Another Reincarnator (2)
Since reincarnating, Karem had only ever seen one person so staggeringly beautiful it left his jaw hanging open. Catherine. That was it.
Of course, in his previous life he had seen plenty through a screen—Henry Cavill, the Olivia Hotsera of her heyday, and so on.
And right now, Karem could not help but feel that same awe.
When a person meets someone on a completely different level, they naturally feel admiration and accept it. The same logic applied when even another man looked at this face and thought, Damn, that is unfairly good-looking.
Bold yet refined features. A nose with just the right sharpness paired with a soft overall impression. Eyes and brows that carved a keen edge into an otherwise gentle face.
Holy shit, is that even a human face? The thought that the gods were truly unfair crossed his mind.
He was certain this man would rank among the top three handsomest faces he had ever seen—even counting the LED-screen idols of his past life.
Crunch, crackle, munch, crunch—
"Eeeugh?"
Those handsome cheeks looked ready to burst.
Their owner was currently devouring the wyvern chicken Karem had been eating.
"…At least have a drink first. You're making the people watching you feel short of breath."
The handsome man—Michael—blinked rapidly, flashed a bright smile, gave a polite little bow, then seized his mug with both hands and chugged the beer.
Gulp—gulp—gulp—
"Pwah—. Truly magnanimous. O God."
"No, seriously, what is with the 'God' talk?"
"My words are just."
Michael lifted a piece of soy-garlic wyvern chicken with eyes full of rapture. The sheer reverence was so unnecessary it left Karem speechless.
And first of all, the name itself was bothering him. "Michael" alone was common enough in his past life—like a Kim or a Lee—but then "Jackson" was stuck on the end.
Jackson was also a common surname, but put them together…
He had said he was looking for other reincarnators. So he had chosen the name deliberately, and it was proving remarkably effective.
"After reincarnating, everything I ate was pure garbage. The dishes I paid good money for were a little better, but every single one was greasy and heavy."
"…That bad?"
"And then there's that mint tea that's been trendy lately, and the Servianus cuisine… Have you tried Servianus food?"
"Mint tea aside, it's basically like Italian—"
"Exactly. They drown everything in olive oil."
Whether this body had perfectly inherited his past-life palate or not, almost every dish that entered Michael's mouth left him feeling greasy and bloated.
Western-style dishes from his previous life had begun trickling in since summer, which had delighted him at first, but what he truly craved was something else entirely.
He missed his mother's homemade kimchi.
Seasoning with salt instead of soy sauce had grown tiresome.
He wanted to escape the flour-and-butter sludge that sat heavy in his stomach, scoop rice into a bowl of doenjang stew, tear off a strip of kimchi, and eat it all together.
"Yet you brought all of that into this world. Even if it isn't chili peppers, there's the powder from Red Witch's Finger and the tomatoes that resemble them. Recipes can be reverse-engineered, but soy sauce?!"
"Well… I did go through a bit of trouble for that."
"I may not know much about cooking, but I know this: soy sauce is made from meju. Which means doenjang must exist as well."
"Well… yes."
"That is the very proof that you are a god!"
Karem had thought Jigmeser's habitual worship was the absolute peak, yet Michael outdid him. And this man was supposedly the Grandmaster of the Royal Guard? Honestly, it was exhausting.
Then, suddenly, he felt a gaze.
Karem flicked only his eyes to the side.
Ziiing—
The three pairs of eyes carved into the Three Gods relief on the portable altar he had left on the table seemed to hold some profound, complicated emotion.
Aside from the sheer awkwardness, calling someone a god in a world where gods actually existed was pure blasphemy. Guilt pricked him from the inside out.
The Three Gods had been right here only moments ago.
And even now they seemed to be watching through the altar.
"Look, in a world where gods actually exist, calling a person a god is seriously blasphemous. There's a perfectly good altar sitting right—"
"It does not matter if you refuse to believe! I believe!"
Michael declared this with chicken crumbs, soy sauce glaze, and bits of braised garlic stuck all around his mouth. His eyes shone with something close to fanaticism.
Karem felt the complicated gaze from the altar shift toward Michael and let out a sigh.
"…Anyway."
Putting the whole "god" nonsense aside, there was a question he had decided long ago he would ask if he ever met another reincarnator. Might as well get it out of the way.
"Have you ever met any reincarnators besides me?"
"Gulp. Please. O God. Drop the honorifics."
"No… I mean…"
Michael's face set into the stubborn expression of a man who would not answer unless spoken to casually. The fact that such a ridiculously handsome face could look so solemn over something as petty as "talk to me casually" made Karem's head hurt.
"Haa. Fine. Not 'yes.' Yeah."
"And yes, I have met another reincarnator."
"Oh, really?"
"I don't know about his past life, but in this one he was some count family's Edward."
Michael licked his fingers clean one by one and grinned.
"I tore him apart with my own two hands."
…Excuse me? You did what to whom?
Michael had said it so casually that only when Karem took a few cautious steps backward did he finally look flustered and start waving both hands frantically in the air.
"No, calm yourself. Do you truly think I would kill you?"
"…"
"O God. That Edward bastard—that jjanggae—deserved to die a hundred times over!"
"…Chinese guy?"
"Chinese?! Every Chinese person already died in front of Tiananmen Square!"
Michael's face twisted in sudden fury, and he began chewing the wyvern chicken like a wolf savaging a lamb.
"That damn doenom insulted me from the very first meeting. If we had met in a civilized world in our past lives for work, I would have forced a smile and let it go. But in a world where fists are closer than the law? There was no need to endure it."
Jjanggae.
For a moment the half-forgotten old neighborhood slur for the idiot next door felt strangely warm and nostalgic… No, wait.
Hold on, the nuance at the end there was a little off.
Karem adjusted his posture slightly and asked carefully.
"…You killed him?"
"I did. I've lived decades since reincarnating, so my memory isn't perfect, but… ah, right. There's a saying from the old world."
Michael reverently drained the beer Karem had poured for him, then turned his head and belched.
"'Civilized people are ruder than barbarians because they never get an axe to the head.' I think Barbarian Detective Conan said that. I finally understood how true it was."
Hearing purebred barbarian talk come out of a face handsomer than most male idols of his past life was something Karem simply could not get used to.
"And do you know what that doenom said? He claimed jjajangmyeon was a cheap knockoff of zhajiangmian, and kept calling Korea a tributary state, a minor nation."
"…Setting the second part aside. You do know the original is zhajiangmian, right? Or jiangjangmian."
"I know that, but the two dishes are completely different, are they not?"
Karem nodded. Korean-Chinese cuisine and authentic mainland Chinese food were indeed distinct.
"Still, you could have just cooked it yourself—"
"Maybe in my early days of living alone. But once work piled up, I got older, and my position rose… eating out became the natural default."
"Ah."
"All-nighters, overtime, dining out, delivery—decades of it. I forgot how to cook ages ago. And then I reincarnated like this."
The life of a middle-aged office worker.
The result was thoroughly bitter.
"Haa, now I can't even remember what the dish looked like. I only recall the noodles were black… I think…"
The fanatic light in Michael's eyes flickered. From the moment he heard the word "jjajangmyeon," he had been watching Karem, who had crossed his arms and begun rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
One eyebrow raised, staring into empty air, arms folded, chin being stroked… Michael froze mid-bite, eyes going wide.
"…You can make it?"
Could he make jjajangmyeon?
Exactly the same? No.
Something close? That was possible.
"Doesn't that require chunjang, that pitch-black Chinese fermented sauce? No matter how much soy sauce and doenjang you've made—"
"It's just black in color. It's basically Chinese-style doenjang."
"What."
If one dug deeper, there were significant differences in flavor, but yes—you could make jjajangmyeon with doenjang.
In jjajang, the role of the black chunjang was mainly aroma.
The real taste came from the cabbage, the onion, and the soy sauce.
At least, that was how Karem understood it.
"But you've lived decades in this world. And you said you were already middle-aged in your past life—"
"Casual speech."
"Even so, your age—"
"O God. Please, speak comfortably—"
"Fine, okay, I get it. I said I get it."
When Karem waved his hands in disgust at the even more formal phrasing, Michael nodded in satisfaction.
"As I said, after more than ten years of overtime and all-nighters as if they were meals, there is no energy left for cooking."
Just imagining it was horrifying. Even though it was decades in the past, the memory alone made Michael shudder as if goosebumps had risen on his skin.
"The reason I ended up like this is because I spent decades collecting evidence of the higher-ups' corruption and, on the day I received my 'recommended resignation,' I reported everything to the labor department."
"…Huh?"
"My company was a subcontractor. Turns out a lot more people than expected had dirty hands connected to that data."
Michael looked down at his empty plate with open regret. Fortunately the next batch of wyvern chicken had just finished frying, so Karem quickly tossed it in the sauce and plated it.
"Here, last one. So then?"
"Ahem. My thanks. Another subcontractor got flipped, then it spread like a spiderweb until the main company itself was turned inside out by the labor department and internal audit. On my way to appear as a witness, I got stabbed right in front of the courthouse. Someone with a grudge, no doubt."
"By any chance, what was the name of that main company…?"
"Hm? Obviously the biggest conglomerate in Korea. Daesung."
"…Isn't that SamX?"
"SamX? Is there a conglomerate by that name among the great corporations of the United States of Korea?"
"…Not the Republic of Korea?"
Huh? Huh? Both of them felt something was off, but Michael simply shook his head.
"Well, roughly similar yet different—maybe it's the same country in a parallel world. I vaguely remember game novels from my past life calling it… a parallel world?"
"Parallel world."
"I may not look it, but back in the PC communication days I hunted down novels both domestic and foreign."
"Well… reincarnation already happened, so."
"What matters is that we are alive in this very moment, is it not?"
Karem deeply agreed. After scraping by in that dogshit village of Moston, he had met Catherine and Gordon, survived, and reached Coldon.
Because he was alive, he was now living a life that might even be richer than his previous one.
Karem was happy.
"You're right."
"Casual speech."
"Come on. Fine. You're right."
Hearing that kind of nonsense come out of a face that even men would admire still refused to settle in his mind.
"…But can you really make jjajangmyeon?"
"Exactly the same? No. Something close? Probably."
"Something close is more than enough."
"I've got a question of my own…"
"Ask anything."
"Is there any way to get rice around here?"
In Europa, the only place that grew it was Servianus, and even that was so popular the entire harvest was consumed domestically.
"But this is the royal capital, so—"
"Ah, I understand that feeling completely."
"Don't tell me?"
"No. I haven't even managed to catch a glimpse of it."
Michael chewed and swallowed the chicken stuffing both cheeks, then shook his head firmly.
"The moment I reached this position, the first thing I searched for was rice. Completely unobtainable. I heard that even the king of a nation cannot purchase it."
"Haa… Well, I have gochujang. Guess I'll have to make do with barley."
"…Gochujang!"
For an instant Michael looked as if he had been struck by lightning, then immediately composed himself. The shock still lingered in his eyes.
"Well, if you have doenjang, of course. But why barley of all things?"
"You can't handle cold barley rice with seasoned vegetables and a smear of gochujang?"
"I've aged just as much since reincarnating as I did in my past life, and I still can't get along with barley."
Michael wiped the residue from his mouth with a look of pure distaste, then suddenly lifted his head as if something had occurred to him.
"Come to think of it, it's almost time for the knights' training."
"Then… about the jjajangmyeon. Next time?"
"Nnngh— Is it truly all right if I ask next time?"
Faced with those desperate eyes, Karem nodded. He saw Michael off as the man left the private room in high spirits. Hearing those words had made him want to feed Catherine jjajangmyeon as well.
I wonder how she'll rate it.
He remembered that Westerners' opinions of jjajangmyeon had always been extremely polarized. Some raved about it; others asked why anyone would eat it.
Knock knock knock knock—
"Hm? What now…"
The door burst open, and there stood Michael, who had left only moments earlier. Karem would never say it out loud because it felt weird between men, but the awkward fidgeting actually suited him.
And he claims to be middle-aged looking like that.
He was older than Gordon yet looked far younger.
"Could I take some chicken to go?"
"Everything left is my portion—the one you already ate into and had refilled."
"Ah… My apologies."
Michael left looking thoroughly dejected.
Immediately afterward, Karem gave the kitchen the bare minimum of tidying for Mary's sake. He left the oil pot covered with its lid and dumped every dish and utensil into the sink.
His stomach was full, yet he was not satisfied—all because of Michael, who was both an uninvited guest and somehow not quite one.
Still, he could not be bothered to cook anything right then, so he piled a plate high with sausages of unknown composition, grabbed the portable altar, and returned to his room.
There he spent the time slicing and eating the sausages in real time with Winter's Lie. Catherine returned late at night, long after dinner.
While she sat at the table chewing a bacon sandwich, Karem reported every single thing that had happened that day.
The faint smile that had rested on Catherine's face as she chewed two slices of sauced bread stuffed with nothing but crispy bacon—not a single vegetable in sight—gradually faded.
"So."
Catherine's eyes narrowed and trembled with the dubious expression of someone not quite sure what she had just heard.
"The Grandmaster of the Royal Guard—Michael, who by custom stands equal to my lord—is actually a reincarnator, from a world similar but not identical to the one you came from, and he declared he would worship you as a god while demanding you speak to him casually?"
"Yes."
"Karem."
"Yes."
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
Karem felt wronged.
But Catherine felt even more absurd.
Mary did not care.