CH 270

Words : 997 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

We Tasted the Trial Wine After tea time was over, I left the dining hall with Leo, where Mr. Ekenhart and Sebastian were talking. I suppose they were talking about his duties as the duke. Sherry was being consoled by Ms. Claire, Tilura, and Ms. Anne. Well, I could leave the rest to them then… I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to cheer her up again, and I would see her playing outside while Tilura trained. “Excuse me, is Ms. Helena here…?” “Wuff.” “Ah, Mr. Takumi. You’re just in time… The trial wine is ready now.” As Leo and I went to the kitchen to see Ms. Helena, we saw that five large barrels had been lined up. While mixing it with the Ramogi, they had poured the wine into smaller barrels. “Thank you. Uh, so how did you do it?” “Yes, we took the Ramogi that you provided, and starting from the right barrel…which has a quarter of the regular dose, then a third, a half, and then two thirds.” “So they all have varying amounts.” “That is so.” So I suppose this was a test to see how much Ramogi was the right amount to put inside of the wine. That seemed very typical of a cook. “So, Leo… If you will.” “Wuff!” I said to Leo, so she could start checking the wine. Leo nodded in reply and then she slowly moved her nose to the barrels and began to sniff. Ms. Helena and the other cooks then watched her with bated breath. “Wuff…? Wuff!” “The one on the far right is no good…she says. What about the others?” “Wuff… Wuff-wuff.” “So the others are fine… Thank you, Leo.” “Wuff.” Leo had singled out the barrel on the far right…which had a quarter of the Ramogi content. It had not removed all of the disease, but the rest of the wine was fine. “Ms. Helena, the barrel on the far right is no good, but the others can be drunk.” “I see… So the amount of Ramogi really does matter. Thank you, good Leo.” “Wuff.” I told Ms. Helena what Leo had told me. Ms. Helena seemed to think about it for a moment, and then she thanked Leo with a bow. It was a good thing that I had asked Ms. Helena after all. I would not have thought of conducting such tests…and would have just dumped random amounts of Ramogi inside… “Well…just to be safe, we’ll say that it needs half the amount to be drinkable. One of these barrels for half the amount… Two barrels for one dose of Ramogi. That should make things easy to understand.” “Indeed. I think that is fine. Also…I would like to know if the taste has changed or not.” “Yes. The taste might be altered depending on the amount of Ramogi inside. So, let’s taste some of the drinkable wine then. However…” “Is there a problem?” Now that we knew some of it was drinkable, the only thing left to do was to taste it. However, Ms. Helena seemed to hesitate as she thought of something. What could it be? “Well, to be honest… We don’t really know what this wine is supposed to taste like. We have never drunk it before… Of course, we have tasted other wines, but…” “Ah, I see… So it would be difficult to know if it tastes right or not.” “Well, I suppose…we will just have to compare it to other wines while tasting it then. And you, Mr. Takumi, can compare it to the wine of Range village.” “While I have tasted it before, I don’t have the most refined palate… But I will do my best.” “Yes, thank you. Now…” I was the only one there who had tasted Range Village’s wine before. Well, because I had brought a lot back with us, I could try drinking it. But I didn’t want to drink infected wine just to check its taste. And since I had really only drunk it once, I was not too confident… Maybe it would be better to call Phillip? …But he might drink too much, and not be able to do his job. And then Sebastian would be furious. So I would leave that as a final resort. “Here you go, Mr. Takumi.” “Yes. …They are all different colors.” “Yes. It must be because of the Ramogi… The more you put in, the darker it gets.” The cooks had poured the barrels of wine into glasses. And as Ms. Helena said, they differed in color depending on how much Ramogi was inside. The wine with half the amount was almost pink. The wine with two-thirds was a reddish purple. And the one with the full amount was a dark purple. Sebastian had said that Ramogi soaked in water becomes purple, so it made sense. I didn’t know much about wine, but the first one looked similar to a rosé. In the glass, it was a very pretty pink color, and would probably be popular with women. “Now, I’ll have a sip…” “Yes. Me too…” And so we tasted the wine in order, from the right side. I hadn’t gotten drunk at all when drinking it at Range village, but how would it be this time? As I had plans for sword training with Mr. Ekenhart after this, I tried just lick it a little instead of drinking a full sip. Upon seeing me taste the wine, Ms. Helena and the other cooks started to drink it as well. “I see…” “I do not know how it compares to the original, but there are definitely differences depending on the amount of Ramogi…” “Yes. But which do you think tastes the best, Ms. Helena?” “For me, it’s the one with the least amount of Ramogi…with only half.”

CH 270

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