Chapter 26: Apricot Panna Cotta
The taciturn and rather peculiar ranger—yet unexpectedly reliable in many ways—was about to leave.
When the news spread, the villagers of Green River Village felt a measure of unease.
After all, although the abnormalities in the deep forest had eased somewhat compared to before (at least no more grotesque creatures had been seen emerging from the undergrowth), the banshees’ piercing wails still echoed through the night every evening. This could only mean that whatever had caused the forest’s changes had not yet been completely eliminated.
However, the village chief soon released an announcement to reassure everyone: after the ranger’s departure, some members of the Royal Court’s Knight Order would take over as the protectors of Green River Village.
The Knight Order—powerful, noble, rigorously trained, and of extraordinarily high status—were, to the villagers of Green River Village, almost like creatures of legend. No one had ever imagined that a knight order would actually come to a remote, impoverished place like theirs. And so, quite naturally, the villagers quickly forgot about the ranger’s imminent departure, and everyone became swept up in anticipation and excitement over the arrival of the knights.
Everyone except Alan.
Set against the villagers’ high spirits and jubilant excitement, Alan seemed especially dazed—and a little listless.
…
“My dear Alan, you look far too out of sorts today. You’re not feeling unwell, are you?”
Mrs. Pan leaned over and spoke to Alan with concern.
At the moment, Alan was in her kitchen, helping her simmer the sugar-preserved apricot paste needed to make apricot panna cotta.
It was a dessert being specially prepared for the banquet to welcome the Royal Court’s Knight Order.
After all, the Knight Order’s status was anything but ordinary, and this time they were coming specifically to protect an obscure, remote mountain village like Green River Village. Naturally, their treatment would be far better than that of an ordinary ranger. To welcome these “important figures” from the knight order, Village Chief Hans was making quite a show of planning a banquet. And at the villagers’ request, Alan had no choice but to take part in the preparations as well.
“If we didn’t have Alan’s cooking, this banquet would really just turn into a country bumpkin’s dinner!”
Quite a few people said this at the time. And in a sense, the villagers weren’t wrong. Perhaps because he had once been an adventurer and traveled to many places, Alan’s cooking was far more distinctive than that of an ordinary rural village. Several of his signature dishes were flavors that couldn’t be found even in the royal capital. The apricot panna cotta he was helping to make now was one such example.
Elsewhere, people would simply mix milk, eggs, and various pastes together, producing something dense and sticky, even a bit cloying and throat-catching.
But with nothing more than his battered, makeshift alchemical apparatus, Alan could extract a special gelatinous substance from the bones and animal hides the villagers brought him.
Alan called it gelatin. Puddings and custards made with it had a wonderfully smooth, springy texture.
The apricot panna cotta in particular was made entirely from ordinary ingredients with no magic at all—fresh milk and apricots produced right in Green River Village—yet the finished dessert tasted so exquisite it seemed like food from the realm of the gods.
A milk-white panna cotta lay beneath a glaze of golden, honey-like apricot sauce. The panna cotta itself was delicate and tender, trembling faintly on the spoon like a small lump of pearly white cloud; once it reached the mouth, the semi-set custard melted at once into rich, fragrant sweetness. The deep, creamy flavor mingled with subtle notes of vanilla, and then the sweet-tart taste of the candied apricots spread across the tongue, making the dessert taste even richer and more luscious, while also drawing saliva unbidden. After the first bite, it was impossible to stop.
Naturally, the village chief would never allow such a dish to be absent from the banquet prepared for the knight order.
And that was precisely why Alan was now in Mrs. Pan’s kitchen, simmering candied apricots with a gloomy look on his face.
In truth, Alan thought he was doing a pretty good job of hiding his emotions.
But he hadn’t expected Mrs. Pan to see through his low spirits at a glance.
“I—I’m fine,” Alan said after a brief pause.
“I just didn’t sleep well,” he added by way of explanation.
He even managed to convince himself.
Veles had already said he would come back, and Alan was certain that Veles would keep his promise.
Clumsy as it might be, Alan had once been an adventurer, after all. He wasn’t some delicate, tearful noble young lady with fragile nerves. He had seen far too many partings and had long since learned how to face them calmly.
Even on the day Veles left, he had behaved with proper composure.
He stood at the entrance of the village and waved to Veles.
The silver-eyed man pulled down his hood, looked at him deeply, and then waved back.
They said goodbye quietly, and then went their separate ways.
Life seemed not to have changed at all. Alan continued living his ordinary village life; the only difference was that after Veles’s departure, the fairies had become unusually lively and cheerful—
…though their appetites were a bit smaller than before.
Alan had thought he would soon pull himself together, but several days had passed, and he still felt wretched.
“Oh, Alan—”
Mrs. Pan gazed at him intently. Her rosy, kindly face was now full of concern.
For the first time in his life, Alan found himself afraid of Mrs. Pan’s gaze. Flustered, he stirred the apricots in the copper pot and hastily grabbed at an excuse.
“The candied apricots should be ready, Mrs. Pan. Why don’t you have a taste and see how they are?”
Mrs. Pan sighed, leaned in, and sampled the candied apricots Alan had made. The very next moment, she frowned.
“Mrs. Pan?”
Seeing her expression, Alan was suddenly seized by a bad feeling.
“There’s a saying around here,” Mrs. Pan said, “never let a heartbroken girl make jam—because the jam she makes will taste of tears.”
Mrs. Pan lifted her head and spoke to Alan as if she had seen through something.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have asked you to help me cook the candied apricots today either.” The older woman sighed, then handed the spoon to Alan.
Alan took it and tasted his own jam. His face instantly flushed red.
This was not how candied apricots were supposed to taste. A jam simmered from sugar, water, sweet grape wine, and apricot pulp ought to be pleasantly sweet and tart—but the thick syrup clinging to the spoon was so sour it nearly stripped the skin from his tongue.
“Sorry… I think I must have gotten the sugar ratio wrong,” Alan murmured by way of explanation.
“I’ll make another batch right away…”
“Oh, no need, my dear.”
Mrs. Pan stopped him, gently pushing at his shoulder.
“Though I don’t know which lucky young lady in the village has managed to occupy your thoughts so completely,” Mrs. Pan said as she ushered Alan out of the kitchen, “if you’ve had a quarrel, it’s better to make up sooner rather than later! You ought to take the day off today.”
Even though everyone was frantic with work for the banquet, Mrs. Pan still firmly made Alan put down all his tasks.
“The gentlemen of the knight order won’t cry over a serving of apricot panna cotta—but the one you care about might be hiding somewhere in tears. You should go find her, not stay in my kitchen making awful jam.”
She spoke briskly, then paused. Turning around, she picked up a pair of scissors, went into her garden, and cut a large armful of lush, dewy musk roses, which she stuffed into Alan’s arms.
“Use these as a gift,” she said.
Blushing furiously, Alan accepted the bouquet of roses. He stammered, wanting to explain that he was only sad because a friend had left, but when he saw the concern on Mrs. Pan’s face, every explanation stuck in his throat.
“Thank you. I—I’ll be going, then.”
He stammered the words, then, absent-minded, carried the armful of roses toward Veles’s cottage.
He walked into the deep forest, and at the moment the small house came into view, Alan suddenly came back to himself.
The cottage was empty, achingly desolate.
Veles was no longer here.
The dragon vines were still rooted where they had been, yet with Veles gone, even those once lively, cheerful plants seemed a little listless.
Of course, upon sensing Alan’s arrival, they brightened as usual—thick, fleshy vines stretching out like puppies, rubbing affectionately against the neck and wrists exposed at his collar.
But without Veles, something still felt wrong.
Alan walked through the now-vacant house. The rooms still held Veles’s unique presence—that cool, clean scent that belonged only to him.
But by now, Veles was probably already close to the royal capital.
At the thought, Alan let out a sigh, hugged the roses tighter to his chest, and trudged out of the cottage in low spirits.
He tidied the yellowing branches of the dragon vines and cast a small spell at their roots to help with absorption.
He lingered there until the sky was nearly dark before preparing to leave. Just then, however, he suddenly felt the dragon vines—previously languid and relaxed—snap taut.
Countless emerald branches bristled as fine, dense thorns erupted from them, then wove together around Alan, enclosing him at the center of the vines.
Alan knew all too well how dangerous these dragon vines could be. Though they always seemed cute and docile around him, if they ever regarded someone as an enemy, their terrifying power rivaled that of high-level monsters.
But this time, the dragon vines had met their match.
A razor-sharp sword intent slashed through the deep green barrier, instantly cleaving the interwoven, treacherous dragon vines in two.
“Who goes there?”
Alan quickly cast a restorative spell on the severed dragon vines, then stared straight toward the direction the sword intent had come from and shouted sharply.
“Alan?”
The next second, the seemingly hostile intruder spoke in a familiar voice.
Alan’s eyes flew open in shock as he stared at the person walking toward him step by step from the other side of the forest.
The tall man had a face like a sculpture, his pale blue eyes resembling precious gemstones.
He stood as upright and flawless as a silver-cast holy icon enshrined in a sanctuary—yet at this very moment, the expression with which that “icon” looked at Alan was filled with the surprise and affection of an ordinary mortal.
“It really is you, Alan!”
He sheathed his sword and smiled gently at Alan.
“Captain?”
Alan stared at the man he had not seen for a very long time, hardly daring to believe it, and called out softly.
