LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 84
Catherine immediately headed into the forest with Narque and the Adventurer.
Karem accepted the heavy pouch of silver coins, but it would be a bit tough to buy anything in the village right away.
Naturally, it made sense that monsters would raid the village as it was time to gather food again after finishing winter preparations.
However, there was indeed some food available.
Fungusbee was a place inhabited by people.
After some hunting around, it wasn’t surprising to find someone with a full pouch.
The culprit was none other than the village carpenter.
He had hidden a bundle of Akusare Mushrooms, which he secretly gathered in the forest as an emergency stash when the snow started to melt.
Karem, having purchased all of it without haggling, headed straight to the chef’s kitchen at the village chief’s house where the three who came from the Wizard’s Tower were staying.
Karem brushed aside the greeting from the chief’s late-life daughter, who was older than Karem, left behind to run errands.
“So, this is the Akusare Mushroom?”
Karem dumped the bundle of mushrooms into a bowl.
From the leather pouch, walnuts the size of an adult’s fist spilled out.
At that moment, Karem understood why this mushroom was the village’s specialty and so sought after on the continent.
“No, what’s that smell?”
Even the strong scent of matsutake mushrooms didn’t fill the entire space as intensely as this raw odor.
Could this be what truffles smell like?
Karem had never seen or tasted a truffle before.
The most he had tried was truffle oil—he could taste something akin to concentrated mushrooms.
He only knew that characteristic by words.
The strangely pungent aroma that hit you the moment you took it out of the storage container.
In contrast, the Akusare Mushroom was strangely familiar despite being his first encounter.
It was pretty large, but its shape resembled a walnut, so it made sense.
And the smell as well.
A fragrant aroma that mixed roasted beans with walnuts filled the kitchen, akin to the smell of roasting coffee beans.
“If it’s that famous, the taste should be guaranteed, but the appearance—”
Just… what kind of goo is leaking out?
From the folds of the Akusare Mushroom that hit the bowl, a clear yellow slime flowed out like a scene from a gory movie.
At that moment, Karem’s doubtful gaze was met by the late-life daughter of the chief, who had been watching from the corner of the kitchen, creeping closer.
“To eat the Akusare Mushroom, you need to sprinkle salt on it first.”
“Salt?”
“Yes. To preserve it longer, you have to separate the slime from the flesh, and because the slime is inedible.”
Just as she said, Karem sprinkled salt onto the Akusare Mushroom.
And as soon as the snowflake-like salt grains landed in the bowl, the Akusare Mushroom began to violently expel its slime between its walnut-sized folds.
The violent reaction to the salt resembled a snail, making Karem gaze down at the bowl with trembling eyes. The visual was the worst.
The chief’s daughter, as if she had been waiting for a cue, quickly explained why they sprinkled salt.
It was to preserve it for a long time.
Without that separation, the Akusare Mushroom would spoil in less than three days after being harvested, not just for preservation.
She carefully separated a now much smaller mushroom, which had shrunk to walnut size, from the shimmering slime.
“By cleaning up the remaining slime and sealing it in a sturdy container, you can preserve it for over a year.”
“Have you never done it yourself?”
“Usually, the mushrooms sell out long before that.”
“Hm. I’ll learn the cooking methods slowly. But what about this slime? Is there no use for it?”
Karem cast a glance at the golden shimmering slime in the bowl.
Honestly, it looked incredibly tempting.
Despite the grotesque extraction process, the nutty and bean-like smell wafting up combined with the bright yellowish-brown color even made it look golden.
As Karem licked his lips, the chief’s daughter, horrified, stopped him.
“Just because it smells and looks good doesn’t mean you should eat it! My great-grandfather, who was the chief during an age of famine, once had a scoop and collapsed, suffering for days before passing away!”
“Really? Are we just throwing this away?”
“No. We spread it evenly over the areas where Akusare Mushrooms grow in the forest.”
But in Karem’s eyes, that just didn’t seem right.
His knowledge and experience from both past lives screamed loudly.
‘This looks just like oil, doesn’t it?’
Generally, slime contains impurities and is opaque and sticky.
Even liquid with a transparent appearance usually still has a stickiness.
But the golden liquid in the bowl was entirely different.
Rather than sticky, it was slippery, with no impurities visible even when the bowl was tilted.
Karem pondered and reasoned.
Thinking back about two or three decades, if placed in Iceland, hunger would be the norm.
If an elderly, frail person, starving, were to dump a scoop of oil into their delicate stomach, it’d make perfect sense for them to go belly up.
Karem had had a similar experience in his past life.
Ah, at that time, I really thought I was going to die. I was on a diet and barely had that first cheat day, and I went crazy, gorging, only to end up running to the bathroom for days.
He also remembered reading about how someone who had long been starved ate fatty meats and died of shock.
If the traditions of famine-stricken decades had carried over to today, it was easy to see why the chief’s daughter misunderstood the golden liquid before her as poisonous slime.
Just then, a familiar sound reached Karem’s ears.
Coo— coo-coo!
“Hmm? Is that… the chicken again?”
“Yes. There is a poultry farm on the outskirts of the village. This sound means it’s the head rooster. Phew, I almost had to turn livestock into dinner. That was close.”
Karem closed his eyes for a moment, thinking.
It was obvious that the chickens in Eourpa, which hadn’t undergone thousands of years of breeding like modern ones, were tough and stank.
Even the plump chickens grown within Winterhome were the same.
Thinking about it, he had been meaning to do this for a while.
He realized he had forgotten about it due to the two who lost their sanity over sweet doughnuts.
“Let’s buy just five hens from the poultry farm.”
Who would dare to refuse him, when he was paying several times the normal price?
The chief’s daughter, who received the money, stepped outside with a slaughtering knife in hand.
*
The sun began to set, and the soft orange glow of the sun spread across the Goosebees, where a rare winter snow had settled, illuminating the villagers and adventurers wielding tools and equipment with the still frozen Mushroom Golem in the background.
Catherine, who had ventured into the forest accompanied by a few adventurers, returned to the village, walking along the snow-covered path with Narque following behind her.
“So, the reason for the Golem’s emergence was—”
“It must be due to the over-saturation of magic.”
The phenomenon where magic becomes saturated in a specific area above average levels.
The causes were extremely varied, and with the variety of causes came various side effects.
One of the reasons Undead arise naturally.
Like the Mushroom Golem that attacked Fungusbee, it was a typical cause for Golems to emerge spontaneously.
Narque crushed a bone fragment of the undead in his hand.
With a mere light force, the bone dust scattered into the air.
“This, this is why there haven’t been any undead appearing around here?”
“All the magic that could have led to undead appearances has become the source of the Mushroom Golem.”
“Gosh, this is troublesome. If it’s over-saturation of magic…”
“The causes are multiple, and of all things, mushrooms… If it were a Golem using another natural substance, at least the cleanup would be straightforward.”
Catherine clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction.
“Yes, the very essence of the spores has long been twisted.”
“True. Even if we resolve the cause, Mushroom Golems will continue to appear. This village, once considered one of the safest in Iceland, has now lost that status as well.”
Narque fiddled with his staff with a forlorn look.
“Ah, Akusare Mushrooms are delicious, yet all of them are turning into Golems now.”
“Right. What a pain. They rank among the top five most expensive mushrooms in the world. Although once they turn into Golems, aside from the core, they hold no real value.”
“Then, doesn’t that spell big trouble for this village?”
Suddenly, the drooping ears of Narque perked up.
“Y-you mentioned that most of the income comes from Akusare Mushrooms!”
“I’m just as troubled, so let’s leave it there. Sigh, how do we fix this estate to restore it to a golden egg-laying duck?”
Catherine rubbed her throbbing temples with her free hand, not holding her staff.
Never had she expected to encounter such issues in the new estate.
Even the Grand Wizard couldn’t have anticipated this sudden pile of troubles, and Catherine had her first headache since her spring business trip.
Oh, whatever! This is all because I couldn’t enjoy a proper snack after all this work.
If Karem heard Catherine’s thoughts, he would certainly be incredulous, wondering why she wouldn’t remember the shortcake cookie he had just eaten.
“However, I’m a bit worried about the lingering traces of the undead.”
“Hm, come to think of it, there was an unusual energy in the core of the Mushroom Golem.”
While chatting with Narque, Catherine arrived at the chief’s house, their lodge, and shook her head in frustration.
Anyway, deciding to leave the remaining tasks until tomorrow, Catherine opened the door with a feeling of lightness.
Shwaaaaa!
“Hmm? What’s that sound?”
“Wow! What a, what a fragrant smell.”
The familiar sound and aroma wafted from the kitchen of the Wizard’s Tower.
The comforting aroma, along with the clash of a downpour, filled the air.
As she closed the door and moved closer to the kitchen, the smell and the noise grew stronger.
“Are they frying doughnuts or something?”
“I asked for mushroom dishes, didn’t I? Mushroom doughnuts?”
Mushrooms and doughnuts.
Two words that sounded completely contradictory.
Catherine frowned.
Of course, she had no doubt about Karem’s skills.
The countless dishes and skills he had shown her.
Thinking about how he had improved his cooking throughout, she believed the taste would be more than sufficient.
No, wait, thinking like that suddenly makes me uneasy.
Upon reflection, it wasn’t without reason to be suspicious.
Didn’t he once pickle a quantity of the Fire Witch’s Fingers, as if intending to kill someone? He did adjust it later to make it edible for others.
But whenever he had a chance, Karem would often make dishes that seemed fit for torture, pouring in Fire Witch Powder while grumbling to himself as he consumed them.
The sorcerers, who initially looked down upon someone they deemed just a servant cook, completely lost their color when witnessing such scenes.
However, unlike what Catherine thought, Karem was already skilled enough to handle three times spicier food than before.
Though he still had not changed his status as a spice coward in his own standards.
Unaware of the changes to her own taste buds, Catherine secretly opened the kitchen door, where the sound of oil sizzling echoed.
Ba-sak!
An unbearable sound struck the ears of the two sorcerers sharply.
This was a sound that awakened primal instincts.
Normally, Catherine would have maintained her composure, but even she couldn’t resist the impact of this intense sound and smell.
After a long day of hard outdoor activities, Catherine’s tired body was overwhelmed by the raging sound of boiling oil and the ear-splitting crunch.
And the aroma of nuts and beans filled the air.
The results of sound and smell manifested in heaps of chicken piled high, wrapped in a nubbly golden fried crust—a sight that clearly declared the result of Karem’s effort.
Catherine’s instincts began to overpower her reason.
Narque felt the same way.
The two sorcerers had wandered in, completely entranced.
Karem, who had turned away from them, tasted a sample of what turned out better than expected and asked the chef in charge.
“Uh, um!? This, this is.”
“Hehehe. What do you think? How does the flavor of the oil originally meant for the mushroom fertilizer taste?”
The chief’s daughter, having taken a bite of the fried chicken, wanted to answer Karem’s question but couldn’t find the words to express it at all.
Karem noticed the completely dazed chief’s daughter and set aside a few pieces of chicken for her before welcoming the two sorcerers.
“Please, have a seat. The chicken will get cold.”