A Defense Battle

"If you film, won't it be a real hassle for the customers?"

"They said they'd shoot quietly from one side. Just a short take while they eat."

"That so?"

I turned my head and looked past Jin-woo. Three people stood there with cameras in hand.

Judging by the way each of them had a camera pointed at themselves—

Filming as a group, then?

They seemed set on capturing a quiet meal and leaving. From the scattered voices I could hear, it might even have been a live stream.

I weighed whether to allow it, then made up my mind.

"Let them."

I'd give permission to film.

That was the moment.

A quest had appeared out of nowhere.

Quests always fired off the moment they had a trigger, but this one felt a little different from before.

In my past life the quest only generated after I secured a hideout. This time it's the shop?

I remembered receiving something similar before. A hard-won base. The moment we started settling in and a crisis hit—that was when the quest had dropped.

This looked like the same kind of trigger. The only difference was that the hideout had become a shop.

Which means this is a crisis.

Considering the quest had spawned the instant I approved the filming, the conclusion wasn't hard to reach.

…So this was a defense battle?

Defense. Literally, a defensive war. A fight to hold the line.

The enemy was clear enough.

Those YouTubers laughing with Jin-woo as he delivered the filming permission—they were the enemy.

The quest fired the second I accepted.

So what was their goal?

They had obviously come to interfere with the shop. Who had put them up to it was a little more uncertain.

Jang On-gyu may not be a good man, but he isn't the type to pull a stunt this cheap.

It wasn't Jang On-gyu. He had shown me hostility with a few barbed remarks, sure, but there was a standard to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠these things. Even as a villain, he was no third-rate hack.

And yet the pieces didn't quite fit.

Anyone could see that the YouTubers sniffing around this place lately had been drawn in by Jang On-gyu.

Hmm… Not the kind of thing Jang On-gyu would do himself—but the enemies he summoned. That simplifies it.

Someone under him had ordered this, not the man himself.

Who, exactly, I could look into later.

Once you knew the enemy and the objective, only one question remained.

How do I beat them.

Now that I had labeled them enemies, I had no intention of going easy. Call it overkill if you want—that was my rule.

And for the record, I was a man who kept that rule absolutely.

Plenty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of options.

I could set a Trap and force a hallucination on them. This was my shop, my territory—the skill's effect would amplify. Pure efficiency said that was the right call.

But human beings were not creatures who thought only in efficiency. And a guy like me, especially in moments like this, even less so.

I'm a chef, aren't I?

Efficiency aside, the way to make the enemy submit completely wasn't a Trap. It was something else.

I go with cooking. The fundamentals.

Whoosh—!

I cranked the burner flame high.

Win with cooking—the fundamentals. So what dish do I make?

I came out as a snack-bar cook, so I don't leave snack-bar cooking behind.

What people call snack-bar food is light. Tteokbokki, fish cakes, gimbap, ramen. Easy dishes, for the most part. But dig deep enough and snack-bar cooking can go as deep as you want.

My menu here is gimbap and ramen.

I'd decided to break through with the fundamentals, so I wouldn't stray from them. The question was how to add depth to gimbap and ramen.

In the end, the answer was boldness.

I remake both of them into something else entirely.

Dishes different from what came before. Maybe it was because I hadn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flexed like this in a while—more than the fact that I'd been challenged, the sheer fun of the moment had my pulse climbing.

I might be the type who never turns down a challenge.

I hadn't known that about myself even in my past life.

Grinning to myself, I poured broth into a pot already roaring with heat. Not ramen stock—loofah soup. The moment the loofah broth went in, a milky haze rose through the liquid.

Let's keep it clear.

Loofah soup ran clear by nature to begin with. I boiled it down and skimmed the impurities once. The problem was what came next.

I don't want to just dump noodles into loofah soup and slap the word ramen on it.

It needed a point. And that point turned out not to be so hard.

Scallions.

Green onions. I was going to push them hard for a clean, bracing finish.

Meanwhile, the gimbap—equally unorthodox—was coming together beside it.

This is the kick.

I ladled the vigorously boiling ramen into a bowl until it nearly overflowed, then arranged the prepared gimbap across a wide plate.

"All right—done!"

Cooking for a defense battle: complete.

Hyunsung TV—Lee Hyun-sung. He had started out doing mukbang and now mainly ran a channel as a food-spot YouTuber.

Watching the flames leap high, he thought:

It's not even Chinese food—why light a fire like that first thing? Total overkill.

For a snack bar, it was grandiose. Then again, that only made better footage.

You trash what needs trashing, but you still bag the good clips.

Whatever dish came out, he had come ready to tear into it. But first impressions still mattered. The concept was that they had arrived with goodwill, only to be disappointed when the food turned out not to taste good. To sell that naturally, they had even coordinated their lines in advance.

"…"

"…"

They traded last-second eye signals. Then Hyun-sung launched straight into his line.

"Whoa. Isn't that a snack bar over there? The firepower's no joke, though."

"Going for wok hei, you think?"

"Doesn't seem like it… Ah! They're just trying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to bring it to a boil fast."

"Whew. Do they really need to go that hard, though?"

"Haha. Why not? It looks flashy—that's a plus, right?"

"Flashy. Fair enough!"

They tossed in a little ad-libbed color. Built the mood—this should be interesting, I wonder what comes out, people said it was a neighborhood favorite. Once the stage was set—

"Food's up."

"Huh?"

What arrived was fairly unusual. Hadn't this been a snack bar that sold ramen and gimbap? The ramen broth, though, was strikingly milky.

"What is this?"

"Ah—this is Hong Kong ramen, made with loofah soup."

"Excuse me?"

That was when Chan-won, the YouTuber beside him, jumped in.

"Ah, loofah soup!"

"You know it?"

"It's Hong Kong home cooking. We don't eat loofah much in Korea, but they do a lot of it in Hong Kong."

"Is that right?"

"There's a distinctive clean, refreshing taste when you eat it. Man, I never thought of putting noodles in it and running it like ramen!"

Maybe it was just that something he recognized had shown up—Chan-won's face lit up completely.

"This is looking promising. Ahem."

Hyun-sung shot him a look, and only then did Chan-won dial the energy back down.

"Glad you got it right away. As I said, it's a Hong Kong-style dish reworked into ramen. So-called Hong Kong ramen."

"That's a pretty direct name."

"That's why it sticks, right? Haha."

They tried leaning in aggressively to cool the atmosphere further, but it was hopeless. No matter what they threw, Sunwu looked ready to catch it with a smile.

"You'll be surprised when you taste it."

"Right. And this next one is… what? We ordered gimbap."

"Lasagna gimbap."

"Excuse me?"

"You know lasagna, right?"

Chan-won jumped in again. His chronic habit of getting excited the second something familiar appeared had flared up once more.

"Of course! Ahem. It's a pasta dish—sheets of noodle stacked in layers."

"Exactly. I just expressed that as gimbap."

"Ah. So that's why the seaweed is layered."

"That's right."

Here Hyun-sung thought he had found something to pick at.

"Uh, wouldn't this be way too salty? With the seaweed stacked like that…"

"Yeah. I mean, people already say gimbap is about the worst thing you can eat for your blood sugar…"

Blood sugar? At a snack bar? You know what you're getting into.

Absurd nitpicking. Comments to that effect scrolled up the live chat in a stream—but the two of them ignored it for now. Atmosphere was what mattered.

Sunwu, though, parried as if he had seen it coming.

"I know. Haha. If you look carefully, this isn't seasoned seaweed."

"Sorry?"

"It's just freshly toasted. With good oil."

"Then… what about the fillings?"

Hyun-sung ignored the murmur that he was being petty. He didn't want to back down here.

"Naturally I adjusted those too. Haha. I couldn't very well serve you a dish that's nothing but salt, could I?"

"…Ah. Right."

Sunwu batted that one away just as quickly. By this point, Hyun-sung and the other two had all realized it.

We're not going to win this with words.

Whether you were a YouTuber or a chef, talking well mattered. Call it the art of the pitch. This cook seemed born with the gift of making his food sound delicious.

Decision: loss on points.

Tch. It'd be easier if we could land one hit before we dig in.

Opening round: defeat. Hyun-sung admitted as much and immediately started thinking about revenge.

But the most important thing is still left, right?

No matter how you package a dish, the real arena is always the same. Taste.

Whatever comes out of this, I'm frowning first.

The three of them steeled themselves and went straight for the lasagna gimbap. More than five layers of it. The moment they stuffed a whole piece into their mouths at his instruction—

Whatever the flavor was, they had meant to twist their faces and sell the idea that it was bad.

"Ugh—?"

"Hup…"

A bomb went off in their mouths.

A bomb of flavor.