Today I'm a Jjajangmyeon Chef
Naturally, Catherine was flabbergasted.
To think he would ignore her warning outright—a warning she had issued after carefully weighing their origins, dispositions, and the demands of proper etiquette.
Of course, there was room for some leniency. In Iceland, where they had lived until now, no one paid much attention to aristocratic formality so long as one had genuine skill. Basic courtesy and the bare minimum of manners were enough.
Other regions had more elaborate codes, true, but compared to the labyrinthine protocols of Berseingeto or Servianus, they were still remarkably relaxed.
The proof was right there: Karem addressed Grand Duke Godwin with polite speech, yet still casually slapped him with the unvarnished truth whenever he felt like it.
But this—this was a step too far.
To suddenly claim he had become friendly with the commander of the Royal Guard, a man who was, for all practical purposes, another duke in his own right?
That part she could still understand. Friendships often sprang up in the most unexpected places, after all; they simply appeared out of nowhere.
The real problem was Michael Jackson himself.
His youthful looks despite being well past fifty did not particularly matter. Even without ever having met him, she knew Europa was full of such people—elves excluded, of course.
True to his moniker of “Bloodsoaked,” the man never drew his sword without drawing blood as well. And even when he kept the blade sheathed, blood still tended to flow. He was one of the strongest candidates for the title of strongest in the entire Seophon Kingdom.
Come to think of it, that might be exactly why the two of them had hit it off.
Both men had risen far above their humble origins. As for ability—Karem was already a reasonably famous chef even within Seophon, and Michael needed no introduction.
They shared a major commonality: humble birth set against lofty current status. Personal chef to a ducal confidant versus personal martial force to the king himself.
But a reincarnator…?
No—she would deal with that later. Frankly, at this point the revelation that someone else was a reincarnator was hardly shocking; she had one sitting right beside her. She had even exchanged rings with that reincarnator, so what was one more?
What truly concerned her was something else entirely.
A god? He intended to worship someone as a god? The general public would call it blasphemy, yet such people did exist.
Tutatis himself had been elevated to godhood through Skadi’s trial and had ultimately ascended to become a true deity.
Of course, such cases were vanishingly rare. The vast majority were self-proclaimed heretics who popped up like weevils and became the top priority for both adventurers and the Pantheon to eradicate.
Even so… to go so far as to call him a god…?
A fellow reincarnator from another world with similar origins? Similar culture, so he had been fed the food of his homeland…
Homesickness? Still, that extreme?
There was only one conclusion.
She would have to meet Michael in person and judge for herself.
Unfortunately she could not free up time immediately. She already had a mountain of invitations she had accepted.
“Starting tomorrow, you will follow my schedule.”
“What? All of a sudden?”
“All of a sudden? After something like this, you think I can just sit still?”
“Uh… all day tomorrow?”
And Karem’s answer was not what she had expected.
“…Don’t tell me you already have a prior engagement with Michael.”
“No, no. I do have a prior engagement, but—”
“Then with whom?”
“Young Master William.”
He wants cooking lessons starting tomorrow, Karem added with complete nonchalance. The engagement partner could not have been further removed from the commander of the Royal Guard. Catherine felt the wind go completely out of her sails.
William’s resolve to toss the entire matter of succession to his older brother only grew firmer with every passing day.
And that resolve solidified even further once he entered the royal palace and began following Alfred around with Godwin, meeting one person after another.
“Today we are scheduled to meet with Duke Torpenhau and his daughter—”
“Father, I already have a prior engagement for cooking lessons, so I’ll be going now!”
Thus William used cooking lessons as his escape hatch from the hell of networking that Alfred had prepared for him.
Anyone with half a wit would notice the truth at once.
He had not first made the appointment with Karem. The excuse to Alfred had come first; the actual appointment came second.
Yet William remained unapologetic.
He might have omitted a few details in the middle, but he had not, strictly speaking, told a lie.
The cooking lesson would proceed exactly as stated.
That was the confident young man who walked into the private room prepared for the lesson—and immediately froze.
“Onions? Cabbage?”
“Ah, Young Master William. You’re earlier than I expected.”
Of course he was early. If he had dawdled even a little, Godwin would have seized him with a look that said, “Trying to run off alone, are we?” and dragged him away.
But that was not the important issue right now.
“Why are there so many onions and cabbages?”
With only slight exaggeration, the table looked as if onions and cabbages had sprouted straight out of the wood. He could not even begin to guess what they were going to make.
“What on earth are you planning to cook with this mountain of vegetables? Vegetable soup?”
“Well, we’re going to use all of them.”
“What?”
William stared at Karem as if the boy had lost his mind.
“You’re going to use every last one of these? Our stomachs will explode. And who’s even supposed to eat all this?”
“You and I will eat it. And don’t worry.”
“How am I not supposed to worry?”
“This dish tastes better the more onions and cabbage you put in.”
Jjajangmyeon.
They had mentioned it yesterday, and Karem figured it would be good practice as well.
William, who knew none of that, simply recoiled in horror.
“S-so… what exactly are we doing in today’s lesson?”
“After the last cooking lesson, I realized something.”
That had been months ago, but after teaching William and tasting the results, Karem was certain.
“Fundamentals come first.”
“S-so…?”
“And the foundation of cooking is knife work.”
“You said my knife work was already good.”
“Have you actually held a kitchen knife since then?”
“No.”
“Then let’s check, shall we?”
Every piece of an ingredient had to be cut to a uniform size so that everything would cook evenly under the same heat and produce the same flavor.
“So you want me to chop this mountain of cabbage and onions?”
“‘Mountain’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”
Of course they would not use everything piled on the table. Karem had deliberately brought out the excess for dramatic impact on William.
Though if they kept failing the jjajang sauce, they might end up using it after all.
“We’ll start with two cabbages and ten onions.”
“Start? Start?”
“Here’s a cutting board and a knife.”
William accepted both with an openly skeptical expression and a dubious look in his eyes.
“Dice them to about the width of a finger.”
“And what are you going to do while I do that?”
“Me?”
Without a word Karem dragged over a small wooden barrel and rested his elbow on it. A solid thump answered when he gave it a light rap.
Thump-thump—
“I’m going to stir-fry doenjang in pork fat.”
“What? Doenjang?”
“Bean garum. Bean garum.”
“Ahh. That stuff.”
Pop— The small lid came off, releasing a unique scent from the brown paste inside—something like cheese, yet distinctly different.
“That’s the sacred bean-garum stew that’s supposedly a miracle cure against demons? Wait, no—not a stew.”
“This is the paste that goes into it. And ‘miracle cure’ is overstating things.”
“I heard it melts them until there’s no shape left—”
Karem waved a hand at the exaggeration.
“It’s just that shapeshifters happen to be extremely sensitive to divine power, so that particular result occurred.”
“Still, people who ate it said it was basically holy water.”
“Who said that?”
“Atanitas and Stark?”
Come to think of it, they had mentioned a spicy, tingling sensation. While Karem pondered, William reluctantly pulled the cutting board toward himself, set a cabbage on it with a solid thunk, and sliced it cleanly in half.
Sssk—
“Honestly, using me like this…”
“Hey. As I said earlier—”
“Yeah, yeah. Checking the fundamentals is important.”
William wore a thoroughly fed-up expression, yet his hands moved without hesitation, slicing the cabbage lengthwise, then turning it to dice. Every piece came out perfectly uniform.
“So this is what they mean by ‘eyes rolling back in your head.’”
Grumble, grumble—
He knew about the occasional “episodes” people said Karem suffered.
Let’s be honest. Anyone who made garum out of beans, spread poisonous plants around claiming they were spices, and tried to put monster scent glands into desserts because they smelled fragrant could not, by any measure, be considered completely sane.
And a ten-year-old was the one doing it. Geniuses were said to be extraordinary from childhood, and these were indeed extraordinary acts for a ten-year-old.
Thump-thump-thump-thump— Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle—
“Karem, how old are you right now?”
“Uh… body age? Actual age?”
“Actual age.”
“Eleven.”
See? That was not the attitude of an eleven-year-old. He sounded at least twice that age.
In reality, counting his previous life, he was more than three times his current age, but the fact that he was a reincarnator was known only to a very few people.
Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle— Crack-sizzle—
“…Hmm?”
William finished the cabbage, reached for an onion, then paused and tilted his head on pure reflex. The smell had changed.
The scent of roasting doenjang. It was savory enough, but that was all. Frankly, roasting nuts smelled better.
Then, at some point, the aroma transformed completely.
It was nothing like the unique smell that had risen when he first opened the paste container. The cheesy note was gone without a trace.
This was more like… like…
What in the world is this smell?
William’s nostrils flared. Then he realized: it was the pork fat.
He hastily set the knife down and clamped a hand over his nose.
At his age, was he really going to start flaring his nostrils like Alicia? Yet the scent currently filling his nose was the very definition of “intriguing” made flesh.
“Haah, damn. It roasted perfectly. Young Master, how are the vegetables?”
“Huh? Uh? What?”
“Why are you zoning out like that?”
“It’s nothing. Just wait a moment.”
William sped up his knife work. Meanwhile Karem dumped the minced meat into a large pot and began stir-frying it, then started making the noodles as well.
Once the onions were fully diced, William casually set them beside Karem and stole a glance into the pot that had been left on one side of the stove.
“You said it roasted well, but…”
Brown clay sitting submerged in yellow pork fat.
That was exactly what it looked like. Nothing more, nothing less.
But the smell—
Up close, the fragrance grew even richer.
It was good in a positive way, yet his vocabulary failed him so thoroughly that he could not even understand for himself exactly what the savory aroma was. It kept stimulating him without mercy.
“Heh. To think I’d hear Father’s words here of all places.”
You must look past the surface to the essence.
That was something Alfred always said.
It was such an obvious statement that William had simply nodded along without any particular feeling. Only now did he finally understand what it truly meant.
Pah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dak—!
The moment the cabbage went in and the stir-frying began, William’s head turned of its own accord. Next came the onions. The pot that had been packed solid with vegetables shrank rapidly, as if something inside were devouring them.
“Whew. This is exhausting.”
“I wondered why you were using two whole cabbages and so many onions… but they cook down fast.”
“They’re vegetables. They wilt in no time.”
Back when prices had gone insane, he had tried making jjajangmyeon once as an experiment and immediately decided it was less tiring just to buy it. He had never attempted it again.
Even though this was only his second try, it seemed to be going reasonably well.
Once this is done, add the roasted doenjang, sugar, garlic, soy sauce, ginger…
The vegetables had wilted enough. The moment the thought formed, he began tossing in the various seasonings, raised the flame, and started stirring vigorously with a ladle.
At the sight of the light-brown doenjang jjajang sauce, William revised some of his earlier thoughts.
“Father always says you have to look at the essence, not the surface, you know?”
“And?”
“Well, right now this looks like something someone chewed up and spat out.”
“That’s a bit harsh.”
“Does it not look that way to you?”
Karem peered into the pot. Traditional chunjang was basically jet black—something to do with coloring agents, he vaguely recalled.
If he had caramelized sugar together with the bean garum, maybe he could have gotten a similar color.
“It may not be the most appetite-stimulating shade, but it still looks delicious enough. What’s the problem?”
“Let’s be honest. It looks like someone threw up.”
“Come on, that’s—”
And a stimulating smell was bound to summon predators.
Tap-tap-tap— Tap—!
Someone suddenly knocked on the door.
“Mammaaa—”
“Alicia is certain! The delicious smell is coming from in here!”
From beyond the door came the babbling of a baby, followed by a very familiar voice.