★★★★★ -Recommended Menu: Pork Belly- A Story from My Novice Knight Days. Back Then, I Would Do Anything to Train My Swordsmanship... [Read More]
★★★★★ -Recommended Menu: Pork Belly- A Story from My Novice Knight Days. Back Then, I Would Do Anything to Train My Swordsmanship... [Read More]
Lancelot.
In the romance fantasy novel I'd read — After I Saved the Male Lead From the Tyrant, He Started Obsessing — he was the mentor who forged Ivan, the male lead, into the empire's greatest knight.
The novel never detailed Ivan's training, of course.
Just a few lines about Ivan studying under a reclusive sword master of the empire and growing stronger.
Even after rising to prominence, he'd seek out his old teacher for sparring matches to sharpen his skills.
Monica, the female lead, even got jealous of Lancelot over that.
His first actual appearance in the novel came much later — when he stepped onto the battlefield to help Ivan raise an army against the tyrant Diana.
He stood at the vanguard of the assault on the imperial castle, holding off the empire's knights as Ivan's forces charged.
I still remember his line vividly.
— Ivan, you must conserve your strength if you mean to defeat the emperor. Take your best and go to the palace. I will hold these ones here.
The author must have had a soft spot for him — even his final scene was treated with care.
— It's no waste to give one life for a lacking student.
Lancelot, facing Andy Warmaiden — the iron-blooded knight, Princess Diana's right hand and ruthless executioner.
The scene where her blade pierced his heart and he still claimed her left arm with his last strike... I'll admit it, I got so wrapped up in it that I cried.
— This much... should be a fitting last gift for my student...
To me, Lancelot was that character — the one who makes a magnificent entrance and a magnificent exit, laying down his life for a new era.
That is absolutely what he was.
And you're telling me this shameless meat thief is Lancelot?
The moment my whole fantasy crumbled to dust.
In the novels, he was genuinely such a cool knight.
This is just...
You know that feeling when you're hiking and you run into some ajusshi knocking back a bowl of makgeolli?
Let's go get some boiled pork, I swear I heard—!
Why am I hearing things now?
He's got that distinguished middle-aged look, sure, but after the man stole my meat, he wasn't exactly winning any beauty points.
Was he a knight of House Britten?
The novel never specified which territory.
It only said he lived in seclusion in the countryside.
Well, Britten Viscounty certainly qualified as countryside.
Not barren, exactly — just the kind of undeveloped land a long way from the capital, without any mines worth money or special resources.
And he'd been serving as a knight commander here, of all places.
I didn't know the reasons, but everyone has their story.
Still, his backstory wasn't what mattered to me.
Princess Diana hasn't become a tyrant yet.
Which meant by the original timeline, Ivan should be training under Lancelot right now, undergoing his explosive growth.
Didn't the novel say his insane talent pushed him close to the Master level in a single year?
The main story of After I Saved the Male Lead From the Tyrant, He Started Obsessing properly kicks off next year — the year Princess Diana becomes empress.
Once crowned, she launches a massive purge of the Noble Faction, bent on centralizing imperial power.
Naturally, she overdoes it — the backlash from the nobility and the common people is so severe that five Blood Purges later, the whole empire spirals into rebellion.
In the process, much of the male lead's family is destroyed, and he himself becomes a target.
The one who saves him is the female lead, Monica.
That's where the novel's story begins.
Which meant I'd run before any of that started.
I thought I'd picked the perfect moment to flee to some rural backwater.
So why the hell was he here?
There was still roughly a year before Princess Diana was supposed to become the empress in the novel.
If Lancelot was already here, though...
Wait. No.
Tell me I'm wrong.
"My hand is feeling rather embarrassed, isn't it?"
I stopped my train of thought and looked at Lancelot's hand.
Right.
Now that I considered it, even if Ivan was here, it wasn't my problem.
After all, Ivan was just someone who would train under Lancelot here and leave on his own when the time came.
That meant as long as I didn't form any personal ties with the bastard, our paths would never have to cross.
Get friendly with the future leader of a rebellion?
Absolutely not.
I refuse. Flatly.
I know better than to hope befriending a romance-fantasy protagonist will lead to good things later.
How many people die alongside Ivan before he finally succeeds in his revolt?
Ivan survives because he's the main character.
I'm not.
I was just a cook knight.
A small, ordinary man who opened a restaurant and meant to lie low under the eaves and pray the storm passed over.
Fine.
I'll keep my distance.
No entanglements beyond what's necessary.
Just let him leave.
The same way I'd fled the princess — I could just as easily slip free of these people.
I was confident in that.
All I had to do was stay quiet as the grave.
"I'm Lucas. The owner of this Knight Restaurant."
"And I've enjoyed a truly fine meal thanks to you."
"And I've lost half my portion thanks to you — can we not gloss over that part?"
My voice came out prickly all on its own.
Finding out this man was Lancelot was a shock, yes — but the rage of a man robbed of his meal burned hotter.
They say you don't even mess with a dog while it's eating.
My grip tightened around his clasped hand without meaning to.
"Hoho, what a grip you've got."
"I eat a lot of good food."
"Hoho. A restaurant that deserves to carry the name 'knight,' indeed."
He barked out a laugh and released my hand.
"Young Heimer sent word about a restaurant in town that teaches knights proper form. I came to see it the moment I returned. I hadn't realized you'd be closed."
His apology was straightforward enough to take the edge off my mood, slightly.
"When I first tasted samgyeopsal, I thought I wanted to take you as my student."
A student?
This man was saying something terrifying.
I absolutely refuse. You hear me?
I fled the capital precisely to avoid getting tangled up with main characters like you people.
And becoming Lancelot's student meant training alongside Ivan.
I do not want to be hanged for treason tied to the same rope as him.
"But it seems you've already attained a level too high for me to teach."
He was nursing a wild misunderstanding from that chopstick skirmish earlier.
I didn't bother to correct him.
Getting tangled in a ludicrous misunderstanding was still a better deal than getting my head lopped off.
Let him misunderstand all he wants.
"Ah — I must pay for what I ate."
Lancelot drew the sword at his hip and extended it toward me.
"This is...?"
"My cherished blade. The Sword of the Lake."
The Sword of the Lake?
Wait.
This was originally the male lead's sword.
Why was Lancelot offering his precious blade — the one he gives the protagonist — to me?
"Why would you...?"
"I had meant to gift it to a treasured student someday, but my mind has changed. A gift of this magnitude for the benefactor who granted me enlightenment — it's only natural."
"Enlightenment... you say?"
"Yes."
I met Lancelot's eyes again.
His gaze held a depth that hadn't been there when he first looked at me.
A gentle yet immense power, carried in that gaze.
And you're telling me he attained enlightenment... from eating samgyeopsal?
Does that even make sense?
"I am but a country knight with little to my name, so I ask that you understand my repaying a kindness with a blade. This covers the apology for the disturbance I caused as well."
"Hold on. Did you just say you're coming back?"
"I did. Did you not grant me a revelation? A leisurely meal beneath the moon, taken with ease. That one meal taught me that ceaselessly whipping oneself is not the sole path to growth."
There it was again — that uniquely knight-ish, bullheaded way of interpreting things.
Was this just how every knight around here was, or was it just Heimer and this guy?
I stood blankly staring at the sword, and Lancelot took that as permission to press the hilt firmly into my hand.
"Sir Lancelot..."
"I will refuse your refusal. You must accept. My honor is at stake."
Right.
Because my life isn't at stake here or anything?
I did worry about what might happen if the sword's rightful heir threw a fit about this...
But I couldn't exactly say that out loud.
'How do you know about Ivan? Are you an imperial spy? Die!'
If he suddenly drew and attacked, I wasn't confident I could handle it.
The man was a sword master.
Worse — a sword master who'd just attained a new level of insight.
A cook knight who'd spent his days stirring pots in the mess hall was not equipped to face that.
"I'll come during business hours next time. I hope we can share another fine match then."
I'd really prefer you didn't come at all.
The words rose right to the tip of my tongue and then sank back down.
Turning away a customer?
That was the one cardinal sin you never committed in a small-town business.
Which left me exactly one possible response.
"Always welcome, honored customer. Haha. Ha."
Damn it.
Being a powerless cook knight with no backing is just miserable.
All I could do was pray inwardly that when he came back, he wouldn't bring Ivan with him.
***
"Delicious."
Lancelot murmured the word under his breath as he made his way back to the viscount's castle.
It had been a long time since he'd felt so richly fed.
His belly had been filled with plentiful food, and his mind had been filled with new insight.
A day on which both body and consciousness had been nourished to the brim.
Had he ever fixated on food like this before?
No.
Never.
To a knight, food was merely fuel to replenish energy.
He'd always told Heimer — who had an odd obsession with fine dining — exactly that.
— You eat to survive. Do not seek out tasty things. You must learn to eat anything so that you can endure any circumstance.
Those were his words.
Yet the food he'd just eaten was so delicious that Lancelot — the same Lancelot — had cast aside all dignity and thought of nothing but the meal.
— A truly delicious restaurant has opened. If you eat there, Commander, even you will change your mind.
"Samgyeopsal, was it..."
It was a dish brimming with a knight's romance.
He liked that it could be grilled and eaten anywhere, even outdoors, with only the sky for a roof.
Lighting a fire on a battlefield was suicide, of course, but during camp — this was a meal you could prepare well enough.
"It hasn't been that long, yet my mouth is already watering."
His thoughts drifted back to the skirmish over that last piece of meat.
He'd thrown away all his dignity and gone at it with genuine intent, just to claim that final bite.
He'd held back his mana, but nothing else — he'd poured every ounce of his skill into that chopstick battle.
More than thirty years of accumulated experience and subtle technique, and he'd still lost.
If that had been a battlefield, his life would have ended then and there.
He'd heard the man was from the Imperial Knight Order.
Yet to be so young and possess the skill to beat him...
'He doesn't seem like a mere knight.'
What was a man of that caliber doing in a backwater like this?
"Well. I'm hardly one to talk."
Everyone had their circumstances.
The same as himself — having left the lord he once served years ago and gone into seclusion in this very place.
"I received no small enlightenment as well."
— Whipping yourself is not the only way to grow.
— Sometimes, you must grant yourself ease.
"This is precisely why sparring with an equal is necessary."
The insight he'd gained was worth far more than the sword he'd gifted away.
He could always choose another gift for when his student became a full-fledged knight.
Lancelot allowed himself a small smile and recalled the errand that had taken him outside the castle in the first place.
The student he had taken on in secret.
A young whelp from a tiny mountain village, whose talent had never been given the chance to bloom.
The boy had been so wounded, so wary of people — like a stray pup — that Lancelot's heart had ached and he had accepted him as a student.
A child whose gifts were so extraordinary that Lancelot simply couldn't bear to leave him untrained.
He had sought out the restaurant hoping its owner, Lucas, might become a good senior figure to the boy.
He had misjudged.
Lucas was already a figure too substantial for him to simply take under a wing.
"I'll have to tell Ivan as well. That impatience alone won't solve everything."
His heart stirred at the thought of bringing the boy here someday.
He suspected he'd be visiting that restaurant quite often.
==============
★★★★★
A meal that overturned my every notion that food existed only to fill the stomach.
I never knew the belly fat of a Pog could be such a savory cut.
The chew of the lean meat and the rich nuttiness of the fat coexist so perfectly that the meat alone overwhelms so many other dishes.
That moment was also when I felt, in my bones, that true flavor is not a matter of technique but of raw material class.
Every moment spent gazing at the moonlit night, leisurely waiting for the meat to finish cooking, struck me as something deeply and inexplicably charming.
Such is the way of the sword as well.
Fixating solely on growth and driving yourself forward is not the only way to advance.
Sometimes you must look down upon your own circumstances — your flaws and your strengths...
[Read More]
Recommended Menu: Chef's Special — Samgyeopsal Enjoyed Under the Moonlight.
I have much I wish to say about this as well, but the moonlit scenery...
[Read More]
— Lancelot, Knight Commander of the Viscount's House
==============
"Why am I getting chills all of a sudden?"
Utterly oblivious, Lucas felt an inexplicable unease ripple through him and gave a small shiver.
A cold dread had crept over him.
***
The days after opening were a blur of running the restaurant.
Waking early to sort the ingredients and wait for customers.
Heimer and the other officials working within the territory would come for lunch, and during the afternoon break, just as I was sorting the dinner ingredients, the rancher who ran the nearby chicken farm and livestock operation would arrive to deliver meat.
I'd scramble to place orders and trim and prep everything, and before I knew it, the evening guests were trickling in, and not long after, it was closing time.
I'd shut my eyes and open them, and somehow a full week had already flown past.
No single day had been as frantic as opening day, but for a restaurant set up in the countryside, it was still absurdly busy.
"I never imagined it'd be this hectic."
We had way more customers than I'd planned for.
Maybe that was why.
I'd forgotten entirely about the morning fishing trips to secure fresh fish — the routine I'd originally meant to keep up every day.
People were perfectly happy flooding in just for the bulbaek, the donkatsu, and the dakttongjip bokkeum.
Although even among those happy customers, I still caught a few murmurs of complaint.
Namely, that the menu was far too small.
They're not wrong.
This many dishes wasn't enough to be satisfied with.
I had to make more variety.
Why?
Simple personal satisfaction.
Tasting a wide range of dishes I'd made with my own hands — and watching customers try and enjoy the food that I found delicious.
That, for some reason, was genuinely rewarding.
Sure, I'd fled to a rural territory to survive the coming chaos, but I still can't stand giving up good food.
So today I'd woken up earlier than usual, headed out to the shore, and cast my line.
"Nice!"
The long-missed thrill of a fish on the hook tugged the corner of my mouth into a twitchy grin before I could stop it.
I didn't land any meter-plus olive flounders like before, but I did pull in a few pollack — called bloom fish in this world — and a few mackerel, which they call arrow meat here.
Not a bad haul at all.
"These'll definitely work as a lunch special."
I loaded up the fresh catch and headed back to the restaurant.
I was right in the middle of prepping the ingredients when—
"Pardon me."
The blue-haired noblewoman who'd visited before had returned.
Dressed neatly as always, she strode steadily into the restaurant, heels clicking, and seated herself at the table in front of the kitchen.
Then, without a word, she studied the menu board.
"This 'fish dish' — does that mean you cook using whatever fish were caught that day?"
— Fish Dish — 12 Silver — Menu varies by the day's catch.
She pointed at the line on the board as she asked.
"Technically, yes. But we're not open for business yet, so—"
"I'll wait. Surely it's no trouble if I stay and watch?"
She answered before I'd even finished, tilting her head up to look at me.
Her eyes held something that felt almost like iron-hard resolve.
What is this?