Stir-Fried Small Octopus with Soju—Eat That and Your Day Is Pretty Much Done
Stir-Fried Small Octopus with Soju—Eat That and Your Day Is Pretty Much Done
The wok sizzled.
The moment the spicy octopus hit the oil bubbling over the mountain of vegetables, the whole wok rang with a searing crackle.
A sharp hiss erupted.
The sauce—a blend of the insanely hot chili powder Riman had sent, soy sauce, garlic, and more—scorched against the metal, and the scent of a spice so ferocious it could sear your sinuses billowed into the air.
"Khhh. That's the smell."
Just breathing it in set my blood on fire. Nakji-bokkeum. No, this was bul-nakji-bokkeum—holy shit. The aroma alone pulled an involuntary groan of admiration out of me.
I gripped the wok handle and gave it a hard upward toss.
The oil shrieked.
Flames leaped.
Oil and sauce collided over the seething octopus, and fire bloomed into the air. It looked like stage magic, but it was just a cooking technique—catching the dish with open flame to work a smoky char into the surface, that faint scorched edge that twists the whole flavor into something strange and addictive.
"Whoa. Is it supposed to smell like that?"
Gerard, who'd been pinching his nose against the heat, stared at me with wide eyes.
"Yes. The scent's got a kick, right? That's exactly how it's supposed to smell. Otherwise I couldn't call it the real thing."
"I feel like I've smelled something similar somewhere before..."
As the octopus legs and body curled in the heat, Gerard frowned, turning the rich, spicy aroma over in his mind.
"Right. An alchemist's laboratory. I've caught this smell there before. Don't tell me..."
His gaze shifted to me.
"You're right. The apex of spiciness. A standard experimental reagent in alchemy."
I held up a dark-red chili pepper—the raw material for the chili powder.
"You—you put that in there?"
"Yes."
"Fairy pepper—the fruit of the elves! You cooked with an ingredient no human could possibly eat, and you're calling that food?"
Gerard practically jumped out of his skin. The man's supposedly the empire's greatest explorer, and his guts are this small?
"So. You chickening out?"
"Wh-what?"
"'Greatest explorer' doesn't mean much, I guess. What's the empire's greatest explorer blubbering over a little chili powder for?"
"That's not—"
The wok sizzled on.
I left Gerard floundering and finished the stir-fry.
The trick was to keep the toss fast. Flash-fry it so the octopus doesn't toughen. Once the juices from the vegetables and octopus had mingled with the sauce and the whole thing was simmering down to a glossy finish, I gave it a final drizzle of sesame oil and a scatter of sesame seeds.
I shook them out over the dish, flipped everything twice with the spatula, and a nutty richness slipped right through the wall of spice.
"Hmm. Beautiful."
The stir-fried octopus, coated in crimson sauce and trailing steam, stood on the platter looking magnificent.
I slid it onto a white plate—a mountain of spicy octopus threatening to spill over—and served it alongside a bowl of white rice and some bean sprout stir-fry simply seasoned with salt.
"Eat up. This is bul-nakji-bokkeum. It drove an entire challenge craze back where I'm from."
"You're certain this is edible?"
That was the moment.
"Whoa! Isn't that an incredibly spicy smell?"
"What is that?"
"Never smelled anything like it..."
"Hey, is this the new dish the owner was talking about?"
Knights, Andrea, and a crowd of regulars came flooding through the door.
Gerard flinched at the sudden audience.
"A great explorer's challenge without spectators? That wouldn't be right, would it?"
"...Urk!"
Gerard bit his lip under the weight of all those eyes. Backing out now was officially off the table.
"If you're suspicious, how about I eat first?"
Gerard looked at me and nodded.
So he still thinks I might've served him something genuinely inedible. Hurtful.
I pulled over a small dish and ladled out some of the curled octopus legs and vegetables.
If I ate them one at a time, this man would never follow.
I need to coax out his spirit of adventure.
The spicy aroma riding the steam hit my nose. The bridge of my nose twitched before I could stop it. It had been so long since I'd smelled real heat. It was driving me insane.
"Would you look at that color."
"I've eaten a lot of the owner's cooking, but I've never seen anything that vicious-looking."
"Is that really safe to eat?"
"As expected of an explorer... even in cooking, he's trying to awaken the spirit of challenge."
The spectators' voices reached me.
"Hooo!"
I took the portion from the small dish straight into my mouth.
The brutal capsaicin of the fairy pepper lashed across my tongue. But underneath it, the harmony of the seasonings pushed back—insisting, fiercely, that there was more to this than mere pain. And then came the final grace note: sesame oil, wrapping the tongue softly.
Chewy but never tough, the octopus legs melted gently in my mouth.
"Hwaa!"
Spicy and delicious. Deliciously spicy! Spicy! But delicious!
A flavor that reminded me, down to the bone, that my palate was Korean. The heat prickled through my mouth, left my tongue numb, but the savory depth that followed and the springy bite of the octopus pulled an involuntary groan out of me.
I piled some of the stir-fry onto the white rice in the side bowl, mixed it roughly, and ate it in one bite.
"Khh! Incredible."
The spice whirled through my mouth like a fire, but wasn't that the whole point of eating spicy food? Just a few bites from that small dish had me sweating freely.
It was a killer flavor. The kind that sets your stomach ablaze and makes you dread the next morning's bathroom visit.
"Right. I've proved it's edible, so..."
"..."
"Try it."
Gerard looked at me.
"Fine."
Unskilled with chopsticks, he speared a piece of octopus with his fork and put it in his mouth.
"Gwaaaah!!! Whoa! Damn!"
The instant it hit his tongue, Gerard was convulsing on the spot.
His face went beet-red as he chewed the perfectly cooked octopus.
"Wh-what kind of food is— Gwaaaah!!!"
Hoo! Haa! Hoo! Haa!
His face flushed carrot-red as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths. Sweat pouring off him. I held out a cold glass of milk.
"Th-thank you!"
Gerard reached for the milk, and I pulled the glass back just slightly.
"If you drink this, you're giving up."
"What?"
"If you were on an expedition into the uncharted wilds and turned back for the imperial capital to rest your travel-weary body, that would be quitting, wouldn't it?"
"A-are you saying this thing is on— on that level?"
Gerard asked it between pants, his tongue still hanging out.
"Cold milk in the middle of a spicy meal—that's exactly the level it's on."
"..."
He bit on the provocation like a hooked fish. Jaw clenched, he scooped more stir-fried octopus onto his spoon, laid it over the white rice, and mixed it lightly. Probably copying what he'd watched me do.
That won't go well.
Spooning that much sauce into the rice didn't neutralize the heat—it just turned the rice into a vehicle for deeper, more thorough spice.
"Hyup!"
Gerard's face went redder as he ate the rice soaked in the stir-fry sauce. Sweat streaming down his face, he threw wild punches at the air.
He looked like he might collapse any second.
"Mix the bean sprouts in too. It'll take the edge off a little."
"Khhh..."
Gerard stabbed at the bean sprouts frantically with his fork. But when the fork couldn't pick up a satisfying amount—
"Rrraaah!!"
He grabbed the sprouts with his bare hand and shoved them into his mouth.
Told that this could neutralize the heat, he didn't hesitate, even with a food he'd never seen before. He looked like a beast stripped of reason.
"Khhhrrgh..."
It was spicy. Insanely spicy, yes.
But not that bad.
Hoo, hoo.
Gerard's pupils had gone slightly unfocused between the ragged breaths.
He'd barely managed a few spoonfuls, but thick drool was already stringing between his parted lips.
"Khhh..."
He hadn't even finished half a bowl of rice, had only eaten a few pieces of the octopus, and he was already on the verge of passing out.
I found myself thinking of stories from my past life—how some foreigners had found tempura udon too spicy.
Is it really that unbearable?
Sure, my own mouth was tingling with the heat. For Gerard, it must've hit even harder.
Still, not this hard.
Could he just not handle spice at all?
I was planning to feed him sparkling water if this didn't do the job, but I guess I won't need that after all.
The agony of carbonation hitting a palate and esophagus already scraped raw by spice—that was a pain words couldn't do justice to. Just imagining it made me shudder.
"Khh-hrrggkh..."
"Giving up?"
"I— I won't— won't give up. On— on an explorer's honorrr..."
Stammering through unfocused eyes, Gerard's hand trembled violently. Was he trying to cycle his mana to suppress the pain? The mana dwelling in his body began spinning faster.
Not that it would make the spice go away.
I'd tested it once. Does coating your mouth with mana reduce the burn?
The result was a firm no.
You could layer mana as thick as you wanted—the spice wasn't going anywhere.
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"Don't push yourself too hard. Keep going like that and you'll drop dead."
I held out a glass of cold milk.
"Drink this. You'll feel better."
"......."
"Also, this is your last chance. You say no, and the milk goes away——"
"Gurrraaaagh!!"
Gerard snatched the cup and dumped the whole thing down his throat.
Glug, glug, glug!
"Gwaaaaah!"
The moment the cold milk hit, his expression loosened.
"M-more......."
I poured him another glass of milk from the milk cow.
"Hukyaaaaa!"
He was practically moaning as he drank. Gerard could not detach his lips from the bottle. He just kept guzzling.
"Giving up?"
"Mmph!! Mmph!!"
The bottle still wedged in his mouth, Gerard nodded like a man possessed.
"Huh. Beaten by a dish the owner eats himself."
"Guess the great explorer Gerard's reputation is all rubbish after all."
"Spicy or not, to throw in the towel after barely a few bites—isn't that a bit ridiculous?"
"He was always a coward."
The voices around us dripped with disappointment. Gerard, for his part, ignored them completely and devoted himself entirely to the milk.
'They're doing good work.'
Heimer, Ivan, and Hamilton were playing their roles as agitators perfectly. Every line they delivered was precision-calibrated to prick Gerard's pride.
They felt practiced at this.
'Well, they have been running the comment-section troll brigade on the message board lately.'
Ivan, especially, was unexpectedly gifted at filing down Gerard's ego.
"Gerard's nothing special after all."
I picked up the bowl of stir-fried octopus to cap the provocation.
"This is so good, too......."
I mixed the leftover octopus and rice—the few bites Gerard had managed before fleeing.
The chewy-bouncy texture, the vegetable juices melting on my tongue, the numbing heat spreading through my mouth—flawless. And then the red-stained grains of rice scattering with every mouthful.
Tomorrow morning was going to be regrettable. But if it tastes this good now, who cares?
"When this goes on the restaurant menu, I'll dial back the spice a notch and make sure to include sides. Corn cheese, steamed egg—something like that."
Without them, I could easily see customers collapsing mid-meal.
Gerard, still clutching the milk bottle like a lifeline, stared at me like I was insane.
"Delicious. The stir-fried octopus."
I found myself craving soju.
"One glass wouldn't hurt."
Spicy octopus stir-fry and a shot of soju......
Khhh!
Perfect.
"I-I'll try again another time."
Gerard, who'd barely touched the dish, clutched his stomach and pushed through the crowd back to his lodgings.
The next day, Gerard did not come to the restaurant.
Nor the day after. Nor the day after that.
He didn't show his face at all. I had Andrea keep tabs on him, thinking he might have slipped away to investigate the mermaid.
"He hasn't left his room at all. Groaned in bed all day."
That was her entire report.
"Ah....... Understood."
The reason he couldn't leave his lodgings was obvious. Intestinal distress from eating something far too spicy for his system to handle.
"Hard to endure, isn't it."
His first experience with it must have been particularly brutal.
A week later, Gerard returned to the restaurant, face haggard.
"I've come to attempt it once more."
He glared at me with deep-shadowed eyes.
"No."
"Wh-what?"
"Did you think a challenge would come that cheaply?"
"......What are you saying."
"Meet the conditions, then come back."
"What conditions——."
"You'll have to prove yourself. I created the Explorer tier out of respect for the great explorer Gerard, yet you displayed a remarkably cowardly performance, did you not?"
"B-but that! I was——."
"I won't hear excuses. You know better than anyone how ugly a defeated man's excuses sound."
"What must I do."
Gerard ground his teeth and growled the words. The look in his eyes said he was ready to do anything to restore his shattered pride.
"Far to the east, deep in the jungle, there is a fruit said to burn as fiercely as a fairy pepper. Bring it back, and I'll grant you a second chance."
"B-but......."
By now, stories of Gerard fleeing his meal like a coward had already spread through Britten Castle. The rumors had been eating at his pride for a full week, and so had the lingering stomach pain and the searing heat of that dish.
The spice of the stir-fried octopus had carved itself deep into Gerard's skull.
He was wrestling with the question: challenge the spicy food again, or give up and walk away?
If he abandoned the octopus challenge now and went off hunting mermaids, every single person in the Britten territory would point a finger and call him a coward. Nobody would lift a hand to help him find a mermaid.
—So the great explorer Gerard's reputation was a pack of lies?
—Why help a coward? He'd only fail anyway.
—There's no one here who'll aid a coward's falsehoods!
While Gerard lay groaning in his lodgings, me, the knights, and Andrea had been busy spreading those rumors.
A coward who tosses aside a challenge the moment it gets hard.
We planned to hound him until the very idea of mermaids had been driven entirely from his mind.
If he set out to accomplish that mission, it would take him months to return. And every time he failed, I'd hand him another task. He'd keep trying, over and over, to claw back his lost pride.
From what I'd gauged of Gerard, he absolutely would.
Enough attempts, and he'd forget all about the mermaid.
'Looks like the challenge that octopus represents has already devoured whatever urge he had to find mermaids.'
That was a memory that wouldn't fade easily, after all.
The bulnak was just that good.
Gerard glared at Lucas and bit his lip.
His explorer's instincts were screaming at him to beat this man right here and now. Whether those instincts were driven by the mermaid or by some other reason he couldn't name, he couldn't say.
'If I conquer this man, I'll achieve something greater than anything I've ever done.'
Gerard was certain of it.
It was absolutely not because he kept thinking about the stir-fried octopus.
That dish had been too spicy to eat, had left him with a week-long stomachache. He denied it to himself, but the taste of that day's octopus lingered in his mouth.
The spice he couldn't stop remembering. It had been punishingly hot, yet not once had it felt unpleasant.
It was a strange dish. Painful spice, yet no unpleasantness.
Gerard had already fallen deep into the stir-fried octopus's trap.
He simply hadn't realized it himself.
"Fine. I'll bring back that spice. If I succeed, you'll serve me again."
"Naturally I would—for someone who's proven worthy."
"Then I'm off!"
Gerard set out northward once more.
For the sake of eating stir-fried octopus again.
Princess Diana stood before the emperor and his ministers.
"I have uncovered evidence that a faction of the nobles backing the First Prince have long been worshiping the Demon King whom the first emperor and his party crushed in ages past."
A stir rippled through the Grand Hall. The moment the name of a long-vanquished Demon King left the imperial princess's lips, the ministers' reactions split evenly.
"How could this be..."
Some lamented the horror of it.
"......."
Others fretted over the weakening of the Noble Faction.
The First Prince watched Princess Diana with teeth clenched tight. Had the emperor not been present, he would have argued back on the spot.
"Continue."
The emperor stroked his white beard.
Princess Diana paid the room's reaction no mind and went on.
"This is proof that Lord Bellosa and certain other western nobles have become worshipers of the Demon King. Given that they possessed intelligence on the Saintess before she announced her pilgrimage, we believe heretics have also concealed themselves within the Order."
The emperor examined the evidence she presented and smiled.
"Heh... magical photographs, supporting documents... these are unmistakably genuine. With evidence this solid, we can no longer stand idle. Wouldn't you agree, Duke?"
The emperor's smiling eyes settled on Duke Perdes, head of the Noble Faction. Ivan's father.
The duke bowed his head, composed.
"Should you give the command now, I will personally execute the heretics and traitors, Your Majesty."
The emperor's smile softened at his words.
"That will not be necessary. I have no intention of deploying you to deal with a handful of frontier nobles. The imperial princess who investigated this matter shall lead the subjugation. Provide her the troops to do so."
A campaign led by the imperial princess herself. The gesture sent an unmistakable message: the Imperial Household would personally carry out the execution of traitors.
"Understood, Your Majesty."
"Princess Diana will take command of the Imperial Guard and see to it that every heretic in the west is eradicated."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The Imperial Guard—troops answerable solely to the emperor, now entrusted to the princess. It spoke of where his favor had already settled.
Across the vast hall, joy and despair silently diverged.
"I accept this command, Your Majesty."
Princess Diana smiled and lowered her head.