“There is an old brewery in our city.”
“A brewery……?”
“Yeah. And it’s no ordinary brewery. Deep underground, where the temperature is constant and the humidity is just right—it’s a place that has been brewing liquor for hundreds, for thousands of years.”
Pride suffused Ironfoot’s voice.
“We use underground bedrock water and brew it with a special dwarven traditional method. Our food may be salty and tough, nothing but aged fare, but the liquor we make only grows tastier with age. The surface may have delicious food, but when it comes to drink, nothing there can compare to ours.”
“Hoo…….”
“It’s a flavor absolutely impossible to produce on the surface. A very special taste. There’s this flavor that’s hard to describe exactly. The longer it ages, the deeper it becomes.”
Ironfoot’s eyes gazed into the distance for a moment.
“They say the oldest liquor in Amberholt is thirteen hundred years old.”
“Thirteen hundred?!”
“That’s right. It was aging long before I was born.”
I chewed on those words for a moment.
Thirteen hundred years.
What would it taste like?
There were plenty of spirits that improved with age.
But that was only for decades—after a hundred or a thousand years, it would surely spoil.
It wasn’t like honey that never rots after thousands of years, so what in the world…….
I couldn’t even imagine dwarven liquor aged thirteen hundred years.
Ironfoot grinned, seeming to have read my expression.
“You look interested?”
“I am a bit curious.”
“A bit! You’re a chef, aren’t you? A chef ought to take an interest in liquor.”
Ironfoot smacked the table with his palm.
“Excellent! Next time I come, I’ll bring a bottle. You can taste it then and see what you think.”
I nodded.
And I looked around the hall.
The dwarves were almost finished with their meal.
* * *
After the dwarves left, the restaurant grew quiet again.
Aris spoke as she swept the dust-covered hall floor.
“They sure eat a lot.”
“As if they eat more than you.”
“That foreman, Ironfoot, was an interesting person. A bit coarse with his words, though.”
Aris seemed to have found Ironfoot’s rather crude jokes amusing.
Normally, throwing around gags about a runaway wife or odd-numbered testicles would start a fight.
“Well, that’s their style.”
“Do you know what he said to me when they were leaving?”
“That dwarf said something to you too?”
“He asked why this lady’s hair was soaking wet, and said next time he hoped my clothes would be soaked through just like my hair.”
“…….”
“He must like wet things. Maybe he likes rainy days.”
No, that’s plain sexual harassment.
That perverted dwarf—if he does it again next time, I’ll have to give him a piece of my mind.
* * *
A few days later.
Work foreman Ironfoot knocked on the restaurant door.
This time, he was alone, without his crew.
He had a heavy, large metal bottle tucked under his armpit.
It was a bottle thickly sealed with beeswax.
“Yo! Klaus, I came to keep my promise!”
“You’re alone?”
“Today it’s just me. I stopped by after work.”
Ironfoot came inside, sat down naturally, and placed the bottle on the table.
“Is that……”
“What’s this? It’s from the Amberholt brewery. Dwarven liquor aged thirty years.”
“You couldn’t bring the thirteen-hundred-year-old one?”
“That isn’t something you can open just anytime. A thirty-year-old bottle is plenty amazing.”
Ironfoot flicked the end of his beard with a proud expression.
“Here! Have a taste.”
When I peeled away the wax and pulled the cork, an aroma spread out.
It smelled of earth, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
Deep and cold, with a hint of mineral scent mixed in.
It was an aroma impossible to find on the surface.
When poured into a glass, the color was a deep amber.
At the first sip, a heavy body was felt.
There was a trailing sweetness,
and beneath that, I could sense a strange metallic taste.
Perhaps because of the high proof, as it passed down my throat, I could pinpoint the exact real-time location of my esophagus and stomach.
The aftertaste lingered long.
It was strong, but delicious.
“How is it?”
Ironfoot asked, studying my expression.
“It’s unique.”
“Unique? That’s all?”
“I think I need to drink more to know for sure……”
“Then keep drinking until you do! There’s still plenty left!”
I drank the second sip more slowly than the first.
Decades-old dwarven liquor brewed with groundwater that had passed through mineral layers.
I naturally began to think of how it could be used in cooking.
When making a sauce, or marinating meat, and so on.
What kind of synergy this liquor’s components could bring to a dish.
It was then.
Aris, who had been quietly gazing out the window, suddenly shouted.
“Ah! Boss! Boss! Irit is coming!”
“Huh?”
Now? All of a sudden?
Ring-a-ling— Ring-a-ling—
Before I could even think, the restaurant door burst open.
“Kl~aus~!”
Irit appeared, calling my name as if calling a pet dog.
“Irit? What’s this, showing up out of nowhere without any word beforehand?”
“When have I ever contacted you beforehand? I had some business passing by, so I came to see you~!”
Irit was entering energetically, but she paused when she saw Ironfoot sitting at the table.
Ironfoot saw Irit as well.
“It’s an elf.”
“It’s a dwarf.”
After the two sized each other up,
Irit asked me.
“What’s that dwarf?”
“Well…… for now, I’d call him a guest.”
“……Hmph.”
Ironfoot stroked his beard as he looked at Irit.
Dwarves and elves…….
Historically, they were not races that got along well.
But the two races being hostile was a story of the distant past.
Nowadays, there were even cases at guilds where elves and dwarves operated in the same party.
Modern-day dwarves and elves didn’t fight like they wanted to kill each other,
but it was a complicated relationship—they weren’t exactly happy to see one another either.
“Wow, a blonde beauty appears. If only she weren’t an elf, the liquor would taste even better.”
“To think I’d hear that from a runt dwarf.”
Ironfoot guffawed at Irit’s retort.
“Will you have a drink? Even a haughty elf should know good liquor when she tastes it, no?”
“Irit, since you’re here, want to eat something?”
I asked Irit.
“Sigh…… Sure.”
She had the look of someone with plenty to say,
but Irit answered reluctantly.
* * *
Aris followed me into the kitchen and whispered.
“Um…… will those two be okay?”
“Why?”
“The atmosphere has felt uncomfortable since earlier.”
I heated the pan while straining my ear toward the hall.
“So, how old are you, anyway?”
It was Ironfoot’s voice.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age?”
“No, I’m just curious! Elves don’t age on the outside, only on the inside.”
“Dwarves are already old to begin with.”
“Uwahaha! Well, that’s true. Are you acquainted with the owner here?”
“Well…… we’re old friends.”
Irit’s mood seemed slightly displeased.
But it didn’t feel serious enough that I needed to intervene.
I arranged fruit and salad on a plate for Irit.
And I prepared some jerky as a simple snack for Ironfoot.
Together with Aris, I brought the prepared plates back out to the hall.
“You’re both my guests for now, so don’t bicker too much.”
I said to the two as I set the plates on the table.
Irit quietly averted her gaze to the side,
and Ironfoot just laughed heartily as he watched her.
* * *
After setting down the food and sitting across from them,
Irit spoke to me while eating.
“Do you remember that noble lady you left with me?”
“You mean Lady Rosalia?”
The doll-like noble lady of House Hildenburg.
She had been famous for her dazzling beauty,
but she was a woman who had suffered from anorexia due to stress from an unwanted marriage.
I hadn’t heard any news of her for a long time after entrusting her to Irit.
“She seems to be doing well. She had an unexpected talent.”
“An unexpected talent?”
Irit took a sip of broth and continued.
“While traveling with her, we had business at a church, and the high priest there saw the doll-like noble lady and said she possessed holy power, then asked if she had any intention of serving the Goddess.”
“And then? Don’t tell me you left her at the church?”
“Yeah. She wanted it herself, so now she’s training to be a priestess at the church in the royal capital.”
That doll-like noble lady, a priestess……?
Well, if she became a priestess, even her family would find it difficult to bother her with marriage issues.
A priestess with strong holy power was considered one chosen by the Goddess,
so there were rare cases where even royalty converted to priesthood because they possessed holy power.
“Next time I see her, she’ll be Priestess Rosalia.”
“Well, I also came to tell you this.”
I recalled memories of the past for a moment.
The doll-like noble lady of Hildenburg.
She had seemed like she would vanish at any moment, unable to eat anything,
and that pitiful, beautiful face still remained vivid in my mind.
Good for her.
I had been wondering how she was doing lately.
Entrusting the doll-like noble lady to Irit had indeed been the right choice.
“Enough idle chatter, let’s get back to drinking!”
Ironfoot, who had been listening silently to my and Irit’s conversation, spoke up.
And he poured the liquor he had brought into a large glass—glug, glug, glug—and held it out to Irit.
“Hey, ma’am. Take a drink. This is amazing thirty-year-old Amberholt dwarven liquor. I was wondering if an elf could recognize the value of this stuff!”
“Ah, ma’am……?”
“You can’t fool my eyes. We both live for hundreds of years. You’re definitely much older than me, aren’t you?”
“…….”
Irit’s hand briefly moved toward the sword at her waist.
“Oh my! Elf lady, it was a joke, a joke! What a scary elf lady.”
“Sigh…… Why do I have to deal with this.”
Irit withdrew her hand from her sword and let out a deep sigh.
But having known her for a long time,
I knew she had no real intention of cutting the dwarf down.
It was merely a display of displeasure at being called “ma’am.”
“Hmph…… dwarven liquor……”
Irit lifted the brimming glass and briefly smelled its aroma.
I had tasted it earlier,
and honestly, it was a liquor with objectively excellent taste and unique charm.
Irit wasn’t someone unable to hold her drink,
so she would surely take to it.
“Well, just one glass.”
Irit brought the glass to her lips
and carefully drank the dwarven liquor.
Ironfoot puffed out his chest and watched her with an air of pride.
“……It’s quite good.”
Irit set the glass down after a few gulps and gave her impressions.
“Hahahaha! Right? Right? It’s pretty good, huh? You actually think it’s even better but just can’t say it honestly, right? I know everything!”
Seeing Irit’s reaction, Ironfoot laughed in satisfaction and shouted.
And so the three of us began drinking in earnest.
Drinking dwarven liquor with snacks suited to each of us,
we shared all manner of conversation.
Irit and Ironfoot, who hadn’t seemed to get along at first,
grew almost friendly after a few more drinks and some talk.
They still couldn’t help bickering, but…….
It was when the atmosphere had warmed up to some degree.
Aris, who had been quietly watching the three of us, approached the table and opened her mouth.
“Um, umm…….”
“Huh? What is it, Aris. Are you hungry?”
Aris shook her head slightly and spoke hesitantly.
“I…… I was wondering if I could also try a little…… of the liquor the dwarf brought……”
“You?”
“Yes. Watching the three of you enjoy it so much made me curious.”
But you’re…… a ghost.
There’s no way drinking alcohol would make you feel g—…… no, wait.
Come to think of it, I was curious too.
Aris wasn’t an ordinary ghost.
She properly maintained a physical body through magic,
and she was a child who could properly taste and smell food.
Perhaps, despite being a ghost, she could enjoy alcohol too.
“Uh…… is it not allowed?”
To Aris, who asked with disappointed eyes as she gazed at the large bottle,
I spoke with a grin.
“There’s no reason not to. You sit too.”
* * *