Alcohol has a way of clouding a person’s judgment.

Sometimes it turns people into fools.
Sometimes it makes one surrender to drunken stupor and cause accidents, while other times, it lends the courage to say things one wouldn’t dare say while sober.

Near the scenic peak of the picturesque Hamel Mountains.

Laying out a picnic mat in the refreshing breeze, my gaze settled on the young lady seated in the wheelbarrow.

“Hmmm… Hm~”

The young lady, obviously in high spirits from our rare outing, had a smile hanging on her lips.

Holding a bottle of liquor in one hand and chocolate in the other, the young lady leisurely enjoyed the moment while casting a watchful eye on the panting Gomtang.

“Ricardo.”
“Yes?”
“She looks like she’s about to die.”

– Heave… heave…

Gomtang, despite having two more legs than humans, panted with pitiful stamina. I contemplated that pulling a sled in the upcoming winter would be out of question for her.

I lifted the young lady from the wheelbarrow in a princess carry and remarked,

“She’s only like this because she’s gained weight.”
“Oh… Might she taste good if eaten?”

I clamped my mouth shut upon the lady’s earnest query.

Various foods adorned the mat before us.

 Fruits like apples and grapes.
Picnic staples like  gimbap and even warm soup. Noticing the young lady’s disinterested gaze on the lunchbox full of  gimbap, I could see she had figured out something was off.

“…This is strange.”

The young lady poked at the gimbap.

Worried it might have spoiled, I lifted the lunchbox to sniff, but nothing smelled off—only the savory scent of sesame oil wafted up.

I wondered what she found peculiar.

I tried one, tasting nothing more than an ordinary gimbap, but the young lady’s expression remained sour.

The young lady poked at the gimbap again with her chopsticks.

“There’s too much grass in this.”

Looking at the vegetables stuffed inside the  gimbap, I finally understood why the young lady had been making such a sullen face.

The  gimbap was crammed with ingredients she disliked: spinach, carrots, pickled radish, cucumber. And the most important ingredient, meat, was cut thinner than a pencil inside the gimbap.

It was the kind of food a carnivorous young lady like her would loathe.

She appeared disappointed, painstakingly removing the gimbap’s contents. Condemning spinach as a plant of the devil and flinging it to the ground, tossing cucumber as a scourge of the world far off to the side.

“Picky eating is bad.”
“Eating it might kill me.”
“You won’t die. In fact, avoiding these nutritious vegetables will harm your health.”

The young lady glared at me sullenly.

“Feed that to her.”

She pointed towards Gomtang, resting in the shade of a tree, worrying that at this rate the dog might turn into a pig instead.

I shook my head, responding to the young lady.

“If you don’t eat it, there’ll be no alcohol today.”
“That’s not fair!”
“It’s the way it is.”

As I flaunted the glistening bottle of alcohol before her, the young lady clenched her fist and tossed her chopsticks at me.

I dodged them effortlessly, carrying a smug expression.

“You’re slow because you don’t eat vegetables.”

“Eek!!!”

She detested vegetables.
But she longed for alcohol.

The young lady stood at a crossroad of choices.

I kindly offered her an opportunity.

“Squeal?”

Tears welling up, the young lady savored the lunchbox contents.

*

The day was waning.

The young lady, having dozed off to the balmy breeze, was using my knees as a pillow as she breathed evenly in sleep.

As a gentle wind teased and tousled her hair, irritating her, she frowned and mumbled, “Uh uh… Ricardo, the flies are gonna eat me… Catch them.” She was calling for her butler in her half-asleep state.

Feeling a bout of mischief, I covered her face with her own fluttering hair.

Whoosh. Buried under a cascade of hair, the young lady flailed her hands in the air.

“Uugh… swarms of flies are coming… Aaagh!”

Struggling fiercely, the young lady jerked awake with a start.

Dumbfounded.

Her eyes met mine, grinning impishly, and her fists curled into balls of anger. With a hollow expression, she accused me,

“Ricardo destroyed my dreamland.”
“I am a demon king, after all.”
“…Eek!”

She plucked grass and threw it at me.

The night view was blossoming below Hamel Mountains.

Though it paled in comparison to the night scenery I had seen in Seoul in my previous life, the gleaming stars in the night sky and lights twinkling from the village painted a modest nocturnal vista.

I held a cool bottle of liquor to the cheek of the dozing young lady.

“Cold!”

Startled, the young lady’s eyes snapped open. She looked around, drooling—apparently quite shocked by the chill.

I cautiously asked the young lady.

“Are you not going to  drink?”
“Liquor…!”

Shaking off the drowsiness, her eyes lit up with excitement as she eyed the bottle.

I brought over a chair I had prepared, sat the young lady down, and spun a bottle of brandy I’d bought on the way in front of her.

“Hamel Mountains 12-year-old, apple brandy.”

Her eyes traced the circling bottle. The young lady clenched both fists and said eagerly as if she could already taste it,

“I don’t know what it is, but it sounds delicious!”
“It was one gold at the market.”
“…Cheap, isn’t it?”

Interest waned immediately at the notion of cheapness.

“It’s a lie. I bought it at a premium price. For Miss Olivia’s first  drink, we couldn’t possibly have cheap liquor.”
“Hehe… really?”
“Yes.”

There was a shy smile on the young lady’s face.

As I folded the blanket and built a respectable fire, the atmosphere became aptly inviting.

The young lady held her hands near the warm campfire. It seemed she liked this simple yet intimate atmosphere, far different from the grandiose society ballrooms filled with opulent chandeliers.

We would have to come here more often.

Skip the cold winter.
I thought we should come again in the approaching spring.

The young lady was looking forward to it.

The serene ambiance.
Her first  drink as an adult.
And the company of a handsome man like me.

Perhaps not.

Anyway.

The young lady, on the brink of her first-ever act of rebellion, couldn’t hide her girlish excitement.

Drinking at the Royal Academy was forbidden, and it had been impossible for her due to her injured leg.

Was I right in my thinking? The young lady fisted and unfurled her hands, blowing through her nose as if in preparation. I captured the sight of her cheerful smile with a soft chuckle.

“But, Ricardo.”

The young lady looked around.

Scanning our surroundings, which consisted of nothing more than a couple of chairs and trees, the young lady tilted her head and asked me.

“Isn’t there any food to go with the  drink?”
“Food for the  drink?”
“Yes. Don’t you need something to munch on while drinking? I learned that from books.”
“Ah…”

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, and the young lady’s face fell, disappointed.

“That’s okay! We have some leftover  gimbap, right?”
“That’s all been eaten by Gomtang.”

I showed her the empty lunchbox with an awkward smile.

The young lady glared at Gomtang laying on the ground with a furious look.

“Her?”
“Yes?”
“She looks like she could be tasty.”

Gomtang still seemed like emergency rations in the young lady’s eyes.

Suppressing my laughter, I took out a large side-dish container from the rear seat of the wheelbarrow to show her.

A side-dish container filled with bright red meat and sausages.

It was a treasure chest, the cave of wonders for the young lady’s  drink accompaniment.

In my previous life, I had yearned to try glamping but met an early demise. My unfulfilled dream. It was a bit late, but I was fulfilling my childhood fantasy.

I placed the grill over the campfire and looked at the young lady, who was admiring me for the first time.

“Ricardo is so cool…!”

To the obvious compliment, I nodded and confirmed.

“I know.”
“Wow…!”

Slowly, the meat cooked.

We poured each other’s  drinks.

The young lady, new to alcohol, furrowed her brows as she poured cautiously, asking, “More…? Should I pour more?” Considering her yet-unknown tolerance, I only filled her cup halfway.

The incomplete pour left the young lady unsatisfied.

“Ehgehgeh…”

Her face showed clear disapproval. She complained I was being overly cautious, but I just responded with an evasive shrug and a wry smile.

“Just try that much first. It might not be to your taste.”
“…Still.”

The young lady sighed and looked at her glass. She smelled the golden-colored whiskey, furrowed her brow as if facing the truth.

She glared at me as if I had given her a tainted  beverage.

“This smells odd. It stings my nose… I feel like it could kill me.”
“That’s just how alcohol is.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”

I understood. Having been shocked myself by the smell the first time I drank alcohol, I could empathize with the young lady’s reaction.

A pungent alcohol scent with notes of  fruit. It seemed like it might be pleasant, yet there was also this foreboding sense that it should not be consumed.

I was curious to see what face the young lady would make, the one about to experience what was once only found in a lab.

I extended the glass to her, hesitatingly offering a toast.

“Cheers. Shall we?”
“Cheers?”

She held the glass awkwardly, not knowing the concept of ‘cheers.’

I carefully tapped my glass to the young lady’s, which she held in a daze.

With a clink, a clear sound resonated.

“That’s what you call a toast.”
“A toast…? Why do we do this?”
“Uhm…”

I wasn’t quite sure myself.

For the sake of the eagerly learning young lady, I conjured up a plausible-sounding explanation.

“Maybe it’s to ward off evil spirits?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”

At my apparently meaningless reason, the young lady laughed brightly and extended her glass again.

“Let’s do it again. Again!”
“Again?”
“We didn’t do it properly!”
“Hehe…”

With a soft smile, I extended my glass for another toast.

She came forward with a lively laugh, lifted her glass, and with a bright smile proclaimed,

“To world conquest!”
“Puhaha! What is that?”
“My dream.”

The young lady, still clinging to her ambitions.
She certainly was a lady of great ambition.

Gulp. After taking a  drink, the young lady contorted her face.

“Eeeyuck!!! It’s awful!”

I couldn’t help but laugh.