North White Chef (5)
Mana.
It was living proof that this world was not mere medieval fantasy, but a full-blown medieval magical fantasy.
According to the original's memories, this world was filled with an incredibly fine particle similar to electrons, called mana. When that mana condensed and took on power, it became what people called magic power.
Since mana was something close to a fundamental unit of existence, it was fair to say that magic power itself was held by virtually everything under the sun.
So not only the humans who could throw a decent punch, but every kind of beast, monster, and abomination carried this magic power as well — and according to the common sense of this medieval fantasy world, the more of it you held, the further you could push past the limits of your own existence, growing endlessly stronger.
That was also why anything capable of increasing one's magic power was called an elixir and treated as a priceless treasure…
"Come to think of it, my magic power really has increased, hasn't it?"
"Mm. It's true. I came back from the subjugation with my dantian's mana completely drained, but right now it feels about half full again."
At Darius's words, the knights and soldiers who had returned with him began nodding one after another with similar reactions.
Wait. So then, for real—
"This has the same effect as an elixir…?"
"That's not it."
"That doesn't seem to be the case."
"Yeah, I don't think so."
Okay, never mind.
False alarm.
"Ah. I understand what you mean."
Old Max, standing by at my side, nodded as if he had grasped it as well.
"Young Master. When magic power fills the dantian, it can mean one of two things. The first is that the total capacity of one's magic power has increased. The second is that depleted magic power has been restored."
"And in this case…"
"It is the second."
Ah. So that's all it was.
Then it's not an elixir — it's just an MP potion.
I'd gotten all excited thinking it was some kind of miracle medicine, and it turned out to be a blue potion.
I slumped a little without meaning to.
I at least remembered that red potions had cost fifty gold; I couldn't even recall what blue ones went for.
As I sat there looking openly dejected, Darius laughed heartily and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Hahahaha! Little brother, this alone is already incredible!"
What, just because I made a blue potion?
"He's right, Young Master. This is not something to dismiss lightly."
When I remained unimpressed even by Darius's praise, Old Max immediately provided supporting fire.
"Magic power is never something easily obtained. Monster magic power in particular is prone to corrupting into that signature berserk nature of theirs, which makes it all the harder to absorb. Even so-called elixirs are close to suicide if taken raw. They require a separate neutralization process — and this gukbap of yours, by boiling for more than ten hours, appears to have taken that process's place. That is why one can consume it without any trouble."
"How do people normally recover magic power, then?"
"If we speak of a full recovery, it differs from person to person. Those with greater magic capacity take longer. For someone of the First Young Master's level, even while circulating a cultivation method, it would take several hours at least."
"And if they eat gukbap?"
"It would cut that roughly in half."
Come on. Then it really isn't that big a deal.
Cutting four hours down to two? That just sounded like the same thing with a different number attached.
But Old Max shook his head as if to say I had it completely wrong.
"Second Young Master. That estimate assumes one can sit still and properly circulate a cultivation method. How much leisure do you think people in the North have for that kind of quiet practice?"
…Well, when he put it that way.
"Just when things grow peaceful, the monsters raid again — that is the North. The First Young Master fights three or four battles in a single day; he has even less room to sit and circulate magic. Now imagine gukbap in that situation. What happens?"
"You can… cut that time short?"
"Exactly."
I hadn't thought much of it at all, but Old Max spoke as though we had just made the discovery of the century.
"And more than that — there is a place where this gukbap will prove even more vital."
Old Max raised a finger and pointed north.
"The Great Wall. A place where the people of the North suffer under monster assaults more than ten times a day. Where proper rest and proper meals are both luxuries. What happens if we bring in this gukbap, so easy to serve in bulk?"
"Two birds with one stone… As long as the pot keeps boiling, anyone can eat quickly and deploy at once, so distribution is easy. And also—"
"In a place already starved for resources, the monsters that come to kill you become the food supply itself. This gukbap is nothing less than a dish perfectly optimized for the North!"
It was the kind of speech that would have gukbap fanatics on their feet, screaming and applauding.
I never knew gukbap had that kind of power.
I wasn't a gukbap devotee myself, and I didn't know much about the Great Wall either, but I understood the point well enough.
For a frontline unit, nothing mattered more than supply.
And if a combat ration capable of redrawing the supply system itself had just been born — how could that not be a revolutionary invention?
Eat it, and combat power holds.
This… was worth researching further.
The next day, after the gukbap distribution event had ended, I sat in my office and sank into thought.
The correlation between gukbap and combat-power maintenance.
Combat-power maintenance.
It was a phrase nine out of ten commanders lived with permanently stuck to their tongues.
The moment extreme cold or extreme heat hit, the soldiers started draining like batteries left unattended — and every time, you'd gather the subordinates for a free-for-all debate on how to keep combat power up, only for it to end with, "Well… how about we feed them samgyetang?" and no real answer in sight.
So even here, "cheer them up by feeding them" is the same playbook?
The samurai spirit lives everywhere, I thought with a quiet laugh, and picked up my pen.
"I said it half as a joke, but this is a serious problem."
In the North, the Great Wall was both the number-one reason for the territory's existence and the number-one reason it was constantly on the verge of collapse — the thing that accelerated the North's already strained finances without end.
I still didn't know exactly what kind of chaos unfolded there, but it was a place that endlessly swallowed vast resources and produced almost nothing of value in return.
Well. That couldn't be helped.
To my eyes, the Great Wall was essentially the same as an army — an extreme consumption group.
Expecting productivity out of a place like that would be a mistake. But if we can at least reduce the consumption… that would be good.
Needless to say, the fact that the consumption hurt did not mean anyone should start embezzling.
These were Northerners already freezing their guts out in the dead of winter. Cutting supply costs with little tricks was the same as picking the sugar candy out of the hardtack.
Do that, and you wouldn't even have a defense left if a coup broke out.
So this is the Great Wall's meal plan.
I looked over what was being issued at the Wall.
And I marveled.
"Barley bread and dried berries. Mixed soup with various herbs… How is anyone supposed to maintain combat power on this?"
I already knew the North's food situation was bad, but this menu drew a sigh all on its own.
Supplying that far out was a logistical nightmare, sure — but still. The idea that people were fighting on this diet was almost impressive.
These people really were holding the line on nothing but duty and a sense of mission. The thought settled over me with fresh weight.
This needs reform.
I couldn't leave it as it was.
Playing SimCity in the Wintershield Grand Duchy and focusing on territory management was all well and good, but food and capital were infinite resources — you could always grow them with enough money and time.
Manpower — population — was a finite resource that money and time alone could not easily expand.
In a North this hard to survive in, population is more important than anything.
Even after I reincarnated into this body, the reports that kept rolling in said Northerners were still dying by the dozens in the freezing cold, every single day.
I hadn't even been able to look at the Great Wall figures properly — they made me dizzy — but a rough check showed that while combat deaths were many, non-combat losses were nowhere near small either.
What I wanted to focus on was the non-combat side.
I can't climb the Great Wall and fight in their place. But rear support? That I can do something about.
In this case, that meant solving the food crisis.
If I could just fix that cursed meal plan, half the combat-power leakage would disappear. I decided to call people in.
"Butler. Gather some people for me."
"The architects, Young Master? If it is them, you already—"
"No. The people I need this time are cooks. We'll meet at the kitchens… Ah, and there are a few additional things I'll need prepared."
Old Max's expression turned peculiar at my instructions.
But Old Max was a man of ironclad chain of command.
Even when he had questions, he was not the type to press them — and so the cooks were soon assembled.
Fortunately the meeting place was their own workplace, the kitchens, so it didn't take long.
"Good to meet you all."
Facing a room full of people startled by a sudden summons from the Young Master, I raised my voice.
"I'm sure you're all aware that I developed a new dish yesterday and distributed it."
"Ah — you mean that gukbap, Young Master?"
"That's right. You know it?"
"Hehe. Truth is, this humble one was there that day."
"I was there too!"
"Me as well…"
What, so these were yesterday's fan-meet attendees?
Perfect.
That would make the conversation go faster.
"Excellent. Then I'll proceed on the assumption that all of you know what gukbap is. I intend to develop dishes like yesterday's gukbap. That time we used bones and marrow — but gukbap is not a dish that ends there. It has far more variety."
"Variety… meaning?"
"Here. Take a look."
I had Old Max indicate what had been set out across the kitchens' massive table.
It was none other than a spread of assorted monster carcasses.
"In truth, the gukbap I cooked yesterday is a general name for any dish where you put rice into soup. And the name of that particular soup was seolleongtang — a dish made by simmering bones and marrow. But you can create all kinds of soups without being limited to that."
I wasn't the president of the Gukbap Fan Association, but the variations on gukbap were endless.
Seolleongtang, simmered mainly from bones and marrow, the way I had done yesterday.
Gomtang, boiled down primarily from meat.
Naejangtang, made by marinating offal and stewing it with seasoned vegetables.
Seonji-guk, made by collecting blood in salt water, diluting it, and setting it into a jelly-like form… and on and on.
True gukbap devotees could eat a different soup every day of the week and still live a full life — that was how boundless the possibilities were.
The reason I had specifically chosen seolleongtang yesterday, though, was simple.
"But a worry crossed my mind. Bones and marrow are one thing — but can you just casually eat a monster's organs?"
You might ask what I was talking about after happily boiling bones and marrow myself, but for me it was a genuine concern.
Because years ago, while working a job and eating gukbap with the company sergeant major, I had once heard him say you had to be careful handling offal.
"Captain Heo, you know this? This cow liver's fine — but a polar bear's liver? Eat that and you drop dead from vitamin A overdose."
At the time I had let it go in one ear and out the other.
The odds of me going to the Arctic and making naejangtang out of polar bear liver seemed lower than the odds of getting stranded there and having a polar bear make naejangtang out of me.
But looking at it now, it had become a problem worth taking seriously.
Even polar bear liver kills you if you eat it. What happens if you mess up with the livers of these monsters?
This was a world where magic power actually existed.
I didn't believe for a second that my half-baked knowledge alone could neutralize everything in a place like this.
Which meant — this was exactly when you needed collective intelligence.
"So, both to get your help and to keep things simple, I'll be holding a little contest. Ah — I don't ask favors with empty hands. You've all heard how the castle architects walked away with fat incentives after joining the engineer battalion I founded, right?"
Thud—
A heavy sound, and a money pouch landed on the table.
The cooks who had been dragged here without the faintest idea what was going on suddenly had a completely different light in their eyes.
A reward leave, after all, is the kind of thing that can move even a short-timer sergeant.