You Can't Resist Rare Food

High Examiner Mihael.

A strikingly handsome young nobleman with long, flowing golden hair.

Possessing an ethereal, androgynous charm, Mihael settled into his reserved seat at the bar counter as if completely oblivious to the piercing glares of the examinees fixed upon him.

"Is the mead ready yet?"

"The honey shipment hasn't arrived yet. Truly a shame. You'll likely need to wait about two days for the beekeepers' stock to get here."

"Didn't you say the exact same thing two days ago? What a backwater—waiting here is completely pointless."

He remained seated for ten minutes, nursed a modest drink, and then headed back upstairs.

Once fifty minutes had elapsed, he descended to the first floor once more and took his reserved seat.

"Is the five-color shaved ice ready yet?"

"The ice shipment hasn't arrived yet. Truly a shame. You'll likely need to wait anywhere between three days to a week for the icemen's stock to get here."

"Didn't you say the exact same thing three days ago? What a backwater—waiting here is completely pointless."

It was a carbon-copy dialogue, identical in every way except for swapping out the menu item.

Listening to an exchange so dizzyingly reminiscent of looping NPC dialogue from a game, I couldn't help letting out a soft chuckle.

Back when I only saw it on a screen, I hadn't thought much of it, but witnessing it play out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in reality made it look thoroughly bizarre.

"How does it look to you, Milady? It appears the examiner has already presented his problem."

As if driving home the butler's words, an event window popped into my mind.

Listening to the bard strumming away at his instrument, Jona asked once more.

"Will you truly be all right just sitting idly like this?"

"Don't worry. I have a plan."

If the game's strategies held true here, clearing this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ticket exam would be child's play.

My serene, supremely confident demeanor must have appeared terribly anxious to onlookers, however, because a man at the neighboring table suddenly chimed in.

"Haha! Look at the little lady running her brain at maximum overdrive."

"...That's pretty rude, you know."

"Whoops. Seems I've offended the lady."

The man leaned closer and lowered his voice.

"Allow me to give you a hint. This exam is a first-come, first-served ingredient-gathering trial: you climb Mt. Shinjeong and retrieve the missing ingredients for whatever dish the examiner requested."

"Hmph. Is that so?"

"You heard the innkeeper mention how many days it would take for shipments to arrive, yes? That indicates which stratum the ingredient can be harvested from. Within one thousand meters above sea level, within two thousand meters, and so forth."

The honey required for mead was an item found in the 2nd stratum, below two thousand meters.

The ice needed for the five-color shaved ice was an item obtained between the 3rd and 7th stratums, ranging from two thousand to seven thousand meters.

I already knew all of this.

In the game, an hour passed automatically every time you clicked the [Next] button.

It had been a randomized ticket exam where you clicked [Next] until an assignment you could actually handle showed up. If luck wasn't on your side, he would only demand items utterly impossible to obtain with your current stats, which had spawned countless community memes wondering why on earth this lunatic had such an absurd appetite. Memes calculating how much weight Mihael would gain if he devoured every single requested dish—resulting in an infamous image of him blown up into a hundred-kilogram blimp—floated vividly through my mind like fond nostalgia.

"Sap from the thorny vine monster on the fourth floor, huh? If I bag that bastard, will you fix me a plate too?"

The monkey beastman I had spotted outside leaned down over the second-floor railing, peering down at Mihael.

Without a single shift in his bored expression, Mihael merely tracked him with his eyes.

"Provided there is enough volume."

"Be right back, then!"

At the innkeeper's nod, the monkey beastman bolted out the front door in high spirits.

"Is that idiot heading up without even putting together a party?"

"Ignorant ape."

"The fourth floor? He must have a death wish."

Most adventurers aimed for resources that grew in the lower and middle reaches of the 2nd stratum. A great many simply camped out in the inn, waiting for that rare, safe item to be named. A few formed parties of three or four to venture into the deep 2nd stratum or the lower reaches of the 3rd, but nobody dared target the 4th stratum and above.

When your level doesn't match the zone, foraging there is practically suicide.

No one would take responsibility if you died during the examination. Greed was paid for in blood. In a fantasy world where monsters were very real, ascending the mountain was every bit that perilous.

"Which ingredient are you aiming for, Milady?"

"Hm? I'm not really aiming for anything."

"Have you decided to forfeit the exam?"

"Who says there's only one way to clear a test?"

The man at the adjacent table's eyes glinted with intrigue.

"I knew my eyes hadn't deceived me. I had a feeling a little lady of your caliber wouldn't be chasing after the same scraps as the common cowards filling this inn."

"Aren't you a coward too, mister?"

"Haha. I don't know whether it will meet your standards, Milady, but I have prepared my own method."

Two days later, we discovered what his answer was.

"Whoa, look at that massive caravan of carts!"

"Did someone hire an entire merchant guild?"

The man gave a sharp whistle, and merchants clad in turbans stepped forward, presenting ledgers.

"We have procured all the commissioned goods."

"Mm. You've worked hard coming such a long way. Please enjoy some tea while I inspect the merchandise."

The moment he spoke, more than half of the patrons occupying the first-floor tables rose to their feet in unison. Together, they began inspecting the goods loaded onto the carts and verifying their quality.

The surrounding adventurers muttered in dumbfounded shock.

"Good grief... They were all in on it together?"

"There's easily over twenty of them!"

"I remember now! That obnoxiously handsome beard! It's Giselle the General Merchant, the one making huge waves lately!"

Giselle had approached the exam in an exceptionally shrewd manner.

"Now then. Please exchange our haul for tickets corresponding to every dish that can be prepared with these goods."

The innkeeper glanced back at Mihael with a bewildered expression. It was entirely beyond his authority to determine whether such an exploit counted as passing.

High Examiner Mihael, his bored expression slightly waning, cross-referenced the ledgers with the menu board.

"Chocolate balls, glittering pasta, mead, plus twenty-nine other dishes fulfilled. In my five years as an examiner, you're the first applicant to claim thirty-two tickets in one go."

"Haha. When the head is lacking, the body suffers, isn't that right? I'm simply enjoying the fruits of using my head a little more diligently than the rest."

Giselle the General Merchant.

He had genuinely snagged thirty-two tickets in a single breath.

"Wow. Unreal."

"What do you think, little lady? You have plenty of coin, and I happen to possess a surplus of tickets. Since you're so well-off, care to purchase one?"

"Are you a ticket hunter too, mister?"

"Haha. You could put it that way. Foraging and collecting every kind of monster material and mountain-grown resource wasn't easy, and most ended up being worthless junk, but it netted me a massive haul of tickets in the end."

"Impressive. How much did you spend?"

"Around forty gold coins. However, since I plan to offload Bronze Tickets at ten gold coins apiece and Silver Tickets at one hundred gold coins apiece, my profits will be more than overflowing."

Tickets selling for ten and a hundred gold coins.

Those specific denominations were intimately familiar to me.

The Ticket Black Merchant from the game!

In the original game, he had been nothing more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an emergency black market NPC who sold tickets for gold when players ran short on time. Here in reality, this was how he took form! The black merchant who hawked tickets in bulk was none other than Giselle the General Merchant!

If anyone asked why I hadn't recognized him sooner, I had plenty of excuses.

"Hehehe... Those who yearn to become Academy freshmen, come to me..."

"At our branch, carve up just one guy for me and I'll knock ten percent off the ticket price..."

"Hey there, friend. You have the face of a future Academy student... Care to buy this ticket for ten gold?"

The ticket black merchants in the game were utter chuunibyou morons skulking through shadowy back alleys in pitch-black hoods late at night, spouting nonsense like that. Who on earth could possibly guess that a sharp-dressed man strolling around in broad daylight without even a hood was an underground black merchant?!

"He is a remarkably resourceful merchant. What will you do, Milady?"

"I'll give you ten gold coins."

At the butler's inquiry, I casually produced ten gold coins from my pouch.

Giselle wore a distinctly disappointed expression.

"Only a Bronze Ticket? A lady of your wealth ought to go big and drop a hundred. There's always a good reason high-end merchandise costs a premium."

"No, I'm good. In the first place, that Bronze Ticket isn't what I'm buying."

He had just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cleared a mountain of ticket exam tasks all at once. The very instant I laid eyes on that spectacle, a thought had crossed my mind.

If I was going to buy anything from him, it had to be this.

"What I want to buy is the dining rights to all the meals served for clearing those orders!"

"Pardon? Dining rights...? You wish to buy the right to eat the food prepared for us?"

Giselle's eyes popped wide at the completely unimaginable request. He had approached a wealthy young heiress hoping to peddle exam passes, only to be struck with a proposition so wildly out of left field that his bewilderment was entirely justified.

From a gamer's perspective, however, this was incomparably more valuable than any stupid ticket.