The Little Chef

When I entered the inn with the dog in tow, the innkeeper examined the animal from every angle before stepping in front of me with a hardened expression.

“Excuse me, magician sir. I’m afraid we cannot allow this dog inside the room.”

“Why not?”

“Fleas.”

“Ah.”

Even to my eyes the dog looked pathetic. Its coat was dull and patchy, with bald spots that suggested some kind of mange. Crusty discharge clung to its eyes, and what looked like ticks nestled beneath its drooping ears. Anyone would have called it a reject.

Washing the dog at the inn would have used too much water, so I considered my options.

“Then I’ll check out today.”

The innkeeper looked startled by my decisive tone, but I remembered seeing a river flowing outside the castle walls on my way in. I could wash the dog there, camp for the night, and test whether it would stand proper guard. With my mercenary badge I could come and go through the gates freely, so once my custom orders were finished I could collect them and leave immediately.

I packed my belongings, left the castle after buying a pair of sheep shears, and pitched my tent on a flat patch of ground beside the flowing river. Looking around, I saw no other campers. Since the castle was practically next door, everyone seemed to prefer sleeping inside the walls.

“Can’t we just let the goslings loose in the water?”

Yanne, however, tied strings to each of their legs so they couldn’t wander off.

“No. Geese and chickens won’t return if they don’t recognize the place as home. I have to keep them tied until they learn that I’m the one who feeds and cares for them every day.”

“Nothing’s ever simple, is it?”

“By the way, Master, have you named the dog and the geese yet?”

“Not yet. Want to do the honors?”

“Then I’ll call the dog Col, and the geese Barley and Oats. When I fed them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠earlier, this one liked barley best and that one preferred oats.”

To me the goslings still looked identical, but Yanne could clearly tell them apart.

I gathered wood and lit a campfire first, then took Col down to the water’s edge. I wedged a strip of jerky in his mouth to keep it occupied and began clipping. Using the shears, I shaved away every ragged patch of fur that looked like it had been chewed by rats. Then I stripped off my own clothes, hugged the wriggling dog, waded in, and sat down in the river.

Col thrashed as though I were trying to drown him, but with his mouth tied shut and my foot pinning the leash, he couldn’t break free. I lathered him thoroughly. Even after the initial clipping, black streams of grime poured off his body. As the soap bubbles lifted the dirt, his true coat color finally emerged—pure white.

So the white-dog-or-wolf cliché holds up even here, huh?

I washed him several times, dunking him repeatedly to dislodge fleas and ticks, scrubbing every inch with my hands. By the time I carried the exhausted Col back to the campfire, he could barely stand. I dried him with a towel, then layered four buffs on him: Active, Healing, Growth, and a Luck buff to keep him from catching a cold. I gave him some more meat jerky and set him beside the fire. He wagged his tail and whined happily, apparently having realized the bath had been for his own good—or perhaps simply surrendering to the food.

With the sun setting, I made French toast topped with bacon and vegetables for myself and gave Col the rest of the meat pie. Once it grew dark I tucked Yanne and the goslings inside the tent, lay down at the entrance, and stroked Col’s back as he sat just outside. Even though we were beyond the castle walls, this was still managed land. Trusting the dog, I drifted off to sleep.

After reading Park Jinwoo’s report, Elon Busker placed a separate call to the development team lead.

“The thing is, printed standard fonts are easy for the system to process automatically, but the writing in that world is entirely handwritten, so batch processing is extremely difficult. The rules for their script also vary wildly by region and personal style.”

Elon Busker knew from Earth’s own history that even the same language and alphabet could differ drastically by region in eras when transportation was poor.

“What’s the current automatic recognition rate?”

“Languages and scripts differ between continents, and dialects are diverse. We’re still under fifteen percent. If the dispatched users can secure and provide a wider variety of books, we should be able to raise that number.”

“You do realize that sending anything over there costs ten times more energy than bringing something back, right?”

“Yes, I’m aware. But because we’re relying solely on memorization, progress on the written language side is inevitably slow.”

The development lead’s helpless tone left even Elon Busker without an immediate solution.

“Tell Park Jinwoo we want him to produce a report on self-studying the local script. We’d like to know how long it takes to learn it solo.”

“Understood.”

“No, wait. He’s the only tester who submits clean reports like this, so let’s do something different. Have him learn the local writing system and then transcribe the textbook he uses so we can copy it on this side.”

“You want us to ask him to create a language primer?”

“Exactly. Offer to cover the cost of him learning horseback riding in person as compensation. If there’s anything else he wants to do, tell him Changing Group will foot the bill. Dangle the carrot.”

“I’ll make the offer, but transcribing everything from memory and writing it out again won’t be easy.”

“Tell him he’ll be publishing the very first language primer for Cliché World as a gamer. His name will be registered in the game. That should be enough to make him accept—he’ll want to leave his mark.”

“Understood. I’ll set the right atmosphere. I’ll also arrange an introduction to a riding school so he can learn horseback riding properly.”

“You want to learn not only how to ride but how to care for the horses as well? If you’re hoping to get into horse racing, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

The ranch owner, President Kim, looked the young man sent by Changing Group up and down. He was tall, so he clearly wasn’t aiming to become a jockey. And if he wanted to become a stable hand, this wasn’t the usual route. The president couldn’t figure out why he had come.

“I’m developing a farm-management game. I want to get at least a surface-level understanding of overall horse care before I start designing it.”

“Ah, so you’re doing research for a game.”

Although he used the game as an excuse, the experience was so eerily realistic that Jinwoo wanted to learn proper horse management in advance. How to trim hooves, maintain tack, what to feed them, how to train them—he needed to know all of it if he was going to handle horses convincingly in the game.

“Then let’s start tomorrow at dawn learning how to manage the stables, followed by riding lessons in the morning. Be here by six.”

And so his real-world routine became studying stable management at dawn, riding lessons in the morning, and medieval martial-arts training at the gym run by the head of the local historical combat club in the afternoon. He was learning how to fight with mace and shield. After exercising he would return home and log into the game, repeating the cycle day after day.

He skipped sleep time after logging in, but Col’s sudden leap to his feet at some noise in the predawn darkness interrupted the skip function. Jinwoo sat up and looked around, but nothing seemed wrong. Some wild animal had probably approached and retreated after sensing the dog. Seeing Col doing his job properly, Jinwoo felt he had made the right choice buying a dog instead of a slave.

For breakfast he decided to make a makeshift pizza. With plenty of butter, cheese, and eggs on hand, the idea appealed to him.

“Yanne, tear this loaf into fingernail-sized pieces.”

He ripped the fist-sized loaf into small bits, fried them in a pan with melted butter until they turned golden brown, then transferred them to a bowl. He added five eggs, salt, sugar, pepper, green onions, and garlic, mixing everything together with a spoon. Once the bread and eggs formed a batter, he heated pork fat in the pan and cooked it like a pancake. Even though the bread was in small pieces, some retained a pleasant chew, so he pressed them flat with a wooden spatula until they resembled pizza crust.

The smell of cooking egg protein mingling with the rich aroma of butter drew Col over, drooling and wagging his tail. When Jinwoo flipped the “pancake,” the bottom was perfectly browned. He layered two kinds of cheese generously on top, sprinkled chopped parsley and thyme, and added dried apple slices in place of tomatoes. After covering the pan and letting the cheese melt, he cut the dish in half and served one portion to Yanne.

“Whoa! The cheese is stretching so much! What’s this dish called?”

Yanne ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had never seen cheese used in such quantity. Her eyes were round with wonder.

“It’s called apple pizza.”

“Apple pizza? What does ‘pizza’ mean?”

The word apparently had no local equivalent, so the automatic translation hadn’t kicked in.

“In a very distant land, there’s a word—pitta—that means ‘to bite and eat.’ This flatbread that you bite into was passed down as pita, pita, and eventually became pizza.”

“Wow, that’s amazing! So it means ‘bite the apple,’ right? Nom!”

Yanne took a big bite of the still-hot pizza in accordance with its supposed etymology. She chewed with a bright smile, clearly enjoying the taste. Jinwoo tried it himself; the subtle sweetness of the dried apple replacing tomato worked surprisingly well. The pleasant chew of the apple, the crisp bread pieces, and the rich, savory cheese combined beautifully. It was so different from regular tomato-sauce pizza that it could be considered an entirely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠new dish.

No tomatoes? Then we’ll just make the sweet-and-sour note with apples.

He decided that in the future it might be worth developing a baked-apple sauce using apples, beets, and milk to replace tomato sauce.

“Master, can I try making Col’s portion myself?”

Yanne clearly wanted more pizza but used Col as an excuse to try cooking again. When he gladly handed over the ingredients, she began with visible excitement. She tore the bread, mixed it with egg, and cooked it, but flipping it with the wooden spatula proved difficult.

“When that happens, cover the pan with a plate, flip it over so the pancake lands on the plate, then slide it back into the pan. That way you can cook both sides perfectly.”

“Wow! There’s a trick like that?”

Yanne exclaimed in delight at even the smallest things as she finished baking the apple pizza. She divided the result into three portions—including Col’s—and they all ate together.

“Master! I think I can do this on my own now.”

Yanne’s confidence in cooking seemed to have grown.

Elon Busker found anything that disturbed his sleep extremely unpleasant, but there was one exception: anything related to Cliché World. Because testers were scattered across every time zone on Earth, he couldn’t set restrictions on when they could call. And since the call had come on the number ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reserved exclusively for true emergencies, he answered despite cursing under his breath.

“Chairman, we have a serious problem. There’s an issue with Orchan in New Zealand.”

“Orchan?”

The image of the young man he had met in person rose in Busker’s mind—over 190 centimeters tall, a former swimmer with an impressively developed upper body.

“What happened? Don’t tell me he’s already in mortal danger? It hasn’t even been that many days.”

“He isn’t in danger of dying, but the situation is actually more serious. Orchan has transferred not as a human, but as an orc.”