Why Do You Even Have This? (1)

Ow. That stings.

I'd been scratching my head and managed to pick at the scab on my scalp. It was nearly healed, but it still nagged at me—the souvenir of dozing off over jeon, those savory Korean pancakes, back home and cracking my head against the floor.

I didn't leave blood on the floor, did I?

It hadn't been that bad. A scratch, nothing more. If anything had smeared, it would have been the faintest trace.

Anyway, three days had already passed since I put pizza in front of elves who used to chomp raw tomatoes like apples. I'd been staying at Elioren's manor and cooking far more than pizza. Aside from ratatouille, most of it was Italian. Elves were used to eating their ingredients raw, so the way Italian food let those ingredients speak for themselves was easier for them to accept—and I'd been dragged to Nuardel with no plan at all, which meant my real specialty, Korean cooking, was effectively sealed away.

Three meals a day. I'd made a great many of them. Ratatouille, not strictly Italian, but the first thing that came to mind at the words tomato sauce. Glossy, clinging risotto loaded with whatever vegetables I felt like using. Every meal, a completely different order of elf-friendly cooking.

Elves meeting me for the first time started out suspicious. After a single bite, though...

"It's so good... What have I even been eating until now?"

"They said human food tasted awful... Ancestors, have you been lying to me?"

"Ahh! Mr. Jinwoo has sent an empty plate. What reason have I left to go on living!"

"Hey, hey, hey."

I'd botched the service. I snatched the empty plate back, piled it with tomato pasta, and returned it at once. Only then did the nameless elf relax, face bright with relief, and happily eat.

I'd trusted my own skill, of course. Back then, though, all I'd had were the perks that came with crossing into another world. A black-haired nobody, no money and no reputation to his name—the growth since then suddenly felt strange. I hadn't come to Nuardel of my own will, but a cook was still what I was, and watching the elves take such joy in my food put me in a fine mood.

Just watching those little elves eat was supposed to fill me up all by itself... except it didn't. So there I was, working through my own share of risotto, when—

A system message the size of a door had risen up and blotted out my view.

What the hell is this?

This was a move I'd never seen before.

I hurried back to my room and activated Mana Market. Mana poured out of me in the same soft rush as before the level-up; a higher level hadn't changed that sensation at all. The drowsy haze lasted only a moment. Then I looked at the ingredient exchanged into being in front of me, and I couldn't hold back my awe.

"Whoa... this actually works?"

A bright yellow mass of pure umami had dropped before me. Cheese. Nothing else. It felt like being handed a full set of top-tier cookware as a birthday present I hadn't even dared to hope for. Riding the dizzy rush of it, I opened my status window.

The level of Mana Market had clearly risen. Why it had jumped so suddenly, I couldn't say. While I was making jang I'd used Beginner Spirit Arts constantly, so that skill had leveled—but a moment ago Mana Market had gone up without my even using it. I didn't know the condition. Right now, that wasn't what mattered.

I opened the skill description for Mana Market.

Not an improvement in quality. The category of ingredients itself had widened. I kept turning over a sentence that refused to land on the first read, and then the realization hit like a hammer to the skull. That was why I had rushed straight back to the room and tried exchanging for cheese.

Processed food... counts as an ingredient now.

What did this insane function actually mean? I no longer had to sweat all day at a millstone just to press sesame oil. I didn't have to worry about running out of soy sauce, doenjang, or gochujang—soybean paste and chili ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠paste. I didn't have to lose my mind in the kitchen making tofu. All those jobs that inevitably ate time and patience, every last one of them, I could skip, and simply lift the finished product for free.

I had become, quite literally, a walking grocery store.

"Kang-kyahoo!!"

I couldn't contain the excitement surging up. I bounced in place, slapped my soles together in a sharp smack-smack, and was midway through the victory scream when—

"Hey!! Jinwoo! Keep it down!"

"Ghk."

Iseria, resting in the next room, had reached her limit and yelled. Only then did I cut the legendary reaction short and force myself calm.

If it's come to this, I'm taking everything Nuardel has.

Elves who broke into a house uninvited and knocked the owner out were no different from robbers. But now that Mana Market had leveled up, I was nothing but grateful.

A gentleman's revenge is never too late, even after ten years.

And yet I'd gotten my chance in barely a week. I didn't know what the proverb had originally meant, but sooner was better, wasn't it? Register every ingredient and processed food in Nuardel as an exchange item, and once I got home I could freeload to my heart's content. First things first, though—a cheese shop, and the entire stock.

Body and mind both raced ahead of me. I left the room in a hurry and cut through the dining hall on my way to the market.

And then—

Wait. This smell?

A fragrance was drifting from the hall, fresh and green, the kind that lifted your mood all at once. A nostalgic scent I hadn't caught in a long time...

No. There's no way.

I was certain it was impossible. And yet the scent teasing my nose was no lie. Cheese could wait. I stepped into the dining hall, and a spectacle unfolded before my eyes.

"You can't serve food like this without wine!"

"That brightness, lifting the taste of fresh ingredients. This is it!"

"Pour! Drink!"

Glug, glug—

The elves were drinking, with my cooking as the food to go alongside it. Ordinary liquor I might have let pass. But that...

A beautiful gold, as if someone had poured molten gold into clear water. When a glass was swirled, the aroma spread as if flaunting its own alcohol. I could pick out a saline snap, the brightness of fruit, and the tipsy bite of spirits.

White wine.

Elves who didn't know the first thing about cooking, who'd stupidly chewed nothing but raw vegetables—those same little elves were drinking white wine. And wine that looked seriously good, at that. I couldn't hold the shock in.

"Ah, Mr. Jinwoo! Care for a taste? I made this wine myself!"

"Please try mine, too!"

It wasn't one bottle, or even two. Every elf eating in the hall produced a handmade wine of their own. I couldn't resist. I took the glass they held out to me. My head might have locked up from the sense of betrayal, but the body is honest.

The Empire had wine, too. I just didn't want to call that wine. It was something wine-adjacent. What sold on the imperial market was horribly thin, sour and nothing else, muddy on the finish. With no balance, the raw harshness of the alcohol came straight up, to the point where it was barely drinkable. They said the wine drunk in the imperial palace was a different matter, but I wasn't holding my breath. Expecting modern standards from a medieval food culture was asking for too much.

And yet the white wine now wetting my lips—

How do the elves have a flavor like this?

Their white wine was different. Three things largely decided a white wine's balance: alcohol, sweetness, and acidity. Alcohol formed as sugar broke down, so while it varied by style, alcohol and sweetness in white wine often ran inverse to each other. A higher-proof white had turned nearly all its sugar into alcohol and tasted less sweet; a lower-proof white still held residual sugar, so the alcohol stayed low and the wine came out sweet. Not an absolute rule. Just the usual pattern.

Either way, the balance of this white wine was far too good. A sense of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠strength around twelve percent, and a rich aroma. Citrus and the smell of fresh green grass burst across my tongue. If all it had were that well-refined but fundamentally sharp acidity, plus the alcohol, the balance would have collapsed. Umami bracing the acid from underneath, and a faint sweetness, put the period on the flavor. A well-made Sauvignon Blanc. Exactly that.

"Well? It's good, isn't it? Wine made from my mother's recipe!"

The elves waited on my verdict of the white wine. I didn't answer. I drained the glass in one long pull.

And despaired.

Why did the god of this other world give wine to the elves?

Why grant a blessing like this to precious little darlings who couldn't cook a single proper dish?

"It's good. It's good, all right."

"Oh! Thank you. Your cooking is delicious too, Mr. Jinwoo!"

Beaming at the praise, the elf returned to their table. I dragged my slumped shoulders out of the hall.

White wine was one of the drinks I truly loved. Finding it in Nuardel was a good thing—it really was—and yet my pride stung in a strange way. Common sense said alcohol developed where cooking was lively, didn't it? So why did Nuardel have wine...

Ah. Wait. Could it be?

Outside Nuardel, of course, there was no World Tree. Which meant the rest of the world farmed through every season while locked in a running battle against natural disasters and the merciless rules of the wild.

Aigoo, fuck—my wheat field!!!!

In a famine year, they were dirt poor.

Hungry? Just eat bread.

In a bumper year, at least they didn't have to worry about starving. A good harvest every year would have been nice, but yield depended on the fertility of the land and on the climate, so the crop was different every year. Even a world with magic couldn't simply command the weather. Because production swung so wildly, people refused to consume crops beyond what they needed. Which meant something like alcohol had never even gotten its turn to develop.

Nuardel, on the other hand, had a living ingredient duplicator: the World Tree. By its grace, a mild climate all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, and top-grade crops you could enjoy to overflowing whenever the mood struck. There was no reason drink wouldn't flourish. They'd skipped the food-culture tech tree in a bizarre order, but the result existed right in front of me. What was I supposed to do? Accept it.

I calmly made my peace with reality. This was actually a good thing. While I was here I could drink my fill of wine... and buying a few bottles to keep at home and savor over time didn't sound bad either.

"Hmm, Mr. Jinwoo. What are you doing standing blankly in the corridor? Is something troubling you?"

"Ah, Mr. Elioren. I'm fine. I just spaced out for a moment."

"Heh heh... That's a relief. With so many elven guests, I thought you might be weary. If it is too much, I will put a stop to it even now."

"No. I'm doing this because I want to."

Elioren was worried about my Elf Enlightenment Campaign. The name was a little grand. All it really meant was inviting the other elves of Nuardel to the manor and feeding them. I had to show my cooking to as many of them as possible, so they would open their closed eyes and stop wasting ingredients.

If I had one small worry, it was whether I could freely bring commoner(?) elves into the manor of House Sildiel...

Right. They weren't nobles.

The name Sildiel had made me assume aristocracy, but it turned out elves had no concept of commoners or nobles at all. Named houses were simply said to bear the World Tree's blessing more deeply. There was no social rank, and yet the object of elven faith was the World Tree, so the elves of House Sildiel—who had received that blessing thickly—were looked up to from the standpoint of their people. Perhaps because they were a single race that took the World Tree as its pillar. Equality without discrimination was a good thing to see. It meant I could host ordinary elves without any awkwardness.

At my assurance that I was fine, Elioren shot a brief glare toward the dining hall.

"Hmm... Then that is a relief. Should anyone treat you with discourtesy, you must tell me. I will..."

"Ah, yes. Thank you."

The look that had flashed across his face was so murderous that I shrank back without meaning to. He'd been like this now and then ever since I made him pizza. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The consideration was welcome. It was also, from time to time, a little terrifying.

"Ah, come to think of it... do elves make wine as well?"

"Yes. After tasting your food, I understood that we truly cannot cook... but I do not think our wine is bad."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

They made wine this delicious, and no one had said a word from the start. A slightly accusing tone slipped out on a wave of thoroughly unjust resentment. Elioren paid my attitude no mind. If anything, his eyes lit up.

"The wine was to your liking!"

What's with the sudden spike in energy?

"Yes. I've always liked it."

"Ahaha. The truth is, I do not enjoy wine all that much myself, so it never occurred to me to mention it. My apologies."

"Ah, no. There's nothing to apologize for."

"Ah, Mr. Jinwoo. Then, perhaps..."

Elioren let the end of the sentence trail away. A brief silence while he steadied his breath, and then his mouth opened again.

"Would you care to go now? To the winery."

"Pardon? Right now? Well... if we're going, let's go."

"Excellent! I shall get ready and return, so please wait a moment."

Elioren's manner was rather loaded with meaning, but what could possibly happen? I was curious how they made wine in this world, and I had time to spare. I accepted the offer without much thought. As he headed back to his room to prepare, his steps looked strangely excited.