Chapter 6: Ah, This Is Called XXXXX (3)
Chapter 6: Ah, This Is Called XXXXX (3)
At Painfolt’s urgent insistence, Jinseo hurriedly rummaged through the refrigerator.
The moment Painfolt bit into another unwrapped ice bar, the focus that returned pulled him back into the state he had experienced earlier.
“Another one! Hurry!”
Painfolt repeated the cycle—eating ice cream while writing the magic formula, then eating a new ice cream again.
“Just a little more… if I write just a little more!”
The magic formula, written to the point where it nearly filled the entire counter seats, showed no end in sight, and customers who had approached to place additional orders were overwhelmed by Painfolt’s intensity and could only stand there blankly.
“I finished it! I finally finished it!”
Painfolt shouted in triumph and clenched both fists tightly.
I did it! It’s finally at 100%!
At the same time, Jinseo shouted in his head.
The satisfaction bar above Painfolt’s head had crossed 100% and was shining brilliantly.
{—The Sudden Quest has been completed. Due to excessive message output, rewards will be issued after a certain amount of time has passed. Thank you for your understanding.—}
By the time the sudden quest was completed—and by the time the counter seats were densely covered in magic formulae—the number of ice creams consumed totaled five.
The surrounding customers had no idea what was happening and could only watch from afar.
Only one person, a mage from the tower who had been staying far away to avoid drawing attention, carefully scanned the completed magic formula.
“Headmaster? This magic formula… wasn’t this the one you struggled with for years? You finally completed it?”
The mage’s eyes were filled with shock—just like Painfolt’s had been when he first tasted ice cream.
“Yes! I did it!”
“C-congratulations!”
Even to that mage, the magic formula Painfolt had written was astonishing.
Jinseo, meanwhile, still looked like he had no clue what was going on.
“You! You’re truly incredible!”
Overcome with emotion, Painfolt seized both of Jinseo’s hands tightly.
“To create an elixir that raises concentration to the extreme—on top of making it so delicious and unique!”
Painfolt licked the bit of ice cream left on the stick, wearing an ecstatic expression.
“Well… actually, that—”
Even if it’s because of ‘ice cream preference,’ isn’t it just sugar giving him a boost?
By Jinseo’s common sense, there wasn’t any answer beyond that.
But ice cream absolutely, under no circumstances, was food that could draw out concentration like that.
If it truly could, then researchers in Jinseo’s world would have eaten dozens of ice creams a day while working.
Exam takers would have lived with ice cream in their mouths instead of herbal tonics.
Ugh. Just imagining it makes me feel like I’d get diabetes.
Jinseo felt exhausted just from the thought.
Unlike him, Painfolt stared down at the magic formula with a face overflowing with joy.
“Ah! This is no time for that!”
Painfolt pulled out a parchment scroll and stretched his right hand toward the counter seats.
A moment later, after confirming the copied magic formula had been imprinted onto the scroll, he rolled it back up.
“This isn’t enough! That food called ice cream—give me all you have! Everything! I’ll pay whatever price you name!”
“Hmm…”
Jinseo didn’t answer immediately and fell into thought.
Buying ready-made ice cream from his original world and selling it wasn’t difficult.
And unlike plastic bags or wrap, it wasn’t a case where no matter how hard you sold it, exchange would be impossible.
But it was hard to brush off the phenomenon where food from his original world manifested special abilities in this other world.
And am I really in a position to worry about that? To begin with, the snacks I make and sell are already affecting this world.
And it wasn’t a harmful effect—both the seller and buyer benefitted.
More than anything, after seeing such a dramatic effect, Jinseo feared the repercussions of refusing to sell.
But if that grandpa ends up getting diabetes, what then?
Jinseo took a deep breath, then looked at Painfolt.
“I’ll sell it. But don’t eat too much.”
“What amount is appropriate?”
“I don’t know in detail either. That has a lot of sugar. If you eat too much, it’ll ruin your health. You might be fine if you’re young, but for older people, eating a lot isn’t good.”
“Is that so? Well, an elixir wouldn’t be without side effects. But as you can see, I’m an old man with far fewer days ahead than behind. I don’t have even a speck of intention to fear some trivial side effect and abandon the road I can still advance on!”
“And this will sell well to other mages too, right?”
“Of course! And I only realized it just now, but it even restores mana! The mana potions I drank before tasted vile, so it was hard to take a lot—but with this, I could eat as much as I want!”
“I’m telling you, that would be a problem…” Jinseo lifted a hand to his throbbing head, looking troubled.
But when he saw the message that appeared in the status window, his expression brightened into a radiant smile as if nothing had happened.
{—Delayed quest completion rewards are now being issued. Due to exceeding the target, you will receive 50% more of all rewards (excluding the free upgrade coupon).—}
That grandpa was so frantic I completely forgot about the rewards.
After the new shock called “ice cream” spread across the Francia Continent, the food truck underwent a small change.
{—Ice Cream Dedicated Freezer: A type of subspace storage. Can store far more ice cream than the physical space would suggest.—}
Using the free upgrade coupon, Jinseo installed an ice-cream-only freezer in the food truck.
The freezer compartment of the existing fridge hadn’t been enough, and this solved the space problem while allowing him to sell much more ice cream.
Naturally, the people who cheered the loudest at this change were the mages affiliated with the tower.
After their meals, they would, as a matter of course, walk away with an ice cream in their mouths.
If there was still ice cream left even after the snack ingredients ran out, they would grin broadly.
As a result, on the very first day sales began, people tried to buy several at once despite Jinseo’s warning that eating too many might cause side effects.
But a side effect different from what Jinseo expected appeared, and after a week of sales, purchases began to settle at a reasonable level.
“I hear disciples who eat several in a row suffer headaches. I did too.”
When he heard Painfolt’s report, Jinseo initially assumed it was the typical headache that comes from eating too many frozen treats at once.
But only after hearing that the headaches lasted for hours did he take it seriously.
Fortunately, internal experiments at the mage tower found that up to about three per day caused no side effects, and the mages cheered.
Even more than Jinseo, the seller.
Jinseo couldn’t believe a headache could last that long just from eating ice cream.
But since concentration increasing and mana recovering in the first place made no sense, he had no choice but to accept it.
The mage tower’s experiments with ice cream produced another result.
The chant time needed to complete magic was reduced so efficiently that, at its peak, it could be cut in half.
As a result, using ice cream on the day of a magic-related exam was, unintentionally, treated as a form of cheating.
In addition, it was discovered that unless someone had learned a certain amount of magic, the effects of ice cream didn’t manifest.
Either way, the mages of the tower continued to frequent the food truck.
For mental work, there was no more efficient nutritional supply than sweet food.
Vrooom.
Jinseo’s food truck was racing down a narrow path, throwing up sand and dust.
For the first time, he was leaving the area near Falstead Castle where he had been doing business, and his heart swelled with anticipation as he headed somewhere new.
Part of it was because he was finally doing business while traveling, living up to the name “food truck.”
But there was another reason.
{—Basic Quest: Do business at a location a certain distance away from your first sales spot.
Quest Reward: 200 mana, 200 mileage, acquire a coordinate point that allows teleportation.—}
The destination Jinseo was heading toward—at the request of certain customers—was the Doren Mage Tower.
A place where mages who had become worshippers of ice cream gathered.
Jinseo had never been there even once, but it wasn’t a problem.
The navigation, which had started working again, showed the route in detail, and the speed bump warning beep served instead as a marker for areas where many monsters appeared.
As Jinseo drove, a towering spire came into view.
“It’s here! It’s here!”
“So it really was a carriage that moves with mana?”
“That’s the food truck we only heard about…”
The mages waiting at the mage tower entrance stared at the food truck with fascinated eyes.
There were about fifty of them.
About half had already been regulars of the food truck, and the other half were seeing it for the first time.
The one thing they all had in common was that they had all tasted ice cream at least once.
“Please wait a moment. I’ll begin as soon as preparations are finished.”
“Ice cream first!”
“Tteok-twi-sun later! Ice cream first!”
“I couldn’t buy any because I pulled an all-nighter researching yesterday!”
When the mages surrounding the food truck shouted the name of a single food in unison, Jinseo let out an awkward laugh and climbed down from the driver’s seat.
“Hahaha… alright. Then I’ll just set out the tables and chairs, and I’ll start with ice cream.”
The moment Jinseo opened the back door of the food truck and tried to unload the tables and chairs, the mages rushed in a swarm.
They didn’t want to wait even one more second, so without being asked, they began moving tables and chairs efficiently.
It became impossible to tell who was the customer and who was the owner.
“Then I’ll begin sales.”
Jinseo opened the ice cream freezer and started taking orders.
“Two WolXcon!”
“Three each of AXna and BiXbik!”
“Do you have MeXna? You do! Guys! They have it!”
(Translator’s Note: The X on brand names is as it is in the raw file. All brand names from original world will have an X on it. Be warned.)
Voices calling out the ice creams that matched their tastes rang out one after another.
Ice cream sold like it had wings, and before long, only five people remained in the long line in front of the food truck.
“Mr. Jinseo! Give me that ice cream! The big tub one!”
“Ah, that one?”
Jinseo opened the ice cream freezer and pulled out the ice cream stored deepest inside.
TuXder.
The large-size ice cream that had once filled child Jinseo with the desire to eat the entire thing alone.
“You’re going to share it with the people you came with, right?”
“Yes. If I eat it alone, I might end up with a headache all day.”
Behind Mary, a mage of the tower, her friends were gathered.
Jinseo grabbed small plastic spoons and placed them on top of the TuXder lid.
“Did something good happen today?”
“Well, you see—on yesterday’s exam, I got first place! So I’m treating my friends big to celebrate.”
“Congratulations.”
“It’s all thanks to ice cream. My concentration went up, so I could focus more on studying.”
“It’s not like you were the only one eating ice cream.”
“Still, thank you! You sell such tasty and amazing dessert at such a cheap price! Mr. Jinseo, you’re really a good person.”
“Ah, that’s… there are reasons.”
Jinseo had considered selling ice cream at a high price.
But the AI had explained that if he sold it above the price set by modern Korea standards, he would take a major loss during exchange.
So he judged it was better to sell at a reasonable price while earning the mages’ goodwill.
And even selling like that—once you look at the exchanged value, it’s still profitable. Not as much as snacks, but still a lot.
“Enjoy.”
“Of course. Guys!”
Mary hugged the TuXder with both hands and gathered with her friends at the convenience-store table.
“This is the TuXder we only heard about…” She carefully opened the lid.
A cold vapor rose upward, and a faint vanilla scent pleasantly tickled her nose.
The eyes of the other mages, staring at the especially large TuXder among Jinseo’s ice creams, began to burn with desire.
“It’s a blissful taste…”
Mary licked the ice cream stuck to the inside of the lid and closed her eyes.
The sweetness hidden inside the cold melted across her tongue.
But Mary wasn’t someone who would be satisfied with just that.
She started scooping TuXder with the plastic spoon and eating it.
Her friends, who had been staring blankly, came to their senses as they watched the TuXder disappearing.
“Hey! Why are you the only one eating?”
“Yeah! You said you were treating!”
“You already ate half!”
Mary’s friends shoved her aside.
Then they began fighting over the remaining TuXder.
Right then, the exclamation mark that had been indicating the basic quest vanished, and a status window appeared.
{—Basic Quest completed. Quest completion rewards will be issued.—}
{—Congratulations! The Mobile Cooking Facility has risen to Level 3.—}
{—From now on, you will be given a chance to use the Mobile Cooking Facility’s special function exactly once. The selectable functions increase and strengthen as your level rises.—}
AI.
{—Yes, please speak.—}
How far can the food truck’s level be raised?
{—The maximum level cap is Level 100.—}
What functions can I use when I reach Level 100?
At Jinseo’s question, a large status window appeared, and a list of selectable functions began to display.
Jinseo stared indifferently at the assorted options, then his eyes widened at the final sentence that appeared.
…That’s possible too? Really?
{—Yes, it is.—}
So it was possible. Well, since I can come and go between worlds, I guess something like that would be possible too.
Jinseo glanced quietly at the photo placed in front of the driver’s seat.
While running the food truck, a clear goal—beyond vaguely making money—settled into Jinseo’s heart.