A Delicious Verdict and a Silent Warning
Freshly cooked white rice, still warm from the pot.
They say that rice made from truly excellent grains is delicious even when eaten plain. The faint sweetness that revealed itself bit by bit with every chew was a completely different kind of sweetness from the usual sugary taste.
The rice passes with flying colors…
Cooking rice could seem deceptively simple. As long as you got the water ratio roughly right, anyone could make tasty rice. And that wasn’t entirely wrong. These days, rice cookers performed exceptionally well—one button press and they produced perfect rice on their own.
If the technical skill required had decreased, then the quality of the rice itself now decided the final flavor. This was clearly top-grade rice. Just watching the fragrant steam rise made him think that even mixing it with green tea would make a full meal vanish in moments.
It was delicious. He had only eaten rice, yet it was delicious. So good that he wanted to keep eating nothing but rice.
But the real highlight was still waiting.
The earthenware bulgogi, which had already passed the smell test with flying colors.
Most Korean dishes didn’t often shine on their own. Their true flavors usually revealed themselves fully only when eaten together with rice.
Still, I should try it separately first.
With his chopsticks, he picked up a piece that included onion, carrot, and meat together. It wasn’t overly greasy—someone had clearly prepped the meat in advance. If you didn’t know what to look for, you might miss it, but as someone who helped run a restaurant, he couldn’t overlook such details.
Just a… neighborhood diner…
He didn’t want to admit it. That their fundamentals were better than the staff at Provan Restaurant? Still, he hadn’t actually tasted it yet, so he placed the meat and vegetables into his mouth.
The meat’s tender texture was soft without being mushy. It kept just enough chew to be satisfying while letting the textures and flavors of the vegetables come through clearly.
It was delicious. The sweet-and-savory seasoning paired perfectly with the meat, and the onion’s natural sweetness created a beautiful harmony. If it had been purely sweet it might have become cloying, but the thinly sliced carrots balanced everything beautifully.
Even though the dish tasted best with rice, it didn’t feel overly salty or sweet on its own. He immediately wanted to try it with rice, but one last thing remained.
Tasting the sauce by itself.
He scooped a small amount onto his spoon. Only after tasting it did he understand why every ingredient harmonized so perfectly.
It’s not artificial sweetness.
The sweetness came from pear, onion, and the like—natural, pure sweetness drawn straight from nature. It created a flavor that never felt aggressive or overpowering.
“Hehe.”
And someone was watching the man with eyes full of pride. She had stayed quiet, simply observing, but seeing him eat turned out to be far more entertaining than expected. He sniffed at the rice, then sniffed at the bulgogi. He ate only rice for a while, then only meat, his expression shifting constantly.
All without noticing Seia sitting right in front of him.
“Is it yummy!”
“Ahem… Yes, it’s quite delicious.”
Only then did the man remember Seia was there. He cleared his throat several times. Those sparkling eyes made it impossible to say it tasted bad—and since it actually was delicious, the answer was already decided.
“Everything Daddy makes is yummy.”
“Did Daddy make this side dish himself too?”
“Yep! He made that one yesterday. He stir-fried it really fast!”
They were ordinary side dishes. The main menu had stolen the spotlight, leaving them as supporting players, but they were by no means forgettable.
Why? Because they were delicious.
For any dish, being tasty was the absolute minimum requirement. No matter how good the ingredients were, they meant nothing if the food wasn’t delicious. Unless it was for medicinal use, of course.
“Did your dad originally learn how to cook?”
“Daddy’s good at everything!”
Whether that meant he had learned or not. An answer that would have felt frustrating from anyone else sounded endlessly adorable coming from this child.
“Well, whether he learned or not, does it really matter? Where do you buy the ingredients?”
“Ingredients?”
“Ah, yes. The meat and such.”
“The meat is every day…”
The moment Seia started to answer, an unfamiliar voice rang inside the man’s head.
“We buy them at the market!”
That was the last piece of information the man could pull from Seia. They bought their ingredients at the market.
“I-I see. Thank you.”
If it was the market, it had to be the nearby Eunhye Market. But more importantly, what was that voice he had just heard in his head?
The man was a hunter himself. Though only D-class and relatively weak, he still possessed mana far superior to that of ordinary people. To pull off something like this, the other party had to be at least A-class or higher—he knew that much.
Could the man sitting behind me be an A-class hunter or above?
It was entirely possible. Hunters visited the restaurant all the time. But judging from the content of that voice, the hunter behind him clearly held this place in high regard.
At that moment, the magic stone he carried in his pocket reacted. This wasn’t the one he had brought specifically for today. As a hunter, he occasionally cleared F-class gates for light exercise, and this particular stone had been processed to detect the location of other magic stones.
For it to react suddenly meant there was a magic stone somewhere nearby.
The direction is…
It was pointing directly at Seia.
“…Kid.”
“Yeees?”
“By any chance… do you happen to have something that sparkles…”
He swallowed hard, about to finish the question, but the man couldn’t complete it. Unlike the voice alone, this time an unmistakable killing intent stabbed not only at his back but at every one of his senses.
At this intensity, the child in front of him and the owner in the kitchen should have immediately lost consciousness. But that didn’t happen. The owner continued tidying up in the kitchen, and the little girl kept smiling as she gazed at the bulgogi.
He’s controlling the target of this killing intent?
Releasing killing intent was something any hunter above a certain level could do easily. But precisely controlling its target was an entirely different matter. This was at least A-class. No, clearly someone at the very top of A-class.
It could even be an S-class hunter, but that seemed too unlikely. There weren’t many of them in South Korea.
He couldn’t move a single muscle. Even as the pieces of meat on the spoon hovering in midair fell to the floor with soft plops.
Finally, the killing intent vanished. Only then did the man let out the breath he had been holding. Unable to say anything more, he could only finish his meal in silence.
Still, with every bite, he felt his body—which had grown tense and prickly from the killing intent—gradually relax. Because the food was that good.
He had worried he might not be able to finish the rice because of the tension, but once he started eating, the bowl emptied in no time. It was delicious, and he felt full. Full enough that he would want to eat here again later.
What… should I even report?
That it was because of the child? To the owner who didn’t care about anything that wasn’t his own daughter? If he did that, it felt like a storm would sweep through this peaceful little restaurant.
Today was the first time he had seen it, but strangely, he felt more warmth toward this place than toward the son of Provan Restaurant’s owner.
Ha… What do I do?
Endless worries. Because those worries remained unresolved, even after he had scraped his plate clean, the man couldn’t bring himself to stand up.
“Kid.”
“Yeees?”
The moment he spoke to Seia, he felt a faint killing intent return.
“Ha, haha. Your dad really does have incredible cooking skills.”
“Right? Daddy’s the bestest!”
“Y-yes. I enjoyed the meal very much.”
He had to leave. Staying any longer felt like his body would be pickled by that killing intent.
“Check, please.”
“Seia will do it! Seia will handle it!”
“Oh, you want to try?”
“Yes!”
Jungwoo looked at the customer with an awkward smile and headed toward the counter. While he wiped his damp hands, Seia approached the counter as well.
“This customer is paying by card. Do you remember what I taught you last time?”
“You do the card like this, then this like this!”
“Ooh…”
It was exactly what he had shown her before. But when broken down step by step, the order was mixed up. You were supposed to select the table on the POS system, choose card payment, then swipe the card. Seia remembered the actions but had jumbled the sequence.
She swiped the card first, then pressed the POS.
Of course, nothing happened.
“……?”
Normally the machine should have beeped and printed something, but there was no response. The question mark floating above Seia’s head perfectly captured her current expression.
“Haha. You do it like this. Our Seia did everything correctly, but the order was a little off.”
“Aha!”
“All done. Please come again!”
“Come again!”
“Yes, yes. Thank you for the meal. Well then…”
“I’d like to pay as well.”
This time it was Yuhyeon’s turn. Seeing him hand his card to Seia as if he had been waiting for this moment, it seemed he wanted to give her another chance.
“Would you like to try this one too, Seia?”
“…Yes!”
With a strong reply full of determination not to fail this time, Seia followed the exact sequence Jungwoo had just demonstrated. She swiped the card at the right moment, and the receipt printed out smoothly.
“Done!”
“Wow, our Seia did great! But next time you should do it together with Daddy, okay?”
“Yes. Together with Daddy.”
“Thank you for the meal. I’ll come again.”
“Yes. Take care on your way home. Please come again.”
“Come again!”
Leaving behind the cheerful farewells from the two owners of Seona’s Restaurant, Yuhyeon stepped outside with the man who had paid just before him.
In truth, the man had not intended to leave with Yuhyeon. He had planned to depart immediately after paying, but he found himself unable to move. Since Seia was attempting the card payment again after her earlier failure, how could he possibly miss that scene?
So he had instinctively absorbed every moment of it and was about to head back when—
“You there.”
“Y-yes?”
“Why did you come here?”
“W-well, I came for the food… and no other reason… haha…”
“I don’t like jokes.”
“……”
What should he say? Should he just tell the truth?
The man, who had been weighing how far Provan Restaurant’s influence could reach, finally began to speak, hoping his decision was the right one.
“The truth is…”
Why he had come to the restaurant. What he was supposed to find out. And what Provan Restaurant would do if they learned the truth. He revealed every prediction and scenario he had considered.
“So. You did all this because the old man hasn’t visited the restaurant lately.”
“Y-yes, that’s correct.”
Yuhyeon fell silent for a moment, lost in thought. If he left things as they were, the situation would likely escalate further. Should he tell Park Geon-su? No, that was only a secondary option. Yuhyeon knew exactly what kind of person Park Geon-su was.
“Come with me.”
“Where…”
“To the place you need to return to.”
At this point, the choice had already been made. Refusal was not an option.