33: Ionia Again / Yuzen Dyeing of Tropical Scenery / Macaron Transformations 7

Though it rained often during this time just before summer, today was clear and dry with refreshing weather. The sun was strong, but it was not yet hot enough to be sweltering. It was the perfect day to enjoy cold tea outdoors.

In the garden, the hydrangeas were blooming. The contrast between the green leaves and blue flowers was truly vivid, pleasing to the eye of any who looked. Jill, taking advantage of this scenery, set up a table at the edge of the garden near the mansion to create a terrace seating area.

Incidentally, Jill had never tended to the garden herself. Conrad’s journal had mentioned that “no difficult maintenance is needed; the garden and forest maintain themselves.” However, Jill had only recently realized how the garden and forest were actually maintained.

“The Karappa is trimming the grass.”

Garda asked in confusion.

Ahead of his gaze, a Karappa was skillfully cutting weeds with scissors.

“Yes, indeed. We should give it a reward later. Macarons… though those might be too sugary for a magical creature, so I’ll make something else with the leftover egg yolks.”

For some reason, the magical creatures living in the forest and garden tended to the trees and plants.

In exchange, as long as the creatures lived here, they would never go hungry.

That was because there was an abundance of flowers and fruits available.

There was a strange symbiotic relationship between the garden and the magical creatures.

“Oh, it’s just a normal thing…”

“I’ve also stopped being surprised by most things lately…”

At Garda and Matthew’s murmured remarks, Jill laughed softly.

“Well, to me, what’s surprising is all of your current outfits.”

“You made these clothes and told us to wear them!”

Jill paid no heed to Matthew’s protest.

In fact, she smiled with satisfaction.

That was because the scene unfolding before her was exactly as she had envisioned.

“N-no worries, they suit you well.”

“That doesn’t sound very reassuring…”

All five of them were wearing aloha shirts.

Jill’s shirt was green with large white-outlined palm leaves, giving it a flashy yet refreshing appearance.

Meanwhile, Matthew’s shirt was pink with colorful hibiscus flowers, the boldest of patterns. Yet it surprisingly suited his tall and calm demeanor.

“Ha! Clothes aren’t something you get worn by; you wear them yourself!”

Garda seemed to have taken a liking to his aloha shirt.

His shirt had a black background with a depiction of mountains and a moon. Though the style resembled an ink painting, the moon was brightly dyed in yellow, giving it a balanced but lively feel. The shirt suited Garda, who was a serious craftsman yet had a playful side.

“Yeah, just enjoy it. Even Lady Emily’s tea parties are a bit more subdued than this.”

Maureen, following Garda’s lead, also laughed.

Her shirt was white with a design of yellow canaries.

The canaries were drawn in a coquettish touch, radiating warmth and charm.

This reflected Jill’s internal image of Maureen, though she kept that a secret, of course.

“Well, let’s just enjoy some tea. Both the clothes and tea were thoughtfully prepared by Lady Jill, after all.”

Ionia coolly sipped his iced tea.

His shirt also looked refreshing. The design combined blue, navy, and white to depict waves.

Jill had once seen a strange picture in the ‘Acacia’ book featuring large waves and distant mountains. It was by some famous painter named Katsushika something, and Jill had immediately fallen in love with the design and tailored it into an aloha shirt. Ionia seemed to have felt a similar resonance, as he had personally chosen to wear that shirt, exclaiming, “I want to wear this!”

“But you just wanted to see us in these clothes, didn’t you, Jill? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Matthew asked, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Well, you can’t really tell how good clothes look if you’re the only one wearing them… And I’ve made quite a few now. After all, they say the best way to judge is to have someone else wear them. I want to make both women’s and men’s clothes.”

“I really like it. If you don’t mind, could you let me have it? Both the fabric you showed me earlier and this shirt—I’ll pay whatever price you name.”

“Whoa, hold on there. I have to step in on this one. While the fabric is based on your artwork, this shirt was designed by Jill, so you’ll need some kind of contract or agreement. Otherwise, people might think you designed it when you wear it.”

“You two really love your business deals, don’t you? How about you just enjoy things a bit more leisurely?”

“It doesn’t feel right being told that by you, Garda…”

Matthew sipped his iced tea with a slightly bitter expression and picked up a snack.

However, his face brightened as he tasted the unexpectedly delicious treat.

“Much like the clothes, these are also quite colorful… they’re almost too beautiful to eat.”

The snacks laid out were macarons.

But they looked noticeably different from the white macarons sold in Shelland.

“The light green ones have mugwort mixed in. The pink ones are raspberry. There are a few other varieties as well.”

The macarons matched the colors of the aloha shirts, each type arranged according to its color.

In fact, Jill had struggled more with perfecting the macarons than with making the Yuzen-dyed fabrics for the tea party.

Macarons are made by mixing sugar into whipped egg whites—meringue—and combining that with powdered almonds before baking. There’s little room for variation in the ingredients, so macarons are mainly about their sweetness and texture. How they are baked is directly tied to their taste.

This time, Jill dared to innovate within those limited ingredients. She incorporated various foodstuffs—like mugwort, raspberries, and black sesame—as natural coloring agents into the meringue.

Adding color to the dough itself was easy. However, this introduced a problem with how the macarons baked. Adding other ingredients altered the moisture content of the dough, so the result varied from overbaked to underbaked, even when using the same baking method.

To Jill, a good macaron had a crisp, enjoyable texture on the outside, while the inside remained moist and rich. A macaron that only looked good was against the cooking philosophy instilled in her by Conrad.

Jill spent a lot of time experimenting to create macarons that were not only colorful but also delicious. She ended up spending more time on this than on making the Yuzen-dyed fabrics or the aloha shirts, just barely finishing in time for the tea party.

“The cream is delicious too… It feels like my taste buds are being spoiled.”

The fillings inside the macarons were also colorful. Jill had used whipped cream mixed with jam, setting it slightly to create a firmer texture, and also incorporated mashed edamame into the cream for a lighter, refreshing taste. Each macaron had a different flavor.

“The green one has a light texture for a macaron. And the tea… it’s superb.”

“Oh, I’ve also prepared some cold-brewed iced tea if you’d like to try it.”

To complement the sweet macarons, Jill brewed tea with a bitter edge, then chilled it for iced tea. After enjoying the contrast between the sweetness of the macarons and the bitterness of the tea, there was also a more subdued cold-brewed iced tea for further enjoyment. Matthew, a tea enthusiast, smiled from ear to ear.

“Wonderful. I’ve been invited to many tea gatherings, but this is the first time I’ve seen such care taken to satisfy both sight and taste.”

Ionia murmured excitedly.

Seeing Ionia, who had remained calm until now, genuinely pleased, Jill quietly clenched her fist in triumph where no one could see her.

“However… was it really alright to invite me? After making such an unreasonable request, being invited to a tea party like this feels almost too generous.”

“Don’t worry. With this, we’re even.”

“Even? But I was the one who made the request.”

Ionia, puzzled, placed a hand on his chin and asked Jill.

“…Ionia. When I left the capital and met you by chance, do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“But there was no reason for you to travel with me.”

“Well, I was struggling to find food, remember? I only had spices and wild herbs. Have you forgotten?”

“If you were that desperate for food, you wouldn’t have been able to go into the mountains to paint.”

“…I see. You may be right about that.”

Ionia nodded quietly.

“But in that case, why do you think I approached you?”

“You pretended to be hungry to get close to me and protect me. Am I wrong?”

“That’s either overthinking or not thinking enough.”

“What do you mean by ‘not thinking enough?'”

Jill retorted, clearly irritated.

“If I approached you just to protect you, wouldn’t that be too convenient for you? If you’re suspicious, you should be worrying about a more selfish motive or even the possibility that I might harbor ill intentions toward you.”

“But you didn’t do any of that. If you had wanted to kill me, you could have. If you had wanted to steal something, you could have done that too. Back then, all you did was walk alongside me down the road and share dinner with me. And during that time, neither magical creatures nor bandits attacked us.”

“Were there no magical creatures or bandits to begin with?”

“However, the Karappa we encountered along the way had been attacked by some sort of creature and was injured. If our timing had been off by just a bit, I might have been the one attacked by that creature.”

Everyone was listening intently to Jill’s story.

Ionia, too, was quietly gazing into Jill’s eyes.

“Oh, come to think of it, you lied when we were attacked by the Karappa in the forest as well. The Karappa wasn’t really trying to kill you, and you weren’t seriously fighting back either.”

“…Why do you think that?”

“Because you were pretending you couldn’t use magic.”

“What’s your reasoning?”

“If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t have been able to see through how the branding marks were made. And it’s far too reckless for someone like you, who can paint high-priced pictures, to travel alone without using magic. If you were attacked by bandits, it’d be over in an instant.”

This part was a bit of a bluff on Jill’s part.

Even without magic, someone knowledgeable in techniques could figure things out.

But Jill trusted her gut and believed she wasn’t wrong.

“…You got me. I surrender.”

“I don’t know what your true intentions are. But if I consider each of your actions individually, I can only conclude that you were ‘trying to protect me’ and that you ‘avoided any aggressive actions.’ …Why?”

“I suppose there will come a time when I explain.”

“A secret, huh.”

“Sorry.”

For a while, silence filled the air.

Jill stared at Ionia.

The silence was finally broken by the sound of Jill biting into a macaron.

“Mmm, delicious. My macarons really are top-notch.”

“That is absolutely true.”

“Since we’re at a tea gathering, let’s leave it at that. Regardless of your purpose, the fact that I’m living like this now is partly thanks to you. I invited you here because I wanted to express my gratitude.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. But unless you tell me the truth, I won’t invite you again.”

“Oh, that’s a problem. Please reconsider. Ah, I know! How about I bring some exotic goods next time? You’d be interested in foreign clothes and fabrics, right?”

“Are you seriously trying to bribe me!?”

Jill shouted in disbelief.

Everyone around them giggled at the exchange.

“Good grief… Well, fine. Anyway, everyone.”

Jill paused and looked around at the group gathered there.

“Matthew, Maureen, Garda. Thanks to all of you, I’m able to live these joyful days. I’m truly grateful.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. We’ve all helped each other. That’s all that matters.”

At Matthew’s words, both Garda and Maureen nodded.

Their smooth gestures and words warmed Jill’s heart.

She was genuinely glad she had invited them all to this gathering.

“Yes, that’s true. But I’m happy that we’ve formed such a connection. That’s why I wanted to tell you all first.”

“Something you want to tell us?”

Matthew felt a chill at Jill’s serious and somewhat cryptic words.

Lately, there had been many conversations about Jill’s origins.

Matthew was worried that she might announce she was leaving to avoid being a burden.

“I’ve decided on the name for the shop.”

At Jill’s words, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief and joy, mixed with a sense of “Phew, she wasn’t thinking of doing something drastic.”

“What’s the name?”

“I’m thinking of calling it *Witch Hand Craft*.”

Jill declared this with a bright smile.

“Hmm… Is that in an ancient language?”

Ionia asked, to which Jill nodded.

“Yes. In the language of ancient civilizations, they called the skills of a witch *witchcraft*.”

“The skills of a witch… isn’t that just magic?”

Ionia asked with a puzzled expression.

Everyone else had the same “Well, that makes sense” look on their faces.

However, Jill shook her head.

“No. Nowadays, witches only use magic, but in the past, they also practiced a wide range of skills—like herbalism, astrology, and other sciences that have since been lost. *Witchcraft* was the collective term for all of these, including magic. And…”

Jill paused and held up her right hand for everyone to see.

“Hand means ‘hand.’ *Hand craft* refers to handmade work, crafts, or handiwork. I want to do *handcraft* under the name of *witchcraft*. I want to show how the skills of magic, and even those beyond magic, can be useful in everyday life. I want people to know that these kinds of fun things are possible. That’s why the shop’s name will be *Witch Hand Craft*.”

Everyone listened intently to Jill’s explanation.

“It’s a great name. It’s something I can fully support.”

“A shop’s name is important. If it had been terrible, I was ready to step in, but it looks like I don’t have to worry about that.”

“It really resonates. I’m excited for the opening.”

Matthew, Garda, and Maureen nodded thoughtfully.

“I’m looking forward to it. Let me offer my blessings as well.”

Jill smirked playfully at Ionia’s words, pretending not to be affected.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

“Lady Jill can be awfully casual sometimes, huh?”

“Well, anyway, I hope we can all continue to work together.”

Just as Jill said this, a shadow loomed over them.

“Ah, of course, you’re part of the group too. Just wait a moment, and I’ll get you a snack, okay?”

“Clink clink.”

The Karappa was staring longingly at the macarons.

Jill, who had been planning to make something different with the leftover egg yolks, suddenly felt bad about the idea of giving it something else.

“Alright, how about I make you some meringue cookies with as little sugar as possible? Sorry, Maureen, do you mind helping me out?”

“Oh, sweets for the gardener, eh?”

Even as they enjoyed their lighthearted conversation, a refreshing breeze flowed through the garden.

However, the lingering heat could not be completely shaken off, and everyone quenched their thirst with chilled tea.

Summer was approaching.