Chapter 42: Mont Blanc

Chapter 42:
Mont Blanc

Thomas, an adventurer from the Kingdom, couldn’t hide his surprise at the amazing taste he’d just stumbled upon.

What the hell is this?! It should be illegal for sweets to taste this good!

The treat before him used marone (known as chestnuts in the other world) quite liberally. It was positively nothing like any sweet Thomas had ever tasted.

***

At the very top of this dish was the brilliantly yellow, shining marone that had been sweetened and pureed. This part of the confection quickly came undone, falling to pieces in his mouth.

But underneath that was some sort of white substance. It was gentle but sweet like milk, melting in Thomas’s mouth the moment he took a bite. Underneath that was some kind of bright yellow, soft, sweet bread.

Any single one of these layers would’ve been good enough to present to a nobleman or noblewoman. But this dish combined each one of these amazing elements into a single food.

The gentle sweetness faded from Thomas’s mouth, and he found himself immediately wanting to take another bite. As he repeated this process, the plate in front of him eventually emptied.

“Yo! Little demon lady!” he called. “Can I get another one of these mont blanc thingamajiggers?”

“Yes, of course!”

This was the third time Thomas had placed this order.

***

And so, while he waited for his third serving of mont blanc, Thomas leaned back into his comfortable chair and took a moment to lose himself in his thoughts.

When I accepted this gig, I figured something had to be up, considering they offered me 3,000 silver coins just to search for a single confection. But this…

Now having experienced it himself, Thomas understood why he was offered so much money.

I gotta give thanks to the head maid for this one.

Thomas offered his silent gratitude to the head maid, who had passed on to the next life last winter. If it hadn’t been for her keeping this place a secret, he would’ve never gotten his hands on a 3,000 silver coin gig like this. Nor would he have ever been able to eat mont blanc.

I want you to find something for me.

Roped in by the promise of 3,000 silver coins, Thomas the Searcher, an adventurer hailing from the Kingdom, had accepted the gig. This had all happened ten days ago.

***

It had taken approximately three days by horse carriage and foot to reach the town from the capital city. To the east of this place was an orchard of well-kept marone trees; the town harvested a massive bounty every fall.

In fact, most of the nuts used to make roasted marones or boiled marones came from this very town. This is what led to the town being popularly referred to as “Marone City” instead of its actual name. One could argue that it was among the most important towns in all the Kingdom.

The lord of the territory had married into his wife’s family, making her the de facto ruler.

And this woman, Eleanor, was the one who had given Thomas the job.

“S-so you’re saying…”

“Yes. I’d like you to search for a certain confection made using marone.”

Eleanor was an incredibly beautiful woman in her mid-twenties who already had a child. She smiled and nodded, responding to him.

But Thomas doubted his ears. She’s serious? 3,000 silver coins just for a confection?

The instigator of all this was the veteran head maid, a woman who had served the household ever since Eleanor’s grandfather’s era.

For years, whenever summer turned to fall, the head maid would somehow obtain an amazing confection made using marone and share it with the noble family. It was so incredible that it simply blew away all other confections Eleanor had ever sampled. The entire household was soon helpless before the sweets. They looked forward to this time of the year.

Thomas addressed the young woman. “And so this head maid passed away, leaving you all with no way to find this confection, eh?”

“Correct. It’s not as though I haven’t searched, but…” Eleanor signed.

From what Thomas was told, the head maid was quite old when she passed away. What they thought was just a simple cold (it was winter, after all) ended up being the thing that took her away from the family. It all happened in just a handful of days.

That’s how things were, though. Death was often swift, and one could only make peace with that.

***

The problem was that the head maid had taken her secret with her to the grave. She was born the daughter of a defunct noble family, and since she had spent most of her life serving the lordship, she didn’t have any blood relatives of her own to speak of. She’d passed away single, with no children of her own.

Even her successor, whom she trained herself for many years, had no idea where the head maid had acquired the mysterious confection.

At first, Eleanor assumed she’d be able to get her hands on the confection once the seasons changed. After all, it was made using egregious amounts of marone, her town’s most famous crop. While it was certainly of a higher quality than most treats she’d sampled, it seemed safe to assume that the patisserie in town was the source.

And so once fall came around, Eleanor herself went into town to ask the citizens about this confection. Just where had the head maid bought it all those years? Unfortunately, she soon discovered that not a single person knew.

***

“I see.” Thomas nodded. “That explains why you’re barking up my…er, asking me for help.”

“Exactly. With Jazelle gone, I’d like you to find this mysterious ‘mont blanc’ for me. Our town’s prosperity rests on your shoulders.”

Indeed, the reason that Eleanor so desperately sought “mont blanc” wasn’t simply because she wanted to eat it herself. Because they’d only ever offered mont blanc to certain visitors, it had become somewhat famous for being a treat one could only find in Marone City.

***

Eleanor wasn’t sure how they’d learned about it, but people came to town looking for the mont blanc. There was one of the great merchants from the capital city and even a high priestess from the church of the Lord of Light—nobles with an extreme sweet tooth.

They were the kind of people who had no reason to visit a tiny town during this time of the year, yet they came in search of the confection.

And it might have been just a confection. But having these visitors come from so far away, only to be denied that which they so wished to partake in, had left Eleanor with a bad taste in her mouth. More importantly, the value these visitors brought with them was nothing to laugh at, and it was troubling for her to disappoint them, as de facto lord of the land.

So even if it meant spending an exorbitant amount of money, it would all be worth it if she could figure out a way to get her hands on mont blanc again. That’s why Eleanor went out of her way to send a servant far away to the capital city to fetch Thomas and why she had prepared the hefty sum of 3,000 silver coins.

“Understood,” Thomas said. “I’ll do it.”

After hearing the long and short of it, he agreed to take on the mission. While he was an adventurer, he was much better suited to these kinds of investigations than he was to actual battle. He had once been a treasure hunter, after all.

His eyes had gotten worse and his hands were no longer capable of performing the tricks of a treasure hunter, so he had to step down. But he still retained all the necessary knowledge for tracking down the good stuff. That was why Thomas specialized in investigations as an adventurer; that was who he was now.

“Leave it to me! I’ll find that mont blanc stuff of yours, no matter what!”

And so Thomas began his investigation some eight days ago.

***

Yet by the third day of his mont blanc investigation, Thomas was stumped.

“Ain’t nobody got a clue, eh?”

This was the season that roasted marone did the rounds, even in the capital city. Thomas was munching on some as he let out a sigh.

The mont blanc search was proving to be about as difficult for Thomas as it was costly for Eleanor. It made sense; her ladyship had already inquired about its origins only to come away with no leads. Thomas figured he’d give it another try, being a fresh pair of eyes, so to speak. But he had nothing to show for his search, even if everyone he spoke to was being mighty cooperative thanks to her ladyship.

In the end, all he had was a handful of requests from the most powerful residents of Marone City asking to be informed about the whereabouts of the mont blanc once he figured it out. Great.

This is real bad. Nobody has a clue. Though I suppose you could say that this proves that the head maid had a way to get her hands on mont blanc without anyone knowing.

Thomas finally realized that it must have been fairly difficult for the head maid to acquire this confection every year without others spotting her.

***

First and foremost, the confection was not homemade. While the head maid was apparently capable of making simple dishes, she didn’t have the means to make something on such a professional level. Plus, if this was simply some homespun recipe, it wouldn’t be a mystery!

Additionally, the head maid served the ladyship for many years; there were few in Marone City who didn’t at least recognize her.

While the children might not have known her face, the adults who grew up in town would have seen her around from time to time, tagging along with previous lords’ wives.

If she was out and about in town, someone must have seen her.

This went doubly so if she was carrying a box with mont blanc in it…

It was a bright blue paper box bearing an illustration of a winged monster dog. A rare sight no matter how you looked at it.

This was what led Thomas to his conclusion.

Could it be…the head maid got her hands on the mont blanc somewhere inside of the mansion?

While this seemed a bit odd, all of the evidence pointed in that direction. Given how familiar the head maid had to be with the grounds, it wouldn’t be unusual for her to know some secret the others didn’t.

Thomas also concluded that the mont blanc was something the head maid could only get her hands on once every seven days. She had only ever offered the confection to her master during that exact time frame. Not before and not after.

According to Eleanor, any time she or the other members of the household requested the confection, the head maid had turned them down.

And so Thomas decided to ask the maids of the mansion if they had seen the head maid do anything odd. Perhaps that would lead him to “X marks the spot.”

There was a closet in the mansion that was used to store Eleanor’s old toys and the dresses she’d worn when she was a child. It was cleaned on a fairly regular basis, but otherwise nobody really ever used it. However, the head maid had apparently visited the closest with great regularity.

“Now that I’m getting up there in my years, there are times when I want to just throw myself into my memories of the Young Mistress,” the other maids reported her saying. But there were too many holes in that story.

The mont blanc has gotta be there.

As a part of his investigation, Thomas elected to make his way to the suspicious room three times a day.

It was on the fifth day that he spotted the magical door bearing an illustration of a cat.

***

“Now hold on a damn minute. The hell is this?”

In front of him stood a magic door, one that he was certain had not existed the day before. It was as if it had appeared in the closet out of nowhere.

But Thomas didn’t take long to solidify his resolve. “Common sense says what I’m looking for is just beyond…”

He put his hand on the handle and opened the door.

***

The door opened with the sound of ringing bells.

“Oh? Welcome. You’re quite early.”

Thomas walked through the door into a mysterious room he had never seen before.

There was a demon girl wearing rather daring clothing, her legs bare for all to see. She was cleaning the room alongside a middle-aged man. The latter, likely the master of this place, cheerfully called out to Thomas as he entered the room.

“Ah, yeah, just, uh… Do you have something called ‘mont blanc’?” Thomas asked. “And…do you happen to know Jazelle?”

The first-time customer’s question brought to mind one of the master’s cake-loving regulars. But he hadn’t seen the old woman in nearly half a year.

“Well, not directly, but…”

Thomas was sure of it. This place was the origin of the mysterious mont blanc. His lips curled into a smile. He was pleased as punch that he’d managed to successfully complete the gig.

***

So Thomas ordered himself a dish of mont blanc, confirming not only that it was as delicious as rumored, but that the place it had come from was called the “Restaurant to Another World.”

After eating a whopping four servings of the stuff, he ordered some more “to go.” Then he took a moment to think.

Lemme see… I completed the request, but this seems like kind of a waste.

At this rate, Thomas would likely never get the chance to eat this amazing confection ever again. Once he handed over the mont blanc and information about the restaurant, he’d probably receive his reward and be sent packing. There was no way Eleanor would just let him use the door if he asked.

Thomas quietly hardened his resolve. I guess I’ll figure it out.

While he sat in the restaurant enjoying his mont blanc, he noticed all kinds of customers coming in and out. Monsters, nobles, commoners, and even demons sat around him, enjoying their favorite otherworldly foods.

If nothing else, it was clear that there were as many “doors” here as there were customers.

I guess it’s time to do a little digging.

If Thomas was lucky, there could even be a door near the royal capital.

“Sorry for the wait.” The demon lady returned, handing him a to-go package. “Here are your six orders of mont blanc!”

“Ah, thank ya.”

Thomas handed over three silver coins, the total cost of the ten servings of mont blanc that he’d ordered. Yet he knew the package he was carrying was, in fact, worth 3,000 silver coins.