Chapter 14: A Turbulent Day (3)
Chapter 14: A Turbulent Day (3)
After Oswald and his guards visited the food truck, no more customers came.
As time passed and it became 9:30 p.m., Jinseo played music on his smartphone, put in his wireless earbuds, and started cleaning.
“It’s already been well over ten years since this song came out.”
It was a song by a female singer who had been a fresh-faced rookie in her twenties when Jinseo was young, but who had now become a veteran singer before he knew it.
By the time he got lost in nostalgia and listened through the second and third tracks, the cleaning was already finished.
“Meow.”
As Jinseo approached the counter seats, Nero perked up its ears and kept bobbing its head in rhythm.
Even though Jinseo was deliberately listening through earbuds so the sound wouldn’t leak out, Nero reacted to every single song he chose.
“Nero, do you want to listen too?”
“Meow!”
When Nero answered, Jinseo seriously considered installing a large speaker.
It wasn’t just because of Nero—he thought it wouldn’t be bad to play some gentle music while doing business, either.
If I play music, what should I put on… Rap or the latest idol songs would probably be too much for people here. Classical music you can enjoy without lyrics would be the safest. Drama OSTs might be fine too…
Jinseo hummed along to the lyrics flowing from his wireless earbuds.
And because of that, he didn’t notice someone carefully approaching from behind him.
Thud!
Feeling something hit his shoulder, Jinseo brushed at it and turned around.
“I’m done for the day.”
Unlike Jinseo, who replied flatly and tried to go back to tidying up, the man stared at him with a stunned expression.
“W-What the hell? Why aren’t you collapsing? Why did the club break?”
In the man’s right hand was a club snapped clean in half.
Jinseo took out his wireless earbuds and looked at him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“N-No, it’s just…”
Jinseo still couldn’t fully grasp the situation, but there was one thing he could be sure of.
This guy hadn’t come to order bunsik.
“Did you just hit me?”
“D-Don’t come closer! Don’t come any closer!”
The man fell backward onto his butt and scooted away while still seated.
“Get back!”
Then he actually hurled the broken club at Jinseo.
Jinseo reflexively knocked it aside with his hand.
Damn—my hands can’t get injured… Wait. That didn’t hurt?
It felt like being tapped with a padded stick, and his right arm was perfectly fine.
Jinseo already knew that only while he was on the Francia Continent, his body became absurdly strong.
But he had never expected he’d be fine even after being struck from behind with a club, or after swatting away a club flying at him.
Naturally, though, it still pissed him off.
“What is this cart, anyway? It won’t even budge!”
“Why is it so heavy? Did you load it full of rocks?”
“Stop whining and put some strength into it!”
When Jinseo turned toward the other voices, he was speechless.
“…And what do you think you’re doing now?”
Three men were gripping the food truck’s bumper, straining and grunting.
Maybe because it was so ridiculous.
Even watching the intruders fail to do anything to the food truck, Jinseo didn’t feel angry.
Thieves trying to steal the whole food truck? Does that even make sense? …Right. This isn’t Korea.
In a world where modern Korean common sense didn’t apply, it was only natural.
If anything, he’d been lucky not to meet people like this until now.
But they even brought horses, trying to steal something that isn’t even a cart. So this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment thing. They planned this.
Jinseo remembered the middle-aged man who had shown clear malice toward him.
At the same time, he remembered the story that someone in Peyden Castle had opened shops selling food that copied bunsik however they pleased.
And now, as if that weren’t enough, someone was trying to harm him and steal the food truck itself.
Jinseo clenched his fist hard.
“Listen here, you bastards. What the hell are you—”
{Sudden Quest: Repel the intruders who attacked the mobile cooking facility!
Reward: Increase the owner’s physical rank.
Warning: If you cause the intruders’ deaths, the quest fails.}
Jinseo rubbed his eyes, but the exclamation mark and the message window indicating a quest didn’t disappear.
“…Is this for real?”
The timing and the quest content were so absurd that Jinseo let out a hollow laugh.
Even without a quest, he had never intended to let the people who attacked him walk away.
But now that a quest had appeared like this, Jinseo had an even clearer reason to beat them down.
“How about you stop?”
Jinseo grabbed the collar of the man who had tried to assault him earlier.
Then he casually lifted him with one hand.
The intruder, now dangling off the ground, flailed his legs in midair.
“Hiiik!”
“Even if it doesn’t hurt, it still feels like crap.”
Jinseo was about to punch him, but stopped.
What if I kill him by accident?
So instead, he threw him toward a tree.
No—he had intended to.
“Aaaah!”
Like a baseball, the man flew in an arc, slammed into a tree more than ten meters away, and immediately passed out.
“Huh…”
“Uh…”
The remaining three men—who had been trying to steal the food truck—went blank as they watched their companion fly.
Even Jinseo, the one who had thrown him, had his mouth firmly shut.
In the heavy silence, the only sound was the dry swallow of spit echoing in each person’s ears.
“He’s not a cook… Is he an aura user or something?”
“No way. If he had that kind of power, why would he be cooking for a living?”
“And it makes sense for a cook to throw a man like that?”
They had never seen an aura user in person.
But after witnessing strength that couldn’t possibly belong to an ordinary human with their own eyes, they had no choice but to panic.
If this is B-rank, then how strong is anything above it?
On the other hand, Jinseo wanted to confirm once more just how far his power extended on the Francia Continent.
He lifted his right foot and stomped down with all his strength.
Boom!
“Aaaah!”
“Somebody help!”
The ground shook, and more than ten table seats bounced slightly up into the air before dropping back down.
A deep footprint was carved into the spot where Jinseo’s foot landed.
Cracks shot outward from around it, spreading in all directions.
The intruders collapsed onto the ground, flattening themselves and clutching their heads as they trembled.
In their minds, the job they’d been hired for was completely forgotten.
In their terror, the only instinct left was screaming at them to never fight Jinseo and to run, no matter what.
“Run!”
All three intruders sprang up at once and bolted with everything they had, without even looking back.
Jinseo chased after them, and just as they were about to dive into the underbrush to escape—
Something suddenly popped out in front of them.
“Hrk!”
“W-What is that? A cat?”
Fwoosh.
“Aaaah!”
“Somebody help!”
“Aaaagh!”
A fierce blaze shot up from the ground and wrapped around all three intruders.
“Nero! Stop!”
The stench of burning hair spread in all directions, and Jinseo shouted as he rushed over.
The flames vanished, thick smoke rose, and behind it were the intruders collapsed on the ground.
Jinseo looked them over with cautious worry…
But contrary to what he feared, they weren’t dead.
Aside from their hair being completely burned away, they were only lightly singed.
“So you weren’t trying to kill them from the start.”
“Meow.”
Nero simply licked its front paw as if it knew nothing.
{-Sudden Quest completed. Rewards will now be distributed.-}
{-The physical rank of the food truck’s owner, Lee Jinseo, has been raised to B+. The owner’s possessed abilities have been uniformly adjusted to B+ rank accordingly.-}
{-Because the special entity contributed to the quest’s completion, it has been officially registered as the owner’s companion.-}
“Companion?”
When the word “companion” appeared, Jinseo glanced at Nero.
A status window rose above Nero’s head.
{-Mobile cooking facility companion: Nero (spirit, age unknown).
Companion Level: 1-}
{-As the companion’s level increases, special abilities will be granted.
Please select one of the three abilities presented below.-}
{-Combat Enhancement: Increases the companion’s attack power and magic power.
Mana Recovery: Increases the mobile cooking facility’s mana recovery speed by a set percentage.
Insect Extermination: Drives away insects within a set area centered on the companion.-}
“One of them is kind of out of nowhere, but the other two are usable…”
Jinseo only wanted to sell bunsik together with Nero.
He didn’t want to use Nero as a combat tool.
After thinking for a moment, he decided to choose the ability that was most efficient for business.
“Insect extermination, please.”
{-Understood. From this moment, the companion (Nero) will be granted the Insect Extermination ability.
This ability can be activated/deactivated at any time.-}
“Meow.”
The moment Nero lifted its head and cried out, particles of light spread outward, and the chirping of insects vanished.
“They really disappeared?”
Strangely, bugs never seemed to get inside the food truck to begin with, but customers sitting at the tables sometimes got bothered by insects.
Now that wouldn’t happen anymore.
And that made Nero look even more adorable to Jinseo.
“I cleared the quest, Nero got a useful ability, and these guys showed up… Am I supposed to be happy about this or not?”
Jinseo looked down at the intruders lying unconscious and scratched the back of his head.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No. I got lucky.”
The castle gate guards, who came running after noticing the commotion late, quickly bound the intruders after hearing Jinseo’s explanation.
Additional guards from other sectors also arrived and were now keeping a tense watch around the food truck.
“When the flames shot up, we thought there was a fire at the food truck. But to think they came to steal it… That was unexpected.”
“I never even imagined it. Where I’m from, this kind of thing almost never happens.”
Having lived in modern Korea, Jinseo felt more shaken than angry.
If not for the powerful physical abilities he gained only on the Francia Continent, he could’ve suffered a serious disaster in a foreign land.
Even so, Jinseo stayed calm and forced down his anger.
Preventing this from happening again mattered more.
“Did you come from Peyden Castle?”
“……”
At Jinseo’s interrogation, the intruders answered with silence, deliberately turning their eyes away so they wouldn’t meet his gaze.
Once they were taken into the castle and interrogated, the whole story would come out.
But Jinseo wanted to resolve this quickly, without going through an annoying process.
They were terrified and trying to run, but now they’re acting like this? Did they already forget what I just did?
Jinseo decided to act instead of talk and looked around.
This thickness should be… It’s thicker than before, but my physical rank went up, so it should be fine.
He wrapped both arms around a tree.
It was thick enough that his fingertips barely met.
Crack.
With one kick from Jinseo’s right foot, the thick tree snapped and fell into the underbrush.
Bang! Crack! Bang!
After snapping four trees in a row, Jinseo turned back with an indifferent face.
In the heavy silence, the intruders looked up at him with faces drained white.
Their teeth chattered as they shook, and behind them stood guards who were just as frightened.
“Hm…”
Back in his original spot, Jinseo crossed his arms and looked down at them.
“I’ll ask again.”
Because he dealt with customers constantly, respectful speech came out of Jinseo’s mouth automatically, no matter who the other person was.
But to them, his polite tone only made him more terrifying.
“Who ordered this…”
“Spare me! I’ll tell you everything!”
“I’ll talk! Please, just spare me at least!”
The intruders began begging Jinseo all at once, and a long confession began.
Thanks to that, Jinseo was able to learn the full details of this incident easily.
Who, when, where, what, how, and why—down to the specifics.