“All right, all right!”
“Farther, farther?”
“Yeah! A little, little, little... good!”
Thooom—!
The elves were moving neatly cut trees with wind magic.
Since their field of view was limited, they were working in coordination with the human laborers.
A few days after I discussed business with Callius,
the factory expansion using the Free-Use Elf Pass was proceeding smoothly.
One factory produced roughly six hundred servings a day, so the plan was to build three more factories with the same structure.
Running four barracks’ worth of hardtack might seem excessive, but you never know.
For now, only the Silbaerin Knights and the Academy had signed contracts, but we might strike deals with other groups later on.
For that future, separate from building the factories, we were also clearing a much wider plot of land.
The Kallian Forest, where thick trees grew densely packed.
Originally, this was work that would require all kinds of heavy machinery like chainsaws, excavators, and dump trucks,
but—
‘Your heavy machinery has been replaced by elves.’
The elves sliced through trees with Wind Cutter and moved logs with wind magic, so they were no worse than most excavators.
Slash—!
“Treeeeee!!!! Get out of the way!! To the side!!”
“Aaaah!!”
Kwaaaang—!!
Whoa, that was a little dangerous.
“Hey!! I told you to check your surroundings before cutting! Should I report this to Lady Elioren?”
“Hieeek. I’m sorry!”
I shouted at the elf who had carelessly felled the tree and gave them a sense of urgency.
The Sildiel family had been the cause behind the “Free-Use Elf Pass” in the first place, and their family was also suited to dangerous work.
Was it spirit affinity and mana efficiency?
The blessing they had given me was like that, so their family’s special blessing was probably something similar.
In that case, they would be more proficient at this kind of work than elves from other families.
That was why most of the elves working on the construction right now were members of the Sildiel family.
“Don’t slack off just because I’m not here. You have to finish this today.”
“Hieeek. It’s too hard! How are we supposed to do all of this...”
“If you finish everything, I’ll double the pizza.”
“Hurry, hurry, cut down all the trees! Move it!!”
As expected, efficiency went up when there was a reward.
After sprinkling both carrot and stick over the elves, I headed to the existing Factory No. 1.
Since the clearing and construction would be completed within the next week, the role of the Factory No. 1 employees was extremely important.
Until production at the other factories stabilized, Factory No. 1 would be responsible for all the hardtack supply.
Perhaps because of that, the employees were making hardtack with no time to even blink.
Shararararak—!
The hardtack, after finishing its final crisp drying, was being poured into large containers.
In the storage room in the corner of the factory, those containers were stacked neatly in rows and layers.
Mm... since they’re all elites now, maybe that’s why, but this is excellent.
Last time, I inspected everything and finished optimizing the process, so their know-how is outstanding too.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing for a moment and gather over here.”
I gathered all the employees in the center of the factory.
After even the people who had been in the middle of work too awkward to abandon had all gathered,
I presented them with a new opportunity.
“You all know we’re expanding and building three more factories right now, don’t you?”
“Yes. They’ve been hammering away over there all day.”
“Exactly. It’s so loud I could die.”
The distinctive chatter of the aunties rang out in response to my words.
I continued speaking.
“Once there are four factories, we’ll also be hiring people to work in them. If you know anyone around you who needs a job, please bring them in. We’ll welcome them with open arms.”
“Oh, really? Looks like our boss’s business is doing well!”
“No kidding. We’re stamping out thousands every day. So, Boss, is that all?”
“No. The important part starts now.”
Everyone looked eager, as if they were itching to drag in some son or husband who only ate rice at home.
And when I mentioned the important part, they began focusing again.
“From now on, you will be working as managers at the newly built factories. You’ll train the new hires and manage the production equipment.”
“W-we’re... becoming managers?”
“Really? Is it all right to let commoners like us do that?”
“Of course. Your wages will go up too. By about fifty percent from now?”
“Huuuuuh!!”
There was no law saying commoners couldn’t be managers, and besides, there was no other talent available.
When it came to making K-hardtack, the factory aunties were already skilled enough to appear on Masters of Living.
Now, at my request that they apply that know-how as managers, the reaction exploded.
“Oh my, this job is already more than good enough. What am I supposed to do with this...”
“Oh, then you don’t have to do it, ma’am. I’ll take your share too!”
“Don’t cross the line.”
“Our Boss Kang was Silbaerin’s lucky charm, wasn’t he? A lucky charm!”
“You can say that again! He’s tall and handsome too... If only he dyed his hair a bit!”
Huh? What’s wrong with my hair color?
In any case, everyone seemed to be reacting positively.
I’d been worried about what I would do if someone didn’t want a management position, so it was nice that they were cooperative.
A predecessor’s handover and know-how were secret manuals you couldn’t learn even by paying money, so it was absolutely right to secure them.
With that, I could breathe a little easier about production at the new factories.
Callius’s merchant company employees would take care of the rest.
The aunties called me the boss, but in truth, I had entrusted the employees’ wages and the overall factory operations to Callius’s company.
They had been doing that sort of work all along, and Callius had told me not to worry and leave it to him.
There was one week left until the trip to the imperial capital for trade and my visit to the Academy.
With the elves’ magic, the clearing of the factory site would be finished today...
Once that was done, the rest of the construction would proceed like clockwork.
We called them factories, but they weren’t modern facilities, so was there any need to draw in electricity? Or anything else?
All we needed was a sturdy tent and fence, a hearth, and a storage building.
Our goal was one thing.
For this trade trip, we had to bring at least five thousand servings of hardtack, one hundred fifty kilograms.
The Academy’s supply was the minimum requirement, and the best-case scenario would be to also bring enough to sell on the market.
Since we still had a week left, we would be able to meet the quantity comfortably.
Both hardtack production and factory expansion were matters that time would solve.
And that meant...
‘I should go home and make pizza.’
There was no room left for me to intervene, so I should return home and make pizza.
The workers were working hard, so I had to feed them something tasty.
Come to think of it, do people in Silbaerin eat tomatoes too?
No matter how out of season they were, I hadn’t been able to find tomato dishes or even dried tomatoes, so I should assume they didn’t eat them.
Then I couldn’t possibly resist spreading another new culture.
I had made it for the elves a few times in Noirudel, and they ate tomatoes to begin with, so a basic Neapolitan pizza would do for them.
But the Silbaerin laborers would be eating it for the first time, and it seemed better to give them something hearty...
“Chicago deep dish.”
Inside a thick dough two to three centimeters deep, generously filled with stimulating toppings.
A pizza completely different from the universal idea of “pizza,” much closer in form to a “pie.”
It was the perfect meal for people who had burned lots of calories through hard labor.
The direction of the flavor and its appearance were completely different, but the dough for Neapolitan pizza and Chicago pizza was surprisingly similar.
That was because both used cake flour, which was characterized by crispness.
Chicago pizza was closer to a pie, and at a glance it could even look like a large loaf of bread, so why cake flour?
The reason, paradoxically, was because of the shape of Chicago pizza.
Chicago pizza was shaped and baked in a deep pan, boasting a height of at least three to five centimeters.
If you were going to fill it with moist ingredients and maintain that size, a crisp texture like a cookie was more advantageous than a soft texture like bread.
After all, it had to be firm and crisp to hold its shape well once it absorbed moisture.
And there was also charm in the contrast between the soft filling and the crispness of the dough.
“In any case... I have to knead dough, don’t I?”
Just like the dough last time, cake flour, yeast, salt, and warm water were enough.
If there was one difference... it was that there was far more of it.
Which meant my forearms were trembling like motorcycle engines.
“My... arms feel weird...”
Tremble tremble tremble tremble—
Human greed truly had no end.
Now I could even exchange for processed foods, but at this point, I wanted a food processor too.
With that, I could just throw everything in and click—done.
‘I’m seriously going to practice wind magic.’
Whether it was spirit arts or just plain magic, I really needed to practice.
A medieval cooking environment was far too harsh on a modern person.
Somehow, I finished kneading the dough, and now I only had to let it ferment for about ninety minutes.
Of course, I couldn’t rest in the meantime.
I had to make the tomato sauce and the toppings that would go inside the Chicago pizza.
But today, I was going to make the tomato sauce a little differently.
The representative method of removing moisture in cooking was evaporation.
Whether you boiled it off or stir-fried the ingredients to drive it off, you made it dry.
Tomato sauce was the same; the key was to gently cook the tomatoes while driving off the moisture and leaving the umami behind.
However, today... I would not stir-fry them.
“What stripped the traveler of his clothes was neither the strong wind nor the sun, but salt.”
Osmosis, the phenomenon in which liquid moves from an area of lower concentration to one of higher concentration.
I intended to use that to remove most of the moisture from the tomatoes without stir-frying them.
You might ask why I would go through the trouble of putting them in a sieve and waiting for the water to drain when simply stir-frying them would be easier.
As I had emphasized again and again on El’s Kitchen, every cooking method had a proper reason.
If I said low heat, there was a reason for low heat; if I said high heat, there was a reason for high heat.
Likewise, there was a reason to use osmosis.
If you applied heat and stir-fried them, evaporation would of course be faster, and you could also obtain the umami unique to the Maillard reaction.
But at the same time, you would lose the freshness, aroma, and refreshing acidity of the vegetables.
Today’s menu was Chicago pizza.
It was a dish where you assembled all the ingredients, then baked it once at the end.
Even if I didn’t stir-fry the tomato sauce, there was still a step where heat would be applied.
Also, given the nature of Chicago pizza, which used generous amounts of cheese and sausage toppings,
if even the tomato sauce had a heavy body, it could feel burdensome to eat.
Therefore, I would preserve the tomato sauce’s brightness as much as possible through osmotic cooking, then balance the body with cheese and sausage.
Bubble, bubble—
I blanched the tomatoes once in boiling water, peeled them, and cut them into rough chunks.
Since I would remove the moisture as if salting them, I had to be careful not to cut them too finely, or they might turn into total mush.
I placed the tomato pieces in a sieve, sprinkled them with salt, a little sugar, and chicken powder, then mixed them well.
Now, if I left them alone until the dough matured, the fresh tomato sauce, drained of moisture, would be complete.
As for the fillings... they were really simple, so there was no need to hurry.
Mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, and some salted sausage I had bought roughly at the Silbaerin market.
Ah, the sausage had a slight odor, so I brushed it with World Tree sap.
Swaaa—
The moment the sap touched it, the bothersome gamey smell washed away cleanly.
On top of that, I tore spinach into large pieces, and all I had to do was mix everything well right before assembling the ingredients and put it on.
While I was making the remaining ingredients, the dough had already puffed up nice and full.
If I started baking now, I could just about match the laborers’ mealtime.
I filled a wide cylindrical pizza mold with thickly stretched dough.
“Oof, it already feels hearty.”
After eating Margherita, seeing a pizza with bread three centimeters thick made me feel full without even eating it.
The key when laying down the dough was to let it spill out over the outside of the cylindrical pizza mold.
When you put something into a plastic bag, don’t you fold the opening outward so everything goes in properly?
Just like that, to make sure the ingredients fit neatly inside the pizza dough, I draped the dough over the outside of the mold.
Now I filled it from the bottom up, layer by layer, with toppings made by mixing chopped sausage, spinach, and various cheeses.
I tossed in the fresh tomato sauce I had made too.
After repeating this process, I neatly covered it like a pie roof with the pizza dough I had set aside in advance.
Then I pinched it together with the bottom-layer dough I had folded outward earlier, sealing it shut.
The Chicago pizza was packed tight with not the slightest gap.
Now... if I made a cross-shaped hole in the center for steam to escape, then finished the top with tomato sauce and cheese?
“Is this Silbaerin or America?”
Hidden inside a thick, crisp dough, then overflowing the moment you took a bite.
The food that made you feel your blood vessels clogging in real time.
Chicago deep dish pizza had finished preparing to appear in another world.
“Jinwoo, I’m back!”
“Oh, nice timing.”
Eilenna had returned at just the right moment before I put the Chicago pizza into the oven.
I’d made plenty of food, so it should be fine for us to try it first.
“Are you ready to just about die, Lady Eilenna?”
“U-um? What do you mean?”
Eilenna had come back after helping with the construction using her plant growth ability.
So I should stuff her full of calories that went far beyond simply restoring her energy.