Ascendance of a Bookworm (LN) - Volume 4.8 - Chapter 7

Dissecting Fish

The coming-of-age ceremony for commoners was held at the end of winter, and the plan (of my dreams) was for the fish to be dissected at some point between then and the baptism ceremony at the start of spring.

“Ferdinand, when and where are we going to be dissecting the fish?”

I asked this same question every single day while assisting him with his work. It wasn’t until the third day that he gave me an answer, all the while fixing me with a cold glare as though he were looking at garbage. The joke was on him, though; I was pretty much immune to his icy stare by this point.

“Two days from now, in the afternoon. It will be done in your workshop.”

“I would rather do it in the morning so that we can have the fish ready for dinner the same day. You are invited, of course. We’ll need to make a lot, since we’re cooking for everyone in the orphanage too, so you might as well share in the fruits of our labor.”

Ferdinand was so exhausted that he relented, agreeing to dissect the fish with me in the morning no matter how annoying he found it.

“Is there anything I need to do to prepare?” I asked.

“Summon all of your guard knights, change into riding clothes, and ensure your hair is tied securely behind your head. Do not underestimate what we are up against.”

His response seemed a little strange, considering that we were just going to be preparing food, but I decided not to give it any further thought and sent an ordonnanz to the castle. I would need my attendants to bring my riding clothes with them as well.

It was only a short while later that Lieseleta arrived with the riding clothes, with Leonore and Judithe serving as her guards.

“Lieseleta, Monika has said that she wishes to learn the noble way of tying up hair,” I said. “Would you mind teaching her?”

“Not at all. It may take a while, though; perhaps you could spend that time reading?” Lieseleta suggested with a giggle. It was a truly magnificent idea, and I wasted no time picking up the book that Fran had prepared for me.

“Lady Rozemyne’s hair is quite silky and smooth to the touch, but that makes it harder to grip and properly secure in place,” Lieseleta said, brushing my hair before gently taking a lock of it in her hand. I caught the beginning of her explanation, but it wasn’t long before I was absorbed in my book and stopped paying attention to her entirely.

It was the day of the fish dissections. I woke up early, ate breakfast, had Monika tie up my hair, then got Nicola to change me into my riding clothes. I was ready to go and overflowing with enthusiasm.

“Leonore, Angelica, are all of my guard knights here?”

“Yes. All of them,” Angelica said, her chest puffed out. “I spotted Judithe through the window just a moment ago. I can enhance my eyesight now.”

In stark contrast to Angelica’s proud demeanor, Leonore was looking at me with a clouded, worried expression. “You seem quite excited, Lady Rozemyne. Are you not likely to collapse at this rate?” she asked.

“I’m quite alright. I won’t collapse. Not before I’ve enjoyed my fish, that is!”

“...It is good to see you so enthused.”

Once I was changed, I told Zahm to inform Ferdinand that we were ready, while Angelica summoned the other knights.

“Lady Rozemyne, a message from the High Priest,” Zahm said upon his return. “He wishes for you to bring the magic tool to your workshop. He also said for you to bring the implements he has listed.”

I made my way to the workshop as instructed and opened the doors. The attendants had moved the boxes, desks, and such used for brewing into a corner, making space for the magic tool that was placed in the center of the room. Hugo and Ella then brought in a sturdy pot with a lid, exactly as Ferdinand had requested.

“Do we really need to be this careful...?” I asked. “I mean, we’re only preparing fish.”

“The ingredients we have are the ones the court chefs had no use for, right?” Leonore asked. “There are many fey creatures eaten in Ahrensbach that I could imagine commoners struggling with.” She then went on to name a few, but there weren’t any I recognized.

“Leonore, are there any fish in there that we can salt-grill?” I made sure to note that what I had in mind was a very simple process—one just needed to cut a cross into the skin and then sprinkle it with a generous amount of salt before cooking.

Leonore looked somewhat troubled. “Do you mean to say that you only cut as deep as the skin? In that case, do you cook it without removing the organs? That sounds very difficult... Is it essential that you prepare it that way?”

“I assumed that salt-grilling was the simplest cooking method,” I muttered, surprised that she had rejected the idea almost immediately. “Would you rather we boil it or something?”

“The issue is not the method of cooking but your suggestion that the skin and organs not be removed first.”

In other words, we had no choice but to fillet the fish. I was contemplating other ways to prepare it when Ferdinand arrived with Justus and Eckhart in tow. They entered the workshop and stood in front of the magic tool alongside my guards.

“Let us begin by dealing with the most troublesome specimens,” Ferdinand said. “Rozemyne, watch from the side, and take care not to interfere.”

I wanted to be of some use in filleting the fish, but if even something as simple as salt-grilling was complicated in this world, maybe it was best for me to stand down. Judithe was assigned to guard me, while I sat and watched from one of the tables that had been pushed into the corner.

“Everyone, form shields of Wind and enclose the taunadel,” Ferdinand instructed.

“Yes, sir!” replied the knights. They formed their geteilts and moved into a circle, much like a gathering of athletes before a sports match. Ferdinand opened the cover of the time-stopping magic tool, removed a taunadel, and then crudely flung it into the center of the huddling knights. No sooner had he taken out what he needed than he shut the tool again.

That fish looks a bit like a yellow urchin with a tail... Or maybe more like a puffer fish.

As I squinted to get a closer look, the taunadel grew longer and thinner, and the spines covering its body turned purple at the tips before they started shooting from its body. I couldn’t believe how aggressive the fish was, but the barrier of shields surrounding it meant that its attack was simply reflected, causing the spines to shoot straight back at the taunadel. It almost seemed too easy, but I could imagine commoners struggling to deal with such a sudden barrage.

“Keep your guard up until the taunadel runs out of spines,” Ferdinand said. “Each spine is poisonous, so getting stabbed would not be ideal.”

“Yes, sir!” the knights barked again, all wearing stony expressions.

My ears twitched at his words. “Erm, Ferdinand... It seems to me that the poisonous spines are all jabbing into the fish. Will the meat still be edible?”

“I do not know,” he replied curtly.

I took a sharp breath despite myself and cried, “What do you mean, you don’t know?! I want you to teach me how to dissect the fish, not fight them! They need to be safe to eat!”

“How am I supposed to know? Never before have I dissected a fey creature with the intention of eating it. This method will allow us to collect resources from the taunadel without issue. If you... truly insist on eating it, I suppose you may use a potion to detect whether the meat is poisonous.”

I wasn’t sure I could stomach fish that was full of poison—or fish that just didn’t taste very nice, for that matter. I specifically wanted to eat something tasty.

This is such a disappointment! I’ve never been more disappointed with Ferdinand in my life!

Once the fish had no more spines to shoot out, the knights put on gloves and started collecting them. They were valuable brewing ingredients, apparently.

“You desired the meat, correct?” Ferdinand asked.

“Not when there’s poison in it. How am I supposed to eat that?” I asked, harrumphing at the very idea. He shook his head, said that I was a handful, and then “graciously” deposited several poisonous spines into my brewing ingredient box. It wasn’t what I wanted at all.

I wanted food, not brewing ingredients. Will I even get to eat fish today...?

Just as my dream was beginning to die, however, Ferdinand came over to me. “Here. Regisch should suit your needs. You wish to dissect it, no? This contains no poison and should therefore be safe to eat.”

“Really?!” I exclaimed, leaning forward.

Ferdinand plopped two rainbow-colored fish on the table, each about thirty centimeters long. They barely reacted, perhaps due to the lingering influence of the time-stopping magic tool. “Eckhart, Cornelius, hold their tails,” he said. “Do not let them escape.”

“Sir!”

“Rozemyne, flood this one with your mana.” Ferdinand noted that regisches had very hard scales that knives couldn’t cut through, but that these scales became even harder as the fish absorbed more mana. “Once it has been filled completely, the scales will swell and spread out. Flood it all at once and then tear them off.”

It was clear that only nobles were able to dissect regisches, which begged the question—why had they ended up in Aurelia’s luggage? Commoner chefs would clearly be unable to deal with them. I was at a loss, but in any case, I poured my mana into the fish. The time-stopping magic seemed to fade, and the regisches began to flounder violently.

“Guh!” Cornelius yelped. It seemed that even he was having a hard time holding one of the regisches by its tail, so I drew upon even the mana that I usually kept compressed and slammed it all into the fish. “Stop flailing!”

An instant later, its scales swelled up and turned into what seemed to be tear-shaped feystones. The regisch flapped around feebly as Cornelius continued to hold it down.

“Now, tear them all off,” Ferdinand said, having already poured mana into the other regisch. I did as instructed, grabbing one feystone scale after another without hesitation; descaling a fish was such a fundamental skill that it was almost second nature. Once I was done with one side, I flipped the fish over and got to work on the other.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried peeling such big, round scales before. They must be, like, over five centimeters long!

Not only were the regisch’s rainbow scales beautiful, but they were also all the same size. I took one between my thumb and index finger, then held it up to the light so that I could see through it.

“This scale is so shiny and pretty. If we make a few alterations, I think we could use it as an accessory...” I mused aloud. I was sure that I could get Zack or Johann to cut it for me, but when I turned to everyone else for their thoughts, I saw them staring at me in utter disbelief. “U-Uh... Was it something I said...?”

“You fool. That in your hand is a rainbow feystone,” Ferdinand said. “It contains all elements, and on top of that, it is filled with your own mana. It is a highly valuable ingredient—not something to be wasted on such a frivolous endeavor.”

I was aware that rainbow-colored feystones contained all the elements, but it hadn’t occurred to me that this scale was a feystone. Evidently, it had morphed into one while I was forcing my mana into it.

“The knights all used their mana to slay the taunadel, so give one feystone to each of them,” Ferdinand said. I did as instructed and then gave a feystone to Judithe as well. It seemed only natural that she should get one, considering that she had guarded me, but she received my offering with a conflicted expression.

“I didn’t fight, though...” she said.

“You guarded me, no? As was agreed after the ternisbefallen incident, we must reward not only those who attack the enemy, but those who play crucial support roles as well. Otherwise, everyone would want to be attackers, and we would not have anyone to serve as guards.”

“Lord Bonifatius scolded us the other day for how we gave out points back then, but I didn’t think that logic would apply here too...” Judithe said, nodding. It seemed that the knights hadn’t yet fully absorbed the message. Perhaps I would need to inform Bonifatius.

Once everyone who was owed a feystone had received one, I turned my attention back to the bare, twitching regisch in front of me. Its scales were its only valuable resource, and now that they had all been removed, it looked like any other white meat fish. My first thought was that it would taste delicious cooked with herbs or salt. Frying it sounded good as well.

“Ferdinand, may I salt-grill this?” I asked.

“I would advise you to remove the flesh before anything else. Once it dies completely, it will turn into a feystone.”

“Oh, right! I forgot about that!”

It had completely slipped my mind, since the regisch before me looked so much like an ordinary fish, but fey creatures turned into feystones upon death. In short, they would become inedible. Now I understood why cooking Ahrensbach fish whole was so difficult.

Filleting it is, then.

I whipped out my schtappe, chanted “messer,” and then went to remove the regisch’s head. But before my knife even touched the fish—

“Fool!” Ferdinand barked. “Cut into the body, not the head!”

“Ah.”

The Japanese-style filleting I was so used to would have killed the regisch in an instant, but I didn’t know any other method. I stopped, knife in hand, and nervously looked around.

“You may count on me, Lady Rozemyne,” Angelica said, striding forward with Stenluke in hand. “I’m an expert on dissecting things.”

“You may rest easy, master of my master,” Stenluke agreed.

Cornelius lifted the regisch by its tail and tossed it up into the air. Stenluke’s feystone flashed, and Angelica swung her manablade with a sharp expression. An instant later, there was a pile of expertly cut fish meat before me.

“There, Lady Rozemyne.”

Oh my god. That was amazing. Angelica’s cooler than she’s ever been!

My heart was throbbing at Angelica’s heroism, and it seemed that I wasn’t alone—Eckhart was comparing her and the chopped-up regisch with raised eyebrows. “You are strangely dexterous at times, Angelica,” he observed.

“I’ve been doing a lot of training with Lord Bonifatius,” she explained.

Upon hearing this, I professed my love for my dear grandfather Bonifatius from the bottom of my heart. I wanted to entrust all further fish dissecting to him and Angelica.

Among the other fish, there were eel-looking things called meerschlanges, which were over a meter long and covered with eyes like a ternisbefallen, and a flounder-like fish with a bunch of eyes on its back. Both were dissected pretty normally, despite how strange they looked. Apparently, it was very hard for commoner chefs to prepare the eyes properly.

Ferdinand dissected the meerschlanges with as much style as Angelica when she had sliced up the regisch. I had witnessed many battles during my time in this world, but I could say with confidence that both of them looked cooler now than ever. They were like expert sushi chefs dominating the cutting board.

Be still, my beating heart! Aah, my precious fish!

Soon enough, Ferdinand got to work on another strange fish called a sprasch, which was only about as large as a sardine. He took some pieces of meerschlange he had chopped up earlier and put them in the sturdy pot we had with us, violently threw some sprasches in as well, then slammed the lid on and shouted for all the knights to help him hold it in place.

The events that followed were almost surreal. As I watched on in a daze, there was a sudden, loud explosion from within the pot that made me jump. More explosions continued one after another, causing the pot to rumble furiously.

“Erm, Ferdinand. The fish seem to be exploding...” I said.

“We must wait until the explosions stop,” he replied. “Knights, continue to hold the lid so that it does not come off.”

Only when the blasts stopped was the lid removed. Inside the pot, to my complete surprise, was fish paste.

Aah, I want meerschlange-and-sprasch-ball soup! But there’s no miso here! If only this place had soy sauce... I would have been fine even with clear soup.

The knowledge that those thoughts were even crossing my mind made me realize just how much I had grown accustomed to this very unusual world.

I was hoping to find something resembling shrimp or prawns in the time-stopping magic tool, but nothing caught my eye. I wanted to make bouillabaisse with shellfish, but as that evidently wasn’t an option, I decided to settle for using normal fish instead. The famous Marseille Bouillabaisse Charter forbade the use of shellfish, squid, and octopus anyway, so a dish made without them would presumably be more authentic. Then again, it also said that only fish from the Mediterranean reef were allowed to be used, so I was going to be violating it either way. For me personally, all that mattered was that I was making bouillabaisse with fish of some kind.

I decided to keep the innards of the remaining fish with the intention of making broth to enhance the flavor of the bouillabaisse, and to have the fish paste turned into balls that we would put in the soup.

Hugo and Ella worked hard that evening to create a veritable feast. The knights were able to enjoy the meal as well, since they had played such an important role in helping us dissect the fish, although they naturally had to take turns eating.

The main courses were regisch and the other normal fish fried and cooked with herbs in various ways, which diners could eat according to their preference. I was going to be served the salt-grilled fish that I yearned for so desperately.

“So, Ferdinand—what do you think?” I asked. “They’ve been cooked very similarly to the zanbelsuppe, but with proper broth, even the fish tastes delicious, no?”

“I obtained some valuable ingredients, so this is not as bad as it could have been...” Ferdinand replied. He punctuated his remark with an aloof scoff, but it seemed to me that his hands were moving exceptionally fast.

Well, he seems satisfied enough.

“Aah, fish tastes so good...” I gushed. “I’ve come to want Ahrensbach.”

Ferdinand momentarily choked on his food and then sputtered, “Why would you say that, fool?!” My guard knights were staring at me in similar wide-eyed shock, but it was only when Hartmut remarked on it being a good idea that I realized how extreme my comment must have been.

“Oh? Was that not appropriate for me to say?” I asked. “I simply meant that it must be nice to live in Ahrensbach, what with all its fish...”

“That was not at all clear,” Ferdinand replied.

I laughed it off and waited for my salt-grilled fish to arrive. Fran appeared a short while later and gently set the plate in front of me. It was a simple dish—white fish sprinkled with salt before being cooked—but it had taken a lot of pleading on my part for them not to do anything extraneous to it.

“Is that the salt-cooked fish you were so obstinate about eating?” Ferdinand asked, looking at my plate. “It smells quite agreeable.”

“I know, right?” I replied with a smile before taking a big bite. The flavor really made me crave some white rice, but it was still absolute bliss. All of a sudden, I glanced up with a start. I was fairly certain I had been in this same situation at some point in the past.

When was it again? Oh, right! That time with Sylvester!

It was back when Sylvester had dressed as a blue priest and asked to taste my meal. I was pretty sure that commenting favorably on the smell of something was the euphemism nobles used to demand food.

Nah, nah, nah. Ferdinand isn’t Sylvester. He wouldn’t ask for food from my plate.

I glanced over at him, confirmed that he was coolly continuing his meal, then looked down at the single piece of salt-grilled fish before me. The proper thing to do in this situation was to offer him my food and then eat whatever remained once he was satisfied, but I didn’t want to surrender my dinner entirely.

“I will not give you the entire dish,” I said, trying to recall my wording from back then. “You may have half, though.”

Ferdinand raised an eyebrow. “If you remember that much, then you surely remember the correct course of action as well.”

“The correct thing to do is pretend that I didn’t understand you, right? Since this is my fish, and I refuse to give it up.” I gave an indignant “hmph” and then continued to eat until only half of my meal remained. Ferdinand watched me all the while with an indescribable expression.

“Okay, Ferdinand,” I said. “You can have the other half.” I offered my plate to him, which he accepted with a chuckle.

“You could not call this ‘half’ by any definition, Rozemyne. This is the High Bishop giving leftovers to the High Priest.”

“Hm?”

“Well, regardless—you are of a higher status than me within the temple. I will graciously accept your gift.”

I didn’t intend to give you my leftovers! Honest! That sounds so cocky! Give them back!

Of course, I couldn’t actually say that out loud, so my only choice was to watch Ferdinand eat the fish... all the while wearing a similarly indescribable expression.

Satisfied with the food, I enjoyed some post-meal tea. Ferdinand was doing the same while looking over me and my retainers.

“Rozemyne, Spring Prayer is just around the corner. I imagine the Leisegangs will welcome you from the bottom of their hearts, but I am uncertain how they will react to Wilfried, who has Veronica’s blood and whose reputation will forever be stained by the Ivory Tower incident. You will need to observe matters carefully and prop him up at every opportunity.”

In short, I needed to protect Wilfried from the stones cast by the Leisegangs, much like he and Charlotte had protected me when I woke up for winter socializing.

“All of you, protect Rozemyne as well,” Ferdinand said, fixing my retainers with a hard stare. “She will one day stand with Wilfried as his first wife. Do not under any circumstances fall for Leisegang’s honeyed words.”

“Understood.”