kscans

Chapter 176 - Episode 10: A Taste of Home

"This is the limit for the distance from the prism. If I move it any further, it will get too blurry and the resolution will drop. The next thing to consider would be the slit..."

Maytyl supported her forehead with an arm resting on the desk. Her eyes, as if possessed, darted back and forth over the blank Magic-sensing Paper. She would occasionally shake her head, look at the notes she brought with her, and shake her head again.

"Noel. How are the adjustments to the slit's thickness?"

"Y, yes. It will take a little longer. Um, changing the thickness... it still makes the magic spread out."

Just then, she suddenly turned to Noel, asking for confirmation with the bare minimum of words. Noel replied in a tense voice. Fulsy, for the record, was not here. She was working on improving the Magic-sensing Paper. Apparently, she was changing the quality of the paper base itself, rather than the catalyst that reacts to magic.

"Just hurry. If this approach doesn't work, we'll have to think of something else. To reduce the loss from the prism..."

A week had passed since the salad experiment, and contrary to my hopes, Maytyl’s condition had worsened. Even from a distance, her complexion was pale. To make matters worse, she had dark circles under her eyes.

The relationships within the magic team, which should have been going well, were also strained. Part of it was likely due to the lack of progress in our research, but the main cause was probably that Noel and Fulsy had gone along with my little scheme. In other words, I had tried to play manager and ended up making a complete mess of things.

"Princess Maytyl."

"What is it? I'm busy, you know."

"You shouldn't push yourself so hard. The lights are on late at the ducal residence as well..."

"The useless princess who does nothing but offer unsolicited advice should stay quiet."

"Hey, anyone would be worried seeing the look on your face."

Unable to bear it any longer, I chimed in.

"I am cooperating properly, just as your policy dictates. I will listen if you have a complaint about the lack of progress on the device's improvements, but in that case, please provide a counterproposal."

Maytyl glared at me.

"I don't have any complaints about that. It's just..."

"If it isn't about the research, then I have no need to listen. What I need is your knowledge, and what you need is my knowledge. Is that not right?"

At Maytyl’s words, I backed down.

Having been driven away by Maytyl, I headed for the director's office. Sherry, Rilka, and Mia were waiting for me in the room.

"Princess Maytyl's meals at the ducal residence are unchanged. No, in fact, the amount she is eating has slightly decreased..."

Alfina relayed the information from the duchess. I had suggested two improvements. First, that she should eat at least one piece of fruit for breakfast. Second, that she be served a large salad for lunch.

But she still refused to eat a single bite of breakfast. As for the pre-lunch salad, she had apparently tried to eat it for the first few days. But that only caused her to eat less of her main course, not more. I had proposed the salad so she could eat her main course without worry, but if her appetite itself was declining, there was nothing to be done.

"I'm ashamed. I failed completely."

"It feels strange saying this about an imperial princess. But isn't she being a little selfish? Do you have any idea how much trouble Sherry went through to get all that? Well, this time..."

"...I do think Vinder's way of doing things lacked delicacy."

"Vinder just doesn't know how to treat a girl. I wonder if it's because of his environment."

"...You have a point. The ones closest to him are Alfina-sama and Mia, after all."

"I think Sherry is pretty soft on Vinder, too."

"D, don't lump me in with you. I just get dragged into things."

Sherry denied it emphatically. Yes, I do think you get dragged into things quite often.

"Ahem. Mia, how was she when she was in Kurtheite?"

I asked Mia. Incidentally, when I brought this up with Mia last night, she let out a huge sigh. Then she cut me off as I tried to explain and went to Alfina's room.

"In a word, functional. She maintained an attitude of management toward others and herself. Personally, I find it a relatable approach. For example..."

Mia explained what Maytyl was like in Kurtheite.

"Managing personnel with symbols and numbers... She's thorough."

If it were only toward others, I would feel disgusted, but apparently Maytyl treated herself the same way. Well, it was just as I had imagined. Or rather...

"That's why I thought she'd be more receptive to it if I framed it like an experiment."

"Had your and Princess Maytyl's positions been reversed, she might have found it amusing," Mia added. I get it, my bad.

"I agree. I believe the environment, where she is effectively a hostage, is placing a great deal of mental strain on her."

"Especially since Princess Maytyl must have been conscious of the fact that she came to the Royal Capital because you summoned her."

"...I see."

A senior student who had studied abroad once told me something. To practice the saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" in a vastly different environment, you first need to establish your own rules. "I learned just how difficult it is to do things that were perfectly normal in Japan. It's especially hard to maintain concentration," he had said. Apparently, all the ordinary things happening around you bombard your brain like static.

That student used to write down what he was about to do on a piece of paper before starting any task over there. He showed me the notebook, and it was like a personal instruction manual.

Maytyl's situation was even worse. After all, she was a hostage in a country that had, until very recently, been an enemy. She made comments to that effect, though she framed them as jokes, and looking back now I can see it.

"Not only did I fail to explain properly. The proposal itself was wrong."

Maytyl had at least tried to implement my suggestion regarding lunch. But it only made things worse. Thinking about it now, the main cause of her loss of appetite was stress. The different food culture and the resulting drowsiness were just factors that exacerbated it.

"...Trying to deal with a stress-induced loss of appetite with a method that increases stress. Of course it was going to fail."

I tried to manage Maytyl’s blood sugar, not Maytyl herself. It is a bad habit of mine, trying to manage human relationships logically.

"It seems you understand. But the way you put it... Well, I suppose it's typical of you."

"I wish I could have provided better support."

"You're both too soft. Vinder is the one at fault for treating a matter concerning a girl's health so carelessly."

Ah, I see. So that's what Rilka and Sherry meant earlier.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I've learned my lesson about why I failed."

"So, how are you going to fix this?" Rilka asked.

"What to do..."

With everyone's eyes on me, I fell into thought. I understood the cause of the failure. And the core policy of getting Maytyl to eat a proper lunch hadn't been invalidated. The problem, then, was the method.

"I'll stick with the basic policy of having her eat a proper lunch by stabilizing the fluctuations in her blood sugar. However, I'll shift the target from salad to carbohydrates... the staple food... I guess."

If I were only considering Maytyl's health, salad would be best. But she is a human being. If she likes carbohydrates, then I have to find a way to make improvements with carbohydrates.

"Even if it's not as effective as salad, there must be a staple food that's digested and absorbed more slowly than bread. For example, simply switching to ordinary brown bread would have an effect."

"Isn't that unappetizing? The duchess is providing the finest hospitality she can. Lowering the quality for a royal from another country under her care would cause all sorts of problems."

"That's true. And you couldn't just change Princess Maytyl's bread. It would mean adjusting all the meals at the ducal residence to suit her. And she has already declined that offer once."

"It might just become a new source of stress. In that case, a completely different food would be better."

If I remembered correctly, among staple foods made from wheat, the one with the lowest GI, the slowest rate of absorption, was pasta. But they did not have it here. They had flour, but unlike udon, I was pretty sure you could not make it just by kneading flour with water and salt. Besides, the reason pasta digests slowly was because it was made from a special variety of wheat.

I could probably ask Kenwell to procure some candidate wheat varieties, but starting from material selection for something I did not know how to make would take too long.

Bread was out. There was no rice... Other staples included corn... sweet potatoes... Same problem, I did not even know if they were available. Did they have potatoes? But those were absorbed incredibly fast. Maybe I could grind beans into flour...

No, that would not work. In my past life, there were many soy products touted as healthy, but they were all only delicious for a substitute. There were good reasons why wheat and rice had attained the status of staple foods. Minor grains were just minor grains...

"No, wait a minute..."

I recalled one ingredient. There was a minor grain that was commonly eaten even in modern Japan, where food was plentiful. And...

"What they served when we visited Lisabet was a galette, right?"

"...Yes, though I don't really remember the taste," Sherry said.

"Soba might work."

An image of a nostalgic taste from my past life surfaced in my mind. Soba was a perfectly good staple food. And its digestion and absorption were supposed to be much slower than wheat flour. I had never made soba myself, but I was pretty sure nihachi soba meant a ratio of two parts wheat flour to eight parts buckwheat flour. There were also products advertised as being one hundred percent buckwheat. It seemed less difficult than pasta, at least.

Since its form was completely different, I could push it as an unusual dish...

"No good, I don't have the dipping sauce."

To eat soba, you absolutely needed soy sauce. And bonito flakes. It would be easier to replicate the method for making pasta than to recreate those two incredibly difficult ingredients. Even if I could, I would likely repeat my failure with the yokan.

"Useless..."

Facing the paper where I had written and crossed out candidates, I buried my face in my arms on the desk.

"Here. Tea."

Sherry placed a cup in front of me. The calming green aroma of the tea soothed me just a little.

"I brought some with me when I delivered the dressing to the ducal residence, and they said it was very popular."

As she said this, Sherry's face was clouded.

"What's wrong?"

"...I just remembered having tea with the duchess."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"...It's your fault. She asked me all sorts of questions."

Sherry's words were cryptic.

"Why? ..........Ah, never mind. I get it. Let's get back on topic."

I had forgotten, but I was responsible for getting one of her sons exiled.

"Anyway, something I can make easily with what I have on hand, and the cooking method has to be..."

I took stock of the ingredients I possessed. The dressing we all made was lined up in front of me. Olive oil, chili peppers, and I was pretty sure garlic was common here. Then there was the bacon I had asked Dalgan-senpai for. If I had pasta with these...

I remembered a dish from my past life. It was simple and delicious. And cheap. It was a dish for poor students. It was packed with elements that stimulate the appetite. I think it was called something like pasta for the poor, but over here...

This was no good. What was the point of thinking based on pasta, which did not exist.

"Wait. There's no pasta, but..."

A noodle dish I had eaten only once in my past life came to mind.

"Hey, Sherry. You've secured a stock of matcha for me, right?"

"You asked for it, so it's fine. But... trying to win her over with ice cream is a bit lazy, don't you think?"

"No, it's not for ice cream. Also, I want to get that other thing I mentioned earlier. They do make it in the kingdom, right?"

"...I'll ask Roston-senpai."

Sherry said. Roston-senpai's family dealt in rare fruits and grains, I recalled. Good. All I needed now was the bacon I had asked Dalgan-senpai for, and the ingredients would be ready.

"You have thought of something, then."

"I'm not very confident, but I have one idea. The only problem is how to get her to eat it..."

If I were the one to suggest it now, it would just be counterproductive.

"Please leave it to me. I believe I can create an opportunity by delivering it to the duchess as an unusual dish," Alfina said.

"Wouldn't that still be close to forcing her..."

"This dish is the result of you, Ricardo-kun, considering not only Princess Maytyl's physical health, but her emotional well being as well, is it not?"

Alfina stared intently at me as she asked.

"I can't guarantee she'll like it, but that is my intention."

Pressed by her gaze, I nodded. This idea was not one born from considering function alone.

"Then I am sure it will be fine. You are simply bad at conveying your thoughts, Ricardo-kun. Although, when one realizes that, it presents its own set of problems..."

Alfina smiled sweetly.

"...I will provide support by explaining that everyone has been constantly pushed around by you," Mia said.

"Is that really support?"

"It is support for Noel, not for you. By making you the enemy, her relationship with Noel may be repaired."

Rilka and Sherry burst out laughing at Mia's words.

"...I see. Please do that."

I nodded.