A Glimpse

Chapter Eight

A Glimpse (Hitome)　一目

[Author’s note: I’m very sorry with all the Hitomi Hitome Kagami Kangami business in regard to chapter names. And sorry for all the too-much-detail of the previous chapters. I think all relevant detail, and irrelevant detail, has been given. The world view is more or less complete, and all major characters have been introduced.]

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Kagami’s plan for saving toward making jewellery started with applying to the cafeteria to be a kitchen helper. Back in her previous life, Hitomi was notorious for wasting too much time on cooking. Once during her first year at university, instead of writing her English paper that was due the next morning at nine am, Hitomi spent her entire day, from 8 am to 4 pm, braising meat. Her mother was furious.

Hitomi had bought a particularly well-trimmed pork hock at the butcher’s, and she charred the skin to remove any possible odour during cooking. After rubbing the pork skin clean, she parboiled it, and removed the stock, pouring it into a pot on the back burner. Hitomi poured sweet cooking wine and soy sauce over the pork hock, along with a couple of sticks of cinnamon, and proceeded to watch the pot after turning down the heat to a simmer.

Whenever the pot was at the risk of burning dry, Hitomi poured a cup of hot stock back in, and she did this for the rest of the day, until all of the previously removed stock was used up.

The result was beautiful, but Hitomi had to type her paper from 8 pm to 3 am the next morning. Miraculously, she managed an A-.

[The second time it happened, when Hitomi was writing a physics lab report for her second year course, she got an F on the assignment.]

“Cooking is meditative” was Hitomi’s philosophy.

“Watching the pot for six hours is autistic stubbornness” was Hitomi’s mother’s response to that.

Rin had always been more understanding. One of Rin’s cousins would make dessert to ease her anxiety. The roommate would come back from outside, and upon seeing three pies cooling on the counter, along with a mousse cake in the fridge and two sponge cakes in the oven, ask “midterm tomorrow?”

“Yeah, two.” was the reply.

Kagami applied to help with baking, since kneading large batches would count as a form of physical exercise. She also asked whether she could make things on the side with her own recipe. The manager agreed to that, provided that it would not impede the usual flow of work, and that Kagami would clean up after herself.

Kagami made bread and pastries with her old recipes that she remembered.

She made savoury dill loaves, cinnamon apple loaves, and sweet soft biscuits with filling composed of powdered tea, starch and sugar. But her favourite is a special soft peanut butter cookie with brown sugar.

Hitomi had once tasted it while traveling, and tried her best to recreate it once she was back at home. Heated oil was mixed with peanut butter, brown sugar and flour, and the result was a very thin mixture. Warm water was then poured into it in installments. As water encountered microscopic particles of nut and flour, it was absorbed and caused the nut and flour particles to expand.

Once the solids of the mixture had increased in volume, what was once a very thin liquid became thickened, then became soft lumps. This was done to avoid activating any gluten in the flour. The soft mixture was spread over a very soft risen dough, and instead of kneading it in for a uniform distribution, the two-layered dough got cut in half, and then one piece was placed on top of the other.

The dough then was pressed flat with a spatula, cut and stacked again. The process would be repeated five times to achieve a 32-layer product. The dough was then shaped into thick cookies, and baked at a low temperature for a very long time. (approximately 170 degrees Celsius)

After baking, the very crusty and hard cookies would be cooled and stored in a tight wooden box overnight, where they would regain some moisture, strangely, and the softened cookies would be ready for consumption the next day.

This recipe was laborious and time consuming, but was remarkably delicious, and Kagami found it to be well-received at Kageyama.

Kagami offered her pastry recipes to the manager, who by now understood their value, and Kagami got her first gold coin as payment.

Since regular work only paid a silver coin per month, and Kagami could only qualify for one copper coin per hour with her limited availability and low hours, it seemed that the more efficient way to increase her savings would be writing down recipes.

(“Three baking recipes gave me the equivalent of ten months of full time kitchen work, and with my low availability, I would have to work two hundred hours to match a month of full time pay. Wow...”)

Between working in the cafeteria, and trying to recreate recipes for Japanese style Sponge cake (kasutera　長崎カステラ), Chinese water chestnut tapioca cake, Japanese chestnut dessert roll (yamatzuto　山土産), pine nut cake roll (oimatsu　老松), steamed cake (ukishima　浮島) and tea pudding (awa yuki kan　淡雪羹), Kagami slowly increased her savings by investigating which desserts did not exist in this world, making them from scratch, and finalizing them into recipes.

A year later, Kagami was ready to head into town. She skipped down the mountain path by herself, since asking Akishi to accompany her would divulge her secret; the gifts should be a surprise.

After climbing down the mountain, Kagami stood by a road and saw the outline of a town near the horizon.

“Twenty minute walk, max.”

One of Hitomi’s pastimes when she went on road trips with Rin was to locate an object exactly one kilometre away; Rin always allowed Hitomi to indulge in this repetitive little hobby, and would let her know whether the odometer agreed.

Kagami walked past farmland and ranches, noticing that there were large pieces of equipment likely powered by magic crystals, and smaller equipment drawn by horses.

“Typical isekai mix. Just like in a manga.”

It was pleasant to be able to speak out loud, and not having to worry about what others would think.

Soon, Kagami went into town, and found a jewellery shop.

“Welcome, how may I be of assistance?”

“Good day, dear lady, I would like to purchase some material to make my own jewellery.”

“My, a little girl like you? You must really like what you want to make.”

“Yes, it will be a very special gift. I will buy uncut obsidian and sapphire, as big as a chestnut, and some gold and silver settings, threads, and thin chains.”

“I look forward to seeing what you will be making. It will take some time to source the uncut stones, especially since you have specific size requirements. If you pay a deposit of two gold coins, I will help you find them. Do you have the necessary tools?”

“Unfortunately no, so I’ll have to pay to borrow your workshop. In the meantime, where may I obtain some rocks of similar hardness and shear, so I can practice cutting the stone before handling real ones?”

“There’s an abandoned open quarry to the east of Kageyama, where you can find ample flint. Once you become proficient at fracturing flint, I can help you source low grade sapphire to practice. The colour and clarity might be extremely poor, but the hardness and way of cutting is of course identical.”

“Thank you so much for your help! Here is my deposit, and I will come back in a week with some flint, as well as rent for using the workshop. Without you my project would be impossible.”

“You are very welcome. Consider becoming my apprentice when you are twelve, okay? Have a nice day!”

Kagami felt uplifted, (“it’s a nice, friendly town indeed.”)

Kagami then went to the tailor shop.

“Hi, welcome, how may I help?”

“Dear mister, I would like some clothes that’s made just for me.”

“Do you, ah. Do you have a drawing of what you want?”

“No, but I can draw one right now, and you can help me draw it right, if that’s not too much trouble.”

“Sure. Here.”

Pencil in hand, Kagami thought of all the uniforms she had seen in manga books. (“A broad sun hat with flowery decorations, plus a textured ribbon. A short cape, make it red. A corset, no, I’ll wait until I’m older. A white blouse with puffy sleeves and wrist cuffs. A long skirt with lots of lace, and more ribbons!”)

“Ah, it’s very cute! Just adorable for a small girl like you to wear something like this.”

“Thank you for thinking well of it. I think I’ll need three blouses and two skirts. That should be enough until I outgrow them and need new ones.”

“Sure. I will measure you and add a bit to the size, so there’s room for you to grow. Come back next week and I will tell you the price. Choice of fabric?”

“Ordinary is fine. I will need new ones every year.”

“All good. See you in a week.”

“Thank you. Bye~”

Having completed her list of tasks, Kagami still had hours to spend before heading back for dinner. After asking about the abandoned quarry, she went to gather some flint there.

“Gathering flint is fun. I never know what could be held right now in my hand. It might be chalk, or crust of flint, or a regular flint stone, or some weirdly looking flint that’s more mind-boggling than modern sculptures!” Kagami whispered to herself.

Standing up to straighten her back, she saw a large rock in the distance with holes and grooves on it.

“Ooooh, a rare piece of water eroded limestone... There must have been a stream here in the past.”

Kagami walked over to take a closer look, and she thought she heard people conversing.

“... Arashi’s threat is minimal at the moment...”

Kagami peeked through a crack on the rock, and saw some people talking to each other; the one who just spoke was a girl wearing a white kimono with light ruby trim.

(*Gasp* Himeyama!)