An Easy Job
Jang On-gyu wasn't angry about the dirty tricks they'd pulled.
"You couldn't even handle that easy job properly?"
"……I'm sorry."
He was simply furious at the failure itself.
Even the head of the publicity team had no trouble admitting it.
"So what are you going to do? I hear people are gathering at that shop again."
How the hell did he hear about that? Wait—Secretary Park, probably. Tsk.
He didn't care much about the consequences of his own mistakes.
What truly rankled him was the existence of an information source that wasn't him.
It was utterly selfish, but no one was around to call him on it.
"I'll ramp up the promotions even harder and pull the attention back this way."
"You're already doing that. Don't you have anything new?"
"I'm sorry. I'll come up with countermeasures right away……"
"Haa……"
Jang On-gyu only ever scolded people about the work.
He never went further than that.
"Get out. Report the moment you have a plan."
"……I'm sorry."
"What are you still doing? Get out already."
"Yes, sir!"
The publicity team head retreated.
Jang On-gyu simply propped his chin on his hand and watched until the man disappeared from sight.
Plenty of drive, but the ability doesn't match. The direction wasn't bad—just crude.
Something completely out of place had happened.
Jang On-gyu's face twisted into a deep scowl, irritation seeping through at the way things refused to go as he intended.
Feels like some speck of dust keeps spreading.
He had painted a picture all on his own.
A "Business Genius Street" had been built both here and elsewhere.
But the money coming out of those places was starting to hit a ceiling.
The buzz was a problem too.
He needed to show something different from before.
A sense of crisis had set in—if he sat back and got lazy, he'd sink without a sound just like every other franchise.
That was why he had forced the creation of a second street here no matter what.
It felt like looking at a well-painted picture only to notice, too late, that the paint had begun to bleed at the edge.
He had to stop it before it spread any further.
Some people might call even the bleed part of the artwork.
Jang On-gyu was the opposite.
It can't show. Either make it completely mine, or erase it.
Painting over the bled spot until it vanished.
That was his way.
How do I cover this?
His concerns were growing deeper by the moment.
Two whole weeks had already passed since the defense battle.
Even so, the shop was packed day after day.
Feels like the customers are only increasing?
Looking at the order counts punching through the POS system, they really were climbing steadily.
"Is this the place?"
"Yeah, this is it!"
The uploaded videos still hadn't been taken down.
Guess they really are view-count monsters.
They'd said they'd do anything for views.
They'd come to attack me and failed, but the views kept climbing, so they left the videos up.
I was reaping the full benefits of those clips.
"Isn't this place unique?"
"Right? That Jang Sa-jang Street they're promoting is fun too, but this spot's interesting in its own way."
On top of that, I was also riding the wave of Jang Sa-jang's own promotional efforts.
Some of the people drawn in by his various campaigns were spilling over here.
Originally it should've been like a fish farm—everything contained inside Shinsigaji.
Because they had come looking, a little side path had ended up connecting all the way to us.
For now it was still small enough to call a side path.
But I was certain.
If I can just keep guiding this virtuous cycle, the customers will grow even more than before.
As long as things stayed like this, I could do better than ever.
They had come on their own and even done the advertising for me—what else was there to do?
Enjoy it.
I had to savor this happiness.
Lasagna gimbap and Hong Kong ramen. On top of those, I had added new menu items this time.
Going one-trick only gets stale.
Plenty of people had come because of those two, true.
But I also had to look after the ones who kept coming back.
For them, I had newly added one more item to the menu.
This one's basic, but an unbeatable combination.
I had simply added one designated topping.
A really big one.
"Hey, there's something new on the menu board?"
"Whoa…… but why does a bowl of ramen cost over ten thousand won?"
"Isn't that a bit expensive?"
Adding something large had raised the price.
But there was a reason for every won of that increase.
"No, look at the description. It's not just regular shrimp."
"Black tiger shrimp? Oh……!"
"I've seen these on pizza. Should we try ordering it?"
"Yeah, let's!"
Black tiger shrimp, exactly!
I had added this shrimp—famous even among shrimp for how good it tastes—as a new topping ingredient.
But stopping there would still feel stingy.
If I jack the price way up just for adding one topping, people will curse me out!
A customer's feelings mattered.
From my position as the owner, I had added black tiger shrimp, so of course I'd raised the price to match the unit cost.
But expecting the people eating it to understand that was asking too much.
It wasn't that the customers were being selfish. That was just how human psychology worked.
People are sensitive to losses, after all.
If they were paying more money, I had to give them joy that matched it.
So what did I need to do?
Just dumping a few more pieces of seafood on top isn't enough. And I can't raise the unit cost any further.
An answer that wouldn't leave me in the red while still satisfying the customers' psychology.
There was only one.
My own cooking ability.
I didn't mean simple enhancement through skills.
I'm already doing plenty of that.
With so many customers now, I couldn't enhance every single ingredient, but I was still strengthening the basics wherever I could.
Here, I needed to show something else.
Whoooosh—!
Cooking technique itself.
"Whoa, look at that fire!"
I cranked the heat way up so they could enjoy the spectacle.
That gave them one hit of satisfaction.
At the same time, I used that boosted flame to layer in a proper fire flavor.
Two hits with the taste.
That way, the expectations of the customers who ordered would swell plenty high.
And then the grand finale.
A kick has to land at least three times.
Not all ramen is the same ramen.
The charm of ramen is how it can expand into an insane number of varieties, right?
Coat it in fire flavor, amp up the heat, and add seafood—the answer for the dish that comes out is simple.
Shrimp "jjamppong" ramen.
The moment that ramen with its fire flavor finished cooking, I ladled it into a massive bowl.
"One seafood jjamppong ramen with shrimp topping, coming up!"
And one more thing.
"Whoa. That's a huge portion."
"Extra noodles included too. Enjoy!"
A portion to match!
Honestly, the cost of an extra noodle bundle for ramen wasn't that high. Adding one didn't send the unit cost skyrocketing.
But once it reached the customer, the story changed completely.
"Good thing we ordered one to share!"
"This way it doesn't even feel expensive, right?"
A satisfying dish that left both of them full after sharing.
When a dish came out that felt reasonable even with the higher price—
"Should we add a topping too?"
"Yeah, let's!"
"Man, I gotta get that one myself."
—other customers started looking for the same topping.
"Order over here!"
"Me too!"
Just like right now.
"Everyone, great work today!"
"Wooo!"
We had closed shop before night even arrived.
An earlier closing than usual.
There was nothing we could do about it.
"Sold out completely. That's insane."
"Right? All three shops sold out entirely. Isn't that a new record?"
"For real! We increased the ingredients and it still went this fast. Crazy."
Every last bit of the ingredients we had prepared in advance had run out.
We had prepped more because the customers had increased.
Who could have guessed that seeing the shrimp jjamppong ramen would make the orders pile on even higher?
Instead of one menu item per person, they were ordering two each, so the ingredients vanished in no time.
Who knew there'd be so many big eaters?
Even I thought the portions were generous, but everyone cleaned their plates.
If Big Brother Jang hadn't prepared that sujeonggwa ahead of time, some people might have been in digestive trouble.
Anyway, Big Brother Jang's got some real business sense, doesn't he?
He seemed to have a certain knack that was oddly similar to Jang On-gyu's.
Come to think of it, they're both Jangs? Wait, are those two actually brothers?
No. No way.
They had far too little in common.
I must have been tired. I shook my head to clear it, and in that moment Jinwoo came over carrying a used dishcloth and asked,
"How do you even come up with ideas like that?"
Fresh admiration was written all over the kid's face.
"Ideas like what?"
"Suddenly dropping a brand-new menu item right here! Just when things were about to cool off, you hit them with jjamppong ramen. Damn……!"
This was pure admiration for the new menu.
And mixed into that admiration was some interesting news.
"Pretty good move, right?"
"Good? It was perfect! Did you see YouTuber Hyeonseung sneak in earlier, eat quietly, and leave?"
"Really? I missed that."
"He gave a little thumbs-up to himself on the way out."
"Whoa. That's funny."
HyeonseungTV. The guy who had helped create our virtuous cycle had come by in secret.
Did the work dry up on the other side, or did he just come because it tasted good?
Pretty sure it was because it tasted good.
He hadn't said a word about filming.
Kind of ironic, isn't it?
The person who had started the defense battle sneaking in for a quiet meal.
I felt both proud that I'd earned his recognition and amused at the same time.
"Anyway, today was another huge hit."
"Right?!"
Just like Jinwoo said.
Anyway, it was a huge hit.
At that, Jinwoo asked with a sly look in his eyes,
"So since we closed early for the first time in a while…… how about it?"
"Ahh……"
This kid. So that was what he'd been angling for!
He had something very specific in mind.
"I can see right through you."
"Come on. When could you ever not? Haha."
I prodded him lightly, and he just came out with it shamelessly.
"He's right. I'm looking forward to it myself today."
"Whoa. Even you, Harang-ssi?"
"These past few days have been rough, hehe."
And now Harang-ssi was joining in too.
At this point, there was only one answer.
"If Harang-ssi is in, then I guess there's no choice."
"So?"
"Just wait a moment."
Not the customers—my own people.
It was time to fill their expectations as well.