The Spy Who Couldn't Handle the Heat
Kuuuaaaargh!
"Ugh... my head."
Delilah opened her eyes, clutching a skull that felt ready to split apart.
I drank way too much yesterday.
That soju stuff was no joke, honestly. She'd been in high spirits over finally having a drinking buddy, and since it was such a weak liquor she'd just kept pouring glass after glass—and before she knew it, she'd blown right past her limit.
This is why you're supposed to pace yourself with drinks you've never tried before.
She'd lost count of how many times she'd told herself that. For a woman who drank as habitually as she did, moderation was always the one bridge too far.
Huh?
Then, as she sat up, she realized she was in her own bed.
How did I even get home?
Unbelievable.
Drinking herself to the point of blacking out. Really unbelievable.
"Awake now?"
Just then, a voice dripping with contempt spoke up beside her.
She turned her head to find a beauty with long straight black hair standing there, arms crossed. Her roommate, Rosario.
"What, you came to pick me up?"
"As if."
Rosario heaved a deep sigh before answering.
"Some man carried you back here."
"A man...?"
Delilah asked, her face scrunching up.
"Black hair, good-looking?"
"Yep."
Haaah.
Delilah let out a long sigh and pressed a hand to her forehead.
Falling for the oldest trick in the book on a first meeting. Was there anyone more hopeless?
"So, Miss Delilah, when exactly are you getting married?"
"Worry about yourself first."
"Ha! Gotcha. So you've already sunk your teeth into one man, have you?"
"Sunk my teeth, my foot... Ulp."
Mid-sentence, Delilah hastily clapped a hand over her mouth.
Something inside had surged all the way up her throat, but she barely managed to force it back down (!).
"...Wait. I didn't actually throw up in front of Dante, did I?"
"How would I know, you idiot?"
Fair enough. Stupid question, well answered.
"Ugh, this hangover is driving me insane."
"Don't you have class today?"
Nod, nod.
"Sigh. You really are a piece of work."
Rosario shook her head slowly, and Delilah turned the question on her.
"There isn't some magic spell that cures hangovers, is there?"
"Ask me two more times and that'll be your hundredth. The answer is no!"
"Tch."
A while later, her roommate left for her shift at the infirmary, and Delilah, left alone, stopped by her laboratory on the way to her lecture.
"Let's see... what's good for a hangover..."
She gathered up every ingredient in the lab reputed to help with hangovers, ground them down with great diligence, and brewed herself a potion.
Glug, glug.
But the hangover stubbornly refused to lift.
Still better than nothing, I suppose.
Delilah brewed one more potion. She intended to bring it to Dante as well.
"I should stop by and apologize, too..."
It was mortifying, having shown such an ugly side of herself to a stranger—but since she'd clearly be seeing him often from now on, she figured she might as well smooth things over with a little bribe.
I was gagging, dizzy and light-headed.
"Oof."
Still, after downing a hangover cure, I definitely felt better.
I think yesterday was the drunkest I've been since I got reincarnated.
Delilah had looked perfectly fine at first, but at some point a switch had flipped and she'd started chugging soju like there was no tomorrow.
Having to endure an hour-long soliloquy about alchemy I understood nothing of was just the cherry on top.
"Next time she asks me to drink, I'm saying no. Absolutely no."
Ding.
Just then, someone pushed open the store door and walked in.
A middle-aged man with a hard, forbidding face.
"Welcome!"
I meant to greet him with my usual energy, but the hangover left me running on empty.
I gave a small bow.
The man gave little more than a curt nod before scanning the interior of the store.
Everyone's first time in my store drew a reaction like that, but this one felt a bit different.
More like a man who'd come to acquire the convenience store, if anything.
"Are you looking for something in particular?"
"...Nothing in particular. I simply wished to have a look around."
"Of course. Browse away, and if anything catches your interest, feel free to ask."
Whew.
I slumped down behind the counter with a sigh.
Every breath I took was thick with the reek of alcohol.
My own breath was bringing the dizziness right back up, it felt like.
The man, meanwhile, gave the shelves only a cursory glance before fixing his attention intently on the table where the drinking had happened yesterday.
Ugh, looking at that brings it all back.
I turned my gaze to the scenery outside, just barely visible through the window.
And then, after a while—
"Not many customers, I see?"
The man thrust in a dagger out of nowhere.
"...No. I suppose that's because we only opened recently."
"Hmm."
At this point he really did sound like someone scouting the place for acquisition.
"Forgive my asking, but are you a member of the faculty?"
"Ah."
When I asked in return, half out of curiosity, the man hesitated for a moment before introducing himself with an awkward chuckle.
"I teach ancient texts and ancient languages at the academy."
Hm. Somehow I doubt he's very popular.
No offense to the man, but with a face that stiff, I couldn't imagine his lectures being anything short of excruciating.
"Sounds difficult just hearing about it."
"It's hardly something anyone can teach."
I was about to come up with a reply when a wave of nausea hit me and I winced.
At the same moment, the man's face hardened.
Just as I was about to apologize—
"How much is this?"
The man hurriedly held up a cup noodle and asked in a strained voice.
I found it a little odd, but a tuck shop owner must never forget his true calling.
Just as I was about to answer in the friendliest voice I could manage—
I took a look at which cup noodle he'd grabbed, and my face twisted all over again.
And no wonder. It was the stir-fried noodles so scorchingly hot they topped a Scoville rating of 3,000.
Back in Korea it was a wildly beloved product—so popular it drove people out of their minds—but the average chili pepper only clocks in at about half that, so how brutal it actually was should go without saying.
"I wouldn't really recommend that one. It's incredibly spicy."
Thanks to yesterday's lesson, I decided honesty was the better policy this time.
But then—
"I have a high spice tolerance, so I'll be fine. It's a favorite of mine, actually."
I'm sorry, what?
Has he ever even eaten fire noodles before?
There's no way, right?
Hmm.
I mulled it over for a moment, and quickly arrived at a conclusion.
Spice pride. He's got spice pride.
For a man with such a stony face, he seemed to have a pride stiffer than he looked.
"...You'll regret it, you know."
"Just give me this one."
One thing was clear: the man had no intention of backing down.
Well, fine.
Fire noodles had even trended overseas during the height of the Korean food wave, so maybe they would suit his palate.
He did say he handled spice well, after all.
"That'll be 18 silver."
The moment I rang him up, I decided to cook it for him myself.
For all his talk of loving the stuff, he looked completely clueless about how it was made.
"I'll do this one for you as a service, but from now on you'll have to make it yourself."
"...I'm capable of doing it myself. But if you're offering, I won't refuse."
Gunter returned the remark shamelessly, then stole a glance at the shopkeeper, who was peeling the lid off his purchase and pouring hot water into the cup.
What's with him?
The man's expression looked gravely serious.
Is he... wary of me?
In truth, Dante was simply holding his breath so as not to reek of alcohol—but Gunter had no way of knowing that.
His expression has been sour ever since I walked in.
Still, backing out was out of the question. As a rendezvous point, the tuck shop was nothing short of perfect.
Fewer customers than I expected, and there's even a table for carrying on a quiet conversation.
The open floor plan was a mild concern, but that much could be covered with a sound-dampening spell.
The problem was the shopkeeper's reactions.
Word had it that not a single tuck shop keeper in the academy's history had been an ordinary person.
Which meant this one, too, had to be someone far from ordinary.
"I need to drain the water, so just a moment, please."
But the man smiled as he said it, and somehow that didn't seem to fit either.
I can't read him at all...
Gunter couldn't get a fix on the man.
One moment he wore a friendly expression, the next his face would suddenly cloud over—a thoroughly inscrutable character.
He could be acting.
Unable to let his guard down, Gunter looked down at the sealed "cup noodle."
And what on earth is this thing...?
Truthfully, he'd had no intention of buying anything.
But the shopkeeper's gaze on him had been anything but casual.
It was a look that all but threatened, leave without buying something and I will consider you suspicious—so he'd had no choice but to grab the nearest thing within reach.
I must not draw suspicion.
The academy's security was so airtight that Gunter, who had only ever studied fragments of its inner workings, had more than once paid dearly for the gap between his briefing and reality.
Just today, in fact, seeing the unfamiliar sights of a "tuck shop"—a place he was visiting for the very first time in his life—he'd struggled mightily just to hide his astonishment.
And then, in the middle of it all—
I wouldn't really recommend that one.
The shopkeeper's probing remark had ratcheted his nerves even tighter.
And so he'd lied, claiming it was something he regularly ate.
Though the part about having a high spice tolerance was no lie at all.
Just eat it with perfect composure. That's all.
He was muttering this to himself with complete confidence when—
Sluuuurp.
As the shopkeeper tipped out the water from the cup noodle, he asked abruptly:
"By any chance, are you acquainted with Professor Delilah?"
For an instant, Gunter's face froze.
Fortunately, his features were normally so wooden that it hardly showed.
...Why this, out of nowhere?
Could this be leading questioning too?
Trying to verify whether I'm really a professor?
Questions swarmed in his head, but outwardly he answered with perfect calm.
"I know of her. She's the woman with the short brown hair who teaches alchemy, isn't she?"
"Oh, so you do know her. Has she come in to work today, by any chance?"
"I couldn't say."
That much should be enough to satisfy him.
And sure enough—
After a single murmur of "I see...," the shopkeeper pressed no further.
Instead, he held out the cup noodle, its contents seasoned with the bright-orange sauce packet, and spoke in a careful voice.
"I'll say it once more—you may well regret this."
Hah.
Even faced with a warning delivered as though the man saw through everything, Gunter merely curled the corner of his mouth and didn't blink.
He knew full well that in moments like these, charging straight ahead—peeling away a layer of suspicion—was what allowed for bolder action afterward.
He could not possibly give up a rendezvous point this flawless.
The brightest lamp casts the darkest shadow, as they say.
The place matched his original criteria perfectly, after all.
And besides—
Spicy food? How bad could it possibly be?
In place of an answer, Gunter smirked confidently and peered into the cup.
—!
Even he couldn't help flinching at the sight of the blood-red sauce.
Am I actually allowed to eat this?
But there was no turning back now.
Retreating would expose every lie he'd told up to this point.
One bite. Down the hatch, all at once!
It was the moment Gunter crammed a heaping mouthful of crimson noodles past his lips.
"KUUUAAAAARGH!"
His confident battle cry notwithstanding, a scream of his final moments burst from his mouth.