Chapter 76: Jinseo's Counterattack (1) Lee Jinseo, the foreign chef who introduced a new genre of cuisine called bunsik to the Doren Kingdom, astonished everyone who tasted it.
Marco, who had been praised as the Doren Kingdom's genius chef but lost his passion and vanished, returned in such spectacular fashion that his three-year absence felt meaningless.
The two men, who had never crossed paths before, ended up in a cooking showdown because of the conflict between Oswald, Lord of the Castle of Falstead Castle, and Marquis Horus.
Unusually, it turned into a tug-of-war between the two without them ever facing each other directly, and it naturally drew the attention of high society.
Bunsik had already been known to quite a few people for some time.
And now it had become such a hot topic that you couldn't even join the conversation unless you had tried at least one bunsik dish from either Lee Jinseo or Marco.
Even among commoners, the culinary showdown between the two was more than enough to capture interest.
Under the name of "tasting," Marco's bunsik filled many people for free.
Meanwhile, Jinseo's food truck kept prices affordable like before while quickly adding new menu items to delight customers' palates.
With everyone's attention focused on which side would become the true victor, the clash between the two bunsik masters entered its third week.
Ever since Jason joined as a companion, the staff meals at the food truck had always been warm and lively.
But today, everyone stayed silent, merely eating the donkatsu served for the meal without a word.
Even Aston, who had joined again to help Jinseo, and Foltan, who drew customers over with the cart, kept their mouths shut and shared in the silence.
"Wow, this is…"
Jason tried to comment, but held back, mindful of Jinseo sitting across from him.
And for good reason—because the donkatsu he was eating right now was the new menu item from the bunsik carriage, not the food truck.
"I really took a hit."
Jinseo examined the cross-section of the donkatsu he had bitten halfway through, admiration plain on his face.
It was the same in essence as the food truck's donkatsu, yet it was a different kind of donkatsu.
Not only was it a different style—it delivered a new kind of pleasure in the mouth.
"I didn't think he'd make another kind of donkatsu that we hadn't shown yet. A genius really is a genius."
The donkatsu Foltan bought from a bunsik carriage in another area—at Jinseo's request—wasn't Western-style donkatsu. It was perfect Japanese-style donkatsu.
Hearing that the bunsik carriage had released a different donkatsu, Jinseo asked Foltan to buy it just in case, and sure enough… that was what it was.
"Just like we've been doing, we'll have to drop donkatsu."
Donkatsu had been a main menu item back when Jinseo ran Jinseo Bunsik, so it was a dish he was personally attached to.
If possible, he wanted to keep it for a long time, but he had no choice, and the regret hit hard.
"What if you release it as that menu? What was it called again…"
"If it's curry rice donkatsu, I don't think it's suitable to do right now."
There was curry rice donkatsu, one of the donkatsu variants and a hybrid of two bunsik items, but it had always been excluded from Jinseo's options.
Among the bunsik introduced on the Francia Continent, curry rice in particular had an extremely divided reception.
"This time, instead of a formal set menu, I'm going to add something you can eat lightly, like the old bunsik."
"What menu is it?"
"It's the food the two of you and I wrapped together a week ago."
"Dumplings! It's dumplings!"
"If it's dumplings, they'll definitely go for it."
At the word "wrapped," Jason and Aston immediately realized what Jinseo's next weapon was.
"Yes, and I'm also planning to add a broth dish using those dumplings."
Tteokmanduguk—made by putting tteok and dumplings, both commonly used in bunsik, into a clean, mild broth.
With ramen unavailable right now, tteokmanduguk was a must-add dish because it solved the absence of broth dishes.
"There is fish cake soup, but I think we should have at least one proper broth dish. There are quite a lot of customers who want a lighter-tasting broth, too."
"Like the udon noodles you served at the Holy Festival last year?"
"Noodles get you hungry again quickly, but… wait a moment."
Jinseo stopped mid-sentence and hurriedly got down from the food truck.
The customers who had been waiting for the break to end were staring at the table in the far-left corner, visibly unsettled, and it didn't look normal.
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"Ugh… I ate this and suddenly… it hurts…"
A man who had been eating bunsik he received right before the break ended groaned in pain and dropped his fork.
His face flushed red. He clutched his stomach, then collapsed limply beside his chair.
When Jinseo pushed through the customers and approached the fallen man, someone who looked like his companion glared at Jinseo and pointed at the half-eaten spicy pork rice bowl and spaghetti.
"Could this be spoiled?"
"How… ugh… did you even… cook it…"
Under the barrage of complaints, Jinseo turned his gaze toward Aul—then realized there was something he had to confirm first and called the Artificial Intelligence (AI).
'AI, check that customer's condition.'
{There are no issues with the spicy pork rice bowl and spaghetti consumed by the individual.}
{It has been confirmed that the individual ingested a drug that induces abdominal pain and fever after a certain amount of time has passed.}
So that's it. Since there's CCTV, they couldn't put the drug directly into the food, so they came after taking it beforehand. The problem is…
Unlike the previous bug incident, it was impossible to resolve this on the spot.
Jinseo could learn the truth through the AI, but the other customers couldn't, and that was the headache.
But Jinseo had predicted even a situation like this, so he didn't panic. Instead, he knocked on the door of the additional trailer.
"Mary, please come out!"
"Ah! Is it finally time for me to work?"
Mary paused the TteXrice she had been playing while waiting inside the trailer.
Then, holding a thick spellbook, she followed Jinseo over to the collapsed customer.
"A… mage?"
The man groaning in pain widened his eyes when he saw Mary's outfit.
"I'm going to cast spatial transfer magic, so everyone, move out of the way!"
Mary swept her right hand across the spellbook in her left.
The book opened, and the pages flipped rapidly.
As a large magic circle formed around her, the customers gathered nearby hurriedly backed away.
Meanwhile, Jinseo picked up the plates holding the spicy pork rice bowl and spaghetti, one in each hand.
"Sales of bunsik are suspended until we figure out what's going on and come back! Don't eat any more of what you're currently eating, either!"
Fwaaat.
At the same time as Jinseo's shout, an intense light spread outward.
"Where… is this…?"
In a situation he never expected, the patient was so stunned he even forgot the pain, staring blankly around.
"I-it looks like a cathedral?"
"A cathedral?"
When the two men saw the emblem of the Heirem Order in the center of their view, they had nothing to say.
The place Jinseo, Mary, and the two customers arrived at through spatial transfer magic was inside Kaysus Cathedral.
"Jinseo! What's going on?"
"We have a patient!"
Seeing the light pouring in through the cathedral's stained glass, Priest Leira hurried inside.
"So it's really just like you said?"
Before checking the patient, she spoke to Jinseo in a small voice.
"Please start with a diagnosis. It could really be because of my bunsik."
Because Jinseo had anticipated something like this, he had asked the clergy of Kaysus Cathedral in advance.
"At least one person capable of bestowing a blessing must be on standby near the cathedral."
Due to the nature of blessings, once one is bestowed, it cannot be bestowed again for a certain amount of time.
For that reason, the clergy of Kaysus Cathedral had been on standby in rotation, and it happened to be Leira's turn when this occurred.
"Isn't this getting too big?"
"J-just give me the antidote already…"
"It'll be handled by a priest's blessing anyway. Hold on until then."
"Ah… my stomach is killing me."
The two men whispered to each other, trying to figure out how to escape the situation they were in.
According to their original plan, they were going to make the customers misunderstand that there was a problem with the food truck's bunsik, then at an appropriate time, take the antidote they had prepared in advance and pretend to recover.
But with the unexpected appearance of a mage, the spatial transfer to Kaysus Cathedral, and everything else… the situation was already badly tangled.
They just hoped it wouldn't get any more complicated.
But when Fedora slowly walked into the cathedral, their hope shattered into pieces.
"Oh? Cardinal, you came too?"
When Jinseo recognized Fedora, the two men froze as if they had turned to stone.
Because of that, the bottle of antidote they had taken out to drink in secret rolled across the cathedral floor.
"Since it's an incident related to the food truck, of course I should come. I've heard the general situation."
"Just a moment—over here."
Jinseo stopped her midway and whispered so no one else could hear.
"…It seems they visited the food truck after first taking a drug that causes abdominal pain. It looks like the kind that only shows effects after some time passes, but I don't know exactly what it is."
Keeping enough distance that the two men couldn't hear, Jinseo explained what happened to Fedora.
"But first, we need to prove Jinseo's innocence, right?"
Fedora noticed the bunsik plates Jinseo had placed on a long bench and took a fork out from within her wide sleeve.
She twirled the spaghetti on the fork and ate it, then took some spicy pork with rice and put it into her mouth.
"Cardinal?"
"Y-you can't eat that!"
"Ugh, that's what someone else was eating…"
Her sudden action left Jinseo, Leira, and even Mary unable to hide their shock.
"Mmm. It isn't spoiled, and the taste is still good."
Fedora nodded with a calm, unbothered expression.
"As you all saw, there is nothing wrong with the food truck's bunsik. We'll know more after more time passes, but my healthy body will serve as proof itself."
"What if someone had put poison in it…"
"Don't worry. I didn't sense any impure energy from the food. And since it was being monitored by Aul's ability, something like that couldn't have happened anyway, right?"
"That's true, but…"
"More than anything, I trust you, Jinseo. And the bunsik you make as well."
She smiled at Jinseo, then walked toward the man crouched down clutching his stomach, her expression returning to its usual solemnity.
"Then I will examine where your suffering is coming from, brother."
Fedora knelt on one knee, placed her right hand on the patient's abdomen, and closed her eyes.
When more than ten minutes passed without anything happening, the patient—unable to take the antidote—was drenched in sweat.
"Brother."
Fedora opened her eyes again and looked at him with a sorrowful face.
"With my insufficient ability, I could not properly determine why you are in pain."
It wasn't a lie.
Because she truly didn't know the name of the drug that had caused his suffering.
"At this point, I will contact the Holy Land where His Holiness resides."
"Ugh… what?"
"Y-you mean… His Holiness the Pope?"
When she mentioned not only the Cardinal but also the Pope and the Holy Land, the two men's faces turned deathly pale.
In that moment, there were now two patients instead of one.
"This incident occurred at the food truck. Now that the food truck has been designated as a holy relic of our Order, I will stake my position and the honor of the Order to thoroughly determine the truth behind this incident."
"T-that won't be necessary!"
The man supporting the patient sprang to his feet and tried to stop Fedora.
But her stern, serious demeanor didn't change in the slightest.
"Come to think of it, it seems the brother who came with you is also afflicted with unknown pain…"
"What? N-no, I'm perfectly fine!"
"I see. That is fortunate. However, since the other brother is still unable to escape his suffering, I recommend you remain in the cathedral until we determine the cause."
"If you give him a blessing, won't it be easily resolved?"
"Once we determine the cause, I will give blessings to my heart's content."
Fedora gave the two men a gentle smile in turn, but it only drained even more color from their faces.
A moment later, when priests who arrived late brought a stretcher, Fedora stepped aside.
"Please lie down here, brother!"
"W-well, the thing is… actually…"
The man, now facing the prospect of becoming a patient not for a moment but forever, stretched his arm toward the direction where the antidote bottle had rolled.
Then Fedora lightly kicked the nearby antidote bottle farther away with the heel of her shoe.
"You must endure it, brother!"
"Overcome hardship through faith in Him, brother!"
"N-no, that's not… ugh…"
He wanted to say all he had to do was drink the antidote, but the worsening abdominal pain made his words come out wrong.
Watching him writhe in suffering he had chosen for himself, Fedora traced the sign of the cross.
"May His blessing be with you…"
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