Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 690 - 53 Mackinway Wine_2

Chapter 690: Chapter 53 Mackinway Wine_2

Indeed, Catherine knew in her heart that Pannis was exerting such efforts for her sake too, but having the help of the frost spirit would greatly impact our future actions, thus making the cost of this bottle of wine worthwhile. More importantly, she had a vague guess to the identity of the black-haired dwarf the Blue Hand mentioned. If it was her unfulfilled legacy, then she would take it upon herself to fulfill it. As Catherine made this decision, she felt infinitely connected to that figure that existed only in her imagination, as if she saw once again that gaze that spanned the boundless time and space in her dreams.

"Wait a minute." Seeing the giant, full of smiles, about to take the bottle of wine, Pannis loudly intervened, "You should shrink a bit more, otherwise you’re not allowed to drink. You’re exaggeratedly big right now, it simply would waste this bottle of wine."

"Ugh, I need to shrink again, how bothersome." Blue Hand, realizing his wish was about to be fulfilled, stopped crying and fussing. He thought for a moment, and suddenly grasped his own thigh and broke it off with a sturdy tug. After a crisp sound, he directly broke off his nearly two meters long, robust thigh. Holding his thigh, he took a look at it, then propped it in front of him. The moment his hand separated from his leg, his huge body instantly froze. After an eerie sound from within, he suddenly collapsed onto the ice field, unmoving, as if he had died. However, his broken-off leg began to move, hopping around on the ground. Suddenly, it turned into a cloud of ice fog. When it reappeared before everyone, it had transformed into an ice figure over two meters tall.

"Can I drink now?" Blue hand flexed his limbs, complaining impatiently: "How irritating! To shrink a few times just to have a little drink. Do we need any more ceremony to mark the occasion?"

"It’s alright, you’re good to go. Just hang on a minute." Catherine nodded, smiling. She looked at the bottle of wine in her hand and gave a silent sigh, transferring it to Vivian. Vivian paused, then took the bottle. After holding it for a while, she returned it to Catherine. It was evident, by the time Vivian handed it back, the wine in the bottle had returned to liquid and no longer an unyielding block of ice as it had been. Catherine used a corkscrew and pulled the cork. The moment the cork was out, a faint scent wafted from the bottle straight into everyone’s nostrils.

Upon smelling the scent, Catherine felt a dizzying intoxication. The words light and mellow originally contradicted each other, but they magically fused under this scent of wine. The light but mellow aroma of wine made it hardly noticeable that it was also fruity, a characteristic of only the most premium wines. For a split second, Catherine was ravaged by regret. To hand over such a wine to another was simply torturous to a wine lover like her.

"This is incredibly tempting." Pannis, by Catherine’s side, inhaled deeply with his eyes half-closed, uttering in a low, almost sensual voice: "A smell so alluring as this, I’ve only come across it thrice in my lifetime. Ah, it’s wonderful. The fragrance takes me back to Mackinway Town, deep within the woods, and I see again the vineyard hanging heavy with quantities of fruit."

"You’ve been to Mackinway Village?" asked Catherine, quite surprised. She tried to divert her surge of regret, "I heard it was an isolated mountain village. Not many outsiders are allowed in."

"Yes, indeed, I’ve been," replied Pannis, his expression turning peculiar, as if reminiscing. No longer in a jovial mood, he sighed, accepting the bottle from Catherine: "Blue Hand, my friend, here is the wine we brought you. I apologize, due to circumstances, we couldn’t fulfill our promise on time. But after many years, we finally are able to deliver the promise. Hopefully, you can accept this gift and forgive us for the many-year delay. On behalf of my black-haired friend, I apologize for both our mistakes."

Catherine, startled by Pannis’s sudden change in demeanor, sighed lightly after a moment’s thought. She reassured him by placing a hand on his shoulder. Words couldn’t console the sudden surge of melancholy, only the silent support of ’we stand beside you’ seemed fitting.

Feeling the strength from the female knight’s hand on his shoulder, Pannis gently patted her hand, flashing a smile. He took out a glass and poured in the wine. The wine was red, resembling blood in its vibrancy and water in its clarity. It flowed slowly into the glass, swirling and intensifying the intoxicating aroma.

"You don’t have a sense of smell, so it’d be hard for you to detect this aroma." Pannis handed over the cup in his hand and patiently explained, "And drinking this kind of wine, from the choice of glass to the pace of sipping and even the posture, there are very strict rules and traditions. Everything is for the better enjoyment of Bacchus’s grace to mortals. But for you, these complex steps are meaningless, so I won’t bother to explain in detail. However, you can’t just drink directly from the bottle like you do with other drinks, that behavior doesn’t respect this wine. Therefore, you should just drink it one cup at a time."

"Alright, alright, I got it," the shrunken giant Blue Hand – no, he was just an extraordinarily tall regular human now – he was looking forward to satisfying his century-old wish and was grinning merrily. His robust body was wriggling with excitement like a kid anticipating a present as he looked eagerly at Pannis’s cup in his hand, chuckling to himself, "It must taste amazing. Waited so long for this, finally get to try it."

"I hope you like it." Pannis had a serious smile on his face that somehow felt strange. He handed the cup to Blue Hand’s extraordinarily blue hands, "Please enjoy, it’s the gift you deserve."

"Yeah, yeah." Blue Hand excitedly nodded, took the cup from Pannis’s hand, and observed the bright red liquid curious. The wine was clear and transparent, without a speck of impurity. After examining it for some time, Blue Hand finally raised the cup satisfied and downed more than half of the wine in one gulp.

Everyone has curiosity, hence, everyone was observing with curiosity. This was the first time they had seen a frost spirit, and also the first time they had seen an elemental creature eating like humans. Everyone was looking forward to Blue Hand’s reaction. With everyone’s expectant eyes on him, Blue Hand gulped down an entire cup of wine before closing his eyes to discern its taste. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and said dissatisfied, "Is this what you guys have been bragging about all this time? Apart from a bit of spicy stimulation, it’s no different than chewing ice cubes. What’s so good about this? Had me waiting for all these years for nothing. I don’t want any more, you guys drink it."

"Huh?" Seeing Blue Hand’s disappointed look, Catherine let out a surprised gasp, and asked in confusion: "It can’t be, this wine is supposed to taste awesome. It’s supposedly the most expensive wine in the human world."

"That’s why I say humans are strange." Blue Hand wasn’t angry, he was just disappointed that the thing he had been looking forward to for so many years turned out to be not as good as he thought. So, he murmured his complaints, "It’s just like an ice cube, and you have to say it’s delicious. Describing it with all kinds of enticing flavours, I don’t understand what you’re thinking."

"So, do you want to continue drinking?" Pannis winked at Catherine, "If you’re not drinking, I’ll take it back."

"Take it back, I don’t want to drink this stuff." Blue Hand mumbled, "I want to eat the food you cooked."

"Hey." Catherine leaned over to Pannis’s ear, and asked in the smallest voice possible, "Did you do something to the wine?"

"No." Pannis also leaned in close to Catherine’s ear and whispered, "I just remembered a few minutes ago, their taste buds are much duller than ours. They can only taste strong spirits, this kind of wine is no different from water to them." (To be continued. If you like this work, please recommend votes or monthly passes on qidian.com. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)