Bldi Sneaks into the Restaurant
Bldi Sneaks into the Restaurant
The lights of the Knight Restaurant burned well into the night.
"Ahhh, now that's the stuff!"
Heimer, Lancelot, and the viscountcy's knights drained their soju glasses with a chorus of satisfied groans.
In their hands was fried chicken, fresh from the oil.
Beside it sat garlic soy sauce chicken, glazed in a reduction of garlic, soy sauce, malt syrup, and sugar.
It was my way of thanking the knights who'd shouldered extra work in my place during the three days it took the priest to erect the holy barrier.
The same way I'd used Andrea as a test subject for seasoned chicken, I used them to gauge the garlic soy sauce chicken.
It seemed the verdict was favorable.
"Whoo, this 'chicken' thing is incredible. Not as good as donkatsu, of course! Hahaha!"
Heimer, who maintained that donkatsu was the pinnacle of chivalric cuisine, laughed heartily even as he conceded the chicken's merits.
He still held his ground on his soul food.
"You've no idea how long I've been waiting to try this."
Lancelot, chuckling, was pairing his chicken with soju.
Hamilton, who hadn't dared show his face at the restaurant since the bone-broth theft, was working his way through a piece while shooting furtive glances around the room. Lancelot had told me he'd been hunting the man down nearly every day since that incident.
The crime: daring to steal food meant for the lord.
Viscount Britten was good-natured enough to let it slide, but a different lord might well have stripped him of his knighthood and thrown him out for that.
"Delicious!"
Hamilton's declaration, delivered with crisp formality, made Lancelot let out another laugh.
"The young master would devour this if he got a taste."
"Is the young master doing well?"
"Oh, he's fine. So thoroughly hooked on your cooking that the viscountcy's chef is losing his mind."
"Why's that?"
"Why do you think? When you're eating food this good every so often, the chef's own fare starts falling short. The whole burden lands on the poor chef. He's suffering for it."
Heimer answered Lancelot.
"That man deserves a little suffering. Someone who can't put a scrap of chivalry into his cooking has no business calling himself a chef."
"Heimer, there aren't many who can work chivalry into a dish. Sir Lucas may well be the only one."
"Agreed, Commander."
Done talking, Heimer tore into a drumstick.
Ahhh, delicious.
The satisfied murmur reached my ears.
"You didn't bring Ivan."
"He's injured. Resting and training at his family's estate. He's been grinding his teeth, swearing he'll come challenge you again once he's healed."
Slightly drunk, Heimer shot upright at the mention of Ivan's name.
"Commander, you know this Ivan?"
"Know him? Of course I do. Did something happen between you two?"
"Ha! Unbelievable! Pass him a message for me! Tell that petty bastard that real chivalric food isn't decided by someone who can't even respect another man's cooking philosophy!"
"Ho ho ho. It seems that lad dismissed your chivalry. Understood. I'll tell him myself."
I recalled the comment Ivan had left on Heimer's review.
'So that's what this is about.'
Ivan had posted a reply that was condescending, to say the least.
Being a bullheaded, self-centered type was practically a defining trait of a romance-fantasy male lead.
'Honestly, that kind of guy is exhausting to have around.'
Also, the type who starts fights wherever he goes.
"When I meet that bastard in person, I intend to show him what true chivalric food really is!"
Crisp crack!
Heimer tore into the remaining chicken leg.
I had to admit, he ate it well.
"Speaking of which."
As I tilted back my own glass alongside them, my eyes landed on Andrea, somehow wedged into the group and gnawing on a piece of chicken.
I distinctly remembered her eating dinner before starting work.
"Why are you over there eating, too?"
"Mmphh mrrmph?"
Mouth crammed full of garlic chicken and rice, she mumbled something indistinct.
"Stop talking and stop eating. Eating at this hour'll make you put on weight."
"Mmph, mmrrmph mphh!"
Probably arguing that food eaten happily has zero calories, or something to that effect.
"Eating happily still makes you fat."
"......."
Only then did she shut her mouth and chew the chicken slowly, deliberately. She kept at it for a long while, as if staging a protest to savor it for as long as humanly possible.
"So, what's with the meat cow?"
I pointed at the cow tethered near the entrance.
Lancelot and the knights had brought it with them, but I had no idea why they'd tied it up outside my restaurant.
"That's a gift from the lord. To you."
"To me? I haven't done anything to warrant it."
"Haven't done anything? You detected a magi-tainted creature and drove it out. That absolutely warrants compensation."
"Ah."
I hadn't actually caught the thing myself — it wasn't much to claim credit for — but I didn't bother arguing the point.
The lord was bestowing a symbolic reward for the purging of something unholy.
And I had no reason to refuse a gift.
"As you wished, we'll report that the knights vanquished the creature. Are you certain you're all right with that? If circumstances were framed differently, you might receive better treatment..."
"Sir Lancelot, aren't you in the same position as I am?"
"Ah, I spoke out of turn. Forgive me. Sir Lucas is so young, sometimes I forget."
Lancelot caught my meaning and apologized.
Just as he'd left central politics behind and chosen Britten, I'd found my own contentment running a restaurant here.
I didn't want to create anything that would catch the attention of the central government or the imperial household.
'They can't exactly announce that a vampire appeared, so they'll put out that a demon beast showed up and was dealt with.'
The story would be trimmed down when it was relayed. No investigators would be coming.
I looked at the meat cow tethered at the entrance.
"Hmm... I've got no place to raise it. That leaves only one use."
Moo.
The cow stared back at me with wide, innocent eyes.
Sorry, but I don't have much choice here.
We've all got to eat to live.
It had been a while since I'd had cause to wield the Butcher's Sword.
The moment I drew it, Lancelot hurriedly rose from his seat.
"Ahem. I, I'll be taking my leave first."
Maybe it bothered him, seeing his cherished sword used solely for slaughtering animals.
From what Ivan told me, Lancelot had been quite attached to this blade.
'This sword is mine now. I can do whatever I want with it. Understood?'
I found myself cackling with an expression that could only be described as thuggish.
Ah, hell.
Was this a side effect of wielding a blade that had drunk so much blood?
'Get a grip. No teabagging.'
As Lancelot rose, the other knights swallowed their reluctance and stood as well.
"We'll be off as well, then. It was truly delicious."
"We'll come again tomorrow."
"Thank you for your hard work!"
The other four knights tidied their places and got up.
"Andrea."
"Yes, boss."
"Clear the tables, do the dishes, and go home."
"Huh? But what about the cow?"
"I can handle it myself."
"Understood."
While she tackled the final cleanup before leaving, I built a support frame capable of hanging the cow, then looped a rope around its hind legs.
So I could bleed it and break it down quickly.
'I shouldn't let the blood go to waste this time.'
Receiving fresh slaughter-grade ingredients like this demanded a new challenge.
Collecting the blood called for advance preparation.
A clean bucket filled with salt water, and an environment perfectly suited to draining.
A stable setup that wouldn't jostle while I collected the blood and let it set into seonji.
And a refrigerator to store it immediately afterward.
I still regretted not being able to make seonji from the tuu's blood back then.
Moo. Mooo.
The meat cow lowed as if it had resigned itself to fate.
Sorry, but that's not going to save you.
I brought my fist down fast against the crown of its head.
The alcohol still lingered in my system, but the motion was flawless — not a hair off.
Drinking and handling a blade is generally a terrible idea.
But if I didn't do this now, there wouldn't be another chance. I had no choice.
The cow went slack, unconscious.
Before the animal could wake, I hauled on the rope tied to its hind legs and hoisted it upward.
The pulley engaged, lifting the carcass, and I placed the large saltwater basin beneath it before cutting the carotid artery.
Slick!
From the neck cleanly opened by the butcher's blade, blood gushed as though from a pump-driven well, pouring into the basin below.
Once I'd confirmed the cow was fully drained, I broke the carcass down at speed.
The process was second nature by now.
Midway through the deboning, I periodically skimmed the foam from the blood basin and stirred the water gently to help it set properly.
I could have asked Andrea for help...
'But I can't ask her to work this late.'
Treating the off-duty knights to chicken and soju as thanks had pushed the hour past one in the morning.
'I'll sleep in tomorrow.'
I could leave some of the prep to Andrea.
She needed the exercise anyway — something to do in my place.
I looked at the seonji, already congealing into a deep red mass.
'Serving seonji at the restaurant might be tough.'
Eating blood was, understandably, a polarizing thing.
The conventional wisdom said seonji-guk made with fresh blood shouldn't taste gamey, but people with sensitive palates often found even the freshest seonji off-putting.
And because it was made from blood, the ingredient itself provoked a strong instinctive aversion.
People who loved it loved it obsessively, though.
It was even more divisive than cheonggukjang.
'If I put it out for imperial citizens, they'd call me a barbarian for sure.'
The odds were high they'd point fingers and say it was the sort of thing only the northern tribes did.
And so...
"I'll just keep it for myself."
That said, while I was making seonji haejangguk, I planned to put ugeoji haejangguk on the menu as well.
The gukbap had gotten a strong response last time, and I remembered that well. Ugeoji haejangguk would likely catch on quickly, too.
Like the ssam vegetables I'd planted in the back garden, ugeoji and siraegi were already spread out nicely in one corner to dry.
They'd soon be properly dried and ready to cook. I planned to offer them as a limited-time seasonal item.
Packed with ugeoji, minced garlic, and bean sprouts, with cheongyang peppers chopped fine.
Depending on the price, topping the haejangguk with well-boiled brisket would round it out nicely.
Gazing at the setting seonji, I allowed myself a satisfied smile.
"Get up early tomorrow and simmer a haejangguk with this seonji. It'll be incredible."
I already couldn't wait for the next day and the new menu.
"And I've had just enough to drink, too. Let's sample how good this is as a hangover cure."
***
Sniff sniff sniff.
In front of Lucas's Knight Restaurant, Bldi — having dropped her transformation — surveyed her surroundings.
None of the viscountcy soldiers had noticed her infiltration while she'd been in bat form.
Stealth was her second greatest specialty.
Her first?
That would be running away.
Bldi had three specialties.
The first two were what she was known for. The third, the one that remained?
'Scenting blood.'
Nothing grand — but it mattered enormously.
Because she could tell how delicious blood was from scent alone.
Truthfully, she'd been following the smell from the chicken farm when she ended up here.
"What... does that say...?"
The unfamiliar letters of the signboard made her vision swim.
She didn't know what it meant, but the scent coming from this place was incredible.
A sharp, tingling aroma that made her whole body prickle.
"It... it's in here."
The same blood she'd tasted from the coco.
That scent — the one that left every nerve buzzing — drew her inside the building as though she'd been enchanted.
A locked door blocked her path, but that was a trivial obstacle for a reasonably skilled vampire like herself.
Slither.
She dissolved into even smaller bats and seeped lightly through the gap beneath the door.
"The smell's coming from here."
She passed through the table-filled lobby and slipped into the kitchen, where tile floors and a drain channel guided her way.
And there: the refrigerator.
"Here... A de-delicious smell..."
Sniffing at the scent escaping the seal, she opened the door.
Inside, freshly butchered cuts of meat greeted her, and beside them — submerged in water — an unfamiliar, deep-red mass.
"Is this... blood?"
Why was it all congealed like this?
The question barely had time to form before she found herself reaching toward the seonji.
She tore off a piece of the completely unprocessed seonji.
And after staring at the chunk for a long moment, she brought it cautiously to the tip of her tongue.
"Sweet."
Alongside that characteristic sugary note of blood—
"Salty."
There came the saltiness, a flavor she'd never encountered before.
It was an entirely new experience.
"Hm... I, is it okay if I... eat a little more?"
Her eyes wide at this unprecedented taste, she placed the small torn piece of raw seonji into her mouth and chewed.
"Wh... what?"
Texture — something she'd never once encountered in her vampire existence — made her eyes grow even larger.