Chapter 46: Cream Stew

Chapter 46:
Cream Stew

Now that I think about it, mused the half-elf magic warrior Melissa, I suppose today’s going to be my last day coming here.

She was greeted with the familiar sound of bells ringing as she stepped into the Restaurant to Another World.

All the preparations had been made; the next day she would be departing for her homeland.

It had been ten years since Melissa and her crew of adventurers had stumbled upon this place at the end of a journey. They’d been through so much together since then, good times and bad.

Melissa had been fifty years old when it all started; now she was sixty. And while in her mind that span of time was a mere instant, to her human friends it felt much, much longer.

It was so fun when we first found this place…

Melissa had first met her friends when she was a novice adventurer just starting out on her own. She would battle goblins or protect folks traveling from one town to the other and then work as a waitress at the local bar in her downtime.

One day Melissa and her crew decided to pillage a local ruin not too far out of town. Little did they know that the place had been ransacked and robbed of all its riches long since.

The leader of their group proclaimed that all adventurers had to try their hands at treasure hunting at least once. This was enough to send the crew off to the ruins, despite the master of the bar insisting that there’d be nothing left to find.

No matter. This was their first attempt at ruin-diving, and she remembered it well.

They struggled and fought their way through, fending off the wild beasts and weak demi-humans that made the place their home. Finally, they came to the deepest room. There, all they found was an empty treasure chest that had been destroyed by previous visitors. But there was also a “door.”

A magical door, one that only opened once every seven days, on the Day of Satur.

The door to the Restaurant to Another World.

***

Beyond the door was a restaurant that served all manner of otherworldly foods, things that Melissa and her friends had never seen, heard of, or eaten before. The kicker? It was all delicious. The crew quickly fell under the restaurant’s spell.

Because of the door’s out-of-the-way location, they couldn’t quite visit every week, but somehow it seemed that they made their way to the place every time something notable happened or was worth celebrating.

For example, when a bodyguard gig went off without a hitch, lining their pockets with cash.

Or the time when they got caught up in the events that would shake a small nation to its core—and had finally returned in one piece after months and months of perilous adventure.

Or perhaps the time when they had finally become proper adventurers, when they were mourning one of their own, a friend who’d died after getting caught in a trap in an old ruin.

Or even the happier time they had welcomed a new friend into their party, and they’d led them into the ruins to share the secret of the door.

…And then there was the time when the group’s leader and its mage announced they would be getting married. It was then the party decided to finally split up.

***

Seven days earlier, Melissa’s party had held a final goodbye feast.

They set up camp deep within the ruins, using huge amounts of their saved-up funds to supply the festivities with booze, food, and merriment. They cheered and partied all day and all night. It was a celebration to remember.

Two days later, the leader and mage were married, and they returned home. A few other members of the crew decided to take this opportunity to retire and use their saved funds to start a business. Others joined up with another party. Everyone followed their own unique paths, and soon they had scattered to the four winds.

Melissa, the magical warrior (she had inherited her mother’s magical talents and her older brother’s spear skills), was no different. She decided that the time had come; she would go home for the first time in ten years. Home to a small human village on the edge of the elf forest.

There, she would see her mother, a woman who had likely changed very little since her departure.

Melissa was something of a rarity these days: her father was a human and her mother was an elf, but she was no changeling. Just an ordinary half-elf.

When her father was still young, he had been renowned as an incredibly gifted mercenary, a man who faced off against countless powerful demon foes armed with a single spear.

Melissa’s mother was a maiden who left the elf forest out of sheer curiosity, wanting to see the outside world. Yet she had been caught by a group of bandit demons who enslaved her. It was Melissa’s father who stumbled upon this group and saved her. The two of them traveled together and eventually wed.

As a young man, Melissa’s father had been quite the looker. Before he was married, all manner of women sought his affections—a source of endless jealousy for his soon-to-be wife.

Melissa couldn’t even begin to imagine it. He died when she was just ten years old, and she could only remember him as an old, bald man with a snow-white beard.

Melissa was the last born in the family, and a latecomer at that. Her mother had decided that she would never be with anyone other than her husband, and so she coddled and doted on her youngest daughter endlessly.

The magic Melissa learned from her mother—they’d work in a lesson when business was slow at the family inn—had proven useful in her adventures. And so had the spear skills she was taught by her much older brother—there was a fifty-year age gap between them. Her brother had learned spear-fighting at the hand of their father and passed down what he knew.

When Melissa had reached her fifties, she told her family that she wanted to become an adventurer. She longed to see the outside world that her mother and older brother spoke so much of. The two of them laughed, but they saw her off with smiles as Melissa made her way.

And so when it was decided that the crew would part ways, Melissa chose to go home. She would help her mother manage the inn that her father built.

Truth be told, she planned to begin her journey home the day after the goodbye party. The only reason she stuck around for another seven days was because of the words of the master.

***

Indeed, on the night of the party, the master of the restaurant—he reminded Melissa of her own father—told her what was to come.

“I see, so you’re heading home, eh? In that case, do you think you could wait a week…er, seven days until you go back? I’d like to treat you to something special—an off-menu item. Think of it as a goodbye gift.”

The white-haired master of Restaurant to Another World gave her a smile. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something about talking to him made it seem like her own father was standing before her, though he’d passed away fifty years before.

A special meal from the Restaurant to Another World. Sheer curiosity was enough to make Melissa wait for seven days. So she got a room at an inn in town.

And then the day finally came.

“Yo! Glad you came.”

The master approached her with kindness as he always did, in the fairly empty restaurant.

“Of course. Thank you so much for having me,” Melissa responded politely, taking a seat at her usual spot. “So what are you going to be serving me today?”

The old gentleman deepened the smile on his face as he began to explain.

Melissa had known the man for some ten years now. For a human, that was a not insignificant amount of time, and she felt she knew him fairly well.

She knew that even though he had been married for over fifty years, he was still madly in love with his wife. She knew that he was excited for his grandson’s future—the young man had recently made great strides as a chef.

And she knew that he had never once disappointed her when it came to food.

“Well, ya see… Today you’re gonna be having cream stew! No meat, of course.”

“Wow. You made me cream strew?”

Melissa understood why the master had said it would be something special.

***

Cream stew without the meat. This was a dish that Melissa often ordered.

As a half-elf raised by a mother who was a pure-blood elf, she wasn’t particularly fond of meat, fish, milk, or eggs. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t eat them at all; in a worst-case scenario, she could bear with it. But the smell of animal products was extremely unpleasant for her.

Yet she’d still managed to fall in love with this restaurant’s cream stew. It was positively delicious.

And so whenever Melissa requested cream stew, the master would prepare it without the meat and add more vegetables.

“Of course, this ain’t no everyday cream stew. It’s pretty dang special if I do say so myself.”

The master carefully watched Melissa’s expression, his smile deepening ever further.

“So just hang on real quick.”

The older man then retreated into the back to collect the dish he’d just finished.

“Sorry about that. I present to you, Nekoya’s special elf bean cream stew!”

The older man lightly placed a deep dish before her. It was filled with white soup.

“This is my gift to you, so of course it’s on the house,” the master said. “Dig in!”

“Thank you very much,” Melissa replied, a big smile on her face.

“Well then, take your time and… Oh, it’s nothing!”

At the front of the restaurant, bells rang.

“Hello?”

The master quickly trotted over to greet a new customer, a lizardman. Melissa picked up the silver spoon on the table.

No meat as usual.

Melissa briefly checked the components of the stew. Thick mushrooms that were readily harvested in the fall, fresh orange karoots, oranie that had been stir fried until they were translucent. And then of course there was the spinooch that was added at the very end, still retaining its bright green color.

There was indeed no meat to be found in the dish. The fresh vegetables mingled in the stew, creating a wonderful aroma.

Melissa noticed something was different, though.

Wait a minute… This stew doesn’t smell the same as usual. But why?

The aroma had an ever so slight variation from the norm. It made sense that it didn’t smell of meat, but it also lacked the milky scent it usually had.

Well, I suppose I’ll figure it out once I try it.

She brought the silver spoon to her mouth.

It’s delicious, of course.

The slightly sweet but gentle flavor spread throughout her mouth, causing Melissa’s cheeks to puff out with glee. The vegetables had been cooked just right.

They were all so tender that they crumbled after a single bite, and each one had absorbed the flavors of the soup. The milky flavor helped make the vegetables moist, while the vegetables helped to enhance the taste of the milk. And then there were the mushrooms.

The savory mushrooms tasted just like the ones you could find in the elf forest near her home. The nostalgia and fusion of flavors put a giant smile on Melissa’s face.

The master wandered back over. “Oh, I take it you’re enjoying it?”

“Absolutely. Could I possibly get seconds?”

“Of course. I made this specifically for you, after all. Ain’t no other customers gettin’ it, so have as much as you’d like!”

The master smiled, nodding his head. It would’ve been a shame if Melissa only got to enjoy a single bowl of this tremendous dish.

The young woman looked about the same age as his own grandson, and the master couldn’t help but smile. He wanted to dote on her a little bit.

***

And so after finishing off three whole bowls, Melissa finally set down her spoon. She let out a satisfied sigh.

“Phew, that was truly wonderful. Thank you, Master.”

“No problem at all! Ain’t nothing better than seeing someone enjoy my cooking! If anything, thank you for all these years of patronage. I really appreciate it.”

Melissa looked at the bowl. This would be the last dish she ever finished here.

With that thought running through her mind, Melissa decided to ask the master about the strange thing she’d noticed.

“…By the way, how did you make this? It tastes like milk but doesn’t smell like it at all.”

Milk was an absolute requirement when it came to making cream stew taste, well, creamy. But there was no way to get that flavor without the accompanying scent. Or so she thought, anyhow.

If she didn’t ask for answers now, she thought she would never get them.

“Oh, well you see…” The master immediately began to give her a rundown of his process. “I made this cream stew using only stuff from your world. Not just the vegetables, but the sauce and everything.”

He’d bought all the ingredients off merchants from her world who frequented the restaurant. That was the food he was accustomed to preparing and serving to himself, his beloved wife, and his grandson.

And so using ingredients from Melissa’s world, he’d made this cream stew using techniques from his world.

“So you see, in our world, we got milk that you can’t get from animals. Hell, we basically make it from scratch. Elves hate raw-smelling things, yeah? So today’s soup was made without using a single thing that smells raw. I guess if I had to give it a name on this side, it’d be something like a vegetarian stew.”

The elf bean existed in Melissa’s world; they were raised by elves themselves. However, there was a very similar crop in the master’s world.

In his country, they used that bean to make a manner of food products. It was very useful in that way; one such use was a milk that could be made without a cow.

And so out of curiosity, the master decided to give this a try with the elf beans from her world. He’d found he was able to make pretty much the same exact thing. That’s why he decided on this dish when it came down to saying goodbye to one of his long-time regulars.

“As far as how I actually put it all together, well, try and figure that out for yourself.” The master chuckled. “Unfortunately, it’s a habit of mine not to share recipes with customers. Hah hah.”

This wasn’t limited to denizens of Melissa’s world, either. He didn’t tell anyone his recipes. And perhaps more importantly…

“Plus, I’m sure you can figure it out. I know you can. This is my gift to you.”

Melissa was one of only a handful of customers who had frequented the Restaurant to Another World since its creation. The master was certain she’d be able to find the answer for herself.

“I see… Thank you, Master. It was truly delicious.” Melissa could do nothing but smile warmly at the master’s words.

Indeed, the stew was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted, and the fact that she had some to take back to her village with her made it all the better.

Melissa got up. “This will probably be the last time we see each other. Take care, Master.”

“Yeah, you too. If you ever end up near a door, know that you’ll always be welcome here.”

And so the master said goodbye to one of his regulars, the both of them certain this would be the last time they ever exchanged words.

***

And so eighteen years passed since Melissa’s encounter with the “special cream stew.”

Today, the inn where Melissa worked as a chef was packed with customers as always.

“Whew, it’s really gotten cold out there. Melissa, can I get some of that elf bean cream stew, please?”

“That stuff really is delicious, right?”

“Yeah, this is the ticket. The last time I had cream stew made by a human, it was so smelly that it barely qualified as food.”

“Well, Melissa’s stuff is special, after all.”

“Wait, is this tofu?”

“Excuse me! Can I have another order of elf bean stew?”

Over half of the customers in the small dining room were elves, stopping by the inn that Melissa’s father built many moons ago.

In the daytime it served as a restaurant; at night it became a tavern. What made this place unique was a special item on the menu that could only be eaten there.

Elf bean cream stew.

It was a mysterious stew that contained no meat, fish, eggs, or milk, so elves could happily enjoy it with no issues.

The dish was so renowned that there wasn’t a single elf in the area that hadn’t sampled it.

After her last visit to the Restaurant to Another World, it took Melissa eight years to finally decipher the secret of the recipe.

That day, the master had told her it was “elf bean” cream stew.

Something about that seemed off. After all, there were no elf beans to be found in the stew itself. No whole elf beans. It was that realization that changed everything.

After dozens of tests and hours of experimentation, Melissa discovered that by soaking elf beans in water, then grinding and boiling them, she could make a substance resembling milk.

When she realized this, Melissa drew on her memories of the flavors she’d savored that day to perfect her own elf bean cream stew.

First she had her pure-blood mother try it, and then she had her mother’s elf acquaintances try it, and so on and so on…

***

Eventually, rumors of this stew made their way to elves all across the Eastern Continent. The reviews of Melissa’s dish were so high that elves would travel over from other forests just to try it for themselves. All of this meant that business at the inn was booming.

“Yes, yes. Just hold on a second. I have a whole pot that’s almost ready!”

Melissa stirred the giant pot, filled with enough stew to feed dozens of people. At her side, her half-elf older siblings prepared the next portions.

It was yet another busy day in Melissa’s life.

…Yet another fulfilling day in Melissa’s life.