NOVEL NEXT Chapter 414
Unlike the more complex reasoning of teenagers and adults who weigh pros and cons, the actions of children, whose minds are still flexible, are quite simple.
Driven purely by curiosity about what might lie beneath the playground’s sandy area, they can dig several meters deep.
Backed by endless energy.
Even if it seems utterly meaningless, a little reward combined with the spark of interest and competition sends children charging in like excited bulldozers.
So, Karem took out three silver coins.
With a snap—he cut them in half and gave each child a piece.
“Here, you three, since it’s your first time, this is an advance!”
“…Huh? We haven’t done anything yet. Is it okay to take this?”
“Hey! Can we bring other friends from the village?”
“The more hands, the better.”
“I’ll go get the drying rack you mentioned, brother!”
From that point onward, things started to take off by themselves.
Thanks to a sufficient workforce, the kids who had been somewhat neglected in the village couldn’t believe their ears.
Even those children, who hardly grasped the concept of monetary value, understood how precious silver coins truly were.
Not to mention, they knew better than anyone how exaggerated their peers’ braggings could be.
So, they tried to ignore that and wanted to play knight, but—
“Look at this!”
“Uh…what’s that? It’s real silver!”
“This is silver! I got some for me and the two others first!”
“Wow…”
“They say if you work hard, you’ll get more!”
“…How many candies can we get for one?”
A quiet mutter, no one knowing who spoke it, became ample motivation for the kids who were still crazy about sweet things.
Under the leadership of the initially appointed three captains, the kids grabbed baskets as instructed and sneaked nets and tools used for drying fish.
Surprisingly, no one showed any interest.
The villagers and adventurers probably thought someone was just making the kids do some work.
Soon, the children of Border Edge gathered to start the task.
Before that, Karem called the children together for an explanation.
The process was nothing complicated.
They were to split into two groups; one would gather Neptune’s hair from the rocky areas, and the other would build a temporary drying rack.
Nothing major, but Karem still explained the method in detail.
After showing examples several times and answering their questions, Karem was asked.
“But brother, what is this food for?”
“This? Seaweed?”
“Seaweed?”
“Seaweed.”
“Seaweed.”
“Yes. Now, go work.”
At those words, the kids moved right away.
Carrying baskets, they huddled at the rocky coastline, gathering Neptune’s hair stuck to the rocks, and overlapping nets to set up a temporary dryer as instructed.
If a modern person had seen this, they would have been horrified by the unbearable sight of child labor.
Honestly, Karem felt a twinge of guilt.
The concept of being a minor is a product of a more comfortable modern life.
Before that, hadn’t children been treated as smaller adults once they reached a certain age?
It’s true that the kids under Karem’s leadership today, who were gathering hair algae and setting up a temporary drying rack, still counted as children by contemporary standards.
“Yay— It’s slippery!”
“Hey, you just stab the seaweed with this dagger and pull it off!”
“Look over there, there’s tons of clams on that rock! Should we gather those too?”
However, perhaps because they were in a rural village, the children didn’t seem particularly resistant to being worked.
“Chef brother! There are tons of clams on that rock!”
“Clams on a rock? Sure. First, gather a basket full.”
Karem thought he was perhaps a decent employer as he guaranteed a hefty pay rather than forcing manual labor.
Still, even if not as harsh as in Coldon, he felt a bit guilty working them hard in this winter weather.
If they kept digging deeper, how would he feel?
It reminded him of the damned villagers in Mosstone who had exploited him long ago. He felt quite uncomfortable inside.
Honestly, it felt like he had become one of them.
“…I should prepare some food or something.”
“I’ve gathered clams!”
“Great, oh wow, that’s a lot. Wait, this one’s a mussel.”
To quell even a little of the guilt that threatened to burst out of him, Karem immediately took action.
He quickly stopped by the village to buy a big pot, ladle, onion, leek, and garlic, then returned right away.
He arranged the driftwood and stones collected from the sandy area to create a campfire and filled the pot with snow and ice to let it melt.
The ice would take time, but the snow melted quickly.
Thanks to the dry winter, the driftwood was completely dry, even with the humid sea breeze.
‘Mussels don’t need to be soaked…’
However, they had to remove the foreign substances stuck to their shells.
First, he rinsed the mussels in seawater, rubbing them together to dislodge any foreign matter, and scrubbed off anything that still clung on with Felwinter’s lie.
In the meantime, the ice had melted, and the pot was boiling vigorously.
He quickly added the mussels as they were prepared.
Next, in went the sliced onion, leek, Fire Witch Finger, and minced garlic to enhance the broth’s flavor and eliminate any fishy smell.
After a while, the broth turned milky as a rich scent of the sea, with a hint of sweetness and spiciness rose.
Slurp!
Karem stirred the pot with a ladle for a moment as he contemplated.
‘If only these were oysters, that would be great.’
But Catherine had told him.
Oysters were far too precious.
Karem, who vividly remembered a former life overflowing with oysters, found it hard to comprehend how the Palatino Empire had overfished them internationally despite being completely wiped out by the demon lord’s army.
Reluctantly, he began seasoning with a bit of salt and pepper.
The kids were already working hard enough to break a sweat in this winter, so a salty broth would naturally entice them.
“It’s finished, so… oh!”
Just as Karem was about to call the child workers over, he turned his head and recoiled.
The children who had just been working now appeared with wooden bowls and spoons they must have found somewhere, their eyes sparkling with excitement.
‘Weren’t they just working?’
Had they paused their tasks for this? Over on one side of the coast were piles of baskets full of something that looked like Neptune’s hair. Below them were scraps of material they had brought from somewhere for a base.
The temporary dryer was already set up as described.
That shouldn’t be a problem.
“Alright, line up in order. One line!”
“Brother, what does ‘in order’ mean?”
“Stand in a single line!”
At those words, the kids began to jostle each other playfully while swiftly lining up, and Karem immediately ladled the milky broth and bits of mussel into the bowl of the first kid in line.
The silent, bowed children stepped out of line, and before the next one could even receive their mussel soup, they gulped down the whole bowl.
“Ahhh! Hoooorrrnn—!”
That was a natural reaction.
*
Mussel soup may have a complex flavor, yet its ingredients are surprisingly simple.
As its name suggests, the main ingredient is, of course, mussels.
The rest are for enhancing the broth’s flavor—leeks and onions, with some chili peppers for spice, seasoned with salt and pepper.
The rest involves various variations on top of that.
For someone who prefers a milder flavor, mussels’ natural salinity would mean even salt isn’t necessary.
However, this embarrassingly simple soup can sometimes be enjoyed straight without any side dishes, with some even managing to drink three bottles of liquor solely on its broth.
The special quality of the broth exponentially increases in cold weather.
After all, a hot soup on a day so cold that your fingers and toes turn red? That’s just cruel.
“Hoooaaaah- Hoooaaaaah-”
Slurp! Gulp! Slurp!
“Wow, it’s spicy! But it’s so good!”
Hahaha!
As evidenced by the children’s noses running while they eagerly slurped the piping hot soup, their little bellies all bulged out from beneath their thick clothes.
The look in their eyes as they gazed at Karem overflowed with affection.
He was giving silver coins for such simple tasks, and also handing out delicious food!
What a wonderful master!
Thanks to the money, the previous tasks had gone smoothly, but the subsequent work was even easier.
Washing off foreign substances from the seaweed before drying it?
Snow and ice were everywhere. Just like making seafood soup, gather driftwood to boil it, and then cool it instantly with Divine Power.
Of course, the washing task was wrapped up quickly, thanks to the kids, filled with an extra push from the promise of half a silver coin and a bowl of mussel soup.
Now all that was left was to hang the unidentified hair algae on the temporary drying rack made from their feet and nets.
However, unlike seaweed, they would shrink upon exposure to air, so he needed to sprinkle the steaming hair from the pot over the drying rack and neatly arranged them without gaps.
Logically, Karem also didn’t know precisely how to make seaweed. Thus, the sight of the wet, dark green paper-like stuff hanging from the makeshift dryer felt both unsettling and satisfying.
If only it didn’t have ‘hair’ in its name.
“Hey, hey.”
Feeling a tug on his clothing, Karem looked down to find a girl blinking up at him.
“Is it done with this work?”
“Almost, just need to dry this now.”
“I don’t think this is going to dry.”
What did she mean by that?
When Karem looked at her more seriously, the girl, who seemed a bit younger than the Kikimoras, turned to face the sea.
“The seaside breeze is really humid, right? What if the weather gets colder before it dries and it freezes here?”
“Ah.”
How could he overlook such a mistake?
That observation was indeed correct.
While the saltiness could prevent them from freezing immediately due to the seawater, that didn’t have an infinite limit—if it got any colder from here, it would freeze solid before drying.
In a moment of inspiration, Karem’s mind clicked.
If it can’t dry outside, then it can dry inside.
Just then, there was a suitably spacious interior.
“Hey, everyone. Sorry to interrupt the vibe, but let’s work a bit more.”
*
Ah, a little late.
“Certainly, it would be normal to have returned earlier.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
While Catherine blankly stared at the campfire’s light, she muttered.
“A punctual one is late?”
“For me, that’s a good thing.”
Catherine didn’t respond to that.
After all, that house fairy had been eyeing Karem’s spot for quite some time.
She was still waiting there, expressionless, after finishing the morning cleaning, but the longer it took, the less she could hide her delight.
“In that sense, Contractor. Is there anything you’d like for snack time this morning?”
Mary asked.
“Even though Karem hasn’t arrived yet, we should start preparing to meet snack time on time.”
“…Well, that’s not wrong.”
Catherine raised one eyebrow, glanced at Mary, and nodded.
“Let’s just have some Amadeus cookies.”
“Would you like to accompany it with hot Amadeus?”
“No, since it’s morning, let’s just keep it light with Alraune’s Tears. Just add cream.”
“Understood.”
Mary was about to rise from her seat when the sound of a door creaking open suddenly filled the room.
Creeeak!
“Catherine, Mary! I’ll use the barn!”
With that, Karem closed the door behind him and dashed outside.
The attendants exchanged looks at the sudden turn of events.
Catherine sighed deeply as she rubbed her forehead.
“Looks like he did something.”
“It seems so.”
“You stay here and prepare in the kitchen. I’ll go see what’s up.”
Getting up from her seat and leaving Mary behind, Catherine stepped outside, only to be taken aback.
A drying rack topped with thin, greenish magic materials emitting a fishy odor was filled with mussels, and four kids were carefully moving something woven from nets.
Villagers passing by looked at the strange procession with curious gazes.
As soon as Catherine entered the barn seeking the cause of the commotion, Karem was there, directing the kids on how to position the drying racks and nets diagonally.
So focused was he that while the other kids worked hard, they couldn’t take their eyes off Catherine, oblivious to her arrival.
Once the empty barn was filled up, Karem clapped to gather the kids around.
“Alright, you all worked hard, so here’s a bonus of one silver coin each.”
Overwhelmed by cheers, Karem asked them to line up, and he began distributing the coins—half a silver and then one full one for each of them in order.
Once the noisy barn quieted down, Karem locked eyes with Catherine.
“…Uh, was I not supposed to use the barn?”
“It doesn’t matter as I wasn’t going to use it, but that’s not the point. What is this?”
Catherine shook her head quickly to regain focus and surveyed the inside of the barn.
The arrangement of the nets and fish drying racks.
Above them were the pale, greenish seaweeds giving off a faint fishy smell.
Catherine recognized what it was.
After all, she couldn’t possibly not know such frequently used items.
‘Neptune’s hair, huh?’
Just moments ago, something felt like it was about to crawl out from her throat, but as time passed, it calmed down, and she accepted it forcibly.
Catherine let out a deep sigh and turned to leave the barn.
Her reaction was refreshingly understandable enough that a bewildered Karem trailing behind her was startled.
“Uh, I’ve never seen such a response before.”
“Hahh, right. Well, if Fire Witch Fingers were like that, there’s no reason I can’t eat this. It doesn’t really have any effects on its own.”
“Um… do you know its name?”
“It’s Neptune’s hair. More importantly, you should hurry back inside!”
“Such an absurd name… No! Snack!!!”
Catherine shook her head at Karem’s delinquent response, watching him dash away.