18 - Resuming the Inquiry
In the end, the vegetable soup was still vegetable soup. But ham and eggs became ham and eggs, and the hard bread was reborn as French toast. The meal had changed, however slightly, and that was a relief. I really did want to avoid the same menu every meal, after all.
...If only I could also add some variety to the soup's flavor.
Unfortunately, in my previous life, even when I cooked, I relied on seasonings and store-bought roux for the finish. I can't create various flavors from scratch.
...I won't ask for the luxury of drinking miso soup, but at the very least I want curry roux. Stew roux would also be acceptable.
For curry, I don't know what spices are needed or their ratios, so even if the ingredients were right in front of me, I couldn't make it. White sauce, I once saw it being made on TV before. I remember thinking it seemed pretty easy with few ingredients. But I don't remember the exact measurements, so attempting this also requires courage.
...Now that I think about it, Japan was a country like heaven, wasn't it? All kinds of soup bases were sold, seasonings from around the world were available, and you could even buy pre-cooked retort-pouch meals without having to cook yourself.
I recall the various dishes I tasted in my previous life, feeling nostalgic.
...Maybe I could try making stew at least, prepared for failure.
After all, it's a little girl making it. Failing would actually be more natural.
Once breakfast cleanup was done, we returned to the table to continue where we left off last night, when I had fallen asleep. With Leonardo as interpreter, I answered Aurelia's questions one by one.
"...Alright, Tina. Just tell me what you can about what happened in the village."
"Yes."
From the questions, I could tell what Aurelia and the others wanted to know. They wanted to know the details, the identification of the infection source, the symptoms, the speed of the disease's progression, and so on. I don't know the initial infection source, but I do know the process after infection.
...I was the one who nursed Father, after all.
I spoke in as much detail as possible, recalling the process after Father's onset. He came down with a high fever and was bedridden, and that lasted several days. Just when I thought the fever had gone down, his skin turned red and raw, and the next abnormality appeared. It seemed to come with intense itching, and Father endured it, but some villagers developed pox, and when they gave in to the itch and scratched, the pox multiplied. Some villagers coughed up blood. Then the high fever returned, and by the time it subsided, everyone was dead.
"Saromon-sama's route of infection..."
"Probably, from nursing, the villagers."
There was a definite reason why infection was delayed only in our household and the Daltowa couple's house. Because we were ostracized, we had few opportunities to interact with the villagers.
Mother died, Ulary-obasan died, Oban-san died, and finally Father died. Oban-san had fallen ill before Ulary-obasan, but whether it was a difference in physical strength between men and women, Ulary-obasan died first. Father and Oban-san dug graves for everyone else, and no matter what I said, he absolutely refused to dig one for me. Because I am still a child, I still have so much life ahead of me. It's too early to prepare a grave for me, he said.
...Even if I alone survived, I couldn't have lived. It just so happened that Leonardo-san came.
Remembering my kind parents and the Daltowa couple, my nose twinges with a soft sniff. Whether lonely or sad, this is no time to cry.
"Mother, sometimes, wouldn't wear. Took off the pseudo-mask."
My mother Chloe would say, "It's hard to talk," and occasionally take off the mask while nursing the sick. That small moment of carelessness must have invited infection. After all, Father, who used his mask diligently, didn't get infected until his family infected him.
"A pseudo-mask, huh... That was good. Was it Saromon-sama's idea?"
"Father? Why?"
The mask was something I wanted and made myself. Why did Leonardo think it was Father's idea?
"Were there no masks in the village? In the city and capital, when you catch a cold, everyone wears them. The shape is a little different, but..."
What? So masks, like baths, existed as part of the culture even if they hadn't taken root in the village. Was this also spread by the one revered as a saint, Yuuta Hiraga? Also, now I understood why Mother disliked it but Father accepted the mask. To Father, wearing a mask to prevent disease must have been normal.
...Anyway, I'll let Leonardo-san keep thinking Father made it. It seems like it's better not to be found out as a reincarnator.
Not particularly denying Leonardo's statement, I resumed talking. As the infection spread among the villagers, my parents went out to nurse them. What caused the infection to spread all at once was probably Nicola's funeral. The relatives who carried Nicola's coffin at the funeral, and the village children, were the first to fall ill.
...Huh? I felt like something crossed my mind before, but what was it?
There was a time when I was shut inside the house, with nothing to do, when I compiled what I'd heard about the disease spreading as rumors. Back then, something should have flickered through my mind.
...What was it? Something that really just flickered through my mind for a moment.
If I think the same way I did back then, will it come to me again? I thought, and I cast my mind back. That time was, if I recall, when the disease was just starting to spread throughout the village. The village chief was bedridden, and I had finally been able to go outside, but because the disease was spreading through the village, I was shut inside the house again.
...Right, the one who died after Nicola was Marcel.
Marcel had been bedridden for a long time, and Nicola should have been going to visit him. Realizing that, I looked up at Leonardo's face. Leonardo came to the village because the village chief sent a letter requesting the purchase of a reincarnator. I don't know how many days it takes to deliver a letter from Meiyu Village to the fortress where Leonardo was, but it's hard to imagine the village chief acting for the sake of Nicola, someone else's child. That village chief always put himself and his grandson Marcel first. It must have been that when Marcel became bedridden, he tried to sell me to cover the medical expenses. Thinking of it that way makes far more sense given that village chief's behavior.
Realizing the village chief's further outrage, my brows furrow from an unconcealable disgust. Seeing me suddenly scrunch my brows so hard, Leonardo looked perplexed.
"...What's wrong? Tina."
"At the start, maybe Marcel."
Hiding the fact that I'm a reincarnator, naturally, I told Leonardo what I had remembered. While I spoke, Leonardo's fingers kept stroking the space between my brows as if to smooth out the furrow, and once he finished listening, he thought for a moment, then interpreted and relayed it to Aurelia.
"There is a hit case."
...Hit... case... so that means it's a disease she knows something about?
I couldn't catch everything, but judging from the words I picked up, that's likely the gist of it. When it comes to longer sentences, the number of words I can pick up increases, but it was impossible to deduce what was being said. I could only listen to the information from Aurelia that Leonardo interpreted for me.
Aurelia's story seemed to be about a case in a neighboring country. A rat had gotten mixed into a merchant's cart, and the infection had apparently spread from that rat to humans. The symptoms in the records and the symptoms in Meiyu Village were similar, she said.
...I've heard a similar story in my previous life.
Was it a documentary program? I don't remember the details. It was a virus that was harmless to the animals that should have been infected, and it was supposed to be a disease that only infected humans, or was it mammals, and raged fiercely.
...In that story, wasn't it that in the end they couldn't make an effective medicine and the infected people all died?
Once I recalled one clue, the details came back to me bit by bit. The story was that someone bought an infected animal without knowing it, and a child who kept it got infected, that was the sequence. After the infection was discovered, cases appeared in another, far-removed location as well—
"...Marcel's pet?"
Realizing the possibility that had occurred to me, I felt the blood drain from my face. If something similar to the incident I saw on TV had happened, the mysterious disease would not stop at Meiyu Village. In fact, before coming to the valley, I had seen one village that had been wiped out.
"A merchant, came to the village. Goods, maybe infection source."
"A merchant?"
"End of autumn, merchant, came. Cargo, pet. Marcel wanted, village chief bought."
A pet was something only the wealthy could afford, so the merchant never saw the villagers as customers in the first place. He had only stopped at the village to let his horse drink water. That's when Marcel appeared, bringing the village chief. He begged the village chief for a rare and curious pet, and the vainglorious village chief granted his grandson's wish. However, since a pet was such an expensive item, the village chief apparently haggled relentlessly, to the point where the merchant didn't bother hiding his displeasure. A village woman who had been subjected to Marcel's pet-bragging told it as a funny story. Whether he gave in to the persistent village chief or intended it as getting rid of a nuisance, the merchant ultimately sold the pet. A weakened specimen, exhausted from the long journey.
...It wasn't tired and weakened. It was sick and in poor condition.
By the time I finished speaking, the blood had drained from Leonardo's face as well. For now it was still only a possibility, but he must have imagined what would unfold if it were correct.
"The merchant is carrying the infection source. There's no telling how far the infection will spread."
Scratching his head in irritation, Leonardo let out a deep sigh. Perhaps that action calmed him somewhat, as Leonardo turned back to Aurelia. After exchanging a few words, Leonardo stood up briskly, and Aurelia, with an air of "good grief," slowly rose to her feet. Apparently, the two of them alone had decided their next course of action.
"I'll help, too."
Yes! I raised my hand and asserted myself. If the two of them talked only between themselves, I wouldn't know how I should act. It was self-assertion in search of an explanation, but Aurelia pressed my head down firmly with her staff and sat me back in the chair.
"Get in the way. You Do the caretaker and the housework."
The English was fast and somewhat long, and I couldn't grasp the meaning at all. As I held my ground-down head and looked up at Aurelia, Leonardo interpreted for me.
"She says you'll be in the way, so she's leaving the house-sitting and housework to you."
I saw the two of them off as they left with baskets on their backs, and as for me, I was left alone in the house. I was told to do the housework, so I suppose I have no choice but to follow that. In the first place, there's little a little girl can do, and my limbs are short. It's unreasonable to move together with adults. Aurelia's words that I would be in the way are correct.
...Should I do laundry? Ah, but I don't know where Aurelia-san's clothes are. I should have asked.
In the first place, is it better not to wash them together with our things, which are suspected of carrying infection? Thinking that as well, I first looked for the clothes we had worn and should have taken off yesterday, but I couldn't find them anywhere.
...Why are Leonardo-san's clothes inside the bath cauldron?
I tilted my head at the change of clothes I finally found after searching all the way outside the house. If the clothes had just been casually taken off, there's no way they'd be in a place like this. Which means they must have been placed here intentionally.
...Ah, my shoes are in the back.
Looking into the back of the bath cauldron with suspicion, I saw a small shoe, blackened with soot as if it had partially burned.
...In other words, they might have the infection source on them, so it's incineration.
Which means Leonardo's clothes will probably be tossed into the bath cauldron's fire tonight or so. I don't think you can burn armor and gauntlets, of course, but Aurelia might disinfect those somehow.
In the end, since there were no clothes to wash, I couldn't do laundry. Instead, I re-examined the inside of the storehouse and worked on grasping the seasonings Leonardo had found. I can't make anything elaborate, but in my previous life, as someone who was at least marginally a girl, I had cooked while looking at recipe books before. Maybe there's something I can make by feel without looking at a book.
...I feel like fresh pasta was really easy. If I remember right, one cup of flour and one egg made one serving.
I'm not confident about the measurements, but even if I'm wrong, I can just add more flour afterward. Anyway, it should have been eggs and flour. I'll manage somehow.
Relying on memory and lacking confidence, I made white sauce and added the vegetable soup. It looked like stew, but the taste was honestly questionable. It was thin in flavor, not much different from Aurelia's otherworldly soup last night.
...Stew roux, please! Why was store-bought stew so delicious? What was in it?!
Is it just lacking salt? I thought, but not knowing the right amount, it's hard to add more. I should have cooked a little more in my previous life, I regret it now, but it's far too late.
Looking at it calmly, a mysterious dinner of stew pasta had come into existence. It was my resistance against wanting to avoid hard bread, meat, and vegetable soup every meal, but this is questionable in its own way. Maybe I should have obediently accepted the vegetable soup heavy rotation.
...No, this is soup pasta. Yeah, soup pasta. The flavor's a bit thin, but it's something an amateur made from vague memories, and I'll improve it from here on out, is the idea!
Leonardo and the others returned in the evening and ate the soup pasta (not stew pasta) while tilting their heads slightly. When I turned myself in before they could point it out, sorry it didn't turn out very tasty, Leonardo said maybe adding some cheese would supplement the saltiness, and pointed at Aurelia. What about Aurelia? I thought and secretly looked over, and she was silently eating the pseudo-stew without adding the red seasoning placed right beside her.
...Maybe it was just right for Aurelia-san...?
When dinner cleanup was done, Aurelia was banging something in a burlap sack with a wooden mallet. I couldn't see Leonardo, so I asked, and she indicated outside with the mallet.
...Outside, or the side shed? Aurelia-san, can't you actually speak?
When I went outside, I couldn't see Leonardo. So he must be in the side shed, I thought and moved there, and found him writing something at the desk. What is it? I wondered and approached, but I was told it was about time for children to sleep, and was pushed into bed.
When dawn broke, Aurelia and Leonardo seemed to be going out again today as well. They hastily shoved breakfast down their throats and began preparing to leave. Aurelia had Leonardo carry the basket on his back, and for me she brought out a tool like a wheel with a handle, a yagen (T/N: a traditional grinding wheel used in herbal medicine to crush ingredients into powder).
...Ah, I've seen this before. The thing the old man was grinding away at in that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy TV commercial.
At the appearance of a tool I'd only ever seen on TV, I was examining the yagen intently when Aurelia taught me how to use it with gestures and held out the burlap sack she had been hitting with the mallet last night. Peering inside the sack, I saw black sand-like grains of various sizes.
"This, with the yagen, make into powder?"
When I compared the yagen and the sack and confirmed with Aurelia, she gave a firm nod.
...She definitely understands what I'm saying, Aurelia-san.
At the very least, it's certain she can comprehend speech. Though for some reason she seemed to be pretending she'd forgotten how.
"Tina, I think someone will come to transport food soon, so if a Black Knight comes, give him this letter."
"Got it."
I took the letter he had been writing last night and, on a whim, checked the addressee. I can't read it, but a string of characters that seemed to be someone's name was written there.
Seeing the two of them off, I washed Aurelia's clothes, which I had her bring out herself, learning from yesterday's mistake, and our clothes. I confirmed this as well, but apparently there was no need to wash our laundry separately from things suspected of carrying infection. The soap Aurelia uses has a sterilizing effect, Leonardo explained.
When the laundry was done, I spent my free time turning the sand into powder with the yagen. Turning it more and more. It was plain work, but seeing the sand gradually turn into powder was quite satisfying and fun. It required a fair amount of strength for a little girl's arms, but when I put my body weight into it and pushed, the sand smoothly became powder. When I finally looked up, thinking I was getting tired, the room was already tinged with red.
"Huh? It's already evening?! I haven't made anything for dinner?!"
I rushed outside to dash to the storehouse, but I could see Leonardo and the others in the distance. Leonardo was waving his hand, so pretending not to notice and dashing into the storehouse probably wasn't the best idea. Here, I should honestly apologize for not having dinner ready and try to charm my way through.
When I honestly told them dinner wasn't ready, I wasn't particularly scolded. With a little girl's body, I simply lack the strength, and making a meal for three people takes a fair amount of time. Leonardo and the others understood that, so a certain degree of failure was forgiven. In the end, Leonardo would be making tonight's meal, and as I tried to follow his back heading to the storehouse to help, Aurelia caught me. What is it? I looked up, and with a stern face, she said one thing.
"Today's work?"
For a moment I didn't understand what she was saying. But I quickly grasped Aurelia's meaning, and I pulled her by the hand to the yagen and the container where I had transferred the powdered material.
...I mean, she can talk after all, can't she, Aurelia-san? Why does she speak sometimes and not speak other times?
I felt a little uncomfortable under Aurelia's scrutiny as she examined the powder intently. Lacking strength, I hadn't been able to turn the entire contents of the burlap sack she gave me into powder. Would I be scolded for not meeting the quota? I braced myself, but Aurelia silently began transferring the powder into a different container.
"...Not all, turned into powder. I'm sorry."
"Even I couldn't turn this amount into powder in a single day. It's properly powdered, and for something you had a child do, it's excellent work."
A hand was placed on my head with a pat, and I looked up in surprise. Aurelia still wore a stern face, but she seemed to be smiling, just a little.
After confirming the day's results, I was shooed along by Aurelia to go help Leonardo in the kitchen. When I gave Leonardo my daily report, that no knight had come today, so I hadn't been able to deliver the letter, once again, vegetable soup had been made. Endless vegetable soup. Unless someone develops a different seasoning, it will likely be a menu served forever.
When I carried the finished dinner to the table, Aurelia was on top of the table, carefully arranging some kind of leaves one by one on a net. Noticing me standing there confused with soup bowls in hand, Aurelia tidied it away neatly. We set the meal on the now-empty table, and ate a dinner that had come later than last night's.
[Author's Note]
These are Aurelia-san's lines, which relied on machine translation.
"There is a hit case."
(There is a matching case.)
"Get in the way. You Do the caretaker and the housework."
(You'll be in the way. You stay and do the house-sitting and housework.)