Irim placed the tomatoes on the cutting board and sliced them quickly with the kitchen knife.
TADADADADAK!
The party watching the scene let out exclamations of admiration.
“His hands are incredibly fast.”
“His knife-handling skills are better than Xyle’s?”
“Karen…… That’s enough.”
“Oooooh! Rice, you’re awesome!”
Ten large tomato slices were placed two each on individual plates.
White snowflakes piled on top.
The sweet snow melted srrrk the moment it touched the tomatoes.
The juice pooling at the bottom of the plate quickly turned thick.
Irim passed around the sugar-sprinkled tomatoes, one plate to each companion.
“Eat up.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen tomatoes eaten with sugar sprinkled on them.”
It was Karen’s comment.
“We just eat it like this, right?”
Xyle asked Irim.
But Irim didn’t hear him.
He was completely absorbed in the sugar tomatoes in front of him.
Staring at the sugar tomatoes with sparkling eyes, Irim lifted a slice and took a big bite.
First, sweetness moistened his tongue, then the rich grassy aroma of tomato flowed into his nose.
A beat later, the slightly sour inherent taste of tomato dug into his palate.
It soon mixed with the sugar’s sweetness and blended without resistance.
The tomato flesh chewed softly with almost no resistance.
The more he chewed, the deeper the aroma and flavor became, exploding with richness.
Gulp!
Irim chewed and swallowed the tomato slice in one go and smiled in satisfaction.
‘I’m so glad I started playing this game.’
Real kept giving Rice moments of deep emotion at every turn.
It returned the tastes and aromas of foods he hadn’t experienced for a year.
Irim picked up another tomato slice.
At that, the others began eating the tomatoes too.
The NPCs, trying sugar tomatoes for the first time, all widened their eyes.
“Sweet, so sweet.”
“This is a delicacy.”
“Luke. Karen. If you’re full, throw it to me.”
It was just sliced tomatoes with sugar sprinkled on top, yet it was a whole new world.
For a while, whenever they saw sugar, they’d probably think of tomatoes first.
The sugar tomatoes vanished in an instant.
They were tasty, but still far from filling hunger.
“What a shame.”
Xyle smacked his lips and said.
As if he’d expected it, Irim was already rummaging through his inventory.
While checking various ingredients inside, Delicious Fried Eggs, Wormflower, and sesame oil caught Irim’s eye.
“It would’ve been nice if there was a bit more rice.”
Irim muttered to himself.
Suddenly, a leather pouch appeared right in front of him.
The hand holding the pouch’s opening was slender and long.
Irim’s gaze traveled up the arm to the owner.
It was Karen.
She grinned awkwardly.
“This is really, really my emergency rations…… Here.”
“Thank you, Karen.”
While Irim expressed gratitude, Xyle started teasing Karen.
“You said you didn’t bring any cooking tools, so why were you hoarding that? You should’ve handed it over earlier. You always have this weird greed.”
“If you want to ascend to a strange place, keep going.”
“Sorry.”
Xyle’s teasing didn’t last long.
Irim immediately soaked and washed the rice, started a fire, and cooked the rice.
‘Now, something to eat with it as a side dish…..’
While the rice cooked, Irim checked his inventory again for side dishes.
‘Oh. This is it.’
Irim took out cucumbers, salt, sugar, and vinegar.
He quickly julienned the cucumbers and filled a large bowl with water.
He mixed in the julienned cucumbers, salt, sugar, and vinegar in appropriate amounts and stirred whisk whisk.
That was it.
A pretty decent cold cucumber soup was born.
‘It would’ve been better with sesame seeds.’
For now, this was excellent.
It was a common cold cucumber soup that could be easily made at home, so the recipe was mostly the same.
Some households salted the cucumbers separately before adding them to the soup.
Irim made it with the simplest recipe today.
Still feeling it was a bit lacking, he thinly sliced two chili peppers and topped it.
“What’s this?”
Karen asked.
“It’s cold cucumber soup.”
“Looks delicious.”
Now, whenever Irim made something, the automatic response was that it would be delicious.
Over the past few hours together, every dish Irim made had been tasty.
That’s how unconditional trust formed.
After finishing the cold cucumber soup, Irim placed another pot filled with water on the fire where the rice was cooking.
He added Wormflower petals and boiled them.
Soon, when the water turned black, he removed the petals, took the soy sauce off the heat, and cooled it.
The party watched Irim with eyes full of anticipation, wondering what dish he was making.
Meanwhile, the pot rice finished.
The white rice gleamed with gloss, perfectly cooked.
“Then, shall we make soy sauce egg rice.”
Hearing Irim, Maengho clutched both cheeks with his hands, looking like he might faint.
“S-soy sauce egg rice!”
Luke asked Maengho.
“Soy sauce egg rice? Is it that delicious?”
“If you haven’t tried it, don’t talk. Haa, haa. Rice-nim. Please make it quickly.”
“Yes.”
Irim generously drizzled soy sauce and sesame oil over the pot rice, then took out the 10 remaining Delicious Fried Eggs from his inventory and dropped them in.
Normally, you put one or two fried eggs per bowl of rice.
For five people, two each—ten in total.
Irim mixed it shuk shuk with a spatula.
The half-cooked yolks coated the rice, turning the grains an appetizing golden color.
Every time the rice was mixed, the savory harmony of soy sauce and sesame oil wafted out, making everyone’s stomachs riot.
Mio~
Mio seemed to be drooling from the savory smell too.
She peeked her head out from atop Irim’s head, eyeing the deliciously mixing soy sauce egg rice.
“Done.”
After mixing all the rice, Irim wiped clean the plates they had scraped empty and divided the soy sauce egg rice onto them.
He also distributed the cold cucumber soup equally into small bowls.
“Now, try it.”
Irim recommended the food to everyone and immediately started eating with a spoon.
The companions no longer watched Irim eat; they were busy putting food into their own mouths.
The moment the NPCs put a bite of soy sauce egg rice in their mouths and slurped the cold cucumber soup,
“……!”
“….!”
“……!”
Another world of gourmet opened.
***
With their bellies fully filled, the party cleaned up and stood.
It was time to hunt the boss monster.
Irim was still savoring the aftertaste of the soy sauce egg rice he hadn’t tasted in a while.
There are many special foods in the world.
Usually, special foods are hard to make at home and require going to a specialty restaurant.
But soy sauce egg rice could be easily made at home by anyone.
Yet it was extraordinarily delicious.
Probably few Koreans didn’t know this taste.
‘It would’ve been better with margarine.’
Putting half-cooked fried eggs on white rice and mixing with soy sauce and sesame oil was good, but using margarine instead of sesame oil was also honey-like.
Some used butter, but for egg rice, Irim preferred margarine.
‘Nothing can match margarine’s unique flavor.’
Eating so well inside the game made him the happiest person in the world.
It was a 10-minute walk to where the boss monster waited.
No other monsters appeared during that time.
However, at the point where the long entrance ended and a wide cavern revealed itself, one line of writing was engraved on the wall.
-May you find peace there.
“You damn witch! I’ll definitely catch you!”
Once again, Maengho was enraged.
In contrast, Luke, Karen, and Xyle had experienced it many times, so they weren’t greatly shaken.
“Going in.”
As always, Luke took the lead, and the party followed into the cavern.
The cavern interior was empty.
Only a cross shape was engraved on the front wall.
“A cross? Christianity?”
The moment Maengho said that without much thought.
A woman’s gloomy voice, chilling enough to tear eardrums, rang through the air.
“Did you come to find the children?”
At that, the party all grabbed their weapons at once.
Irim also took out the Boning Sword and stayed alert to the surroundings.
“Nim. Be careful. I checked the fan cafe, and the boss monster here doesn’t take any damage— Rice
“says.”
“No damage at all?”
“Yes. There must be a weakness somewhere, but no one has found it. That’s why no one has cleared it.”
“Then, unless we find the weakness, it’s impossible to clear.”
“But I’ll find that weakness, so don’t worry. Hahaha!”
While a few words exchanged between the two, a hazy silhouette slowly descended from the cavern ceiling.
The silhouette soon became clear, revealing the form of a slender woman.
Above her head was written ‘Witch of Grief Marina’.
Marina looked around at Irim’s party with blood-red eyes and asked.
“Tell me. Did you come to find the children too?”
At that, Maengho shouted furiously.
“We came to kill you. You witch!”
Marina’s cold gaze turned to Maengho.
Maengho flinched but pretended to be calm without showing it.
“You…… came to kill me?”
As Marina spoke, a self-mocking smile formed on her lips.
“Yes. Many people step here to kill me. But no one has killed me. Can you kill me? How long will you watch the witch who killed children live openly? At this rate, I might live for a thousand, ten thousand years.”
At Marina’s mockery, flames flashed in Maengho’s eyes.
He gripped his spear and charged, casting a skill.
“One-Point Thrust!”
The spear carrying sharp energy shot like lightning.
But Marina stood still without any intention to dodge and took the spear with her body.
THUD!
The spear tip couldn’t pierce Marina’s abdomen and was blocked as if hitting steel.
“Maengho! Fall back!”
Luke shouted and rushed out.
But Maengho didn’t retreat and continued attacking.
Marina calmly took Maengho’s spear a few more times, then lightly swung her right arm.
In an instant, tremendous wind pressure engulfed Maengho.
And sharp wind blades inflicted large and small wounds all over Maengho’s body.
Splurt! Splat! Spluuurt!
His body was cut, torn, and burst in places by the blades.
Maengho’s HP was dropping terrifyingly fast.
If left like this, he’d collapse immediately!
In that life-or-death moment, Luke grabbed Maengho’s nape and pulled him back.
Because of that, Luke’s right arm was shredded, but he saved Maengho.
“Mio!”
At Irim’s call, Mio immediately jumped to Maengho’s chest and performed paw-paw.
His HP, which had hit rock bottom, quickly recovered.
“This……. why is it so strong?”
Maengho realized he had underestimated Marina too much.
While Maengho retreated, Luke, Karen, and Xyle faced Marina.
But Marina didn’t take a single wound.
Only the NPCs’ HP was terrifyingly shaved off.
From behind them, Irim tried to find Marina’s death point.
But,
‘…..No death point visible.’
Marina had no death point.
‘A 3-star monster?’
With the current ‘Death Point Vision E’, he could see death points up to 2-star monsters.
From 3-star monsters, death points couldn’t be seen.
Then, this fight was as good as lost.
For the first time, Irim bit his lower lip hard at the obstacle he faced.
‘What should I do?’
In a situation with no answer, a ray of light came in then.
‘That’s……?’
Irim saw something.