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The aroma was tantalizing.

Catherine’s eyes sparkled.

It was heavy, yet there was a rich tang to it.

It was undoubtedly tomato.

Such freshness couldn’t have come from vinegar with a sharp bite.

Then, it must have been a stew that was simmered.

It was hard to deny that it had become rare these days to find a dish without tomatoes.

Whether raw or cooked, the umami was so distinctive that it had endless versatility.

Salads eaten for digestion or as a palate cleanser were a given.

When making stock, stew, or gravy, it was almost essential.

There were countless dishes where one would think tomatoes wouldn’t be included, yet they often found their way in even in small amounts.

Squirm-

Suddenly, Mary’s brow furrowed fiercely, radiating an air of discomfort.

“Uh? Why suddenly? Oh, don’t tell me again?”

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Swish! She quickly organized the items in her hands and briskly walked to the office, bursting through the door.

“Just as I thought.”

In front of the office stood Karem and Gordon, Catherine’s guest.

And as she had predicted, Karem was holding a large copper pot with a lid, its ladle nestled inside.

And Gordon.

He held a great chunk of cheese with two large forks and was lifting a pot topped with a grater with both hands.

“I mentioned it so many times, but this time you lured a guest from the tower—”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t bring plates or tableware. How could I forget that after all this time? Besides, the food for the other mages is still there, so just take as much as you want and come back!”

“Hmm, if that’s the case…”

It was slightly unsettling.

But it was tolerable at this level.

Mary shot a piercing glance at Karem before bowing politely to Gordon as if to say “when did that happen” and left the office, disappearing shortly after.

“So, about that.”

Gordon, who had followed Karem into the office while blinking blankly, was puzzled.

“Why was the reaction over there so sharp just now?”

“Just a moment, I brought lunch, and she felt her workload vanish.”

“Shouldn’t one typically be happy if their work decreases?”

“They say she’s a house fairy and a workaholic.”

“What? The average for house fairies?”

Catherine, who had been alternating her gaze between the two pots with anticipation, shook her hands decisively.

“No, no, even if the average house fairy is obsessed with work, they wouldn’t become so twisted over losing a task. Just think of her as an exception.”

“Well, you’d have to have seen one to say that.”

“With your experience, you should’ve seen one at least once?”

“Well, I might’ve just mistaken them for an employed elf.”

Gordon set the pot down on the guest table and sat next to Catherine, lightly sifting through his memories.

He had seen various servants or maids from different races wearing diverse styles throughout the great continent of Europa.

Humans, dwarfs, gnomes were the basics, alongside occasionally rare minorities, and sometimes even demons, as well as, of course, elves.

“There may have been one or two house fairies among the elves I passed by.”

“Well, it’s hard to tell the two races apart at first glance.”

“Yeah, they do look quite similar to elves.”

“But why is lunch being served in the office today—ah.”

Catherine raised her thumb from her fist and pointed behind her.

Various documents made of different materials had piled up into small towers and hills on the desk where Catherine had been seated just moments ago.

“It’s the time of year when papers from every which way start to flood in before winter.”

“It seems there’s more than usual this time to finish in one go, huh?”

“Well, if it were just existing work, that would be one thing. I’m also starting a few businesses, you see.”

“Businesses?”

“Cold resistance potions, vanilla, oil from the territory, and so on.”

Pop—

Mary’s voice announcing her arrival came from outside the office.

She entered with a tray that had plates, cutlery, and pink turnip pickles.

As Mary began setting the tableware, Karem opened the lid immediately.

A hot cloud of vapor, concentrated with the flavors of mushrooms, tomatoes, and beef, rushed up and dissipated before touching the ceiling, spreading widely.

And Catherine looked slightly flustered.

On one side was pasta. The widest pappardelle.

It seemed to glisten as if it had been tossed in oil.

Then naturally, on the other side, there was the sauce… that is, it should be…

A distinct, sour aroma packed with umami clearly told of the tomatoes being included.

However, what was inside was only ground meat.

The ground meat was so full of red that it was hard to see it as sauce.

“What on earth did you make?”

“Huh? What do you mean? It’s pasta. The wide noodles. Pappardelle.”

“No, I meant the sauce. This is just meat porridge, right? Did you make meat porridge by throwing in tomatoes and spices?”

“Huh? It’s… meat sauce, I mean.”

She almost let ‘ragu’ slip out.

A sauce named stew sauce? What kind of naming is that?

Anyone could tell that the change of topic was overly obvious, but Catherine was so focused on the awkward wording that she didn’t realize it herself.

Sauce.

A liquid used to enhance the flavor and color of a dish.

No, it’s more than just a liquid; it’s a type of seasoning.

Yet this did not appear to be seasoning at all?

Seasoning should essentially blend with the ingredients.

But this.

While it smelled appetizing, it was meat porridge.

Not seasoning, but a dish by itself.

Let alone the pasta was separately served as if the cooking was left unfinished.

What? Am I supposed to mix pasta into meat porridge?

“Oh ho ho ho ho. If you do that now, you’ll regret it later.”

Gordon chuckled heartily, shaking his head as if to say that wasn’t it.

“I almost ended up devouring the pot whole when you said to taste it, you know?”

“It looks like red meat porridge, but the aroma definitely stands out.”

“I’ll bet you—this tastes even better than it smells.”

As Gordon smacked his lips describing the taste to Catherine, Karem got to work.

With a large fork, he plunged into the pot.

He gently lifted the noodles, twisting them around the ladle.

The shiny, wide pappardelle noodles clung to the fork like a beam of light winding in one direction.

At first, the noodles clung to the fork, spinning like whirlpools of light in one spot, but then they grew in size, like a school of fish in disarray.

With noodles rolled up to slightly over an adult’s fist in size, Karem tossed them onto the plate and promptly grabbed the ladle submerged in the sauce.

Plop. Swish—

Normally, the overflowing sauce would have spilled down.

However, instead of spilling, the ladle was brimming with sauce, making it hard to call it a proper ladleful.

The amount was substantial just by looking.

The traces of sauce that had stuck to the pot’s wall became apparent.

What was once liquid had visibly solidified into clumps of meat.

Almost immediately, without even bouncing back, the pot’s surface left a hollow where the ladle had gone in, slowly being filled back in the way quicksand fills a pit.

To be honest, the sight of the red liquid seeping amidst the clumps of finely minced meat, in a semi-liquid state of ladle and pot, was hardly appetizing by any measure.

But the smell.

The heavy aroma of beef was intertwined with a fresh scent.

Having only just scooped it up, an unseen chunk of umami had begun to fill Catherine’s mouth with saliva.

And then—a plop!

Plop! Plop! Plop!

Three consecutive sounds.

As the ladle filled with meat sauce spilled down, the previously added meat sauce flowed over and completely covered the noodles on the plate.

Snapped out of her daze by the sounds and sight, Catherine found her eyes twitching naturally as the scene came into view.

“Hmm, so how do I feed this to you?”

“Just mix it up and eat it.”

“With a fork and a spoon, I assume? Then.”

“A-ah! Wait a moment!”

Karem quickly stopped Mary, who was lifting the utensils.

He realized he had forgotten perhaps the most important thing.

He swiftly grabbed cheese and a grater and began to grate it over Catherine’s plate.

Scrape scrape scrape scrape scrape scrape!

With every forward and backward motion, the cheese noticeably dwindled.

Long snowflakes piled up on the dish submerged in the ragu, starting to melt slowly under the heat, but soon became piled higher with freshly grated cheese.

Mary locked eyes with Karem, who had grated cheese.

Reading a positive signal, she promptly began to move her previously relaxed hand.

Following Karem’s intent, Mary began to mix the pasta.

The pure white hill looked as if it would soon be corrupted by gluttonous red spreading over it.

The meat sauce, already lacking moisture, now began to siphon off the little water it had, as the mixed cheese invaded its purity.

“Hmm, it’s quite thick. Is there a reason it’s made this way?”

“I concentrated the flavors to the extreme by drying out the moisture to the limit.”

“Hmm, that’s not quite what I meant, though.”

Nonetheless, as the pasta seemed like it might not mix, the more she mixed it, the more the sauce and noodles intertwined through the cheese until it finally became a somewhat visually pleasing sight for Catherine.

Catherine soon noticed the changes.

The smell of the pasta had transformed.

The thick, tangy aroma of condensed tomatoes and rich beef scent.

Amidst that, a subtle but rich cheese aroma emerged.

Catherine took a deep breath, filling her now empty stomach solely with the scent.

With a clean fork, Mary scraped off the clump of meat sauce and cheese stuck between the inside of the bowl and began to twirl the pasta.

Thanks to the sauce and cheese, the pasta had long lost its shine.

Moreover, due to the thickness particular to pappardelle, there wasn’t much of the noodles to cling to the fork.

However, the wide noodles that couldn’t be found in any other pasta began to envelop the meat sauce, preventing it from escaping.

“Indeed. The moisture in the sauce has been drained, hence the use of the widest pappardelle.”

“Probably because the sauce is too thick for the noodles to blend in.”

“It just needs to coat the noodles thoroughly; with a bit less moisture loss, wouldn’t that do the trick?”

“Oh, let’s just try it.”

Karem confidently raised his head and smiled.

“I’m currently feeling the limit of my patience; can’t you just eat quickly?”

Gordon spoke restlessly, unable to tear his gaze away from the mound of grated cheese atop the meat sauce spaghetti.

“Strangely enough, hearing that makes me want to savor it a bit longer.”

“But I’m a guest, shouldn’t the host let me enjoy?”

“Could it be that you’re trying to eat first before even the host has had a chance? No way?”

“Damn it! I can’t even argue that!”

Gordon’s mouth had dried up, feeling faint but trembling.

Yet, his expression remained stiff, seemingly fixated on the pasta as if he wouldn’t yield to eating it first.

Thinking she must put an end to this before the guest truly acted rudely, Catherine finally nodded to Mary to signal her.

Catherine opened her mouth to insert the pasta, which felt as if it might vanish while fully grasped by the cheese and meat sauce.

 

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