The duke’s young lady, whom I had reunited with after so long, burst into tears the moment she saw my face.
Since she skipped all the context and went straight to crying, Eilenna’s expression beside me turned strange as well.
Her eyes seemed to say, “Jinwoo, Jinwoo... what on earth did you do?”
“Hic, food... Please give me food...!”
“Eh.”
Fortunately, Isilla’s words after the tears cleared up Eilenna’s misunderstanding.
To think the first thing she said after seeing me for the first time in months was, “Please give me food.”
For a moment I wondered if something was odd, but since my job was a cook and we’d met as customer and owner, it made sense in its own way.
I didn’t know the details, but she definitely seemed to have a story.
And when there was a story, a memory, a happy event, or a sad one, food was something that could never be left out.
Yukgaejang cup noodles after a bout of splashing around in the sweltering summer.
Yukgaejang cup noodles during a break on a march.
Yukgaejang cup noodles after night guard duty in winter, and so on.
Why is the only thing that comes to mind yukgaejang cup noodles?
Well... the point is this: food is eaten together with one’s surroundings and emotions.
In that sense, I could understand why Isilla was looking for food.
It meant my cooking had been delicious enough for her to think of it during such a grueling moment, didn’t it?
Moreover, Isilla was my commemorative first customer.
And now she was the precious apple of Duke Kailan’s eye, with whom I had grown even closer.
A customer like this was welcome anytime, anywhere, even without payment.
But at this moment, as an exception, it was difficult.
“Lady Isilla... I would love nothing more than to cook for you, but right now I cannot.”
“Why, why not?! I’m so exhausted, I need healing...”
“No, even while we’re talking, you’re getting farther away. You’re riding in a carriage.”
“Ah.”
At the very least, I needed enough time to bake a single piece of bread if I was going to make her anything.
The return carriage did not wait for our reunion.
It merely rolled its wheels in silence toward the academy’s main building.
She was growing farther away in real time, and now we were at a distance where we had to shout to be heard.
This evening—!! I’ll come here—!!!
No, what are you talking about? Lunch service just ended, and I need to get off work now.
No matter how much she was my boss’s daughter, I had no obligation to wait around for half a day.
“Not here—!! Come to the Callius Company estate—!!!!”
Yes—!!! I understand—!!
Raising my voice for the first time in a while left my throat scratchy.
Still, with this, I could head home with peace of mind.
Eilenna, who had witnessed that whole farce firsthand, was staring at me with an exasperated expression.
Uh... It didn’t seem to be merely exasperation.
Why did she look slightly angry?
“Jinwoo, that girl you were talking to just now. Who is she?”
“Y-yes? She was my restaurant’s first customer, and she’s Duke Kailan’s daughter...”
“Really? Is that all?”
“Yes. This is the first time I’ve seen her again.”
“Aha. So that’s how it was? Then I understand! Shall we start closing up?”
“Yes... Let’s do that.”
As the conversation progressed, Eilenna’s mood swung back and forth like a roller coaster.
I had the feeling that if I chose the wrong option, something terrible would happen to me, so I answered carefully.
Fortunately, it seemed they had all been the right answers.
Eilenna began preparing to close the shop in her usual cheerful manner.
She really was an elf I couldn’t figure out no matter how hard I tried...
In any case, we closed up the stall as we were used to doing.
Since it had already been over a week, Eilenna seemed fairly skilled at kitchen work now.
But no matter how much you adapted, hard things were always newly hard every time.
As soon as we arrived at the estate, Eilenna stretched her arms high and cried out.
“Uuugh! I’m tired. You worked hard, Jinwoo.”
“You worked hard too. Are you going to rest a bit?”
“Yeah. Haaam... I think I’ll get some sleep. What are you going to do, Jinwoo?”
If things had gone as usual, I would have rested too.
I had already looked around the neighborhood bit by bit, so there wasn’t anywhere in particular I wanted to visit, and I had nothing to do.
But now that Isilla had made a request, I had to make something, didn’t I?
It just so happened that I had been thinking of changing the stall’s menu soon.
Since I was already going to do some on-site cooking, wouldn’t it be rewarding to make something tastier for the students?
Toast had been a menu I chose with nutrition in mind, but now that the commercial district had recovered, it was fine even if I didn’t take care of their nutrition anymore.
Well... If they were the kind of kids who wanted to manage their bodies, they’d go buy Uncle Tangle’s nuts and yogurt on their own.
I asked Eilenna a simple question.
“I’m going to do some cooking. Lady Eilenna, do you not eat fish either?”
“Fish? I’ve never eaten it in the first place, so I’m not sure. But I think it’ll probably be fine. Not eating meat and cheese is a matter of taste, not belief. I think it’d be nice to experience fish too!”
“Is that so? Then understood.”
“What, what? What are you planning to cook this time?”
“I’ll serve it to you for dinner. Until then, it’s a secret.”
“Hmmm... All right! Then I’ll go rest and come back.”
Unfortunately, the fish that would go into this dish would not be in its original form, but processed.
Still, she would be able to feel the taste of fish sufficiently, so it would be a meaningful experience.
All the hints had been thrown out.
A stall in front of a school with a gigantic griddle.
A commercial district packed with hot-blooded students during lunchtime.
And... a menu that could satisfy a depressed female student.
There was only one dish that fulfilled all these elements.
“I’m depressed, but I still want tteokbokki.”
The king among kings of Korean-style spicy-sweet flavors.
The peak of junk food, utterly ignoring nutritional balance and focusing solely on stimulation, taste! Taste and nothing else.
That dish that any Korean, regardless of age or gender, would sometimes crave like mad.
It was none other than tteokbokki.
By the time we closed up the stall and accounted for the travel time, there wasn’t much time left until evening.
Since I had to start by making the rice cakes and fish cakes, there was no time to laze around.
I headed straight for the kitchen.
The very first thing I had to do was prepare the broth.
It didn’t matter if I made it with plain water, but using broth definitely raised the ceiling of the flavor.
There was no need to make it difficult.
I exchanged for kelp and dried anchovies through [Mana Market] and put them on the fire for broth.
Last time, I had collapsed while using [Mana Market].
And after going on that spine-chilling status window adventure, I had recently been restraining myself from using my ability.
Still, in cases like this, it couldn’t be helped.
It wasn’t as if I was making a huge amount right now anyway, so mana exhaustion should be fine.
Now I just had to leave the broth to boil on its own.
Today’s dish had two troublesome tasks.
I quickly prepared all-purpose flour, potato starch, hot water, and cooking oil.
That’s right.
The tteokbokki rice cakes I would present today... I planned to make them with wheat.
Personally, I preferred rice cakes, but realistically, they took far too long to make.
Soak raw rice for 12 hours, drain it in a sieve, steam it in a steamer until it became hard-cooked rice...
Even after going through all sorts of damned nonsense to make them, the fact that the failure rate was high too was a serious screw-up.
In contrast, wheat cakes?
“By the time I finished comparing them, it was already done.”
While I was strongly arguing in my head about the difficulty of rice cakes, the preparation for the wheat cake dough was finished.
I threw all the ingredients into a large bowl and mixed them well with a spatula.
When making wheat cakes, it was enough to remember just two things: all-purpose flour and hot water.
To get that distinctive chewy texture of wheat cakes,
the key was all-purpose flour with a high gluten content and hot water to help gluten formation.
When I judged that the ingredients in the bowl had mixed to some extent,
Thud—
I poured the wheat cake dough onto a clean worktable and began kneading in earnest.
At first, it stuck to my hands a little and looked stiff, so I might wonder, “Should I add more water?”
That was the moment. That moment was important.
“It’s asking for more water, right? Absolutely do not give it any.”
It only looked that way because the gluten had not formed enough yet.
If you kneaded patiently for just five more minutes, at some point a soft, springy dough like a baby’s skin would be completed.
After that, there was no need for fermentation or anything else.
I tore off chunks to make them easier to handle, then rolled them out long with my hands.
I cut the long-stretched dough into the size of the tteokbokki rice cakes I was used to seeing and dropped them straight into boiling water.
When they first entered the water, the wheat cakes sank to the bottom.
But once they were cooked all the way through, every single one floated up to the surface.
Without even needing to time it, if I took them out right then and rinsed them well in cold water?
Chewy, cheewy—
“It’s tasty after not having it for so long.”
Compared to rice cakes, they could be stored for a long time and did not swell easily. The chewy wheat cakes were complete.
Just in case, I tried registering the completed wheat cakes in [Mana Market].
[This item cannot be registered!]
I had thought as much, but as expected, it didn’t work.
The sorrow of cheese and gochujang being possible while bread and rice cakes were not.
Their broad category should all be processed foods,
but perhaps the key issue was whether they could be used as a staple food or not.
Well, since there was nothing I could do, I should focus on what needed to be done.
A bright red soup tteokbokki with a refreshing, spicy, savory flavor.
I had to make its inseparable partner, the fish cake, which was responsible for a considerable part of that taste.
I exchanged through [Mana Market] for a few freshwater fish of the salmon family.
And a freshwater fish that looked like a perch.
Normally, the usual method was to use pollock meat as a base and add texture with shrimp and squid.
But seafood could not arrive at the imperial capital in a fresh state.
Thus, the freshwater fish I had no choice but to select had a bit of an earthy smell.
However, as always, a solution existed.
“What are you gonna do, World Tree sap?”
If I put World Tree sap into the dough, what could you earthy smells and fishy odors even do?
Dadadadadang—
Holding two kitchen knives, I minced the fish flesh like crazy.
Then I mixed the minced carrots and onions together with the fish meat, then added starch and World Tree sap.
The moment the World Tree sap went in, the earthy smell vanished without a trace.
As expected of the tree that gives without holding back. Its effect sure is certain.
Sticky—
I added flour and starch while adjusting the amounts, and when it felt slightly wet, I stopped mixing the dough.
The essence of fish cake was fish, after all.
If too much flour or starch went in, not only would it become strangely chewy, it might also taste unpleasantly of flour.
That was why I stopped mixing while it was still slightly sticky and prepared frying oil in a deep frying pan.
It wasn’t as if I was making fish cake hot bars from a rest stop, so I didn’t need enough oil for deep frying.
It was enough to have enough oil to submerge the thickness of thin, rectangular fish cakes.
“Ah, this... Why is it so hard?”
I put the fish cake dough on a cutting board and fiddled with it to make it into a pretty rectangle.
Its distinctive stickiness was so severe that I had to go through trial and error, but after making one or two, I got used to it.
The frying oil heated up nicely while I was shaping the fish cakes.
With a thin kitchen knife, I carefully lifted the dough and gently placed it into the hot oil.
Shwaaaaa—
The sound of oil rain was pleasant no matter when I heard it.
Repeating the same method for several pieces, I finished preparing the fish cakes as well.
Did Isilla know?
The fact that I was frying fish cakes for her after work without even being able to rest.
“Ah, I should register this.”
Even if the wheat cakes had failed, the fish cakes should work.
I placed my hand on the freshly fried, savory fish cake and registered it as an item.
Swaaa—
Phew, it was a thousand blessings that the fish cake could be registered.
If I made tteokbokki again later, I could somehow manage the wheat cakes, but fish cakes were seriously a pain.
Once all the ingredients were ready, everything from here on went smoothly.
All I had to do was throw in all the ingredients and boil them.
If they were rice cakes, I would have had to start cooking after Isilla arrived, but wheat cakes had no such issue.
“Yeah, it’s big bro. Big bro doesn’t swell up easily.”
Far from swelling, big bro wheat cake was the real deal—the longer it boiled, the deeper the flavor soaked in.
First, I added the wheat cakes, fish cakes, and various seasonings to the broth I had boiled.
The seasonings changed depending on what style of tteokbokki you were making, and today’s was soup tteokbokki.
Since its biggest kick was spicy, sweet, and sharp, the ratio of red pepper powder was important.
I used red pepper powder and gochujang in equal proportions, and since soy sauce played a supporting role, only half as much as the gochujang.
And... I added twice as much sugar as the red pepper powder.
“You selfish bastard. Are you saying it’s fine if Lady Isilla gains weight?”
But there really was no helping it.
Just looking at the ingredients that went into it in the first place, it was refined carbohydrates, fried fish cakes, and for vegetables, green onions. That was it.
Tteokbokki was originally the kind of food you ate with the mindset of, “Just for today, let’s die!!” surrendering your body to that bright-red stimulation.
It wasn’t food you ate while thinking about things like health.
Of course, it wasn’t as if Isilla had asked me to make tteokbokki...
‘Ah, does that make me a real selfish bastard?’
Now that I thought about it, it did.
Then I’d just be a selfish bastard for today.
In any case, I’d make sure the taste was on point, so wouldn’t it be fine?
All that was left now was for the flavors to come together as it boiled, so I had some breathing room.
I stepped out of the kitchen for a moment and looked out the window.
The sun was setting, and before I knew it, the world had been dyed a deep orange.
But the color of my tteokbokki broth would be deeper than that sun.
As I stared out the window, thinking such pointless thoughts,
I saw the mansion guard who had been watching the main gate come running in a panic.
Hm, what’s going on? Was his shift change late?
It was practically an unspoken rule to read the room and swap out five minutes early,
and if anything, being late was one of the most upsetting things there was.
I watched the guard as if it were someone else’s problem.
However... the guard’s hurried footsteps seemed not to be someone else’s problem at all.
Bang—!
“K-Kang Jinwoo-nim!! Where is Kang Jinwoo-nim?!!”
The guard came bursting in as if he were about to break down the mansion’s front door.
The distance between the main gate and the entrance was short, so it wasn’t enough for him to be out of breath.
Even so, the guard’s face was flushed.
He looked so agitated his shoulders were heaving, and his hands were trembling.
His eyes were full of fear, as if he had witnessed something overwhelming.
What... did some kind of anomaly show up?
Like an elf anomaly that grabs your ears and turns them white?
Without much sense of alarm, I answered the guard’s call.
“I’m here. Did something happen?”
“No... that is what I would like to ask you!!”
“Huh.”
But the guard’s reaction was far too real to simply brush off.
He spoke as if something serious had happened because of me.
At this point, unease began creeping up from deep inside me too.
I stood there tense and stiff, waiting for the guard to speak.
“What on earth have you been doing for Her Imperial Highness the Princess to come here for dinner?!!”
“Pardon? Her Imperial Highness?”
“Yes!! Her Imperial Highness!!!”
What, Her Imperial Highness was suddenly coming? I never invited her.
To this mansion, which was utterly shabby compared to the imperial palace, to eat my food?
‘I take back the selfish bastard thing.’
I couldn’t hide my own bewilderment at the sudden appearance of an unprecedented big shot.
If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have put sugar in the tteokbokki.
No, I would’ve made something a little more fine than tteokbokki in the first place!
“Th-then what do we do? Should we... lay out a red carpet or something?”
“What red carpet are you talking about? I don’t know either! How would a mere trading company guard know court etiquette?”
“Ah, fuck.”
Just as the guard and I were flustered and stamping our feet in place,
Click, click, click—
The seductive sound of high heels coming from the entrance rang through the mansion.
Clear as a death sentence being pronounced, the sound drew closer, step by step.
“Hmm... I believe it was the Kallius Trading Company? Your treatment of guests leaves much to be desired.”
“H-huhk.”
Hair red as the rising sun.
Beautiful eyes that looked as though resplendent obsidian had been set in their place.
An arrogant, provocative smile, as if she were looking down upon the entire world.
‘That’s the imperial princess, Kariel?’
The most beautiful flame of the empire where the sun never set.
Kariel Ardia von Imperium had visited the mansion.
To eat the soup tteokbokki Kang Jinwoo had prepared.