27. Orphanage (4)
27. Orphanage (4)
Medherun City has many restaurants with delicious food.
In particular, there are many foods that can be found on Earth; it seems that's because this is a world where various things like reincarnation and transmigration happen.
When I first came to this world, I was a bit depressed because all I ate was dried jerky and hard bread, but after coming to Medherun City and seeing familiar foods, I've come to like this city even more.
Centered around the plaza, which could be called the 'sunny side,' there are many beautiful, happy, comfortable, and delicious foods, as well as plenty of things to do.
The Adventurer Guild is cool, and just watching the humans is really fun.
Centered around the shantytown, which could be called the 'shady side,' ugly, dirty, and malicious crimes occur, so if someone disappears, no one knows.
Since corpses appear on the streets one by one, I like that I can periodically farm food.
It's not fresh, but dead food, but still, because there's the human brain, which is large and developed, unlike tasteless animals like pigs or chickens, it's much tastier than other animals.
'Even I, who am thinking these thoughts, want to eat it.'
Whenever I see a corpse, I find myself smacking my lips without realizing it.
'How can I keep my humanity?'
It's a thought I have a lot these days.
Even when I see a human's head being torn, eaten, and ripped apart by a creature right in front of me, I don't think much of it.
At the very least, if you're a human, you'd have some kind of reaction if an animal like a pig or chicken died miserably in front of you, but I feel no emotion even when a human, who was just like me, dies right in front of me.
Ah, I do feel happy that I've gotten food to feed the kids.
Just as Amber is being assimilated into the Hive Mind with the Centipede Creature and becoming a creature, I, too, am being assimilated into the Queen's consciousness and gradually losing my humanity.
Actually, it feels like I've already lost a lot of it.
Nevertheless, the reason I feel I still have humanity left is my belief not to eat humans, and the fact that I chose coexistence rather than exterminating humans.
Coexistence doesn't mean we're getting along well; we're in a position where we're farming humans, but farming is much more peaceful than extinction.
'Huh? Tonkatsu...?'
While walking along thinking about this and that, I found a restaurant with "Tonkatsu" written on it.
A tonkatsu restaurant, which you would never find in an ordinary medieval setting, is plausible enough here because of the fantasy, reincarnation, and transmigrated humans.
I went straight into the restaurant.
The restaurant isn't very big.
It's a modest restaurant, about 33 square meters in size, with about 16.5 square meters for the kitchen, and it can only accommodate about 5 customers.
"Welcome~ Gasp, S-Saint-nim!?"
'Huh?'
I felt a sense of familiarity at the sight of the woman who appeared to be the restaurant owner, greeting me as soon as I entered.
Black hair, brown eyes, familiar facial contours—she was a woman who seemed to be advertising that she was Korean in every way.
"Y-you can sit here. Here's the menu...!"
I sat in the seat the Korean owner guided me to and opened the menu.
'Oh. It says Tonkatsu, but she just makes everything.'
Tonkatsu, stir-fried pork, ramen, fried rice, etc.—foods I had eaten at least once when I lived in Korea were all listed there.
There are almost over 20 menu items. But no matter how I think about it, to make these kinds of dishes, there would be too many ingredients, making it hard to manage.
"Are all the items on this menu available?"
"Yes! My Unique Ability is related to food, so I can always make the best dishes!"
A Unique Ability related to food. She's a talent I really covet.
In our Colony, there aren't just creatures; humans like Yui and Erina also exist.
I occasionally buy ingredients in the city and send them through the passage in the basement of the Orphanage, but both of them are struggling because their cooking skills aren't good.
If she has the skill to cook all those 20+ dishes and a Unique Ability to back it up, wouldn't she be able to make not just food for humans, but also food using humans as ingredients?
Until now, the creatures have just eaten living humans as they are. Of course, that is the most delicious way.
Because the most delicious part of a human is the brain. Since the brain loses its vitality shortly after a human dies, it's the golden rule to eat the brain before the human dies when eating them.
After eating the brain like that, what remains is the human body.
Wouldn't there be a way to cook the already dead human body more deliciously?
"Here you go!"
A tonkatsu that had just come out of the oil, with a crispy batter, was placed in front of me.
The moment I picked up a piece to eat the tonkatsu.
"Huh? S-Saint-nim, by any chance, did you come from Earth...!?"
I realized my mistake at the Korean female owner's words.
I had naturally picked up the chopsticks from the utensil container without realizing it and lifted the tonkatsu.
Even though there were a fork and knife right next to them.
"O-oh, by any chance, which country are you from? U-um, I came from Korea!"
I agonized while looking at the Korean female owner, who was speaking eagerly with a face that looked as happy as if she had met a friend in front of me.
'Should I kill her?'
Actually, it wouldn't be a big problem if the Saint were discovered to be a transmigrator or reincarnator—in other words, an Otherworlder—rather than a human of this world.
However, if information starts leaking out one by one with the complacent mindset of "This one thing should be fine, right?", I don't know what kind of problems might arise.
'Killing her really would be more comfortable—'
Crunch.
As soon as I ignored the owner chattering in front of me and took a bite of the tonkatsu, that thought completely vanished.
'What the. Why is this so delicious?'
It wasn't that I hadn't been able to taste food until now. It wasn't to the extent that I couldn't eat anything except humans like in that old ghoul manga.
I just eat food and taste it normally like a human. However, the Pipe Tobacco made by drying and grinding human flesh gave me much higher happiness than the happiness I felt while eating any food until now.
No matter how much ordinary food humans made, it was much lower than the happiness given by the Pipe Tobacco, so it was just a small pleasure, but the tonkatsu in front of me now was different.
It wasn't quite like the Pipe Tobacco, but it gave me a similar sense of happiness.
'Tonkatsu is this delicious?'
I've lived in Medherun City for a month and eaten a lot of different foods.
But there was no food that showed this level of taste.
For a moment, I even mistook it for being made of human meat.
It's that delicious.
==
"Hehe, it's delicious, right!?"
The Korean woman felt a sense of pride at the sight of the Saint, who had revitalized the ominous city, entering the restaurant and being startled, then covering her mouth in surprise after eating the tonkatsu she had made.
"Yes... it's incredibly delicious."
The look of her seemingly pondering various things until just a moment ago had completely disappeared, and the sight of her staring at the tonkatsu with wide eyes was so beautiful.
'What country is the Saint-nim from?'
The very fact that she didn't pick up the fork and knife but immediately picked up the chopsticks proved that she was a person from Earth.
However, her appearance, with its quite exotic beauty, made me realize that she didn't come to this world via world-transfer, but rather through reincarnation or transmigration.
'Picking up chopsticks right away... she must be from Asia, right? She's so pretty... How can a person be that pretty?'
I stared, lost in thought, at the sight of Lea eating the tonkatsu enthusiastically.
"Owner-nim. What is your name?"
"Ah! I'm Kwak Narim!"
"Kwak Narim-nim. The tonkatsu is really delicious."
'She's Korean!!!'
Narim realized it immediately when she spoke the name "Kwak Narim," which would be impossible for anyone who isn't Korean to pronounce, so naturally.
She pronounced "Kwak Narim," a name even Koreans find hard to pronounce, clearly and precisely.
She is absolutely, definitely Korean.
"I'm interested in you."
"Yes?"
Lea slowly examined Narim, who was in front of her.
Appearance: pass, figure: pass, overwhelming cooking skills: pass.
"What are you interested in?"
"Narim-nim's cooking skills."
"Hehe... Thank you."
Narim was happy because the Saint said the tonkatsu was delicious, but in reality, Lea was thinking about kidnapping Narim.
The hem of her nun's outfit skirt detached, then moved carefully, stuck firmly to Narim's clothes, and mimicked them.
"Please come again next time!"
"See you in a bit."
To Narim, who was waving and greeting Lea as she was about to leave after paying, Lea said something meaningful and just left.
"Huh? In a bit? Is she coming back to eat in the evening?"
==
"She didn't come after all. Was she busy taking care of the children at the Orphanage?"
Narim, who stretched by reaching her hands up high, closed the restaurant door and went up to the second floor of the restaurant.
It is a building consisting of a restaurant on the first floor and a residential floor on the second floor.
I was very flustered when I was transferred to another world, but there were many kind people in Medherun City.
Thanks to that, I was able to adapt to this other world without any problems, and because I had been a chef in reality, business went well thanks to my Unique Ability related to cooking.
I quickly paid off the loan I took out when opening the restaurant, and now I was living a comfortable and enjoyable life.
The only problem was that I was lonely.
No matter how good the people around me are, this place is not the Earth where I lived for a long time.
There are many inconveniences, and the fact that I don't have my family, which is the most important thing, was a very, very sad and difficult thing.
'I want to get close to the Saint-nim.'
I wanted to get close to her after realizing she was also Korean, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it, so I didn't ask further, but I was a little disappointed.
The moment I finished showering and lay down on the bed to sleep in a room without a TV or game console.
Rustle.
I heard someone's presence.
Narim, who turned her head toward the sound, froze on the spot.
Because the clothes she had been wearing until just a moment ago were alive and moving. On top of that, the clothes started to twist, and a monster that was hard to describe was in front of her eyes.
"Uh... uh?"
The moment she felt something was wrong and tried to run to the door, the monster stretched out like rubber and blocked the door.
"Hiiik...!"
Riiip.
As the twisted clothes tore, teeth appeared, and sharp eyes formed, she was terrified and fell backward.
"Huuup... hic..."
Narim, who thought she might die the moment she screamed, was startled when her gaze met the eyes of the clothes that had turned into a monster, and she curled up to hide her body as much as possible.
The General-rank Mimic Creature, which wasn't Overlord-class but at least capable of some communication, remembered the Queen's instructions from earlier because Narim was more afraid of it than it had thought.
'Absolutely do not let Narim get scared. Got it? Just stay quiet until I come.'
The Mimic Creature wanted to do that too. However, only a part of its body was attached to Narim's clothes. Because of that, it lacked the strength to mimic, and eventually, the mimicry wore off, and its true form was discovered by Narim.
On top of that, it had no choice but to stop Narim, who was surprised by its appearance and trying to run away.
The Mimic Creature, thinking it first had to appeal to Narim that it had no intention of killing her and was not an enemy, mimicked a human hand and reached out to Narim as slowly and carefully as possible.
And it made sounds like "Kkiing. Kkiing." like a pitiful puppy.
However, Narim did not try to take it.
Instead, she was even more terrified.
Because of the creature that had changed from clothes to a monster and then to a human hand, the area between Narim's legs became damp and wet.