The work to recreate the Topliya of her memories continued.
First, based on the new clue I had obtained,
I looked into what red, spicy seasonings might be usable on the northern continent.
Since hardly any customers came to the shop anyway, I closed it for a while
and went out to the nearest city to ask merchants who handled ingredients from the northern continent.
“...I’d like to know if there’s a spice with these characteristics. Do you happen to know of one?”
“A spice that gives a red color and has a heavy, lingering heat...”
The merchant sold all kinds of ingredients piled high in large baskets.
After hearing my question, he thought deeply for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“I doubt it comes from the northern continent. It’s too cold over there, so hardly any crops grow at all.”
“So at the very least, it’s not native to that region.”
He was right.
The northern continent was simply too cold to be an environment fit for growing crops.
The two kinds of specialty herbs used in Topliya were also among the few herbs that grew in extreme conditions.
Because of that, they were almost never used on the main continent, where the royal capital was located.
This had become a little troublesome.
This world had ordinary chili peppers, too.
There were even the kind of chili peppers I was familiar with, the ones that ripened red under the sunlight.
The problem was that there were countless varieties depending on the region.
I had deduced that the Topliya of her memories used chili peppers instead of tomatoes, but...
Figuring out which variety from which region had been used was a daunting task.
“By the way, you seem quite interested in northern continent cuisine. Last time, you bought a whole lot of Elmont and Talis leaves, too.”
Elmont and Talis leaves.
They were northern spices I had used when making the first Topliya.
In the end, it turned out they weren’t used in the Topliya of her memories, so they had become useless, but...
Last time, I had bought ingredients from this merchant who dealt in foodstuffs from the northern continent.
“You remember me. The truth is...”
I gave the merchant a rough explanation of how I was trying to recreate a dish from the northern continent.
I told him that it was a recipe that had been greatly altered from the traditional version, and that it seemed to include a red, spicy seasoning.
The merchant, who had been listening carefully to my story, seemed to recall something and spoke to me.
“Then in any case, it was something they made and ate on the northern continent, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“As you know, there aren’t many traders who go into the northern continent. The sea is frozen, so it’s dangerous. So if they were making spicy food there, there’s probably only one thing they could have used.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Oh, come now. If you work in this trade, you’ve got to have sharp ears. I know well enough what goods flow where.”
This was an unexpected harvest.
If, among the countless varieties of chili peppers from each region, there was only one kind that entered the northern continent,
then I would be able to identify exactly which chili pepper had been used in the Topliya of her memories.
Come to think of it, something similar had happened when I cooked in my previous life.
I had been looking for high-quality scallop adductor muscles to use at the restaurant,
but every place that handled them either had prices that were too high or quality that fell short of what I wanted.
The one who opened a way for me back then was the distributor who had supplied sea bream to the restaurant for a long time.
Because we had been doing business together for so long, we had become friendly,
and he introduced me to another supplier who handled good scallops.
Thanks to that introduction, the price was considerably cheaper, too.
I was reminded once again that, to cook, it was important to build good relationships with merchants who handled ingredients.
“If it was something they made and ate on the northern continent, is there no chance they used some other chili pepper?”
I asked the merchant again, just to confirm any possibilities I might have missed.
The merchant shook his head.
“Nah, you said it was home cooking, didn’t you? Then it would’ve been something they ate often, so there’s no way they’d have used chili peppers from another region that were hard to get. They definitely would have used the kind distributed to the northern continent.”
“And the name of that chili pepper is...?”
“Flamberos.”
At last, the merchant told me the name of the only red chili pepper distributed to the northern continent.
“But you’ll have to use it carefully. It’s quite a spicy one.”
“Flamberos... Do you happen to have any for sale?”
“You really came on the perfect day!”
At my question, the merchant’s face brightened.
He went behind the baskets he had laid out for business and untied a sack he hadn’t opened yet.
Then he scooped out a heaping bowlful of chili peppers that resembled bright red bell peppers and held them out to me.
“How much do you need?”
And so, I immediately bought two baskets of Flamberos from the merchant.
* * *
The second test tasting to recreate the Topliya from Frau’s memories.
This time, I used the Flamberos I had bought after obtaining information from the merchant to give it a red color.
Frau, who had come after receiving the carrier pigeon, sat at the counter, waiting for the dish.
Perhaps because I had used a lot of spicy chili peppers, the kitchen was filled with a sharp, spicy aroma.
“Cough! Cough, cough! It’s s-spicy! The smell is spiiiicy!”
“What do you think? Did it smell something like this?”
Ignoring Aris, who was coughing out in the dining hall, I asked Frau.
Frau answered me with a slightly surprised expression.
“...Yeah. It’s similar. I’m sure the whole tower smelled like this on the days when Topliya was served.”
Good. It felt like I had taken another step closer to the goal.
Just a little more, and...
No, perhaps today, Frau might be able to recover that taste from her memories.
“You must have liked your master a lot.”
The Topliya still needed more time before it fully boiled.
I deliberately struck up a conversation so Frau wouldn’t be bored while waiting.
“No, it was the opposite. I hated her more than anyone in the world.”
But the answer I got back was unexpected.
She hated the master who had made her Topliya...?
“Then why on earth are you searching for this Topliya?”
“I wonder... Why am I...?”
Frau let out a small sigh and closed her eyes.
After a few seconds of silence passed, she opened her eyes again and began to speak.
“My master, that is... the Ice Witch, was a terrible person. If she’d had an ordinary personality, she wouldn’t have been called by a nickname like that.”
“The Ice Witch...”
“From the time I had barely learned to walk, she treated me harshly. I was young and powerless, so it was hard for me to endure her scolding me every day. There were more days when I cried than when I didn’t, and every single day, I wanted to run away.”
Suddenly, a strange chill began to fill the shop.
Perhaps because she had grown emotionally shaken while talking about her master,
I could feel the cold mana flowing from Frau’s body grow a little stronger.
“Why did she scold you so much?”
“...Because she tried to teach magic to me when I couldn’t even read words properly.”
“Did you learn your abilities as a mage from that Ice Witch?”
“...Yeah. Later on, I studied magic desperately, too. I gritted my teeth, telling myself that someday I’d become stronger than my master and escape the tower.”
Frau’s gaze sharpened.
It seemed her claim that she had grown up being abused by her master was true.
“But it’s funny, isn’t it? Before I could even become stronger than her, she went and died of mana disease on her own. Thanks to that, I now have a body that can freely come and go across the continent like this.”
Frau smiled bitterly.
“On those hellish days when I was locked in the tower every day and scolded by my master, the one comfort I had was Topliya. When I was eating it, for some reason, Master didn’t treat me harshly. Though, once the next day came, she’d hound me again like she was catching a rat.”
“The Topliya’s almost done.”
I spoke as I turned off the flame under the pot that had begun to boil.
Honestly, it was hard to imagine how Frau felt right now.
In any case, what I had to do now was let her taste the Topliya from her memories.
Just how close would the taste of this second Topliya be to the taste she remembered?
I carefully ladled the completed Topliya into a bowl and set it down where Frau was sitting.
“What you have to do is the same as last time. First, try it, and if there’s anything different from the taste in your memories, tell me.”
Frau nodded and picked up her spoon.
This time, unlike last time, Frau was clearly nervous as well.
The intense spices of the northern continent had been removed, and in their place, the spicy chili pepper Flamberos had been used.
There were no tomatoes in the bright red broth.
The spicy aroma rose sharply even to me in the kitchen.
“Then...”
With her spoon, Frau scooped up a generous bite of the second Topliya along with some meat.
Then she brought it straight to her mouth and began to chew.
“...”
I watched her together with Aris.
Just how close had it gotten this time?
A short while later, after savoring the taste for quite some time, Frau opened her mouth.
“Amazing... Really... It’s almost like Master’s Topliya. The taste, the aroma... It’s just...”
“Just?”
“After I ate Master’s Topliya, I would feel as if something in my heart had settled down. It was definitely spicy and stimulating, and it made me sweat, but strangely, I felt that way. This Topliya doesn’t have that at all.”
At Frau’s words, I barely swallowed the retort that had almost come out: “Isn’t it a bit much to ask for that?”
Removing the tomatoes and the other spices and replacing them in the recipe with the spicy chili pepper Flamberos had been the right answer.
But...
“Couldn’t that simply be because the environment where you’re eating it is different? People perceive taste differently depending on the circumstances they’re in.”
“No, that’s not it. I know that much, too. It’s not something that wavers depending on my mood.”
“Then?”
“It really... settled down. In various ways. I can’t explain it well, but.”
Listening to Frau’s words, which I couldn’t tell were stubbornness or sincerity,
I seriously turned them over in my mind.
The taste and aroma were almost identical, but the feeling after eating it was different...
And yet, it wasn’t because of the environment or her mood...
This was difficult.
This time, she had admitted that both the taste and aroma were almost the same as the Topliya from her memories.
But if she still said something was lacking, honestly, I had no idea what more I was supposed to do.
To be honest, I even wondered if Frau was just being needlessly stubborn.
But when I saw her looking at me with a serious face while taking small spoonfuls of the Topliya,
she truly seemed to believe that something was missing.
What is it? Just what is supposed to be missing?
Ever since long ago, whenever I received a complaint from a customer, no matter how absurd it was, I had a habit of taking it seriously.
That was still true now.
And just then, as I was worrying over it again and again—
“...!”
Something flashed through my mind.
* * *