Harmony or Discord? (1)
Jinwoo was in a bind.
“Please help them avoid turning this into a battle of pride.”
“Even if we do this, a dish combining tomatoes and brown sugar sweets won’t appear right away. For now, take the brown sugar sweets back with you and tell Lord Berk that I made them.”
“Understood. I’ll do exactly that.”
Yunkel sensed that the wizard wasn’t interested in declaring a winner in their pride-fueled standoff. Instead, he seemed determined to help both sides reach harmony. The thought that his own goal had succeeded filled him with joy.
“Then, may I ask when you’ll be able to visit?”
“I’ll head to the Alfred family estate in three days, in the morning.”
“Thank you so much!”
After handing over all the brown sugar sweets he’d prepared and sending Yunkel on his way, Jinwoo mulled things over. The first idea that came to mind was something simple: canapés. They were easy finger foods made by topping toast or crackers with tomatoes, eggs, ham, and vegetables. Since the dish would use both tomatoes and toast, he figured it was the perfect solution.
He tried making a batch with the ingredients on hand. He placed sliced tomatoes on small squares of brown sugar toast, added ham and egg, then prepared to top it with a potato salad made on a mayonnaise base.
“Master. I don’t think this will work. It might be interpreted differently from what you intend.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’re using both ingredients together, but this creates a clear hierarchy.”
“A hierarchy? Oh… Oh!”
Now he understood what Yanne was pointing out.
“It’s because the tomato is sitting on top of the toast.”
“Yes. It gives the subconscious impression that the ingredient on top is superior.”
He could have skewered them with wooden picks and laid the canapés on their sides, but after hearing Yanne’s observation, he realized some people might still stand them upright and read meaning into the arrangement.
Canapés clearly weren’t enough. It looked like he’d have to go out and look at other foods.
You have played for 7 hours and 38 minutes. Physical response is normal and all systems are stable.
When he stepped out of the capsule, the first thing he did was drink water to replenish fluids, followed by stretching. Then he finished off the Cliché World language book he’d been studying for over two weeks. After sending the file along with his game report, he began searching for dishes that combined tomatoes and brown sugar toast.
This book should be sufficient. It will dramatically increase character recognition rates.
The development team leader immediately began running deep learning on the book file Park Jinwoo had sent.
“Excluding truly terrible handwriting, most documents should be automatically translated with this.”
“But this is the common language used on the Entrick Continent, isn’t it? We still don’t have the languages from the other continents, right?”
“Correct. We haven’t properly analyzed the linguistic similarities between the three continents yet.”
Elon Busker looked at the continents shown on the Cliché World map.
“They’re too close.”
“Pardon?”
“The distance between users is too small. Mark the current user locations on the Entrick Continent map.”
Twelve glowing dots appeared across the central Entrick Continent among the three landmasses.
“Look here. There are already four people in the northern Splain Empire alone. Especially problematic is Orchan, who transferred as an orc—he’s far too close to Gale.”
“Yes. Gale’s game report already mentioned that monsters keep appearing in the Akran Mountains, causing issues.”
“What about Orchan’s report?”
“It’s… quite serious.”
At the Oceania and South America tester manager’s words, Elon Busker couldn’t help but frown.
“He’s been shouting ‘For the Horde’ while playing, saying he was inspired by the old World of Warcraft. He’s actively rallying orc tribes, claiming they must fight the Alliance.”
“Crazy bastard. How successful has the rallying been?”
“We estimate he’s gathered over thirty percent of the orc tribes in the Akran Mountains—enough that Gale felt the need to file a report about the problem.”
“If he’s unlucky, he might even end up fighting Gale at the border garrison.”
The possibility of users fighting each other left everyone racking their brains for a solution.
“Should we tell Orchan to stop?”
“We have no justification. When we told him to play naturally as an orc, he argued that orcs are creatures of struggle, so expanding his forces is perfectly natural behavior.”
It was maddening. They couldn’t exactly tell him to stop because this wasn’t actually a game.
“Then for now, pull Gale out of the border garrison. And prevent other users from approaching the Akran Mountains.”
“So… we’re abandoning Orchan?”
Elon Busker remained silent.
If they left Orchan alone, he would undoubtedly continue rallying orcs and wage war against what he saw as the Alliance—humans. That would lead to all-out war between humans and orcs, and Orchan would be killed. Or he might become the Orc Lord and swallow up the entire continent.
“For now, we’ll call it containment. Do everything possible to keep users far away from the Akran Mountains.”
At Elon Busker’s suggestion to simply watch how things developed, the others put their judgments on hold.
“Um… and Patrick has become an official in the Splain Empire. He’s caught the eye of the upper echelons and become a key figure.”
Patrick was the one they had recently scouted from within the company and turned into a tester.
“How high up has he gotten?”
“The Prime Minister. It looks like he’ll rise to vice-minister level.”
“That’s too fast. It hasn’t even been a month yet.”
“Yes. I found it strange too, but apparently his mathematical calculations and insight have earned the Prime Minister’s favor.”
Becoming a vice-minister in the Splain Empire—the strongest nation on the Entrick Continent—was no small feat. However, the higher he climbed, the more he would become entangled with the clergy. The more attention he received, the greater the chance they would realize he wasn’t a native of the Entrick Continent.
“What does Patrick want? What is his goal?”
“He wants to become part of the upper class and wield power. It seems he wants to live the life of a twisted elite.”
“Hmm. If he wants to become an elite bureaucrat and wield power, he probably won’t stop even if we try to dissuade him. For now, leave Patrick alone as well. Actually, no. Most of the Akran Mountains fall within Splain Empire territory, so we should make use of him.”
“Pardon? How exactly do you intend to use him?”
“If he’s become a key talent in the Prime Minister’s eyes, he should be in a position to get involved with the orc activity in the Akran Mountains.”
“Ah, so you mean to use Splain Empire forces to deal with Orchan…”
Orchan’s handler couldn’t bring himself to say the word “eliminate.”
“No, the opposite. Arrange a meeting between Patrick and Orchan, who is rallying the orcs. Then have them sign something like a mutual non-aggression pact.”
“Oh! You want to make them sign a peace treaty between humans and orcs?”
“Exactly. That way both sides can operate with stability.”
“Then… will you reveal to both of them that there are other testers? They all think they’re the only one in this world.”
“We’ll reveal the existence of other testers only if things go seriously wrong later. Until then, let’s just observe how things play out.”
Even as he spoke, Elon Busker prayed that a situation requiring the disclosure of information would never arise. Users should only know the minimum amount of information. That way they wouldn’t grow suspicious when moved according to his purposes.
“Park Jinwoo from Korea sent an extremely thin report. We know he wrote a language book, but his activities are too narrow. There’s basically nothing there.”
No matter that it was winter and snow had fallen, the only thing he could do was scold him for staying cooped up cooking and experiencing rural life.
“It doesn’t seem like he’s slacking, but he’s staying in one place for too long.”
“Then I’ll instruct him to head quickly to Dyven, the capital of the Shuzel Kingdom, and recruit more companions.”
“Good. His previous report mentioned that he obtained the emblem of a B-Rank mercenary band. Order him to revive that mercenary group.”
“Understood. I’ll do so.”
***
“Master, are you really only going to keep making tomato ketchup?”
“Yeah. The Alfred family probably has all the other ingredients. So we just need to bring the tomato ketchup.”
Even while talking to Yanne, he continued using buffs to grow more tomatoes. Beside him, Sezanne was slicing tomatoes, removing the seeds, and lining them up neatly.
Michel had gone around to farms with Yohan, who raised many animals, and returned with a huge amount of bacon, sausages, and various cheeses. However, the mozzarella cheese Jinwoo wanted was nowhere to be found.
After thinking all day about a dish that used both ingredients, he had decided to make pizza. His plan was to create a modified version—not using toast as the base, but mixing tomato sauce with finely chopped toast and hardtack, then spreading it over pizza dough. For that, mozzarella cheese was absolutely essential.
To make mozzarella, he had Tilt and Jack go around the area buying up as much milk as possible.
“Sezanne, fire!”
“Ugh, seriously, how does a wizard not know how to light a fire? Does that even make sense?”
“The magic system is different, so there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“If the systems are different, does that mean you can’t learn it at all?”
“……?”
Now that she mentioned it, that was true. While he didn’t have the skill, he definitely had the MP needed to use magic.
“The fire’s lit. Should I put the pot full of milk on now?”
“Yeah.”
He set aside the question of learning magic for later and focused solely on making the cheese. He added a cup of vinegar to the milk and adjusted the heat. Once it reached a temperature that felt slightly warm, he removed it from the flame.
Normally he would need to add rennin to make the milk react with the vinegar and coagulate, but since this was unpasteurized milk and some households stored their milk in a cow’s stomach, there was no need to add extra rennin.
“The cheese is starting to clump together in white chunks.”
After about thirty minutes, just as Sezanne said, the cheese began to solidify. He scooped it out and placed it on cheesecloth to drain the whey. Over the course of an hour, he continued until the milk had turned into clear water, then lifted out the cheese. The real cheese-making process was only just beginning.
“Put it in water that’s just about to boil. Once it becomes soft, take it out and knead it with your hands. This is called stretching, and it’s what makes the cheese taste good.”
The problem was the water that was just shy of boiling—around 80 to 90 degrees Celsius. The mozzarella needed to be kneaded while hot enough to cause actual pain beyond mere warmth in order for it to stretch properly. Since he couldn’t use ice magic on it, he had no choice but to endure.
He simply cast a healing buff on himself so that even if his hands suffered minor burns, they would recover quickly. Whenever the cheese cooled, he had to put it back into the hot water to reheat it, so his hands repeatedly burned and healed. After struggling for nearly an hour, he finally completed a beautifully white, elastic mozzarella cheese.
“So this is why there wasn’t any of the cheese Master wanted. It’s such a difficult process.”
“Right. But once you have this, anything tastes good. Let’s go to bed early so we can head to the Alfred estate first thing tomorrow.”