Chapter 426: Questions
As we played a seemingly casual card game, the conversation continued.
“Well, the countries that know about En are on the opposing side of Shulm, so there’s not much we can do right away,” Dinoss said, drawing a card. His expression soured, perhaps because it wasn’t a good draw.
“Where?”
“There’s no way I’m telling you.”
“That’s terrible.”
Dinoss refused to share, even when I asked.
“It’s safe, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s to be expected,” the Butler, Retze, replied shortly while drawing his own card, his eyes never leaving his hand.
The ears of Daifuku, who was perched on Retze’s lap, twitched. Daifuku often preferred to sit on Retze’s lap first, followed by Ash.
A tail waved in front of Retze’s cards, but he paid it no mind. Of course, he couldn’t see it.
“That country is currently embroiled in a succession struggle, so they probably have bigger issues to deal with,” the Butler said while pouring wine as I hesitated over which card to discard.
I pulled a card from my hand and tossed it onto the table. My curiosity was piqued by both the conversation and Daifuku.
“How many suspicious deaths have there been in the end?” Dinoss sighed as he glanced at the Butler.
“Well?”
Despite the unsettling topic, the Butler wore a calm smile.
“Given the situation in Nakahara, it wouldn’t be surprising if the royal family was wiped out,” Dinoss said, squinting at the Butler.
Ah, this is something the Butler is involved in. He must be up to something, right? What did he do?
“Game over,” Retze declared.
“Oh, that was quick!”
“You’re too distracted by unnecessary thoughts. You’ll trip over your own feet,” Retze teased, pinching my cheek.
“Is it [Storage]? Is it [Teleportation]? Is it because you’re from the same hometown as the Hero? Is it because the Spirit is so easygoing?” Dinoss counted off on his fingers.
“Lord Jean has multiple factors that make him a target,” the Butler said, giving a slight bow.
“He’s responsible for cleaning up after this mess, and it’s enough for him to just be careful while he’s near En. After all, it’s part of being a parent,” Dinoss said, flicking his incomplete hand of cards into the pile in the center of the table.
Responsibility… Could it be that the ‘selling’ he mentioned before was about exposing the hideout?
“Adults are…” I reflected on the grim atmosphere surrounding me.
“I’m getting a bit hungry, but what are you going to feed us today?” Retze must know which country we’re talking about, right?! And he just blatantly changed the subject!
“Nabeyaki Udon. Just give me a moment to finish up with the three of you,” he said, moving away from the table toward the cooking stove.
Although Retze said he was a bit hungry, he had already eaten plenty of snacks, so he probably wasn’t really starving.
I’ll halve the tempura and add more spinach. Even so, I’ll still pile on the shrimp tempura for a hearty meal.
The individual earthenware pot he prepared for me looked slightly more Western than the ones I remembered from Japan. I added dashi and mirin, then tossed in the chewy udon noodles. After layering on the prepped ingredients, I covered it and waited a bit.
I gently pushed aside the center of my pot with chopsticks and carefully dropped in an egg. I wasn’t fond of the way the egg white spread out and mixed with the broth when I just dropped it in haphazardly.
“Here you go. Be careful, it’s hot,” I said instinctively, though since I’ve been here, I’ve had plenty of dishes that were literally thrown into the oven, so Nabeyaki Udon isn’t particularly hot. It just slipped out.
I placed the pots on each side of the table, and when I lifted the lids, steam wafted up. The pale yellow of the tempura, the orange of the carrots, the brown of the star-shaped shiitake mushrooms, and the green of the spinach all mingled together, hiding the wilted green onions.
“Wow, that looks delicious,” Dinoss said, pulling the pot closer to him. It looked like it would be hot to the touch, but he seemed unfazed, perhaps thanks to the Dragon Form Spirit doing something.
As usual, he turned his head away, but his tail wrapped around his arm, the shy dragon.
“You’ve certainly put in a lot of effort as always. Is this your signature dish?” the Butler remarked, eyeing the decorative carrot cuts. I wished I knew how to keep my monocle from fogging up.
“You’re skilled and meticulous. I’ll dig in,” Retze said, picking up his chopsticks. Since it was noodles, I made them disposable!
I thought it was Retze who was the skilled and meticulous one.
“This is great. So tasty,” Dinoss said, getting used to using chopsticks lately. I wondered if Gold Rank adventurers had to be skilled at this sort of thing? No, Dean was a fork person.
“This mushroom has such a rich flavor,” Retze said, staring intently at the shiitake he had just bitten into.
Rehydrated dried shiitake mushrooms soak up flavor well, but they also release their own essence. If you mess up, the flavor can be overwhelmingly strong.
I poked the yolk of my soft-boiled egg with the tip of my chopsticks, breaking it open, and took a bite of udon. The wilted green onions were delicious.
“Lord Jean, by the way, how is your business going?”
“Bu—”
I almost choked, caught off guard by the Butler’s usual calm voice!