“Isila, good morning!”
“Uh… mm.”
It was strange.
“Isila, you haven’t had lunch yet, right? What do you want to eat?”
“Ah, I don’t really have an appetite…”
It was strange.
“We return to the academy tomorrow. You worked hard during the practicum, Isila.”
“……Mm.”
Isila’s attitude was strange.
Kariel, the sole imperial princess of the Eternia Empire.
She, too, had inherited the imperial bloodline directly and was one of the legitimate candidates for the throne.
But since Kariel had two elder brothers above her anyway, she had long since given up on the struggle for succession.
Because rather than live crushed beneath tremendous power and responsibility, she wanted to enjoy a quaint, pleasant everyday life.
That quaint everyday life had recently run into difficulties.
The reason was… an inexplicable discord with her best friend, Isila, who was like a soft, fluffy white cat.
After winter break ended and the new semester began, the gears of their relationship had slowly started to slip out of alignment.
That gap had widened even further during the combat practicum.
The attitude that had kept a subtle distance had now turned into outright coldness.
Even aside from how she acted toward Kariel, Isila had looked very low-spirited of late.
Even when eating expensive dishes, she would only pick at them and leave the rest, looking gloomy and reacting less than before.
And amid all that, there was one person who had made Isila brighten to a surprising degree and call out loudly.
It was the black-haired cook at a food stall, someone who had not been there before they left for the combat practicum.
While riding the return carriage toward the academy’s main building, Kariel heard Isila’s lively voice.
The moment Kariel heard that voice, she ordered her attendant to gather information about the cook.
In truth, if she investigated, she would probably be able to learn why Isila had been drooping like a drenched cat as well.
But directly looking into a friend’s circumstances was a little too… shady, wasn’t it?
Kariel’s safe line was somewhat removed from the way ordinary people thought.
By the standards of her own safe line, investigating the black-haired cook running a stall at the academy did not prick her conscience.
He was someone she, an imperial princess, had never seen before, so he was probably a commoner, and his occupation was that of an ordinary cook. What was there to feel guilty about?
If Kang Jinwoo had heard it, he would have shouted, “This is a violation of human rights!” It was the unavoidable logic of power in a class society…
The information she obtained about the black-haired cook was more shocking than Kariel had expected.
‘He was a cook who ran a small restaurant in Calian Forest, and he appears to be close to Duke Silbaerin. Also… there are rumors that he is a cooking master from the East.’
‘Hm? A master, and of cooking at that?’
‘Yes. During the monster wave, he served as a temporary quartermaster, and the Silbaerin hardtack that has recently become popular in the market is also said to be based on that cook Kang Jinwoo’s recipe.’
‘Oh. His abilities are outstanding, then. Any other information?’
‘It seems there may be something more, but for now this is all. My apologies.’
‘No, it’s fine. You did well.’
For a mere commoner cook, he had quite a brilliant record, and though it was from the East, a master was still a master.
Who would have thought that a cooking master, one who had never yet appeared in the Empire, had been hiding in a place that rural?
It seemed there was other hidden information besides this, so he was certainly no ordinary person.
For that reason, Kariel accompanied Isila.
It was an interesting situation in many ways, and it might also become an opportunity to restore her friendship with Isila.
As Isila’s best friend, Kariel already knew how much time Isila took to shower, change, and dress herself.
Kariel finished her preparations five minutes before Isila and waited in front of the dormitory, and as planned, she succeeded in accompanying her.
Isila fidgeted and glanced about like a cat with an awkward human beside it.
Kariel did not know why Isila was treating her so distantly, but she would put an end to that attitude today.
Resolving herself thus, Kariel faced the cooking master, Kang Jinwoo.
Kang Jinwoo seemed quite flustered by the sudden visit of the imperial princess.
Isila, too, apologized quietly for it.
“M-Master. I’m sorry… one thing led to another.”
“Isila, did you just call him master?”
Kariel pretended not to know the information she had gathered beforehand, slickly lying without a twitch of her lips.
The political arena of the nobles, overflowing with all sorts of schemes, was part of her everyday life, so acting at this level was child’s play.
However, Kang Jinwoo did not try to declare himself a cooking master and get a foot in the door of the imperial princess’s connections.
“I am not a master.”
Instead, he flatly denied that he was a master.
Originally, the occasion would have been enough if it merely gave her a chance to talk with Isila…
But that black-haired cook’s attitude was rather amusing.
She had not had high expectations for the food, either. No, she could not have.
As an imperial princess, she had grown up tasting all sorts of delicacies from famous chefs, so it was only natural that her expectations would fall.
But Kang Jinwoo’s humble attitude, and yet the information that proved his ability.
And… the spicy, stimulating smell that had been piercing her nose since before she entered the mansion.
Because of the sharp aroma, Kariel’s emotions grew hot, excited, and disordered.
Perhaps because of that, while waiting for the food, even the hurt feelings she had kept hidden seeped into her conversation with Isila.
“Isila, by the way, how did you come to know that cook?”
“Mm… by chance on my way home?”
“That’s a little bland. And considering how you’ve been reacting lately… Isila, are you upset with me about something?”
“Ugh, it’s not like that. I’m just a little tired.”
The spicy fragrance that had penetrated through her nose filled her head so thoroughly that it felt as if even her brain was sweating.
It seemed the same was true for Isila, as she cut off the conversation with her face flushed red.
‘Haa… it’s hot. Why did it suddenly get so hot?’
‘Ugh, isn’t what Master prepared baeksuk? Uu, I’m sweating…’
Their bodies and minds grew hazy and feverishly heated.
In that heat, even words they would normally be unable to say rose to their throats.
Thud—!
The dish that had wildly heightened the emotions of the adolescent girls.
Gukmul tteokbokki was placed before them.
Kariel’s red hair was vivid, but the broth was a red several times deeper than that.
The yellowish pieces floating in it were… gnocchi?
No. To call them gnocchi, their size and the texture of their appearance were different.
It was a dish whose visuals made it difficult to judge based on sight alone.
But smell told a different story.
Thump—!
Each time she smelled that destructive, violent scent, her heart pounded madly.
It was clearly a food she was encountering for the first time, yet it felt as though the girl’s instincts thirsted desperately for it.
Separately from that, Isila, Kariel, and Eilenna, who were seated at the table, all expressed doubts about the dish.
Which was only natural, because it was red enough to make one wonder whether it was truly safe to eat.
“Please try it first. It’s gukmul tteokbokki.”
But Kang Jinwoo calmly urged them to take a spoonful.
As if there was no flaw in his cooking, it was precisely the sort of composure possessed only by a truly enlightened master.
Was it because they were influenced by Kang Jinwoo’s calm and certainty?
Kariel and Isila filled their small plates with gukmul tteokbokki.
Haaap, slurp—!
At last, they both squeezed their eyes shut at the same time and ate the broth together with the yellowish pieces.
‘Hrrk?! It’s s-spicy!’
‘M-Master. This is even spicier than that thing called kimchi…!’
Kariel and Isila were combat students of the magic corps.
Through their usual classes and sparring, they thought they had developed a tolerance for external pain…
But to think there was a way to inflict pain even on the tongue, a sensitive body part that no one else should ever be able to invade.
Hot, spicy lava flowed stickily over their tongues.
Following the path of the tteokbokki broth, the taste bud cells on their tongues also screamed with pain.
This, something like this, was food?
Should food not, by nature, fill the stomach pleasantly and comfortably?
That common sense did not apply to this “gukmul tteokbokki” Kang Jinwoo had brought out.
The more they ate, the more beads of sweat formed in the smooth valleys of their arrector pili muscles.
They kept squirming on their seats and could not sit comfortably.
But… it was strange. It was clearly strange.
“Haup, haa…!”
“Uuuu, w-water. No. Just one more bite..!”
Even as their entire mouths and stomachs prickled with the pain of spiciness, they could not stop moving their spoons.
The intense spiciness struck the moment it touched the tongue.
But the sweetness of sugar and the rich flavor of the broth that followed lured them into the next bite, and the one after that.
Chewy, chewyyy—!
The same was true of these pieces that carried the dish’s sense of fullness.
A slippery, chewy texture unlike anything they had ever felt from any pasta or bread.
The pieces, boiled for a long time and faintly imbued with the flavor of the broth, mixed with the broth atop the tongue the more they chewed.
Slime. Would it feel like this to chew a slime, a low-grade monster?
But what was certain was that these pieces were like wells from which moist savoriness gushed forth continuously.
Kariel found every element on this plate suspicious.
The fish-scented thing cut into right triangles… fried food? A thin pancake? That, too, was suspicious.
Thanks to the cooking method of frying it once and then boiling it, the savoriness that appeared when fried at high heat and the fantastic flavor the oil released into the broth were both delivered.
It had captured two kinds of savoriness in different directions.
“Ah, sweat. My hair keeps sticking…”
“Huu, my back is wet. I don’t care anymore…”
Kariel’s long red hair clung damply to the nape of her neck because of the sweat.
Isila’s pure white blouse shirt grew soaked with sweat and turned semi-transparent.
Regardless, Kariel carefully scooped broth onto her spoon until it nearly spilled and drank it.
Slurrrp—!
And the same was true of Isila.
Isila, whose inferiority complex toward Kariel had grown and grown until only a sense of inferiority and self-deprecation had increased.
Isila herself knew those gloomy feelings were binding her.
That was why she had asked for dinner—to break through them and soothe her mind and body.
She had expected the baeksuk from Calian Forest, but this gukmul tteokbokki, too, suited her current self in a different sense.
If baeksuk healed the body and mind, then this tteokbokki…
Swaaa—
‘Huuu. I can feel the broth going down from my esophagus to my stomach. It feels like all the knots inside me are being washed away…’
This food called tteokbokki helped by annihilating negative emotions, yin energy, and distracting thoughts altogether.
The crimson broth was enough to make her feel as if she were gulping down heated molten iron.
And yet that act, and the dangerous sensation it brought, delivered a thrilling catharsis she had never felt before.
Isila looked at Kariel with eyes softened into a daze.
A mind sold off to the delicacy before them, no different from her own.
Kariel had forgotten the dignity of an imperial princess and was devouring the tteokbokki in a hurry.
From that Kariel…
She could not see the gallant smile, the shoulders and height more reliable than her own, nor the powerful magic.
Only a single girl enjoying delicious food.
The one person with whom she had shared memories and emotions for four years at the academy.
Only the figure of Kariel, her best friend who knew her heart with just a glance, was there.
‘Why was I… treating Kariel so coldly?’
With her mind hazy from the hot heat, Isila looked back on the past.
But no matter how much she thought about it, her jealousy toward Kariel did not revive.
To be precise, it could not revive.
Before Isila’s eyes was Kariel, inhaling tteokbokki just like she was.
Looking at her, who was the same as herself, what jealousy was she supposed to recall?
Only then did Isila realize it.
How much she had been looking at Kariel through tinted glasses until now.
And that what had melted those tinted glasses was…
This lava-like gukmul tteokbokki.
“P-Please try crushing the boiled egg into the broth and eating it together. It’s a delicacy.”
At the table where only the clatter of utensils and inner realizations had been ringing out, Kang Jinwoo spoke.
Kariel and Isila did as the cook said and placed boiled eggs on their small plates.
Puk—!
When they split the boiled egg in half with their spoons, the pure white and bright yellow proteins mixed into the shallow broth.
Then, after they moved their spoons this way and that and mixed it well…
The egg’s pure whiteness was nowhere to be found, and only a thickened crimson broth had been born on the plate.
The red broth seeped thoroughly into the finely crushed boiled egg.
For some reason, with that delicacy before them, Kariel and Isila looked into each other’s eyes.
And without saying a word, they put their spoons into their mouths.
Haap—!
From the very first bite, there were the sharp agony and heat of spiciness that the tteokbokki had delivered until moments ago.
As if apologizing for all of it, the savory and gentle flavor of the boiled egg kindly embraced the spicy broth.
The yolk, the white, and the sticky broth softly unraveled over the tongue.
In truth, the food said nothing.
Nor was there any magic cast upon it.
Therefore, what one felt after taking this bite, and what one chose to do, was entirely up to that person.
A metaphorical message struck Isila’s mind as she tasted that delicacy.
The spiteful jealousy that had filled her melted hotly away, and the gentle aftertaste of the boiled egg lingered in her mouth.
A taste like Kariel’s smile, which had always beamed at her wherever and whenever.
Isila felt her confused emotions settle into place.
At the same time, she was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable surge of apology and gratitude toward Kariel.
In a rush—!
The dam of Isila’s tear ducts, where tears had been brimming, overflowed.
Like Isila’s pure white silver hair, transparent tears rolled down her cheeks.
Kariel, too, noticed the disturbance in Isila’s emotions with her exceptional senses.
As an imperial princess, she could not show tears.
But the corners of Kariel’s eyes were also just as moist as Isila’s.
“Hic. I-I’m sorry, Kariel. Hrrk, you didn’t do anything wrong. It was all my jealousy. Hrrk!”
“Hehe, it’s all right. It’s all right, Isila. I understand everything.”
“Really…? Even though I, hic, acted so coldly toward you..?”
“Of course. We’re friends.”
The gears that had slipped out of alignment meshed together once more.
Isila and Kariel held each other’s hands with gazes that were difficult to put into words.
Rumble—!
And in Kang Jinwoo’s ears, as he watched it all,
he heard the auditory hallucination of a glacier somewhere in the Arctic melting and collapsing.