Reactions Are Essential for a Cooking Contest
Peaceful days slipped by, and before long we were all heading out together for Yangyang-gun in Gangwon Province.
If this had been a beach episode, the next scene would have been all of us screaming "The ocean—!" and charging straight into the water. Sadly, that wasn't the case. Instead we piled into the car like one big happy family, chattering and squealing the whole way there.
For the record, I was the one behind the wheel. I'd only just gotten my license. I'd already been driving for work, so passing the test had been a breeze. I rented a family car and volunteered to put in the work this trip.
Obviously that included Rina, too.
『『『『~~~~♪』』』』
In the very back seat, Rina and the kids had clustered around Saetbyeol's laptop, watching Beyond-related videos and making a racket. On any other day I would have told them to keep it down, but today was different. The adult contingent of our group just kept smiling, content to watch the kids enjoy themselves without any intention of spoiling the fun.
Yumi had been lukewarm at first about Taeyang's idea of bringing Rina along. That changed the moment she heard the full report from the Princess about what had happened that day. Who would have guessed there was a story like that behind it? There were surely reasons why the girl had been abandoned, but the brainwashing that had been done to Rina—that, Yumi was certain, had Locust written all over it.
Why does this world always have to mess with kids? If you're going to fight, at least keep it between the adults.
Sigh.
…Which is exactly why this world is the way it is, I guess.
Even if the mood was bright right now, I couldn't help wondering what darker stories were waiting for us further down the road. It left a heavy feeling in my chest.
"Speaking of which," I said, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you two."
"Yes?"
"What is it?"
Yumi was looking unusually fresh today in a white one-piece dress paired with a cardigan. Ga-eun wore black banded pants and a tank top that left her navel and underarms on full, breezy display. Both of them looked a little worried about whatever question I was about to drop, so I waved it off as nothing major and aired the small concern that had been nagging me.
"It's a festival, sure, but the main event is mushrooms. Plenty of kids are picky about those. I was wondering what we'd do if someone hates them."
"Oh, come on. You don't need to worry about something like that. At their age, they'll gobble down anything you put in front of them."
"Still, we brought the kids all the way out here for a festival. We ought to leave them with good memories. If the adults are just going to laugh and carry on by themselves, what's the point of coming at all?"
"Hooong~."
The corner of Ga-eun's mouth twitched. She immediately leaned over to whisper something to Yumi beside her—and promptly got kicked in the ankle for it.
"Ow! You little—! Unnie is giving you advice for your own good and this is how you act!"
"Sometimes! Unnie! Crosses the line and that's the problem!!"
"Aaaagh!!"
I will never understand why women get so invested in other people's love lives.
"So, Taeyang! You like mushrooms~?!"
"If they come out, I eat them! If they don't, I don't!"
"What about the rest of you~?"
"There are some I eat just fine and some I really can't."
"I eat them just fine~!"
"Rina hates 'em! They taste like crap!"
Last of all, Manbok answered with perfect politeness: "If I don't eat them, my mom will beat me to death."
Right. Your mother is Ga-eun, isn't she?
"Then while we're at it, let's try finding new ways to cook them to match the kids' tastes. I used to hate mushrooms when I was little, and then at some point I just started eating them. It'll work out somehow."
"Euuuugh~!"
Rina clearly was not thrilled. But even kids who claim to hate mushrooms usually have at least one dish that works for them. As long as there were no allergies involved, I figured we'd manage. We drove on, and before long we reached the pension.
The place we'd rented had a pool attached to the kids' building. Right next door, the adults' lodging looked like a suite house with a yard perfect for barbecues.
Even if the festival itself doesn't click for them, this should still be a solid place to make some memories.
We dropped our bags, filled the pool, and let the kids loose. Today wasn't festival day anyway, so there was no reason to rush.
"Yumi. I'm going to go register for the festival. Want to come with me?"
"I'll go with you. Just a second!"
"What about you, Ga-eun?"
"I'll watch the kids. You two go on ahead~!"
We left only what we needed and headed back into the nearby town. I parked at the festival lot by the big mountain entrance and we walked in.
Today didn't look like a mushroom festival so much as some kind of competition, and the atmosphere at the foot of the mountain was nothing like what I'd been picturing.
What the hell. Did we come to the wrong festival?
The sign clearly said New Yangyang Mushroom Festival, yet the only people around were chefs wearing every kind of cooking-related mascot head imaginable. There was a guy with a fried-shrimp head, one with a fried-rice head, one with a gukbap head—each of them dressed like a chef and carrying a signboard on their back advertising where they worked.
"They're cooking battlers from all over. There are even some famous chefs I recognize."
"Did they all come for the rare mushrooms?"
"That's part of it, but today isn't a mushroom-foraging festival. There's a cooking contest. Looking at the broadcast crews that showed up, it must be a pretty big one."
I followed the direction of Yumi's pointing palm.
On a rough asphalt arena spread out at the mountain entrance, two chefs were locked in a staring contest.
What is this even supposed to be?
One side was a bald, burly man wearing a name tag that read Chef of Darkness. Opposite him stood a young man tagged Chef of Light.
In each corner, their supporters stood with arms folded, split cleanly into black and white. Every eye in the place was fixed on the four judges at center stage, who had just been served their dishes.
「The final tasting by the elders representing Yangyang-gun begins now!」
The four old men raised their spoons toward the mushroom dishes, and right on cue the narration rolled out. Everyone swallowed hard.
The massive bald man—looking every bit the Chef of Darkness—clenched a fist. For a second I thought he was about to threaten the judges with that thing. Instead—
"Go on, taste it to your heart's content! Behold the power of my special Sweet-and-Salty Spicy ☆ Beyond Rare Mushroom Galbijjim!!"
…He shouted a name so cutesy it had no business coming out of a body that size.
Just how good did it have to be to earn a name like that? I found myself leaning in without thinking.
『『『『Uoooohhooong~♪』』』』
The moment the judges took a bite, their eyes lit up. Literally—like someone had screwed lightbulbs into their sockets. Then they stripped off their clothes and started flying through the air.
"Huh?"
Let me say that again.
They flew through the air.
Elderly men, flapping and fluttering like living kites.
"Ohhh! Fragrance—!"
"Ohhyo-hyot! Taste—!"
"Kiyohot~! Absolute—!"
"Uoooot!! Ethics—!"
I had no idea what physics were operating here, but the four of them stretched their bodies like rubber in sequence, forming Chinese characters midair.
One by one the characters took shape, unfurling grandly across the sky.
"Hyangmijollyun—Peerless Fragrance and Flavor!!"
"This spicy aroma stands alone among every dish in this entire contest!"
"The taste itself is beyond comparison!"
"This is without question the greatest galbijjim of all—!?"
……….
…Tsk. Weird.
Did I take the wrong tollgate earlier? Why did the whole world-setting just change on me?
「「「「Ooooooh!!!」」」」
"Amazing! You almost never get to see a reaction like that!!"
Unlike me, standing there with my brain shorted out, Yumi wasn't startled in the least. She clapped along with everyone else and took the whole spectacle in stride.
So this was… normal here? Normal?
Which meant I was the weird one for not being able to accept it?
"Mmm. Superb! I give it a 9.5!"
"This side awards a 9."
"…9.5."
"No, a 9 seems right."
Somehow the old men who had just been soaring through the air making grotesque body-art were already seated again. Their clothes had clearly torn during the reaction, yet they were fully restored. I stared in bafflement, then shook my head once to force myself to accept it.
I forgot to take my brain out before watching, didn't I.
I swapped my normal brain for a Beyond☆Brain, then watched with sweaty palms to see how the Chef of Light would turn this around.
Even after witnessing all that, the young man set down his dish without a hint of hesitation—a dish that, even to my eyes, looked painfully plain next to the other one.
"And this is…?"
"Perilla-oil mushroom pot rice. Of course I used this contest's main ingredient—the Beyond Rare Mushroom."
"We can see that. But isn't it a little… modest?"
"Young man. You intend to defeat the previous dish with this?"
"You'll understand once you taste it. In fact, if anyone can grasp my intent, it would be you elders specifically."
The self-proclaimed Chef of Light looked utterly confident. As if on cue, his opponent bellowed back.
"Don't make me laugh! There is no way a humble dish like that can defeat my invincible galbijjim—my Sweet-and-Salty Spicy ☆ Beyond Rare Mushroom Galbijjim!!"
Ohhh, cliché after cliché.
I felt an odd gratitude for a scene that looked so familiar—until the Chef of Light, for all his modest presentation, dared to fire back.
"You're misunderstanding something."
"And just what am I misunderstanding?!"
"Have you forgotten the purpose of this contest… and where these elders come from?"
"…What?"
What came next was immediate.
『『『『Uoooohhooong~♪』』』』
"!?"
The Chef of Darkness broke out in a cold sweat at the sight of the four judges reaching their second culinary climax.
"H-how?! After eating my dish, the bar for the next one should have been sky-high! So how—how can mere pot rice get a reaction like that?!"
"Like I said. You've forgotten the important part."
Once again, the judges took flight.
"Root—!"
"As it should be—!"
"Of—!"
"Taste—!"
—Combine!
""""The pure, original taste of the ingredient itself! This is none other than Bonyeonjimi—the Natural True Flavor!!!""""
"W-w-what did you just say—!?"
Thud-thud-thud!
The soaring elders dropped back into their seats in an instant and raised perfect tens across the board.
That's right. The pot rice had scored a full set of tens.
"Why?! Why did my galbijjim lose to something as plain as pot rice—!!"
The judges' eyes flashed as they laid out the intent hidden inside the perilla-oil mushroom pot rice.
"Your galbijjim was superb. The spices weren't store-bought—they were carefully prepared masterpieces. It was the finest galbijjim any of us has eaten in our entire lives."
"The meat was the same. At our age we rarely get to enjoy a dish like that anymore, yet the meat melted the moment it hit our tongues. We cleaned our bowls in a heartbeat."
"In any other cooking contest, you would almost certainly have beaten him and taken the win."
"But this is a mushroom cooking contest! A contest for the mushrooms that Yangyang-gun is so proud of! Therefore—"
All four of them roared in perfect unison.
""""It's not the meat that has to taste good!! It's the mushrooms!!!""""
"Uwaaaaaaagh—!!!"
The lion's roar hit the bald chef like a physical blow and blasted him clean into the spectator seats.
Common sense was optional. Around here, this was common sense.
"They're right. Your dish was excellent in every way—the tenderness of the meat, the spices—but those very strengths buried the natural flavor of the mushrooms. Compare a dish that ignored the purpose of this contest with my pot rice, and I don't even need to spell out which one these elders would prefer."
"You… you had all of that figured out before you even served your dish?!"
"Of course."
"You—just who are you?! You're no ordinary Chef of Light!"
"My identity, you ask?"
For the finishing touch, the Chef of Light untied the cloth bound around his shoulder, revealing the embroidered steaming rice bowl stitched into it.
"My name is Baek Mi! I am a cooking battler who makes picky children smile and brings light to people's hearts through food! Remember it well!!"
"Krooooh!!"
A pure white light blazed from the embroidery. Everyone broke into applause, and the cooking contest came to an end.
Immediately afterward, I yanked out the Beyond☆Brain I'd installed and swapped back to my regular one.
"………."
"Was it not fun for you?"
"No. We just finished watching, so we should hurry and go register our names."
"Yes~♪"
Yumi was delighted, saying it wasn't every day you got to see something like that.
Watching how thoroughly she was enjoying herself, I decided to quietly accept it: in this world's setting, phenomena like that simply existed.