City of Witches

1.

At the highest area in Ars Magna Town.

Up the mountain road, where oak and birch trees were planted on the small slope, at the end of the road, there was the Gemini Mansion.

It was the residence of Countess Gemini themselves, and it was often referred to as ‘Gemini Palace’ by other witches.

The reason for that was because the mansion occupied enough land for a small village, and with some tweak, the Geminis could even use the mansion as a five star lodging if they wanted to.

It bordered the Ars Magna Lake to the east, and inside the mansion ground, there were four artificial ponds in total. That should give off enough estimation to how big the mansion really was.

After passing through the main gate that would definitely intimidate its first visitors, one would be greeted with a magically cultivated garden that offered flowers in full bloom, regardless of the season.

To get to the main building, which was also renowned for its beauty, one had to pass through the seemingly endless garden and a total of six fountains along the way

When one were to open the front door to the main building, they’d be greeted by the majestic-looking marble stairs and aesthetically pleasing ceiling that consisted of overlapping arches, just like a cathedral.

The gallery, which was connected to the main entrance, was big enough to be used as a banquet hall. In the 6 m wide and 70 m long room, there were various paintings, sculptures and vases being showcased.

But, the most amazing thing about this was the fact that all this spectacle didn’t exude any ‘vain’ aura.

Instead, it exuded such elegance that made all this show of wealth didn’t feel snobbish at all.

Even though the extent of the luxury the mansion showed reached every single corner of the mansion, even to the ivory carvings of the staircase.

And, as one could expect, just by breathing in such a place would already make any average person to be all tense.

However, one would feel more at ease if they were to go towards the annex up north.

Originally, this place was used to be the main building, but nowadays it was used as the annex, so the management of the place was noticeably more lax.

And this place was where the room of the apprentice witches, the lodgings, and the workspace of the over fifty employees of the mansion were.

Considering how big the mansion as a whole was and how many people the Countess had employed, there was a lot of work to do, and by extension they also needed plenty of workspace to carry those works out.

There was still room to prepare all the ingredients that needed more than a day's time to make, like jam and soup stock.

A pantry where they stored all their expensive plates and glasses.

They even had rooms specifically for utensils made of ivory.

There was also a larder where they’d process their meat at and store various ingredients such as eggs, cheese, and butter.

They also had a laundry room that was connected to the boiler room for both washing their clothes and ironing them.

All the rooms that supported the busy daily life of the mansion were located in the annex.

However, even that rowdy daily life quietened down considerably at night.

Especially in the kitchen, the place where food was usually being prepared, they never turned on the lights at night in that room, except on the day before a festival or when there was a banquet going on.

But tonight, even though it was already well-past 11 pm, there was a dim light coming out of the window of the kitchen.

“Hmm…”

“What’s wrong, Sis? Is there a problem?”

Inside the spacious kitchen was Odile Gemini and Odette Gemini.

Usually bickering, this time the twins were racking their heads together to accomplish the same goal.

They were already aware that their dear Mr. Assistant would be coming to visit them soon since he had finished dealing with whatever trouble it was back in the Modern World.

That in itself was already an exciting event for both of them, but they decided to take it a step further and show their sincere hospitality to him. So, they planned to serve him some handmade roasted guinea fowl.

However, being born with a diamond spoon as they were, the twins had no clue whatsoever on how to cook.

Their ambitious plan to serve Siwoo the best handmade roasted guinea fowl was already in shambles from the very beginning.

“Odette, hand me the recipe that Lena gave us.”

“I thought you already memorized it?”

“Just do it. I want to make sure.”

At the very least, they prepared all the ingredients well.

There was a large, fully trimmed guinea fowl in front of them.

Originally, they planned to prepare the fowl themselves, but they still didn’t dare to pluck the feathers off the fowl’s body or take care of its intestines, so they ended up asking for Pecha’s help.

“Thinly sliced black garlic, carrots, sage, ginger, celery, bay leaves…and rosemary. Those are the spices, next, butter…”

“Why are you doing this, Sis? We just need to follow Lena’s recipe, no?”

“But, don’t you feel that something is lacking?”

Indeed.

Worried that the twins might injure themselves, Lena had washed and peeled all the vegetables they needed.

She also had soaked the fowl with milk to remove the blood and the fishy smell. Not only that, she even pre-heated the oven already.

In fact, she had prepared all the ingredients thoroughly to the point that the twins only needed to do work on the level of a simple cooking rather than a homemade dish.

As for what exactly the twins did, albeit clumsily, they were able to cut the vegetables needed without any difficulty.

Then, they marinated the fowl by using olive oil, salt, rosemary and melted butter.

After that, they filled out the hollowed out fowl with the crooked vegetables and various ingredients before sealing them all inside with a thread and needle.

Now, all they needed to do was to spread the leftover vegetables and herbs to prevent the fowl from directly touching the bottom of the oven, then roast it inside the preheated oven for about an hour.

Since the dish itself wasn’t exactly a difficult one to prepare, and both Lena and Pecha had already done all the hard work, they only needed to do those simple tasks.

The problem here was, due to how simple the tasks were, Odile wasn’t feeling it at all, that was why she thought that something was lacking after everything was done.

“Say, Odette.”

“Yes, Sis?”

“We’re going to make the best roasted guinea fowl in the world for Mr. Assistant, no?”

“Yes.”

“If so, do you think this is really enough? What we did was just put some veggies on the guinea fowl and roast it!”

“Huh?”

Odette, who was listening to her sister’s words, suddenly realized something.

There was no doubt that the guinea fowl they made would be tasty.

Guinea fowls themselves had a texture that was closer to a wild bird than a regular chicken.

The thick crust, which had turned yellowish brown, was as crispy as the surface of a cookie.

With the fat under its skin melting under the heat, it enveloped the meat beneath it with moisture. Add the vegetables and the herbs inside, each bite would definitely melt inside one’s mouth, giving them a rare kind of ecstasy, as if their tongue was being caressed by the food.

But, the problem here was that the recipe only consisted of eight lines in total, so the twins became very doubtful that those lines could replicate the amazing taste they were familiar with.

“Maybe Lena hid the rest of the recipe for us?”

“No way! She’s so close to us, there’s no way she’d lie to us!”

“Remember the time when she adopted a turtle and we only found out about it later? She could lie to us if she wanted to!”

“T-That…huh…? Does that mean…?”

Odile raised her eyebrows in an earnest and began to preach her twisted view to her innocent sister.

Since they were on the same side, working for the sake of the same goal, which was to serve their dear Assistant some tasty food, Odette didn’t even think of refuting her.

Instead, she only nodded her head, as if everything that her sister said was completely plausible.

“Think about it, aren't special sauces and the like similar to a witch’s self-essence magic? You know, it’s precious, important, and it’s something that was passed down from grandmother to a mother, and a mother to her daughter! It’s the kind of sauce that they won’t even tell their daughter-in-law about!”

“B-But…doesn’t that mean it’ll be rude of us to ask Lena for her secret recipe?”

“Sort of, so we can’t really blame Lena for hiding the recipe from us! Instead, what we should do is to add our own touches to achieve our goal!”

Odile and Odette, who had unanimously come to the conclusion of ‘Lena is hiding the recipe from us!’, stared at the fowl on the cutting board.

The guinea fowl, reaching almost 50 cm in size, was lying down enticingly, just like a woman who had just applied some oil on her body to protect herself from sunburn.

Now that the twins decided to stop and think for a bit, they realized that the flavor that drove them to ecstasy would never be created by just putting some vegetables inside the fowl and roast it.

“Why don’t we work with the veggies first, Sis? The taste should change depending on which veggies we put inside, no?”

“Alright, but let’s only fill half of it with veggies! We should come up with something else for the rest of the half!”

“‘kay!”

Odette, now filled with motivation, walked toward the place where they stored all the ingredients.

Meanwhile, Odile filled the fowl’s insides with vegetables, spices, a whole pepper, anything she could get her hands on.

“Sis, what about these?”

After disappearing for a while, Odette came back with a box of oysters.

One of her all-time favorite foods was raw oysters with lime, mustard, and vinegar.

She liked it so much to the extent that she had a bell specifically for calling the oyster merchant to bring some fresh oysters to their hideout in Tarot Town.

Of course, the oysters that she got in Tarot Town were of lower quality than the ones they got in the Gemini Mansion.

Not only were the latter more expensive and organic, they were also so big that they barely fit Odette’s palm. They also had this unique aroma and savory that one would expect from high-quality ingredients that came from the sea.

With all those things in mind, there was no way that Odette would pass to add this up to their dish.

“Way to go, Odette! Finally, you got some good ideas!”

The oysters by themselves were tasty enough, but what if they were to add them to the fowl?

A taste that was out of this world would be created.

At the very least, the taste wouldn’t be bad.

Odile, who also liked oysters, though not as much as Odette, praised the novel idea that her sister had.

After receiving such praise from her sister, Odette’s nose was now raised up high.

“Ahem! Sometimes you need to open your mind to come up with something like this! Anyway, let’s put in ten of them.”

“Okay!”

Odette washed the oysters’ shell off the sawdust with water. She even brought an oyster knife to open their shells. After she was done cleaning them, she handed them over to Odile.

But, they both still felt that all this wasn’t enough.

They were sure that there was something else that they could add to make their dish tasted better.

“If we were to put some oysters in it, won’t we need something to get rid of the smell?”

“I know, I’m thinking… Ah, why don’t we add some lime or lemon in? That would fix the problem, no?”

“Right! Alright, wait for me, I’m going to get some!”

Their little cooking experiment became more and more unhinged by the second.

If Lena was here, she’d definitely grab the hems of their skirts to stop them from doing whatever it was they were doing at the moment, but she wasn’t, so there was no one who could stop their rampage.

One after another, new batches of ‘tasty food’ entered the fowl’s stomach.

“What did we learn from our outing to the Modern World? You could do a lot with the correct amount of sweetness and saltiness!”

“Alright, should we add some honey then?”

“Hm… I think sugar would work better.”

“No, I think fruit would work better compared to sugar!”

And so, they followed their pride to escape the confinement of the recipe and make a better dish.

The twins, enjoying the sensation of becoming a great chef, kept on adding more ingredients after reasonably discussing what they should add.

“I’m getting hungry just by thinking of it… Let’s peel the fruits first—! Huh? Odette, why can’t I peel them?!”

“Don’t peel it then! We can take it out later anyway!”

“Fine. Well, they did say that fruit tastes better with its skin intact, didn’t they?”

With that, they cut some pear without peeling them.

And added it into the fowl’s stomach.

“Odette, don’t you think the dish will be a little tasteless like this? We only used pepper and rosemary for the spice.”

“You got a point, let me think… Hm, why don’t we add some cheese?”

“Wow, you’re on a roll today! Cheese is perfect!”

They took out a large block of cheddar cheese that was stored in the larder and grate it.

Then they added it into the fowl’s stomach.

“Alright, that’s done! But, while the cheese will add a rich taste to it, I think it still won’t have enough taste. Why don’t we add some cinnamon sticks to balance the taste?”

“Cinnamon sticks?”

“Yes! They go well with pears, no?”

“You’re right! Way to go, Sis! You are also on a roll today!”

“That’s just me every day, Odette.”

“Hehe.”

They kept adding various things inside the fowl’s stomach to the point that it bulged out like a pregnant woman.

Its insides kept on trying to spill out, making it a challenge for the two of them to seal them shut.

“This should be enough, right?”

Odile pushed back the food that was about to spill out through the gap in their seal with her finger.

“This will be our perfect dish.”

Odette applied more oil on the fowl’s surface, turning it golden.

Then, with excited hearts and confident expressions, the pair placed the large guinea fowl inside the oven.

***

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