Chapter 70: Ice Cream

Chapter 70:
Ice Cream

On Saturday morning, the master printed a piece of paper from his computer and put it on the wall.

“There we go. I hope that’s right.”

He couldn’t read the text on the paper at all, so he was worried about whether it was correct. It looked like some kind of bizarre code, as far as he was concerned.

The paper was a notice that a pointy-eared regular had written for him a few years back. Although a lot of time had passed since then, that customer hadn’t aged a bit.

The notice was Nekoya’s otherworldly announcement of the beginning of summer.

The master went over the text once more in his head, making himself nervous all over again. Otherworldly script was the one thing he just couldn’t read at all.

No, the text should be right. The name on the file was definitely correct.

The master was fairly certain that the text on the notice he’d put up the previous year had a similar pattern. He couldn’t be sure, however, and that made him anxious.

The bells at the entrance rang, announcing Aletta’s arrival.

“Good morning, Master!”

“Yo! Top of the morning.”

After exchanging greetings with the master, Aletta saw the notice he’d just put up.

“Um, is that something we’ll start doing today?” She tilted her head. “What does it say?”

Aletta couldn’t read. She was aware that whenever the master put up signs or notices with pretty writing, they announced a new dish or special seasonal event. However, she didn’t know the particulars.

“Oh, this? It says…” The master thought it over yet again. It’s probably right. It must be!

He briefly explained that the text on the notice continued a tradition from when his grandfather had run things.

***

It was past noon when sweet-seekers began dropping into the restaurant.

“New ice cream flavors…?”

Celestine Fragran, a high priestess who served the Lord of Light, was one of Nekoya’s biggest sweet-lovers. She noticed the sign on the wall immediately. It was clearly handwritten by someone highly educated, with extremely beautiful penmanship.

Celestine’s three disciples chimed in, responding to her words. The four had bonded tightly over their love of sweets.

“Ice cream’s that stuff that melts really easily, right?”

“Correct. It’s a dessert made from milk. It’s quite soft and cold, apparently.”

“It goes really well with pound cake.”

Celestine nodded at her disciples’ answers. “True. I do recall the two pairing quite well.”

The demon girl had just brought the group their menus. Celestine called Aletta over and, on behalf of her party of four, asked the waitress about the sign.

“Excuse me. I have a question about that notice over there.”

“Of course.” With a big smile, Aletta explained what the master had told her earlier.

Apparently, every summer, instead of serving the usual strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream, Nekoya added flavors to the menu. Folks walking around outside in the heat typically wanted something nice and cold at that time of year. Thus, Nekoya received more requests for ice cream during summer than usual.

Aletta had only just started working at Nekoya last summer, so she hadn’t paid any mind to customers’ ordering patterns. Still, she recalled there being more orders for cold sweets than normal during this time of year.

“So, these are the ice cream flavors we added today,” Aletta said, showing Celestine’s group the menu the master had provided. Additional flavors were scrawled on the transparent sheet, which had been in use long before Aletta joined the team.

“My! There certainly are quite a few. Huh…?!”

Seeing a particular flavor on the menu, Celestine immediately raised her voice.

“Excuse me, is the ‘rum raisin’ written here correct?!”

Among the menu’s many added flavors, Celestine had indeed found her most beloved.

“Yes! All of these are ice cream flavors.”

“In that case, I’ll have a pound cake tea set and a rum raisin ice cream, please.”

Celestine couldn’t help but smile as she requested the ice cream along with her usual order.

Each of Celestine’s disciples followed suit, ordering the ice cream flavor that best suited their tastes.

“Me, too!”

“I’ll have the pound cake tea set with strawberry yogurt ice cream!”

“And I’ll have the pound cake tea set with chocolate chip ice cream. Thank you.”

“Thanks for your orders! Those’ll be right out,” Aletta said, retreating to the kitchen.

***

“Sorry for the wait! I brought your ice cream first. Your pound cake tea sets will be out shortly.”

Aletta made sure to place each of the four small plates of ice cream in front of the disciple who’d ordered them.

The round ice cream sitting before Celestine contained bits of dried grape. Faced with the dessert, Celestine gulped.

“My, my. This is just…”

Based on her past experiences, Celestine knew that ice cream was made by freezing milk. That wasn’t the entire process, of course. Simply freezing milk would create something similar to Nekoya’s ice cream, but not exactly the same.

Faced with the rum raisin ice cream, however, Celestine was now immensely curious. Expectations high, she grabbed her silver spoon and plunged it into the round mass.

Scooping out a mouthful of ice cream, she brought it to her lips and took a taste.

Ah! It’s so cold and delicious.

The ice cream was full of rich rum raisin flavor. The slightly bitter alcohol and extremely sweet raisins exploded inside Celestine’s mouth.

The ice cream was cold, like winter. Her tongue’s warmth melted it away, leaving behind chilly sweetness.

It felt wonderful.

While Celestine appreciated her cold, sugary rum raisin ice cream, her disciples enjoyed their own orders.

“This is great! The combination of strawberries and sweet and sour yogurt is just spectacular.”

“This chocolate stuff is truly to die for. Although I suppose that if the Alfade Company doesn’t even know about it, it’s probably not available on our side, huh?”

“Yeah, this is the stuff.” Like Celestine, the alcohol-loving Carlotta had ordered rum raisin ice cream. She was thoroughly enjoying the liquor-soaked grapes. “I just can’t get enough of sweets that taste alcoholic.”

I heard that out west there’s a drink made by soaking fruit in dwarf whiskey.

Carlotta recalled a story she’d been told by a merchant who also followed the Lord of Light. Apparently, some ten years ago, western dwarves had started using fruit to make booze on their island.

They didn’t ferment the fruit juices—they actually transferred the flavors by putting whole fruits inside the whiskey. According to the merchant, the liquor was sugary, cloying, and easy to drink. As an added bonus, the fruit in the alcohol lasted a good long while and was tasty in a way that regular fruits weren’t. The merchant said that those fruits were far more expensive than average.

It actually wouldn’t surprise me if that liquor was the work of a dwarf reproducing something they found here.

Carlotta knew of dwarves who copied the alcohol they found at Nekoya, so that wasn’t out of the question.

The monastery was actually attempting to reproduce the flavor of rum raisin—Celestine’s favorite flavor—by testing dried grapes in various types of alcohol.

Carlotta’s thoughts bounced around as she enjoyed the sweet ice cream.

***

Licking strawberry yogurt ice cream off her spoon, Anna concluded that she’d made the right choice.

“Yeah. You just can’t have the sweet flavor without the sour to make it stand out.”

She much preferred tangy desserts over purely sweet things. That was why she adored all sorts of yogurt and why she’d picked strawberry yogurt ice cream.

Yogurt existed in Anna’s world. It was made by fermenting cow’s milk, so yogurt and cheese could be found in villages that kept cows.

The ice cream Anna was eating during this visit to Nekoya had been made with white yogurt. Strawberry syrup formed a pretty stripe pattern across it. While the dish was certainly sweet, it tasted acidic as well.

The cold sweet and sour flavor melted in Anna’s mouth, leaving a refreshing aftertaste.

In Anna’s world, people either ate yogurt on its own or sweetened it a bit. There was nothing like the complex yogurts Nekoya offered. The new experience excited her.

I have to figure out how to make yogurt like this!

Anna felt that it would be truly special if her world could reproduce these kinds of treats.

***

“Chocolate is just on a completely different level,” Julianne said as the slightly bitter chocolate chip ice cream melted in her mouth.

The dish combined small chocolate pieces with normal vanilla ice cream made of high-quality milk. The combination melted away, leaving only a sweet sensation behind.

I’d prefer it a tad sweeter, if anything. Still, it’s incredibly complex!

The flavor made Julianne’s cheeks puff out. Compared to the desserts she’d grown used to eating while she lived as a noble, this ice cream—no, this otherworldly confection—lacked a bit of sweetness.

Aside from its sweetness, however, the complex taste produced by the ice cream’s different flavors would be impossible to find anywhere but Nekoya.

But… Hmm… I wonder if there’s a way for us to produce this chocolate stuff on our side?

The bittersweet confection known as “chocolate” was Julianne’s favorite ice cream flavors. Unfortunately, in her world, Julianne couldn’t even get her hands on its ingredients.

Of course, it went without saying that—in an earnest effort to help Celestine—Julianne had followed up with some of her old contacts and asked the Alfade Company about the recipe. Still, she’d come up empty-handed.

Lady Katalina said that chocolate was probably made from kalao beans, but…

The Alfade Company seemed completely unaware of the existence of kalao beans.

There was one dignified-looking guest at Nekoya whom Julianne had seen before. As far as she could tell, they were likely a high priest of the Lord of Light. She thought it might be worth asking them if they knew anything. With that thought running through her head, she continued indulging in her chocolate chip ice cream.

***

Just as the four finished their ice cream, Aletta appeared with their cake and black tea sets in hand.

“Sorry for the wait. Here are your pound cake sets.”

“My! Thank you very much.”

Celestine found herself smiling as she took the tea from the waitress. Although the ice cream was delicious, it had made her mouth cold. Hot tea was the perfect thing to warm her up.

Furthermore, all that sweet ice cream had dulled her tongue. The black tea helped to restore her sense of taste.

“Whew…”

Celestine let out a satisfied sigh.

Everyone else in the group had their own way of enjoying their tea, but they were warming their tongues up, too.

“Now then,” she asked, “shall we enjoy today’s pound cake?”

“Yeah!”

“But of course.”

“A wonderful idea.”

Celestine’s three disciples responded positively, and their tea party began in earnest.