I’d caught an elf stealing in the middle of the night, and instead of throwing her out, I fed her first—only for the first thing out of her mouth to be racial discrimination.
I was deeply shocked by the racism of an elf who had fallen so far into supremacism she didn’t know how high the sky was.
“For a human!!! How did you make food like this? It’s so good!”
“Huh.”
However, the elf executed an exquisite drift, like she was filling up a KartRider booster.
Curious about what she meant, I asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what I said, you foolish human. How did you make a perfect elven meal?”
“An elven meal?”
“Yes, an elven meal. The ingredients are of the highest quality, of course, but even though you didn’t use any animal products at all, the umami is extraordinary.”
The elf’s attitude was still rude, but I roughly understood what she was saying.
In other words, she was wondering how a human had managed to make the perfect vegan meal that even elves themselves couldn’t make.
To be honest, from a Korean’s perspective, it wasn’t anything particularly special.
But when I thought of it as the same principle as vegan Westerners being surprised by a Korean vegetarian table, I could understand her astonishment.
“I’m grateful you think it’s tasty, but answer my question. Who are you, and why did you break into my house?”
Earlier, I’d been too flustered to get a good look at her, but now that I did, the elf looked extremely shabby.
The tunic and pants she was wearing were filthy, stained with dirt, dust, and some unknown green juice,
her platinum-blonde hair, tied in twin tails, had bits of overturned greens stuck here and there, and it was dry and frizzy as if she had been living in the forest for a long time.
Her face was pretty, but that was it—she looked exactly like a beggar.
The situation was growing suspicious in all sorts of ways.
The elf hesitated at my question, then opened her mouth.
“My name is Iseria. I’m an elf of Noirudel. As for this place… the delicious smell tempted me, and before I knew it…”
The elf who introduced herself as Iseria briefly told me her story.
The elves’ country had been too boring, so she had secretly run away, but the world outside the greenhouse had been harsher than expected.
She’d spent days starving and living like a stranded person, and when she smelled something incredible, she lost her senses.
After quietly listening to her story, I blurted out the word that came to mind.
“So you’re just a runaway teenager.”
“I am not?!! I’m a proper adult!”
As if I’d hit the mark, Iseria raised her voice and refuted me.
She was short and not very big, yet she was an adult?
Since elves lived much longer than humans, maybe their metabolism or growth rate was different?
Well, I just accepted it.
In truth, that wasn’t really any of my business, and now that I knew she was an adult who should be able to take care of herself…
“Hmm… is that so?”
“That’s right! Don’t treat me like a child. You’re just a human younger than me!”
“Then get out.”
“Huh?”
If she had really been a young elf, I would have helped her, but she said she was an adult, and she’d left home of her own accord, so she had to take responsibility, right?
I got up from my chair, grabbed Iseria by the arm, and dragged her along.
Iseria struggled, but she was still dragged away.
“Let go of me!! How am I supposed to survive if I leave now?!”
“That’s for you to figure out. Be grateful I’m not reporting you.”
“Then just for today! Let me stay for just one day!”
“Please grow into an adult who can take responsibility for her own actions.”
She tried in her own way to resist stubbornly, but it was useless.
I pushed Iseria out beyond the front gate.
“If you come in on your own again, then I really will report you.”
“Ugh..!”
Bang!
Without even waiting for an answer, I mercilessly shut and locked the door.
Duke Kailan and Arthur came by whenever they were bored, so if a real problem came up, I’d tell them.
As I locked all the restaurant’s doors and windows, I glanced outside through the glass.
Iseria stood there blankly, looking as devastated as a betrayed cat, then soon turned her steps toward the forest.
Seeing her drooping back did make me feel a little sorry for her, but I steeled my heart.
If she had asked politely for food and lodging in the first place, I would have let her in.
I’d let Isilla stay once before, and doing it twice wouldn’t have been hard.
There was no particular reason to refuse.
But Iseria had broken into my house as she pleased, stolen food, and brazenly even fired off some racial discrimination, never mind showing any manners.
As someone who had gone through the full Confucian course of the Eastern Nation of Courtesy, it was a rudeness I could not tolerate…
‘Let’s just sleep.’
I’d gone through all sorts of nonsense in the middle of the night.
I surrendered myself to the sudden wave of drowsiness.
***
Three days later, Duke Kailan, who had come again without fail to eat banquet noodles, said,
“Have you started raising a cat recently?”
“Ah… no?”
“Hmm, then have you ever fed a wild animal? Every time I come, there are tree fruits or small animals hunted near the restaurant. I don’t know what kind of beast it is, but it sure knows how to repay a debt.”
“Ahaha… Last time I made too much food for myself, so I left it in the forest for anyone to eat. It must have eaten that.”
Of course, I hadn’t fed a stray cat or some beast.
Near the wooden fence or in the yard, there would be small handfuls of tree fruits gathered together, and sometimes small animals like rabbits had been hunted and left there.
And I knew the culprit behind this beast-like repayment behavior.
It was none other than the elf spy currently hiding in the bushes of the forest by the backyard, ears perked up— Iseria.
When I briefly opened the back door and looked out, her protruding ears had turned red.
Apparently, with the elves’ superhuman hearing, she had overheard the conversation treating her like a beast.
These strange things had been happening ever since I chased Iseria out three days ago.
At first, I wondered if birds had gathered food there, but when a dead rabbit appeared as well, I caught on.
Late at night, I deliberately turned off all the lights in the restaurant and secretly kept watch.
There was a rustling sound from the direction of the forest, and platinum-blonde twin tails swayed.
Iseria looked around and approached the restaurant with an awkward, waddling gait.
I wondered why she was walking like that, but it turned out she had no pockets, so she had filled the front of her top with berries and the like.
Every time Iseria walked, her snow-white stomach peeked out beyond the lifted hem of her shirt.
When Iseria reached the wooden fence in the backyard, she carefully lowered the pouch she had made from the front of her shirt.
Wild berries such as raspberries, hardy kiwis, and wild grapes spilled out from the pouch.
After emptying all the fruits, Iseria carefully returned to the forest.
That was the whole story behind the incident, but I didn’t tell Duke Kailan the truth.
It was my first time seeing the race called elves in this other world, so I didn’t know whether it was all right to talk about them carelessly, and would he even believe me if I said, “Your Grace, that isn’t a beast, it’s an elf!”?
Also, if I said that, Iseria might feel humiliated.
At first, I had been disappointed by her rudeness, but looking at it now, it seemed like something that had happened because she was clumsy with human relationships.
I guessed that bringing those fruits like that was Iseria’s own way of apologizing.
“Phew. I ate well today, too. Come to the city sometime soon. I’ll order them to treat you with the utmost hospitality.”
“Yes, thank you, Your Grace. Please take care on your way back.”
After Duke Kailan left, I checked on “that” which I had been soaking since yesterday.
I had been preparing it ever since I realized Iseria felt sorry, but since it was such a troublesome dish, it had taken quite a lot of time.
It had absorbed plenty of water over a whole day and swollen up completely.
That thing was none other than soybeans.
That’s right. What I was going to make was the very essence of vegetarian cuisine.
The greatest protein made from 100% plant-based ingredients—tofu.
She had loved even ordinary bibimbap that much, so if she ate tofu for the first time, wouldn’t she faint while eating it?
I was only half joking when I worried about what I’d do if she actually collapsed while eating.
After all, freshly made, warm, nutty handmade tofu had that much power.
In modern times, factory-produced tofu was the most common, but if you put in just a little effort and looked around, there were places where you could eat handmade tofu or freshly made tofu.
And people who ate that kind of tofu for the first time all said the same thing.
“The tofu I’ve been eating until now wasn’t tofu.”
To create that flavor that brought on a warm, comforting wave of emotion, the process was quite complicated.
First, I put the well-soaked soybeans into the millstone and ground them.
I had used this millstone to grind sesame seeds when making sesame oil as well.
Back then, I’d nearly died doing it all by myself, and today was no different.
After groaning and grinding all the soybeans, I strained the ground soybean pulp through a cotton cloth.
Once I had collected the soy milk with the bean solids filtered out, I put it in a pot and boiled it.
Heating it removed the distinctive beany smell of soybeans and helped the proteins coagulate.
The important point was that I had to keep stirring so it wouldn’t stick to the bottom.
If it stuck and developed that distinctive burnt flavor, the disaster of having to throw away the entire batch of soy milk would occur.
After boiling it for about fifteen minutes while stirring well, I turned off the heat, covered it with a lid, and let the soy milk cool while it steamed.
When it was no longer boiling hot, but not merely warm either—just moderately hot—I strained the soy milk once more through a cotton cloth.
‘Let’s set the soybean pulp aside.’
The solids filtered out at this stage were biji, soybean pulp.
It was an ingredient that people either liked or disliked, but it had its own fanbase for its distinctive crumbly and nutty flavor.
Later, if I boiled it into a refreshing biji stew, it would be enough to polish off a bowl of rice in no time.
I lined a large rectangular mold I had prepared in advance with cotton cloth and poured in the pure soy milk separated from the biji.
Then I slowly added salt-vinegar water to the soy milk while stirring.
It would have been nice if I could get nigari, but I hadn’t planned on making tofu, so I hadn’t prepared any in advance.
So, as a substitute for nigari, I used salt-vinegar water made by mixing salt, vinegar, and water to act as the coagulant for the tofu.
As I slowly poured in the salt-vinegar water and stirred with a spatula, the soy milk gradually coagulated into the form known as chodubu, or sundubu.
I set aside two servings of chodubu.
Firm modubu was good, too, but anyone who had tasted Chodang sundubu from Gangwon Province would know.
This wasn’t a flavor that could simply be called sundubu.
It was a dish that made you feel a warmth as if you had the whole world, even if you just sprinkled a little seasoned soy sauce on it and scooped it up without any other side dishes.
I would eat the chodubu in a bit; for now, preparing the modubu came first.
While it was still in the chodubu state, I covered the mold with a lid and placed a heavy stone on top.
If I let it firm up in this state for twenty to thirty minutes and took it out, the modubu would be complete as well.
All that remained was waiting. I glanced through the window at the backyard.
Sure enough, a pair of twin tails, lured by the nutty fragrance of tofu filling the air, came into view.
As if her mind telling her to restrain herself and her body saying it couldn’t endure anymore were fighting for control, Iseria stood in front of the backyard’s wooden fence, unable to do this or that, only staring at the restaurant.
At this point, she was worth forgiving.
Before opening the back door, I first hardened my expression.
‘Forgiveness is forgiveness, but discipline has to be clear.’
After practicing a stern face, I opened the door and shouted.
“Iseria. Come here.”
“U-um? Really?”
“Hurry.”
Startled by my appearance, Iseria tried to run away at once, but at my call, she climbed over the wooden fence and approached.
“Don’t you have something to say to me?”
“That… sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“No…”
Standing in front of me, Iseria couldn’t even meet my eyes and only fidgeted with her hands.
When I pressed her, the word sorry came out.
In truth, my negative feelings toward Iseria had already disappeared.
No matter how old she actually was, she looked about the age of a younger cousin, and when a kid like that gave me things she considered precious in her own way as a sign of apology, it was actually cute.
Maybe because of that, I felt needlessly mischievous and pressured her.
“I’m sorry…”
In the end, when the polite words “I’m sorry” came out of Iseria’s mouth, it became hard for me to hold back my laughter.
“Pfft, phuhup!”
“Why, why are you laughing?!”
“Hahaha! All right, I forgive you. Come in.”
At my laughter bursting out, Iseria looked at me in bewilderment.
Her reaction really was the kind a little child would have, which made it even funnier.
I led her into the restaurant and said,
“You’ve been smelling this since earlier, right?”
Gulp.
In response to my question, Iseria answered by swallowing her saliva.
I seated her at the table and brought out the chodubu and seasoned soy sauce I had prepared in advance.
“As a gift to commemorate our reconciliation, this is chodubu.”
“Huuuh…!”
Was she even hearing what I said?
Iseria had completely lost her senses to the chodubu placed before her eyes.
“Add the soy sauce beside it… the black seasoning sauce, to your liking, and try it together.”
As I said, Iseria scooped up a little soy sauce and poured it over the chodubu. So she could hear me after all.
Then, with a trembling hand, she gripped the spoon and scooped up a spoonful of chodubu.
Soft and billowy—
A cloud, or the sea. Maybe both?
The pure white, fluffy curds were lifted together with warm broth.
Iseria carefully put the chodubu into her mouth as if cradling a newborn baby.
And then, the entire view of gourmet cuisine she had held until now collapsed.