As previously noted, Krasilof had no season other than winter. There was slightly less cold winter, warm winter, cold winter, and freeze-your-ass-to-death winter. Substitute spring, summer, autumn, and winter respectively, and you had roughly the same thing.

University vacations therefore operated on a different principle than on Earth. In South Korea, summer vacation implicitly meant, “Stay home and rest when it gets too hot.” In Krasilof, it meant, “The weather is bearable for once, so spend some time with your family.”

And so, with the autumn rains that fell immediately after summer vacation, winter was beginning in Krasilof once again. (Autumn in Krasilof lasted a week.)

“Wow, this weather is insane. How do humans walk around outside in this?”

“Does time run faster in this country? Why is it winter already?”

“The maids at our house say laundry freezes two hours after they hang it out.”

Such complaints could be heard all over campus. Naturally, they came from foreign nobles’ children and elves. The nobles of Kallion, Thilles, and the other small nations had come north from warmer countries. (Every country with a harsher climate had fallen in the last war. That was why Krasilof was the bulwark of the north.)

“Heh heh. Don’t you know? This is... ‘autumn.’”

“Ah, what a fine, clear day. Makes me want to sunbathe.”

“Any mages here know a freezing spell? It’s so hot I could use some frozen vodka.”

“Sorbet for sale! Perfect for this muggy weather! Strawberry, grape, and lemon!”

This was generally how Krasilof’s citizens reacted to foreign freshmen at this time of year. Possessed of this peculiar pride, they would jeer at students walking around with their coats tightly bundled about them.

Rain fell, the rainwater froze at dawn, and hazy dark clouds forever lurked overhead. In that bleak autumn, a student sat shivering on a bench at the edge of campus, hollow-eyed and teeth chattering, occasionally kneading their own arms and legs.

No, it wasn’t just one student.

“My arm. My arm is moving... I see. So this is a ‘nerve’...”

“Neural connection established. Activating extermination mode.”

“How do people move their arms and legs? I don’t understand anymore... How do they swing all those blood vessels, all those joints, all those muscles so naturally?”

“I’ll give you the password to my National Bank savings account!! If you need anything else, you can have it...!! Please, just stop...!!”

Dressed differently but behaving much alike, they occupied the benches, huddled up and muttering ominously. These oddities had become a frequent sight on campus lately. What they had in common was that they were all freshmen, and...

“What on earth is he teaching them to make them like that...?”

“Another case of Yeremov syndrome. What did they say they did in yesterday’s class?”

“Apparently he used drugs to paralyze the nerves in their right arms and told them to move them with mana.”

“... Crazy bastard.”

They were all students taking two or more of Ivan Petrovich Yeremov’s courses. Other undergraduates encountering this cohort of student-patients, known as Yeremov syndrome patients (ESP: Yeremov Syndrome Patient), for the first time felt a chill and thanked their lucky stars they had chosen not to enroll.

“Eeeeek!! That window...! In the window...!!”

One student caught sight of a branch swaying outside a window, clutched their head, and crumpled. At a glance, the drooping conifer needles did look rather like a beard.

Watching the scene, Isabelle muttered with an icy expression.

“This won’t do. Everyone, gather round.”

It was time to draw the ultimate weapon to stop Ivan Petrovich Yeremov’s rampage. She could not allow him to mass-produce any more ESPs. On the gloomy September campus of St. Jansk University, where madness spread like a contagion, Isabelle finally convened the Hero’s Party.

“We’re having dinner at my house tonight.”

“Bleurgh.”

Elpihera, the Hero’s Party’s mage, retched, her ears drooping. But she, too, understood the gravity of the situation and raised no further objection.

“Whyyy? What’s the matter?”

“Stew and risotto.”

“Sounds delicious! There’ll be beer too, right?”

“You’ll need something with a stronger flavor than beer to rinse your mouth out... Lemon soda or something...”

Lundis, who had never experienced ‘that food’ during the festival, quietly tilted her head.

Stew and risotto. Eugene called them ‘kimchi stew’ and ‘kimchi fried rice.’ Tofu with kimchi had been ruled out as utterly unfit for human consumption. (Feta cheese must not be eaten with kimchi.)

* * *

It was during the weeks between the festival and the tournament.

Isabelle invited over the chefs of ‘MicheliX Fine Dining,’ which had attempted to sell culinary abominations at the festival, set a new record for staggering losses, and sunk without a trace.

Yuri, Eugene, and Oswald chuckled ominously, impressed by this fantasy-world inhabitant’s courage.

“Heh heh. Trying to exploit the secret recipes we spent months figuring out, free of charge...”

“Is this your average premodern Russian’s moral character?”

“Thilles is closer to France. I’d prefer you called it Frenchie morals.”

The three lunatics, whom their respective departments had all but given up on, spouted nonsense and grinned as they enthusiastically helped spread their culture. Occasionally, they offered such incomprehensible suggestions as, “Try wrapping some Xpam in kimchi.”

From that day onward, a dreadful stench never left Isabelle’s kitchen. Every night, the maids in charge had to attempt to disinfect it with alcohol, their expressions mournful. (They reported that they now understood how giant-monster-remains cleanup crews felt.)

Several days into the work, Isabelle finally came to a realization.

“There was a country that actually enjoyed eating this...? Were they demons?”

“Sorry...?”

“No, well. Mister did serve in demon territory during the war, so... I suppose his tastes could have become a little... a little like that. But what about you three? What are you, to eat something like this?”

“Are you... insulting kimchi?”

The three growled, their faces menacing. Isabelle gave the oddballs a pitying look.

“Well, mister likes it, so let’s say it has something going for it. Though honestly, I’m not sure his palate is capable of seeking out anything good...”

Look at what Ivan normally ate: bricks of fat that reeked of musty grease, crunched up and swallowed with mana-enhanced jaw strength.

To Isabelle, that was a sort of... wartime habit. (It was.) A culinary tradition that conveyed the horrors of war with aching poignancy.

But love could overcome any obstacle. She wanted to feed him real ‘food,’ warm and full of affection, rather than those bricks Elpihera unhesitatingly called dog food.

The first step was this rotten-vegetable series: dishes with the grotesque mechanism of mixing already rotten ingredients into fresh vegetables, then letting the whole thing rot again. Whether to call it cooking or an alchemical experiment was debatable. (One theory held that alchemy began in the kitchen.)

“Still, aren’t you being a little strange? Think about it. Do you imagine there’s no Krasilof cuisine in Thilles? Or no Thilles cuisine in Krasilof?”

“... Uh...?”

“You’re supposed to adapt food to suit the culinary culture of the country it’s in. That’s common sense.”

“My God...”

“A Frenchie understands cultural relativism...?”

Isabelle could not understand why Ivan had gathered these lunatics in one place. Did madmen possess some magical power to attract more madmen?

But right now, she was a hero with a mission to guide one madman onto a bright, healthy, righteous path. A hero was not the strongest person. The title had always belonged to the bravest.

Not once since the terrorist attack on the train had Isabelle experienced fear in its truest sense. She carefully picked up the rotten cabbage topped with Droan-style fermented herring with her forefinger.

“This is the essence of the dish you call ‘kimchi.’ You salt vegetables, season them with aged seafood, chili peppers, and garlic, then let them ferment thoroughly for a few days. That’s the basic idea.”

“Uh... Yes?”

“We take that as our base and combine it with Krasilof cuisine. Honestly, you people sound like you’ve never cooked a meal in your lives.”

The lunatics all flinched.

Eugene and Oswald had been ordinary Korean men whose entire cooking experience amounted to instant noodles. In this world, they were high-ranking nobles. Wasn’t cooking something a maid brought when you rang a bell?

Back on Earth, Yuri had been a game illustrator. Sadly, people in that profession had no time to indulge in such luxurious hobbies as cooking. And in Krasilof, she had lacked the money to cook for herself. (She was an orphan. Apart from those at Vasilisa Orphanage, Krasilof’s orphans lived clustered together in the slums.)

The inhabitant of the premodern fantasy world surveyed them, then sighed with a look of contempt.

“Honestly. Nobles.”

“My God...”

“Me... a noble...?”

Isabelle, by contrast, had been the unwanted child of the Thilles royal palace. Before the Hero rose to prominence, she had been a hostage. After he killed the Demon King, she had been insurance against him. After he withdrew into seclusion, she had been treated as a freeloader.

Living in a mansion near the palace, unable to trust even her personal maids, she had ample opportunity to learn cooking directly from her commoner mother.

Confronted with an inhabitant of another world treating modern people as pathetic, indolent nobles, the three lunatics spiraled into confusion.

“First, leave out the anchovies. They smell far too strong. We’ll use seld—Krasilof-style pickled herring—instead.”

“We tried pickled herring too! Seld is too mildly seasoned. If we’re using herring, we might as well use surstr—”

“If you mean that insane rotten fish from Droan, shut up.”

“Yes...”

Isabelle glared in disgust at the glass jar of fermented herring. That salted seafood had crawled up from the deepest pit of hell. Open it once, and the stench lingered in the kitchen for two weeks.

“We can adjust the seasoning with something else. Besides, mister is from Krasilof. Why would he eat something so heavily seasoned?”

“Ah...”

But he was Korean...? No, if he had lived twenty years in Korea and thirty here, did that make him a Krasilof man? Then again, he’d spent twenty years in demon territory... Should they count him as a demon?

Trying to determine Ivan’s nationality left Eugene thoroughly confused.

“Now, the basic ingredients are ready. Let’s start with the stew.”

“Don’t you just add water and boil it...?”

“Haa...”

As a native of Thilles, where a magnificent culinary culture had flourished, Isabelle looked at the pathetic Krasilof noble and the equally pathetic Kallion elf.

Those Kallion types made good desserts, but their culinary culture had otherwise made no progress at all. What did the pointy-ears proudly serve besides sardine pie? (That was untrue.)

Thilles, on the other hand, was a cultural and artistic powerhouse. She would have to teach these stupid culinary ignoramuses what food was, one lesson at a time.

“Watch closely. We’ll use one of Krasilof’s most common stews as a base and mix these fermented vegetables into it. Let’s start with borscht—a sour cream stew with sausage.”

Before this premodern inhabitant of another world, equipped with cultural relativism, broad-minded acceptance of foreign cultures, and even creativity, the twenty-first-century nationalists quietly sank.

Several weeks passed in this fashion. Now, at last, with vacation over, Isabelle decided there was no reason to continue her culinary research.

She had finally perfected it: Krasilof–demon territory fusion cuisine (not really), with the stench suppressed enough to make it edible.

“It’s actually... edible?!”

“This is a cultural victory. This is national pride.”

“Please shut up, everyone. You’re embarrassing me too.”

The lunatics trembled with awe. Was this a glimpse of the talent of the Hero’s daughter?