Chapter 622: A Culinary Adventure (Part Two)
"That’s even worse, that’s so much worse," Talauia said, looking at Ollie in shock as he suggested inflicting the terrifyingly spicy sauce on the group’s youngest member. "You know that it hurts and Frost Walkers eat most of their food raw! He doesn’t eat spicy things at all, why would you do this to him?"
"Is this like the knight’s ritual where you bond through pain and suffering?" Hauke asked, looking sideways at the strange dish. "I’m supposed to do something that hurts so we become closer?"
"You don’t have to," Ashlynn said as she moved on from the skewers to one of the rich, smokey sausages Virve had brought over. "Ollie wanted a ’food adventure’ and he found one," she teased. "He just didn’t expect that his first adventure would be quite so painful."
"I’m sorry, Hauke," Ollie added quickly. "I don’t want to pressure you..."
"It’s fine, I’ll try it," the young Frost Walker lord said, his horn glittering a faintly embarrassed shade of lavender as he served himself a large spoonful of the ’painful’ sauce. "I’m farther away from home than most of my clansmen go in their entire lives. I should try adventures or what’s the point of coming all this way to be Lady Ashlynn’s apprentice?"
Moments later, however, as he steadily chewed on a large bite of spicy beef, slathered in the chunky green sauce, he failed to show any sign of discomfort or displeasure at the taste. In fact, he seemed more confused than anything else.
"Did I pick the wrong one?" Hauke asked, blinking in surprise. "It’s a little bitter but... it isn’t painful."
"Aaah! That is so unfair," Ollie cried. "It doesn’t feel hot at all? Like your mouth is on fire?"
"No, not at all," Hauke said as he sniffed the sauce, but unlike Ollie and the others, he seemed completely unbothered by it. "But I think the sausages Virve has smell better," he said, turning to look at her expectantly.
"I got a big one, just for you," Virve said, passing over a thick sausage thicker than her thumb and as long as her large paw. "The meat is raw when they start fermenting it so I thought it might suit you more. If you like it, I got two," she added.
"Now I’m jealous," Heila said from the side as she meticulously sliced through one of the smaller sausages, preparing a stack of bread, sausage and the crumbly blue cheese before nibbling on the rich, salty, creamy, savory and slightly funky combination of intense flavors. "I can’t eat as much as everyone else, so how am I going to try everything?"
"Just eat like Nyri and the other vampires do," Ashlynn offered helpfully. "One bite of this, one bite of that, and keep going until you’ve run out of things before you start over. Practice for when you take Sir Ignatious out to dinner," she added with a wink.