'Ah, that stings.'
While scratching my head, I accidentally touched the scab on my scalp.
It had almost healed, but it was still bothering me.
The wound I got when I was put to sleep while eating jeon at home and hit the floor.
'It’s not like I got blood on the floor or anything, right?'
I hadn’t been hurt that badly. It was more of a scratch.
Even if it did get on there, it would probably have been only the faintest trace.
Anyway, three days had already passed.
Since I had introduced pizza to the elves who had been chomping down raw tomatoes, that is.
While staying at Elioren’s mansion, I made all sorts of dishes besides pizza.
Aside from ratatouille, most of them were Italian.
Since the elves had the habit of eating ingredients raw, the natural flavors characteristic of Italian cuisine were easy for them to get used to.
And since I had been dragged to Noirdel without any preparation, my specialty, Korean food, was basically sealed away.
So I cooked a lot, three meals a day.
Ratatouille, which isn’t Italian but comes to mind when you think of tomato sauce.
From the most basic aglio e olio to basil pesto pasta infused with the fresh green vitality of the World Tree.
Even rich risotto made with whatever vegetables they wanted to eat.
Every meal was a completely different dimension of elf-friendly cuisine.
Elves seeing me for the first time would look doubtful at first, but after one bite...
“It’s so delicious... What on earth have I been eating all this time?”
“They said human food was horribly disgusting... Ancestors, did you deceive me?”
“Ahh! Master Jinu has sent me an empty plate. What reason do I have to live any longer!”
“Hey, hey, hey.”
There had been a serving mistake.
I took the empty plate back, quickly filled it with tomato pasta, and returned it.
Only then did the nameless elf look relieved and happily start eating the pasta.
Just three months ago, I never would have imagined I’d be serving food to this many people.
Of course, I had believed in my skills, but back then, all I had was my otherworld transfer perk.
I was just a black-haired man with no money and no trust, so my growth now felt strangely unfamiliar.
Though I hadn’t come to Noirdel of my own will, my true calling was still that of a chef.
Seeing the elves happily eat my food put me in quite a good mood.
Just watching those elf brats eat was enough to make me feel full... or not,
so I was in the middle of eating my own portion of risotto when—
[Skill: Mana Market has leveled up!]
[Mana Market Lv.1 → Lv.2]
A system message as big as a gate rose up, blocking my vision.
'What is this?'
This is... a move I’ve never seen before?
***
I hurried back to my room.
Then I used [Mana Market].
Swaaa—
Even after leveling up, the sensation of mana draining away was the same.
The drowsy feeling lasted only a moment.
When I saw the exchanged ingredient in front of me, I couldn’t help but marvel.
“Wow... This actually works?”
A bright yellow lump of umami had fallen before me.
It was none other than cheese.
It felt like receiving a full set of top-quality cooking tools as an unexpected birthday present.
Enjoying even the dizziness of dopamine flooding my head, I opened my status window.
=====
Name: Gang Jinu (35)
Race: Human
Traits: [A Cook’s Touch Lv.Max], [Cold Resistance Lv.3], [Fire Resistance Lv.7]
Skills: [Mana Market Lv.2], [Basic Spirit Arts Lv.2]
=====
The level of [Mana Market] had clearly risen.
I wasn’t sure why it had suddenly gone up.
When I made jang, I used [Basic Spirit Arts] a lot, so its level had risen.
But a little while ago, I hadn’t even used [Mana Market], yet it leveled up.
I didn’t know what the condition was... but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
I opened the skill description for [Mana Market].
=====
[Mana Market Lv.2]
Mana resides in all matter in the world.
The same goes for food ingredients. Exchange your mana for ingredients!
*Has synergy with the trait [A Cook’s Touch]!
*The category of available ingredients expands as the level increases!
=====
It wasn’t that the quality improved, but that the category of ingredients expanded.
I kept chewing over that sentence, which didn’t immediately hit me at first glance.
Then, as the impact struck me like a hammer to the head,
I had returned straight to my room and tried exchanging for cheese.
'Processed foods... are included as ingredients.'
What did this insane function mean?
It meant I no longer had to sweat all day grinding a millstone to make sesame oil.
I didn’t have to worry about running out of soy sauce, doenjang, or gochujang either.
I didn’t have to cause a damn mess in the kitchen trying to make tofu.
All those unavoidable, time-consuming, troublesome tasks.
I could skip all of them entirely and just swipe the finished product.
In other words, I had become a walking grocery mart!
“Kang-kkiyah-hoo!!”
Unable to contain the excitement welling up inside me,
I jumped up and down on the spot while clapping the soles of both feet together, making smacking sounds as I screamed kkiyah-hoo—
“Hey!! Jinu! Be quiet!”
“Hup.”
Iseria, who had been resting in the room next door, couldn’t stand the noise and shouted.
Only then did I stop my legendary reaction and calm myself down.
'Now that it’s come to this, I’m stealing everything in Noirdel.'
The elves were no different from robbers in that they had entered my home without permission and knocked out the owner.
But now that [Mana Market] had leveled up, I could only be grateful.
'A gentleman’s revenge is not too late even after ten years.'
Except I’d be able to take revenge after barely a week.
I didn’t know what meaning that proverb had originally been coined with, but still, wasn’t faster better?
I would register all of Noirdel’s ingredients and processed foods as exchange items...
And once I got home later, I’d freeload off them to my heart’s content.
First, I needed to hurry to a cheese shop and register everything.
Both my body and mind were already rushing ahead.
I quickly left my room and passed through the dining hall on my way to the market.
But then—
'Huh, this smell is...?'
A refreshing, fresh, and at the same time mood-lifting fragrance was drifting from the dining hall.
That nostalgic scent I hadn’t smelled in a long time...
'No, there’s no way.'
I was sure it made no sense,
but the aroma now stimulating my nose was no lie.
Cheese or whatever else could wait. I entered the dining hall.
And then a rare sight unfolded before my eyes.
“You can’t leave wine out with food like this!”
“That refreshing taste that brings out the flavor of fresh ingredients even more. This is it!”
“Pour! Drink!”
Gulp, gulp—
The elves were drinking alcohol with my food as snacks.
If it were just ordinary alcohol, I would have let it pass, but that was...
A beautiful yellow color, as though gold had been dropped into clear water.
When they swirled the glass, the aroma spread out, flaunting its own alcohol.
I could sense the salty tang characteristic of sodium, the freshness of fruit, and the pleasant tipsiness of alcohol.
'White wine.'
Elves who didn’t know the first thing about cooking and had been ignorantly chewing raw vegetables.
Those elf brats were drinking white wine.
And quite high-quality wine at that.
Unable to hold back my shock, I shouted.
“Why do you guys have this?”
“Ah, Master Jinu! Would you like to try some? It’s wine I made myself!”
“Please try mine too!”
It wasn’t just one or two bottles either.
Every elf eating here took out their own homemade wine.
Unable to offer any resistance, I accepted the glass handed to me.
Even if betrayal made my head freeze, the body was honest.
There was wine in the Empire too.
But I didn’t want to call that wine.
It was something vaguely resembling wine.
The wine sold in the Empire was horribly watery, only sour and dry.
Since it had no balance, the unpleasantness of the alcohol hit you straight on, making it practically impossible to drink.
They say the wine served in the imperial palace is a little different, but well. I didn’t have high expectations.
Applying modern standards for wine to a food culture at a medieval level was asking far too much.
But the white wine now wetting my lips—
'How do the elves know this taste?'
The elves’ white wine was different.
There are three main factors that determine the balance of white wine:
alcohol, sweetness, and acidity.
Alcohol is produced as sugar is broken down.
Because of that, though it differs depending on the type of alcohol, white wines often have an inverse relationship between alcohol and sweetness.
A high-alcohol white wine has little sweetness because almost all of its sugar has turned into alcohol,
while a low-alcohol white wine has more residual sugar, so its alcohol content is low and it tastes sweet.
It’s not always the case, just a general rule.
In any case, the balance of this white wine was excellent.
A sense of alcohol around roughly twelve percent, and a rich aroma.
Citrus fruits and the fresh scent of grass spread vividly through my mouth.
If it had only refined but fundamentally sharp acidity and alcohol, the balance would have collapsed.
The umami and subtle sweetness supporting it beneath the acidity brought the flavor to a perfect close.
A well-made Sauvignon Blanc. That was exactly the taste.
“How is it? It’s delicious, right? It’s wine I made using my mother’s recipe!”
The elves asked me about the taste of the white wine.
Sip—
I didn’t answer and emptied the entire glass.
Then I despaired.
'Why did the god of this other world give wine to the elves?'
Why grant such grace to these brats who couldn’t even cook a single dish properly?
“It’s good. It’s good, all right.”
“Wow! Thank you. Your food is delicious too, Master Jinu!”
The elf, delighted by the praise, returned to her own table.
I left the dining hall with my shoulders drooping.
White wine was one of the alcoholic drinks I truly loved.
Finding it in Noirdel was a good thing, yes... but somehow, it wounded my pride.
Common sense says alcohol should develop in a society where cooking is active, right?
So why did Noirdel have wine...
'Ah, could it be?'
Other regions outside Noirdel, naturally, did not have the World Tree.
In other words, they were farming year-round while fighting natural disasters under anything-goes rules.
'Oh fuck, my wheat field!!!!'
In bad harvest years, they were desperately poor,
'Hungry? Just eat bread.'
and in good harvest years, they didn’t have to worry about starving.
It would be nice if every year were a bumper harvest, but the yield depended on the land’s fertility and the climate, so crop production differed from year to year.
Even in an otherworld where magic existed, they couldn’t control the weather at will.
Because the amount produced varied so wildly, they didn’t consume crops beyond necessity.
In other words... something like alcohol never even got its turn to develop.
On the other hand, Noirdel had the living ingredient copier, the World Tree.
Thanks to the World Tree’s grace, a mild climate all 365 days of the year,
and top-grade crops they could enjoy in overflowing abundance if they only wished.
There was no reason for alcohol not to develop.
It looked like they had skipped strangely along the food culture tech tree,
but what could I do when it existed right in front of me? I had to accept it.
I calmly acknowledged reality.
If anything, this was good.
Since I was here, I could drink plenty of wine... Ah, it might be nice to buy a few bottles and keep them at home to drink over time.
“Mm, Master Jinu. What are you doing standing blankly in the hallway? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
“Ah, Elioren. I’m fine. I just zoned out for a moment.”
“Hoho... That is a relief. I thought you might be tired because there were too many elf guests. If it is difficult for you, I will stop them even now.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m doing it because I want to.”
Elioren was worried about my “Elf Enlightenment Movement.”
It sounded a bit grand, but it was just inviting the other elves of Noirdel to the mansion and feeding them.
The more elves I showed cooking to, the more they would open the eyes they’d kept shut and stop wasting ingredients.
If I had one slight concern, it was whether it was all right to let commoner? elves freely enter the Sildiel family mansion...
'They weren’t nobles.'
Because of the name Sildiel family, I thought they were nobility,
but as it turned out, elves had no concept of commoners or nobles.
However, they said that renowned families had the characteristic of receiving the World Tree’s blessing more deeply.
In terms of social hierarchy, there were no statuses, but the object of the elves’ faith was the World Tree.
Therefore, the elves of the Sildiel family, who had received that blessing deeply, became objects of admiration from a racial perspective.
Maybe it was because they were a single people who took the World Tree as the pillar of their race.
Their equal treatment without discrimination was nice to see. That was why I could comfortably serve ordinary elves too.
At my words that I was fine, Elioren glanced briefly toward the dining hall.
“Hmm... If that is so, then I am glad. If anyone is rude to you, please tell me. I will...”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
The look in his eyes for that instant was so terrifying that I flinched without realizing it.
He’d been like this from time to time ever since I made him pizza last time.
The consideration was nice, but at times, it was a little chilling.
“Ah, now that I think about it... Do elves make wine too?”
“Yes. After tasting your food, Master Jinu, I realized we truly cannot cook... but I believe our wine is not bad.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
When they made wine this delicious, why hadn’t he told me from the beginning?
Maybe because I felt strangely wronged, my tone came out a little accusatory.
Elioren didn’t mind my attitude.
If anything, his eyes gleamed.
“So you liked the wine!”
What’s this? His energy suddenly shot up.
“Yes. I’ve always liked it.”
“Ahaha, to tell the truth, I do not particularly enjoy wine myself, so I failed to mention it. My apologies.”
“Ah, no. It’s not something you need to apologize for.”
“Ah, Master Jinu. Then, perhaps...”
Elioren trailed off.
After a brief silence as he caught his breath, his mouth opened again.
“Would you like to go now? To the winery.”
“Pardon? Right now? If we’re going... then sure.”
“Excellent! I will go prepare, so please wait a moment.”
Elioren’s attitude was rather meaningful, but what could possibly happen?
I was also curious how brewing was done in another world, and I had plenty of time.
Without thinking much of it, I accepted the proposal.
Elioren’s steps as he returned to his room, saying he was going to prepare, looked strangely excited.