Chapter 167: Hotter Than July (1)
Even a paltry flame can summon the inferno of the Scorching Hell.
-Dante Alighieri-
“It’s the first time the party leader has ordered a dish like this.”
Wyatt Wilson, the second-in-command of the Afternoon Tea Party, was suffering an untimely worry.
He was the closest aide who discussed the Afternoon Tea Party’s major and minor affairs with the party leader, yet at the same time he was also Irene Adler’s personal butler and secretary.
From the grand task of entertaining the party leader’s guests to the small task of devising meal recipes, Wilson’s duties had no end.
“A chick dish, of all things. What peculiar tastes…”
He was flustered by the Afternoon Tea Party leader’s bizarre request, unlike anything he had seen or heard, but only for a moment.
At present, he was carefully holding the egg Irene Adler had entrusted to him with both hands, and obediently walking to the kitchen.
Ever since the previous leader of the Afternoon Tea Party met a miserable death, Irene Adler had appointed and selected her subordinates by standards so strict one might call them neurotic, and trusted no one but them. The reason Wilson, who had served the previous party leader, managed to keep his position was because he had proven his loyalty in various ways.
From checking whether there was poison in the food Irene Adler consumed, to destroying evidence of crimes so she would not be exposed to danger.
Wilson’s capability, which had supported the party leader across many fronts, remained without a hint of rust even now, as he looked toward old age.
A butler’s mission was to grasp the point at once when the master gave an order, and produce the best possible result.
To satisfy the demands of the sensitive Irene, he first had to discern what she wanted right now.
‘So this is what was inside the treasure brought from Russia. The item the leader of the Church of Asteroid wanted to trade for.’
What had been hidden inside the golden egg painted white with enamel was a real egg.
He wanted to ask the party leader whether it was truly acceptable to cook the item requested by the Church of Asteroid’s leader, with whom they had to maintain at least an outwardly friendly relationship, but Wilson chose to follow his master’s command without complaint.
The Afternoon Tea Party leader, Irene Adler, was a woman of schemes so deep and strategy so refined that her age of twenty-three was hard to believe.
She had already displayed her genius by rebuilding the Afternoon Tea Party, which had been walking the road to ruin, through outstanding ability.
So this time as well, she clearly had some plan.
Since the Church of Asteroid’s leader did not appear on the scheduled date of the deal, even by the logic of pretext the Afternoon Tea Party would not be put at a disadvantage.
Cooking this and putting it into her stomach would, in and of itself, become a message from the party leader not only to the Church of Asteroid’s leader, but also to the Afternoon Tea Party members.
‘So it means she won’t keep lying flat forever. As expected of the party leader.’
With a single meal, she could send the Church of Asteroid a warning not to take the Afternoon Tea Party lightly.
The Afternoon Tea Party elders too would realize that the new party leader still had not once forgotten the grudge and grace of the previous leader.
It was a performance perfectly suited to fostering internal unity in the Afternoon Tea Party, where, aside from the elders and a small number of direct elite under the party leader, there existed only loose ties.
In other words, the ‘lunch tomorrow’ Irene Adler spoke of meant a meeting held together with the Afternoon Tea Party elders, not a simple meal finished alone as usual.
Wilson immediately called a footman nearby and ordered him to send a telegram.
Now all that remained was to prepare a recipe to suit the party leader’s palate, and consider how to arrange the other dishes around it.
-Clink-
Ringing the bell to summon the chefs, Wilson began the meeting at once.
A chick dish was a rare dish that even famous gourmands, for the most part, had never tasted.
Fortunately, every chef working here at Green Willow Manor, Irene Adler’s estate and the Afternoon Tea Party’s main base, was top-class.
“If it’s a chick, and one that couldn’t even break out of the shell, how about preparing it as Xiangla Maodan.”
After brainstorming over tea time, a usable suggestion finally emerged.
“Xiangla Maodan? I’ve never heard of it.”
“It is a dish that originated in Midfield and spread even to places like the Philippine Governorate. It is an odd food, but its taste is superb.”
“You know the exact recipe, yes?”
“Of course. If Lord Wilson is curious, I will make one at once.”
“Proceed.”
The sous-chef prepared a separate fertilized egg that was close to hatching.
He removed the chick’s beak, legs, and the like, which had not yet formed fully.
He seared the outside crisp, then added garlic and chili and stir-fried it in oil as if deep-frying, throwing in seasonings.
When Wilson took a bite of the finished dish, a sharp, spicy heat spread through his mouth.
The unique texture and flavor, somewhere between meat and egg, was quite striking.
Even the grotesque appearance he had seen when the shell was cracked and the contents removed did not bother him much once it was mixed with chili powder and seasoning.
It was still a dish of divided tastes, true, but at a gathering meant to foster unity, no elder bold enough would try to refuse the menu chosen by the party leader.
“Five portions, including the party leader’s share. We should be able to prepare it without issue.”
“Good. For your information, this egg must be served to the party leader.”
The chefs examined the fertilized egg Wilson handed over, corner to corner.
They too had trained in Kung-Fu in order to master even the preparation of spirit-beast ingredients.
“It appears to be a fertilized egg of a chicken that has completed spirit-beastification.”
They judged that, though the shell was hard, no strong aura could be felt, and thus it was a spirit-beast egg one could obtain easily with money.
“We will obtain similar ingredients and prepare the remaining four portions as well.”
“And take care with the menu composition so the Xiangla Maodan stands out.”
Seeing the chefs nod with eyes shining with motivation, Wilson left the kitchen.
Just then.
-Tok-
It felt as though the egg itself had made a sound.
“…Did I mishear it?”
Wilson tilted his head, then returned to his work as though nothing had happened.
By common sense, it was impossible.
For a chick to awaken from an egg that had been sealed inside a precious metal craftwork for months on end.
The mother had not even been brooding it. There was no way such a thing could happen.
At the same time. Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
Klyuchevskaya, the highest peak among the Kamchatka volcanic group, reaching an elevation of 15,000 feet.
Here, known as Eurasia’s tallest active volcano, two rare birds had made their nest.
The name of these birds, occasionally sighted in Asia and Eastern Europe, was the Vermilion Phoenix.
This spirit beast, born from the energy of heaven and earth, this precious bird born once every several hundred years, had long been worshiped by Midfielders, called by exaggerated titles like divine beast or one of the Four Guardian Gods.
Though it bore the form of a bird, beneath its brilliant red feathers it hid hard scales resembling a reptile’s.
Male or female, its tail feathers shone with dazzling light year-round, and other winged spirit beasts did not dare fly over its head.
A mysterious spirit beast that could blot out a lake when it spread its wings, and once it took flight, would fly without resting for a month until it descended to the ground again. The Vermilion Phoenix.
Like the Azure Dragon whose bones alone were displayed in the British Museum, or the enormous White Tiger whose sightings were sometimes reported, its ecology was still shrouded in secrecy.
If there was one certainty, it was that among those who had tried to capture this enormous winged beast, not a single person had returned alive.
Countless Kung-Fuists had attempted to capture it, yet none could take the Vermilion Phoenix’s flesh and bones.
Among those who, fearless, headed for the volcano’s crater claiming they would catch the Vermilion Phoenix, none returned home safely.
The only exceptions were those who returned because they were terrified, or because they changed their minds.
In the distant past, there was a time when most prideful masters of Midfield insisted the Vermilion Phoenix was nothing more than a product of imagination.
Even knowing the Vermilion Phoenix truly existed, they denied its existence.
No matter how it was revered as a divine beast, it was still merely a winged beast, and if a master of the Kangho, confident he could kill any living thing, could not cut it down, his face would not survive.
But no matter how one controlled public opinion and blocked the flow of information, the truth could not be hidden forever.
When an incident occurred in which the Vermilion Phoenix’s feathers fell onto the roofs of highborn estates and started fires, stories of this mysterious bird gradually began to spread through Midfield and beyond its borders.
Because the Vermilion Phoenix’s habitat was limited to East Asia, Russia, India, and the like, its recognition remained low in Western Europe where none had witnessed it directly, but rumors of the mysterious bird itself had begun to spread quietly since the late nineteenth century.
However, in the tales of the Vermilion Phoenix that spread among the people, whether rumor or eyewitness account, the most important things were missing.
First was the extreme aggressiveness the Vermilion Phoenix displayed under certain conditions.
Second was information about the Vermilion Phoenix’s laying of eggs and rearing of young.
-Kugugugugu!!
The active volcano’s crater shook as the Vermilion Phoenix awakened from a long slumber.
The king and queen of winged beasts, who had made their nest within lava no one could approach, had slept for five whole years to soothe bodies exhausted by mating and laying eggs.
The moment they awoke, they noticed something amiss.
A precious treasure they could have only once in their entire lives, living spans of hundreds of years at the shortest, and over a thousand at the longest.
Namely, the fact that their egg was gone.
Because the Vermilion Phoenix possessed numinous energy and a high intelligence unfitting for a bird, they understood this tragedy even less.
They had certainly fallen asleep five years ago with it cherished under their wings the moment laying was complete.
What method did the intruder use to take the egg from this blazing lava pit?
But their dismay at the sudden tragedy lasted only a moment.
Thanks to the superior instincts engraved into those hot blood vessels, the Vermilion Phoenix immediately thought of a way to find their young.
Within-and-without pecking
When the chick trapped inside the egg taps the shell with its beak, the parent bird hears the sound and pecks the shell from the outside in the same way.
This beautiful process, exerting force from both inside and outside the egg to guide the chick into the world, was creating an invisible link between parent and child through the spirit beast’s intent, so intense it could not be compared to a human’s.
-Hwareuk!-
The direction was decided.
In place of the exhausted female, the male rose over the crater scattering flames, and began flying west, relying on a faint inspiration.
Not by eyes or ears, but solely as intent guided him.
-Piyooo!!!
Those eyes, heading for the young by an unseen signal, were scattering the brutal killing intent they showed when burning the living things that came to the crater.