to make it somewhere like this...
I counted ingredients in my head. Flour, sugar, eggs, butter—all of it I could get from the Mana Market, or from the market in Nuardel. Vanilla was the problem. I had never seen any in Silbaerin, or here.
Ah. Herbs and lemon?
If I didn't have it, I didn't have it. Change the road and be done. Custard cream married to vanilla has a soft, clouded sweetness all its own, and that is lovely—but what if I pushed the fragrance as far as it would go with herb and lemon, and set sugar-preserved peach on top?
Oh, shit.
The recipe found its shape. For Eilenna, who couldn't even enjoy her own wine all the way because she had no dessert worth the name, I hoped it would be some comfort.
Sweet-and-tart peach tart.
Time to show them what an Earth dessert could do.
The aftermath of the Monster Wave had been cleared away, and Silbaerin had its ordinary days back. Or so it seemed. There was no rumor of bandits, no word of a mid-grade magical beast or worse—and yet the 1st Squad of the Silbaerin Knights, proud in full array, was marching out of the city in formation.
"What, another Monster Wave?"
"Hardly. Haven't you heard?"
"Heard? Heard what?"
Was trouble crashing down on them again? A man passing by muttered it to himself, tight with unease, and the merchant standing beside him answered. Something had happened. That much was certain. The man, who had heard nothing at all, asked.
"The quartermaster, of course! The quartermaster!"
"Hm? Wasn't that fellow caught embezzling and executed?"
"No, no—the honorary quartermaster, the one attached to the knights for a time!"
"Ah. The black-haired chef?"
Once the pieces fit, the merchant went on.
"That's the one. They say the rations never faltered during the Monster Wave, thanks to him. Cooks like a miracle, or so I hear. Even His Lordship dotes on him. That tells you everything."
"Hah. So it was like that. I had no idea. But what about the chef?"
"Well... they say he went missing a few days ago."
"Couldn't he have gone traveling somewhere?"
The man asked it, puzzled. A trip, or an errand to buy what he needed—a week vanishes before you notice. The chef might simply have stepped away from home.
"Not a chance. Lord Calius started a hardtack business with him, and word is he had no plans to leave. I hear the hardtack is doing quite well in the capital..."
"Hm. True enough, it's no time to be going anywhere. And Lord Calius isn't the sort to lie."
"Right. And they say the chef's house was a wreck. Blood all over the floor, as if someone had been struck down right there."
"Hah! So that's it. A kidnapping, plain as day."
The merchant's fervent account convinced the man completely. Rumors swell, as rumors do. Kang Jinwoo's restaurant had not been wrecked to that degree, and the blood on the floor had been faint indeed—but objective truth did not matter much to people.
Having heard the merchant out, the man looked again at the knights passing before him. The bearing was imposing, yes, but every face was the same: brows knotted hard, eyes glaring fit to frighten. A fully armed 1st Squad marching with expressions that grim—someone who didn't know better might have thought a war had broken out.
"So they're going to look for that quartermaster? The knights' 1st Squad, no less?"
"That's what I said! And His Lordship is going with them."
"His Lordship? Heavens."
At that, the man looked toward the head of the column, already far down the road.
Fweeng—!
Kailan Silbaerin himself was nowhere in sight, but the tip of the spear he held high against the sky was.
Even in a Monster Wave, Kailan did not take the front. He commanded. A lord had no need to step out unless the situation truly demanded it. Even so, now and then someone would mutter that he stayed back because he was too weak to go. If a neighbor in Silbaerin let a piece of nonsense like that slip, the locals commenced physical therapy at once—which is to say they gathered round and beat the offender senseless. Kailan's reputation in Silbaerin stood that high, and his strength stood higher still. Fail to grasp it, and a beating was no more than you deserved. That was the social contract.
He held himself back only so the soldiers could gain real experience. When the fight turned grim, he took up his spear and went to the field, and every time he did, what followed was a slaughter. Watch the beast-horde fail, again and again, to advance a single step past him, and any doubt about his strength melted like snow. Even now, with white coming into his hair, the overwhelming spirit he showed once a fight had him was nowhere near rusted. A gentle lord, kind to common folk—and still, there was a reason he ruled the northern frontier.
"Whoever it was, they picked the wrong man."
"Mm. That they did."
Man and merchant stared blankly after the column leaving the city, and both of them came to the same quiet conclusion. For the time being, the neighborhood of the Kalian Mountain Range was best left alone.