-A Meal
Cheon Danbi, who had been leading us through alley after alley, suddenly vanished.
She had been walking ahead, saying she would take us to a restaurant she knew, but then she disappeared from right before our eyes as if by magic.
Just as I was about to cast detection magic, wondering if she had used some kind of teleportation spell—
Cheon Danbi’s face popped out from the wall, and she called to us.
“Here, over here!”
Now that I looked, between the uneven, irregularly connected stone walls, there was a gray door that didn’t look like a door at all.
Cheon Danbi hadn’t vanished. She had simply gone in through that door.
When I approached it, I saw a small sign attached to the stone wall beside it.
[Bolba]
No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like a restaurant, but apparently it was one.
It was a mysterious restaurant, but since Cheon Danbi was a local, I figured she must know a good place, and without complaint, I stepped inside.
Perhaps because we had come in from the bright outdoors at midday, the inside of the restaurant felt dim.
Whether the interior had been deliberately designed that way or there had been no interior design at all, the inside consisted only of stone walls, giving it the feeling of a cave.
“Is this really a restaurant?”
Cheon Danbi had already taken a seat at one of the tables. I asked as I approached her.
“Of course. You said we should go eat, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
I looked around again. It really did look exactly like the inside of a cave, but since there were several tables set out, it did resemble a restaurant.
Gil sat down on a chair without a word. He didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. Come to think of it, Gil was not the type to complain much.
“What’s on the menu here? What kind of food do they sell?”
I asked Cheon Danbi. For some reason, I had the feeling that even the food might turn out to be something mysterious.
“Gil, what kind of food do you like? They have a lot of different things on the menu here, so pick whatever you want to eat. This restaurant uses fresh ingredients, and the food tastes pretty good too.”
I was the one who had asked, but Cheon Danbi answered while looking at Gil.
“I’m fine with anything. I eat everything.”
“Well, at your age, you’re at the point where you could chew up iron and rocks.”
“That’s right. When I get really hungry, I feel like I could even chew on a shoe.”
At Gil’s answer, Cheon Danbi laughed brightly. Gil was smiling back at her too.
Beside them, I was the only one worrying whether iron, rocks, or shoes might actually be served as food.
Just then, a woman who appeared to be a server appeared with menus in her hand. She had a small, sturdy build and shaggy hair. She was a dwarven woman.
“Welcome.”
Only then did I understand the restaurant’s interior.
It seemed this place was run by dwarves. That was why the inside had been decorated like a dwarven cave.
Seeing a dwarf suddenly made me think of Yantu and Ren.
‘They must be all right, right? Yantu must be protecting Ren, right?’
The problems I had briefly forgotten because of the tentacle monster incident rose in my mind.
I had to dig into the experiments Vanaheim was conducting together with the black mages.
I also had to visit the biohackers’ laboratory.
The existence of Samir and the Magic Tower was hidden in darkness, but if I followed the fragments one by one, I should be able to reveal their true identities.
“What can I get you?”
The dwarven woman thrust a menu in front of me.
Right. Food first.
I began looking over the menu. It appeared normal.
It was centered around Western dishes, though there seemed to be some Chinese dishes mixed in as well. In any case, it appeared to be a restaurant that sold all sorts of food without regard for nationality.
When I looked over, Gil beside me was also just flipping through the menu.
“Gil, can I choose for you?”
When Cheon Danbi asked, Gil quickly nodded.
“Yes. Please do. I don’t really know what to pick…”
“Okay! Then I’ll order. First, mushroom pizza, lamb skewers, beef stew, spinach ravioli, egg and potato salad, and… Ah! Two bubble beers, one apple cider, and some fries too, please.”
Gil and I lifted our heads at the same time and looked at Cheon Danbi.
Without even looking at the menu, Cheon Danbi swiftly ordered all kinds of dishes. This had to be a restaurant she had visited many times before.
But after ordering so much, Cheon Danbi looked at me and asked,
“And you, Mage?”
“What? You didn’t order mine too?”
I asked back in surprise.
“No? That was for Gil and me. Gil’s still growing, so he needs to eat a lot.”
At Cheon Danbi’s words, Gil waved his hands and said,
“No. I don’t need to eat that much. I think that should be enough for the Mage to eat too.”
“Really? Then please bring it like that.”
And so the order was settled.
For a moment, I wondered who was going to pay for this lunch.
Naturally, it was me. There was no way Gil had any money, and I was the one who had suggested to Cheon Danbi that we go eat.
‘She said she’d just have a glass of juice for lunch…’
I laughed despite myself. I suspected she might be using Gil as an excuse to eat a whole lot of delicious things while she had the chance.
Come to think of it, I remembered that I still hadn’t paid Cheon Danbi for Gil’s treatment either.
‘Good grief, I’m going to have to earn a lot of money from now on.’
Thinking that made me feel as if I had become the head of a household.
But it wasn’t exactly like that either. There was still a calculation to settle between Gil and me.
Once I received the reward for subjugating the tentacle monster, it was only right to give Gil a share too. I hadn’t revealed it to the others, but he had definitely played a part.
Maybe this meal was, in a way, being bought by Gil?
“Gil, eat plenty.”
I said to Gil with a satisfied smile.
“Yes, Mage. Thank you for the meal.”
Not knowing why, Gil smiled along with me.
Perhaps because we were the only customers in the restaurant, the food came out quickly.
The table was filled with dishes in no time. There were many kinds, but the portions of each dish were no joke either.
“Wow! There’s so much. It all looks delicious.”
“You’ve been through a lot, so eat plenty. I told you earlier, right? To handle your magical energy, you need to eat well and rest well. Food is medicine.”
Cheon Danbi said to Gil.
“Yes. Thank you for the meal!”
Gil’s eyes sparkled. He hadn’t eaten anything since morning, so he must have been hungry.
He had spent all that time tense, had probably been frightened because of the black mage, and until he received treatment, his stomach must have been upset too. He had gone through a lot.
“How is it? This beef stew is good, right? Whenever I’m having a hard time, I come here and eat this. Once I have a warm bowl of stew, all the hardship melts away like snow.”
“It’s really delicious. I’ve never eaten anything this tasty before.”
Cheon Danbi and Gil chatted like an older sister and younger brother who got along perfectly.
Fortunately, Gil ate very well and talked without reserve. He seemed far less distant than when I had first met him.
Of course, he had eaten well back then too, but I had been able to sense him watching my reactions, wondering whether it was really all right for him to accept the food. Now, he was eating comfortably, as though he were having a meal with family.
It seemed to be Cheon Danbi’s doing.
‘It’s strange. Even I start feeling at ease without realizing it.’
As I silently ate, I thought about the two people before me.
They were people I hadn’t known for very long, yet I felt comfortable with them and trusted them.
I was surprised that I could trust people so easily.
In my previous life, I had trusted no one but Father Bruno, and there had been no one I was close to.
But in this life, there were people beside me.
Reliable, capable people. People who could fight alongside me against the black mages.
I felt fortunate.
‘It should be all right to be with them, shouldn’t it?’
Cheon Danbi and Gil—both of them were kind, brave, and strong-willed. They also possessed traits different from other people.
Cheon Danbi was a druid with healing power, and Gil had the trait of absorbing the magical energy of other living beings.
If we combined their power with my magic, we should be able to produce great strength.
“By the way, Gil, when did you first get that ability? Absorbing the magical energy of other living beings isn’t exactly common.”
Cheon Danbi was asking. As she picked through her salad, she posed the question casually, as if it were nothing special.
I was curious about the answer as well, so I listened closely.
“I did have it from the beginning, but this was the first time I absorbed such a large amount of magical energy. Before that, I only absorbed little bits of magic that mages or other living beings shed as they moved around.”
Gil said, putting down the slice of pizza he had been holding. He didn’t seem burdened by having to answer.
“You had it from the beginning? Did you just figure it out on your own?”
When Cheon Danbi asked again, Gil tilted his head slightly in thought before continuing.
“I don’t remember exactly when it started. I think I just saw the zombies doing it and tried copying them. And then it worked.”
“Zombies do that too? You mean they absorb the magical energy of other living beings?”
I cut into the conversation. Perhaps he was a little startled by my sudden question, because Gil hurried to correct himself.
“It’s not like what you’re thinking. Zombies don’t go around absorbing people’s life force like the rumors always say. They just gather what’s drifting around in the world. The life force that flows everywhere in the universe.”
I knew that zombies possessed a strange regenerative ability, but I hadn’t known they had the ability to absorb magical energy.
Right now, Gil was calling it the life force of the universe, but it wasn’t very different in meaning.
“Humans fear and despise zombies because they think zombies might harm them, but in truth, zombies don’t harm anyone. They simply circulate the energy of life through bodies that do not die. They borrow it for a little while. And then they return it.”
Gil spoke heatedly, defending the zombies. His bond with the zombies he had lived with was still that strong.
I recalled the concentric circles Gil had been sending out, and the exchange of waves that had occurred through them.
Was the life force of the universe circulated through the exchange of waves between different living beings?
“Yes, you’re right. Zombies don’t harm humans. Zombies originally serve the role of circulating life force. People just don’t know that very well. But Gil, how do you know so much about zombies?”
Cheon Danbi agreed with Gil’s words, then tilted her head and asked.
‘Was I the only one who didn’t know? Zombies were playing such an important role?’
It probably wasn’t only me who didn’t know. This was information these two had come to understand through abilities different from other people’s.
Curiosity welled up in me. What else was there? It felt like there were more things in the way these two saw the world that I didn’t know.
There were many stories I wanted to hear, and many stories I wanted to share with them.
It seemed this meal was going to last a little longer.