Chapter 58: A Cuisine That Should Never Have Been Passed Down

Moit was a tall, middle-aged man with a magnificently groomed mustache.

His body was covered in rugged, practical muscle; he looked far more like a hunter than a restaurant owner.

He swept back his slightly frosted brown hair and approached Irim.

“Is it really Rice-nim?”

“Yes.”

“There are so many impostors lately…”

When Irim tilted his head in confusion, Melina explained.

“People with nicknames similar to Rice-nim keep coming here pretending to be you. They think they might get some kind of benefit at the restaurant.”

“Ah…”

In Real, using the exact same nickname was impossible.

Even with millions of players, the system had blocked impersonation from the start.

Still, people who tried to fake it kept appearing.

‘Lice’, ‘Raisu’, ‘Ras’—the fake nicknames were endlessly creative.

That alone showed just how famous Rice had become.

“This really is Rice-nim. I know him.”

Once Melina vouched for his identity, Moit stared silently at Irim for a moment before nodding.

“If you truly are Rice-nim, would you hear one shameless request from me?”

“May I at least hear what it is first?”

Moit let out a deep sigh before speaking.

He gestured toward the customers eating in the hall.

“Don’t the dishes those people are eating look pitiful?”

Irim examined the food on the tables.

Mostly salads, soups, and bread.

“No meat?”

“Exactly. Even a single egg has become impossible to obtain. Our restaurant used to be famous for all kinds of meat dishes. But… after the Demon King descended, we can no longer cook with meat.”

“Because of that, we’ve unintentionally become a restaurant that only vegetarians would visit. Yet in this village, there isn’t a single person who doesn’t eat meat. Everyone here is a hardcore carnivore. Who would come to a place that only serves vegetable dishes?”

The more Moit spoke, the more emotional he became.

“Travelers passing through the city also need meat to regain their strength, so business has ended up like this. And that’s not all—look at my belly. It used to be the size of Namsan Mountain. But after being forced into vegetarianism, it’s caved in like this. Isn’t it pathetic? It’s practically forced dieting.”

“Why did it turn out this way?”

At Irim’s question, Moit wore a troubled expression, sighed, and started walking toward the door.

“Follow me.”

***

Moit led Irim somewhere.

They were heading toward the outskirts of the city, an area with few houses.

Moit stopped and pointed at something.

“Can you see this?”

It was a large livestock pen.

Yet not a single animal was inside.

“There are no livestock?”

“A few months ago, right after the Demon King descended, it became like this.”

“What did the Demon King do?”

“He made them forget. The true nature of these wooden fences.”

“The true nature…?”

Moit slapped the wooden fence with his hand. Tak tak.

“This isn’t ordinary wood. It has the power to calm animals’ minds and help them find peace. You might not know, but the animals living around Badran are incredibly fast and ferocious. Have you seen the monsters called ‘Mini Cows’ that fill the fields around the village?”

“Yes, I have.”

“They sit at the very bottom of this region’s food chain. They devour any living animal they see. Because of that, the animals around here evolved to be agile just to survive. They’re also fierce and strong. Humans can’t catch them with brute force, and even if you set traps, the Mini Cows get to them before people can. That’s the situation.”

Irim roughly understood.

“So you needed fences made from this mystical wood.”

“Correct. Even after bringing livestock in, someone still has to tend to them, right? But on the day the Demon King descended, the fences forgot their purpose, the livestock suddenly turned wild, broke the fences, and escaped.”

Hearing that far, Irim tilted his head.

“Then how did you manage to catch animals and keep them in here before?”

“We relied on a skilled hunter named ‘Lupi’. Whenever livestock all died from natural disasters or disease, he would go catch new ones and fill the pen again. Everyone wondered how he caught them alive, but no one knew the method. Then, after the Demon King descended, even Lupi himself forgot it. He forgot the entire hunting technique.”

In the end, it all came back to forgetting.

“So, Moit, you want me to catch the livestock for you?”

“Yes. Anyone who isn’t a hunter or a chef would find this request impossible.”

In other words, this was a profession-exclusive quest that only someone with the Hunter or Chef profession could accept.

“Hunters catching livestock makes sense, but isn’t Chef a bit unrelated?”

“The livestock around here go absolutely crazy for food.”

“Ah.”

So the chef was supposed to use their specialty—cooking—to lure them in.

But there was one more problem.

“Even if I manage to lure the livestock here, what then? I heard these fences no longer work.”

“That’s the headache. We need to rebuild the fences too, but as you know, no one in the village can do it. The brilliant architect ‘Vine’ not only forgot how to draw blueprints, he can’t even swing a hammer anymore. And there’s no one to bring the wood needed for these fences either.”

“What do you mean?”

“The fences surrounding the pen are made from ‘Trees of Peace’. But the woodcutter who used to bring those Trees of Peace, ‘Gosham’…”

“He forgot how to cut trees.”

“Exactly.”

Moit looked at Irim with an embarrassed face.

“Even so… will you still help me—no, help the village of Badran?”

[Profession Cooperation Quest – Moit’s Shameless Request] 

Clear Conditions: Collect 100 Trees of Peace (Carpenter-Farmer), Build Peaceful Fence (Architect-Crafter), Capture 50 livestock (Hunter-Chef)  

Rewards: Massive favorability increase with Chef Moit, Hunter Lupi, Architect Vine, Woodcutter Gosham. Access to follow-up profession-linked quests for each.  

<Description> 

This quest can only be cleared through cooperation between players of multiple professions. 

Only Carpenters or Farmers can gather Trees of Peace, only Architects or Crafters can build the Peaceful Fence, and only Hunters or Chefs can capture livestock. 

Players must recruit the necessary professions themselves.

The moment Irim read the quest details, his mind began racing.

‘I can handle capturing the livestock. The problem is gathering the wood and building the fence… Eater. Eater is a Crafter.’

Irim immediately opened his friend list.

Fortunately, Eater was online.

Irim sent a whisper.

– Eater-nim. Hello.

– Oh~ Rice-nim! Nice to hear from you. What’s up with the whisper?

– Where are you right now?

– I’m wandering around Badran looking for profession-exclusive quests, but it’s tough. There are no quests for Crafters. I tried weapon and armor shops, but they only give work to blacksmiths, not me. Clothing stores are the same.

– Actually… I just received a profession-exclusive cooperation quest that Eater-nim can join.

– Really?

– Yes. It’s a cooperation quest—would you like to do it together?

– Of course! Where are you?

– Come to the front of the restaurant. I’ll be there soon too.

– Got it!

After finishing the whisper with Eater, Irim thought of another person.

KoreanFoodKing.

His profession was Farmer.

But they weren’t friends yet, so Irim couldn’t whisper him.

Irim immediately sent KoreanFoodKing a friend request.

However, he was still offline and hadn’t accepted.

Moit’s voice rang out.

“Will you help?”

[Effort will be made. / It seems too difficult after all.]

Looking at the window in front of him, Irim nodded.

“I’ll do my best.”

The quest was accepted, and Moit gave a weak smile.

“I know it’s an unreasonable request. But I’m grasping at straws, so please understand.”

“I do.”

Just as Irim was about to return to the restaurant with Moit, a whisper arrived from Eater.

– Rice-nim, I’m really sorry. Something urgent came up and I have to log out. What should we do?

– Ah, I see.

Irim organized his thoughts for a moment and replied.

– Then I’ll accept the quest for now, and we can continue when you’re able to log in.

– Is that okay? Thank you so much. I should be online continuously from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.

– Alright. I’ll whisper you around 9 or 10 then.

– Understood. Thank you!

Since he couldn’t find a Farmer anyway, the quest couldn’t proceed yet.

He could probably recruit one or two Farmers if he looked hard enough, but Irim preferred to do it with KoreanFoodKing if possible.

Back at the restaurant, Melina, who was serving in the hall, greeted them warmly.

“Did everything go well?”

Moit nodded.

“He said he’ll help.”

“Wow~ Rice-nim, that’s amazing! You got a profession-exclusive quest, right?”

“Yes. It’s a bit complicated though. By the way… Melina-nim, you’re working part-time here?”

“Hehe, yes. Some chef who arrived earlier taught a few vegetarian dishes, so customers are coming.”

“Really? Who taught them that—”

Melina suddenly turned serious.

“Ah, you’re better off not knowing that for your mental health.”

Irim tried to get a closer look at the dishes on the tables.

But before the dish status windows appeared, he first heard the grumbling of the players eating them.

“Man, seriously. Who the hell taught this? The soup tastes… I can’t even describe it.”

“Is this even soup? It’s closer to porridge.”

“I don’t know anymore. It tastes alien.”

“It tastes like shit.”

“The salad is weird too. Does salad normally have chili powder and garlic? I’m deeply confused right now.”

“This is basically kimchi without being kimchi. The trap is that none of the ingredients have anything to do with actual kimchi.”

“I think this is what happens when someone who only knows Korean food half-heartedly tries to make Western salad.”

“Guys, do NOT eat the garlic bread. I don’t know what they did, but the raw garlic smell is overwhelming and spicy.”

“Did they just spread minced raw garlic and bake it without doing anything else?”

Hearing the players, Irim nearly lost his mind.

Then the dish status windows finally appeared in his vision.

[KoreanFoodKing’s Vegetable Salad]  

[KoreanFoodKing’s Vegetable Soup]

[KoreanFoodKing’s Garlic Bread]

“K-KoreanFoodKing?”

Irim turned to Melina in slight shock.

She sighed deeply and nodded.