Extreme Spicy (2)
Extreme Spicy (2)
"A challenge? Is that really the right word for food?"
"Hahaha. 'Challenge' might sound a little underwhelming for the continent's greatest explorer, but I assure you, this won't be easy."
Wooom!
The back of Gerard's neck prickled at Lucas's words.
It was a sensation he only ever felt when his instincts were screaming at full volume.
It wasn't the first time.
His senses had tingled the moment he arrived at the restaurant, though not quite this strongly.
He'd chalked it up to the blue-haired woman and whatever was going on with the eatery itself.
But the source was this man?
Why?
Was he connected to the mermaid?
Another witness who'd spotted her?
No.
This is stronger than just a witness report.
It was as if...
...the man himself were the mermaid.
Impossible.
Leaving aside the question of whether a mermaid could even survive on land,
there was no way a mermaid would slice a fish apart and eat it raw.
Which meant—
—this man is hiding something.
Gerard studied Lucas where he stood.
Handsome, yes, but otherwise unremarkable.
Solid build from years of kitchen work. The faintest scent of cooking oil clinging to him. That was about it.
"I've no idea what sort of dish this is, but your confidence is extraordinary."
"You'll see."
"Could you not simply tell me in advance?"
"Where's the fun in that? An explorer who braves uncharted lands... is now asking to know the outcome before the challenge begins?"
"That isn't what I meant."
The deference was understated but genuine, woven into his manner. The man had not only studied etiquette—he possessed actual courtesy.
"The thing is, I happen to be searching for a mermaid at present."
"I can promise you one thing with absolute certainty. This will prove a far more compelling subject than any mermaid. I guarantee it'll stir that explorer's spirit of yours."
"......Very well."
Put like that, he had no grounds left to refuse.
Days of hunting had already yielded no fresh leads.
A short detour wouldn't hurt.
"Lead on. Let's see what kind of food is capable of waking someone's spirit of adventure."
Gerard followed Lucas.
***
What spicy dish would actually taste good?
I'd spent a while on the question.
The famous Fire Jjamppong came to mind.
That scorching Dijinda Donkatsu did too.
Buldak Bokkeummyun—the very standard-bearer of spicy food. And Fire Tteokbokki was another serious contender.
Buldak is delicious, no doubt.
But after running through every option more times than I'd like to admit, the dish with the strongest psychological impact on Gerard was obvious.
Stir-fried octopus.
Specifically, Fire Octopus Stir-fry—drenched in an aggressively spicy gochugaru-based sauce.
Two finalists.
Octopus, and chicken feet. Coco feet, rather.
One reason decided it.
Its appearance is grotesque, and the empire considers it absolutely inedible.
The empire did not favor seafood.
The capital, the inland territories—nobody touched fish. The entire population lived under a collective dread of the sea. Fisherfolk did cook with what they caught out of necessity, but even they mostly stuck to fish.
Octopus and squid resembled the kraken—a deep-sea monster—and were never, under any circumstances, consumed.
I'd cut chicken feet from the shortlist for one reason: an explorer like Gerard had probably already encountered them.
He'd be used to it.
Someone who'd trekked through every hinterland on the map would have learned to eat anything.
A chicken foot—however unsettling—had to be less intimidating than an octopus, which was said to resemble a monster and even carried a supposed curse.
Not that I'm convinced he's actually eaten chicken feet...
But he'd be used to the idea. A man like that had surely put plenty of things regular people couldn't stomach into his mouth.
That was the logic.
Why I went with the octopus.
"The effort it took to get my hands on this one—you wouldn't believe it."
I'd spent an entire day fishing, trying to snag just one of the bastards, and all I'd pulled up were random fish.
So I turned to Michelle.
"I'm trying to catch some octopus. Could I trouble you for a hand?"
Ask a mermaid sworn to protect the sea to help me drag its creatures onto land. Shameless? Absolutely. But I didn't have a choice—without the ingredient, I couldn't even put together a bluff worth chasing Gerard off with.
Michelle hesitated, then agreed.
"I'll call them to you. You just need to do the catching."
Thanks to her, I hauled in a generous amount.
Though her expression darkened a little.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine. I'm the one who should apologize. You're going through all this trouble because of me......"
Right after she'd helped me gather the octopus, I tracked Gerard down. Which brought us to now.
"A spicy dish?"
"That's right. I assume a great explorer is at least familiar with spicy food."
"Ahem. I am."
Nobody in the empire was wholly ignorant of spiciness anymore.
Ever since Princess Diana ate kimchi stew and made it fashionable, the concept had at least reached the public's awareness. Gerard had probably encountered something spicy by now.
Of course, the number of people who actually enjoyed it was still tiny.
Tolerating a mild tingle was one thing. Nobody went looking for the kind of heat that made your mouth go numb.
—What are we, deviants who enjoy pain? Why would anyone like that?
A quote from some famous imperial gourmand.
Ridiculous.
Spiciness is a legitimate flavor. To dismiss it outright—I seriously question the man's credentials.
"And what exactly makes spiciness worth calling a challenge?"
"Because it's a dish no one can handle."
"A dish no one can handle?"
"Would I have called it a challenge if it were something people ate casually every day?"
I smiled and stepped into the kitchen.
The prepped onions, scallions, and chili paste were waiting at their stations. And sitting in a clear bowl, still squirming, was a heap of freshly caught octopus.
I lifted the bowl so Gerard could get a good look.
The octopuses, already rinsed clean in seawater, writhed lazily against the glass.
His eyes went wide.
"Th-that—isn't that a kraken hatchling?"
"Not a kraken. This thing's called an octopus. Today, I'm going to cook one up for you."
"You're telling me to eat a monster's young?"
Ah. This was going nowhere.
I'd expected this reaction.
Honestly, it works in my favor.
The knowledge that he was being asked to eat a "monster" would only send this adrenaline junkie's brain into the kind of overdrive I needed.
"Isn't that what makes it a challenge?"
"Excuse me?"
"How can anyone call himself an explorer if he can't even stomach a creature that's already been hunted down and neatly dressed?"
"......."
Gerard shut his mouth.
"I'll stir-fry this octopus in a spicy sauce—the kind you've never tried before—and serve it to you."
"A spicy dish made from the spawn of a monster......"
"The spirit of adventure stirring yet?"
"If I were to back down here......"
"You'd be a coward. Explorer Gerard—branded forever as the man who couldn't stomach a single monster hatchling."
That landed.
Gerard clenched his jaw. The fire of challenge lit his eyes.
"Fine. I accept your challenge."
"Excellent. For reference, there are three levels of spiciness."
I held up three fingers and began folding them down one at a time.
"Level one is Coward's Taste. Mild enough for men, women, and children to enjoy."
"......."
"Level two is Knight's Taste. Hot enough that ordinary people can't even touch it—and you should absolutely never feed it to kids."
"Then the third level...?"
"That, my friend, is Explorer's Taste. A supremely intense spiciness. If you're not built for heat, you could die eating it. You might call it a flavor freshly spawned from the pit of hell."
Gerard bit his lip.
"Give me the Explorer's Taste."
Of course he couldn't back down. A man whose entire existence revolved around the extreme—there was no other choice he could make.
"You'll be satisfied."
I started prepping the octopus right away.
Slice out the eyes. Split the head. Scoop out the innards. Turn the legs inside out and pull away the beak, then set the cleaned pieces aside.
Even beheaded, even gutted—the thing kept twitching. Gerard's face crumpled.
"Ah, since we've got fresh octopus in hand, allow me to commemorate the occasion with a new menu item."
"A n-new menu item? What do you mean?"
I took two of the cleaned octopuses and went to work with my knife.
Chop-chop-chop!
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Every time I drove the blade down with mana laced through the cut, the legs separated cleanly in a single stroke.
I scattered a light drizzle of sesame oil and sesame seeds over the still-squirming pieces on the plate. The moment the oil hit them, the twitching bits of live octopus began smearing it over their own legs.
"It—it writhes even after death. I knew it. A monster......"
Gerard's mouth hung open as he stared at the squirming, severed pieces.
"Nakji Tangtang-i. Give it a try."
Sliced live octopus—named for the rhythmic tang-tang-tang of the blade that prepares it. Nakji Tangtang-i.
The octopus writhing on the plate was, in truth, already dead. Just residual nerve signals—muscle cells burning through their last stores of energy. A purely biological phenomenon.
Not that imperial citizens knew a thing about cells or neurons.
"Th-this—this is the corpse of a living monster. You haven't even cooked it over flame......"
Even Gerard couldn't hide his reluctance this time. Pale-faced, his gaze flickered between me and the octopus.
"For a great explorer, you're surprisingly timid."
Couldn't even recognize a delicacy when it was right in front of him.
I pushed a dish of chojang toward him, but Gerard still hesitated. His hand hovered without conviction.
I took the honor of the first bite myself. Lifted a wriggling leg with my chopsticks and ate it right in front of him.
"Mm-mm~."
"Hurk!"
The octopus squirmed inside my mouth.
The suckers clamped onto my tongue and the roof of my mouth, refusing to let go.
"Wonderfully fresh."
Just to drive the point home, I reached into my mouth and peeled a sucker loose with a loud, deliberate schlick.
"Hurk!"
Gerard sucked in a sharp breath. Which I ignored, helping myself to another leg—this time dunking it generously into the chojang.
The nutty richness of the sesame oil and the sharp, tangy heat of the chojang struck my tongue first, hard and fast.
Crackle-crunch!
The dense muscle of the octopus leg popped between my teeth.
Supreme quality. Still vibrant enough that it didn't turn mushy or seep that characteristic slick fluid. This was the real thing.
"Hngnnn~."
The interplay of texture and taste was so sublime the sound of my own satisfaction escaped before I could stop it.
"Give it a shot."
"V-very well. I'll try it myself......"
He recoiled as if the sight of a still-squirming piece of octopus held in my chopsticks was physically painful.
Man's got less nerve than I gave him credit for.
This worked up over one little octopus?
"Nngh-ghnn."
Gerard speared the least lively leg he could find with his fork, dipped it in the chojang, and put it in his mouth.
His face contorted into an expression that could easily have passed for a knight commander receiving a cup of poison from his king.
He probably didn't pick a good one.
Nakji Tangtang-i's quality depends entirely on how fresh the octopus is.
When the thing's been sliced and left sitting too long, it starts releasing that signature slick fluid, and the taste suffers.
Doesn't even know how to eat it.
The tragedy is, even if I told him, he couldn't stomach it anyway.
"Well?"
"It's... delicious. Ha. Ha. Ha."
Forced laughter.
Not the smile of a man enjoying his meal. The smile of a man chewing to protect his pride. The pride of the continent's greatest explorer, refusing to be branded a coward.
First blow's landed, that much is done.
While he forced himself to choke it down, I mixed the octopus into a heavy load of blazing-red seasoning.
And then.
Sssssizzle.
Onions and scallions, browning nicely on the oiled griddle.
TSCHHHHHEEEEE!
I threw in the octopus, thoroughly coated in the viciously spicy chili paste Riman had sourced for me.
"GUk—!"
Gerard, still locked in mortal combat with the raw octopus, reeled back and clamped a hand over his nose. The fumes alone were enough to sting.
That's the stuff.