“Goodness me! You’ve been maintaining the shrine’s fire baskets for all these years, Salamander? How very impressive!”
“Heh! Keepin’ these fires burning is child’s play! For me, that is!”
Alk and I were sitting on the altar and drinking some tea from our glasses. Salamander was beside us, and the tip of his long tail was twitching like he was very pleased with himself. The manner in which one of his eyes squinted slightly as he waved one of his claws at us was rather cute. According to him, this ruined shrine had originally been built to honor the King of the Underworld. He had been here since its construction, which predated Alk’s arrival by about a hundred years. That said, it had been abandoned since the dragon’s coming, and that’d led to its deterioration.
“Why are the flames blue?” I asked. “Given the coloring of your body, I would have expected red.”
The salamander explained that it had to do with a legend relating to the King of the Underworld. Those whose blood continued to run through their veins used red flames, while those whose blood had dried up—meaning the dead—used blue.
“It all loops back to why it was built in the first place. Blue suits it better anyhow, don’tcha think?”
“I suppose it does. But why keep these flames burning all this time?”
“Maybe there weren’t any people around here, but at least the fires might’ve made the god not feel so lonely,” he said. It was a passionate argument worthy of a spirit of flame, and one which it might not have come to had it not spent a long time in the close company of humans.
Meanwhile, the very “person” responsible for the shrine’s decline was sitting beside me, nonchalantly enjoying his tea. Naturally, we had become rather thirsty from the treats, so I had ordered a “cold brew tea set” that included a bottle containing the result of a blend of high-quality tea leaves that had undergone a meticulous cold-water extraction process. At first, I had been disappointed with the glass bottle’s opacity, but apparently, the color helped protect the liquid inside. If its contents were exposed to light, the liquid’s color, aroma, or flavor could deteriorate. I had also ordered some glasses because I was of the opinion that the aroma and flavor of tea would best be enjoyed from a thin-rimmed glass.
Alk gave a thoughtful hum. “I mentioned the floral fragrance of those doughnuts earlier, but this has a scent that is equally exquisite.”
“It is a rich smell, and yet the taste is so clean. It is simply delicious.”
I brought my glass to my lips and let the tea’s aroma waft around the tip of my nose. It had a strong, sweet scent, like honey or fruit, but it was by no means overpowering. Taking the liquid into my mouth made the aroma blossom all the more, and even the satisfied sigh I let out after taking a sip felt sweet. The real mystique of this drink came from the fact that there was no sugar in it. The amber liquid also lacked any hint of tartness or bitterness, and I had to wonder whether it was really tea at all. With the exception of what I had been served at my grandfather’s place, I had always thought of tea as something bitter that made the inside of one’s mouth shrivel.
Were there any offerings from Teiren’s world that weren’t simply exquisite? That said, my reactions were informed by the foods and beverages I’d been living on for the majority of my life, and I had the sense that they might not have been of the highest quality...
“Anyhow, what did ya want from me?” Salamander asked, looking up at me from his now-empty plate. I had ordered some baked goods to go with the tea, and he had finished his share.
“Oh! I completely forgot!” I exclaimed. I had let myself get far too absorbed by his retelling of the shrine’s history. Placing my empty glass to one side, I pulled the mountain of paper boxes closer to me. “Alk suggested I give these over to you.”
“Whoa! Now that’s some fine paper!” he cried. “With this much, I won’t be wantin’ for mana for a long time!”
Salamander’s vermilion eyes were shining even more brightly than when I had shared the cookies with him. He plodded over to the mountain of cartons and took the corner of one into his mouth. In the next second, he effortlessly swallowed it whole. I should point out that the carton in question had been tens of times larger than his mouth. The scene left me staring in amazement.
Next to me, Alk chuckled. “It appears that this is all new to you. Salamanders are capable of converting burnable materials into mana, which they can then absorb.”
“So it would seem. Is that why you summoned him?”
“Indeed. While spirits are capable of passively absorbing the mana that exists in nature, it is much quicker for them to take in substances that conform to their attribute.”
The way Alk’s golden eyes softened as he watched Salamander consume one box after another made me wonder how anyone could think this dragon was the root of calamity. Was it too early to assume he was kind at heart?
Incidentally, “mana” was said to be the source of magic itself. An “attribute” referred to the nature of one’s magic. Both of these concepts were fundamental to the art of sorcery. It was common knowledge that, to improve one’s magical powers, one needed to understand their attribute and take in more mana. My attribute was the uninspiring “shifter,” which meant that I could handle any type of magic. However, that also meant that I wasn’t especially adept at any of them. I could reminisce at length about the days when I had desperately endeavored to at least build up my mana in lieu of possessing a specific attribute...
“What a day I’m havin’! First, I get to shoot the breeze with a human for the first time in forever, and then I get to supercharge my mana!” Salamander sang, running his red tongue over his lips.
The mountain of paper boxes had vanished in the blink of an eye.
My chest pricked with guilt at the thought that I had made him clean up our waste. But then again, it seemed to have made him awfully happy, so I supposed this was one of those “win-win” situations.
No, I did feel bad. If possible, I would have liked to repay him in some way, even if Alk remained my top priority.
“I am so pleased to see you enjoying yourself. If there is anything else you’d like, please do not hesitate to ask.”
“If you are offering, Fran, I would very much like to have some meat,” Alk said.
“Meat? I am sure that can be arranged.”
It seemed that the dragon’s claims of being hungry after his long slumber weren’t an exaggeration. Despite the numerous doughnuts and baked goods he’d just devoured, Alk’s appetite knew no bounds. I summoned my tablet and started to browse the meat section.
Salamander was watching me, his eyes round with amazement. “Wow! Meat’s on the menu too?! You’re really something, m’lady!”
“‘M’lady’?” I said with surprise. It was safe to say that no one had ever addressed me like that before.
Four hopeful eyes, each one a gemstone in its own right, watched me as I turned my attention back to the tablet.
“There certainly are a lot of choices.”
The screen was populated with rows of different types of meat. Alongside common varieties such as beef, pork, chicken, horse, and lamb, there were game meats like deer, boar, rabbit, pheasant, wild duck, woodcock, and dove. Then there was domestic fowl like quail, domestic duck, goose, ostrich, and guineafowl. Perhaps most unusual of them all was the frog meat. Not only that, but each meat had various cuts available: sirloin, tenderloin, rump, offal, and so forth... There were even processed products like ham, bacon, and sausage! I didn’t even know where to start, let alone how to make a decision!
“Which kind would you like, Alk?”
Struggling to choose for myself, I showed him the screen. He had asked for meat in the first place, so I would have him pick which type he wanted and we could take it from there. This was going to be impossible otherwise...
However, though he studied the screen with unconcealed interest, it seemed that even Alk was bewildered by the sheer variety available. He blinked his golden eyes several times, but they stayed glued to the tablet. “I would like to know more,” he hummed, “but I cannot read these characters. What types do they have, Fran?”
Given how long Alk had lived, the fact that he couldn’t read it was genuinely surprising to me. However, it did start to explain why the writing was a mystery to me until Teiren had woken up.
As a bit of an aside, I did wonder about this “Japanese” language of hers. It had three scripts all mixed together—hiragana, katakana, and kanji—and people were expected to be able to read and write in all three...
“From what I can see, there are livestock meats such as beef, pork, and lamb, game such as boar and deer, and poultry such as chicken and duck. Those are just a few examples, however.”
Feeling more confident, I sat back down on the altar, and Alk shuffled closer to me. I held the tablet between us, and I leaned in his direction to give him a better view. I slowly swiped my finger across the screen as I explained each meat in turn.
Alk pressed a thoughtful finger to his chin. “Very interesting. In that case, I believe I would like to sample some beef. However...”
The bottleneck was selecting a cut. There were so many to choose from! Tenderloin, sirloin, plate, rump, round, shank, neck...and those even branched off into further categories! I continued swiping through the catalog as I pondered what might be to his taste.
That was when something seemed to catch Alk’s attention, and he cocked his head. “Supposing you were to order this meat, would you be capable of cooking it?”
I gasped. That was a question that would have been best left unasked, and I had to look away from his prying golden gaze. He had a point, however. While Teiren’s memories might have equipped me with knowledge of cookery, I had never attempted to cook anything for myself.
I felt something light touch my knee as I continued to look at anything but Alk.
Salamander drew in my wandering gaze. “Why the long face, m’lady? Y’know I’d be happy to lend a hand with any cookin’!” His front feet were placed on my leg, and his fiery tail swished back and forth confidently.
My hero!
“You can cook, Salamander?”
“We used to be happiest next to the stove, right up till we were replaced by them magical tools. I can learn ya all there is to know about cookin’!”