by Funa
It was unclear whether he truly believed that, whether he merely wanted to show off his cooking skills, or whether he thought that this might be the only chance for these hunters, a typically impoverished group, to taste such high-class cooking for themselves…
No matter what his thought process might be, there was certainly no reason for them to refuse.
Plus, Reina had already plopped back down into her seat, the drool practically running from her mouth.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Mavis had no choice but to reply. “It seems as though we will be taking you up on that offer…”
After a short while, the owner brought out two dishes that were visually indistinguishable from one another and placed them before the girls.
“Here are two versions of a spicy beef stir-fry with garlic scapes, chives, mushrooms, and wild vegetables. One is made with our usual spices, and one is made without. The unspiced one has been supplemented with more pungent vegetables, local herbs, and salt for flavor.”
They all tried both of the dishes to compare, and…
“They’re completely different!” said Mavis.
“They really are,” added Mile, apologetically. “No offense meant to your skills, sir, but no matter how much work you’ve put into salvaging the unspiced one, the flavor pales in comparison.”
The shop owner grinned and replied, “No offense taken. In fact, I’ll take that as a compliment, a testament to just how good our seasoning is. I think this will help you understand just how crucial it is for us to get those spices. As long as I’ve gotten that much across, then having you try out these dishes was worthwhile.”
Now that the man mentioned it, what he said was true. The four certainly did feel more inspired now to acquire the spices on Calamity’s behalf.
“Please. We aren’t just some fancy eatery for nobles to frequent but a part of the community—a local, high-quality shop where the common man can experience a bit of luxury now and then. We may not be cheap, but what we share with the people is a dream, an aspiration, something that they can acquire if they just reach a little farther.
“To tell you the truth, what I love the most is to see the happy looks of satisfaction on the faces of our customers who can enjoy this luxury only a few times a year. That’s why I want to reopen this shop as soon as I can. And for that, I absolutely need those spices.”
The four girls nodded and stood. Not the smallest scrap of food was left on their plates.
“What—are y’all heading out already?” asked the shop owner. “I’ve still got more dishes for you to try!”
And so, they sat themselves right back down again.
***
The Crimson Vow left Calamity behind and headed straight to the guild, where they made their report to the clerks and handed over the contract with the terms that had been established during their discussion. Then they set off into the nearby forest.
“So Pauline, why did you decide to include that provision for job failure in the contract? You know I already have a ton of spices packed away in my inventory. Even if we only gave him those, there’s no way that the job could be labeled a failure…”
“It’s for insurance purposes!”
“Wha…?”
What Mile should have been surprised by was the fact that the people of this world had already hit upon the concept of “insurance.” Of course, the insurance of this world didn’t work exactly the same way as that of modern-day Earth—but what left Mile truly flabbergasted was Pauline’s inscrutable actions and the fact that she would bother with such a thing on a job that they had no chance of failing at all.
***
“All right then, are you gonna spill the beans or what?”
“Huh?”
The moment they arrived in the forest, Reina clapped Mile on the shoulders. Mile was perplexed.
“You weren’t really planning on just handing over all the spices you use for your own cooking to the guy and calling it a day, were you?!” Reina continued pointedly. “So, what’s the plan? You gonna use your location magic to figure out where the wild peppers grow? Or are we gonna track down those bandits and retrieve the stolen spices?”
Mavis and Pauline listened in with bated breath, wondering which option Mile was going to choose.
“We aren’t doing either of those things! First off, we aren’t going to be finding any fields full of peppers around here. As for the bandits, how are we supposed to capture them when we don’t even know which bandits they were attacked by or where?!”
It was a reasonable response.
“Aw, come on…”
The other three were completely dejected.
They had become thoroughly spoiled by Mile’s abilities.
“Obviously, we’re going to be making the spices!”
“Whaaaaaaaat?!?!”
And yet, she still managed to surprise them.
“All right now. Pauline, you make an Ultra Hot Waterball in this pan here. Slowly now, make sure it doesn’t spill. Careful…”
Pauline faced the pan that Mile had produced from storage and cautiously began her spell.
“Waterball… Ultra Hot…”
Ker-plunk.
A bright red liquid sloshed into the pan, filling it up to the brim. A noxious aroma drifted up from the vessel.
“Now, I just need to figure out how to break this down…”
Mile thought hard.
Judging by the smell, the Ultra Hot magic definitely employed some sort of capsaicin. This liquid, brought into being by magic, was a physical substance. If she could just remove the capsaicin components from the liquid, they could probably be used as spices.
She had no idea if this physical substance had been brought about by molecular conversion or whether it had been transmitted there from somewhere else, but all that really mattered to her at the moment was that it existed now, so she tried not to think too hard about it.
The root of the spicy taste that came with spiced food was typically either something like the capsaicin found in chili peppers—habanero and the like—or else the allyl compounds that were found in wasabi, mustard, garlic, and so forth. However, those allyl compounds were highly volatile, so their use in cooking environments was fairly limited.
Furthermore, when it came to spices, there were also substances such as nutmeg, ginger, cassia, cumin, coriander, pepper, cinnamon, sage, thyme, bay leaves, et cetera. However, what the shop owner was after were most likely those spices of the capsaicin variety. With that in mind, the other possibilities became irrelevant.
This was the reason that Mile had asked Pauline to employ her Ultra Hot magic. However…
“If we simmer it for a while, there’s a chance that all the spice might go out of it, even if the spice elements—unlike allyl compounds—are chemically stable. Plus, heating it up until all the liquid evaporates might take a long while…”
The boiling and evaporating methods would probably prove rather inefficient in producing a large amount of spices—and plus, even with a number of pans, they would only be able to collect a small amount. Realizing this, Mile racked her brain for alternatives.
And then suddenly, she was struck with an epiphany.
“That’s it! According to a modern physics book I read ages ago, there might just be a way! The ‘LovePlus Demon’! No, wait—that was a different sort of methodology. That one was, ‘If a being of sufficient intellect to know every facet of a dating sim’s code existed, then they could predict the outcomes of every route of the game,’ or something like that. That’s not right at all!
“Right—I remember now! The principle I was thinking of was something like: ‘A vessel of lukewarm coffee is divided into two portions with a shutter. If you employed an omnipotent demon to open the shutter only when the faster moving molecules moved from right to left, and when the slower moving molecules moved from left to right, then you could divide the liquid into hot and cold without introducing additional energy into the system, thereby decreasing
the entropy.’ So if we used something like that…
“Oh, yes, yes—that was it! The ‘Maxwell House’s Demon’ principle… Anyway, in reality, there’s been a reduction in information here, and as a result, an increase in entropy, but that’s got nothing to do with me! And besides, I don’t have to rely on any demons because I have my nanobuddies…”
MUTTER.
MUTTER… MUTTER…
Suddenly, a chattering seemed to fill the air around her.
Mile, however, did not notice this and began to attempt a spell.
“Nanomachines inside the pan form a thin membrane in the middle and use that shutter to separate the two sides into moisture and capsaicin…”
GYAAAAAAAAAH!
She heard a noise.
“Okay, forget that. Just separate out the capsaicin particles however you want, nanos. Oh yeah, and since we don’t actually need the moisture, you can just get rid of that.”
Shwoop!
The next moment, all the moisture had vanished from the saucepan, leaving only a small amount of red powder remaining on the bottom of the dish. (Incidentally, capsaicin actually crystalizes into a white powder, but the nanomachines, of their own judgment, concluded that that would not seem especially “spicy,” and, ever prudent, decided to add in the red coloring themselves.)
I wonder what was so awful about the partition method… Mile pondered, tilting her head.
“What in the world were you just muttering to yourself about?” asked Reina. “Is this the magic-made spice you were talking about?”
She stuck her fingers into the pan and took up a pinch of the powder, giving it a curious lick.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
It was pure, crystallized capsaicin. On the Scoville scale, it would have a value of 16,000,000 units. For comparison, this was roughly 3,200 to 6,400 times the heat of your standard Tabasco sauce, which has a rating of around 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. It was not a level of heat that your average human could bear.
Mile had rushed to stop her, but she was a moment too late.
“…! ……!! ………!!!”
Reina fell to the ground writhing, unable to speak.
Pauline, who had been about to stick her finger in to taste it as well, froze, white as a sheet.
“R-Reina, open your mouth, hurry! Stick your tongue out as far as you can!”
Through gobs of tears, Reina steeled herself and followed Mile’s directions, thrusting her tongue out.
“Ice Water!”
Mile struck Reina’s tongue with a beam of magical water.
Because capsaicin locks onto the portions of the tongue that sense heat as well as the pain receptors, numbing the tongue with cold water would dull the sensation, while the powerful stream blasted the molecules away. And then…
“Heat!”
Capsaicin does not easily dissolve in water, but it does in oil, so she withdrew some cooking oil from her inventory and heated it, using that to wash Reina’s tongue. Finally…
“While that cleans off your tongue, take this and drink it very slowly!”
With that, she pulled out the final ingredient, some heated milk that was still warm from the inventory, and handed it to Reina.
Despite Mile’s quick thinking, Reina was still in pain, but she had gotten past the worst of it, so she endured quietly, not bothering to complain to Mile.
Seeing this, Mile recalled the tale of a certain boy detective.
Lick…
“Hm, this is potassium cyanide!”
Collapse.
***
“I-Is this pure chili powder?!”
Pauline gaped at the capsaicin powder that had suddenly appeared, her eyes like that of a nuclear physicist.
“Yes,” said Mile. “Well, this is technically only the component of a chili pepper that makes it spicy, isolated here on its own.”
Hearing this, Pauline appeared to be in a trance.
“This pure spice came from my magic… For as long as I have magical power, I can make this high-priced ingredient over and over again! This is the work of a god. It’s like I can shoot gold coins from my fingertips! With this, I’ll be filthy rich, like no one ever was! Unparalleled riches!!!”
Though it was not the same as pepper, which was often worth literally its weight in gold, chili was a very high-priced ingredient by weight, as far as foodstuffs went. Plus, this was the spice in pure, crystalized form. Of course Pauline would be riding high.
Oh, this is bad… Mile fretted, watching her friend.
At this rate, Pauline was going to start suggesting that they go into high-volume production of this chili—or rather, capsaicin powder—so that they could make a fortune… Well, actually, she was already saying it.
At this rate she’s gonna go over to the Dark Side. I can’t let that happen…
Quickly, Mile poked a hole in the rising soufflé that was Pauline’s dreams.
“We can’t do that, Pauline! If we made a fortune off of this powder, it would spell disaster for the spice industry! It’s not just producers or transporters who would suffer—think of the ramifications for international trade. Besides, given that we would have no record of having purchased it, having transported it, having stored it anywhere, or even having paid taxes on it, the authorities would catch on to us in a heartbeat. And all the nobles and officials and merchants and criminals would come crawling out of the woodwork, asking us for information and exclusivity and tax money…”
“Erk.”
Pauline was, of course, a merchant’s daughter. She understood exactly what Mile was getting at. If they didn’t tell people that they had acquired the product by magic, they might be abducted, tortured, or even arrested for import fraud and tax evasion. On the other hand, if they did spill the beans, they might be murdered to keep the secret from getting out—or else the secret would get out, and the price would plummet. It would be a fatal blow for producers and brokers of chilis, and it would cripple their own profits as well.
And of course, the biggest problem would be that Pauline’s special Ultra Hot magic would begin to spread.
Thus far, the Crimson Vow, as its originators, were the only ones who knew about this magic. Only a few dozen people so far had witnessed it (or rather, been on the receiving end of it), and for the most part, those people could not use magic. Even for the ones who were capable mages, it would be incredibly difficult to determine the source of the spell’s effect from seeing it just one time.
Besides, any mage who would sully their hands with criminal acts was not much of a mage to speak of at all. If they had any significant amount of power, they would be more than able to make money by legitimate means. Furthermore, any such person who had made an enemy of the Crimson Vow had since been imprisoned and sold off for labor.
So, as things were, there was little worry of any knowledge of this particular magic being spread to other people. However, if it did get out, and mages with criminal intent began using Ultra Hot-type magic…
The balance of power between mages and melee fighters would crumble entirely and those criminal mages would become unstoppable!
As all this ran through Pauline’s mind in a single instant, the blood drained from her face.
“I-In that case, won’t even this little bit we made right now cause a problem?” offered Mavis.
“Erk!”
Mile faltered.
“Uhm, well, it’s… you know!”
“Know what?” Mavis and Reina asked, suspiciously.
“This is this, and that is that!”
“………”
And so the mass-production of the synthetic spices began.
Pauline used her Ultra Hot magic, while Mile used her isolation magic, and then the jars were stored away in her inventory.
Obviously, they could not march back into town too quickly—that would be suspicious. Therefore, they made the collective decision to stay a while longer and produce a large amount of the product for future use. As l
ong as it was stored in Mile’s inventory, it would not deteriorate, and it could also be used as a weapon. While Mile and Pauline were busy putting the powder into the various containers that were already inside Mile’s storage space, Reina and Mavis set to work packing it into vessels of bamboo and grass that could be tossed like grenades and other such weaponry.
These were weapons that could sap all the fight from an opponent without injuring them. It truly was a humane means of combat.
However, as Reina sat quietly packing the hand grenades, a strange, wicked grin hung on her face.
There could only be one reason for this.
She couldn’t accept being the only one to suffer. Misery loves company, after all.
In the midst of her work, Mile caught this smile out of the corner of her eye and began to think, desperately, of how to devise some countermeasure should one of those grenades suddenly be lobbed her way…
***
That evening, the Crimson Vow returned to town and took a room at an inn. Initially, they had planned to camp out for three days to feign the amount of time it would take to go hunting or gathering for goods; however, the longer they stayed away, the longer Calamity would remain closed.
Plus, they were already doing something that was outside the norm. It made little difference if it took three days or one to do it.
By now, such things were of little consequence to them.
It was possible that they had breathed in too many of the spice particles and gone funny in the head. They had inhaled too much curry and gone mad, just like Hanada Kousaku, the Curry General of Houchounin Ajihei, and his Black Curry.
Still, for the sake of making it look like it had at least taken them a little more time—and because they were now eager to call it quits for the night rather than heading straight for Calamity, they journeyed to the inn to take a load off.
They could do it tomorrow. That’s a saying they have in Spain, isn’t it? “Hasta mañana,” which in this case meant, “The deadline doesn’t haftah mattah-nya!”