Er Mu - Release that Witch

Her mother would always gather some for her birthday, sometimes picking more and sometimes less, but always enough to make two mushroom dishes to celebrate her birthday. Compared to the usual moldy and coarse bread and bland porridge, its unique flavor was hard to forget. Although nowadays, she has no longer had to worry about not getting enough food to fill her belly, these days the food was always varied and plentiful, she still wanted to personally make this delicious food which could only be tasted in this small town in the western region and share it with Roland Wimbledon who was recently always so busy.

The flames in kitchen stove had already been extinguished, but to Anna, this didn’t pose any problem. She took some firewood from the side and threw it into the oven, and called her black flame, just a few moments later a vigorous fire already burned within its chamber.

At this time, Nightingale suddenly appeared from the wall, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“I want to make something to eat for His Highness, these days he is always staying up late to work. What about you?”

“Ahaha,” Nightingale began laughing in embarrassing, and touched the back of her head with her hand. “I just came to look for a snack to eat… I’m a little hungry.” After pausing for a moment, she curiously probed, “What are you planning to cook?”

“Well… honey baked mushrooms and mushroom soup,” Anna opened the bundle, revealing the Bird Beak Mushrooms inside, “They are Border Town’s regional specialty, do you want to try some?”

Nightingale nodded and then quickly asked, “Can you teach me how to make them?… I also wish to learn to cook them.”

“Yes,” Anna laughed, “It’s quite easy.”

After slicing the mushrooms, she took a lot of the mushrooms and divided them between Nightingale and herself. “First spread a layer of butter on both sides of the mushrooms, then carefully roast them on the fire until they are golden on all sided. Be careful not to roast them for too long, or else they will burn black.”

“Okay,” Nightingale said, took a piece of the Bird Beak Mushrooms and imitated Anna’s style of smearing oil on both sides of the mushroom. “Has His Highness recently always worked until late into the night?”

“That’s right, in order to find a place for the refugees, as well as drawing blueprints for new machines, he spends almost everyday after midnight before he goes to bed. There were several times when I’ve passed by his office, that I could still see the light of the burning candles from under the door.” Anna nodded once and then asked, ”You were gone for more than half a month, so you began to miss His Highness, right?”

Hearing the unexpected question, Nightingales hand slightly trembled, dropping the mushroom into the oil, “Uh… actually it was not too bad…”

“It wasn’t limited to only you; it was also the same for Lightning, Lily, Echo, and Wendy. They all were missing His Royal Highness; they said since there was not even a bathing place, they had all wanted to return at an earlier time,” Anna suddenly felt that the other’s expression had become somewhat strange, “Hey, what happened?”

“Nothing,” Nightingale said flustered, shook her head, took another mushroom and then said with an embarrassed smile, “actually it was like that, indeed… I also longed to come back.”

“Is that so?” Anna used her hands to directly pinch the oil coated mushrooms and threw them into the fire of the stove, “If it was me who have to leave His Highness for half a month, no, maybe even just a few days would already be enough that I couldn’t wait to see him again.”

The moment when she had met Roland Wimbledon within the dungeon, was the most incredible moment in her entire life, until today whenever she recalled this moment, her heart was would still fill with warmth and gratitude. If not for His Highness, even if she could have somehow lived on, it would only be a life in ignorance and confusion, just like those apathetic townsfolk.

It was His Highness who had taught her how beautiful the world truly was. No matter if it was because of the soy paste covered pepper steaks, or the “Theoretical Foundations of Natural Science”, the moment he had stepped into her life it had filled with all kinds of new stuff, allowing her to finally feel that she no longer was the same as those other people, but rather a unique and unmatched witch.

She was confident that the others sisters also felt the same — as long as they were in contact with His Highness for a long enough, it was impossible for them not to become caught up in his strange but clever ideas and his unique charm, this was what Anna believed without a shred of doubt.

“Oh, did I bake this for too long?” Nightingale raised her iron fork and showed that one side of the mushroom had already become burned.

“A little bit…” Anna couldn’t suppress her laugh, “Bird Beak Mushrooms is very tender, so it isn’t necessary to roast them for a long time, just test it some more and you will grasp it. For now, I will prepare the material for the stew. ”

Nightingale instead sprinkled the lightly burned mushroom with honey and salt and threw it into her mouth, “Well, it was still delicious.” Seeing how Anna skillfully mixed all kinds of herbs and other ingredients together, she asked curiously, ”Have you done this often before?

“Ah, marinating food, grinding flour, going to the nobles and ask for a seasonal work, helping to wash and shave the neighbor’s sheep,” Anna said, “Most of the time I was doing those kinds of odd jobs, the only exception was when I went to Teacher Karl’s college.” After pausing for a moment, she continued, “But when my mother had died, my father no longer let me go to the college, or even allowed me to leave the house in general.”

“Sorry…”

“All of that doesn’t matter any longer, it’s in the past now,” Anna’s eyes shined brightly like a sky-blue lake in the moonlight. “Compared with the majority of the other witches, I can already be considered as being very lucky, can’t I?”

Over the flame the thin pieces of in butter coated mushrooms slightly curled up, issuing a crackling sound. After sprinkling some salt grains on top of the mushrooms and roasting them until golden on both side, a fresh and fragrant smell soon began entering their nostrils. The mix out of the milky flavor of the heated butter and the unique flavor of the Bird Beak Mushrooms caused them to salivating. And with their final honey coating, the roasted mushrooms were finally ready. Whether it was the Bird Beak Mushrooms or the honey, both could be collected in the Concealing Forest, but even for the locals, if it turned out that there was a beehive on a cut-down tree, or Bird Beak Mushrooms at its top, it was considered a very lucky day.

When the pot with the stew release white steam, the two also completed their mushroom roasting and seasoning.

“That was a success, or at least it looks good,” Nightingale said, stuffing another piece into her mouth. “As it turns out I also have quite a gift for cooking… Pff! It seems this piece was a bit salty.”

“The time is also just right,” Anna stated after glancing at the night outside of the window, “I presume we should deliver it to His Highness now.”

“Would you please hand mine over to him?” Nightingale asked, clapping her hands together, ”Please.”

“Don’t you want to come with me?”

“I can’t,” she laughed. “Because I do not know what kind of expression I should show when I see him now.”

Anna was startled by the unexpected answer, but before she even could open her mouth to further ask about meaning of this sentence, the other had already disappeared into thin air.

Is it important what kind of expression I show? Regardless if I show a smile, am dispirited or wear an expressionless face they are all good, ah. Even when I had just come out of prison, had lost faith in everything, and had all my hope turned to dust, His Highness never became fed up with melif, so why does she want to avoid him?

Even after thinking about it for a time, it still felt incomprehensible to her. So, in the end, she only shook her head, picked up the tray with the mushroom dishes and the soup by herself and went to the office.

Roland was currently designing the pattern of the medal for tomorrow’s ceremony. It was reasonable to say that he should already have completed this not especially complicated work long ago, but since the beginning of the afternoon, he had felt somewhat ill at ease.

That’s right; it was because of Nightingale’s kiss.

Although there had been some indistinct signs before, since she had never acted on it, he had also never taken the initiative to speak about it either. But now, there was no longer any room for doubt, what would be the right way to respond to her feelings?

This question also let him understand that he didn’t dislike Nightingale at all. Instead, he even somewhat liked her. A beautiful and touching woman with a calm nature, and with whom he was together from morning to night, how could he ever hate her? The reason for Roland’s inability to respond positively towards her laid in the twenty years of ideology he had inherited, as well as the actual question he would have to face in the future… Anna’s opinion. Especially the later point, he couldn’t ignore Anna, and only act according to his own preferences.

Perhaps only time could bring him the answer he was looking for.

Suddenly, a knocking sound came over from the other side of the door.

“Come in; it isn’t locked,” Roland shouted while being surprised at the same time, who would still come to his office at this hour?

Only to see that it was actually Anna who pushed the door open and entered the room, holding a tray with two dishes and an earthenware jar. Before she could even open her mouth to speak, Roland already smelled the alluring aroma.

“Food?”

“Yes,” Anna let out a small laugh and placed the tray on the table, then removed the top of the jar and uncovered a milky white soup, “This dish is called honey roasted mushrooms, this plate here was made by me and Nightingale made the other one. And in the jar is mushroom soup, it is seasoned with some commonly seen herbs.”

“It looks very delicious,” Roland licked his lips, “Come sit down so that we can eat together.”

Anna nodded and sat at the opposite side of the table.

“Why didn’t Nightingale come along?”

“She said… she didn’t know what kind of expression she should show when she sees you,” Anna replied. “I do not quite understand why she cares.”

“…” So that’s the reason, Roland softly sighed within his heart, although she had bold and confidently said that she didn’t felt the least bit of regret, even shamelessly boasted “This is not your fault, I just did what I wanted to”. However, in truth her ability to summon her courage and leave the cave to explore the outside world wasn’t any better than that of a squirrel. Really, in the end, was she daring or timid… “In that case, let’s eat first.”

When he picked up a piece of mushroom and put it into his mouth, the honey melted and within a flash spread its sweetness within his mouth, soon followed by the mushrooms own juice. In the absence of monosodium glutamate, it was still so rich and tasty that it made him completely speechless… a little salt further enhanced its freshness, and also, the mushroom’s own chewy texture, of exquisite tenderness, the taste became simply impeccable.

“These… aren’t ordinary mushrooms right?” after swallowing, Roland immediately asked about the aspect of the meal that let it stand out from the masses of other foods. In general, it was already good when the mushrooms could keep their fresh taste when barbecued, but how could they be this juicy? As if they were filled with soup.

“Well, they are a specialty of the Concealing Forest, the town’s people call them Bird Beak Mushrooms,” Anna smiled and recounted the mushroom’s history, “That’s why I wanted you to taste them.”

Afterward, Roland also tasted the slowly cooked mushroom soup, which was equivalently matchless, the flavor of the juices was even more rich, it was just like eating tangbao[4] in general, furthermore, with every chew a crisp feeling was invoked. Tasting this for a long time he couldn’t help but think of the in later generation extremely commonly used, seasoning which was added in vast amounts to all kind of dishes — MSG[5]. In the time before MSG had appeared, chefs could only enhance the flavor of food indirectly, for example by using whole chicken bones, mushrooms and soybeans to create a clear soup stock. Although the preceding generations of cooks preferred once more the authentic flavor to show off their own exquisite culinary talent. However, it was still right to say that even if it was a bad or novice chef, as long as they added MSG, they could increase the dull flavor of their food by more than a level.