Alley Tavern Consulting (1)
The northernmost reach of the Aethernia Empire was Silbaerin.
By any honest measure, though, the true north lay somewhere else. The land was simply too brutal for anything that lived, too dangerous to bother counting, and so it was left off the reckoning. Strictly speaking, the farthest north was the Kalian Mountain Range.
Day or night, summer or winter, a blade-wind scoured those peaks without rest, and the snow-dust it carried cut like the teeth of a logging saw. Any creature with skin soft enough to split was flayed to rags by a passing flurry. It was a mountain of death.
Somewhere in its deep, savage interior, a labyrinth waited at the end of a long descent through a winding cave where even light refused to go. In a vast shrine adorned with the skulls and fangs of magical beasts, an ill-omened voice rolled out.
"Our for...tune. How much... of our fortune has gathered."
"Our host is still too feeble, Your Majesty, to scrape together the blood that has soaked into the continent."
A splendid throne, emblem of a ruler's might and dominion, sat alone in the shrine's great hall, vomiting demonic miasma thicker and stickier than pine resin in a waterfall. The one who ought to have been seated upon it was nowhere to be seen. Only a voice leaked forth, like the shriek of iron plate under a blade.
Answering it was a killer in a black robe. Sex, race, the shape of a face—none of it could be guessed. From the floor of the hall beneath the throne, head bowed low, the killer spoke.
"The dullards of the north, those insects, are as sluggish as ever. But this wave—they weathered it more steadily than we anticipated."
"Excuses. I do not... wish to hear them. The cause. Explain it."
"...It shames me to say so, but I could not discover why their strength grew so suddenly—khk!"
Before the killer could finish, a blackness deeper than pitch—a void like a slice of night sky—closed around him. That severed night clung to his throat like a scarf and slowly wrung the breath out of him.
"Fulfill... the purpose of your existence. Dull thing."
"Kkh—keh. I... I will, I will—"
An instant before his consciousness snapped, the night that had coiled around him like a snake came loose all at once, then melted into the shrine's darkness and vanished. Dragged back from death, the killer hacked out cough after agonized cough.
"Those loathsome... little insects. Where... are they?"
"Khoff—khk. Hhh... They are on the march. We have also planted forces in the human capital."
"The capi...tal? Bele...grad?"
"Yes. Among our targets, we are aiming for the place where the young ones gath—"
□□—!!!
"Belegrad, Belegrad, Belegrad. A lesser race that dies and rots back into dirt, and you think leaving a name behind changes a damned thing—!!!"
The moment the imperial capital was named, the voice upon the throne began to thrash like something mad. Ripples of sound, as if a meteor had slammed into a still lake, tore through the shrine with the shriek of iron being ground away. It was a voice too grotesque and horrible to properly comprehend. The robed killer could not even finish his sentence; both hands clamped over his ears.
Brush that temper even slightly and you would be erased without a trace. Such was the fury. The killer's whole body shuddered as he pressed himself to the floor like an insect. Before a disaster of that magnitude, a worthless thing had no choice but to endure.
He waited, endlessly, for the storm to pass, and at last stillness returned to the shrine. With the quiet came a voice that had found its calm again.
"Y-yes...! I will see it done."
It was not quite a final warning, but it left a pressure close enough to one, and then the throne's sticky miasma vanished. The killer glanced about, cautious, and staggered to his feet. On the sleeve of the robe, and on the shrine floor where his head had been pressed, dark red blood had been coughed out in a vivid stain.
"I'm more worn out than usual today. I could use a cold restorative. Proprietor—a beer, if you would."
"The hell's with that talk? Not like you at all... Ten coppers. Up front."
"No. My restorative never goes over five coppers. Make it five."
"You little—!"
"Ah. Sorry."
It was a tavern near the mansion, the sort of place I dropped into now and then for a drink. The proprietor, proud owner of a magnificent thick beard, had a fist cocked in the air.
Come on, it was a joke. A joke. He isn't playing along at all...
I apologized at once and set ten copper coins down on the table. Only then did he lower his hand and drop the coins into the till.
"Awful harsh of you. I really was tired today."
"The harsh one is you, kid. You know what the biggest topic in the capital is right now?"
"What."
"'What in the world are they selling on Academy Street, that the line starts all the way back at the central plaza?' That's what."
"Hmm... You're telling me. What could it possibly be, to make people line up like that."
"That's it. You and I are settling this today."
"Wait, wait, wait! It was a joke. Mister! Why have you been so serious since earlier?"
"Haa... Anyway, if you're making that much money, spend a little of it. A grown man, pinching coins."
Grumbling all the while, he poured with a practiced hand and set a mug of golden beer in front of me. Lager.
Yes. Lager.
Not ale. Lager, of all things.
Who would have thought that in a medieval fantasy world I'd find a lager this clean and refreshing, instead of those sticky ales stained with their odd, heavy scents? I'd made the rounds of the taverns near the mansion, and this was the only one that sold it. In the short month I'd been living in the capital, that was the entire reason I came here and nowhere else.
"I don't come every day, but when I do, I drink at least three or four before I leave. Isn't that enough?"
"Tsk. You don't lose a single exchange. Let's just drink."
"Huh. You're starting early today. You sure that's all right?"
"What's there to be sure about. There's no customer but you."
Just as his self-deprecating words suggested, the tavern was empty except for me. It had never been wildly popular, but people who knew the taste found their way here by word of mouth. Today there were clearly fewer of them than usual.
Still, once you've got a mug in hand, you clink first.
The cups were old wood rather than glass, so there was no bright, high chime. Even so, that blunt knock had a charm of its own. How to put it—it stirred some male instinct buried in the genes?
The proprietor and I struck our cups with great ceremony, then knocked the beer back in one go.
Carbonation hammered my tongue hard enough to leave it in tatters. The hit was so fierce that filling my mouth to the brim was simply impossible. Only two scents came through: barley, and hops. Unlike the medieval beers of Earth, muddled with gruit—that mix of every herb and medicinal root under the sun—the ingredients here had been chosen with beautiful simplicity.
I couldn't say why, but beer always seemed to lose a little of its flavor after the first sip. Which was why my personal method for drinking it at its best was this: finish the first mouthful and the last in a single swallow. A one-shot. Whatever anyone else claimed, the finest way to take a first beer was to slam it gloriously down your throat.
Just like that, the stress of the day blew clean through.
"Kh—pa-haaah! I can never forget this taste."
"So you really were tired. What's the matter? Business is good, isn't it? Your body's worn out, but you ought to be enjoying yourself."
"I'm not in it for the money, but... yeah, you're right. Today I just had a few extreme customers."
When I told them the stall would close for good after next week, Isilla and Kariel had been ready to resort to force. Friends or not, how was I supposed to stop a duke's daughter and an imperial princess? I couldn't have stopped them even if I'd tried. Calming the two of them while they leaned on their stations had taken a considerable effort.
The compromise we landed on was the Academy festival, two weeks out. I would stay open at least through the festival. It was a little absurd, haggling with people who weren't even the landlord when the owner himself wanted to shut the place down... The problem was that they weren't ordinary others. They were top-tier others.
"If it were me, I'd smile and let customers like that slide, so long as business was good... Well. People differ, I suppose."
"Haha. Right. We differ. Yes."
I wondered what my honest, generously built proprietor would do if he learned who those "problem customers" actually were. Those compact muscles of his would probably balloon on the spot while his whole body announced his shock. I was terribly curious to see it, but I didn't bother revealing their identities. There was no need to tease him with that. A faint worry was already steeped into his face.
"Setting me aside—why do you look like death warmed over, boss? Somebody get under your skin again?"
"Get under my skin? What's that supposed to mean? Me, it's just... business is bad. A shopkeeper with no business looks half dead. What other reason would there be?"
"Tch... Why'd business suddenly die? It wasn't like this before."
"You know the tavern on the busy street, right before you turn into this alley. They changed cooks, and word is the side dishes are unbelievable. They're pulling every customer over there."
He tossed the reason out like it was nothing and took a sip of beer.
Hmm. No matter how good the snacks were, it was strange. You go to a tavern to drink, not to eat the sides. Places that led with alcohol often kept the menu dead simple; some of them offered nothing but RTE snacks—ready to eat, no cooking required. Dress it up and it's RTE. Strip the term away and it's just dry bar food, peanuts and nachos.
Anyway, anyone with intact taste buds could not try this beer and fail to come back. The proprietor's brew gave even my palate, trained on castella sponge cake, more than enough satisfaction. Which made me curious. Come to think of it, I had never once eaten a side dish in this tavern.
I spoke up.
"Could I get a side? Whatever's fastest."
"Hm? A side? Well... sure."
He reached straight under the bar, rattled around for a moment, and brought his hand back up. In it was a plate heaped with nuts.
"This works too. Thanks."
Nuts were a snack that needed no special technique and no recipe. Even so, they could tell you a fair amount about the state of a kitchen. Their rough-and-ready nature meant they were often stored at the level of neglect, and storing them carelessly could land you in real trouble. The rich fat natural to nuts oxidizes, and in no time the whole batch reeks of rancid oil. As a rule, the more moisture an ingredient holds, the faster it spoils, and the drier it is, the better it keeps. Nuts don't escape that common sense—but you must not overlook the fat.
In other words, by checking how the nuts had been kept, you could read an owner's knowledge of his ingredients, his interest in them, and whether he managed them at all.
I picked one up and smelled it first. The truth was, rancid stink didn't need a nose held close; it hit you in a wave. I already knew before I brought it near my face. These nuts had been left sitting for a long, long time. Still, on the off chance I was wrong, I carefully bit into one.
"Ptooey."
"You little—?!"
The instant it touched my tongue, rancid oil flooded my mouth, and I spat it straight back out. Ugh. There went my palate. I'd have to rinse it with beer.
"Ah, boss. Another beer. Quick!"
"You spit the food out right in front of the man who gave it to you. What? You want a beer?"
"This isn't food! Don't call this stuff food."
"What? What's wrong with these nuts!"
My wording hit a nerve, and the proprietor bristled. Face twisted with anger, he grabbed a whole handful and dumped it into his mouth.
Uh... that's a bad idea.
Eating that much of that awful rancid stink all at once...!
"Hurk—puek!!"
"Ah, fuck!!!"
Put something in a human body that should not be eaten, and the body acts on reflex. In accordance with that survival instinct, the spoiled nuts blasted out of the proprietor's mouth like a burst from a machine gun. By pure misfortune, they hit my face dead on.
It seemed this boss was in need of a little consulting.
Ah. Not a little. A lot.