An unfamiliar ceiling... no, that’s not it.
It's the familiar ceiling of my second-floor room.
What on earth happened?
If I slowly retrace my memories, I came in feeling puzzled by the house with not a single light on.
The moment I flipped the switch.. had I been knocked out cold?
"Hey.. you can't.. do this!"
"Mm... kwaak!!"
Just as I was assessing the situation, faint voices drifted up from the first floor.
One was Iseria’s voice, and the other.. I wasn’t sure.
The snippets of conversation sounded somewhat urgent.
For now, I didn’t sense any presence in this room or the hallway.
Unconsciously, I tried to raise my body and look around.
But,
"Urk!"
Thud-crash!
With my limbs bound to the chair while seated, I lost my balance and toppled over just like that.
Ow, what the hell is going on.
To actually experience the obsessive confinement I’d only ever heard about.
I had fallen quite spectacularly, so the sound echoed loudly.
The conversation from the first floor stopped, and someone approached my room on the second floor with heavy stomps.
Swoosh-!
The door opened, and the hallway light brightly illuminated the dark room.
Kwaak!
It was a blinding glare that made my eyes sting, but with both hands tied, there was nothing I could do.
While I squeezed my eyes shut and thrashed about, the person who opened the door spoke.
"Jinu! You're awake!"
"Huh. Iseria?"
That person was none other than Iseria.
At the appearance of someone I could trust, I felt relieved.
Iseria looked as though she hadn’t woken up long ago; her face was slightly more swollen than usual, and her hair was disheveled.
Hm. Judging by her appearance, she didn’t seem to have come to any harm.
I was glad she was safe, but then what on earth was going on with this situation?
"I have no idea what happened, but untie me first."
"Ah, well.."
"No, that is impossible."
While Iseria hesitated, merely staring at the rope binding me, another person entered the room.
Ah, ears suspiciously pointy!
"An elf! Who are you!"
"Kuk, for a human.. do not, do not raise your voice so."
"Gasp. That line."
The handsome elf before me muttered "that line" with an indifferent expression.
The male elf, whose blonde hair matched Iseria’s, had a rather well-trained body.
The robed assailants I had seen right before losing consciousness.
Judging from the identical robe he wore, this guy seemed to be one of those assailants.
Iseria fidgeted awkwardly between me and that male elf.
Seeing that she didn’t seem very guarded against the male elf, did they know each other from the start?
The moment I tried to voice the question rising in my head, the other party opened their mouth first.
"You human scum. Do not think you will be released safely after laying a hand on Lady Iseria! You shall pay for your crimes without omission!"
"No, Seiran!! I didn’t do anything!!!"
"Did you not cast aside Elskitt, which the lady had adored since childhood, like trash! You must have fallen for the ugly schemes of humans! You must return to the World Tree at once to be purified!!"
"Elskitt was just because it tasted bad... Eeeek!!"
The absolute chaos of a beautiful girl and a beautiful young elf unfolding before my eyes.
So.. that elf named Seiran seemed to think I had done something akin to brainwashing to Iseria.
The evidence was Elskitt, a food she had liked since childhood. Since Iseria said it tasted bad, it was probably some kind of food.
"I don’t know what Elskitt is, but I didn’t do anything! Really! I just fed her meals!"
"That is the problem, human! To feed the food of greedy humankind to elves—moreover, to the lady, the esteemed daughter of House Sildiel—is a grave sin!"
"What."
Iseria, you were a noble?
Have you been deceiving me all this time?
Iseria wore a helpless expression, unsure where to begin correcting this misunderstanding.
It was then.
"Kwaak!! Seiran! My lady! Please save me!"
"Sigh.. still at it. I told you it obviously looked spicy, yet you went and ate it.."
"You’re not wrong.."
"What is it?"
A woman’s voice screaming in agony was heard from the first floor.
Seiran and Iseria clicked their tongues as if accustomed to it.
Earlier, there had been more than two robed assailants, so was the remaining one the source of the screams right now?
By the way, obviously looked spicy? The spicy thing downstairs right now...
"Don’t tell me, gochujang? Did they eat that?"
"Human. Was it you who made it? To think you would call that food. Just smelling it made sweat flow and my tongue tingle."
"No, that’s something I made extra spicy for myself to eat.."
Oh dear.
Iseria too, when she first broke in, had picked it up and eaten it without knowing any better.
Whether these are elves or chimps or neighborhood stray dogs.
That gochujang was my personal gochujang, mixed with extra spicy red pepper powder that I kept to eat occasionally.
Most otherworlders have no resistance to spiciness, so even regular gochujang would probably be spicy, but if they ate the ultra-spicy gochujang I had made as stress relief..
It wouldn’t be strange if they literally went mad and leaped about.
"Hey. I might be suspicious, but I really didn’t do anything. More importantly, that elf who ate the gochujang needs to be neutralized quickly. Otherwise it’ll hurt even more, right?"
"Kuk. Did you set a trap predicting even this far? Despicable human."
What nonsense. I figured it out since he made that voice joke earlier, but this elf named Seiran has an overactive imagination.
"Is this different from the gochujang you put in my bibimbap, Jinu?"
"Yeah. That gochujang is something I made separately for myself.. If left alone, it'll burn your stomach."
Upon hearing my words, Seiran crossed his arms and hummed in thought.
However, when Iseria lost her patience and yelled "Hey!! That’s enough!!", only then did he untie me and take me to the first floor.
Though Seiran still didn’t lower his guard, glaring at me from behind.
Entering the kitchen on the first floor, there was a female elf.. no, a chimp with her eyes rolled back, leaping about frantically.
She really was going crazy and jumping around.
"Sp-spicy! Water!"
"Hey. Drink this, and keep washing your mouth and tongue with running water. Absolutely don’t rub your eyes like you’re washing your face."
"Ughehehek."
I scooped up cool cold water and handed it to that elf, then turned on the water for her to wash her mouth and tongue.
Having been neutralized with cold water, she seemed to have improved; the female elf’s expression gradually stabilized.
Iseria, who had been watching from behind, spoke.
"Beila, are you alright?"
"Gehk, yes, my lady. I’m better now..."
"See, why did you go picking up and eating things without the owner’s permission..."
"Hieek. Human!!"
Was she too out of it to notice earlier?
The elf called Beila startled upon seeing me and took a guarded stance.
If she had been like that from the beginning, I might have been somewhat tense, but having seen her jumping around like an excited monkey earlier, for some reason.
I didn’t feel a thing.
"Human!! What sort of ugly scheme did you pull..."
"That, this guy did first."
"Ah, really?"
Let’s not repeat the same lines over and over. It’s exhausting for both of us.
I looked alternately at the elves called Seiran and Beila.
Since I showed no threatening attitude and displayed an intimate demeanor with Iseria, their gazes were less guarded than before.
Since Iseria herself kept insisting that she had never been subjected to brainwashing or mental magic, their wariness decreased even further.
At this point, the atmosphere was enough to have a conversation.
"So.. why have you come to our restaurant? Did you come to see Iseria?"
"No. We came to take the lady back. To escort her back to the house!"
"Hm?"
Ah right, Iseria had run away from home.
I hadn’t heard anything about a house, so I hadn’t thought much of it, but if a noble lady from a renowned house ran away to the human world, it certainly made sense to send pursuers after her.
However, Iseria spoke with a face full of grievance.
"I’m not going! I said I’m not going! I like my life here. Above all.. the food at Nuadel is disgustingly tasteless!!"
"What are you saying, my lady!! We have brought so much Elskitt that you loved since you were young!!"
Beila opened her backpack and revealed a bag full of white biscuits.. crackers?
Anyway, she showed the food called Elskitt, which looked like white square crackers.
White powder crumbling off the dried white surface looked almost like chalk dust.
Hmm, quite the appetite-killing visual?
Compared to the ‘desolate snowflake’ I had imagined, that thing looked tasteless and dry.
I took out some separately stored crackers and sprinkled sugar powder over them, then showed them off.
"Iseria, want to eat this?"
"Yes!!"
Chomp chomp.
Iseria munched and chewed the sweet crackers sprinkled with sugar powder.
Watching her, the focus vanished from the two elves’ eyes.
It was the kind of gaze a father would have when his precious daughter announced "I got a boyfriend!" and brought home some thug-like boy.
Emotions mixed with despair and betrayal surged from Seiran and Beila.
Oof, kind of scary.
"Um.. you folks should try some too."
"How could a noble elf readily accept and eat food made by a human whose preparation is unknown?!!"
"Does that mean Iseria, who is eating this right now, is not a noble elf? That she has already become a barbaric, lowly human no different from one?"
"Th-that’s not.. I didn’t go that far..."
"Then eat it."
Trapped in the logic trap, Seiran and Beila deliberated for a while before accepting the crackers I offered.
And, they stuffed them into their mouths.
"Hmph!!"
"Th-this.. is a cracker? It’s incomparable to Elskitt..."
Chomp chomp.
Not long after, the elves’ eyes went wide.
Though they tried to maintain stern expressions, they couldn’t help but twitch the corners of their mouths at the delightful taste.
Sigh. Why does this feel like the exact same repertoire as when I first met Iseria?
I looked at Iseria with that question in my eyes.
Twang.
Iseria made an emoticon-like expression checking my mood.. and averted her gaze.
You felt it too, didn’t you.
Gurgle-
Seeing the three chimps munching away at the crackers, I grew hungry too.
Originally, I had planned to eat dinner after arriving home, but since I had been knocked out once, it was natural to be hungry.
But.. it felt awkward to eat alone.
Judging by their current eating speed, it seemed the elves hadn’t had dinner yet either.
Before the elves could finish all the crackers, I snatched the plate away.
"Aah! My crackers!"
"Return them, human! We must verify whether that food is harmful to the lady.."
"Cut the nonsense."
When I struck a 'halt!' pose and cut them off, Seiran and Beila froze mid-sentence.
Fill up on snacks before a meal, and the meal won't taste good.
I began preparing food according to my originally planned dinner menu.
A dish that even Iseria, who had grown accustomed to my cooking, was seeing for the first time.
Perhaps.. it could be the first dish to receive harsh criticism, but it was a menu that Koreans had to eat periodically.
Iseria came tottering up beside me as I cut squash, onions, and potatoes.
"Jinu, what food are you making?"
I put on a sly, mischievous smile and said.
"Doenjang jjigae."
Delicious even eaten plain, delicious with somyeon noodles added, delicious eaten with meat.
Even a soul food that tasted wonderful when mixed generously into bibimbap with the broth. It was doenjang jjigae.