by Hiro Ainana
“Yes, master.”
We were using a strength-in-numbers technique to deal with the huge amount of sweet potatoes, carrots, and so on.
“Liza, can you carve up these birds?”
“Right away, sir.”
I handed Liza some mountain birds from the Garage Bag.
It wasn’t chicken, exactly, but I thought it’d make good tandoori chicken anyway. According to the recipe that was listed in that memo along with the curry recipes, tandoori chicken had to be cooked after marinating in sauce for about half a day.
If we started now, they’d be ready to eat right around noon, or even sooner if we used Water Magic to accelerate the process.
I wanted to make some chicken cutlets to top the curry, too, but we didn’t seem to have enough poultry for that.
“Mia, we could use more poultry. Is there someone we could ask?”
“Mm. Hiya.”
She probably meant that we could ask Hishirotoya, the hunter.
Mia pounded her little chest to indicate that she would take care of it, and she went off with Tama and Pochi following close behind her.
“Mr. Satou, the cooking implements are ready,” Nea called. Behind her was Miss Noa, who’d been hard at work to help reproduce the curry.
In addition to the stove-type magic tools, there were ten cauldrons around the size of large drums.
They were actually magic devices that could heat up and cook entirely by themselves. Very elf-like.
I stood ready to cook in front of the stove, wielding a frying pan.
First, I would cook the chopped onions.
According to the notes, slowly caramelized onions were a major key to giving the curry its sweetness and depth of flavor. I’d also cut some onions into star and moon shapes along with the carrots to add later.
For now, I cooked the onions slowly.
Slowly.
Slooowly.
Veeery slooowly.
When they reached a certain point, Noa kept peering over at me from her hiding place behind Nea. Once they turned golden brown, the onions were done.
A book I once read said something along the lines of “cook onions until they bring tears to your eyes.”
“Now, once they’ve been caramelized like this, transfer them to the pot.”
With that, I switched places with Lulu.
Nea and her friends lined up alongside Lulu to start frying onions as well.
Meanwhile, I made the sauce for the tandoori chicken. Once Liza was finished cutting up the poultry, I put it in to marinate.
I could use the hearts and gizzards to make snacks for the beastfolk girls later.
Maybe I could make something with the cartilage to go with the elves’ drinks…
…Hmm?
Suddenly, I sensed two pairs of eyes watching me from the shadows. Arisa and Aaze.
That’s not good.
Letting Arisa cook was a surefire recipe for failure, and I couldn’t help imagining Aaze knocking over a cauldron and spilling curry everywhere.
After a moment’s thought, I beckoned the two over.
Arisa and Aaze pointed at themselves with innocent Who, me? faces.
When I nodded, they burst into sunny smiles and came trotting over to me.
Knowing what I had to do next pained my very soul.
“Hee-hee, hello!”
“D-did you need something?”
I nodded gravely and handed them a basket full of souvenirs from the old capital. As they stared into it blankly, I stuck a lollipop into each of their mouths.
Arisa, realizing my intentions, glowered at me even as she chomped down on the candy.
Aaze didn’t seem so sure, and she accepted the candy with slightly red cheeks, giving the whole thing a bit of an erotic undertone.
“Hand out this candy to the fairies so they don’t get in the way, please.”
When I said this to Arisa, Aaze finally caught on to my plan.
Oh, please don’t give me that look of betrayal.
Arisa took the basket in one hand, reaching with her other for the hand of the teary-eyed Miss Aaze to gently lead her around the plaza, gathering the fairies at the entrance.
Sorry, Arisa. Please take care of the fairies and Aaze for me.
Although it was hot inside the elves’ magic cauldrons, the outside was only warm to the touch.
Once the water had started boiling, I lowered the temperature so we could start skimming the scum off the top.
“Master, I volunteer to take charge of the skimming, I declare.”
Nana’s eyes sparkled, so I handed her the ladle to take over the rather annoying job.
It was too much work for her alone, so I asked Liza to help as well.
The two of them scooped steadily and methodically. I couldn’t think of anyone but the serious Liza and curious Nana who could do such a boring job so intently. I would have to find a way to thank them later.
“Allow me to help as well.”
The samurai elf Shiya jumped in to lend a hand, perhaps swayed by Liza’s serious expression.
The atmosphere was getting pretty intense, considering they were just skimming scum off the top of the broth.
I didn’t want to ruin the mood by commenting on it, so I decided to leave them to it.
Once the scum was removed and the vegetables cooked, all that was left was adding the curry powder.
Nea and the others were in charge of watching the vegetables, so I decided to prepare some garnishes while I had the chance.
Lulu helped me prepare a variety of fried foods as toppings.
I decided to go with various meat cutlets, shrimp, and whitefish. Partway through, I put Lulu in command of the operation, as some brownies and elves had come to help, lured over by the smell.
Now, for Mia and the other vegetarians, I wanted to make fried squash and pumpkin in addition to the salads and vegetable sticks.
So far, we’d just been doing ingredient prep; now it was time to do some actual frying.
I sliced the extra potatoes thin and fried them into potato chips, put them in a basket, and carried them to Arisa, who was playing dice with the fairies. I brought along carbonated drinks with ice, too.
“Some snacks for you, Arisa.”
“Hooray! Potato chips!”
“Make sure you share them with everyone.”
“Okey-dokey! Popo, Lily, line up the fairies! I’m going to hand out some snacks from the land of the hero!”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
“Arisa, you’re so dramatic.”
“Smells great, though!”
The potato chips wound up being quite popular with the fairies.
“Thank you, Satou.”
Aaze smiled at me meekly when the fairies who’d been playing with her hair left to get their share of snacks.
I was glad to have been able to help her.
With a smile and a wave, I returned to my cooking.
“Hey! No going for the baaasket!”
From behind me, I heard Arisa shouting with relatively serious rage. Hang in there, Arisa.
Ignoring the ruckus, I started preparing some sweet drinks for those who weren’t so good with spicy food.
In addition to the coffee milk, fruit milk, and other beverages I’d made for the public bathhouse, I also used a matcha-like powder that Nea had acquired for me to make matcha lattes.
Once they were finished, I put them in a magic freezer device to cool. If I could come up with a magic device for stirring, maybe I could make ice cream soon, too.
When the vegetables were just about cooked, we added the curry powder a little at a time; once the powder dissolved, I stirred it for a while, but it wasn’t really thickening up. Was the recipe in the memo pad wrong?
In the end, I added a bit of wheat flour to thicken it easily. Now it didn’t seem flavorful enough, so I threw in some butter for good measure.
Now I just had to reduce the heat and wait for the vegetables to soak up some flavo
r. Meanwhile, I could go fry the toppings.
“Preeey?”
“It’s a huge catch, sir!”
“Look.”
Tama, Pochi, and Mia came running up, stopping just outside the plaza, as they were covered in dirt.
Behind them was my teacher Hishirotoya, as well as some of the other elf teachers who were skilled in hunting.
Goya was there, too, acting smug. From the looks of it, he’d brought down a mountain bird.
“Good work.”
One of the elf teachers who hadn’t gone with them used Practical Magic to clean up the hunting group.
Pochi and Mia smelled a bit strange, so I used some deodorizing magic on them. Maybe they’d gotten caught by some kind of plant monster? Must have been a pretty tough hunt.
We butchered the poultry, but there wasn’t enough time to marinate it with the tandoori chicken, so I figured we could use it for toppings instead. Some of it resembled pheasant or duck, which promised to be tasty.
I’d have loved to add some dashi to the duck and make duck hot pot or udon, but for now I just steamed it to top a salad.
I had the elves who’d just come back from hunting sit down at the temporary tables set out for the feast, and I gave them drinks and snacks to get a head start on the party.
Tama and Pochi got the elves to share some chicken skewers with them. Don’t eat too much, you two.
“Mm?”
Mia came up to me and held out the basket of potato chips I’d given Arisa.
It was empty, of course. Maybe she was hungry and wanted some chips of her own?
“It’s almost time for dinner, so I’m not making any more right now. I’ll make some for snacks tomorrow, okay?”
“Promise.”
Mia stuck out her little finger, so I wrapped mine around it to seal the promise.
Aaze, who was once again surrounded by winged fairies, stared at us in shock; maybe she was unfamiliar with pinkie promises. At any rate, I decided to go ahead and ignore it.
The scent of curry was drawing more and more elves to the plaza, so we wound up starting the feast a little earlier than planned.
There was no need for any dramatic opening remarks.
We simply worked together to start doling out curry rice and bringing it to the tables. With the amount of people present, it felt like we were feeding a camp or something.
For the rice, we used ordinary long-grain rice, the standard in the Ougoch Duchy.
In the process of our spice search, I’d also found some short-grain rice, but a curry shop I used to eat at used long-grain rice, so I just stuck with the usual.
I prepared some naan, both plain and with raisins, but since it was Japanese-style curry, I figured pairing it with rice was the orthodox way to go.
“Wow, look at all these different kinds!” Arisa marveled.
In fact, I’d made four different varieties of curry: green, red, yellow, and brown.
First, the green curry, which used a leafy green that resembled spinach.
I figured this one would go over well with the vegetable-loving crowd, like Mia. It was about average spiciness.
Next, the red curry, which contained plenty of red pepper.
This one was for the spicy-food connoisseurs. Nea and Lulu got teary-eyed when they taste tested it, so it seemed to be pretty spicy. I added plenty of cubed rocket wolf meat to the red curry.
In the yellow curry, I’d boldly thrown in the tandoori chicken.
It wasn’t quite as spicy as the red curry but was still pretty up there. Its color was a bright, almost neon yellow, perhaps because of the parallel world spices.
Finally, the brown curry.
This was a standard Japanese curry made with beef. I prepared two separate spice levels for this: one average and one sweet.
At first I worried they wouldn’t like the brown curry, but when I consulted Nea, she responded, “But beef stew is brown, too, isn’t it?” So I guess I didn’t need to worry.
The brown beef curry proved popular with the girls. I’d also put out plenty of fried toppings for people to add as they liked.
For side dishes, aside from the obvious fukujinzuke and sweet pickled leeks, we prepared a fresh vegetable salad, boiled cabbage, mashed potatoes, chopped vegetables, and so on.
Once everyone had food in front of them, the feast began.
Ahhh, curry. Reunited at last.
“Mm, spicyyy?”
“It’s spicy but yummy, sir.”
I’d tried to make the sweet one as mild as possible for the kids, but I guess it was still a little spicy for Tama and Pochi.
“Spicy yet delicious.”
Liza, I know the toppings were self-serve, but…you didn’t need to pile up so much fried whale that the curry got completely lost underneath it.
Incidentally, she’d chosen the chicken curry. The poultry must have been the deciding factor.
“This curry is cuter, I declare.”
Nana seemed pleased with her spicy red curry, topped with a soft-boiled egg and apple slices cut into rabbit shapes.
“Ngh, it’s good, but it’s so spicy I can hardly eat it…”
“Hang in there, Aaze.” Mia encouraged Aaze.
I’d been watching affectionately as Aaze ate with tears in her eyes, gulping down a glass of water after each bite, but I should probably help her out.
Mia was eating green curry herself.
“Miss Aaze, try this instead.” I took her plate of ordinary curry and replaced it with the sweet brown curry.
“Ah, this one isn’t spicy! I can eat it just fine.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The staff was happy to eat her first plate of curry. There were others who seemed to be struggling with the spiciness, too, so I sent around brownies to tell them about the sweet curry.
“If your mouth still stings, try this drink, too. It should help with the spiciness a little.”
“Th-thank you… Oh, it’s delicious! So nice and sweet.”
Aaze was still making a face, so I offered her a matcha latte.
The way she held it with both hands and gulped it down was adorable.
I didn’t think I was staring, but for some reason, I heard Arisa and Mia call “Guilty!” from across the room.
Come to think of it, I did forget to give out drinks to the girls. I planned to do so, of course, but I guess they didn’t like that I brought one to Aaze first.
It wouldn’t be fair to keep it all to my little group, so once I’d shared with them, I brought the rest of the matcha latte bottles to the elves’ tables.
“Ahhh, this is paradise. It’s just as good as that old curry chain.”
“Arisa, look! Hamburg curry, sir!”
“So deliiish?”
Nea had apparently cooked up hamburg steaks with the leftover meat. That girl sure loved her hamburg steaks.
Munching away on some fukujinzuke, I gazed around at the rest of the curry feast.
Noa, the elf whose dream had been to re-create curry, was so overcome with emotion that she was weeping as she ate a plate of each kind.
“Goya, you need some of that sweet curry or what?”
“Mrrr. No.”
A drunken elf teased Goya, who was teary-eyed as he ate his spicy curry.
He looked ecstatic when Mia offered him a matcha latte.
Being childhood friends and all, they seemed to get along pretty well. As far as I could tell, they were more like a doting older brother and a rebellious little sister than a young couple.
Shifting my gaze, I located the spriggans and leprechauns from the search party who’d hunted down the spices for us. For some reason, they seemed a little nervous about being surrounded by elves.
I decided to put together some takeout curry for them later. If not for their hard work, we wouldn’t be eating this curry in the first place, after all.
Before the sun set, the thousand-odd servings of curry had disappeared, along with all the toppings.
> Some spinoff dishes had been developed, too, like Liza’s patented “whale cutlets with curry.”
Despite all the food they’d eaten, everyone still went for the fruit jelly I’d made for dessert. I know there’s always room for dessert, but that had to be bad for their health. I decided to make some stomach medicine to hand out later.
Thus, the initial curry feast came to an end, but there were complaints from the elves who hadn’t been able to join in, so the festival of curry seemed set to continue for a while.
I didn’t want to eat curry every day, so I left things to Nea and her chef friends, who were raring to go.
Hopefully the elf village wouldn’t turn yellow in the process.
“…You were attacked by a jellyfish?!”
“I-it wasn’t me who got attacked.”
I got a little worked up about Aaze’s unexpected news.
The day after the curry feast, I was making magic staves out of Hei Long’s claw and the treant’s branches when Aaze and Lua came to visit.
“Mr. Satou, you’re a bit too close.”
“E-excuse me.”
Lua’s smile twitched as she separated me from Aaze.
I’d panicked a little at the thought of Aaze being attacked, that’s all.
“Two spirit users were attacked this morning as soon as they went out into the void.”
According to Lua, although there were other spirit users and some pseudo-spirits in the same place, these two spirit users were the only ones who were directly attacked by jellyfish.
Until now, the jellyfish had always ignored people unless they were attacked first or if magic was used near them.
“Were they drunk, by any chance?”
“No, those planning to go into the void are forbidden from drinking a drop of alcohol for the span of a day before their trip.”
“Those two are very serious, so I can’t imagine they would violate the rules.”
Lua and Aaze shot down my alcohol theory.
“Besides, they ate so much curry the day before that they could barely move…”
So the two who were attacked had also taken part in the curry feast.
…There’s no way, right?
I asked a few more questions and began to form a new hypothesis.
“I’d like to test something out, if you don’t mind.”
When we arrived at the observatory, I used the Practical Magic spell Deodorant on myself.
