Chapter 462

Food is something you buy.

That was my philosophy. Aside from practicing because, as a matter of basic human decency, I wanted to at least be able to cook something to keep myself alive, I meant that the only way to maintain an ordinary daily life was to buy my meals.

‘I’m nervous.’

Today, it was time to make an exception to that philosophy for the sake of my friends. It had been… well, a few months since I’d last stood in front of a fire. After my last disastrous attempt, I’d lost some of my enthusiasm and bought every meal instead. Truthfully, I hadn’t had much of an appetite either, and I wasn’t exactly someone with poor energy efficiency, thanks to taking after my father, so I usually replaced one of my two daily meals with a salad. Even if I hadn’t been buying my meals, I probably wouldn’t have had much reason to stand over a fire and make anything complicated.

Before adding the sugar, I properly set up my station.

We had three measuring spoons laid out in front of us. One was 15 ml, another was 10 ml, and the last was 5 ml. I brought over a new tripod with long legs and set it up. I’d keep it at this height and boil everything slowly from here on out. I’d heard somewhere that beginners weren’t supposed to use high heat. But then, when exactly were you supposed to use high heat? Obviously, if you wanted something to boil down quickly, but was there really no other reason to use it? I wanted to boil this down quickly right now, so was I not supposed to use it then? I had my doubts, but there was no harm in following the advice.

Leo wrinkled his nose and tilted his head.

“Isn’t the tripod too high?”

“I heard somewhere that you’re not supposed to use high heat.”

“…You heard that? From who?”

“Just some people I don’t know. Here.”

I placed the tin plate on the tripod and scooped two spoonfuls of sugar with the largest measuring spoon. White powder spilled over the sides. For some reason, my friends were watching it with tense expressions. I leveled off the sugar piled above the measuring spoon with a glass rod, then poured it onto the plate. Then I slowly stirred the sugar with the glass rod.

“Good. The first measurement was perfect.”

Elias’s eyes lit up. He grabbed another measuring spoon and shouted, “How many grams of sodium bicarbonate do we need now? I’ll scoop it out.”

Instead of answering, I took a deep breath. Leo looked at me in confusion. I shot him a sidelong glance, furrowed my brow, and asked pointedly, “Why do you keep staring like that?”

“No, it’s just… you’ve been doing one little thing after another like you’re about to pull off some grand operation.”

“There’s something suspicious about Lukas.”

Ulrike hit the nail on the head with his sharp observation. I smiled at him and shook my head, then turned to Leo and said firmly, “Doesn’t it mean I’m putting care into every step?”

“What are you talking about? Just tell me how many grams of sodium bicarbonate we need.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t—”

Silence fell. Leo, who had been staring at me with his eyes only half open, suddenly widened them. Everyone was staring at me with their eyes wide. Elias stood there with his mouth hanging open for a moment before slamming the measuring spoon down on the table.

“Huuuh?!”

“O-ohh… oh?”

Ulrike looked at me, Elias, Leo, Narke, and Julia one after another, his face full of disbelief. Perhaps the shock had made Elias decide he needed some sugar, because he scooped up a spoonful and dumped it into his mouth before looking at me again with concern. I really didn’t want to be worried over by a friend who was eating sugar by the spoonful.

I held up my hands to fend off their protests.

“Wait. Let me explain.”

But Leo wasn’t having any of it. Looking utterly dumbfounded, he glanced between Zähringen and Narke—probably thinking they were the ones closest to being reasonable—and pointed at the measuring spoon and glass rod I had used earlier.

“No, then what was the point of measuring anything?! Why did you level off the sugar earlier?!”

“Exactly. When you get nervous, you tend to follow the procedure more carefully.”

“You did it! What do you mean, ‘exactly’?! You’re not normally like this!”

“I’ve always been like this… Listen. I have a plan.”

No matter what I said, Leo shook his head and pointed at the sugar sitting neatly on the plate.

“Before that, when are you lowering the tripod? Is this even going to melt?”

“It’ll melt eventually.”

Leo put a hand to his forehead and backed away. Ulrike muttered with a bewildered look, “So this is how you cook.”

“Yeah. Cooking is all about patience.”

“What would you know about patience…”

Leo kept finding fault with me. I had no idea how many times His Highness the Crown Prince had ever cooked in his life. Of course, my own cooking experience was nothing I could brag about either, but I still had more experience than Leo.

Besides, how many people actually memorize recipes for dalgona in their lifetime? I couldn’t imagine there were many. At least I knew you had to boil sugar and add sodium bicarbonate, so thinking of that as something I had going for me made me feel a little less worried.

I raised a hand toward Leo again.

“I don’t want to hear that from you. At the very least, I know more about this than you do.”

“This is ridiculous…”

“I’ll explain while it melts. I can’t say I’m confident about it. But even if I don’t know exactly how much sodium bicarbonate I’m supposed to add, I think this is worth trying. But before that, let me ask you guys one thing.”

“Hmm?”

“Can’t I just simmer the sugar down in a mortar?”

It was a little difficult to stir the still-powdered sugar with a glass rod that looked like it would snap in an instant if I clenched my fist around it. Wouldn’t it be easier to crush the sugar with a pestle and heat it directly over the flame?

Leo was looking at me like he wanted to give me some advice. Elias, on the other hand, clapped his hands and cheered.

“Whoa, I’ve never tried that because I thought the professor would smack me for it. But now I’m curious—”

“None of you are seriously agreeing with this, right?”

Thanks to Leo cutting Elias off with his eyes wide, I abandoned the idea. Ulrike also started to say we should try it, then quietly turned his head away. Leo kindly placed a hand on my shoulder and offered some advice.

“Lukas. If you want to turn that mortar ochre-colored, go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

I nodded and stirred the sugar without another word. It was gradually beginning to turn liquid. Watching it, I spoke seriously.

“Anyway, getting back to the point, we still have a way out. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from practicing this a few times, it’s this: anyone who’s cooked anything with water in it should know that it’s not the end of the world if you mess up the amount of water.”

“I feel like it is though…”

Ulrike answered cautiously. I understood where he was coming from, but I saw it a little differently. Common sense is important, but if I didn’t have the ability to follow it, I had to come up with a solution that suited my own level.

“Even if you put in too much water, it’s not a big problem. Why? You just simmer it down until it reduces. Likewise, having too little water isn’t a problem either. If there isn’t enough, you add more. If you add too much and it overflows, you simmer it down again.”

If you repeated this process enough times, the doenjang-jjigae would start to taste starchy—presumably from the potatoes—but it would at least look reasonably like a proper soup.

I stirred the sugar faster and continued.

“So should you put in too much, or too little? Here’s my conclusion: if you’re not confident about controlling the amount of water, it’s better to start with a little less than you need.”

It might turn into a thick stew when I was trying to make soup, so that wasn’t exactly easy either, but it was still better than adding too much water. The pot might get a little scorched, but tools could always be replaced. Narke snickered and abruptly turned his head away. Since my friends were looking at me with a hint of distrust, I tried to convince them one more time.

“Guys. I’ve made soup before. When the soup turns into a river, you have to simmer it down until the water evaporates to fix it. But in the process, the vegetables tend to dissolve and become part of the soup.”

“Ugh.”

“But if it’s been simmered down until nothing but sodium is left and you end up with a salty mess… well, a soup like that can be fixed by just adding water later. So if you’re not confident about controlling the amount of water, it’s better to start with too little.”

After going on at length, I was met with a skeptical look from Leo, who had his arms resting on the table as he listened. He jerked his chin at me.

“So what exactly are you trying to say?”

“By the same logic, we should add the sodium bicarbonate little by little, too.”

I plunged the smallest measuring spoon into the jar of sodium bicarbonate, then shook it over the fully melted sugar.

“Whoa.”

Not much seemed to change, but Ulrike’s eyes went round. Everyone’s attention shifted to the tin plate holding the sugar. Ulrike, who had claimed the front spot and was staring intently at the plate, clapped his hands and laughed.

“Whoa, it’s puffing up as Lukas stirs it?!”

“Smells good.”

Zähringen said it while leaning against the wall with one corner of his mouth lifted. Ulrike grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

“Right? It smells really good. It’s more toasty than when you boil sugar down with water.”

“Really? Then that’s a relief.”

“I want to taste it already.”

Bubbles began to rise and froth. Was it supposed to do that? I quickly mixed the sugar and sodium bicarbonate together, and when the sweet smell began to sting my nose, I moved the alcohol lamp away. I put on the thick gloves Ulrike had brought and picked up the tin plate containing the melted sugar.

“Where’s the plate?”

“Here, Luka!”

Elias quickly held out a Petri dish¹. I scraped the dalgona off the tin plate with the measuring spoon and dropped it into the Petri dish.

Thud—

A brown mass covered in bubbles landed on the dish. Elias stared at it and muttered, “Isn’t that a meteorite?”

“A meteorite?”

It can look like this. Though, honestly, even I had to admit it looked a little strange, so there was no way I could defend this dalgona any further. I decided to focus on the taste instead. What did the shape matter, as long as we could press it down and break it into pieces to eat? I handed Elias the presser coated with sodium bicarbonate. Everyone’s attention turned to the meteorite-shaped dalgona.

“Three.”

Elias took a deep breath and raised the presser high above it as he counted.

“Two.”

While he unnecessarily carried out the countdown, I picked up the glass rod I was holding. It smelled sweet. Now that I had gotten past the worst of it, I might as well taste it. I dipped my finger into the warm dalgona clinging to the end of the glass rod and cautiously touched it to my tongue.

‘Ah.’

What the hell was this? Cyanide?

Just as I grimaced and took another look at the glass rod, I heard a strange sound.

“One….”

Crack—!

“Gyaaaah!”

“…!”

The moment Elias pressed down on the dalgona, the Petri dish split in half from the heat. Elias clutched his cheek and shouted.

“Isn’t this supposed to be tempered glass?! It’s just regular glass?!”

“Who makes Petri dishes out of tempered glass?! Who even brought this here?”

“Nooooo, this can’t be—!”

Leo shoved Elias aside and demanded an explanation from the others, while Ulrike clutched his face and wailed just like Elias. Zähringen was still standing a good distance away, laughing in disbelief, while Narke—apparently had been reading my mind—had been chewing his lips for a while now, and had finally collapsed onto the floor. I swallowed hard and quickly thought.

‘This is probably for the best.’

Since everyone was helping each other fail miserably, at least my cooking skills wouldn’t stand out. I hadn’t even put that much baking soda in. What the hell was this? The bitter taste had to be from the sodium bicarbonate. There was no way sugar could be this bitter.

In the middle of this complete mess, Leo quickly noticed my expression, abruptly snatched the glass rod from me, and ate the remaining bit of dalgona from its end. Then he spat it right back out.

“Urgh…”

‘Did you really have to go that far?’

Not my problem. While my friends were distracted in more ways than one, I tossed the Petri dish, now practically fused with the dalgona, into the trash. Then I brought over a low tripod, placed a new tin plate on top, and poured in more sugar.

I finally realized where I’d gone wrong. I clapped my hands as if nothing had happened and spoke seriously once more.

“Now I know exactly what went wrong. Let’s try again.”

That was what I intended to do, but Leo stopped me with a fierce glare and took over. Well, more precisely, since his right arm was still out of commission, I made it according to his instructions.

“Just because the lab didn’t have a 1 ml measuring spoon, how could you put in 5 ml? You need to use even less than that. If you want it to puff up without bringing out the sodium bicarbonate’s natural bitterness, that’s the way to do it. Right?”

“Haha, I knew it. Thinking back to the Magical Medicine Competition, I had a feeling you weren’t supposed to put too much in!”

Ulrike laughed and agreed with Leo. How many times did I have to tell them that I had put in what I thought was a small amount? I answered with a faint chuckle.

“…Yeah. You guys can stop now.”

I’m the Korean here, yet somehow I was the one getting lectured. Maybe it was because these guys were way too interested in science. It was unfair that I was getting this kind of payback for not caring about everything that happened on the internet.

Anyway, since the set didn’t have a 1 ml measuring spoon, I was currently using the 1 ml spoon attached to the back of a reagent spoon to add the sodium bicarbonate. Even that was starting to feel like too much of a hassle, so by now I was just poking at the sodium bicarbonate with a glass rod and dissolving it that way. I sneakily checked Leo’s reaction, but thankfully, he was kind enough to turn a blind eye to what I was doing.

Leo picked up a piece of the dalgona Elias had broken and popped it into his mouth.

“It’s better than just boiling down sugar when you make it properly. It really does taste like candy.”

“Glad to hear it. Eat plenty.”

I was still making proper dalgona with Ulrike. Since Ulrike had declared that he wanted to make some for everyone in his household—his mother and the servants included—we still had about twenty more to make. Leo put a piece of the leftover dalgona into my mouth and said quietly, “Lukas.”

“What?”

“Good thing you’re rich.”

“…….”

I wondered whether I was supposed to be offended, then decided to admit it without a fuss.

“I think so too. Another friend actually told me the same thing.”

Leo nodded and popped another piece into his mouth. Then he asked, “Lukas. Have you made this before?”

What should I say? This was my first time. After a moment of thought, I answered honestly.

“No.”

“Then how did you know how to make something like this?”

“I just knew.”

“…….”

Leo looked me over, then shrugged.

“Thanks to you, I got to make candy myself and eat it, too. It’s pretty fun.”

“I’m never making this again, so eat as much as you can.”

“Mm.”

Leo nodded and focused on eating. Once there was nothing left in his mouth, he spoke again.

“Once we’re done with this, Lukas. Want to go to the art class before we head back?”

At his words, Ulrike, sitting beside me, widened his eyes. He began looking back and forth between Leo and me with a confused expression. I wanted to explain something to him, but feeling a wave of dismay at Leo’s proposition that superseded everything else, I stammered.

“Why are you… Why are you doing this to me?”

“…No, I’m just asking. I got a chance to meet a painter who’s pretty popular in the Salon² these days.”

“I’m not painting. It’s boring.”

If there was one more thing I’d learned following my culinary fiasco, it was that the arts relied heavily on talent, but that affection for the craft was even more important than talent itself. It was obvious, really. Even if you had enough talent to produce results with ease, as though you’d spent years honing your skills without ever putting in any real effort, it would still be miserable if you had no love for it. And even without talent, if you had enough passion to keep working at something for years, you were already halfway there.

I had completely lost interest even in the fields I could proudly claim to have a talent for. So what was the point of dipping my toes into something I had neither talent nor interest in? I’d already had more than enough of the arts to last me a lifetime, so the thought of taking an art class made me shudder. It certainly wasn’t because I couldn’t draw.

That was why I added, “If it’s a book club instead of painting, I might be interested.”

“Hmm. That’s pretty ordinary, though. You really hate drawing with me that much? We’ve got plenty of time before we have to go back anyway.”

“Especially because it’s with you, you idiot.”

My voice must have sounded particularly cold, because Ulrike let out a startled gasp and looked at me. Leo thought about it for a moment before nodding.

More importantly, Leo wasn’t the sort of person who would normally be the one to suggest doing something like this. I carefully asked him, “But why? Do you really just want to do it together because you’re bored?”

“It’d be nice to make some memories, too.”

“What’s gotten into you? Did eating candy mess you up somehow?”

“…….”

“Luka―! Make me another one!”

Elias waved his hand from the next table and shouted. Perhaps my offhand advice had made quite an impression on him—roll it out, press the mold into it, and cut it out as is—because Elias and Narke were busy cutting the candy into shapes with the molds. Zähringen had been dragged into it as well and was simply watching them with his chin propped on his hand.

Just then, the laboratory door, which Ulrike had locked twice, was thrown open.

BANG―!

“Gasp…?!”

Ulrike jumped in surprise and spun around. Leo, who had been sitting across from us, stood up. I turned around as well to see the face of the unexpected visitor—though, now that I thought about it, we were the unexpected visitors here, so I wasn’t sure what I was thinking.

“Young Master? What is this—!”

Someone who appeared to be the head butler was standing there alone. He stared at Ulrike and spoke in disbelief. Elias, who had been watching the scene with a grave expression, placed a hand on Narke’s shoulder and said solemnly, “…It can’t be helped. Narke, hurry and erase it.”

‘Erase what?’

Don’t tell me he means his memory? Leo seemed to have reached the same conclusion, as he put a hand to the back of his neck.

Translator Note

1. A petri dish is a shallow, round, clear glass or plastic lidded dish. Biologists and lab workers use it to hold a growth gel (like agar) to grow and study cells, bacteria, fungi, and small seeds. ↩︎
2. The Salon was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. ↩︎