Why Should I Play Fair?
The attendant's reply left the assembled cooks utterly speechless.
"No ingredients? Did it not occur to you to purchase them in advance? Sourcing fresh, quality ingredients is itself a measure of a chef's ability. You dare show your face here without even that? If you lack the skill, get out!"
The attendant's sharp rebuke sent the Restaurant Guild members into a round of cheering.
"Hear, hear!"
"Sourcing ingredients is skill!"
"Three cheers for the attendant!"
Naturally, the rival cooks standing nearby felt their blood pressure spike accordingly. They glared at the Restaurant Guild members with eyes that could have boiled water.
"Those insufferable…"
"Just because they've got money and manpower, they think they can pull this?"
"We'll see about that."
Tae-hyun listened to the whole back-and-forth with a yawn, utterly unbothered. Then one of the rival cooks broke away from the group and jogged over to him.
"Tae-san, hey — Tae-san."
"And you are…?"
"I — I was one of the cooks back on Katerand Island."
"Ah. So you'd be one of the people who refused to eat my cooking."
"……"
He actually remembered that?! The cook had never imagined Tae-hyun would hold onto something so trivial.
"I — no, that's not —"
"Oh? Is there something the chef who refused to eat my cooking would like to say to me?"
"……"
A grudge, followed immediately by sarcasm. The cook gave up on saying anything at all. Judging by Tae-hyun's attitude, there wasn't much chance of getting his help anyway.
When the cook returned empty-handed, the others half-resigned themselves to the same fate.
"Hyeon-yeong, didn't you talk to him before?"
Ju Hyeon-yeong was also present. She turned at the nudge from her friend.
"Hm?"
"You went up to help on the island during that quest, remember? Didn't you two have a conversation back then?"
"I mean, we did talk a bit."
Hyeon-yeong tilted her head, puzzled by the question.
"So you're close, aren't you?"
"Close…? Me?"
She cocked her head uncertainly. They had spoken, yes — but whether that made them close was another matter entirely. To any outside observer, though, they were clearly on friendly enough terms.
"Could you go ask him for a favor?"
"He's not the type to do favors just because you ask."
Hyeon-yeong said that and dropped a handful of spices into her pot. The Restaurant Guild had swept the market clean of ingredients, but she had no intention of stepping aside without even trying to cook.
She wasn't the only one. Here and there among the crowd, a handful of other cooks were also refusing to give up — rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. The Restaurant Guild had bought out every scrap of fresh produce the market had to offer, but these cooks were determined to make the best of whatever they already had on hand.
"We can't just do nothing! How are we supposed to win with these ingredients?"
"Nothing says we're going to lose. We just have to do our best with what we've got."
Hyeon-yeong moved with clean, practiced efficiency, throwing herself into the cooking. Fresh ingredients or not, she planned to exhaust every option available to her.
Should I use them now?
She calmly laid out a row of items. Items she had gathered precisely for a moment like this.
After learning the skill from Tae-hyun, Hyeon-yeong had spent considerable time thinking about how to actually use it. The prerequisite was clear: a high Luck stat was essential. But you couldn't just raise a stat whenever you felt like it — if it were that easy, no one would have struggled so hard over it.
So, what then?
Collect items that temporarily boost Luck, and use them all when the moment calls for it.
Hyeon-yeong's class was Chef. Through her work in the Atali Kingdom, she had come to know quite a few other cooks. The dishes they produced had wildly varying effects depending on ingredients and preparation — but the ones that sold best were invariably the ones that boosted Attack, HP, or MP recovery. Those got snapped up in bulk by dungeon parties and guilds alike.
By contrast, dishes that provided a temporary Luck boost were almost completely ignored. You could pick them up for pocket change. Raising Luck a little did nothing meaningful — you'd need to hit Tae-hyun's level before the difference even registered. Naturally, no one cared about a dish that gave +5 Luck.
Which meant Hyeon-yeong had been able to stockpile them with ease.
And now, she was using every last one.
Luck temporarily increased by 10.
Luck temporarily increased by 1%.
Luck temporarily increased by 5.
The notification windows cascaded down one after another. A full Luck doping regimen.
And the sight of Hyeon-yeong quietly pressing on with her cooking began to affect the other cooks around her.
"We can't just roll over and lose."
"That's right. Screw those guys — just you wait!"
The cooks who had been on the verge of giving up rose to their feet, their fighting spirit reignited. As they turned their seething glares on the Restaurant Guild members, the guild members visibly flinched.
"Don't pay them any mind. They've barely got anything to cook with anyway," the Restaurant Guild leader said dismissively, and the guild members responded with obedient nods.
Honestly, in the current situation, it was hard to imagine the rival cooks managing to beat them regardless of what they tried. It wasn't like the guild was outclassed in skill — they were simply crushing everyone on ingredients alone.
"This quest is ours!"
"Oh — hello."
"What's all this spread out here?"
"I'm trying to use the Lucky Cooking skill. If I can boost my Luck on the spot, I think I can make it work."
Tae-hyun nodded at Hyeon-yeong's answer. A solid plan.
Unlike those blacksmith idiots…
The blacksmiths he'd taught were a different story — handed a perfectly good skill and they'd left it completely untouched, preferring to coast on their connections instead. Someone who actually put their brain to work always found a way to use what they'd been given.
"Well, good luck. Even without great ingredients, doing your best with what you have is the way to go."
Tae-hyun had wandered over and was chatting with Hyeon-yeong when a nearby cook cut into the conversation.
"U-um, excuse me. If you're judging the competition… is there any way you could disqualify the Restaurant Guild?"
"Why would I?"
"Well… they cheated, didn't they…"
"Buying up all the ingredients ahead of time? That's not cheating, that's strategy. Honestly, I was impressed."
Tae-hyun meant every word. The world was vast, and underhanded tactics were plentiful — he was mentally filing this one away for future use.
"……"
The cook stared at him with an expression of complete bewilderment. That counts as strategy?!
"Besides, unlike the blacksmith side of things, everything cooked here gets tasted by the judges. Me grumbling about the Restaurant Guild alone won't change a thing. Work it out yourselves."
"How are we supposed to beat them when they've swept up all the ingredients?!"
"Hyeon-yeong over there is handling it fine on her own."
Tae-hyun pointed at Hyeon-yeong. She had already tuned out their entire conversation and was fully absorbed in her cooking.
"And besides — I can already see a few ways for you to win."
"……?!"
The cook's head snapped up. A few ways to win?
"What are they?!"
"Did I say I was your personal strategist?"
"……"
The cook deflated under Tae-hyun's blunt response. Watching this, Tae-hyun let out a small smirk.
"Normally I wouldn't say a word — but since you're so keen on fighting this with dignity, I'll throw you a bone."
The cook looked up at him with an expression brimming with hope. What on earth could he have in mind? They already knew Tae-hyun was no ordinary player — the Katerand Island quest had made that abundantly clear. A man who worked alongside the McCraney Merchant Group, assembled that entire force and led them to the island, and somehow even summoned a Gold Dragon. His abilities seemed to have no ceiling.
Every forum and stream had been buzzing with the same question: who in the world is this guy?
When someone like that said "I can see a way to win," of course your heart leapt. Tae-hyun slowly opened his mouth.
"Sabotage their cooking."
"……"
"……"
The atmosphere went ice cold.
Even Hyeon-yeong, who had been diligently focused on her own pot, lifted her head and stared at him. The expression on her face said everything: that's not it.
Tae-hyun, however, was completely unabashed.
"What?"
"That's… that's your plan…?"
"It's a perfectly fine plan."
The cook realized, with dawning horror, that Tae-hyun was dead serious.
He actually means it!
While everyone stood frozen in disbelief, Tae-hyun continued his explanation.
"You said they bought out all the ingredients, right? Going head-to-head against them in that situation is exactly what an idiot would do."
People who had watched Tae-hyun in Fantasy Online 1 often drew the wrong conclusion about him — that he was reckless. But Tae-hyun had always calculated his odds and only acted when he saw a genuine path to victory. If he hadn't, he never would have survived hunting down Rankers one after another. He'd have been wiped out somewhere along the way.
Charging in on guts alone is a fantasy. Especially if you're playing a weak class.
Victory required a rock-solid foundation of calculation. And when the odds weren't in your favor? You did whatever it took to shift them.
"They played a strategic move that lowered your effective power. So you give them the same treatment right back."
"……!"
The cook's eyes began to waver.
"S-still, something like that seems a bit…"
"A bit what? Would you rather just lose? Look at those guys over there. You really want to just hand it to them?"
Tae-hyun's voice had taken on the quality of a devil whispering in someone's ear. The cook was slowly, helplessly, beginning to cross over to the other side.
Hyeon-yeong, who had been listening from the side, shook her head quietly.
"I'll stick to fighting with my own skill, thank you."
"Yeah, figured you'd say that."
Tae-hyun wrote her off without a second thought. Her personality made it inevitable. But this cook was a different story — Tae-hyun had an uncanny read on exactly where their head was at.
"Think about it carefully. When those guys win, how insufferably smug are they going to be? Can you really just stand there and watch that?"
"W-well… but the method…"
"Listen to this person. Wants me to spoon-feed them everything." Tae-hyun sighed, then relented. "Fine. Since I've already gone this far, I might as well go all the way. Round up the other cooks — plenty of them must hate the Restaurant Guild too. Then you get one person to take the fall for the group and ruin their cooking. Right before the banquet starts."
"!!!"
The diabolical plan rolled out effortlessly.
"I — I could never go that far…"
"Never go that far?"
"I want to do it so bad!"
"Now we're talking! Go get some people together!"
The cook had fallen completely to temptation. They gave Tae-hyun a deep bow and sprinted off to gather the others. The assembled cooks huddled together, whispering furiously as they began to hatch their scheme.
Watching them, Hyeon-yeong muttered with an expression of absolute disbelief.
"Is all of that really necessary?"
"Your way is right, and my way is right. Ha. What matters is the result."
Whether you fought straight or played dirty, what mattered in the end was winning. The victor wrote the rules.
Blissfully unaware that a conspiracy was unfolding in the corner, the Restaurant Guild members went on cooking with bright, carefree smiles. Their pots bubbled away cheerfully, the rhythm of knives on cutting boards filling the air with a crisp, lively beat.
Tae-hyun watched it all with a quiet grin.
He was already looking forward to when the banquet finally began.
"All cooks are to complete their dishes and bring them forward!"
When the time was up, the attendants stepped out and called across the room. The Restaurant Guild members laughed among themselves as they began transporting their food — smiles that said the first-place prize was already theirs.
But behind them, a group of eyes was watching. And they were not smiling.