The black bouillabaisse was a hit with the knights.
At first, they ate it cautiously, but once they put their spoons in, they gradually couldn’t stop.
That was how delicious the seafood soup turned out.
“Both the shrimp and the shellfish are plump and tender!”
“Just keeping the cooking time to a minimum changes things this much, huh.”
“The umami is boiled out of the shells, and the meat is treated almost like raw… When you think about it, it’s a simple method. I’ll remember this!”
I am glad if it was helpful.
The side dish was grilled bread or short pasta, of your choice.
Since this kitchen only had brown bread made from whole wheat, Belze chose short pasta this time.
“It brings back memories. It’s the pasta I like.”
“……I just tossed it in oil, salt, and pepper, you know?”
“Yeah. Before I met you, this was my favorite pasta.”
What, are you a poor college student?
As a result of overcomplicating her picky eating habits, it seemed she had become unable to eat anything truly flavorful.
For a princess to have plain white bread and oil pasta as her favorites, no one would believe it.
“Shrimp is something so savory. Even though it’s a soup, it has a grilled aroma.”
“Does it stand out in a bad way?”
“No, you wouldn’t notice right away unless you knew. To throw in this much seafood and not feel any fishy smell at all is quite impressive.”
Saying it was very delicious, Belze dipped some short pasta into the soup.
“If you get tired of the texture, please feel free to add croutons.”
“Croutons?”
“They are finely diced bread, fried crispy in oil. You can float them on the soup as a textural accent.”
“Let’s have some. Croutons, croutons.”
Belze repeated the newly learned word, saying, “Croutons are lovely.”
Leaving her behind in that place, I finally headed toward the commander’s office.
The knights were the ones who made this dish.
Therefore, I accompanied the knight who was carrying the meal.
Kirul was facing his paperwork in the room.
Without even raising his gaze to our entry, he responded instead by sniffing his nose.
“Looks like it’s done.”
“Yes, Commander! Well, Pino-san is a wonderful chef! He taught us top-notch seafood dishes that even we can make—”
“I know. The smell of seafood has been amazing on this ship for a while now, you know? And stop making a fuss, are you students?”
“S-Sorry.”
Kirul raised his head in exasperation and cleared away the documents.
Narrowing his eyes as if to assess the soup bowl held in the knight’s hands, he silently urged us forward.
“W-Well then, if I may be so bold, I will introduce the dish…”
“Yes.”
“It is shrimp shell broth, black bouillabaisse!”
Is this what it looks like from the outside?
Kirul wrapped a napkin around his neck and scooped the black-glinting soup with a spoon without any fear or hesitation.
He held it in his mouth, closed his eyes as if to savor it, and then swallowed.
“……I see. It’s frustrating, but it really is delicious.”
“Right?!”
“With this much rich umami dissolved into the soup, the cooking of the ingredients is still perfect. Not a single piece has boiled apart. Were you guys always this good at cooking?”
“It is thanks to our teacher’s wisdom.”
Bowing deeply, the knight then asked as if probing the mood.
“So, um, Commander. This soup uses tomatoes and red shrimp…”
“Oh, is that right? This acidity was from tomatoes, huh. I don’t mind at all, it’s very delicious.”
“I-Is that so! That’s a relief!”
Kirul truly seemed to have no aversion to it at all.
He tasted the soup a few times as if to confirm, and even seemed to enjoy matching the answer to the ingredients’ flavors—ah, indeed it is tomato.
Here, I should ask what I want to know as well.
“How does it look, Lord Kirul?”
“……How it looks?”
“You instructed me yesterday that coloring is also an important scoring item.”
“Ah. I certainly did.”
Swirling the black soup on his spoon, Kirul thought for a moment and opened his mouth.
“You probably tried to cover up the red color of the soup, but even so, what is with making it entirely black?”
“Ah, yes. Indeed, it doesn’t look very photogenic.”
“Black isn’t bad. Did you boil down all the herbs? If you garnish the finish with fresh herbs or citrus peel, wouldn’t the bright green and yellow stand out more?”
Well, if you were in charge of the plating, maybe you would have given it that much consideration, though—Kirul glared at this side.
Well then, how about that?
“Anyway, let’s see. The taste is flawless, but if you were to serve this at court, I suppose the overall rating would be fifty points.”
“Thank you very much. That is very helpful. I’m glad it wasn’t the real deal.”
“……Hmph. Talk is cheap. As if you didn’t make this specifically to test my evaluation criteria from the start.”
Ah, I’ve been found out.
🇯🇵 “You are surprisingly calculating, aren’t you?”
“Princess Belze said that to me, too.”
“It’s a compliment. Serving in the court doesn’t suit a pure person.”
I wonder if I should take that as meaning he recognizes my qualifications a little bit. Or is it sarcasm?
Leaving me with the parting words, “It was delicious,” we left the commander’s office.
In the corridor on the way back, I exchanged words with the knight walking beside me.
Honestly, from my perspective, this was the main point.
“Even though the soup was bright red to begin with, Lord Kirul was able to eat it.”
“Eh?”
“Just by coloring it black with squid ink, he ate it without any resistance.”
When I confirmed that, the knight stopped dead in his tracks in astonishment.
“Don’t tell me, you made this soup just to confirm that?”
“Yes. I wanted to know if he dislikes the taste of red food, or if he dislikes the red color itself.”
“Bringing pickled squid ink onto a ship was for that reason from the very beginning?”
“Yes.”
“I-Is that so. I see, you certainly are a cunning person.”
You don’t all have to keep saying that.
Well, anyway.
“Is there any reason why he dislikes red itself? Do you know anything?”
“…………”
“You seem to know.”
When I smiled at the all-too-obvious silence, the knight nodded as if resigning himself.
🇯🇵 “I don’t know the details either, it’s a story from over a hundred years ago.”
“A hundred years?”
“He’s a half-elf. The commander is already over two hundred years old.”
Ah right, now that he mentioned it, a long-lived race.
“Back in the old days, there was a betrayal in the court.”
“Betrayal?”
“By the power of the Demon King at the time, many knights were manipulated and turned their swords toward the Imperial Family. Commander Kirul was the one who purged them. It was a massacre, truly a bloody battle.”
A bloody battle, blood, red, huh.
“Even Lord Kirul, who had cut down many bandits up until then, couldn’t bear the blood of his comrades. I’ve heard that ever since then, he came to hate red. It reminds him of the sacrifices of his comrades and the people.”
“……I see.”
Thank you, I bowed my head, and the knight bowed his head back, saying, “No, thank you.”
“The Imperial Family and the commander are wary of Pino-san precisely because of such incidents involving the Demon King. Please do not take offense.”
“Ah, no. It’s only natural that I am suspected.”
Really, I don’t mind at all.
The knight and I set our stopped feet moving once again.
We walked leisurely down the ship’s corridor.
“Commander Kirul is a beautiful person, isn’t he?”
“……Pino-san, do you seriously think that?”
“I am serious. To be able to keep oneself so neat and clean while placing oneself in the midst of battle. It shows he is a noble person who loves beautiful things.”
As I said that while walking in a daze, the knight responded with an expression that was hard to read.
“Who knows. He is not a pure-blood aristocrat. I’ve heard he was born as an illegitimate child of a ducal family and led a group of thugs in the slums when he was young.”
“Eh? Ah, is that so?”
“While he strongly yearns for beautiful things, he still has a lot of hot blood in him and doesn’t fit in at court. That’s probably why he is here. Because what we do isn’t much different from thugs.”
No, well, I don’t think that’s true.
The knight chuckled. Commander Kirul really is an interesting person.
It was at that moment.
There was a loud sound, and then the ship shook.
“Whoa!”
“A-Are you alright, Pino-san!”
Supported by the knight next to me, I somehow avoided falling over.
What is it? What happened?
Before I could ask about the situation, the knight started running toward the outside of the ship, so I ran after his back as well.
And the moment I jumped outside, I immediately grasped what had happened there.
“A-A plesiosaur! What a size…!”
The true identity of the assailant was a dragon raising its long, sickle-like neck beyond the line of sight of the astonished knight.
Darkness and fog right after sunset.
A slick silhouette with only its slightly raised back and neck sticking out of the sea surface. Basically, a Nessie.
Above all, its entire body was covered in pitch-black seaweed, so I was convinced that this was indeed “a plesiosaur with an abnormal appearance.”
“It was supposed to take another half day to reach the sighting spot, but to think it moved all the way here…!”
“Ah, so that’s why the schedule was three days for the round trip.”
Still, a dragon wrapped in seaweed.
I suddenly remembered yesterday’s kitchen.
“How should I solve the kelp-wrapping challenge, I wonder.”
“P-Pino-san? If I’m hearing things, that’s one thing, but are you thinking about cooking in this situation?”
Oops, my bad.
For some reason, I don’t feel like I’m going to die. That is because I know the overwhelming combat ability of our princess.