Chapter 414: Peaceful Daily Life at Leilan Academy (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 414: Peaceful Daily Life at Leilan Academy (5)
When I arrived at the arena, my opponent was already there waiting for me.
The president of the Cooking Research Club.
Jo Mi-hyang.
I remembered her because, in addition to her unique talent, I had stopped Seo-ha from naming her “Seasoning” when she was setting up the characters.
Well, despite her unusual talent and personality, she wasn’t exactly a major player, and I didn’t have many memories associated with her from the 1st Timeline.
“Hello~?”
The way she greeted me listlessly made her seem like a typical, kind senior you could find anywhere. However, contrary to her seemingly indifferent attitude, she was intensely interested in me.
“Hmm, I see. My precious juniors like you so much that I wanted to see what kind of person you were up close. You certainly are different from ordinary people.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Well, who knows? It could be, or it might not be. I’m glad the person my junior likes seems to be a good person, but I’m not really fond of people who are too brilliant. I have a bit of a laid-back personality, so I think I’d get exhausted trying to keep up with the popular crowd.”
“You do give off that impression. But I’m not exactly a social butterfly, am I?”
“It’s a metaphor. A metaphor. I meant you’re like the sun. You need to keep a proper distance from the sun. If you get too close, you’ll melt, won’t you~?”
The discrepancy of her pulling out a kitchen knife while maintaining such a relaxed demeanor was a bit chilling.
“That’s why I like people who are like moonlight. I’m charmed by the subtle light that reflects the excessive glare of the sun to dimly illuminate the surroundings.”
“…You’re more poetic than I expected.”
“Hehe, is that so? Hmm, saying it out loud is a bit embarrassing. Well, there are more reasons why I said I prefer the moon over the sun, but for now, this is more important, right?”
Finally taking a stance, she steadied her breathing.
The signal for the start of the match rang out, and I deliberately yielded the first move.
The match wouldn’t be a proper one anyway.
Whether I let my guard down or started taking a nap right now, there was a gap between her and me that could never be bridged.
Some might argue that giving one’s all in everything is a sign of respect for the opponent, but at the very least, I wanted to test if she might be someone who could be helpful to us, so I didn’t want to end it in an instant.
And she understood that perfectly well.
She knew that the first move I yielded was her best chance to display her abilities to the fullest—the final moment where even a faint glimmer of possibility existed for her.
Therefore, her attack was cautious.
Was she planning to prepare something entirely different from the technique she used to toy with Woo Jae-hee?
She scattered pre-prepared ingredients into the air and began her ‘cooking’ with brilliant knife work.
“Hmm, isn’t this a bit much~? It’s a little embarrassing to have you staring so intently while pretending to let your guard down to bait an attack.”
“Isn’t a truly confident chef supposed to show people the process of their cooking?”
“Oh, that’s true. You got me there. But my cooking isn’t exactly flashy. It won’t be very fun to watch as live cooking.”
The process of the ingredients, handled with brilliant knife skills in mid-air, transforming into a dish wasn’t exactly boring to watch, but she probably didn’t mean what she said literally either.
What she completed was something with a sweet aroma that looked like candy.
Considering the cooking process and the ingredients, it was a visual that should have been impossible, but since her talent didn’t follow common sense anyway, what mattered was what effect that food would have and how she intended to make me eat it.
“Haha, you really are just like I heard. I guess I should show you my trump card then?”
A trump card, huh.
Now then, how does she plan to play this?
In a situation where she didn’t lead in reach, speed, or power, if she had a way to make me eat that, I certainly wanted to see it.
If there was even the slightest possibility…
“You see, cooking… if you make it with the heart of wanting someone to eat it, with a heart solely for that person, the dish responds to that heart.”
The answer would lie in her talent that transcended common sense.
“So, this is my trump card. It involves injecting a concept into the dish itself, so I can’t use it often. Unless your feelings are exceptionally strong, it won’t become a dish for just one person even if you pour your heart into it.”
A red orb floated from her hand, emitting a light before vanishing.
“…!?”
And in an instant, a sweet strawberry flavor with a subtle acidity spread through my mouth. I felt something slide down my throat, followed by a strange sense of fullness.
“It’s a technique called ‘Cooking for Only One Person.’ It’s like my ultimate move. It ignores the process of eating and delivers only the result of having eaten the food to the opponent. Interesting, isn’t it?”
…I feel like I’ve seen a very similar ability in a certain manga.
Of course, they couldn’t be compared, but it was absurd that a cadet could use a technique similar to the conceptual manipulation Sun Wukong used.
What was more shocking was that I felt no malice throughout the entire process.
If this dish were a deadly poison, I could just detoxify it; if it were a debuff on my abilities, I could negate it with reinforcement.
I still couldn’t feel what kind of effect this dish was supposed to have.
“Well, now that I’ve achieved my goal, I’ll forfeit.”
“…Excuse me?”
Just as I was about to go on high alert, my opponent raised her hand, declaring her surrender quite feebly.
Perhaps because the forfeit was so abrupt, not only I but also the professor acting as the judge blinked in surprise.
“Since I landed a surprise blow on you, the Student Council evaluation should be sufficient. And the cooking was meant to help my cute junior.”
“…Help?”
“Yes. That dish has a restorative effect and an aphrodisiac effect. The results should kick in soon, so take good care of Ga-eul.”
…Everything was going fine, but what the hell are you talking about?
“Even if I tried to give you an effect that would harm you, it wouldn’t work anyway. In that case, wouldn’t the right answer be to prove my ability while showing you a power that helps you, and helping my junior’s love life at the same time?”
Thump.
As soon as she finished speaking, my heart began to pound loudly, and my head started to feel hot.
“Wow, you’re really healthy. It’s not usually this instantaneous, but I guess the effect is already showing?”
Her playful smile on that relaxed face was quite irritating, but since she had forfeited, she simply ran away, claiming it would be a foul to touch her.
…No, well. So, just because I’m like this, asking Ga-eul to…
“Oh, just in case, I should tell you—I fed Ga-eul something similar during lunch today. A dish to help her relax.”
…Aren’t you being a bit too thorough with your preparations?
* * *
“No way!?”
Kim Ga-eul, who had been watching the match and heard the entire conversation, hurriedly began to check her own physical condition.
“…Huh? I’m fine, though?”
However, far from being aroused, her breathing wasn’t even labored. She could only tilt her head in confusion.
“Hmm, looking at it, it seems that senior lied to help you.”
Kang Ha-ni, who had been watching the scene calmly from the side, hit the nail on the head as if it were no big deal.
“Ah! I see!”
Kim Ga-eul, who had been blindly happy, flinched and began to steal glances at her friend who had just figured it out. It seemed she felt it would be a betrayal if she were the only one to do it.
Well, Kang Ha-ni, being quite quick-witted, found Ga-eul’s dilemma cute. Honestly, she also felt a bit of guilt about enjoying herself alone yesterday, so she decided to make the first move.
“Um, Ga-eul.”
“Yeah?”
“I did it a lot yesterday. So don’t worry about it and you go ahead.”
“…Eh? Yesterday? Really?”
“Yeah. But wait, listen to me, Ga-eul. There was an unavoidable reason for it.”
“No, well… thinking about it, it’s kind of weird to report to each other that we did it, but what was the reason?”
“So-hyun wagged his tail first.”
If Kang So-hyun had heard that, he would have asked what on earth she was talking about, but Kim Ga-eul, the party involved, was nodding as if she completely understood.
“If So-hyun seduced you, then it couldn’t be helped.”
“Right?”
Anyway, since permission was granted, Kim Ga-eul decided to strike while the iron was hot.
She planned to test a new strategy she had devised, learning from her previous failure.
* * *
The goal of joining the Student Council as the president of the Cooking Research Club was, of course, important.
Still, if it was for her cute juniors, she didn’t mind yielding a little.
Perhaps she might even get a recommendation for the Student Council because they were impressed by her skills. Listening to her juniors’ love stories was also quite interesting, though not as much as cooking, so it seemed alright in its own way.
“Hmm~ hmm~ I hope she isn’t too upset.”
As she started on a new dish, she was thinking of another junior who might be angry at her actions right now.
While it seemed she had helped Ga-eul this time, in the long run, she was also pushing her forward.
“In the first place, I’m not on anyone’s side when it comes to romance~ I wonder if our little Moon will be very angry?”
Just as the fragrant aroma began to spread as she sautéed vegetables in a pan, her other cute junior appeared from the empty space.
“You’re here?”
“…What are you doing?”
“What does it look like, Seo-ha? I’m helping your love life, aren’t I?”
“Is that so? I call this kind of behavior ‘interference.’”
Her pouting face was cute as well.
The poor Moon, who had gone blind from staring at the sun, the pitiful Moon who craved the sun’s light because she couldn’t shine on her own, was here.
“It’s not, though? I really am trying to help~”
“…Do you actually want to fight me?”
“Hehe, no.”
Oh, you poor Moon, who admired the sun so much that you became unable to see anything else.
You don’t even realize that you, too, are receiving the sun’s light and dimly illuminating the world.
You don’t realize that a subtle light, one that doesn’t burn others even when they draw near, is also charming.
“I just want you to realize sooner that you can’t monopolize the sun anyway.”
No matter how desperately you want him, as long as the sun is the sun, he won’t look only at you, but you don’t know that.
Oh, Moon, struggling to swallow what cannot be swallowed, trying to embrace a light that cannot be fully contained.
“…Ha-neul isn’t the sun.”
“No, from where I’m standing, that boy is definitely the sun. No matter how much he tries to hide it, he’s the sun that burns through everything with that intense light, eventually shining upon those shivering in the cold.”
And those who have experienced that light will never be able to escape him.
Just as the taste of the finest cuisine is never forgotten by the person who tasted it—no, rather, when memories and idealization are added, that sweet memory becomes even more intense and idolized.
“Whether the other person wants it or not, he will end up spreading his light. He’ll spread a warmth that’s almost like a drug, just as he once received it himself.”
“…Hmph. Until recently, he was acting like he was the coldest person in the world.”
“Oh my, you don’t know that?”
“Pardon?”
“When you have a cold, your body feels like a fireball, but you yourself feel freezing.”
“…Well, that’s true.”
“If even a person with a mere cold feels that cold, how cold must the sun be, trapping heat hot enough to warm the entire world within that body? Don’t you think he’s qualified to comfort others precisely because he knows the cold so well?”
“…I really think this every time I hear you, but you really love poetic expressions, don’t you?”
“The sun you love said something similar. I told you the two of you are alike.”
She looked at the sautéing vegetables and let out a soft chuckle.
“But I still don’t really like things that are too hot. If it’s just hot, the food all burns. You have to be able to use low or medium heat sometimes to make a delicious dish, but your sun is a bit ‘meh’ right now because he’s burning as if he’s addicted to warmth.”
“Sigh, anyway, stop talking about my love life. I came here to demand why you did something so reckless when I told you to infiltrate the Student Council…”
“Ah, the sautéed vegetables seem to have turned out well. Shall we eat first?”
“Are you even listening to me!?”
“Of course. It was just small talk that can be done slowly while eating well and listening to your impressions, wasn’t it?”
“It’s not small talk! It’s important business!”
“Yes, yes. Big sister will listen again, so don’t worry.”
Hoping that her cute junior’s romance would eventually reach fulfillment, she plated the deliciously sautéed dish.