chapter 89

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons - Episode 89

Sunlight conch, black tray clam, cudgel trumpet.

These three were Edlen Village’s representative specialties.

“The cudgel trumpet needs purging, so...”

“If you just eat it, you’ll chew grit.”

“That’s right.

Iser, would you help me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Iser skillfully picked up the basket containing only cudgel trumpets and began the purging work.

Maybe because it had been so long, he fumbled a little at first, but his hands soon found their way and continued the task.

“They do similar work on Earth, too.”

“Ah... is that so?”

“There are some differences, though.”

These representative specialties would only spit out their mud if you purged them using Edlen Village’s freshwater.

In water from other regions, the clams would wither, so it was slightly different from Earth’s purging method, where you just match the salinity by adding salt to the water.

Iser nodded as if surprised.

“They spit out mud even though it isn’t the water from their region.”

“Right, if you just match the salinity properly, it seems they go, ‘Well, I guess,’ and spit it out.”

“Could it be that they have a weaker sense of self than Edlen’s clams?”

“Let’s not give a sense of self to clams we’re about to eat.”

The basin full of cudgel trumpets was soon covered with black cloth.

“Now we just have to leave it until the stew is finished.”

Edlen Village’s pride, the cudgel trumpet, was famous for purging quickly.

Maybe because its whole body was closer to a lump of flesh than to innards, or something, it hadn’t swallowed much mud in the first place, so you only had to wait a minimum of thirty minutes, and at most an hour.

“It would be better to change the water midway, but...”

“I will do that. Would once every ten minutes be fine?”

“Mm, yes.

Please do.”

Once every ten minutes was a bit excessive, but there was nothing wrong with being cautious.

‘Nothing makes me as angry as chewing sand while eating.’

Wasn’t this Gio, a self-proclaimed gourmet and big eater?

He aimed for thorough cooking that would not suffer any interference at the moment of eating.

If you feel unpleasant while eating, then it has no qualification as cooking.

“Then now, the stew...”

Simply put, stew was Western-style soup.

“You just throw in whatever.”

“I do know the method, but...”

“So did you cook it yourself?”

“...”

“Quietly attend my lesson.”

Sometimes people asked about the difference between stew and soup, and it was easiest to think of it like this: stew’s main character is the chunks, and soup is the liquid itself.

In other words, stew was a dish where you add liquid to boil the ingredients.

“Shall you follow?”

“Yes?

Where to...”

“To the kitchen garden.”

And so Iser saw Gio’s kitchen garden.

“Ta-da.”

“...A kitchen garden?”

“Yes, what’s the problem?”

“No, a kitchen garden...”

“It’s a kitchen garden.”

“...Understood.”

Iser accepted it.

“You’ve never once farmed in a normal way.”

“What did you say?”

“As expected of the smiling tyrant of a sea village...”

“A tyrant?”

“I did not say anything.

Did you hear something?”

“Now you can even say the right things, how very admirable.”

He really accepted it.

“Now, there are cherry tomatoes in there...”

“To my eyes, I see nothing but pumpkins imitating tomatoes.”

“Your eyesight must have gotten worse—don’t get complacent just because you’re a mermaid, go get glasses fitted and all that.”

“I’m not sure it’s a matter of eyesight, but.”

Unable to hold back, Iser asked.

“Why is this a kitchen garden, exactly?”

“It’s small and cute, so it’s a kitchen garden.”

“It only looks narrow in comparison because the crops are too huge, and not a single crop is cute.”

“I would appreciate it if you would mind your words, because our Elizabeth the 32nd might hear and be hurt.”

“Who in the world is Elizabeth the 32nd...”

Krrrck—.

At Gio’s words, a leaf as big as a pumpkin leaf on the tomato made a vigorous sound as it curled.

With a shape like a clenched fist, Iser finally lost his smile.

“...You’re going to eat this?”

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, he became almost as serious as when he watched his older sister’s research process.

“This?”

“The kids just have a bit of personality—otherwise they’re all self-sacrificing and good children.”

“It feels like if I eat it, it won’t go down my throat and stomach, and I’ll clutch my uvula.”

“They’re not that rebellious.

They’re very gentle, I’m telling you?”

“Th...”

Iser nodded.

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“Probably...”

“Then follow me.”

“If I’m going to die, I’d still prefer the sea.”

“Don’t say weird things.”

Through all the communication so far, Gio had grown friendly with the garden’s crops, and he greeted them as he approached his target.

The tomato shining in a vivid red looked fully ripe, and yet it was stickily connected to the vine.

“I shall escort the cherry ones to board the basket~”

At Gio’s words, some tomatoes hanging from the vine swayed slightly left and right, signaling their intent.

When Gio held the basket right beneath them, thump— a tomato the size of a small watermelon settled into it.

“...”

“Wow, it worked.

See? Easy, right?”

“...Yes.”

That was how Gio harvested a whole basket of tomatoes in no time at all.

“Personally, of all stews, I like tomato stew the best.

Partly because that’s what I always ate in Edlen Village, but it sits much easier than cream stew.”

“Ah... that’s right, I remember you liked it because even if you ate a lot, it didn’t make your stomach burn.”

Iser, who had regained a smile resembling Giovanni, continued.

“You also said it was the best kind of food for boiling a lot and eating it for a long time.”

“You remember all of that.”

“It’s hard to forget things about you, Teacher.”

“To think I was such an easy person to read—I will improve.”

“Th... don’t... here, how much more are you going to improve...”

“No one can stop me.”

“Please let someone be able to stop you.”

“You couldn’t stop me even when I was an ordinary priest.”

“Teacher.”

“Now it’ll be even more so.”

Even if he was a teacher in name, he didn’t want to become a human whose growth was slower than his mermaid disciples.

Gio was a bold adult who did not set limits on himself.

“Tomato stew probably feels easy to eat because it’s almost all vegetables.

You may not know this, Iser, as a sturdy, lively young man...”

“Ah, are you still counting me as a young man?

It’s been over a thousand years.”

“Be quiet. The family register gets tangled.

Anyway, once you get a bit older, having indigestion is really hard.

Especially for someone like me who likes eating, it’s a harsh trial.”

“At least it’s a trial the sun god never handed down.”

At the mermaid’s jab, Gio furrowed his brow as if truly regretful.

“Where did my student Iser go, the one who only smiled shyly whenever I said nonsense?”

“...It’s... been a while... since he disappeared...”

“Don’t worry, Iser.

A person can regress at any time.”

“What are you planning to turn me into.”

“A plump pig?”

“...”

Iser let out a small laugh.

It was a smile more mature and tidy than Gio’s.

“You really haven’t changed at all.

And the fact that you look different inside the house and outside of it, too.”

“...Huh...”

“When you were with people you were comfortable with, you told so many fun jokes like this.

So different from the public image, when you were called the Saint of the Sun.”

“...”

“When I was young, I didn’t even realize it was a sign of trust you were giving me, so I was flustered every time.

I still remember it vividly.”

Who are you.

Where did the little kid in our house go.

Who is this unfamiliar gentleman.

‘How did he grow so much in the meantime?’

It had been a legendary line meant to make him laugh awkwardly like before, or recoil like Honey, but when he suddenly got wistful like this—Gio, who had no intention of getting wistful at all, couldn’t help but feel a little awkward.

“...Well, anyway.”

“You’re avoiding it because you’re at a disadvantage.”

“We are not reminiscing before a meal.

That’s how the table gets uncomfortable.”

Firmly cutting off the wistful mood, Gio continued.

“Even if there’s no meat, thanks to the main ingredients being tomatoes and onions, tomato stew has outstanding savoriness.

And many kinds of side ingredients go well with it, too.”

Tomato stew went well with any kind of meat.

If you add a little wine and slice in beef, it has a mature flavor, and if you add chicken, it blends with the tomato juice and you can feel a harmonious taste.

“Lamb isn’t bad either.”

“Isn’t the smell a bit strong?”

“That’s why I couldn’t make it often when I was living with you—since you hated strong smells so much...”

Not just these siblings—mermaids as a species tended to avoid strong scents.

A sprinkle of pepper or a light addition of aroma was fine, but if the aroma was strong enough to be the main feature, they hated it enough to want to flee.

“Come to think of it, even I, who was rotting away, must have had a strong smell, and yet you managed to eat me.

Was it because you were drugged, so you had no choice?”

“...”

“...Th... yes, I think this time it really was my fault.

I didn’t bring it up with any intention, so don’t make that face...”

“...Yes...”

“I’m sorry I live without thinking.”

The ruined mood only barely recovered after quite a long time.

Gio smiled awkwardly and said,

“Earth’s lamb isn’t that strongly scented—shall we try it later?”

“...My tastes have changed a bit since then.

Even if it smells strong, it won’t be a problem.”

“Ah, it changed?”

“A lot of time has passed, after all...

Even humans, when they’re young, can’t eat things, and then when they grow up, they can—there’s that kind of thing.”

“Even for mermaids, it seems you can’t endure the passage of time.”

With a priest’s noble face, Giovanni spouted nonsense.

“You’re aging together with me.”

“Ah...”

After pondering, Iser replied.

“It’s not bad.”

“You keep getting wistful when I keep telling you not to?

I don’t like that.”

“Ahaha...”

With an awkward laugh, Iser asked,

“Then for this stew, were you planning to add meat?

Since you said you were making Edlen stew, I expected you’d put in clams or fish...”

“I’m going to make two kinds.

There’s an excess of deer meat and sausage I kept in storage, so I plan to use them up when I have the chance.

Not bad, right?”

“Sounds good. For the first time in a while, I might actually feel full.”

Mermaids convert what they eat directly into nutrients so their strong, flexible bodies can be maintained and expended.

Even if they don’t take in nutrients through the mouth, while in the sea they can maintain themselves through the skin, but if they eat food, they tended to get hungry again quickly.

“Tomato stew especially goes well with bacon or ham that leaves a bit of aroma.

Even hard jerky that’s difficult to eat raw goes well too, and since you can put in all kinds of vegetables, it’s good for balancing the seasoning in various ways...”

Gio held the tomatoes in the basket up to the sunlight.

“They’re definitely different from Earth’s or Edlen Village’s.”

“...I’m asking again, but are those really tomatoes...?

They’re very different from what I know from Edlen or Earth.”

“Since I planted Earth seeds and grew them, they should be tomatoes, at least.”

The cherry tomatoes Gio grew—no, that grew on their own—were a little different from Earth’s.

They were as big as small watermelons, a little elongated like jujube tomatoes, oddly translucent so light passed through them, and the taste was somewhere between mild and sweet.

“I don’t really like sweet stew.”

“Neither do I.”

“But we’ll have to win with the ingredients we have, so we’ll have to solve it with other ingredients.”

“Ah, like adding more salt?”

“We have sausage that’s already salty and very aromatic.

We’ll use that for now, and hmm.

Beyond that, what else should we add...”

Gio spoke the thought that came to him.

“It would be fun to make bacon.”

“Your homemade bacon is excellent.”

Iser nodded.

“The village people would crowd in expecting to get a bite each.”

“That’s me.

A genius priest of the sun who can’t do anything wrong.”

“And even after receiving such grace, all we could do was nonsense, those crafty—”

“Calm down while eating a tomato.”

Perhaps because he had seen the sturdy sense of self of the cherry tomatoes earlier, Iser hesitated a bit, but soon took a bite of the flesh.

“Oh...”

“Good, right?”

“This is the first time I’ve eaten such delicious tomatoes.”

“I’m this good at farming too.”

The tomato, with outstanding elasticity, had a part that was gently bouncy, like jelly.

And yet the firm, crumbling sensation unique to tomatoes was vivid, and it had a sharp tang like a citrus fruit, while a subtle sweetness quickly wrapped around it in harmony.

“Touching it now, it’s soft like slime as well.”

“Isn’t that going too far...?”

“The texture is interesting.”

Even though he had recoiled at first, Iser seemed to like the tomatoes quite a bit.

He’d seen too many things over the long years to truly recoil at moving tomatoes.

“Then what else do we need to harvest?

Honestly, I think it’s quite strange to use the word ‘harvest’ in a place you call a kitchen garden, but anyway...”

“I’m going to try adding this and that.”

Stew did have a taste that came from being a hodgepodge.

“Carrots are the safest choice.

The mild sweetness unique to carrots and that faint bitter aroma go extremely well with tomatoes.”

“How about potatoes?

When you put potatoes in stew, I really liked that stew that got lightly thickened by the starch that came out.

I still remember it.”

“Then let’s add potatoes too.

Starch that naturally seeps out from the ingredients doesn’t get overly gluey or slick; it’s wonderfully mellow, like bone broth.”

“They cook fluffy, and when they soak up the tomato stew broth, they mash softly too.

Yes, please do add potatoes, Teacher.”

Holding the tomato basket, Iser wore a faintly uplifted smile.

“Cabbage doesn’t seem bad either.

Cabbage that’s cooked thoroughly in hot broth is crisp and also soft, so the texture is really good.”

“It’s really great—when warm cabbage juice wets your mouth, in winter that’s truly intoxicating, isn’t it?

If you cook it all the way down and mash it with your tongue, that’s fun in its own way too...”

“...”

At this everyday, ordinary conversation, Iser couldn’t help recalling the past.

“...It feels like we came to the market.”

“It does seem similar.”

“I see...”

As if he might be dreaming.

It was empty, and frightening.

The Painter Who Draws Dungeons

Fantasy, Modern,