The man who suddenly hugged Irim was named Maengho.
From the moment he started the game, he had been running solely toward the path of a warrior.
Irim was flustered by Maengho’s sudden action.
The two men and one woman who seemed to be his companions also looked surprised.
“Maengho. Do you know him?”
The burly man standing behind Maengho asked.
The man’s name was ‘Luke’.
He wore chain mail tightly woven with small iron chains and a black coat over it, giving him a visual that overwhelmed others.
On his back was a two-hand sword with a blade length of 150cm and a total of 180cm including the handle, and in one hand he held a helm made of iron.
Maengho glanced at Luke and winked one eye at Irim.
“Luke is an NPC.”
Hearing Maengho’s words, Luke tilted his head.
“My name is Luke, not NPC. You need to work on your memory, Maengho.”
“Maengho. Do we have time to dawdle here? Let’s hurry to ‘Marina’s Hideout’.”
The tall woman standing next to Luke urged the party.
Irim checked her name.
‘Karen’
She was a woman with red eyes and even deeper crimson hair that left a strong impression.
There was a large sword scar on her right cheek, and her features were bold yet sharp.
Her exposed arms were thin and slender but firmly muscled.
“You’re right, Karen. We’ve raided the hideout several times to catch Marina, but we’ve never succeeded once. Now that witch will underestimate us, and if she finds everything boring, she’s likely to move hideouts.”
Da.
The one who agreed with Karen was another burly man standing beside her, ‘Xyle’.
His build was similar to Luke’s, but he was much more handsome in appearance.
Unlike Luke with his rough brown hair and brown eyes, he had blonde hair and blue eyes.
At that moment, Maengho spoke to Irim again.
“All three are NPCs. Haha.”
Meanwhile, several other users watching Maengho’s group shook their heads and whispered.
“Ah. He must have gotten the warrior quest too.”
“That one can’t be cleared. Instead of going all that way and coming back with nothing, it’s better to just hunt field mobs and raise stats.”
Irim heard those words.
It seemed Maengho was progressing a quest with three NPCs.
Maengho grabbed Irim’s hand tightly and asked.
“Ah, by any chance, are you interested in the quest, Rice?”
“Sorry, but I have other business right now.”
At those words, Maengho let out a huge sigh as if the world had ended.
“Haaa. I see. That’s a clear refusal, right? I’m super perceptive. Got it. It would have been really fun to do the quest with the famous Rice. I really love eating. But the food statuses in this game…… you know without me saying, right?”
“I almost quit the game. But the foods Rice-nim passed down to this restaurant came to me like a ray of light…….”
As Maengho rattled on, Luke behind him suddenly snapped.
“Maengho! Are we not going?”
“Whew. I’m going. Going! Rice. If there’s a chance next time, let’s do it together!”
Maengho left the restaurant with his party.
Irim thought he was quite the chatterbox.
It felt like a small typhoon had passed, leaving him dazed and standing blankly.
Then one of the players who had been whispering earlier spoke to Irim.
“You did well, Rice. The quest that guy just proposed to do together is absolutely impossible to clear. If you don’t want to game over for no reason and get a one-hour connection penalty, it’s best not to do it.”
“Is it that hard?”
“The NPCs look strong, but in reality, they’re about average for the users here. The quest can be done by 1 to 20 people simultaneously, but if there are more participants, the mobs in the dungeon become ridiculously strong. So rushing in a big group is even more dangerous.”
“Really?”
“Yes. At first, people with the warrior job lined up to participate because it was an exclusive quest, but now no one even glances at it.”
“Then I couldn’t have participated anyway. I don’t have the warrior job.”
“It’s possible. If the person who got the quest shares it, you can do it together. However, you won’t get the special reward given only to warriors upon clearing. You’ll just get the general rewards. Gold or items that aren’t hard to obtain.”
Hearing that made the quest feel even more meaningless to Irim.
“Thank you for letting me know.”
As Irim spoke to the player, Melina asked.
“Rice-nim. Did you come to eat?”
“No. I wanted to see Rozelan.”
At that moment, Rozelan came running out of the kitchen with a bright face.
“Isn’t that Rice?”
At her appearance, the players eating looked at her in surprise.
After the restaurant got busy, she never came out of the kitchen.
Yet when Rice appeared, she dropped everything and came out alone?
The temperature difference in how she treated regular customers versus Rice was enormous.
It was all due to the difference in NPC favorability.
“I thought you had already left, but you’re still in our village. What brings you to the restaurant? If you came to eat, I’ll treat you for free.”
“No. Rather than eating, I have something to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I want to get a building like Rozelan and do business…… Is that possible?”
At that, Rozelan made a troubled expression.
“Hmm…… In our village, we don’t rent or sell buildings to outsiders. Their identities aren’t clear. It’s probably the same in other villages or cities.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Plus, outsiders tend to look down on and despise us a bit, so there’s a lot of resentment toward them. If everyone were like Rice-nim, how great would that be?”
It was a regrettable statement.
But from the perspective of the people in this world, it was only natural.
Beings from another world with unclear identities were looking down on them.
They probably treated them rudely because they saw them as NPCs, like Maengho did.
But Irim knew.
How important it was to build favorability with NPCs.
Many players were missing that.
Having asked what he was curious about, Irim bid farewell to Rozelan.
“Thank you for letting me know. I’ll get going now.”
“Yes. It’s really goodbye. If you ever come back here, please visit.”
“I will. Melina. Take care.”
“Our meeting was short, what a shame. Enjoy the game.”
After bidding farewell to Melina as well, Irim left the restaurant.
“More water here, please!”
“Yeees~!”
Just then, a customer’s voice rang out, and Melina busily moved.
Watching her, Irim unconsciously thought of Yoo Mirae.
Their connection was brief, but she was full of bright energy, kind, and cheerful, so she was remembered as a good person.
Leaving the restaurant, Irim headed toward the north exit of Tirko Village.
Passing the shabby buildings and the square bustling with players, he exited the north gate, and an unfamiliar, strange stage unfolded.
The wide field was full of unknown grasses and weeds, and grasshoppers the size of five-year-olds hopped around on top.
Grasshoppers here, grasshoppers there.
Nothing but grasshoppers.
Players were diligently hunting them.
Occasionally, a mayonejo descending from the sky would catch and eat the grasshoppers.
There were so many grasshoppers that even if a few were eaten by mayonejo, it didn’t make a dent.
Irim checked the grasshoppers’ name.
‘Wind Hopper.’
Looking closely, rough winds were rising around the players fighting them.
Players hit by the wind were knocked back or bled.
‘Magic?’
As Irim predicted.
It was the first mob to use magic.
The magic attack power was considerable, dealing quite strong damage.
But the wind hoppers had weak defense and attack.
So if you approached quickly and dealt physical damage, hunting was easy.
Of course, such a strategy wasn’t needed for Irim.
He didn’t like frying and eating grasshoppers.
Irim ignored the wind hoppers and headed north.
According to what he searched on the fan cafe, the mobs appearing in the field of the next village were ‘small cows’.
Their size was like a cow compressed to 1/20th, and though the name was cute, their attack and defense were no joke; if you let your guard down, you could take a critical hit and collapse on the spot.
Irim wanted to see those small cows soon.
‘Steak. This time, steak.’
Beef steak sizzling on a hot iron plate, trapping the juices!
Just thinking about it made saliva pool in his mouth.
Among all beef cuts, Irim especially liked tenderloin.
Season it, cook it perfectly medium-rare, cut a piece, and put it in your mouth—it melts like cotton candy, gifting bursts of meat juice in that fantastical taste!
Da.
It couldn’t be expressed in words.
‘If I can get radish, beef radish soup would be good too.’
Beef radish soup!
Sprinkle a bit of pepper, mix with a bowl of rice, and scoop it up with well-ripened aged kimchi—pure happiness.
When you boil a pot at home and reheat it each time, the broth gets richer and the flavor more alive.
If you get tired of the clear broth, sprinkling red pepper powder is a delicacy too.
Boil it once to remove the raw pepper smell, and the spicy broth becomes a rice thief.
It’s also great as hangover soup the day after drinking.
‘Boil the bones and meat for a bowl of seolleongtang would be perfect.’
Rich bone marrow broth seasoned with pepper and salt, add chopped green onions, a bit of boiled somyeon, and a bowl of rice—game over.
Is there a more perfect soup rice?
Grrgle.
Thinking about eating kept going, and Irim’s stomach started rioting.
He opened the status window and saw satiety had dropped a lot.
Irim immediately lit a fire, heated the iron plate, took out his saved pork belly, and grilled it whole.
Sizzle.
Watching the pork belly cook on the iron plate, beef steak kept overlapping in his mind.
Then, a mayonejo that smelled the cooking meat descended quickly.
Kkirurururu!
It opened its beak wide, aiming for the pork belly.
Irim was focused on the pork belly, lost in his own world, and didn’t notice the mayonejo.
Kkiru!
The moment the mayonejo, now at arm’s length, was about to swallow the almost-cooked pork belly!
Miooo!
Mio, sitting on Irim’s head, jumped and activated the skill ‘Nyanyang Punch’.
Pabababababababababababababababak!
The mayonejo’s body, hit by Nyanyang Punch, paused mid-descent.
Mio, who had struck 20 times with its front paws in 1 second, kicked the mayonejo’s chin with its cute hind leg, spun in the air, and landed back on Irim’s head.
Haaak!
Followed by a hiss!
Kwathump!
The mayonejo, its trajectory disrupted by Mio’s attack, crashed straight into the ground.