Unable to deny it after being caught off guard, Radon clenched his fist. The longer their conversation continued, the more weaknesses he exposed, drawing an involuntary sigh from him.
“Amelin said she was waiting.”
“Then let us hurry.”
“In my day, when an elder invited you to a meal, you went ahead and at least set the plates and forks on the table.”
“I wanted to walk with you for once, old man.”
“Hmph. Do you think I do not know what you are plotting?”
“Oho, does that mean Madam's cooking is... I will stop there.”
Unable to deny it again, Radon shook his head. More importantly, he knew why Ron was dragging his feet.
‘Her portions are far too generous.’
Even when the household finances were tight, his wife never skimped on food. As a knight's wife, she wanted to feed her family hearty meals every time.
Her intentions were appreciated.
The food itself, however, was not good.
That did not mean it was some kind of orc porridge unfit for human consumption. It simply tasted like nothing. It was not as though she seasoned it lightly, yet somehow, even after adding that much salt, it remained bland. If that counted as a skill, then it was a remarkable one.
If one thought the food was flat and merely needed more salt, that was a grave mistake. Perhaps it possessed some strange balance of its own, because the instant more salt was added, it transformed into something bizarre. In a way, she was a true alchemist of cooking.
“I rather like that flat taste.”
“You will eat four bowls today.”
How do you like that, brat?
Having displayed the vigor of old age, Radon felt proud for the first time in a while. He would make sure to see Ron flustered. His wife and daughter were so precious that even placing them in his eyes would not hurt, but two bowls were his limit. Rather than eat four, it would be healthier to drink an entire basin of water.
“The more one eats Madam's cooking, the more one comes to understand its true value.”
“It seems you still have not come to your senses. Very well. If you can eat four bowls as you claim, I will grant you anything.”
“That will not be necessary. Being able to eat delicious food is enough for me.”
“......Truly?”
Radon was moved for an instant, then shook his head.
Once Ron tasted the food, he would want to take back every confident word that had come out of his mouth.
They arrived at the house.
The old man's home stood in the city, not far from House Leonard's estate. He had been a fixture in the knight order for decades. It would have been a mistake to assume that his upright personality meant he was poor. If one saved steadily and did not spend wastefully, the quality of a knight's life differed greatly from that of a commoner.
CREAK—!
When they opened the door and stepped inside, they saw Madam cooking in the kitchen and Eshula bustling around. Regardless of the taste, Madam devoted all her passion and effort to cooking.
“I'm here.”
“You're here! You must be hungry. Come and sit down. It is almost ready, so wait just a little longer.”
“I'll help too.”
“You must be tired after work. Eshula is here, so sit down.”
“I would feel too uncomfortable doing that.”
Ron occasionally helped Madam cook. Even so, he was unusually proactive today.
Eshula quietly approached and whispered.
‘It's useless. Accept your fate.’
‘Look who's talking. Do not ask for seconds later.’
‘Oho, becoming a Personal Knight has certainly made you confident.’
‘Do I finally look different to you?’
‘You're not my type. You know my standards are extremely high.’
‘That's a relief. It would have been troublesome if you clung to me.’
‘You've grown up. When we were little, you followed me everywhere with your nose running. When did you get so big?’
It was a misunderstanding.
Before awakening the memories of his previous life, he had merely been bewitched by a little demon. There was no way a fully grown adult would like a child.
‘At least she used to be cute.’
That impertinent little girl had grown into a wicked witch.
However, Ron had committed too many sins to blame her. He should not have indulged her, but it had been an unavoidable sacrifice to keep his secret.
‘For someone self-taught, she is a genius too.’
Naturally, the average men in the neighborhood did not meet her standards. One could call it the frog forgetting its days as a tadpole, but it was natural for one's standards to change according to one's own position. In truth, Ron had never seen anyone undergo plastic surgery while keeping the same standards as before.
‘I had no choice, if only for Madam's sake.’
The old man tended to neglect the security of his own home, so Ron had needed to establish a minimum level of protection before living independently. He could not forget the kindness of those who had raised him merely because he wanted to live alone.
However.
Eshula's standards were far too high. The old man did not have even the tiniest intention of marrying her off yet, but if she was still lounging around the house after turning forty, Ron could not guarantee what would happen then.
That did not mean he intended to take responsibility for her. They had grown up together since childhood, and the memory of him following her around remained a dark chapter in his past.
‘She'll handle it herself.’
Sensing that the matter would become troublesome, Ron turned away from reality.
“I'll carry it.”
Madam's main dish, Mata Stew, was boiling beautifully in a pot the size of a cauldron.
They said a rice cake that looked good also tasted good, but exceptions existed. The Mata was livestock similar to a pig and was slaughtered only on birthdays and other special occasions. As such, even boiling it roughly and eating it as boiled meat was considered a delicacy.
Yet not even the Mata could escape Madam's peculiar ability to erase flavor.
Ron tasted a little.
‘Hah, as expected.’
The Mata's distinctive mild, savory richness was absent. At the same time, it did not possess the unpleasant gamey taste produced when boiled meat was cooked poorly.
“I'm glad the cooking seems to have turned out especially well today.”
What in the world was wrong with Madam's tongue?
She clearly possessed some status-effect Trait that nullified every flavor.
If she had put no effort into it, that would have been one thing, but the food was filled with sincerity, which made it an ordeal. He could not bring himself to tell her it tasted bad to her face.
Was that still too much?
He admitted it was.
Even so, the old man never complained.
He finished two bowls every day.
It was one thing to endure bad food once or twice, but how could he live that way for his entire life?
Look at Madam's face.
With the old man's face, she was a beauty he could never have encountered even in his dreams. They said beauty lasted only three days? Nonsense. A beautiful face lasted a lifetime. Moreover, Madam was an angel descended from heaven even on the inside. Even if Ron was the child of her husband's disciple, he was ultimately someone else's child. Yet she had raised him like her own.
‘To make matters worse, their marriage is harmonious.’
Eshula was the proof.
In this era, people usually married and had children before the age of twenty. Yet Eshula was currently sixteen, while the old man was sixty.
Was it easy to father a child after turning forty?
Madam might have been ten years younger, but most people would still have given up. Yet they had succeeded in the end. Naturally, they could not help doting on Eshula. There was a reason Count Leonard and the old man got along so well.
‘Though the old man has not been what he used to be lately.’
At sixty, the old man's vigor could no longer keep up with Madam.
Ron carried the pot over and ladled the stew onto the plates.
The pot might have been enormous, but there were not many different dishes. For the territory's people, a table with bread, stew, and meat would have been a magnificent feast.
Madam's cooking ordinarily tasted like nothing, so it was difficult to call the bread bad. It simply had no flavor. People usually tore the bread apart and dipped it into the stew, but Ron ate them separately.
Why?
Because dipping the bread into the stew increased its volume.
It was better to eat them separately and let them expand inside his stomach, giving him a sense of fullness.
“Congratulations on your promotion, Ron.”
“Thank you. Perhaps because of that, I feel especially hungry today.”
“Yes, eat plenty. Tell me if there is not enough.”
“Old man, Eshula. There may not be enough today, so neither of you may ask for more.”
At Ron's blatantly flattering statement, the father and daughter clicked their tongues inwardly. They could not understand where his confidence came from. Becoming a Full Knight had only increased his bravado.
SLURP, KAAAH!
Now this was the taste.
Ron exclaimed in admiration and practically drank the Mata Stew. It took him less than thirty seconds to empty one bowl.
Then he polished off two more in quick succession.
It was as though a starving demon had possessed him.
‘Has he lost his mind?!’
‘This bastard came here determined today!’
Startled, Radon and Eshula were still dragging out their meals. They managed to keep eating somehow, but the first spoonful was difficult every time.
SLURP!
......?
Radon and Eshula took a spoonful with grim determination, only to stare in shock at the appetite-stimulating savoriness spreading through their mouths.
‘......How is this possible?’
‘My mother has gone insane!’
It was slightly spicy, but compared to everything she had cooked until now, it tasted heavenly.
They could not put down their spoons.
SLURP, SLURP!
The ceaseless sound of eating filled the table. They practically buried their faces in the bowls, minimizing the distance between their mouths and the stew.
Madam Amelin watched the father and daughter with satisfaction.
She took a spoonful herself, and it tasted the same as always.
Why was that?
They must all have been very hungry.
Madam was optimistic.
“There is plenty, so eat slowly.”
For Radon, who often ate at the Knight Hall, it felt as though all his hardships until now were being washed away.
‘My dear! I always believed in you!’
Honestly, after cooking for decades, would it not have been stranger if her skill had never improved?
Just as a knight became an Aura Expert through grueling training, Amelin had finally awakened as the God of Cooking.
Eshula could not understand it.
‘Is this really right?’
The meal might have been held to celebrate Ron's promotion, but nothing differed from yesterday or the day before. Her mother had neither added nor removed any special ingredient, yet the flavor was completely different. It was strange.
SLURP, SLURP!
Strange or not, she could not stop. When she dipped the bread into the stew and put it in her mouth, it melted away.
The pot had held at least twenty servings, yet less than half remained before long. Reluctant to lose the flavor, they added more boiled meat to increase the volume. They wanted to preserve this taste for as long as possible.
Even so, the meal ended several times faster than usual. The father and daughter mourned every portion that disappeared.
GRIN!
Ron smiled where they could not see him.
‘This is the taste of the artificial. Hehehe!’
MSG—the culmination of modern civilization, entirely unrelated to nature. The very idea that a medieval father and daughter could resist such an intense flavor was absurd. All the more so when they had been forced to eat Madam Amelin's colorless cooking until now.
‘Good thing I saved some.’
Since ramen only required noodles to be added before boiling, Ron had saved three packets of ramen seasoning.
‘It would be far too intense otherwise.’
They said a familiar taste was frightening, but these were pure bodies that had not experienced MSG for twenty years. A sudden influx of artificial flavor could shock them.
Just look at them now.
Ron had added only one packet of ramen seasoning to that enormous pot, yet the father and daughter had lost their senses as though struck by black magic.
Did they not say that excess was worse than insufficiency?
If he had added all three packets, it could have caused a horrific outcome resembling drug addiction.
Of course, it was not because the packets were precious.
AAAH!
The father and daughter emptied the pot in less than fifteen minutes, then let out contented exclamations as though languid with happiness. They had thought they would spend their entire lives unable to escape a world without color.
Huh?
Then they met Ron's smiling gaze and sensed a strange incongruity. They desperately hoped they were wrong, but the cooking suddenly becoming delicious was itself suspicious.
‘What the hell did you do?’
‘Was this your doing, Ron?’
The father and daughter realized that Ron had played some trick, but they could not understand how.
All Ron had done was carry the pot to the table. That was far too little time to cast magic upon the food.
“Madam's cooking is always the finest. I envy you and Eshula for being able to eat food like this every day, old man.”
“Then move back home.”
“I am already grateful that you raised me until now. I cannot depend on you forever.”
“You've grown up, Ron.”
After the meal, they drank Mandeulla Tea to ease their lingering regret. Mandeulla was a flower commonly found in the forest, and when dried and steeped, it produced a warm, nutty aroma.
It was similar to modern Solomon's seal tea.
The cheerful atmosphere continued as they discussed Ron's success, but the father and daughter's thoughts were elsewhere.
They became increasingly desperate as time passed. Ron would soon return home.
‘Should I ask this bastard to reveal the secret method?’
‘Ron, what am I supposed to do if you leave like this?’
Neither of them could bring themselves to ask. Amelin's pleased gaze seemed unusually frightening today.
How could they ask him to reveal the secret when she looked so happy?
‘That depends on how they behave.’
Ron had effectively administered poison.
It might have been better for them to return to the time before they knew that taste.