Chapter 82
Chapter 82. Royal Culinary Competition (2)
Two weeks after the culinary competition announcement was posted.
A letter arrived for Y&P Trading Company informing them that they had passed the 1st preliminary round and were invited to participate in the finals.
Penelope was overjoyed, though Jurgen had half-expected it.
How many documents had he processed and managed during his years as Minister of Internal Affairs, cracking under Lily's whip?
It would not be an exaggeration to say that his document-writing ability had reached nearly the level of art.
Now, something here that ought not to be surprising.
This competition goes straight from the 1st preliminary document screening directly to the finals.
Once the 12 chefs who passed the document screening have their one go at it, the Royal Warrant recipient is decided then and there.
The finals were to be held in Albion, the capital, so the two of them boarded a train bound for Albion.
Clack clack clack clack.
And so the train was leisurely crossing a meadow of wild grass stretching as far as the eye could see.
White steam was scattering across the beautiful scenery, as though one were traversing the inside of a landscape painting.
The seats they had reserved were first class, in the front row of the dining car.
It had been a while since either of them had ridden, and it was decidedly worth the price.
Privacy partitions were erected between each seat, and the cushions affixed to the seats were of the finest quality.
With only 4 first-class seats per carriage, the space was generous as well.
"Quite nice, isn't it. Don't you think, Penelope."
"……"
"Penelope?"
"Hm, what? What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything in particular."
"Right."
Penelope was a little off today.
How to put it — unusually quiet?
She wasn't the talkative sort to begin with, but with nothing particularly to do inside the train, she had been maintaining silence throughout.
"Has something happened? You seem like your mind is elsewhere today."
Apart from being rather more done up than usual — perhaps because they were heading to the capital — she looked the same as ever……
Jurgen tilted his head and looked at Penelope.
"……Not really."
But Penelope had her own reasons for this.
It was all Serena's fault.
In truth, she hadn't thought anything of it until just before boarding the train.
She had been filled with anticipation, if anything.
The document screening had passed more smoothly than expected, so there was an anticipation that the Seasoned Chicken would yield results in the finals where 'taste' would be judged.
But……
'I, I can't go……'
'You can't go? Why?'
'I hate the capital. I'm not going! I'm simply not going! You two go without me!'
Serena's declaration of non-participation — that she would not go to the capital even with a blade at her throat.
It ended up being just the two of them, Jurgen and Penelope alone, going to the capital Albion (strictly speaking Vic was along too, but Vic wasn't a person so that didn't count).
When that was decided, she hadn't thought anything of it.
Not until the night before, when Serena's words from the summer vacation came back to her.
'You and Jurgen…… weren't you in a romantic relationship?'
An absurd thing to say. A pointless thing. A ridiculous thing.
She had no idea, even now, why those words had come back to her.
Actually — she might have some idea.
Because in noble society, a man and woman travelling alone together was the sort of thing that only happened between romantic partners!
But then, it became all the more puzzling.
'But we're not in a romantic relationship anyway.'
She had sorted through her thoughts on that before.
Whatever the world might think, the feeling Penelope held for Jurgen was nothing more than possessiveness.
Was there really any need to suddenly be self-conscious about those words?
Strictly speaking, it wasn't even the first time they'd travelled alone together.
Not long after they first met, they had entered the Labyrinth Demon Realm together.
What was different between then and now?
Back then, Jurgen was simply a person who made a mysterious beverage.
But now……
'Why not try trusting in yourself for once, Lady Penelope?'
The moment he trusted Penelope when no one else would.
'No need to give up. I have a plan up my sleeve.'
The moment he held her back when she wanted to run.
'Hmm, I think I might get jealous.'
The moment he answered when she asked how it would feel if she only stayed close with Serena.
The sofa where she rested easily in the townhouse. The metasequoia-lined avenue where they drove together. The white sandy beach that was searingly hot yet beautiful.
Every moment floated up like soap bubbles, pop pop, mixing together in her head.
Things that hadn't been there then. Things that are there now.
Things she didn't know then. Things she knows now.
"Uuu……"
It was difficult.
Far too difficult.
It felt like solving a magic problem stuffed full of pointless formulas in the name of building discernment.
"Uuuuuu……"
"……?"
Penelope groaned, wrestling with her troubled thoughts.
***
Screee!
With the hiss of steam announcing the end of the journey, the steam locomotive came to a halt.
Albion Central Station.
Its nickname was the Cathedral of Steel and Glass.
Looking at the structure built from tens of thousands of panes of clear glass and enormous steel frames, one could not help but nod in agreement at the name.
Beneath the dome-shaped ceiling, dozens of trains disgorged vast numbers of people without distinction of class — from laborers to senior officials.
It was a grandeur that would make Nortaris Central Station look shabby — and yet.
"We've arrived."
"It's been a while since I've been here too."
Penelope and Jurgen both reacted plainly.
They had both been here before.
Penelope during her university years, and Jurgen — having carried out various missions — had passed through this station more times than he could count.
With that in mind, there was something worth bearing in mind.
The Polymorph Potion was not all-powerful.
There was no shortage of people who, upon seeing Jurgen, might think 'Hm? Doesn't that look like Hanbin, who went missing?'
A certain degree of caution was warranted.
Those who knew Hanbin of the Secret Burial Unit were almost none — but.
Those who knew Hanbin the hero of the Great Subjugation, Hanbin the Chair Professor at Albion Royal University, Hanbin the Minister of Internal Affairs — were far, far too many.
Whenever possible, it was necessary to avoid stepping into the spotlight.
And so, from the moment they stepped off the train, all of it fell to Penelope — hailing a carriage, stopping by City Hall to register for the competition finals, collecting the key to the practice kitchen.
"I feel like I've become your manservant."
"I appreciate your help. My body's been a bit under the weather. Cough, cough."
"A summer cold? That's unusual. You're not usually one for little ailments."
Now then — what was a practice kitchen?
The competition itself was proceeding at a breakneck pace, but it was still an official royal event.
Three days remained until the finals.
The Royal Supply Committee had leased out nearby restaurants and made their kitchens available for the participants to use.
The idea was for them to get some cooking and practice done here — a sort of formality, in other words.
"Is this the place?"
"Looks like it."
And so what was provided to Y&P Trading Company was a restaurant by the name of 'Odéon.'
It was a fine stone building located on the fashionable 'Aria Boulevard,' between the opera house and the Royal Art Museum.
Incidentally, the area around Aria Boulevard had a great many upscale restaurants.
Noble townhouses were clustered densely nearby, and being close to City Hall and the Grand Palace, senior officials were plentiful as well.
Thinking of how fine dining establishments are concentrated in Gangnam in Korea might make it easier to understand.
Of course, in Jurgen's experience, most of them tasted terrible.
It would be more accurate to say they were preoccupied not with taste, but with how rare the ingredients were, how much (pointless) effort had gone into them, and how visually spectacular they appeared.
How many headaches had he suffered seeing dishes like 'deep-fried whiskers of a giant prawn from such-and-such sea, rolled in gold leaf' being presented as a signature item.
"Now that I look at it, it really is laughable. To think a place like this has three White Pearls."
"Have you been here before?"
"I used to come occasionally for social gatherings."
"Ah, come to think of it, Albion Royal University was also somewhere around this area."
"……You know quite a lot about Albion?"
That was a little careless.
The moment he said it without thinking, Penelope had smoothly tilted her head in and pressed the point.
"I, I used to work in the area."
"Hmm…………"
Penelope's eyes, slightly flushed at the corners from her eye makeup, curved gently in a look of suspicion.
"Well, it's not the most important thing right now."
Unexpectedly, she didn't press it persistently.
It was a thought he'd been having occasionally of late — perhaps Penelope, like Serena, had guessed Jurgen's true identity to some degree.
Given Penelope's surprisingly perceptive nature, it was possible she was simply choosing to close her eyes to it and let it be.
"Anyway, we're preparing here, is that it? Though is there really much to prepare? Our recipe is already established, after all."
"I was thinking we might try putting together a sauce or a side dish together."
"Do you have something in mind?"
"Of course. To start with……"
Chatting about this and that as they entered, they stepped into the kitchen of Restaurant Odéon.
"……Wow……"
"My goodness………"
Penelope and Penelope could not conceal their shock at what was inside.
Because it was a kitchen in a three-White-Pearl restaurant in the most expensive real estate in Britannia — surely packed wall to wall with cutting-edge equipment and cooking instruments!
……As if.
"This is…… this is the kitchen of a restaurant that claims to be the finest in Britannia……?"
First of all: cramped.
The number of tables differed, sure, but compared to the CCC kitchen…… no, even that comparison would be an insult to CCC.
It was roughly the same size as the kitchen Jurgen had put in at the townhouse.
And were the cooking implements good?
No.
Ductwork was present, but the burners were caked with rust.
There was an oven and a hearth, but they hadn't been used in so long that instead of soot, a thick layer of dust clung to them.
The only thing this kitchen had cared for was the liquor display.
"No deep fryer either…… we'll have to use a thermometer."
"If anything, that's a good sign. If we come to the capital in the future, these are the competitors we'd be up against, aren't they."
The kitchen was in a truly pitiful state, but it wasn't a major problem.
To win this competition, all they needed to do was present the most delicious dish among 12 teams of chefs in the Britannia Kingdom.
In other words: genuinely easy.
"Well, let's give it a go. Vic, could you take out the ingredients?"
[Roger that!]
Vic reached into the bag and began placing ingredient after ingredient onto the counter.
They were just about to begin cooking in earnest.
"Hello there!"
Someone came bursting in with a tremendously loud greeting.
A woman with chestnut hair braided in two plaits draped forward over her chest — the impression she gave was extraordinarily energetic.
She looked even younger than Penelope, and was wearing an apron of the sort maids might wear.
"……Who are you?"
Having come clattering in and nearly tripped at the threshold, she swayed and steadied herself, then greeted them with a bright expression.
"Oh! I was just about to introduce myself! Nice to meet you all! I'm a finalist in this Royal Culinary Competition! Chef Brigitte! Please take care of me! Oh wait, what are your names?"
"I'm Penelope."
"Jurgen."
And she had an extraordinarily high energy level on top of it.
One might say she possessed approximately three times the usual volume and energy of Serena.
"So — you came all the way here just to introduce yourself?"
"No! Ah, were you not given any guidance?"
"Guidance?"
"Two teams of finalists share one kitchen — so you and I are what you'd call kitchen-mates! Ta-da!"
Brigitte pulled out the key to Restaurant Odéon and gave it a little shake.
"What in the world……. Are royal events always this haphazard?"
"So it seems."
Sharing a kitchen with one's competition.
What were they thinking, doing something like this — what if someone stole a recipe?
One could only call it very much Britannia, a kingdom with no interest in gastronomy……
This Royal Culinary Competition — something felt as though one screw had come loose.
"Regardless! Therefore! Please take care of me!"
As though none of that mattered in the slightest, Brigitte gave a cheerful salute.
***
Rangill Barony.
A traditional central noble family of some renown, built upon a prosperous silver mining business.
……At least, that was how they could once have proudly introduced themselves.
But no longer.
After the Demon Realm business, the landscape had shifted entirely.
With the once-unstable North stabilized following the monster outbreaks, Marquis Ashford — who had a firm grip on Nortaris's mining industry — had established massive quantities of new silver mines.
The Barony had been completely priced out of the market in terms of competitiveness.
'The Rangill Barony? Haven't they run their course?'
'Spending your surplus without reinvesting it — that's how you end up like the Rangill family.'
'It's rather galling to watch them stiffen their necks as though they're still traditional nobility.'
Being mocked by utterly trivial people like this had become a daily occurrence.
"You have to know something before you can shoot your mouth off."
Baron Rangill had not sat idly by watching the family fortune decline.
He had ventured into new businesses and tried this and that in an attempt to revive the family.
He had simply been unlucky, and everything had ended in failure.
But at last, an opportunity had arrived.
"A Royal Warrant……"
Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been something he wouldn't dare dream of.
A Royal Warrant was a battlefield of all manner of high-flying enterprises and the nobles who sponsored them.
Even in the family's heyday, let alone now that its fortunes had declined — there had been not the slightest room for them.
But this time was different.
Genuinely different!
The 'culinary' category — something no one in Britannia had paid the slightest attention to.
The competition was incomparably looser than any other category.
In fact, Baron Rangill had successfully passed the document screening and advanced to the finals.
He had cleared what was, in his estimation, the most difficult hurdle.
"Can I trust you, Auguste."
"You may place your complete trust in me, Baron Rangill."
Baron Rangill, anxiously turning his ring over and over, addressed the man standing before him in a chef's coat.
Even Baron Rangill, who had been uneasy, felt a sense of reassurance in that confidence.
And understandably so.
Auguste was the mercenary Baron Rangill had gone so far as to dispatch a private airship to bring in with the utmost care.
"A culinary competition where the opponents are Britannia chefs who wouldn't know fine dining if it bit them. Hardly more than a one-bite dessert."
He was not from Britannia — he was the Head Chef of the finest restaurant in the Bellua Republic.