City of Witches Chapter 226

Coq au vin.

A stew where chicken is simmered in wine for a long time, living up to its name meaning "rooster in wine."

It's a dish even Koreans unfamiliar with French cuisine have likely at least heard the name of.

She dropped the marinated chicken into the wok where vegetables had been sautéed in butter.

Ignoring the oil splattering on the back of her hand, she cooked it over high heat, focusing on crisping the skin and fat.

Once the chicken's surface took on a nice caramel color, she transferred it to a pot to preheat.

Finally, for today, she poured in two whole bottles of Burgundy wine, sprinkled herbs on top, and the base preparation was complete.

The scent of wine spread gently, and the sound of bubbling began to be heard.

Since Teacher Sua gave it as a gift, it was probably good wine.

Perhaps because of that, the aroma wafting from between the pot lid and pot was quite pleasant.

As a dish that requires long simmering, it should ideally use a tough, sturdy rooster...

Unfortunately, all the chickens at the supermarket were small in size.

Eloa, who ultimately compromised with a Korean native chicken, covered the pot lid and began preparing the second dish, bouillabaisse.

This one is, so to speak, France's seafood stew.

It involves various premium seafood, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onions, etc., enhanced with the fragrance of bay leaves and thyme.

Originally, one should make a broth by simmering fish bones, but due to lack of time, she substituted with seafood stock.

These two dishes were what Eloa was most confident in and what Raphi loved the most.

Even though it had been over 100 years since she last cooked like this, her hands and body remembered the two recipes with perfect accuracy.

If a little more time had passed, and then a little more...

Would she have forgotten how to cook by then?

Standing blankly before the bubbling pot, Eloa suddenly laughed.

It was because she recalled a statement she had made during her conversation with Siwoo.

'Especially the Orthodox Witches residing in Renomond Town, their way of thinking remains stuck in the past, you see.'

Their way of thinking remains stuck in the past.

Trapped in the past.

That is, unchanging.

Like seawater sunk deep into the ocean, merely staying and stagnating.

Upon reconsidering the words she had spoken without much thought, they seemed almost prepared for her.

For Eloah Tiferet, who dreams every night of the moment she lost Raphi.

For Eloah Tiferet, who suffers over a past she can never reclaim.

"Oops!"

"Are you okay?"

It seemed she had been lost in thought for just a moment.

The pot before her was bubbling violently, about to boil over.

Eloa hurriedly turned down the heat.

Originally, coq au vin requires simmering over a gentle low heat for a long time to evaporate the wine's alcohol, but she had forgotten in her various distracting thoughts.

"...I'm, I'm fine."

"I'll help you move it."

Eloa simply watched Siwoo rummaging through the kitchen shelves looking for a plate.

First, the bouillabaisse was completed, followed shortly by the coq au vin being ready.

The wine, which had amply submerged the chicken, had reduced to a glaze, thoroughly permeating every nook and cranny of the meat.

Eloa and Siwoo sat facing each other at the table, finishing the meal preparations.

"I wanted to prepare a bit more of this and that. It's been so long, I seem to have forgotten many things."

"Not at all. It feels like it's been a long time since I've had a meal someone else cooked for me."

"It's nothing fancy, but please eat comfortably."

Siwoo served food onto Eloa's plate and then sat down.

After that, the two began eating side by side.

Both the bouillabaisse and the coq au vin were dishes Siwoo was seeing for the first time in his life, yet they surprisingly suited his taste.

The chicken, infused with wine and tomato seasoning all the way through, melted in the mouth as soon as he put it in.

After the savory, clean taste subsided, a fragrant and slightly bitter aftertaste rose, which was also a distinct pleasure.

He wondered if this was roughly how a foreigner felt tasting samgyetang for the first time.

The bouillabaisse also looked like a spicy seafood stew on the outside but tasted completely different.

Was it a taste like capturing the entire sea?

The moment he took a sip of the soup, the buttery aroma and the rich, deep flavors of various seafood pleasantly assaulted his nose and tongue.

"Wow, this is my first time trying it, but it's incredibly delicious. I'd only heard the names of both until now."

"There's plenty, so take your time. Would you like a drink as well?"

"Sure."

"It pairs well with wine... but I used it all making the coq au vin. Gin or whiskey, which do you prefer?"

"Whiskey, please."

Eloa walked to the kitchen and returned with whiskey mixed 1:1 with water.

Since it was strong to have with a meal, she had adjusted it appropriately.

Eloa herself poured whiskey into a large on-the-rocks glass, filling it almost to the top.

As Siwoo pondered whether to toast and drink or just drink, Eloa raised her glass first.

-Clink

Their glasses lightly touched.

"You seem to enjoy drinking."

"I neither like it nor dislike it. However, I am merely grateful for the fact that I can get drunk. What about you?"

"I like it. It improves my mood and I don't get hangovers."

Perhaps because of the alcohol and delicious food?

The conversation between the two began to mesh smoothly, as if lubricated.

Even Instructor Tiferet, who always sternly shouted "Again!", had a noticeably more relaxed expression.

Thanks to that, Siwoo could also loosen up and enjoy the drinks with a comfortable mind.

"It's really delicious. It seems like it would make good drinking food too... How about opening a restaurant like this? I think it would do well if sold around here."

"Enough, you're making me blush."

"I'm serious. My stomach feels good, and it feels like I'm enjoying a meal happily for the first time in a long while."

Throughout the meal, Siwoo's continuous praise was met with Eloa's dignified responses.

Still, perhaps because the praise wasn't entirely unpleasant, the corners of her mouth were relaxed.

"Today's meal wasn't my best effort. I had to substitute many things here and there, you see. If you come again, I shall serve you a more splendid meal."

"Wow, I'm already looking forward to it. Ah, let me refill your glass."

"Thank you."

Siwoo promptly got up and poured whiskey about halfway into Eloa's glass, which had already been emptied three times.

Her drinking speed was really fast.

Even as a Spirit Body, one gets drunk when drinking alcohol, yet seeing her remain composed suggested she was quite the drinker.

The duke was full of contrasts and surprises in many ways.

"I wanted to share a drink like this with Raphi too..."

Words flowing out like a complaint, taking advantage of her loosened state of mind.

Seeing Siwoo flinch upon hearing that, Eloa seemed to think 'oops' and quickly shook her head.

"It's nothing. Idle talk."

".........."Siwoo was unable to say anything.

The time of one who has lost a precious person stops right there.

They futilely trace memories, regret, shed tears, and suffer in agony.

Some shake it off and move forward.

But others wander, searching for the end of a sorrow that will never end.

"Sorry, it was such a lively occasion, and I've ruined the mood. How foolish of me."

Even Duke Tiferet, who seemed strong at a glance, was ultimately just one person.

A person tormented by the sorrow of losing a disciple, unable to forget, unable to overcome the emptiness of unfulfilled vengeance.

"...Would you like to tell me about it?"

Siwoo cautiously asked.

Whether it was the intoxication or the nostalgia stirred by that intoxication.

Her eyes wavered as if a heat haze lay behind them.

"It's a futile thing..."

In truth, the relationship between Eloa and Siwoo was quite peculiar.

Siwoo was a person who possessed Raphi's Vessel, and at the same time, he was formally receiving instruction from Eloa.

It was undeniable that while teaching him, she unconsciously superimposed Raphi's figure onto his.

Was that why?

The impulse to share with him, too, the memories of happy days she had avoided and never spoken of, shook her heart intensely.

Perhaps...

Maybe the aroma of the meal served at the table after so long, the act of sharing a meal with someone, had briefly turned back the clock for her.

As Siwoo watched Eloa, unable to continue speaking, and hesitated whether to apologize for his rash remark.

She spoke first.

"Raphi... was a bright and cheerful child."

Her voice was faint, as if tracing a distant past.

"She talked more than a little bird. She chattered incessantly, saying in a year what I might say in a lifetime... Yet she was a child with a heart kinder than any jewel in the world."

Eloa moistened her parched lips with alcohol.

"I loved that child. She was too good for a lacking person like me to take on as an Apprentice Witch.

No one in Gehenna could have hated Raphi. Not even the beasts were an exception. Even the warhorse, rumored to be difficult to tame, would lick her palm when she was near."

"........."

"And that's not all. She was a genius in both dance and Magic. Unlike a fraud like me, who merely imitates genius."

Memories pooled in Eloa's blurred eyes.

A faint smile touched the corners of her mouth.

A smile that seemed to surface just from the act of remembering...

It sank along with the ensuing recollection.

"But, as you know... I lost her. I lost the excessive blessing heaven gave me due to my own complacency."

"...That..."

"If only I had been a little more careful, a little more cautious, a little more... aware of the world's cruelty... I wouldn't have had to send her off in such a vain way..."

Eloa did not shed tears.

She didn't even let her voice quaver.

She wept without shedding tears, without letting her voice tremble.

"Do you know what the most terrible thing is? That I don't even have the right to mourn that child. How ironic."

How a broken, devastated human being shows sorrow.

Siwoo understood for the first time.

"I'm... sorry. For asking something unnecessary..."

He couldn't bring himself to say more.

The Duke Tiferet Siwoo knew was a strong person.

He had only ever seen her unwavering, resolute appearance.

He had never imagined that, even burning with vengeance, she could be so precariously eaten away inside.

He was overcome with regret, wondering if his attempt at a frank conversation had instead scraped away the scab over the wound in her heart.

Eloa looked at the empty glass, then picked up the bottle with more than half the whiskey left and blew into it like a horn.

"Maybe you should drink a little slower..."

"I don't hate or resent you for possessing Raphi's Vessel. Don't worry about that."

"That's not what I was worried about. I know you are a good person, Your Grace."

".....Is that so."

It was merely a re-experiencing of a lament repeated thousands, tens of thousands of times.

It didn't take long for her to regain her composure.

Eloa straightened her slumped posture and wiped away the whiskey that had trickled slightly below her chin.

"I may have overdone the drink a bit. I showed you an unsightly side, my apologies."

"Not at all. I'm the one who's sorry for bringing it up and causing you pain..."

Eloa silently reached out her hand.

Her hand, flushed warm from the alcohol, lifted Siwoo's eyepatch.

Within the golden, shining eye, the Brand engraved there clearly contained Raphi's Vessel.

"You carry Raphi's Vessel."

To a Witch, a Brand is something more than life itself.

"I never even imagined I would see this again..."

After a hundred years, Eloa was finally facing the keepsake of her beloved Apprentice Witch.

As if it might shatter at the slightest touch,

Eloa's eyelids slowly closed as she stroked Siwoo's cheek.

Between passing the drink back and forth, the approaching hour for sleep, compounded by the alcohol, became unbearable.

Siwoo sighed as he looked at Eloa, who had collapsed onto the table as if falling forward.

His heart felt heavy.

"Raphi... Raphi..."

Because even in the moment she fell asleep, she was in torment.

A Word from the Author (Author's Note)

I'm so, so, so sorry for being late!!!

The popularity poll results are in!

Sharon 882

Amelia 757

Odil 534

Odette 495

The mysterious Takasho?? 237

Eloa 210

Yebin 204

Ea 115

Countess Gemernai 109

Sophia 88

Sua 68

Della 56

Seems roughly as expected, I think!!!!