Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 89
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 89
If you ask what soul food for someone living alone is,
a few things probably come to mind.
All manner of delivery food, canned goods and seasoned seaweed stacked like totems,
instant rice made of nothing but white rice.
And ramen and soju. None of them are considered especially healthy.
The sad truth about living alone is that taking care of your health is extremely difficult.
You have no money, and your cooking space is cramped.
And that’s not all. When you think about grocery prices, doesn’t it make you want to cry?
“I’d rather just order a whole chicken than buy ingredients with this money!”
That thought comes out of your mouth before you know it.
Lion, Baek Yi-hyeon, who had lived alone from a fairly young age, was the same.
But if you only ate instant products like that, indigestion and reflux esophagitis inevitably followed.
Packing on flab was only natural.
Buying ingredients and making something to eat lasted all of a day or two.
Because there was no time.
The thing that gave Baek Yi-hyeon a sense of crisis was none other than his early twenties.
And what he found, determined to at least take minimal care of himself, was a substitute for ramen: Fusilli Lunghi pasta noodles.
Instant noodles that use pasta instead of ramen noodles!
He’d devised it to cut even a little of the oil that hit your stomach, though considering the sodium in ramen soup powder, it was really just a way to ease his guilt.
Standard fusilli pasta is short, like macaroni, but this was different.
The noodles were long, just like ramen noodles, so you could slurp them up with the broth.
Pasta noodles you could throw into ramen without it feeling weird!
‘Of course, it didn’t taste the same as actual ramen.’
The biggest difference between pasta noodles and ramen noodles is whether they’ve been fried in oil.
Pasta is just made and dried, so compared to ramen, it wasn’t ‘stimulating.’
That was why Baek Yi-hyeon wasn’t particularly satisfied eating it.
Because it lacked that immediate oily flavor.
Still, he had to use up what he’d bought, so he forced it down. He remembered doing that.
But—
“For now, I just need the shape and texture to be roughly right.”
Lion had it all planned out.
[Fusilli Lunghi (★)]
- Pasta noodles characterized by a shape as twisty as a skein of yarn.
- Kneaded and cut using the chef’s special recipe, making them far chewier than ordinary noodles!
And these were on a completely different level from what you’d buy at a store.
After all, weren’t these noodles personally made by the chef of House Bydantis!
The first thing Lion did was boil the pasta in boiling water.
These needed to boil a little longer than other pasta noodles.
While the noodles boiled, he opened the Shilling Shop.
[Welcome, valued customer.]
[Would you like to check our products?]
“Show me all seasoning types, in order of lowest price.”
[Retrieving all items containing ‘seasoning’ in order of lowest price.]
Lion looked at the first seasoning that appeared.
[Magic Seasoning A]
- Randomly produces Memory Powder.
- 30,000 Shillings
[Magic Seasoning B]
- Allows you to choose and insert a nostalgic taste.
- 50,000 Shillings (Staff Pick!)
“Yeah. This is the one.”
Lion grinned as he looked at Magic Seasoning B.
You could actually choose and insert a nostalgic taste!
That meant something like ‘the nostalgic ramen taste I had at a gimbap franchise’ was possible.
However, at fifty thousand Shillings, the price was pretty steep.
‘But there’s no substitute.’
He had the ability to create ‘Memory Dishes,’ sure, but that flavor—a concentrate of modern technology like ramen soup powder—felt hard to reproduce even with the Memory Dish correction.
‘And ramen is all about the thrill of tearing open the packet.’
Growl!
His stomach cried out.
Lion had been selling off things bit by bit whenever he got something marketable, ever since the Labyrinth, and haggling as he went.
The Shillings he’d earned from those sales amounted to nearly 250,000.
Of course, this was a price equivalent to a fifth of his total assets. Wicked.
But at least when it came to food, he wasn’t going to scrimp.
“Magic Seasoning B.”
[Will you purchase it?]
[This item cannot be returned, transferred, or gifted after opening.]
“I’ll buy it.”
[You have purchased the item!]
[You have lost 50,000 Shillings.]
[Your current balance is 198,400 Shillings.]
Shillings drained from his inventory in a stream, and a seasoning packet a little bigger than ramen soup powder dropped into Lion’s hand.
“Let’s see. How to use it…”
[Magic Seasoning B]
- Open while recalling a nostalgic taste!
- The more vivid your imagination, the higher the flavor fidelity!
Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any special method.
Lion took out a new pot, brought water to a rolling boil, then immediately tore open the packet and shook it in.
‘Kim’s Heaven Ramen!!’
He didn’t even need to struggle to imagine that taste.
Because it came to him in an instant!
Bubble-bubble—
When he added the seasoning, no particularly special effect manifested.
But Lion could tell.
‘It worked.’
As soon as the rainbow-colored seasoning entered the pot, it changed into that familiar red hue, and the aroma—intense, hitting the nose hard—filled the kitchen!
And that wasn’t all.
Even the solid bits from the ramen packet had been realized!
“Wow…”
Lion let out a short exclamation.
It was an absolutely maddening smell.
‘This is no time to stand around.’
Lion scooped out the properly boiled noodles from the water and transferred them to the pot with the soup base.
Now all he had to do was wait for them to cook through thoroughly.
Watching the bubbling ramen, Lion cracked an egg straight into it without stirring, and he sliced green onions on top.
As the vibrant green onions slowly cooked, they absorbed the red of the broth.
The egg white did the same.
Gulp.
At the involuntary mouth-watering sight, Lion swallowed dryly and took out the wooden chopsticks he’d made himself from his bag.
This absolutely called for chopsticks.
He turned off the heat, set the pot on a trivet, and gazed at the ramen before him with an expression of near-emotion.
[■■■’s Ramen (★★★)]
- A noodle dish of memories made with puzzling ingredients that do not exist in this world!
- The nostalgic taste has been perfectly recreated. How on earth is it this perfect?
A dish of astonishing quality had been born.
The fact that it had three stars meant the taste was outstanding, too.
‘This looks promising.’
The most important thing was how well the pasta noodles had absorbed the soup flavor…
Lion lifted a mouthful of noodles right away and blew on it.
Then, while it was still quite hot, he slurped it all straight in!
Slurrrrp!
“…!”
Chewing the ramen, Lion’s expression was as if he’d been whacked on the back of the head.
Magic Seasoning B was no joke.
Because even though this ramen didn’t contain a single drop of oil, he could taste that distinctive oily ramen flavor!
‘It even replicated that?’
Then what about the broth…?
Lion scooped up a generous spoonful of broth, blew on it a few times, and swallowed.
A salty, intense, pungent stimulation spread across his mouth.
The savory depth of black pepper and various seasonings.
And this was…
‘Bean sprouts?’
That characteristic refreshing, hangover-curing taste rose behind the savoriness.
A taste that clung to his mouth as if absorbing the sodium, then slipped cleanly down his throat without hesitation.
“Khhh…”
This was it!
Lion closed his eyes and shuddered.
Right now, at this deep hour of the night, having just woken from playing in the water, it was clear that no exquisite feast could rival this ramen.
It was, without exaggeration, the best possible flavor.
Lion began his meal in earnest.
He ate the ramen with the green onion and drank the broth straight from the pot.
Just as a subtle, tingling sensation set in, he broke the soft-boiled egg yolk and dipped the noodles generously in it.
Maybe because he was eating it while it was still spicy, the yolk’s characteristic nutty flavor felt maximized.
“Here. I’ll give you one strand, too.”
Lion lifted a noodle and placed it in front of Nature.
Then, like a chick pecking at a worm, Nature pecked at the noodle and pushed it into its mouth.
After it slurped up the long noodle in an instant.
“Bwee!”
It demanded more.
Maybe because it was a spirit, it ate anything well.
“Good, huh?”
“Bweee!”
Maybe because it was its first taste of a modern flavor?
Nature bounced up and down.
Lion gave it one more strand, then wolfed down the rest, broth and all.
“Phew. That was seriously good.”
He’d spent a fortune, but it was a flavor he didn’t regret.
[Yeah. This is the taste!]
[You have been deeply moved by your own cooking!]
[Experience bonus applied for using unidentified ingredients.]
[Congratulations! You have realized that even food you find most delicious tastes twice as good when shared!]
[Cooking Proficiency has reached Skilled Lv.1.]
[Skill: Fermentation Acceleration has been unlocked.]
“Oh.”
He hadn’t expected a level up.
He must have received bonus experience for using the special ingredient ‘Magic Seasoning.’
Given that, it had more than served its role as a fifty-thousand-Shilling item.
And besides…
‘Fermentation Acceleration, huh?’
That meant the range of dishes he could make had just widened considerably.
Lion instantly thought of countless foods.
Dishes that required fermentation were endless.
Even stews or braised dishes taste better after they’ve sat for a day and the flavors have melded, didn’t they?
But with the acceleration function attached… the deep flavor would be added the instant it was made.
And not only that…
‘It means I can make dishes that truly need to ferment, right on the spot.’
Gulp.
Even though he was clearly full, his mouth watered all on its own again.
‘This is huge…’
Once he returned to the territory, there were even more things to try out.
He’d really grown quite a lot this time, hadn’t he?
“First, let’s clean up.”
After tidying up completely, Lion asked Nature to remove even the smell and quietly returned to his room.
It had been one hell of a day.
* * *
Time passed quickly, and the day came for Lion to return to the Asteri territory.
“I sincerely hope you’ll return.”
“Yes. I’ll come visit.”
Lion smiled, cleanly refusing Clarentia’s last offer.
“How heartless. After I gave you so much.”
“Thank you very much for the gifts.”
Lion gazed with satisfaction at the heap of medicinal herbs loaded onto the back of the carriage.
And that wasn’t all.
The carriage even contained the precious Snow Mountain Iron produced by House Bydantis.
“That counts as a bribe.”
“Thank you for the gift.”
Pleasantly defeated by Lion’s firmness, Clarentia extended her hand.
“Then I’ll see you again.”
After exchanging a light handshake, Lion climbed into the carriage.
Watching the carriage pull away, Clarentia returned to her office, and without realizing it, a small laugh escaped her.
‘Does that man even know what he’s done?’
Cooperation between a prestigious mage family and a sword mastery family was unprecedented, even if you searched through history.
And Lion Asteri had accomplished that.
Furthermore, that coachman was clearly someone from the Criminal Underworld.
He’d been pretending to be a coachman, but that assassin’s trademark footwork that left no footprints was not something an amateur could pull off.
The sword mastery family, the mage family, and the Criminal Underworld.
A person who enjoyed the patronage of all three.
‘Though he himself probably has no idea.’
And even if he did know, he wasn’t the sort of man who would exploit it.
‘Which means I’ll have to be all the more careful.’
Whenever powerful factions ally, it’s natural for other outside powers to start searching for the cause.
“The Imperial Family and the Temple.”
And perhaps, even from outside, attention would now be drawn to the figure of Lion Asteri.