Tensei Saki de Suterareta no de, Mofumofu Tachi to Oryouri Shimasu ~Okazari Ouhi wa my Pace ni Saikyou Desu~

Translator: Kuromaru

Editor: Evelet

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6. I crave Ice Cream

― ― ― ― ― ― ― ―At first light the next day, I was standing at the kitchen table with my blond locks in a knot, wearing a pinafore that I had borrowed from a maid.

It was just past noon, and the kitchen was relatively empty at this time, as lunch was over and dinner prep wasn’t yet in full swing. 

The ingredients and utensils that I would be using were neatly lined up in front of me:

Eggs, cream, sugar, and bottled honey; 

A metallic bowl, cups, a saucier, trays, and wooden pans;

And the iron scraps from the mountain that I had requested from the servants. They looked out of place, but there was a good reason for having them. I divided them, then held a handful as I closed my eyes and focused my energy.

From my hands to my feet, chest, stomach, and then to my head, I grasped the magical power that was flowing throughout my whole body and concentrated on it. The magic that I was using was earth-based. In order not to fail, I didn’t shorten the chant but performed it properly.

“It’s done…”

The magic spell was directed at the items on the kitchen table. A silver whisk formed in place of the iron scraps. It was a type of earth magic called “Seiren¹,” a magic spell that used soil and minerals as raw materials to freely transform its shape.

At first glance, it looked useful, but in today’s magic, it was but a minor spell. There were several reasons for this, first, it required a huge amount of magical power. It needed magical power equivalent to a medium-sized spell, to transform even a handful of iron scraps.

The second and most fatal problem was the strength of the reformed creation. The problem was that it would inevitably lose its strength and break in just an hour, which made it hard to use it properly. In that regard, I didn’t think there was a problem with using it as a temporary cooking utensil. And if it broke, I could easily rebuild it again.

When I picked up the whisk, it felt cold and heavy.

“Well, it’s a little heavy, and the whisk’s head seems a bit smaller?”

I modelled this creation after the stainless-steel whisk that I used to use in Japan. I thought that, maybe because I’d been using it for many years, it came out great on my first try. Though I was worried about the small differences because it was my favourite item.

“Let’s redo it.”

If the whisk was heavy, my hands would tire, so I’d have to remake it from scratch. Since it was difficult to use the same spell on an already transmuted iron, I used the remaining unused iron scraps. After about four attempts, I was able to create a whisk that was almost exactly what I wanted.

“Okaaaay.”

I grasped the whisk’s handle. Its nostalgic weight caused my lips to form a small smile. If I could remake my favourite whisk, then without a doubt my work would be much more comfortable from then on out.

I was going to make ice cream.

When I thought about what I wanted to eat, this was the first thing that came to mind. I was reincarnated before I had the chance to eat the homemade ice cream that I had made; as such, I was craving it. Strawberry ice cream would have been ideal, but it seemed that this country didn’t deal in strawberries. 

Fortunately, there seemed to be some berry-like fruits similar to strawberries, so I wouldn’t give up and persevered in my search.

To be safe, I washed the whisk and dried it, then earnestly started cooking. First, I measured every ingredient then divided them into the metal cups and bowls. Then, I divided the eggs into whites and yolks and put them in separate containers. I put the egg whites in a bowl then mixed in the sugar. 

Stir and stir and stir…I’m quite tired.

I didn’t think that I had enough strength to mix with a wooden spatula or even a whisk. 

When I was in Japan, I used to try various time-saving techniques such as cooling the egg whites in advance, but today I would stick to the basics so I didn’t end up failing.

I continued mixing for a while till the corners started to rise. Next, I added sugar to both the egg yolk bowl and the cream bowl, then mixed them well. When all three bowls were well mixed, I finally added honey and mixed them all again with a wooden spatula. Then, after checking on the mixtures, I poured the contents of the bowls into 3 somewhat small trays.

It was time to use my magic once more.

I had used water magic to spread ice on the flat bottom of three large pots in advance. After putting the trays in the large pots, I sprinkled salt over the ice on the lids. It was the artificial freezing mixture that we’d learned in science experiments a long time ago. It should be possible to keep the temperature much lower than if I had tried to cool it using only ice.

However, there were a few problems. I couldn’t accurately remember the exact mixing ratio, and I wasn’t able to completely seal it while it was cooling. I used a box because I didn’t have a refrigerator, and it wasn’t as airtight. 

Therefore, I divided the ingredients into three large pots, each with a different amount of salt sprinkled on the lid, and put them in the artificial refrigerator.

As I replenished the ice and salt every once in a while, I decided to check my remaining magical power.

“As I thought, unlike before, I still have enough to spare.”

My speciality was fire magic, so I wasn’t very good at using water magic. But today, no matter how much I made ice, I still had plenty of spare magical energy. I even tried and failed to make the whisk many times; that should have consumed lots of magical energy.

I had the same feeling yesterday, but it seemed that my magic had indeed become powerful. My magic capacity was the same, but it seemed that I could now use magic more efficiently to achieve the same effect while consuming less power, which was quite an improvement.

That was probably due to regaining memories from my previous life. Naturally, there was no magic on Earth. It was a foreign substance to my past self, and therefore I could now feel its presence more keenly.

Most if not all of the people in this world were born with magical power. Because they had magical powers from birth, they had difficulty in sensing them, so they had to practice to be able to do so. In short, a person’s magical power wouldn’t change throughout his or her life. That’s why most of the magic training got spent on how to sense it, and on ways to use it more efficiently.

…I seemed to have overcome that high hurdle by recovering memories of my previous life. Before this, I was only able to utilize about 20% of my magical power, but now I could almost use 80% of it. That was certainly exceptional, considering that even the best mages could only use 30% of their magical power. In fact, it was almost as if my magical power capacity had jumped several times.

I was one of the top ten in the country when it came to magical power from the start, thanks to the Duke’s bloodline. It was as good a cheat as any…²

Even Sumia, who was revered as a saint by many, would most certainly lose against me in a one-on-one magic fight. Well, that’s why I didn’t feel like using offensive magic. To attack meant getting attacked back. I didn’t want to be in that situation; I’d rather use it in cooking. Also, if I use it in a flashy excessive way, I’ll risk making myself look suspicious when in dangerous situations.

While I was thinking deeply about this, about two hours passed.

“It’s ready!”

The smooth, chilled ice cream shimmered on two of the trays. The pot with the least amount of salt hadn’t cooled enough, but the others seemed to have been successes. 

The ice cream in the pot with the most salt seemed to have hardened a bit too much, so I stirred it with a spoon several times. Thanks to all the stirring, air was mixed in and its texture became quite fluffy.

I didn’t stir the other two at first because I was afraid of ruining them by removing the trays and letting heat in, but it seemed like stirring was the right call after all.

While I was standing with the finished ice cream, there were many cooks lined up around me in the kitchen wondering what I was doing.

“You have come at the right time, everyone. If you don’t mind, will you try it with me?”

“What? Can we share it? Is it a kind of ice candy? Isn’t it a luxury item that only aristocrats can have?”

“It’s okay. The ingredients themselves aren’t that expensive, and I originally planned on letting the people in the kitchen eat it.”

“Us?”

“I think cold food tastes better when the ambient temperature is high.”

Eating ice cream in midwinter was good too, although I liked having it from spring to summer. But it was still early spring in this country.

Although I wanted to eat ice cream, the chilly temperature was too cold to make it comfortable. 

However, it was different in the kitchen. As dinner neared and its preparation began in earnest, the temperature gradually rose from the heat of the furnaces. It was the perfect setting for eating ice cream.

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