Chapter 52: A Blanket Is Dangerous (4)
Chapter 52: A Blanket Is Dangerous (4)
(52/225)
In modern-day Korea, listening to music is simple.
You search on YouXube, buy it on a music site, or—if you’re a fan of a specific singer—buy CDs.
Or you just turn on the TV and pick a music channel at random.
But for Julien, who couldn’t understand the written characters here, his options were extremely limited.
So Jinseo lent him his father’s old CD player and brought him a whole stack of music CDs.
Since they were his father’s, most of the songs were from ten or twenty years ago—long past their peak.
Even so, to Julien, every song that flowed out through speakers connected to the CD player was a brand-new world.
Ballads, folk, dance, blues, techno, rock…
Even trot and hip-hop sparked new inspiration in Julien.
Of course, separate from that, there were plenty of songs that were simply beyond what he could understand. Still, he was happy just knowing that so many different genres existed.
“I didn’t expect you to like it this much.”
“I couldn’t help but like it. Songs and music saved me.”
“Huh?”
“Even ten years ago, I wasn’t that interested in songs or music. That was when I was fully devoted to magic.”
The answer was completely unexpected. Jinseo dragged over his desk chair and sat in front of Julien.
He had a strong feeling this wouldn’t be a short story, and his expectation was exactly right.
Out on the balcony, Jinseo quietly looked at the mountain across from him.
I’ve had it hard too, but this guy… he went through a pretty rough time as well.
What Jinseo heard of Julien’s past was a life of constant upheaval.
Julien had grown up in an orphanage.
He caught the eye of a mage who regularly sponsored the orphanage, and that was how he began walking the path of magic.
Through effort and talent, he proved that the choice of the sponsor who had chosen him—and become his teacher—had not been wrong.
Starting from the age of barely being in his early teens.
He really was outstanding when it came to magic.
Julien cast spells far more skillfully than the mages from the mage tower who had played their part in the battle against the kraken.
Even to Jinseo, who knew nothing about magic, it looked that way—so someone who truly understood magic would rate Julien even higher.
He had been walking the path of a mage smoothly—until his fate changed ten years ago.
On a night of torrential rain, his teacher left the mage tower in a hurry with a grim expression.
A week later, his teacher returned, said only that he’d attended a funeral, and shut himself alone inside his private laboratory.
“From that day on, my teacher changed.”
The teacher who always treated others with an easy smile lost the ability to smile.
Instead, with a face possessed by obsession—as if bewitched by something—he began obsessively digging into one particular spell.
After half a year of complete seclusion, his teacher attempted a massive magical experiment.
Twenty archmages were mobilized—by his teacher’s account, it was among the largest even on the Francia Continent.
But the results were horrific.
A tremendous explosion obliterated an entire mage tower.
It was such a terrible ending that they couldn’t even find the bodies of the mages involved, including his teacher.
Julien couldn’t accept it.
“After my teacher disappeared, I no longer walked the path of a mage. No… I was in a state where I couldn’t do anything at all.”
The absence of his teacher—who had guided him and was like a parent to him—threw him into the pit of despair.
Wandering the world like a shell of a man, it was not magic that saved him from that despair—
It was the song of a bard.
Jinseo couldn’t hear the rest.
He couldn’t bring himself to wake Julien, who said he was tired and fell asleep with his back against the wall.
Listening to the story left Jinseo deeply drained as well.
Since coming to the Francia Continent, the emotion Jinseo had mostly felt was happiness.
Feeling the opposite side of that for the first time in a long while exhausted both his body and mind.
You must’ve had it really hard.
To be honest, even Jinseo had been in a difficult mental state before coming to the Francia Continent.
He had to send his parents off first, and he had to shut down Jinseo’s Snack Bar—the place filled with memories of them.
As he spent day after day living happily while driving the food truck, he’d temporarily forgotten the unhappiness he’d gone through before.
Where people live is all the same, in the end. Here, or the Francia Continent.
“You were here.”
Craid opened the door and stepped onto the balcony, taking a spot to Jinseo’s left.
“You’re not playing any more games?”
It might not make sense that he’d flopped down saying he was sick of it, but even the most fun game gets tiring if you play over a hundred matches nonstop without a break.
And after some time passes, it’s normal to grab it again like nothing happened.
“He’s burning up because an opponent finally appeared who beat him for the first time. So I left him alone.”
“What? Hayward lost?”
Thinking of how Hayward had controlled the stick like he was possessed, Jinseo couldn’t imagine anyone beating him.
Then there was only one conclusion.
That opponent probably used hacks.
Jinseo wanted to see it with his own eyes—whether Hayward’s skill would still work against someone hacking.
And it would help shake off the gloom he’d fallen into.
“Everyone was grateful to you.”
“Huh? Even though we ended up in Korea, which wasn’t even in the plan?”
At Craid’s sudden mention of gratitude, Jinseo turned his head left.
“It’s been a very long time since I’ve rested this comfortably.”
Craid looked at the mountain towering behind the apartment building and sucked down a large iced Americano through a straw.
“It’s a lot more bitter than mix coffee. Are you okay? Honestly, I ordered that by mistake. I ordered like I always do and just…”
For the other three, the only coffee they’d ever had was mix coffee and ReXvy.
The reaction you got when someone who first encountered coffee through mix coffee tried an iced Americano was obvious.
“This is cold, watery, and there’s no sweetness—only bitterness… is this really coffee?”
Just like Julien, who’d taken a big sip without knowing and then set the cup down without hesitation.
“Bitterness is also a flavor. I know it’s a taste that’s hard to get used to, but being able to enjoy it like this actually makes me happy.”
“That’s not something to be that happy about…”
“Even though the only other bitterness I remember is alcohol?”
“It’s definitely better than alcohol.”
“And your face right now is the face of someone forced to drink bitter alcohol.”
“Well… about that…”
At Craid’s pointed remark, Jinseo calmly explained what he’d heard from Julien.
“It’s a painful past.”
“So you knew.”
“I’ve seen him having nightmares sometimes when we were sleeping rough. Come to think of it, he stopped doing that once he started sleeping in the food truck…”
“Yeah! I won! I won, damn it! I won!”
A triumphant shout rang out from the living room.
“Hey! Craid! Did you see that? Did you? I beat that bastard!”
Hayward flung the balcony door open and rushed out, hands planted on his hips, looking smug.
“In the end, you did it.”
“Now there’s no rival left—wait, why’s the mood so serious?”
Craid always looked blunt, but Jinseo’s expression was hardened too.
Hayward checked if he was wearing shoes, just in case. When he realized he wasn’t, he let out a relieved sigh.
But Jinseo’s face still wouldn’t loosen, and Hayward desperately tried to figure out what he’d done wrong.
“Ah! You told me not to be too loud, right? Is it because I was too noisy?”
“No. We were just talking about the past for a bit.”
At the words “the past,” Hayward stroked his chin, then thought of Julien, who wasn’t out on the balcony.
“Don’t tell me this is about that guy.”
When Hayward pointed toward Julien’s room, Jinseo and Craid nodded.
“His situation’s rough. If things had gone normally, he should’ve been a much bigger-name mage than he is now. It’s a damn shame.”
Hayward scratched the back of his head, looking genuinely sorry.
“I mean, I just drifted along and ended up living like this, but still. Anyway, what do we do? If Julien’s like that, he won’t show his face for a while…”
Like Hayward said, Julien would obviously stay in his room, clutching the CD player with both hands, and not come out.
For Jinseo, there was only one way to break the mood.
A new food he hadn’t shown them yet.
“It can’t be helped. I wasn’t going to take it out, but…”
Jinseo went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Hayward watched Jinseo’s back as he prepped ingredients, looking surprised.
“Didn’t you say you weren’t cooking for a week?”
“This is a special case.”
When Jinseo finished prepping, he unfolded a low table in the middle of the living room and set a portable gas burner in the center.
“It’s not bunsik, but I’ll serve something that’ll satisfy everyone.”
A very simple dish, but one that even foreigners had praised.
It was better with alcohol, but good even without it.
“Let’s grill some samgyeopsal.”
Sizzle.
Thin slices of pork belly cooked on the grill plate, the sound breaking the silence.
The two who’d already experienced a meal being finished in front of them through budae-jjigae had seen this style before.
Still, just watching meat being grilled didn’t explain why Jinseo was acting so confident.
Their doubts grew and grew, while Jinseo only kept grilling in silence.
“Alright, you can eat now. You can just eat it like this, but first, do what I do.”
Jinseo placed a lettuce leaf on his left palm.
Then he set a piece of perfectly cooked samgyeopsal on top.
It would be better with freshly made scallion salad and thin-sliced garlic, but the two across from him had never experienced ssam before.
To accommodate them, Jinseo kept it simple—he added only a small dab of ssamjang and wrapped it up.
“The important part is: you have to put it all in your mouth in one bite. You must not bite it in half.”
“Is it the same as that?”
The moment Jinseo said “must,” Hayward cautiously pointed toward the entryway where the shoes were.
“Yes.”
“I-I see. Thanks for telling me in advance.”
“Understood.”
Remembering Jinseo’s fierce expression from before, the two followed his instructions obediently.
“Then let’s see…”
Hayward and Craid put the ssam into their mouths at the same time.
Chomp, chomp.
As they chewed, their expressions subtly changed.
It was delicious.
It reminded them once again of the truth: Jinseo never disappointed them.
But by their common sense, they couldn’t explain why something this simple tasted this good.
“You just grilled meat… how can this happen?”
“I like that you’re also eating vegetables with the meat. A composition that doesn’t lean too far in one direction appeals to me.”
“And the taste?”
In response to Jinseo’s question, Craid simply made another ssam the size of his massive palm and put it into his mouth.
“Oh, adding this makes the flavor richer.”
Even though Jinseo hadn’t taught him, Hayward added scallion salad and wrapped his own ssam, smiling happily.
“Raw garlic will probably be too much for you, so I’ll grill it. You can dip it in sesame oil with salt if you want, or not.”
“But this meat… it’s expensive, right?”
“It’s ordinary meat you can buy at a butcher shop. It might be too much to eat every day, but it’s not that expensive.”
“That’s crazy… Before we leave Korea, we should buy a ton.”
“We’ll pack the subspace storage full before we go back.”
“I’m looking forward to that!”
Chomp, chomp.
Chomp, chomp.
The two ate ssam like they were possessed.
While he was focused on eating, Hayward suddenly remembered someone he’d forgotten.
“Oh, crap! We didn’t call Julien?”
Jinseo looked at the slightly open door and smiled.
“The smell will be enough.”
At Jinseo’s answer, the two dove back into eating.
Time passed, and just as Jinseo was about to put a third round of pork belly onto the grill, Julien’s face cautiously peeked through the gap in the door.
“Jinseo… what are you cooking right now?”
Instead of answering, Jinseo beckoned him over with his hand.
The other two did the same.
With their mouths stuffed full of ssam.