Chapter 75: I Expected It All (4) "Sir Jason, could you call the guards?"
The moment Jinseo saw the plate, he sent Jason toward the gate.
It was one of the ways someone could interfere with the food truck's business, but as long as Nero's ability was in effect, it should have been absolutely impossible. That was why Jinseo became certain this, too, was part of Marquis Horus's scheme.
"How the hell did you cook the food for something like this to get in here?"
"I've been eating here for almost a year—why is this happening all of a sudden?"
"Mine too! We need to check the kitchen!"
They raised their voices, pointing at a large bug soaked in donkatsu sauce, sitting on the edge of the plate.
One of them tried to barge into the cooking area, but Jinseo stepped in front of him. No matter how hard the man tried, he couldn't push Jinseo aside.
"Sir, this place is currently under the Blessing of Pest Repulsion, so insects cannot enter either the food truck itself or the dining area where customers are eating."
"What? Pest repulsion… a blessing?"
"T-there's a blessing like that?"
"It's a holy relic."
The three men were struck speechless by Jinseo's perfectly casual reply.
In truth, it was one of Nero's abilities, but calling it the power of the holy relic—the food truck—made it much easier to convince them without going into detailed explanations.
"And you do know that entering a holy relic without permission is forbidden, right?"
"That's beside the point! How are you going to explain a bug being in the bunsik we were eating? Answer me!"
"Aul, come here."
Instead of responding, Jinseo beckoned to Aul, who had been sitting on the perch.
When Aul, in the form of a white owl, fluttered over and landed on Jinseo's left shoulder, the men flinched and stepped back.
"First, have you checked this notice?"
Jinseo pointed to a newly posted sign beneath the menu.
"Was this even here? It says… 'For the safety of the holy relic, customers are being recorded. Thank you for your understanding'?"
"Recording? Filming? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's for monitoring purposes."
"We just came to eat bunsik—why are we being monitored?"
"It's a holy relic."
Maintaining the safety of a holy relic.
That alone was enough to shut the three men up again.
If it were any other holy relic, the area would have been fenced off, access strictly controlled, and guards stationed around it. But the food truck didn't need any of that.
Aul's newly acquired ability was sufficient.
Recently, when Aul's grade rose to 3, the function Jinseo selected was—
{CCTV: Monitors and records a designated area in real time from the mobile cooking equipment.}
It was an ability chosen to prevent people who might try to interfere with the food truck's business in the future.
"Dear customers, we apologize, but we will pause the drama broadcast for a moment and play the footage recorded of you."
Even as cold sweat broke out from all the attention focused on him because of the bug incident, Jinseo continued speaking without showing his tension.
"Those appearing in the footage may feel uncomfortable, but please understand that this is unavoidable in order to prove our innocence. After the video ends, everyone currently eating or waiting will receive a formal set coupon."
Jinseo rubbed the pocket made thick with coupons he had prepared in advance and stopped the drama broadcast.
"Aul, play the footage from when these three customers first arrived."
At his request, Aul slowly examined the faces of the three men, who were standing there blinking blankly, then closed its eyes.
Immediately, footage from Aul's point of view atop the food truck—showing the customers eating—began playing on the large TV.
The three men couldn't hide their panic as events unfolded in a way they had never anticipated.
"This scene, and the next one, and then…"
After confirming the moment when the three men stopped eating midway and took something out from their clothes, Jinseo paused the video.
"Split it up and zoom in."
The screen instantly divided vertically into three sections, each showing one customer's actions separately.
As everyone saw the scene of them secretly placing half-cut bugs next to the donkatsu while avoiding others' eyes, their expressions twisted into deep frowns.
"How do you explain this?"
At Jinseo's question, the three men remained silent, just as before.
By then, the guards Jason had called arrived. After hearing the full story from Jinseo, they glared fiercely at the three men.
"How dare you try to commit fraud in front of a holy relic?"
"And worse—how could you do something like that to perfectly good donkatsu? People who don't respect food deserve to be punished!"
The three men, who had gone beyond making a scene and attempted outright fraud, were bound and dragged away by the furious guards.
"Tsk, tsk. Trying to pick a fight over hygiene at the food truck…"
Watching them being taken away, Jason clicked his tongue.
By now, it had been nearly half a year since Jason started learning to cook, and Jinseo had never gotten angry even when Jason failed or made small mistakes.
However, when it came to hygiene, Jinseo had trained him harshly from the very beginning.
Cooking skills improved with practice, but awareness of hygiene tended to loosen over time. Because of that, Jason pursued hygiene more strictly than anyone else.
That didn't mean Jinseo taught him by swearing at him or beating him. To begin with, Jinseo wasn't that kind of person—and…
"You put those gloves back on without throwing them away after using them just now, didn't you? No TteXrice for a day."
"Aaaagh! I-I'm sorry! I swear! I'll never—ever—do it again!"
"Hoo… Just this once."
There existed a punishment far more powerful than anything else—one that applied only to Jason.
"It's honestly amazing. Just like you said, hyung, something like this actually happened."
"Directly attacking the food truck or harming me would be too risky for Marquis Horus."
"Attacking in such a petty way almost makes it feel anticlimactic."
"In that sense, the scariest thing is Marco's cooking skill. He'll probably replicate our current formal set menu soon enough."
"Then you'll just add new menus again, hyung?"
"Yes. Every day when I return to Korea, I practice bunsik dishes I learned before but haven't introduced here yet. I'm also experimenting with new dishes."
"I mean, I'm happy since I get to taste new bunsik every time, but seeing how hard you're working…"
"But it's a bit strange. With his skills, he should be able to make donkatsu easily, yet he still hasn't put it out."
More than two weeks had passed since donkatsu was introduced, but the bunsik carriage on the other side still hadn't started selling it.
If anything, that made Jinseo even more curious.
"Hyung, that video is still playing…"
"Oh—!"
Jinseo grabbed the remote to turn off the CCTV footage playing on the large TV. But seeing the customers' odd reactions, he lowered the remote again.
"Oh my! That's me! Kids, look over there! I'm on TV!"
"Th-that one on the left—that's me! I spilled sauce on my apron earlier while eating tteokbokki, and it's exactly the same!"
"So that's how I look from this angle… Interesting."
The customers had seen the sign stating that recording was done for monitoring purposes, but they hadn't paid much attention to it. They had come simply to enjoy bunsik and the experience the food truck provided.
They had no intention whatsoever of desecrating a holy relic, so the idea of being monitored didn't bother them.
If anything, once they saw themselves appearing on TV, they didn't get angry or offended—they actually liked it. Watching footage of their own faces made them feel like protagonists in a drama or movie they usually only saw on TV.
This reaction was something Jinseo had never anticipated.
"Aul! Over here! Look this way!"
Before long, customers began gathering beneath Aul's perch just to appear in the surveillance footage. When Aul, which had been gazing off into the distance indifferently, slightly lowered its head, the gathered customers burst into cheers.
"Aul looked at me! It stared right at me!"
"No way! It was looking at the spicy pork rice bowl you're holding!"
"Aul!"
"…It's still not enough."
Marco bowed his head low as he chewed on freshly fried donkatsu.
"If it were just a bit crispier… but that's not happening."
On the wide table before him lay more than a hundred pieces of donkatsu he had fried, still retaining their warmth.
"As expected, Lee Jinseo's bunsik isn't something to take lightly."
Originally, his plan had been to recreate Jinseo's bunsik dishes one by one, in order. But the moment he took a bite of the donkatsu brought by Marquis Horus's subordinate, his priorities changed.
When the sauce blended with the batter coating the thin meat, the flavor that exploded in his mouth surpassed even the three kinds of fried dishes he had already perfected.
Since Marquis Horus's side had also asked him to focus on donkatsu first, Marco spared no sleep, frying pork over and over to achieve the perfect donkatsu.
As a result, Marco succeeded not only in the donkatsu itself, but also in recreating the sauce—something he had considered a major hurdle.
However, one of donkatsu's lifelines—its crispiness—was just slightly lacking by his standards.
Of course, even the donkatsu he had just dismissed as a failure was more than good enough to satisfy customers. But his perfectionist nature allowed no compromise, not even a little.
And as he continued making donkatsu, an idea came to him to create another style of it, which required even more time than other bunsik dishes.
Using thicker meat, while enhancing the crispiness further.
Without realizing it, he was in the process of recreating one of donkatsu's two great traditions—Japanese-style tonkatsu alongside Western-style tonkatsu.
Creeeak.
The door to the secret kitchen prepared for Marco opened, and someone entered.
"Ahem! Didn't you say you'd finish the donkatsu by today?"
Lergon, Marquis Horus's adjutant, was assaulted by an intense wave of hunger from the tonkatsu-filled air, but he hid it and stated his business.
"It will be finished in a week."
Keeping both hands on the table, Marco answered while only turning his head slightly.
"A week? That's too slow! With your skills, it shouldn't take this long."
"Lee Jinseo's donkatsu is not an opponent I can treat lightly enough to serve something like these."
"Failures?"
Lergon picked up one of the many donkatsu on the table and took a bite.
"Oh…! Ah—hmhm!"
For a moment, he almost cried out in admiration, but forcibly restrained himself and swallowed the remaining donkatsu in his mouth.
"This alone should be more than enough, shouldn't it?"
"No. The food truck's donkatsu was crispier."
"The one I just ate is plenty crispy."
"That's only something you'd say because you don't truly understand donkatsu."
Marco, praised as the greatest chef in the Doren Kingdom, surpassed other chefs for a surprisingly simple reason.
"If a dish doesn't satisfy my own tongue, it can never satisfy the customer."
He possessed an unwavering personal standard equal to his skill—and he refused to compromise on it.
"…It's this delicious, and you're saying it's still not enough?"
Watching Marco's eyes burn with sincerity toward donkatsu, Lergon knew he had no chance of persuading him.
Yet hiring another chef at this point was impossible—there was no one in the Doren Kingdom who could match Marco's skill.
Well, there was one… but the fact that it was Lee Jinseo only made things more troublesome.
In the end, all Lergon could do was wait patiently for Marco's so-called perfect donkatsu to be completed.
"This still isn't it! The edges need more crunch!"
"…It's already crunchy enough. I don't get what you think is missing…"
As Lergon ate the donkatsu Marco labeled as failures, he decided Marco was simply an eccentric genius he would never understand.
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