176: Journal
Auguste looked at me strangely.
“I can’t let it go,” I said.
I was not sure what was going on. Surely I had put the book down before, honestly I was sure I handed It to Milo before, which gave me an idea. Walking over to the counter, I placed the book on it, and as I thought, I could let go.
Looking over to Auguste, “Try now?”
Watching as he reached out to take the book, his hand passed straight through it.
“How unusual. I’ve seen bound items before, but never a book, and certainly never a journal—a journal for someone else at that. I have a lot of questions, and now the cookbook makes me even more curious, but I won’t speak my mind here today.” He looked over at Julia.
“I think it’s best we call it here today, he’s out of mana regardless,” Julia said.
Auguste nodded. “We’ll prepare dinner for everyone tonight. Please just relax, and tomorrow morning we will pick it up again. I’ll teach you some more advanced dishes and techniques.”
“And I’ll teach you some amazing desserts!” Julia said.
I picked the journal up, staring at it in my hand, while reaching over and storing the cookbook without thinking, bringing my mana down to next to nothing.
“Thank you, I think I need to go find Milo anyway. Thank you for the lessons today,” I said.
Looking at Lily and Crisplet, I didn’t need to tell them to follow as I rushed out the door. Both of them were trailing behind me. The first person I encountered was Cameron, who was startled by Lily.
“Cameron, do you know where Milo is?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just staring at Lily, before the familiar voice of Archie came from behind me.
“He’s in the study with Hari currently, sir.”
I didn’t wait, just rushed that way. My mind was racing with what was going on, as it made little sense to me; part of my brain screaming it’s a dangerous cursed item, the other saying it’s just a ridiculously powerful individual running a bookshop for fun.
In my rush, I forgot to knock, bursting into the room with Crisplet and Lily right behind me.
“What’s wrong!” Hari said, jumping to his feet in an instant with his hand on his sword.
Milo didn’t waste any time either, spinning around and already summoning stone in his hands before I even got a word out.
“Oh sorry, wait, it’s nothing bad,” I came into the room, shutting the door behind me as Lily sat by it with Crisplet sticking to my side.
I proceeded to explain the whole day to them, getting to the events with the cookbook where Hari just had a frown on his face.
“He can’t say those things to you,” Hari said.
“It is surprising that the cookbook is exactly the same, including the most recent entry. I wonder if it copies consistently, or if it was a snapshot of the moment you got the book,” Milo said, rubbing his chin.
“You can’t just accuse someone of theft! And certainly not a noble house like that,” Hari said, sounding more and more agitated.
“Do you think they’ll let us test it by writing on a page in the original book and seeing if it appears?” Milo asked, turning to me.
“Milo!” Hari barked.
“Oh, sorry, yeah, they shouldn’t be accusing you and stuff. Are they still here? Could I ask them?” Milo muttered, clearly not listening to much else.
“That’s not the strangest part,” I said.
I explained the rest: how my memory of the shop is all but gone, and I couldn’t tell you where the shop even was now other than in Farnox, and then I got to the journal.
“What exactly do you mean it’s bound to you?” Milo said.
Since it was still in my hands, I just held it out to him. When Milo went to take it, the same thing happened, the book stayed in my hand.
“And look at this,” I said, putting the book on the desk. “Try to take it.”
Hari reached out to take it, where, like in the kitchen, his hand went straight through to the desk.
I immediately had Milo’s full attention.
“How curious! He bound a book to you. Didn’t you get another book from him as well?” Milo asked.
“Two others,” I said, pulling out Events That Formed the Kingdom, and the other, Demonic Invasion? And Who Started It.
Milo reached out, taking the books from my hand, showing they were not bound like the journal, but it seemed Milo was now interested in the contents more.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on NovelFire. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Would you mind if I read one of these?” Milo asked.
I just shrugged. I had read some of the demonic invasion one while we travelled, but honestly, it sounded like both sides got greedy, blamed each other, and it all started over petty nonsense.
“I know they seem fairly mundane by the titles, but I suspect there may be more to these books than meets the eye,” Milo said, already opening it to read.
“Right, back to the accusation,” Hari said.
I just looked between them, exacerbated by both of them being distracted. “Wait a second, we’ve not even discussed the journal. How is it bound to me!”
Milo put the book down for a moment. “How? I wouldn’t even begin to comprehend. We have bound items, obviously, but they, from my knowledge, only come out of dungeons, and are bound once used, so either this journal is an original and has come from a dungeon, where he’s tricked it, or he’s far more powerful than we expect, in which case it’s not something I’m going to be prying into.”
“What about the shop then?” I asked.
“If you recall, even just an hour after you visited, you were unable to give me proper directions, and even when Liane tried to show me, we always just ended up at the market. I would say the shop is found when Morlin wishes for you to find it, and that’s it. These books are likely from his own personal collection,” Milo said.
I was really surprised that he was so calm about all of this.
“So there’s nothing to worry about?” I said, looking at both of them.
“No, I’d say there is absolutely nothing to worry about. What I would say, though, is that all the books he’s given you likely have far more value to them than you would expect, and I would encourage you to read them properly,” Milo said, opening the book back up.
I sat outside on the stairs at the front of the house while Crisplet worked on the tree. Lily had not left me at all today, but the lack of mana was already making me feel exhausted. Every limb felt heavy, and my body felt cold, almost.
I was joined by Liane as the sun went down. She had a similar reaction to Hari with the events of the day, wanting to address it with the chef immediately, saying he was out of line. But she didn’t seem at all surprised about Morlin and the books.
“I assumed something was going on when I couldn’t find it that evening,” she said.
I had dinner, which was cooked by the royal chefs, and it was nice. The food was delicious, but there was something missing. It felt odd having people serve us food that we hadn’t prepared. I really struggled to describe it, but it just felt off.
Despite the chefs cooking something specifically for Lily, she didn’t take a bite at all, just looking at me with sad eyes.
“I know, I’m sorry. I have no mana to infuse anything, even if I did cook something,” I said in a whisper.
***
The next morning I woke up early again, making my way to the kitchen where I joined the three chefs again.
“Good morning, Trevor,” Auguste said, bowing his head.
Julia and Torrel followed suit.
“I will be teaching you until lunch today before passing it off to Julia to teach you some desserts, but let’s talk about a couple of the techniques I will teach you today, and I have a gift for you as a way of apology,” Auguste said as he pulled out a jar with a light brown substance in it that appeared to be full of bubbles.
“What is that?” I said, leaning in to get a good look at it.
“This is a starter culture. It’s used for bread and makes the dough rise. This particular one will also give it a unique flavour. You only need to add a small bit to start your bread, and you can keep this mixture going essentially forever. You just add more flour and keep it in a warm environment when you’ve used some to feed it, and it will keep going,” he explained.
“Feed it? Is it alive?” I asked, looking at the jar in a new light.
“It’s not a slime monster if that’s where your mind is going. You worked at the inn, right? It’s similar to what they use for beer and spirits,” he said.
“Oh! Like I used on my rum?” I said happily, being reminded that we needed to deal with that. It was ready to go.
“You have rum?” Auguste asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not yet, but soon,” I said, and then I was reminded of the bacon I was curing.
“Actually, there is something you might be able to help me with. I am curing some bacon and wondering if there are any methods of speeding up the process of curing it?” I said.
“Boar bacon should only take you less than a week to cure. I imagine the cost of trying to speed that up would far outweigh any gains you make from a shorter cure time,” he said.
Rather than try to explain it, I stored the starter culture away, surprised that it went in despite technically being alive, as I started to walk towards the butchery room.
“Follow me this way. I need to show you something,” I said.
Entering the butchery room, Crisplet by my side with the three chefs just behind me, I made my way over to where the stone vessels held the three massive curing pieces of meat.
“These three here are holding pieces of belly to cure into bacon,” I explained.
Auguste seemed to be a bit lost for words as he opened and closed his mouth several times. It was Torrel who spoke up.
“What exactly are you turning into bacon here?”
“One is the belly of a titan boar, and two are drakes,” I explained.
“Drake…” Auguste muttered.
“I was told it could take months to cure the belly of a creature that size, and that the chefs might have a method to speed up the ageing process,” I carried on.
“You’re making drake bacon, that size… It’s larger than we are, combined.” Auguste finally said.
“Yes, I’m trying to, if for no other reason than Lily will love it, but I’m sure Liane will eat it too,” I smiled.
Auguste seemed to take a moment to compose himself. “Well, yes, there are methods to speed up an ageing process, though it’s mostly used in liquor, not in food, due to the cost. The two methods that I know of are a storage ring that works the opposite, amusingly called ‘faulty storage devices’ by the system. They come from dungeons, and their time changes can vary drastically. These are very expensive and purchased by breweries as soon as they appear.”
“I see. I don’t think I’d fit those bellies in a storage ring anyway. They are quite large,” I said.
“Then you have runes. This would be the most likely outcome for you, having a master runescribe who specialises in time, who would come out here and craft a rune into the stone for you. The problem is, they are highly sought after and the runes are not permanent, so you pay a small fortune for their services,” Auguste said, sounding rather annoyed at it.
“Ah, okay then. Is there someone with that skill in the city?” I asked.
Auguste nodded. “Several, but good luck getting them to do work for you. They even refuse the royal family from time to time.”
That was okay. It was just good to know that these options existed, so if learning from Sylverith didn’t work, I could look into a runescribe for the drakes. I didn’t think we’d be short on funds soon, if the conversation with Reginald was anything to go by.