They say a genius never neglects his studies, no matter when or where.
“There’s no reason not to study while looking after Fried.”
A day had passed since Fried was born.
I opened a book in the room where the baby and the new mother were resting.
Back when I was a resident, I studied while seeing patients; there’s no reason I can’t do the same just because this is another world.
I was in the middle of verifying calculations, pointing at numbers with my finger, when—
“Julian.”
Suddenly, the Godmother, who had been resting in bed, called out to me.
I lifted my eyes from the book and looked over.
She was cradling Fried in her arms, gazing at me with a face that was still pale.
“What are you studying so diligently?”
“I am reviewing how to identify the weaknesses of double-entry bookkeeping through the merchant revenue ledgers the Lord permitted me to examine.”
I answered, turning a page.
“Then what do you plan to study this afternoon?”
“Hmm... I suppose I’ll probably review alchemy.”
When I turned my head, my eyes met the Godmother’s.
She had a deep furrow between her brows.
Her lips were pressed thinly together, as if something displeased her.
‘Is she unhappy that I’m not focusing on Fried?’
It was certainly a complaint that a guardian could reasonably have.
Here I was, calmly studying in the room with a baby who had just narrowly survived a crisis yesterday.
Reflecting on my lack of consideration, I closed the book.
Then, she broke the silence and spoke.
“Why do you call me Godmother instead of Mother?”
“...”
My hand, which had been putting the book into my bag, stopped.
Ah, so that was the problem.
***
Godmother Linie had gotten fixated on something strange.
“Julian.”
“Yes, Godmother.”
“...”
She was trying by any means to make the word “Mother” come out of my mouth.
I could guess the reason for this sudden behavior.
How could I not know, when she had been like this starting the very day after I saved Fried, the late-born child of House Nihilit?
‘She’s trying to buy low on the protagonist too.’
A child barely over ten had accomplished what most healers couldn’t; of course she’d be tempted.
She’s probably trying to get on my good side while I’m still young.
While also repaying the favor of saving her youngest, no less.
‘It feels good to be acknowledged as a genius... but I don’t want to change my family name, you know.’
However, there was a problem.
The title of the work I had transmigrated into was *The Godmother Who Cannot Become a Mother Is Expelled.*
If I were to call the Godmother “Mother,” the title of the work would change.
Of course, that was a joke.
The real reason was simply that it felt burdensome.
We had spent ten years keeping each other at arm’s length. Ten years.
For that to crumble overnight because of a single incident was a bit... too embarrassing to bear.
“Do you hate me that much?”
The Godmother’s voice was weak.
I waved my hands in denial.
“Not at all, Godmother.”
“Then how many years have we lived together, that you still call me that?”
True, the years we had spent together were more than could be counted on ten fingers.
Come to think of it, as the protagonist, I couldn’t very well keep pushing her away like a petty villain.
So I compromised.
“Moth... er?”
The Godmother’s expression changed subtly.
It was a complicated face, a mixture of regret and relief.
“...Yes. That will do.”
She spoke as if sighing, and closed her eyes.
It might have been my imagination, but the arm holding Fried seemed to gain strength.
As if she were somehow relieved.
*
‘That aside, Mother also needs to recuperate.’
The urgent fire had been put out, but there was still work to be done.
Namely, postpartum care.
‘Of course, this era has postpartum care too...’
The problem was that it was a method that would make a modern person recoil in shock.
This fantastic dark fantasy fusion-punk world recommended beer or wine to mothers who had just given birth.
Unbelievable, but true.
Here, alcohol was commonly treated as a beverage safer and more nutritious than water.
Hence the existence of Coddle, a postpartum recovery dish made by mixing oatmeal porridge with ale or wine, then adding eggs and spices.
Apparently, mixing nutritious alcohol with nutritious eggs and delicious spices would help milk flow, or something like that.
‘I can’t believe how shocked I was when I saw that spectacle...’
My heart had sunk the first time I saw postpartum care with Coddle in the red-light district.
They fed alcohol to new mothers, sealed the rooms shut without ventilation, and touched them without washing hands.
And when mothers died of puerperal fever or complications, they called it fate.
...I try not to think of the people of this world as barbarians, but seeing things like this makes that thought creep up on me.
‘This is why I always have to step in myself.’
Naturally, our Mother Linie wasn’t going to recuperate with such methods.
For that, I had to prepare the recovery food myself.
‘The menu...’
I’ll go with seaweed and abalone.
It wasn’t that I had some “Korea is the best! The East is the best!” mindset.
Simply, as a Korean person, I didn’t know what else was good for postpartum mothers besides seaweed and abalone, so I chose these.
However, there was a minor problem.
‘But I don’t think she’d eat them well if I just served seaweed soup and grilled abalone out of nowhere.’
Even in this declining world, seaweed was easy to obtain.
It was just that due to cultural differences, it wasn’t treated as food.
As if it weren’t for nothing that they called it “sea weed” in the West, here too it was regarded as marine algae that only the starving poor at coastal fortresses ate out of desperation.
At least with the mothers in the red-light district, it hadn’t been difficult to force seaweed soup on them.
I just called it a green potion and made them drink it.
But that method wouldn’t work at a baron’s estate.
If I put it on the table, I’d probably get scolded as if I were serving some feast of Cthulhu.
‘Then how should I package it?’
After pondering briefly, the answer came to me.
Risotto.
I just needed to use a cream base, add plenty of cheese, and finely chop the seaweed to mix it in.
If I thinly sliced the abalone and placed it on top, it would become a plausible luxury dish.
‘Seaweed and Abalone Cream Risotto. It sounds quite convincing just by the name.’
Commoner ingredients could be made to suit noble tastes simply by changing the preparation.
There’s a reason French cuisine takes all sorts of miscellaneous cuts and puts on airs with them.
Come to think of it, cream and cheese were also sources of calcium and protein needed by new mothers, so nutritionally it wasn’t bad either.
As a bonus, I could cover the potentially off-putting green color with white.
‘Decided.’
While the Godmother was getting some sleep, I left things to the head maid and headed to the kitchen.
*
On the way to the kitchen.
Walking down the corridor, I ran into someone at the corner.
A child with impressive silver hair and blue eyes.
The young lady one year younger than me—Freya.
The cherished daughter of House Nihilit and the biological daughter of the Godfather and Mother.
So, how should I put it...
‘Foster siblings? Adoptive siblings?’
I didn’t know the exact term, but we were in a sibling-like relationship.
“...Brother.”
Freya looked up at me and opened her mouth.
Unlike usual, the corners of her eyes were red and swollen.
‘She cried.’
How scared she must have been while Mother was in labor.
In this era, it was common for mothers who went to give birth to never return, so her worry was understandable.
Moreover, she would have heard that her newborn brother was in danger all through the night...
So, reflexively, I tried to reassure her, when a certain fact suddenly came to mind.
‘Ah, we’re not very close.’
We had lived under the same roof for ten years, but I had few memories of having a proper conversation with her in all that time.
I had always been absorbed in studying and quinine research, and Freya had her own life.
Occasionally crossing paths in the corridor, we’d nod our heads.
Or exchange formal greetings at family gatherings.
That was the extent of our distance.
‘But come to think of it... the protagonist of a misunderstanding novel shouldn’t act cold to his younger sister.’
Could a character called a saint really be indifferent to his family?
Even if we had been distant until now, I had to build an image of a kind older brother from now on.
So I decided to take this chance to get closer.
‘Gentlemanly. Warmly.’
I consciously softened my tone of voice and relaxed my expression slightly.
The face I had used when dealing with patients’ families at a 21st-century hospital, that is.
For the record, the fact that it was the trauma surgery department, where I spent more than half my day wearing a mask, is unimportant.
“Freya.”
“...Yes.”
“Are you going to see Fried?”
Freya nodded.
After a brief thought, I spoke.
“Mother and Fried are both fine. So don’t worry too much.”
“...Really?”
“Yes. I saw them myself, so of course.”
I answered confidently.
The baseless confidence of a misunderstanding-novel protagonist exists for moments like this.
Freya’s expression loosened slightly.
But there was still an anxious look in her eyes somewhere.
“Brother, I too... want to be helpful.”
“Helpful?”
“Yes. Is there nothing I can do?”
Indeed, it must be frustrating when a family member is sick and you can’t do anything.
After thinking briefly, I made a suggestion.
“Then will you help me?”
“Really?”
“I'm going to the kitchen right now to make something for—”
I rolled the still-unfamiliar word around my tongue for a moment, then continued.
“Mother to eat. It would be a great help if you could assist me by my side.”
Freya’s eyes went round.
“Brother, you cook?”
It wasn’t that a task for her had suddenly appeared.
She seemed surprised by the fact that I cooked.
‘True, it’s not a common sight for a noble scion to hold a kitchen knife.’
In an era with small windows, poor ventilation, and a lack of hygiene concepts, the kitchen was far from a modern cooking studio.
It was closer to a dirty, dangerous, and grueling workplace where one constantly battled rats and flies.
Naturally, kitchen work became menial labor.
Especially for nobles, for whom dignity was as important as life, the kitchen was a forbidden space.
In that sense, perhaps the protagonist—a perfect noble—frequenting the kitchen might be a character error.
But thinking about it carefully, my character needed a hobby like cooking.
‘Because a genius-type protagonist must be multi-talented.’
I too wanted to become an otherworldly Da Vinci.
A painter, sculptor, architect, anatomist, and inventor—a genius like that.
That was the ideal intellectual type since the Renaissance era, and this world was no different.
The problem was that I had no aptitude for arts or sports.
So I compromised with cooking.
I found out after trying that I was unexpectedly talented at cooking.
Handling ingredients on a cutting board wasn’t so different from handling organs on the operating table.
‘I know it’ll earn me a reputation as a lowlife, but I can cover that up with dignity later.’
I knew that my coming and going from the kitchen might look like a menial act.
But in the end, dignity isn’t about what you do, but who does it and how.
If a commoner digs in the dirt, it’s labor; if a noble does it, it becomes gardening.
Before overwhelming achievement and nobility, prejudice can only fall silent.
Therefore, I could say this with confidence:
“Nothing to be surprised about. It’s just a hobby.”
“...A hobby?”
Freya tilted her head.
She didn’t seem convinced yet.
Well, how could I explain to a ten-year-old the concept of overwhelming prejudice with dignity?
It seemed this would never end, so I changed the subject.
“Anyway. Fried is asleep right now, and Mother is resting too. There’s nothing you can do even if you go now. That’s why I’m asking you to help me instead.”
“Then what should I do...?”
“Taste-test for me while I cook.”
“...Excuse me?”
Freya blinked her eyes.
“It’s for Mother, so I should check if it suits her palate. So you taste it first and let me know if it’s good.”
She would be the taste-tester.
I couldn’t have the precious daughter of the house doing kitchen work, so this much should be appropriate.
Besides, it was actually a necessary role.
My tastes were so rustic that I couldn’t guarantee I’d satisfy the palates of this world’s nobles.
“I... may taste it first?”
“Of course. Who else would check?”
Freya’s expression brightened subtly.
She seemed to feel as though she had been given a special mission.
“Understood.”
Freya nodded.
The corners of her eyes were still red, but she looked better than before.
“Then let’s go.”
I took Freya with me and headed to the kitchen.