Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 74
>Chapter Title: Academy Festival Common Sense (4)
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*
An outstretched hand, the line of sight and the target perfectly aligned.
Inhale, then half-exhale. Hold.
Control the recoil and tremor, and slowly pull the index finger. Fire.
-Bang—!!
>-Bang, pa-bang—!!
The momentum from target acquisition to aiming to firing took less than a fraction of a second. Ivan, gauging the pistol's performance, pierced through the twelve targets almost simultaneously.
"No way, Senior, you're actually taking this seriously...?"
"Well used."
"No, I mean, uh..."
When an allied armory (a shooting booth) is located near the person you're protecting, it's common sense to perform a performance check and zero the sights. It's a place you might rely on for weapon supplies should an unforeseen incident occur.
Ivan accepted a giant doll as the first-place prize from a bewildered Dmitry and handed it to Isabelle.
*Amazing!* Mumble, mumble. *Incredible!* Chatter, chatter. He heard something along those lines but paid it no mind. Hitting targets within five meters wasn't something worth being praised for.
"Next."
"Uh... Mister, you're kind of enjoying this, aren't you...?"
Isabelle's eyes sparkled as she clenched her fists.
"Alright! In that case, let's just conquer the whole festival today!"
She nodded readily and led the way.
For Ivan, too, the flow of events was satisfactory. It was advantageous for his protection detail to grasp the location and features of the booths and, if possible, to drain as much of these kids' stamina as he could.
*
Splitting a pumpkin with a wooden sword while blindfolded... huh.
Hmm. Isn't this a Japanese custom? Ivan was confused.
"Here, please wear this and start from four steps back!"
"Hm."
He tied the blindfold, handed to him confidently by the booth owner, around his head and gauged the weight of the wooden sword. It was an ordinary item.
Of course, splitting a pumpkin with a wooden sword was not a skill a novice could perform. While pumpkins may look hard on the outside, they are hollow and absorb shock.
To shatter one with a light wooden sword like this, you had to land a single, precise blow on the exact right spot. Doing it blindfolded was twice as difficult.
A skilled swordsman could gauge the direction they were facing even with their eyes closed, but aligning the sword's path down to the centimeter to strike the target required an advanced technique beyond mere repetitive practice.
-Crack!
Ivan removed the blindfold and handed the wooden sword, dripping with juice, back to the owner.
>After receiving some empty praise about achieving success in the shortest time and another uselessly large doll, he passed it to Esidis this time and calmly turned his head.
"Next."
"This guy is really, seriously enjoying this!!"
Isabelle seemed to be having a great time for some reason.
*
A traditional game of scooping small fish with a paper net.
>This kind of booth tested the dexterity needed for survival skills and trap disarming, requiring a delicate touch.
"Next."
Throwing darts at a roulette wheel.
>This was a comprehensive evaluation of dynamic visual acuity, reaction speed, and throwing skills. It could be classified as an assassination technique.
-Next.
A traditional game of tossing small balls into a ring.
>Throwing small explosives was basic training, so Ivan was able to rack up a score so high that even Harry Potter catching the Snitch couldn't have won.
"Next."
*
That day, Isabelle, Esidis, and Elfihera each received armfuls of dolls, lollipops, blankets, and fishbowls.
It was the morning of the festival, a mere two hours after they had begun their exploration.
*
This is surprisingly fun.
When she first thought about going to the festival with this crazy old man, Isabelle hadn't expected this kind of situation.
At most, she thought he would just follow her around like a doll, muttering frustrating things like "Hm," not that he would enjoy the festival so earnestly.
"Mister, hehe, thank you."
"Hm."
Although she wasn't the only one to receive them, Ivan had generously distributed all the spoils he'd won from raiding the stalls among his party members.
Isabelle hugged a giant brown bear doll (the national animal of Krasilov) and smiled brightly. So what if she had to share? It was as if he'd been hers exclusively all morning.
"Alright, have you had enough of playing house? Let's go get something to eat now! Ah, don't pull that out! I mean a proper meal!"
Esidis grinned, took Ivan's arm, and strode forward.
"Is there anything you want to eat? To suit your tastes, Uncle... hmm. A meat dish? How about meat?"
"Do as you wish."
As they headed toward the street of stalls where restaurants and pubs were gathered, Ivan slowly shook his head. Street food like this was all the same anyway.
They just threw together cheap ingredients and strong spices, serving up greasy dishes with terrible nutritional balance.
While he found it dissatisfying, he couldn't deny a certain sense of pride. After all, such abundant goods and lively streets were a sight that was hard to even imagine just four years ago.
"Wow, there are so many people..."
Esidis whispered, leaning against Ivan's chest. It was around lunchtime, and the street lined with stalls was excessively crowded.
The savory smell of grilling meat wafted from all directions. Ivan lightly wrapped an arm around Esidis, who was pressing heavily against him, to protect her as he surveyed their surroundings.
The problem wasn't what to eat, but finding a place to sit in the first place.
"Hey, Booooooss!!!"
Just then, a piercing voice called out from a distance. When Ivan turned his gaze, a familiar face was jumping up and down, waving.
It was Yujin.
"Boss! Over here! Here! Wow! It's so good to see you like this!"
"...?"
"Hurry up! We're doomed without you, Boss!!"
Indeed, the stall where Yujin stood exuded a lonely atmosphere amidst the bustling market. There wasn't a single customer in sight, which was astonishing.
He soon understood why. Passersby would cover their noses and hurry past their booth.
Sure enough, a familiar yet bizarre stench was emanating from the shop.
"Ugh, is this pickled herring...?"
"No."
Ivan stared at Yujin with wavering eyes.
Yujin, and behind him, Oswald. And even Yuri.
All of them were watching him with confident... and warm eyes.
*Come on over. You know this smell, don't you?*
Ah, yes.
That was it.
It was. This was the smell.
Ivan managed to open his parched mouth and reply.
"It's... kimchi."
"...? Is that a dish you know?"
"Know it...? Of course."
"Riiight... Um. Well, if it's a food you like, Uncle, let's give it a try!"
Just from the smell, it seemed like some kind of fermented, salted dish, but wasn't that a specialty of Droan?
As expected, the faces of Isabelle from Tilles and Elfihera from Kalion had already hardened.
Esidis smiled triumphantly and led Ivan toward the shop.
*
"How on earth did you make this?"
"Pickled fish, vegetables, salt, and chili powder. Mix them in the right order, and surprisingly, you get kimchi!"
"...Incredible..."
Ivan was genuinely impressed. Of all the numerous masterpieces he had created by mobilizing the sharp intellect of the 21st century, wasn't the nutrient bar the only one that still retained its utility?
So, with three Koreans, one could even think of making kimchi from scratch.
This in itself wasn't strange. Salting vegetables with salt and spices was a common method in Krasilov as well. (Pickled carrots and mushrooms were made this way.)
However, the idea of seasoning it with fermented fish sauce and then letting the pickled vegetables oxidize... was, in fact, closer to letting food rot, so it belonged to a rather unique culinary method.
Ivan looked down with trembling eyes at the red cabbage piled high on the plate.
"Um, Uncle. Are you... going to eat that?"
"..."
Esidis glanced over with anxious eyes, but Ivan didn't stop his 'chopsticks.'
Chopsticks.
It had been so long since he'd held them that he fumbled a few times, but the feeling of it, the sensation from a long-forgotten era, seemed to be reviving, and Ivan shuddered slightly.
-Crunch.
The uncooked lettuce broke apart with a crisp sound, and the chili-powder-mixed juice splattered around. Isabelle flinched and recoiled.
And carefully, slowly, Ivan put a piece of kimchi in his mouth for the first time in thirty years.
-Crunch, crunch.
His inner Kim Seon-woo suddenly awoke and let out a scream (he heard up to, *This thing isn't kim...*!), but Ivan quickly composed himself. Unlike the narrow-minded and picky modern man, Ivan was an exceptionally tolerant and generous person.
On top of that, he only wanted to fully enjoy the emotion of this moment.
With the reverence of a meditating monk, crunch, crunch, crunch.
"Are there other things?"
"We've prepared everything we could, Boss. Hehehe..."
Yujin rubbed his hands together with a sly smile.
"Kimchi jjigae, kimchi bokkeum, dubu kimchi, which will you have first?"
"Dubu...? You have tofu too?"
"We didn't know how to make tofu, so we prepared the closest thing possible. It looks the same. Why don't you start with that!"
At Yujin's gesture, Oswald served a large bowl with an uneasy expression.
With an exaggerated gesture, Yujin politely set the bowl on the table and spoke.
"The masterpiece of our fine dining establishment, Stir-fried Kimchi with Feta."
"Oh... Ooh..."
A pristine white block, a slightly misshapen rectangular solid, and beneath it, a neat pile of stir-fried cabbage.
With a little imagination, it was the spitting image of dubu kimchi!
"Feta?"
"Yes, feta cheese. A traditional cheese made from sheep's milk. As for the taste... well, putting that aside, the appearance and texture are exactly the same."
"Oh..."
Ivan exclaimed in admiration and picked up his chopsticks. Indeed, despite its firm texture, the way it crumbled softly under pressure was not much different from old tofu.
He placed a piece of the stir-fried lettuce on top and took a bite, and an explosion of saltiness filled his mouth.
Feta cheese is one of the most extremely salty cheeses. On top of that, kimchi is fundamentally a type of salted vegetable. The synergy between the two made this, frankly, not something a person could eat.
But Ivan didn't care. The taste wasn't what was important.
-Zzzzt!!
Mana shot through his nerves. With the precision of a surgeon, he severed his sense of taste without a hint of error.
Inducing a nervous system overload, he focused the rampaging mana entirely on his sense of touch. Now, his sense of touch was so keen he could predict the prelude to an attack from the direction of a trembling strand of hair.
Mobilizing all of that skill, he slowly bit down.
-Crunch.
The 'texture' commonly referred to during mastication is a complex harmony of taste and touch. Since he had given up taste, one might call it a half-measure, but his superhuman sense of touch allowed him to feel every ingredient on his tongue, molars, and gums, so it was fine.
The result of that beautiful combination was this.
A block of cheese that had a texture very similar to firm, dry tofu, and also looked like tofu.
The red-stained, undercooked, and crunchy kimchi cabbage, so poorly stir-fried that it hadn't wilted.
As he enjoyed the sensation of the crisp vegetable stems and the softly crumbling cheese, pressed together under his molars...
What did the taste matter? This was the sensation of home. And Ivan's extremely developed synesthesia was naturally trained to the point where he could associate taste from touch.
"Boss... Boss? Are you crying right now?"
"...Excellent."
Amidst the three horrified transmigrators, a terrified Isabelle, Elfihera who had spat everything out after one bite, and Esidis who was pinching her nose and forcing down one piece at a time,
Ivan let a single tear fall.
*
"Hey, student."
"Yes, sir!!"
A man chewing on some grilled meat gestured to the stall's clerk.
The clerk ran over with a bright face to this customer who was paying an unusually large amount of money.
"See that man sitting at that booth over there?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Could you deliver this to him?"
"Huh? Uh... I just have to deliver it?"
"Please. This is for your trouble."
"Oh my!! You shouldn't have! Yes, sir! I'll be right back!"
The clerk bowed several times and headed toward the bizarre stall with the terrible smell—to the strange man who was sitting with a group but eating all alone at a booth that hadn't had a single customer all morning.
Unable to contain his curiosity, the clerk opened the note halfway. On it were just jumbled numbers that seemed to have no meaning.
*What is this, some kind of homework assignment?*
Thinking like a typical university student, the clerk delivered the note to the man.
The man stared blankly at the note, then suddenly grabbed the clerk by the scruff of his neck and growled.
"Who sent this?"
Forgetting the kimchi jjigae (which contained no kimchi and wasn't a stew) that had spilled with a crash, Ivan glared at the young student, who wore a dumbfounded expression.
Where the terrified student pointed, no one was sitting.
"Senior."
*