The next day, Shadow and Bird returned to Atelier Daisy, still posing as ordinary adventurers. They each took a big bite of the new menu item: a soft roll stuffed with crispy fried chicken breast and smothered in tartar sauce.
“Shadow.”
“Bird.”
They exchanged glances and nodded. It was delicious, no doubt about it.
They ordered four to go and slipped into the alleyway with their bundles. After glancing around for witnesses, Bird teleported back to the castle.
“It sure is peaceful in our kingdom,” murmured Shadow once he was alone in the alley.
It was because they weren’t being sent on any missions that they had the time for this sort of thing. He closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer of thanks in the quiet of that peaceful day.
✦ ✦ ✦
Our cooking experiments were far from over. One day, as I was flipping through the cookbook, I noticed something interesting: A lot of the recipes didn’t call for the fresh cheese we’d made before, but instead for something called semihard cheese.
I still had plenty of safflower seeds left over. The semihard cheese could supposedly keep for much longer, which would certainly add to Miina’s repertoire.
“All right, let’s try it!” I said.
I headed into the kitchen. The process was basically the same as last time, so I retraced those steps from memory. I extracted the active compounds from the safflower seeds, crushed them in a mortar, soaked them in a bit of milk, then stirred and infused them with magic until the milk drew out their properties.
Once the essences had fully blended, I strained out the solids and set the infused milk aside. I poured fresh milk into a pot and gently warmed it on the heater until it was about body temperature. Then I added the safflower extract, turned off the heat, and let Alchemical fermentation take over. The milk thickened to a texture between yogurt and custard. I took a knife and cut it vertically and horizontally all the way to the bottom, spacing the cuts about a fingertip’s width apart.
Before long, liquid began to seep out. I turned the heat back to low and slowly stirred, raising the temperature carefully until lukewarm.
Once it was heated through, I turned off the heat, put on a lid, and left it for two hours.
When I came back, it had separated into solid curds and liquid whey. So far, it was just like making fresh cheese, but this was where the process began to diverge.
I transferred the solids into a perforated ceramic mold. I then placed a small round disk that would fit just inside the rim over the top, then pressed down firmly.
I set a heavy weight on top to keep up the pressure. The book said to leave it pressed anywhere from five tolls of the church bell to half a day. As the pressure built, even more moisture was forced out.
Once it was done, I retrieved the result and soaked it in brine for a full day.
The process was different from making fresh cheese because it didn’t require as much focus or a temperature as hot, but it still took a lot of time.
Next, I moved it to a cool, shady spot with good airflow and left it to dry for another day.
Here was where Alchemy came in handy.
Normally, the cheese would take anywhere from a month to as long as four years to mature naturally. But I could accelerate that process with magic.
I gathered a stack of clean, dry cloths and infused the cheese with magic to help it dry and mature from the inside. Every so often, I would wipe the surface with a fresh cloth. Little by little, the once-white rind began to take on a soft, yellow tint.
It was a slow process even with Alchemical aging, so I worked in short sessions whenever I had time. I’d lay my palm over the cheese, channel mana into it, then gently wipe it down.
Finally, I had a firm, round, yellow cheese which was still shaped like its mold.
“Miina, Marcus! I finished the new cheese!” I shouted.
“Coming!” they both called back cheerfully. A moment later, Miina and Marcus appeared and gathered around me in the lab.
I sliced into the still-fresh semihard cheese with a knife and cut out little wedges about the size of my pinky fingertip, then set them on a plate.
“It’s delicious!” we all said.
The rind was too hard to eat, so we trimmed that away. The cheese itself was a rich, nutty flavor that spread in my mouth. It was salty and creamy with a velvety soft texture.
“If it melts this easily on your tongue, then I bet it melts wonderfully when you cook with it!” Miina said, her eyes sparkling. “Let’s use this with dinner tonight!”
Something about the taste had inspired her.
That evening, Marcus and I took one bite of dinner and immediately cheered.
Miina had cut the cheese into sticks, wrapped them in thinly sliced chicken breast, then wrapped them again in ham before frying it all up. It was her very own original recipe.
“Here you go, straight out of the pan! The cheese will melt when you cut it!” She set the steaming plates down in front of us.
“Whoa, look at that melted cheese!” Marcus said, mesmerized by the gooey filling spilling out.
“Adding the ham was a brilliant idea, Miina!” I said. “Honestly, this is perfect just the way it is!”
We kept singing her praises, fanning our mouths as we bit into the crispy yet gooey creation while it was still piping hot.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, in the realm of nature spirits…
The land was bathed in gentle sunlight, a place with eternal spring where fresh leaves always sprouted. Fairies flitted through the air all around as spirits murmured to the trees.
The Nature Spirit King sat on a cushion of soft young leaves, gazing into a deep dish of water. A single lotus blossom floated atop it, and in the reflection was an image of Daisy and her friends laughing together over dinner. The Nature Spirit King smiled fondly as he watched them enjoy themselves.
“Wonderful, she looks well today,” he murmured to himself. “Happy and full of good food.”
Just then, the Earth Spirit King strolled up behind him. “Are you spying on your beloved child again?” He bent over to peer into the mirrored surface. “Ha! Look at them go, stuffing their faces. Well, I can’t blame you for peeping. Seeing them so happy just makes you want to watch, doesn’t it?” At first, the Earth Spirit King sounded exasperated, but before long he was invested too, smiling gently as he watched the children’s bright and cheerful faces.
Even in the spirit realm, everything was at peace.