Do You Know Korean Flavors?
Do you guys know Korean flavors?>
A magnificent cuisine. There was no other way to put it.>
I couldn’t say how the others felt, but at least Kana had evaluated her own food that way.>
Up until now I had tasted hundreds of different spices, but this was the first time I had encountered a combination of spices that released this kind of aroma. The rice grains were perfectly cooked without losing their flavor and absorbed just the right amount of smoky notes, and each individual ingredient danced joyfully across Kana’s tongue.>
Because Kana had personally gone to inspect the booth, she already knew. Inside the Strengthening Food booth, only one person—the woman cooking—was present.>
And she also remembered the stacks of orders piled high above that had filled the booth to the brim.>
She had been so busy that it would have been no surprise if she had made a single mistake somewhere, yet her dish had not left even the smallest opening.>
From start to finish, it had been created with genuine sincerity and poured soul.>
That was why Kana had made her decision. She no longer needed to buy multiple meal vouchers just to try other booths; she had already made up her mind.>
She would learn cooking from her. From the cooking master she had watched so many times before!>
Because of this, as lunchtime approached, Kana waited inside the cafeteria and then chased after the red-haired woman who emerged from the Strengthening Food booth. Raising her voice—the voice she had never used much before—she asked to be taught by her.>
The woman who had proudly called herself Aria-sensei’s sister and introduced herself as Yeonha smiled cheerfully at Kana’s request, and her smile looked like it had already succeeded. Kana tried to smile back.>
“You filthy… is this the right place?”>
“Yeah, it’s definitely this way! According to the investigation, this area is free of human movement…”>
If not for the sudden appearance of the two students, that would have been all I could say.>
A boy and a girl who had come bursting through the grass. The moment they appeared, a heavy silence fell over everyone’s heads.>
Any of them would have reacted the same way—suddenly seeing something strange crawl out of the grass right in front of them.>
And it wasn’t just Kana, Arin, or Yeonha. Thanks to Yeonha, who recovered from the shock first, the silence that had settled above everyone’s heads didn’t even last five seconds before it shattered under Yeonha’s curses.>
“What the hell are these things?”>
Yeonha spat out the curse in a tone dripping with irritation. The two students who had crawled out of the grass, seeing her genuine disgust toward them, raised the veins on their foreheads, but soon after they brushed the leaves off their uniforms and stood up.>
They responded to Yeonha with heads bowed, far calmer than they had been moments earlier.>
“I’m sorry. We took a wrong turn and somehow ended up here.”>
“We’ll head back right away.”>
Kana felt something strange about the two of them, but the situation was understandable, so she didn’t try to stop them as they turned away.>
After all, if she had been in their shoes just now, she probably would have done the same.>
Arin also seemed to think the same, letting out a small sigh as she watched them leave, but Yeonha grabbed them and forced them to stop.>
“Ah, now I remember. That’s why I suddenly smelled something rotten… but it wasn’t food waste. It was you two, wasn’t it? Our little demon skeleton friends.”>
“Demons?!”>
“W-what are you talking about…!”>
The two students flinched and stopped at Yeonha’s words.>
Kana and Arin shouted that it was nonsense, but the students themselves stared at Yeonha in silence with an expression that looked terrifying.>
And that sight made Kana think, “No way,” as she glanced at Yeonha. At the same time, her familiar smile felt layered over Yeonha’s face and her breath caught in her throat.>
A smile that showed just a hint of teeth and pulled the corners of her mouth upward tightly.>
Was she really her sister? The smile that Aria-sensei always wore—something Kana had seen so many times before—had settled perfectly on Yeonha’s face.>
“Arin…”>
“…Huh.”>
It seemed Kana wasn’t the only one who felt that way. When she turned her head, Arin was staring at Yeonha with the same bewildered expression, and the two of them exchanged a glance before quickly backing away behind Yeonha.>
The two of them had plenty of real combat experience, and they instinctively knew that standing between Yeonha and those students would put their own safety at risk.>
And as if they had been waiting for the two of them to move, the moment Kana and Arin stepped back, Yeonha drew the kitchen knife at her waist.>
“I said there would be no killing people while I work here with my sisters… but…”>
A wave-patterned kitchen knife flashed in Yeonha’s hand.>
Yeonha ran her tongue seductively along the blade and exhaled the breath she had been holding deep in her chest.>
“Since you’re demon lackeys, you can just die.”>
In the game world, it wasn’t the kind of farming game where everyone just studies and grows normally inside the academy.>
As expected, since the max-level quest was the Human-Demon War, humans were inevitably connected to demons.>
And the very first time it happened was right at the very beginning, on the first day of academy after the prologue ended.>
It was the quest that triggered when we finished morning classes, ate lunch, and started afternoon classes: Quest: Demon Signal Fire.>
I had seen the story when leveling my main avatar Aria, but since I had been skipping it while leveling my sub avatar Yujia, I almost forgot it for a moment. But the faint trace of demonic energy I felt in their pockets brought the memory back.>
In short, the quest story went like this. Two demons acting as meat shields and scouts for the demon army had secretly infiltrated the academy and used the demonic energy cores hidden in their pockets to collapse the academy.>
But because they were late, a player character near the scene spotted them and tried to stop them along with the afternoon teacher. That was the story.>
In the game, they should have been around the training grounds, but judging by what happened here, they must have entered through the back of the cafeteria.>
The back of the cafeteria really was a place where no one—neither staff nor teachers nor students—would go, so it was the perfect route for a secret infiltration.>
The only problem was that I, the irregular, along with Arin and Kana who had gotten tangled up because of me, were also here right now.>
Sssh>
“I said there would be no killing people while I work here with my sisters… but you demon lackeys can just die.”>
And since I had already figured out the situation, I wasn’t stupid enough to let them live and watch.>
Even though the game and reality were different, they were the kind of guys who appeared in the early prologue story, so Yeonha’s body was more than enough.>
Thinking that, I pulled the kitchen knife from my waist and drew it with firm hostility. The two of them gritted their teeth and pulled weapons from the pockets of their uniforms that they had hidden.>
“I don’t know how you knew, but we’ll kill you quickly and then continue our plan.”>
“Hehe, so will you handle the cook? I’ll take care of these little brats in the back.”>
The moment they drew their weapons, their skin color changed. The moment their previously human-like skin started to turn pale, Arin and Kana, who had pulled out their weapons behind me, opened their eyes wide and shouted.>
“T-they’re really demons…?!”>
“O-over there… if they really are demons, we should first request support…”>
“What are you talking about? It’s unnecessary.”>
The moment I confirmed that the two of them were really demons, Kana asked if requesting support was the way to go, but I firmly shook my head and answered.>
“What?! B-but…”>
“Calling for support here would only add to the chaos. Plus, letting the Lua Academy know that demons have infiltrated is a big problem, so it’s best not to spread it. And lastly.”>
“Since you’re so weak, you don’t even need support, right?”>
At my words, Kana blinked, thinking she had misheard me. Well, maybe I should just tell her one thing in advance.>
I spun the kitchen knife around in front of Kana, who hadn’t understood my words, and pointed it at the demons.>
“Everyone thinks that as long as a chef is good at cooking, everything will be fine, but that’s not true.”>
A chef is someone who makes food, but there are always things that get in the way of cooking.>
For example, the two demons standing right in front of us. Or the powerful monsters that live near special ingredients, or dangerous dungeons, and so on.>
And only someone with the strength to handle all of that perfectly can truly be called a chef.>
“…Huh?”>
“Well… no choice.”>
Even though I explained it so easily, Kana still didn’t seem to understand. Then, instead of explaining with words, showing it with her eyes would be faster.>
Dumb characters need to understand the theory perfectly before moving to practical application, but talented kids can grasp the theory they didn’t know after just one practical session.>
So, here’s a question: why couldn’t the two of them move even though I was talking so much?>
Just moments ago they had drawn their weapons and looked ready to charge at me, yet they were still standing right where they were, as if chewing gum on their feet.>
And the answer was that the ground they were standing on wasn’t normal earth—it was my cutting board.>
‘『Cutting Board』>
The majority of this skill was an attack preparation technique for the chef job group, which was meant for cooking. It let you designate a certain area as a ‘cutting board’ and allowed you to recognize everything on the board as ingredients.>
Additionally, when an enemy with a huge level gap stepped on the board, it forcibly applied a stun effect.>
In other words, the moment they entered the skill’s range, both of them were already ingredients on my cutting board.>
Arin and Kana, who were also standing on the cutting board, could feel it even if they couldn’t see it—the invisible kitchen knife floating above the board.>
I quickly grasped the knife that had been lying idle and reached out toward them. The two who had been standing still under the stun effect finally felt the blade approaching their necks and collapsed to the ground with a thud.>
“Grr… l-let me go… ugh…”>
“Kyah… p-please…”>
The two demons, unable to even catch their breath properly, gasped and begged for mercy from me.>
Looking at their pitiful state, I smiled faintly one last time and swung the knife I was holding.>
“Ingredients that can talk?”>
『Rough Slicing』>
Slicing. The demons who had been sliced slantedly fell into pieces on the ground. At the same time, the sweet-tangy smell of demon blood filled the back of the cafeteria and spread outward.>
Seen from the students’ perspective, it was a cruel scene. But for Arin and Kana, it was already a familiar sight, so instead of being startled by the brutal corpses, they jumped in place with admiration for the way I had instantly killed the demons.>
“I-it’s amazing! It’s really amazing! If you have time after teaching Kana how to cook, how about teaching me some swordsmanship like that?!”>
“M-master! I admire you!”>
Arin and Kana, who were fifteen years old and had enrolled in the academy, were jumping around like five-year-old kids.>
Thinking about how I should calm them down next time, my head started to ache at their overexcited appearance, so I pinched the bridge of my nose.>
Next time, I should at least set a concept with some restraint. For real.