Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included. 045

Transition to Another World, Land Mines Included.

ACT 2: UNION
045: Secret(?) Sauce

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The plate held a little bit of what looked like a thick sauce. The color was nearly black, but it looked a little like a sauce I liked in my previous life. We took turns to dip a finger into the sauce and gave it a taste.

“…Delicious.”

“Yes. It’s really deep and rich…”

“Yeah, it’s really so tasty!”

Aera frowned.

“Really? I think it usually tastes much better. I can’t get a lot of the ingredients here, so the one I can make in my hometown is much more delicious. Of course, nothing can beat the sauce my mother makes.”

It was unbelievable. This sauce tasted exactly like a commercial sauce, produced and sold by a company with years of research to make it as tasty as possible.

And while it might not be universally loved, nor would it sell like crazy back in Japan, it was a taste that would garner a loyal fan base. With a strong sweetness and mellow sourness, plus a fruity aroma that pierces through your nose. Judging by its deep flavor, it was probably made with lots of spices, but that was also one of the reasons why it tasted so good.

It was definitely one of the most delicious seasonings I’d tasted since transitioning to this world.

“Do you have lots of this?” Natsuki asked.

“No, since I make it only for my own consumption. I can’t finish it if I make a lot.”

Aera hadn’t thought of using it in her professional cooking, since it was a sauce unique to elves, and also because she always thought of it as a homecooked dish.

“But I’m sure this will sell well?” Yuki urged.

“Maybe, since Yuki-san and Natsuki-san seem to like it?”

“Can you teach us how to make the sauce, please? To be honest, I’d love to make it for myself, but if it’s a family secret, then I understand,” Natsuki said.

“Oh no, there’s nothing secret about it. All elven families make it themselves at home… Well, most families do.”

Aera said with a dubious glance at me, no doubt because I’d never heard of the sauce before. I mean, I’m not a real elf, but she had nothing to worry about from me.

“Well, that means I’ll have to go prepare more Inspeel sauce now,” she continued.

“…Sorry to give you more work,” I apologized.

“No problem. I’ll save some for you all too,” Aera offered.

“Thank you~~~! I’m so glad we came here!” Yuki gushed happily.

“I should be the one thanking everyone, since you took the time to come here! And I’m glad to hear that you like my Inspeel sauce,” Aera said with a happy smile.

It was just like how my grandmother used to make miso at her house. All the relatives loved it, and I remembered how she would make big bags of it and send it to all of us every year.

“So, to make Inspeel sauce, you need to ferment some fruits or vegetables. You can use them whole, but it’ll be quicker to cut them into smaller pieces if you’re in a hurry,” Aera started to explain.

“Can we use any fruit or vegetable we like?” Natsuki asked.

“Yes, as long as it’s plant-based. Most families have their preferences. For my family, we even toss in the ends of vegetables. Some families add in nuts as well, but I won’t recommend it. I mean, it’ll be delicious if you get it right, but it’s hard to do so.”

Hmm, the recipe for the sauce sounded more flexible than I’d imagined. I wondered how much that would affect the taste.

“I recommend using fruit peels, the parts that we usually throw away, since they add to the aroma. After that, we add in any spices we want.”

“Erm… So the sweetness of the sauce comes from fruits?”

“No, the sweetness comes from the potatoes. The sauce I make is on the sweet side. Some families make it without any sweetness at all. There’s just so many variations of Inspeel sauce.”

“Potatoes… So the starch in it is broken down into sugars?” Natsuki whispered, seeming surprised.

Most sweet sauces I knew of derived their sweetness from the addition of dates, but this sauce was different. In the past, people used to use the enzyme amylase to turn starch into sugars. Was this something similar?

“If you can make this sauce quickly, you should be able to start selling the cutlet sandwich Nao-kun mentioned earlier. What do you think?” Natsuki asked.

“It’ll take about a week, but it’s easy to make lots, but I’m worried about the quality. Will it be good enough to sell?”

Since the sauce was made from fermented fruits and vegetables, the availability and quality of these ingredients would greatly affect the flavor. Furthermore, the aroma of the sauce would be diminished without fruit, so Aera would have to plan ahead and make more in autumn to stock up for the winter months.

In other words, if she wanted to use the sauce in her cafe dishes, she really needed to have a large stock.

“And to make more, I’ll need lots of money to buy fruits, especially if they are not in season… Back in my hometown, I could just go to the forest and pick them,” Aera sighed.

“Yeah, fruits are expensive if you buy them from the market.”

Fruit in this world were really expensive, even more than in Japan, where fruit was already more pricey compared to most other countries around the world. If Aera wanted to use fruits in her cooking, it would end up costing a lot of money. If she were making it for herself, she could just use fruit peels and vegetable off-cuts, but to make a large stock, she’d definitely need to buy vegetables specifically to make it.

“How about using Dindle? Nao-kun, is it out of season already?” Natsuki suggested.

“Well, there may be some still left on the trees… What do you think, Aera-san?”

“Dindle…? I did pick them sometimes back in my hometown. They’re delicious,” Aera spoke in a soft voice, as if remembering the taste of the fruit.

“Can you use it to make Inspeel sauce?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s really tasty too, but the Dindle fruit sold in this city are really expensive, right?”

Yes, really expensive. That was why we’d made such a great profit.

“Shall we go pick them, then? We’ve been harvesting them daily up till a few days ago, but I’m sure there are still some left,” I said.

“Erm, can we do that? But I can’t fight…”

Aera looked a little hesitant. Yuki frowned as well.

“Nao, if we all go together, there’ll be four of us. Will we be OK without Tohya and Haruka?”

But with Natsuki’s skill with the spear, I was sure we’d be fine even if we encountered any Goblins. A Vype Bear might be tough without Tohya, but we wouldn’t be that unlucky, right…? I hoped I didn’t jinx ourselves just by thinking about it.

“I think we’ll be fine,” I ventured.

However, Natsuki shot me down immediately.

“I think we should consult with Haruka first…”

Wait? Did she not trust me at all? How depressing.

“I see… In that case, we’ll consult with Haruka, and if she’s OK, we’ll close the cafe tomorrow and go harvesting. How about that?” I compromised.

“I don’t mind… There aren’t any customers here anyway. Do you mind coming with me?” Aera asked.

“Of course not. We have a couple of days’ time to kill, anyway,” Natsuki assured her.

With that, we wrapped up our discussion. We then stayed for a little longer, chatting over some desserts Aera served up, then left her cafe at about noon.

Natsuki and I decided to return to our inn, while Yuki accompanied Aera to see the carpenter. It would be easier with her there to explain how the signboards should be made.

Besides, Yuki wanted to get to know the carpenter, so we could contract him to work on our house once we rented a place. According to her, it was important to establish ourselves as friends of Aera, since she’d been such a lucrative customer.

I really had to admire her way of thinking.

~

“Inspeel sauce. Was it delicious?”

“Yeah. It’s apparently a staple in elf homes. Aera-san’s sauce tastes a little like a familiar sauce I’ve tasted at a fast food place back in Japan, maybe a little sweeter, and with more spices,” I explained.

“That’s amazing!? Maybe we can use that to make sauce tonkatsu (pork cutlet)! That’ll be so much better than salted tonkatsu,” Tohya said in excitement.

It was evening, and we were all gathered to report on our day’s activities. Out of us all, Tohya seemed the most happy to hear about Inspeel sauce, probably because of the possibility of making tonkatsu.

“But the ingredients used to make the sauce are different, so the taste will vary greatly. Though it sounds a little strange that she uses potatoes to add sweetness,” Haruka continued.

That was because the potatoes used weren’t sweet like sweet potatoes, but the starchy flavorless type. However, that also meant that we could use any type of potato we found at the market to make the sauce.

“It could be because the starches are broken down into sugars, but since the sauce is fermented at room temperature, it wouldn’t be the work of enzymes. Maybe it’s yeast instead?” Natsuki mused.

“But the fruits and vegetables have to be completely broken down in a week’s time, even with the addition of spices, so it’s more likely a blend of bacteria.”

“Spices… I see, so the addition of spices would impede the action of bacteria and yeast?”

I guess that was why people rubbed spices on food meant for long-term storage.

“Of course there are bacteria who thrive well under those conditions, but I’m sure the bacteria used to ferment Inspeel sauce must be a tough variety,” Haruka guessed.

“I agree… Yeast needs two or three days to ferment rice into malt. Then, water is added and the temperature adjusted, and it takes another half a day to break the starches into sugars. For the bacteria in Inspeel sauce to mostly ferment vegetables over a week’s time, it must be really hardy,” Natsuki added.

“Maybe it works best under room temperature, but I imagine it’ll have a tough time with pesticides if it lives out in the wild,” Yuki said.

“There must be some conditions it needs to thrive, maybe something like an anaerobic environment.”

“It’s also quite a smooth sauce even without straining, so there must be a cellulolytic bacteria involved too. Otherwise, it won’t be able to break down the stringy parts of the vegetables.”

“Yes, there must be a well-balanced bacterial culture at play.”

“Maybe that’s why Aera-san said that she needed to start making the sauce immediately.”

The three girls were involved in a super intelligent conversation. Personally, the only part I understood was that amylase could break starch into sugars?

“Come on, this is a fantasy world. Someone else is doing the hard work and making delicious sauce for us. We don’t need to think so hard about it, right?”

“Shut up, you!!”

It was just like Tohya to jump in and kill the discussion. The three girls looked at him with bemused expressions.

“Tohya… It’s important to understand the logic behind things, even for magic.”

“Well, I can’t use magic anyway, that’s why I went for the brawny character design.”

“That’s really disappointing, Tohya!?”

How blunt. Even Yuki seemed surprised, but I sort of understood what Tohya meant. Rather than have him come up with weird ideas, our party would be much more well-balanced if he focused on physical training to keep us protected.

“Whatever. So, you guys want to go harvest Dindle. I can’t make it tomorrow, though… How about you, Tohya?”

“I can’t as well. I have bright prospects tomorrow…”

“So it’s Nao, Yuki, Natsuki, and Aera-san…? I knew we should have ordered some chain mail for you girls once we got back here,” Haruka sighed.

We’d decided to hold off on getting armor for Yuki and Natsuki as we’d expected to have a few days off to relax. Therefore, the two girls were still in cheap clothes, and armed with only one spear.

“I can lend my armor to Yuki. Natsuki, will it be tough for you to wear Tohya’s stuff?” Haruka asked.

Tohya and I were about 180 cm tall, while Natsuki was slightly above 165 cm, and Haruka was even shorter. However, Yuki was the smallest, standing at around 155 cm.

Furthermore, Tohya and I had totally different builds, and the same went for the three girls as well. Thus, it would be difficult for us to swap armor just based on height alone, especially for chain mail, which were made to fit our bodies closely.

“Maybe I’ll wear Tohya’s armor, and Natsuki can wear mine?” I suggested.

“Hmm, I don’t think it’ll be a good fit either way… But we can try.”

And so, we tried swapping armors. I realized once again that there was a big difference between Tohya and I, with regards to shoulder width and chest size. And while the pieces weren’t so loose as to fall off, I definitely couldn’t do any quick movements in them. Maybe I just needed some rope to tighten things up.

“This fits me surprisingly well,” Natsuki said, now dressed in my chain mail.

While I was taller, I guess I was also slimmer as an elf, so even the chest area of my chain mail fitted Natsuki quite nicely.

“Mine’s a little tight around the chest,” Yuki piped up.

“Is it uncomfortable?” Haruka asked.

“Not really. I think I can wear it for a day.”

Yuki had put on Haruka’s chain mail, though it didn’t fit as well since Haruka was super slender. The chest area… Did look a little tight? To be safe, I chose not to comment.

“As for weapons… Yuki, you’ve got Pole Skill, right?” Haruka asked.

“Yep, from this morning’s training.”

“But Tohya’s sword is of better quality. Do you think you can use it?”

“Even with the Skill, she probably can’t wield it the way I can, because of our height difference,” Tohya commented.

“Agreed! Besides, it’s too heavy!” Yuki added.

The height difference between them was probably 25 cm. Tohya’s sword was also made to match the strength of beast-hybrids, so it was quite hefty too. If Yuki wielded it, it would really make a funny, fantasy-like image.

“Then you’ll have to make do with the rod. Just be careful, OK? Natsuki, please look after her,” Haruka said.

“Sure… Hey, wait. Natsuki? Not me?”

Wait a minute. I was the more experienced one here. And while Natsuki had better specs, she’d only engaged in battle once?

“I meant, look after her emotionally. You’re probably gonna hunt Tusked Boars too, right? Don’t go overboard.”

“…Got it. We’ll be careful. Besides, Aera-san will be there too.”

Having the mantra of ‘Life is precious’ drilled into me by Haruka, I could only nod meekly.

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