The Elf and the Soft Tofu
To live, one had to eat.
That was the law of taking in energy that every animal obeyed, whether human, insect, or cat.
Elves were no exception.
If anything set them apart, it was the nature of the race itself. Elves traced their origins to the World Tree, that colossal plant, and perhaps for that reason they preferred vegetables to meat. It was preference, not compulsion—a matter of taste rather than decree—and yet most of them ate plants. There was no grand philosophy behind it. They simply ate vegetables.
To an elf, meat was nothing more than a cut of flesh that did not even look particularly good, and a nuisance to butcher besides. What stirred their appetite was fruit grown heavy and ripe on the branch, fresh vegetables, and bread still warm from the oven.
Iseria was no different. Living in Nuardel, she had fallen into a plant-based diet as naturally as breathing, and she would not so much as glance at meat. Day after day, the only variation on the same loaf was a different kind of fruit from the trees. Every evening, potato and vegetable stew. Had she grown tired of it? She had not. Boredom was a notion that only appeared once you understood there were other choices. The elves of Nuardel could eat the same fixed meals for centuries and never tire of them, because they believed that was simply how things were.
Iseria had been the same—until she tasted that dish called bibimbap.
Made of seasoned greens one could find growing all around, the food was plain and humble. And yet it was never shabby. Vegetables in every color, snow-white rice, and at the center a streak of red seasoning to crown it. It blazed like fireflies in a deep night, and still it was never extravagant. Humble without being poor. Brilliant without being lavish. It was a dish that suited the elves, who revered the balance and beauty of nature—a dish one might fairly call an elf itself.
How a human had made such a thing, Iseria could not fathom, but the overwhelming flavor swallowed the question whole.
Fallen or not, Iseria was still an elf. The scent of those bibimbap ingredients must have been extraordinary, for her to forget her dignity and root through the refrigerator like a starving beast. Flavor does not lie. The rudeness she committed along the way got her thrown out in the end, and she accepted the judgment. She was ashamed. She had left Nuardel chasing stimulation, yes—but to go blind with hunger and behave like a wild animal... The human chef had every right to be angry.
For several days after, Iseria left gifts around the restaurant. A plea, in her own way, to be forgiven. The human chef must have noticed, because one evening he called out to her where she was hiding toward the backyard. She did not waste the chance. She stepped forward and apologized properly, and he accepted it. When he finally heard a polite I'm sorry, the human chef laughed out loud.
It had been her fault, and yet she felt strangely as if she had been had; she was still swallowing her irritation when he told her to come inside, and her face lit up despite herself. The reason Iseria accepted that invitation without a moment's hesitation was the bewitching smell drifting all the way into the forest beyond the restaurant. A fragrance that shook her far more deeply than the bibimbap she had smelled while fleeing a boar-beast on an empty stomach. The beans' peculiar sweetness braided with a nuttiness so intense it drove her half mad.
And so a bowl of soft tofu was set before her.
It was a food she had never seen in her life—soft, cloud-white, gently mounded—and yet instinct told her at once that nothing animal had gone into it. Which meant the richness and the depth she was smelling now had been born entirely of plants. Iseria swallowed the saliva that kept pooling in her mouth and lifted a spoon in a hand that would not stop trembling.
She was only about to eat. Why was she shaking like this? She told herself she did not know, but somewhere beneath thought, she did. The moment this food passed her lips, she would never be able to go back.
Iseria carefully put it in her mouth.
Warm...
The moment the yielding soft tofu touched her tongue, it released a warmth it had been hiding deep inside. It was not hot. It was a warmth pitched exactly where pleasure lives, gentle as a breeze drifting under the shade of the World Tree. What followed the texture was the tofu's savory, dense flavor. It was neither milk nor sesame, and yet its savor stood shoulder to shoulder with both.
Nom, nom—
Iseria did not even set her jaw. She only moved, and the soft tofu came apart like silk and slid down her throat. At once the spoon rose again and delivered another mouthful. The first bite she had spent entirely on the tofu itself and missed it; on the second, she felt it clearly. A pale-dark seasoning flecked with minced green onion. It carried the same deep savor as the tofu, and the salt was judged to perfection—a pairing out of a dream.
If the soft tofu was a pure elf, then this seasoning called soy sauce was a spirit. A dark red sauce staining the pure white curd. It filled every plain edge the tofu might have had, and its savor made it impossible to stop the spoon.
It's warm, and it sits so gently inside me, and it's delicious. I want more...!
Right now, the secret of the dish, the one who made it, the place—none of it mattered to Iseria. All she cared about was getting one more mouthful of warm soft tofu into her stomach before it cooled.
"Hn... haa..."
She did not feel as if she had eaten that much, and yet the bowl before her was suddenly bare. Reluctant, she licked the innocent spoon, while her other hand stroked her own snow-white stomach. The soft tofu had gone all the way into the deep places of her body and was still warm there, still gentle. That aftertaste was so tender it melted even Iseria's gaze—impulsive and high-strung in all things—into something soft and slack.
"White and warm... feels so nice..."
Face gone completely loose, Iseria quietly stroked her belly. Kang Jinwoo, the human chef, watched the performance and could only look revolted, every last shred of fondness draining out of his expression.
The sensibilities of people in this other world... I was starting to understand them for certain. They ran a little different.
Getting slick and dripping over boiled chicken, weeping over banquet noodles, and now soft tofu... good lord. If someone ate with reactions like that on a mukbang back in the modern world, wouldn't they have blown up, for better or for worse? Under names like food sexer and food porn.
I didn't know what elves usually lived on, but they clearly hadn't built much of a varied food culture. If their cuisine had developed in every direction, there was no way they wouldn't know tofu, the very flagship of vegan cooking. I'd been thinking I ought to travel to other regions now and then, to widen the stock in Mana Market. If the chance came, I wanted to see the country of the elves as well. Well—the shop had only just opened. It wasn't something to plan this instant.
While I turned those thoughts over, Iseria surfaced from the afterglow of the soft tofu and fixed me again with those sharp cat's eyes.
"Hmph. Hm-hm! It wasn't a bad flavor. Perfectly edible, I suppose."
Arms crossed, Iseria delivered the textbook performance of a tsundere. She had practically inhaled the bowl with her face buried in it, and now it was merely edible.
"Yeah? If it wasn't good, nothing to be done. The firm tofu that's almost ready—I'll just eat that myself."
"Wh—what? No... you don't have to..."
"It's fine. I made it as a peace offering, and if it was mediocre, there's no way I'm giving you any."
Mischief took hold of me. I mentioned the firm tofu still setting in its mold and said it as bluntly as I could. She hadn't expected that. Flustered, Iseria scrambled to snatch the words back, but I shut even that opening.
"It was delicious! I said it was delicious! So let me eat that... firm tofu, too..."
Cornered, Iseria opened her eyes wide and spoke her honest heart. Shame seemed to catch her at almost the same moment, and by the end of the sentence her voice had shrunk to nearly nothing.
Easy to handle.
The elf exterior had felt unfamiliar, but strip that away and her personality was absurdly easy to read. If I pushed further—If it was delicious, why'd you say it was only all right at first?—I could watch her fluster even harder, but there was a chance she'd get genuinely upset and give up entirely. I could see she was trying, in her own way, to hold a conversation. Best to stop teasing her.
"I like that you said it was good, straight out. When it's finished, we'll eat it together."
"Hmph!"
Iseria whipped her head aside, but she couldn't hide the corner of her mouth, twitching as if it couldn't decide whether to rise.
Kweeeek—!
And then, from the direction of the backyard, a savage cry rolled in. It was so thunderous that even heard from inside the building it sounded as if the thing were screaming right in front of us.
"Wh-what is that?"
"Don't tell me it's that beast from before?"
Unlike me, startled by the roar, Iseria seemed to have an idea. The two of us looked at once toward the backyard window.
Crash—! Crack!
A beast in the shape of a boar was hurling its body without mercy into the high wooden palisade, trying to break through. In all the time I had lived here, no beast had ever attacked the place. The palisade was holding for now, but it swayed and shuddered as if it would give at any moment. The boar-beast stood about chest-high on me. If it smashed the fence and slammed into the restaurant, a gaping hole in the wall was only a matter of time.
The only thing I had that was remotely useful was spirit arts, and even that I had never used to attack. Everything else combat-related was, of course, zero. While my head scrambled for any kind of plan, Iseria spoke.
"I'll hold it off. Human, you stay back."
"What? How are you going to stop a beast like that..."
"Because I can, so stay still! I'm not weak like some scrawny human!"
Was that confidence, or recklessness? Iseria declared it in a proud voice and kicked the back door open as she went out.
Crrrack—!
At the same moment the boar-beast shattered the palisade and came through. A standoff on a razor's edge. Iseria grinned—and shouted.
"Kweeeek!!"
As if goaded by her triumphant voice, the boar-beast charged with terrifying force.
Damn it. What the hell does she think she's doing?
Whether by size or by momentum, I wasn't sure Iseria could handle that beast. But in that instant a gale began to whirl around her. Caught in a wind that had formed in a heartbeat, even the charging boar faltered and checked its legs. Iseria gestured, unhurried.
"Be torn to pieces."
⟨ Wind Spirit Art ⟩
Whoooosh—!
From that savage and elegant flick of her hand, the gale around Iseria rushed upon the boar-beast.