Dining Out and Tales of Adventurers 1
Na Sujeong began filming Liria's video.
Silvia looked at the appetizer bread and soup with open curiosity.
“Is this steak? It looks just like bread.”
“This is bread you eat before the steak to stimulate your appetite and make the steak taste even better.”
“Does such bread even exist?”
Silvia had never heard of the concept of an appetizer. Bread was bread, and steak was steak. Why eat them together?
She couldn’t understand it, but since it promised to make the meal taste better, she decided to try it anyway.
Silvia sliced the bread into six perfect pieces at blinding speed, then handed the same treatment to Liria’s portion. Her control was flawless; the plate never wobbled. The onlookers could barely hide their astonishment.
The restaurant knives weren’t nearly as sharp as kitchen blades, yet Silvia had cut two entire loaves into six even slices each in under two seconds. Not a single crumb was out of place.
“Whoa, that’s amazing.”
“Truly incredible.”
“This is nothing. Infuse mana into the knife and it cuts like butter.”
“Senior Silvia is also the best with the sword.”
Silvia had learned swordsmanship when she first became an adventurer. Magic made combat easier, but she wanted to experience something different.
At first she infused mana into her blade and learned to cut monsters. But every opponent was beneath her. Even a wyvern fell in a single stroke. She had to learn to control her overwhelming strength instead.
Her swordsmanship grew until she could subdue weak monsters like horn rabbits and horn chickens without killing them.
Liria had tried to follow Silvia’s example, but without magic it was too difficult. She gave up.
“Should I upload this scene to Liria’s YouTube?”
“Go ahead. Do whatever you like.”
“It’s going to be a massive hit. This is exactly the kind of video I’ve been hoping for.”
Na Sujeong was certain Silvia’s superhuman performance would blow up online. She had watched countless cooking videos, but nothing like this lightning-fast, precise cutting had ever appeared.
Of course there were masters who sliced food at incredible speeds, but those were always for thin, delicate cuts. Silvia’s wide, clean slices at this speed were unprecedented.
Even the restaurant knives, which weren’t particularly sharp, fell before her in seconds.
No one could replicate this. People would talk about editing, CGI, or digital effects. It would become a huge topic on the internet.
“I’ve seen many knife masters, but nothing like this speed and precision.”
“You can do it even faster than that.”
“Wow, even faster?”
Na Sujeong could barely contain her shock. Silvia had sliced two appetizer breads into six pieces in under two seconds. How could anyone claim it was faster than that?
Na Sujeong was just as confident that Silvia would become a huge YouTube star as she was about Liria. Plus, Silvia’s beauty was on another level—silver hair that suited her perfectly.
For Na Sujeong, working with these two on YouTube was pure luck.
Liria ate the bread and soup Silvia had prepared, patiently waiting for the main course.
And finally, the steak arrived.
“The steak is here.”
She felt a deep sense of satisfaction watching Liria up close while serving. As her junior had said, Liria was truly small and adorable. Even after finishing her tasks, Liria was still smiling brightly.
She seemed to be following the great fortune that had come her way. She promised herself she would visit the cafe next time.
“So this is steak? It looks pretty good.”
“I’m looking forward to it too.”
Liria had never had the chance to visit an expensive restaurant before. This was her first time trying high-class steak.
This time she decided to cut it herself. The moment she finished, she brought a piece to Silvia.
Silvia took the steak Liria offered, ate it, then cut her own portion the same way and fed it to Liria. The act of feeding each other made the meal taste even better.
Liria and Silvia seemed to have made an unspoken promise—one would feed the other, and one would eat it herself. The onlookers watching them smiled at Liria’s cuteness.
“It’s super soft.”
“Yeah. It’s really delicious.”
“Medium and medium-well both taste great.”
“Exactly.”
Silvia had never tasted meat with so much juice and tenderness before. It was on a completely different level from the burger patties she had eaten earlier.
The meat from Selenia had always been tough and smelled strongly. At best, high-end restaurants minimized the odor, but toughness remained inevitable.
This steak, however, was so soft it felt like a different world from anything in Selenia. Liria could eat without worrying about the smell, and she was thoroughly satisfied.
She finally understood why she had never enjoyed meat in Selenia—it was simply not very good meat to begin with.
“Why is Selenia’s meat so tough and smelly compared to Earth’s?”
“Maybe because the monsters move so much?”
“Earth’s meat might be specially bred to suit human tastes. Is Selenia selling monster meat to adventurers through the guild?”
“That’s right. Expensive, but still not as good as Earth’s.”
“Is it the spices or cooking methods?”
“Usually it’s just grilled and salted. Spices are too expensive for anything but high-end restaurants. Even high-end meat can’t compare to Earth’s.”
If she had never come to Earth, she might have thought high-end restaurant meat was wonderful for the rest of her life.
No matter how tough it was, the rich umami and fatty flavor of Earth’s meat simply couldn’t be matched.
“Selenia’s mana-infused fruits and vegetables are expensive but delicious. The real problem is meat and spices.”
“Seasonings and spices are ridiculously expensive but used in tiny amounts.”
“Earth can mass-produce them, so they’re incredibly cheap. Selenia isn’t like that, I guess.”
“I heard that in medieval times, pepper by weight was more expensive than gold.”
Selenia’s pepper was still hundreds of times more expensive than on Earth, though not quite as extreme as medieval Earth.
Liria, who knew Earth’s pepper prices well, realized that pepper had always been expensive in the medieval era.
Plants that existed only in Selenia still had value, but most seasonings and spices that were cheap on Earth were not.
In Liria’s mostly vegetarian diet, she had no need for seasonings like pepper. There was no reason to buy them.
With that money, she could have bought delicious fruits, vegetables, and snacks instead—even if they were expensive.
“I wonder what Selenia’s fruits and vegetables are like.”
“Are they really tastier than Earth’s?”
“Mana-infused ones are expensive and hard to find, but incredibly delicious. But getting them is too difficult.”
“Ah, that explains why coffee is so good.”
“Then if meat were infused with mana, it should taste even better, right?”
“Unlike plants, when monsters die, mana concentrates in mana stones. All that’s left in the meat is toughness and smell.”
“Ah, so that’s why it tastes bad.”
Park Dahye seemed to understand why Selenia’s monster meat was so unappealing. Highly active and powerful monsters naturally had lots of muscle and little fat, making them extremely tough and flavorless.
“In Selenia, horn rabbits and horn chickens are still less tough, but they taste worse than other meats. The ones that taste decent are still quite tough.”
“Horn rabbits and horn chickens are among the weaker monsters.”
“They’re very weak, but fast. Humans without mana can’t hunt them easily unless they’re adventurers.”
“Really? Still, monsters are monsters.”
Horn rabbits and horn chickens were weak monsters that adults with weapons could subdue. But they were much faster than mana-less humans, and beginner adventurers often fell victim to them.
Of course, she had never heard of adventurers dying to horn rabbits or horn chickens. Those who did usually got mocked by other adventurers.
Even normal people could fight them if they had weapons. But if they thought it was too dangerous, they would run away without looking back. The success rate for civilians was very low.
They couldn’t keep up with normal running speed, and adventurers didn’t bother catching them except in their beginner days because it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Listening to Selenia’s stories is really interesting.”
“You’re a true fantasy maniac.”
“Honestly, Selenia doesn’t have much that’s fun. Earth has smartphones, delicious meat, and way more things to do.”
“Yeah, but on Earth there are no monsters and you can’t go on adventures.”
“We can only do adventures in games.”
“I don’t know what other human adventurers are like because I’m not human. In my case, it was fun at first, but I got bored quickly.”
“There won’t be any monsters that can beat Senior Silvia. She doesn’t even need companions.”
“I wonder if it would have been more fun if I were a bit weaker and had someone to team up with.”
“Wouldn’t it? Too much strength makes everything boring.”
Silvia thought monster hunting had lost its appeal because she was too strong.
Sometimes, when a monster appeared that required a big sacrifice humans couldn’t handle, they assigned extermination requests to adventurer hatchlings. Silvia had taken such requests before.
Except for the early days when she first learned swordsmanship, she had never had an interesting adventure since.
She had learned swordsmanship to add excitement because magic alone wasn’t fun enough.
Once she mastered the sword, monster hunting became truly boring.
No monster in Selenia could offer Silvia thrilling combat.
Even though Silvia looked bored, Liria still wanted to become an adventurer.