Dak-gomtang Good for Hangovers and Everything Else
"Uuuaaaargh....."
"Gordon. Just how much did you drink to be dying like this?"
Karem's confusion was only natural. Unlike his previous life, where he had never been particularly close with alcohol, during his time in Moston Village in this one he had often—no, frequently—seen people suffering through hangovers. Mostly that biological father of his, the village's sole priest, and the village chief, but still.
Even so, when someone looked so haggard it was hard to tell him from a corpse, questions that hadn't existed before were bound to spring up. Just what kind of liquor had half-killed this veteran mercenary who could take down a wild boar head-on? Could it be that, contrary to his appearance, he couldn't handle anything but beer?
"Kheuuuugh. Ghuuugh. Drunken... Fire..."
"Drunken Fire? I feel like I've heard of that somewhere."
The cause of the hangover: Drunken Fire. Karem tilted his head. He was sure he had heard of it before. No empty talk—he really had. Where had he heard it? What was it?
Catherine, seated in the place of honor in the kitchen and sorting through scrolls, let out a disbelieving snort of laughter.
"Hah, Drunken Fire? I doubt he stopped at a single glass."
"Is it that strong?"
"Kid. Drunken Fire is a liquor so strong it catches fire. It's so potent and the alcohol so pure that it's even used as an alchemical catalyst or a magical reagent."
"It catches fire..."
Karem thought it over carefully. Everyone knew that the higher the proof, the more readily a liquor burned. As far as he knew, though, the kinds that actually caught flame were distillates like whiskey, vodka, or spiritus. And Gordon had downed a whole bottle of it?
"Uh... is he even human...?"
Catherine clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"It's obvious, isn't it? That mercenary swagger of theirs kicked in."
"...Karem. I get the feeling the way you talk to the mage has gotten pretty shameless."
"Lady Atanitas."
"Mercenary. Are you threatening my personal chef?"
Catherine punished Gordon as if to say he had better not dare threaten the chef she had hired first. Not that she hurled magic at him or kicked him in the shin. She simply moved her leg, very lightly, and tapped the leg of the stool Gordon was sitting on.
For Gordon, who had crawled into the kitchen on all fours thanks to his hangover, that was more than enough.
"Gguuaaagh! M-my head and my gut are ringing at the same time!?"
"...That reaction is a little off. Now even I'm curious. Just how much did you drink to end up like this? Ten glasses?"
"O-one bottle..."
"..."
Catherine, who had been resting her chin on her wrist, froze in shock—so thoroughly that the strength left her other hand and she face-planted onto the table. Gordon's words packed that much destructive force.
A single bottle of Drunken Fire was enough to drop even an ogre dead drunk, and even a dwarf would be bedridden. For a mere human to empty one... if Gordon was telling the truth, the fact that he was still alive was a miracle.
"Hah. Listen, mercenary."
"Ugh. Yes?"
"You're not actually a dwarf pretending to be human, are you?"
The whole situation was so bizarre that curiosity began to bloom in Catherine instead, and she started pelting the hangover-dying Gordon with questions, attacking him with words. Meanwhile, Karem lifted the lid of the pot that had been simmering on the hearth for hours.
What was boiling inside was dak-gomtang.
He had taken the dressed chicken Gordon had won in a drinking bet late the previous night, given it a quick sear, then tossed in green onion, onion, radish, and a little garlic, and started simmering it low and slow hours ago. It was a tough old rooster, true—but that was exactly why taking the time to extract the broth brought out its true worth.
Fortunately the storeroom out back was stacked high with all sorts of vegetables, so Karem had thrown them in without stinting. This was the first Korean dish he had made since reincarnating into this world. He took a small taste and squeezed his eyes shut in pure emotion.
But once the brief moment of rapture passed, regret rushed in right on its heels. If only he had real black pepper and a bowl of rice! Still, what wasn't there simply wasn't there. He filled a bowl with plenty of meat and broth, seasoned it generously with salt, and held it out to the dying Gordon.
Clack!
"Here, Gordon. Eat this and pull yourself together a little, yeah?"
"Gguuuung..."
Even twitching a finger was hard for Gordon. Yet the rich aroma rising from the bowl placed by his head made his body move on instinct.
Slurp.
Simply lifting the bowl was a struggle, but as the saying went, once you start something you're already halfway there. Gordon felt the thick chicken stock and chicken fat sink into his gut—which had felt like it was full of holes and burning raw—and the pain begin to subside.
Mercenaries and liquor were inseparable. And just as inseparable from liquor was the hangover cure. Gordon had traveled the Europa continent as a mercenary and tried every hangover remedy under the sun, but nothing had ever been as effective as this piping-hot broth.
"Khuaaaaaah! Ah, I might live after all."
"..."
When the hangover-stricken zombie revived as Gordon again, Catherine whipped her head around and fixed her gaze on Karem. She said nothing, but the meaning was obvious. Karem, who had prepared the gomtang, immediately held out a spoonful of meat and vegetables toward her.
"Mm. The meat comes right off the bone with nothing but a spoon. It's been a while since I've had chicken cooked this thoroughly."
"It's a rooster, and an old one at that, so I took my time to make it tender."
"Right. If you'd boiled it even a little longer the bones themselves would have crumbled."
Just as she said. The bones of the old rooster, every last drop of broth and fat already leached out of them, fell apart with almost no effort. The considerable heat of the oven's attached hearth had helped as well. Long-simmered chicken that shredded along the grain until it dissolved. The sweetness of green onion and onion that collapsed under the mere movement of a tongue, marrying with the long-extracted chicken fat, gently wrapped Catherine's mouth and was absorbed.
Catherine silently praised her own decision to hire Karem on the spot at lunch the day before. She smiled without thinking, then felt Karem's gaze from beside her and hastily fixed her expression. Pride alone demanded she not show an embarrassing face in front of Karem and the mercenary.
"Whew, I might actually live now. My stomach feels completely cleared out."
"You finished fast. Want another bow—"
"Right. By the way, a chicken soup this tender and rich—how long did you boil it, exactly?"
"I've had it going since before sunrise until now."
The pile of firewood stacked on one side of the kitchen had visibly dwindled because of it, but Karem considered it a necessary sacrifice for a proper deep broth. Given how eager their host Hammerson was to hand over anything and everything to Catherine, the man would probably have told him to use even more.
Gordon polished off his refilled bowl of dak-gomtang in an instant this time, then shook his head, trying to clear the remaining fog.
"Ugh, now that my strength's coming back I need to get my head on straight."
"Got somewhere urgent to be?"
"I took yesterday off completely, so starting today I need to take on commissions again."
In winter the only jobs available were the dangerous ones, so unless a request was truly desperate or paid an enormous fee, even mercenaries took a rest period. Adventurers were the same. That made spring and autumn the peak seasons for commissions of every kind, yet Karem still found it strange.
"Gordon. You split it with Lady Atanitas, sure, but don't you still have a mountain of gold coins?"
"I do. But Karem?"
"Yes."
"No matter how much money you have, it's never enough. Well then, I'm off."
"Fine. I won't see you out."
"Of course not, Mage. Karem, the food was great while it lasted."
Gordon drained every last drop of broth left in the bowl and left the kitchen before Karem could say another word. Karem wondered whether he really didn't need to see the man out, but when Catherine silently rapped the table he quietly resumed attending to her meal.
"There's plenty of meat and vegetables, so now I want some bread."
"Ah—shall I toast some for you?"
"No. Tear it into small pieces and soak it in the broth. You know how, don't you?"
Yes. Karem immediately understood what Catherine was asking for and reached for a loaf that had gone hard. Soaking bread in broth instead of rice might seem unfamiliar at first glance—it wasn't even soup, after all. But in every region of the world where wheat and bread were the staple, dipping bread in broth was every bit as natural as mixing rice into soup.
The loaves they had on hand, however, were awkward to tear and feed to Catherine as they were. Karem cut the bread into bite-sized pieces and soaked them in the broth. Catherine nodded in satisfaction as if to say that was exactly it, and accepted the pieces that had drunk their fill of chicken fat and gomtang stock until they were soft, popping them into her mouth.
Meat really does need to be eaten with bread. It pairs wonderfully with that oily, deep broth.
The gourmet truth that protein is incomplete without carbohydrates—Catherine, who had long since learned it through experience, finished her meal in high spirits.
Once Catherine's meal was over it was finally Karem's turn. The boy promptly ladled out his own share of the gomtang. While he had been attending Catherine, the broth had reduced even further. The solids had grown still more tender, and the umami of the stock had deepened. The thick, sticky intensity and heat of the gomtang made Karem's brain cheer aloud.
His tongue, however, trembled its taste buds in pure longing. Rice! A bowl of white rice! Crunchy kkakdugi! Green-onion kimchi!
Impossible demands kept popping up in his heart like moles, and Karem mercilessly smashed each mole named "regret" with the hammer of reason. And while he was fighting that internal civil war of the heart beside Catherine, who was waiting for him to finish eating—
Knock-knock-knock—! Knock-knock-knock—!
"Pardon the early hour, but I was told Lady Catherine Marigold Atanitas is staying here!"
A visitor had arrived.