Ainz and the twins were eating together.
Well, Ainz wasn’t capable of eating, so it was just Aura and Mare. They had more on the table than the natural flavorings the dark elves had provided.
Ainz had pulled out some Nazarick food from his inventory.
Aura and Mare had taken one bite of each dish the dark elves supplied and written their opinions of it on some paper next to them. Later, they would show these to knowledgeable members of different races in E-Rantel for further investigation.
That said, at the moment, they’d made no discoveries of note—financial or otherwise. It wasn’t clear what relations they might have with this village in the future, but they did not seem like they’d be a profitable trade partner.
The reason he was having the twins sample each and record their impressions was so Ainz would have something to say if anyone happened to ask.
This plan had one big problem. Aura and Mare were used to Nazarick food—they had discerning palates. The two of them didn’t have a single positive thing to say about the dark elf cuisine so far. But telling the chef, It tastes terrible, required you to be either entirely inconsiderate of people’s feelings, willing to ruin relations with this village, or possibly a very young child.
So their meal was taking quite a while.
A bite, some chewing, a frown, and then their honest opinion. Then some flipping through their notes, frowning harder, and finally writing something nice. They couldn’t exactly say, Fresh ingredients! every time. They needed to change it up.
If they’d had a thesaurus available, it would have been soon worn out. By the time they’d pried their impressions out and put it to paper, both kids looked exhausted. Like they’d just completed an eating competition.
“Good work,” Ainz said, well aware of the effort involved.
They brightened up immediately.
“No, this is nothi…no big deal, Uncle Ain!”
“R-right. W-we’re just eating and writing what we think!”
Mare wasn’t wrong, but as someone who couldn’t eat, it was hard to just nod agreeably. Especially since their efforts were for his benefit.
They were children, so if they expressed their unvarnished opinions, it would likely not cause (major) issues. Ainz’s words were another matter. If he could partake himself, he would likely have been desperately racking his brain for polite phrases, too.
He couldn’t thank them enough, but repeating himself would just start becoming oppressive.
So he said nothing more, simply listening to their reviews.
Their honest takes matched up perfectly and never changed. Just to be sure, they went through them anyway.
“Perhaps we should have offered some properly seasoned food and told them this is how we eat? They might have tried to make something similar.”
“It’s poss— Maybe, yeah?” Aura was still tripping over her word choices every now and then. “When you got to fry meat, all you really need to do is salt it—and it’ll be just fine. But the way they keep it fresh isn’t all that great, so the meat is still pretty gamey. Perhaps there are people who prefer it that way, but I’m n—I ain’t one of ’em.”
They’d been in this village a while, but Aura still wasn’t used to talking to Ainz this way.
“I—I agree. It smells funny.”
“Hmm.”
“The veggies are better, but they’re lacking in sweetness. Bitter or tart hit you first. Again, people who like that might enjoy that? I wonder if they could make some sauces out of the fruit.”
“I could use some dressing, at least.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Pretty much the same as always.
“Then let me see what you’ve written down, please.”
Glancing them over, he could tell they were trying very hard to say something nice.
Ainz bowed his head again internally.
Once he’d read them through—they weren’t particularly long—he did his best to remember the contents and handed the notebooks back. Morning prep complete.
Time to head out to work.
“Okay! It’s about time for me to get going. I might be late again, so feel free to eat without me.”
They answered as one, but Ainz noticed Aura had almost said something else.
“What is it, Aura? Something on your mind?”
“Uh, well, er…yeah, maybe, Uncle Ain. You’re going to study medicine again today?”
“That’s correct. Apparently, I’m learning a slightly harder brew today. I used a Gate to ask Nfirea about the medicine’s name, but he hadn’t heard of it. It would be much faster if we could get them to trust Messages…” Ainz sighed. “But I suppose there is a chance an enemy of Nazarick would use them, so let’s just let them have it their way.”
“Will that be an issue?”
Aura’s tone shifted, so Ainz matched her.
If she was asking as a floor guardian, then Ainz must answer as the ruler of Nazarick.
“I’m not sure. But I don’t plan to make the medicine myself. If any of the components involved existed in Yggdrasil, I know my brew would fail.”
Much like cooking.
Ainz lacked the relevant skill, so he could craft nothing that involved Yggdrasil herbs or alchemical solutions. But he could make medicine using this world’s techniques and herbs found only here. While studying with the apothecary, the first step was to make sure he knew exactly what went into a particular recipe.
Still—
“So many mysteries. We can’t use Yggdrasil herbs, but what happens if they’re cultivated in this world’s soil? Do those count as herbs from this world or not?”
“I—I think it’s the latter.”
“Likely, yes. But what happens if the potency diminishes? Herbs raised by human hands are nowhere near as effective. Nfirea says our efforts to cultivate them around E-Rantel aren’t working out because there’s something lacking in the soil. A vital nutrient perhaps. That’s why they’re experimenting with cultivation inside the forest.”
“Yes, they are. A little patch of them in the woods. There were lots of logs with mushrooms or moss growing on them, too. I remember seeing those when I went to take a peek. It’s actually kinda hard to get close to that village these days…,” Aura said.
Enri’s goblins were on watch for quite some distance around Carne. There were goblin trap makers, and the traps they made sounded alarms—which were much harder to detect than traps that did damage.
“But if nutrients are the issue, we could just have Mare help or use items.”
Both looked at Mare, who shrank visibly.
“Er, um, so, I can do that, but I’m not actually sure that’s what’s needed. I a-actually am sneaking into the E-Rantel Adventurers Guild field at night to see, but I feel like that’s not the right approach.”
The harvested ingredients might look the same, but once you made a potion from them, the effects were slightly diminished. A particularly unwelcome outcome.
Was Mare oversupplying them? Was it pure coincidence? Was there something else missing? A better spell for these herbs? There were so many factors involved that no clear answer had emerged.
“We’ve been here a few years now, but there’s still so much we don’t know.”
“Right.”
“R-right.”
Each time they learned something, they found more they didn’t know. The mysteries only deepened over time. But fortunately—if that was the word for it—they were all things that didn’t exactly seem high priority. Quite a lot of them had been left on the back burner.
If these issues could be left to minions or summons, they might have solved them already, but those beings weren’t capable of handling all the experiments needed.
It seemed that the bare minimum was an NPC—a being created the same way a player was. But it was possible players and NPCs would have different results. If they really wanted to be thorough, they’d have to do each experiment three times, once with Ainz, once with an NPC, and once with a minion.
“Cultivation experiments might be best left in the hands of those under our control, but we can’t have truly vital experiments leaking to anyone who might potentially become a threat to us. That’s why we’re having those done with Nazarick insiders alone—but our numbers are limited. What a headache.”
Keep an eye on other countries for technological breakthroughs, while taking steps within Nazarick to ensure our technological superiority.
Hard work, but…
With Albedo and Demiurge in charge of it, I’m sure it’ll be fine. They’re both very smart.
In fact, they might already have handled the matter and he was just butting his oar in. Couldn’t hurt to bring it up, at least.
I can have a summon write a note and drop it in the suggestion box again.
That way he could avoid the risk of anyone asking, You just now noticed?
—Whoops.
“Oh dear! It’s time! Gotta run!”
Before they could even nod, Ainz burst from the elf tree.
Showing up late was out of the question. Back when he’d been a lowly employee, he’d never once been tardy. No matter how obsessed with Yggdrasil he got.
Gotta hustle!
Light struck his face.
A ray of sunshine filtered through the branches above, telling him it was another beautiful day.