The misunderstanding was cleared up faster than expected.
“Here, ‘that’ is ready.”
“Kyaaah! S-spicy… Water!!”
They had made such a fuss, going on and on about “that,” so when I made them a bowl of tteokbokki, they quieted down on their own.
Though they had gone quiet in a different sense, being mistaken for a place that sold spicy food was surely better than being suspected of peddling aphrodisiacs.
The three noble young ladies took a bite of tteokbokki with their dainty little mouths, then immediately had no idea what to do with themselves.
“Um… Would you like more?”
“N-no! I’m fine. I’m fine, so I jusht need to wib—!”
“Here, have a drink.”
“Thang yew…”
She probably meant, “Thank you.”
I poured a little peach smoothie for the young ladies writhing under the heat.
It’s become a famous enough fact by now, but spiciness belongs to the sense of pain.
Not that it doesn’t count as a “flavor.”
Unlike saltiness or sweetness, which are chemically received, it is closer to the sense of touch, where one feels pain through heat.
Because of that, the more you eat spicy food, the more your senses don’t adapt and grow numb to it.
And what did that mean?
“Mm, puha—! It’s sweet and smooth… I-I think I can handle just one more bite!”
“Ughhh… Spicy…!”
It meant you could witness the lord of all creation, humanity, instantly devolve to the intelligence of a fish.
Even knowing it hurt because it was spicy, they ate, then ate again.
Spiciness was a terrifying flavor capable of turning one’s intelligence into goo-goo ga-ga.
And so the young ladies went back and forth between heaven and hell, completely polishing off the tteokbokki I had served them.
“Phew. So this is what Lady Isilla and Lady Kariel were talking about. Not some kind of potion…”
“I knew it. There’s no way those two would take some strange drug. Miss Elianor, honestly, you’re far too interested in these things.”
“What? Miss Pale Rose, you were the one who badgered me because you were too embarrassed to come alone…!”
“I don’t care if it’s Elinia or Perion, how did you find out about the tteokbokki? It’s not even for sale.”
Even if it didn’t lead to a purchase, that was fine.
From the shop’s perspective, the mere fact that customers stopped by was something to welcome.
Then other passersby would glance over once, too, and eventually become potential customers of the shop.
But still, no matter what, shouldn’t they at least look at the menu in the shop?
Coming in like this and demanding something right off the bat made them not customers, but nuisances.
I asked how they had learned about the tteokbokki, the core of the problem.
“It’s not Elinia, it’s Elianor! As for how I found out… it just sort of happened.”
“It just sort of happened? Do you expect me to accept that?”
“If you don’t accept it, then there’s nothing I can do. It’s true that I found out by chance!”
“Haa… I didn’t want to bring this out.”
But the young lady Elinia—no, Elianor—brazenly turned the tables on me instead.
We had met for the first time today, so I had no idea where her confidence was coming from.
If she had just calmly answered what I asked, I was going to let it slide, but no.
You’re disqualified as customers. Accepted as nuisances.
I took out the trump card I had tried not to use unless absolutely necessary.
“Wh-what is it? Do you think the proud House of Elianor would lose to a mere threat?”
“I’ll file a complaint with Headmistress Ermia.”
“Eh?”
“I’ll tell her that a restaurant operating wholesomely with all proper permits was slandered by you as an adult goods shop selling aphrodisiacs.”
The moment I said I would tell Ermia, the young ladies’ complexions turned pale in real time.
See? You should have checked who you were dealing with first.
Ermia Belfast, the highest authority within the Academy, wielding absolute power.
And such a person owed me a debt.
When a name they had never imagined came out of my mouth, the young ladies quickly changed their attitude.
“No, I didn’t mean it just sort of happened. Lady Isilla and Lady Kariel, every night…”
“What do those two do every night?”
“Every night… they were seen coming out of the same room drenched in sweat!!”
“What?”
No, this… I don’t think I should hear any more.
A situation I had never imagined at all had come out of the young lady’s mouth.
The young lady, who had been wavering over whether to speak, now gave up as if everything had been exposed and poured out her eyewitness account.
“They came out of the same room almost every night, and every time they were drenched in sweat. And there was a sweet peach fragrance! If that’s the case, then anyone would… have no choice but to believe it was that!”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down.”
“So I wanted to know what exactly the two of them were so fond of using, and I followed them during the day… but this was the only shop they stopped by.”
Hiss, hiss—!
Young Lady Elianor’s delicate face had turned bright red.
Mm, uh. How should I put this…
“Miss Elianor… you have quite the imagination. Yes.”
“It’s not that I have a vivid imagination! If you see that kind of yuri, of course…”
“Stop talking, Miss Elianor! Stop!”
Mmph, mmph—!
Young Lady Elianor began to run wild like a train with broken brakes.
Perion, who had been watching with an anxious expression—
No, Young Lady Pale Rose couldn’t stand it any longer and clamped a hand over her mouth.
“W-we’ll leave the payment here. We’re sorry for causing such a disgrace!!”
Jingle—!
“Ahem, ahem! Honestly. They left after saying all sorts of scandalous things. Right, Jinwoo?”
“That’s right… phew.”
The young ladies who were suspiciously fond of lily flowers fled just like that.
The money they left as payment was… a whopping five silver coins.
They spent big. For this much, I’ll forgive the complaint.
Eilenna and I let out sighs of relief after the storm had passed.
However, young ladies like these were only the beginning.
“Excuse me, is this the place that sells those sticky and hot items?”
“I heard you sell that, um… peach-scented sort of liquid.”
“I came after hearing the rumors… Do you still have any goods left?”
Once business hours began, half the customers who came bought toast and ate it happily.
And the other half were nuisances chasing rumors that had spread from who knew where.
The people who bought a toast each while asking about the rumor were the respectable ones.
Most nuisances simply barged in, interrupted business, and left.
It wasn’t just one or two people, either. More than ten came in a single day doing that, so at this rate, it seemed like it would negatively affect the shop’s reputation…
“This won’t do. I have no choice but to make that.”
“Hm? What do you mean by that? What are you going to make?”
Eilenna, exhausted from dealing with nuisance customers, barely lifted her head to look at me.
You’ve come all the way to a foreign land and are suffering so much, Eilenna.
There was nothing we could do about the rumor having spread.
They say if three people gather, they can create a tiger; there was no stopping the creation and spread of false rumors.
Therefore, the core issue was not suppressing the spread of the rumor.
“Let’s make peach purée.”
“Peach purée? All of a sudden?”
In the end, it was just a cloud-like controversy full of fiction.
Such a controversy could simply be buried beneath an even bigger controversy, a hotter topic.
Our stock of frozen wheat tteok was starting to pile up, too, and if we could make peach purée and register it in the [Mana Market], I wouldn’t have to borrow Eilenna’s [Wind Cutter] anymore.
“The snack bar owner has been hiding tteokbokki.”
It was time to officially release the tteokbokki I had been keeping tightly hidden to the Academy.
Together with its sweet, refreshing companion, a peach drink.
***
Thud—!
As soon as I arrived home, I exchanged for a large quantity of peaches through the [Mana Market].
A mountain of peaches piled high enough to fill the spacious countertop.
The distinctive scent of peaches, pleasant just to smell, filled the entire mansion.
But… my mood was not particularly pleasant.
“Lady Eilenna, are you prepared?”
“N-no. When are we going to do all this…”
“I am prepared.”
If you simply stop and stand still, you’re bound to be left behind in the end.
Even if today was a little hard, we had to reaffirm our resolve for a new leap forward.
The peach smoothie I made for Princess Kariel last time.
The texture of fresh peaches, chewing softly in the mouth, had been enjoyable, but it wasn’t the form of drink I wanted.
Back then, I hadn’t had time to make purée, but today was different.
Mayonnaise, ketchup, and even tomato sauce had been registered in the [Mana Market], so there was no reason peach purée couldn’t be.
If peach purée didn’t work, then that would truly be absurd oppression, proof that the status window knew nothing about cooking.
First, I took out a large pot—not just a big pot, but the biggest pot in the kitchen.
Then I filled it with water and put it on the fire.
Purée refers to finely grinding ingredients until they become thick and smooth.
It depends on what ingredient you use, but most purées go through a process of heating without adding water in order to evaporate the moisture within the ingredient.
Because when the moisture evaporates, the original flavor and sweetness become that much more concentrated.
Even so, the reason I was boiling enough water to submerge all the peaches was simple.
“Lady Eilenna, until that water boils, please make cuts on the opposite side of the peach stems.”
“Got it. But we’re not peeling them?”
“We’ll peel the skins along the cuts we make.”
Slice, slice—
If you blanch them lightly in boiling water after scoring a cross into the skin, you can peel them much more easily.
If you’re just peeling one or two peaches to eat, you can simply use a knife.
But if we had to peel all the peaches piled up like a mountain right now, blanching them once was incomparably more efficient.
I opened the conversation while scoring crosses into the skins with a paring knife.
It would take a while for the water to boil anyway, so chatting softly would make it less boring.
“Lady Eilenna, don’t you miss Noirdel?”
“Mm… Sometimes I think of how peaceful it was, but I’m still all right for now. Compared to my lifespan, this moment will be but an instant, so I should fully experience it.”
“Wow, maybe because you’re old, you really are a sage. A sage.”
“Wh-what?! I’m not that old! By elven standards, I’m still young!”
“Oho, then how old are you?”
As always, it was my usual WWE of teasing Eilenna.
Crunch—!
But today… it seemed I had unknowingly started a UFC match instead.
The moment age came up, the peach in Eilenna’s hand was crushed.
“Jinwoo… let’s focus on the peaches, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Right, well. Is age important?
There are plenty of kids who are young but live like they’re half-dead; mindset is what matters. Yes.
In that sense, Eilenna was youth among youths.
She was undoubtedly a fresh young person, as green as a sprout that had just broken through the soil.
As we chatted pleasantly, cuts had been made in most of the peaches before we knew it.
The water was bubbling and about to boil, so the timing was perfect.
“Lady Eilenna, could you make some cold water in this large basin?”
“Mm, got it.”
I asked Eilenna to prepare cold water to plunge the peaches into right after blanching them.
Rumble—!
Then I put all the scored peaches into the vigorously boiling water.
The cool peaches went in, and the temperature of the water dropped momentarily.
But that didn’t matter much.
What mattered was heat strong enough to destroy the cell walls between the skin and the flesh.
The key was weakening the bond between the flesh and skin by destroying those cell walls.
After roughly thirty seconds, I scooped out the peaches with a large strainer.
Splash—!
As soon as they were scooped out, they were dropped into the icy water Eilenna had prepared.
The cell walls had been destroyed by the boiling water, and the peach skins had already begun peeling away around the cuts.
If you put them straight into cold water, the expanded cells contracted.
As a result, you could peel peach skins off almost like peeling a banana.
“Oh… I knew you could blanch tomatoes and peel them, but I didn’t know you could do it with peaches too. This is convenient!”
“Right? Please put the peeled ones next to the cutting board. I’ll chop them.”
Wow, could it really be this easy with two people?
I almost regretted having struggled along alone until now.
Whether it was Eilenna or someone else, I should make better use of people from now on.
Tat-tat-tat-tat—!
I chopped the peaches finely.
Not into bite-sized pieces, but as small and thin as possible.
Now we had to evaporate the moisture from the peaches, and for efficient evaporation, there needed to be more openings for moisture to escape and a wider surface area in contact with heat.
Because of that, if you compared the speed of moisture evaporation between thinly and finely chopped pieces and pieces simply cut for eating, the difference was like heaven and earth.
By the time I had sliced away like a madman until both the cutting board and my hands were soaked with juice,
I dumped every last bit of finely chopped peach into the big cauldron.
Chiiiiiiiik—!
The sound of rain rose as the moist peaches met the scorching bottom of the cauldron.
I took a breath and opened my mouth.
“Phew, now it’s all done.”
“Huh. Really? That was simpler than I expected.”
“Actually, that was a lie.”
We had only gotten past the biggest hurdle; it wasn’t completely finished.
Still… all that remained now was to slowly stir-fry it while adding sugar and lemon juice, and once it cooked down enough to be completely mashed, strain it finely through a sieve and it would be done.
Beside me, Eilenna was going, “A lie? What’s a lie?”
“I mean it’s as good as done. The rest will be handled by time anyway.”
“Aha. But does making it this way make it taste better?”
“Hah, that hurts to hear. Of course it tastes better.”
For the sake of easy calculation, let’s assume ten peaches at 300 grams each.
Even if you subtract the weight of the skins and pits and say that leaves 2 kilograms, once you turn it into purée, you get 500 milliliters, or at most 1 liter.
You evaporate the moisture from those sweet, sweet peaches to compress them into something even sweeter, then add caramelization from heating and sugar on top of that.
If that didn’t taste better, then the laws of the world were wrong.
More than an hour passed as I reduced it until the peach moisture had evaporated properly.
Straining all of it finely through a sieve and portioning it out took another two hours.
Every so often, Eilenna tasted the purée, her ears standing straight up as her hands trembled.
See, see? There was no way it wouldn’t be delicious.
“Hurry, hurry and make it for me, Jinwoo!”
“Yes, yes. Please wait just a little longer.”
I took a little of the finished purée and set about renewing the peach drink.
The original recipe would use skim milk, in other words, milk with the fat removed…
But the reason skim milk was used was only to improve the drink’s versatility and shelf life.
If someone could drink dairy products normally, there was no real problem with using regular milk or powdered milk.
First, I added water and lemon juice to the carefully made peach purée and mixed it.
The one I made for Kariel had a high milk ratio, enough that it wouldn’t have been wrong to call it a yogurt smoothie.
But to recreate CoolX’s distinctive texture—smooth and full of flavor, yet not sticky—it was right to add only a small amount of milk.
Back then, I hadn’t had purée, so I shifted course toward a smoothie. Today, I had to follow the original recipe.
The milk only needed to be added in the sense that its fat and softness would connect the purée and water.
Just the tiniest bit—if making one 200-milliliter glass, a little under 20 milliliters?
Drip, drip—
White milk spread faintly through the bright yellow peach purée water.
Now all that was left was to stir it so the ingredients mixed well, and it was done.
“Here, the Milk Peach is complete. Please try it.”
“Milk Peach? The name is different from the one you made back then. Anyway… I’ll try it!”
I named it simply “Milk Peach.”
I couldn’t keep calling it a milk peach drink every time, and I felt guilty about just using the CoolX product name as it was.
Since the key points of the drink were the smoothness of milk and the sweetness of peaches, I thought it wasn’t a bad name.
Gulp, gulp—!
Eilenna accepted the Milk Peach and took a sip.
Then, before long, she tilted her head all the way back and inhaled the drink.
Watching her ears quiver along with the sound of her swallowing was fun in a different way.
“Pu, puhaa! This… this is so delicious! I never knew sweet peaches and the flavor of milk would go so well together…”
“How is it? It’d be killer with tteokbokki, right?”
“Yeah! I feel like I could eat an endless amount!”
As I watched Eilenna’s adorable reaction, I tried to register the peach purée in the [Mana Market].
[Warning: This ingredient has a high mana density. Are you sure you wish to register it?]
“What the. This is a first.”
A warning message I had never seen before since obtaining the status window appeared.
Purée could be considered a way of compressing the flavor of a large quantity of ingredients into high density.
Both the cooking method and the peaches used as ingredients came from the [Mana Market], so it seemed the mana density of this peach purée had also increased.
Now that I thought about it, among the items I had registered in the [Mana Market] so far, this purée was the first item made entirely from ingredients from the [Mana Market].
But, well… wasn’t that a good thing?
I didn’t know what kind of effect it would have, but in the end, it would be a positive effect, wouldn’t it?
“It probably doesn’t matter.”
Without worrying too much about it, I pressed the registration button.
Swaaaa—
Along with the familiar sensation, the peach purée was registered in the [Mana Market].
Now all the major problems had been solved.
The otherworld snack bar was officially opening for business at the academy.