Chapter 218: Time to Say Goodbye (2) Lanster II froze on the spot after hearing a reply he had never expected.
"If I did not hear wrong, it sounds as though you mean you will never be able to return."
"Yes, that is correct."
"What?"
Lanster II stared straight at Jinseo's face, hoping it was a joke.
But when he saw the complete lack of laughter in Jinseo's expression, he could not hide his bewilderment.
"You mean it? Are you leaving for some faraway place?"
"Yes. This will be my last time staying on the Francia Continent."
"How far away are you going that you felt the need to come all the way here just to say goodbye? Surely you are not..."
"I am absolutely not making a bad choice. I have personal circumstances that leave me no choice but to go. As I said, this is purely because of personal circumstances, and I am not leaving because of anything bad, so there is absolutely no need for you to worry."
Jinseo knew that he had gained enormous influence in the other world, including the Francia Continent.
That was why he felt he should not just slip away without a word like he had when he first came to the Francia Continent.
Even if he could not reveal the truth that he was going to regress, Jinseo had decided to visit those with whom he had deep ties and say goodbye, so there would be no room for misunderstanding.
One of them was Lanster II, who stood before him now.
"Hah… what a great pity."
Lanster II was genuinely regretful and let out a hollow sigh.
"Please rest assured. Before I leave, I will finish handing everything over so that there will be no problem at all with continuing to eat bunsik after I am gone. I plan to pass on even the recipes that have not yet been made public to the staff at the branch."
"That is a relief. No, it is not a relief! You are saying you are leaving our side, so what meaning would there be in new bunsik coming out?"
"Your Majesty… thank you very much for saying that."
"But if this was something so important, you should have given me some advance notice. I would have held a grand farewell banquet so that I could remember our final meeting. This is truly regrettable."
"If I had informed people in advance, I felt there would be far too many who would try to stop me. It would have been too difficult to say goodbye in that kind of atmosphere, so I came so suddenly because I wanted to quietly offer my farewell and leave."
"I see."
After hearing Jinseo's explanation, Lanster II nodded in understanding.
Even so, he found it far too regrettable to let Jinseo go just like this, and sank into thought, biting at his thumbnail.
"To be honest, there is something I have been thinking about for a long time, and since you say you are leaving, I will speak of it now. If you plan to leave the Francia Continent and settle in some distant place, then rather than doing that, would you consider staying in the Girvante Kingdom?"
Unable to let go of his attachment to Jinseo, Lanster II put forward an extraordinary offer, like a man grasping at straws in a desperate effort to keep him.
"I will guarantee you the title of marquis, lands befitting that rank, and every kind of special privilege besides. I can assure you that no one in the Girvante Kingdom would oppose my proposal. On the contrary, they would likely welcome it with both arms raised. For the record, these are only the minimum benefits I am offering."
"I truly appreciate your words, but I have already received more privileges than I deserve."
"I see."
When Jinseo politely expressed his refusal, Lanster II gave up on persuading him any further and slowly shook his head.
"Then again, if you were the kind of person who wanted such things, you would have demanded them long ago. It seems I still did not understand you very well. Ha ha..."
"I am sorry."
"No, what is there for you to apologize for? If anything, it is we who ought to apologize more. Thanks to you, we were able to save the world from the Dark Dragon Evelyn, and saying more about that would only tire my mouth… and beyond that, because of the bunsik you introduced, the stagnant food culture of the Girvante Kingdom was given a chance to advance. Not only I, but the entire kingdom owes you a great debt. Yet I never expected that you would leave before we had even repaid that debt."
Lanster II closed his eyes as he recalled the emotion of the very first time he tasted bunsik.
"Of course I regret parting with you… and there is one more thing I regret: I worry whether the taste of bunsik will truly be maintained after you leave. Every time I ate bunsik made by a cook other than you, I always felt that something was lacking."
"You need not worry about that. There is someone who stayed in Korea for a long time."
"Ah, you mean Grand Mage Rainpolt?"
"I have already secured his promise to help in various ways so that even without me, the taste of bunsik can still be faithfully reproduced."
"Even without you… you say."
There was more loneliness than joy in Lanster II's voice at the realization, once again, that nothing could stop Jinseo from leaving.
"Oh, Marco. You are here."
Seeing Marco enter the audience chamber, Lanster II pointed toward Jinseo, and Jinseo walked over and explained the whole situation to him.
"What? Is that really true?"
Marco was startled by Jinseo's sudden farewell without any warning, and like Lanster II, he tried to persuade him.
But it was impossible to turn back the resolve of someone who had long since made up his mind.
"Lord Marco, please take good care of the Selfier Castle branch."
"…Yes."
Jinseo and Marco clasped both hands together and exchanged their farewells.
Watching the two men, Lanster II seemed unable to bear the parting and turned his body toward the wall.
"Jinseo."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"I will miss you."
"I will never forget the grace Your Majesty showed me, nor the memories I made in the Girvante Kingdom."
After finishing his farewell in the Girvante Kingdom, Jinseo used the food truck's teleportation function and visited the continents of the other races one by one.
They welcomed Jinseo warmly after not seeing him for so long, and just as in the Girvante Kingdom, they grieved and lamented his sudden farewell.
"Oh, my! What are you saying? That this is truly the last time we shall ever meet? Please, do not leave!"
Wigenburg, lord of the Ashred Continent, the dwarves' homeland, reacted passionately to Jinseo's farewell and begged him not to go back until he changed his mind.
It was also proof of just how deep their affection for him was, so Jinseo felt troubled, yet grateful for their stubbornness.
"Come to think of it, this drinking gathering is the first one we have ever had with you, Jinseo. And yet to think it may also be the last makes my heart sink..."
Jinseo and the dwarves spent the whole night drinking and talking, each trying to persuade the other, and their conversation continued until the next morning.
Even so, the dwarves ultimately failed to persuade Jinseo, and with tears in their eyes, they saw him off.
"…Then would it not solve everything if we simply followed you? No matter how far the road may be, with our sturdy four legs, there is nowhere we cannot go! Unless it is the deep sea or the high heavens, that is!"
Lloyd V, king of the centaurs and ruler of the Krudian Continent, where vast plains stretched endlessly, declared that he would follow Jinseo of his own accord.
Jinseo had to spend several days sweating nervously as he tried to persuade Lloyd V, who insisted that wandering was only natural for a nomadic people like the centaurs.
"The lifespans of humans and elves differ far too greatly, so our parting was a fate that could not be avoided. I did not know it would come earlier than expected in this way… but I pray that the blessing of the World Tree will accompany your path ahead."
Unlike the previous two races, the elven elders of the Keinua Continent accepted their farewell with calm composure.
After traveling through the other continents like that and saying his goodbyes, Jinseo returned once more to the Francia Continent.
Their current destination was the Holy Land of the Heirem Order.
Back when they had first left for the Girvante Kingdom, Jason and Aston had been excited at the thought of traveling all over the continent, but the more they went from place to place, the fewer words they spoke.
That was because as Jinseo said farewell in many different places, the contents of those farewells naturally reached their ears as well. Gloomy and subdued, the two took turns at the wheel and continued driving in silence.
As they headed for the Holy Land, they were unable to reach the village where they had planned to stop because of the rain that had fallen the day before, and were forced to park the food truck in the middle of the forest and spend the night there.
After finishing dinner, still silent with one another, Jinseo separated himself from the other two and tried to sleep in the driver's seat of the food truck.
But unable to fall asleep at all, Jinseo stepped outside and lit a campfire.
-Meow.-
Nero and Owl followed him and flew toward the campfire.
Normally, the two spirits would have bickered, but now they quietly sat side by side on either side of him, cautiously reading Jinseo's mood.
With a pained expression, Jinseo gently stroked the heads of both spirits.
Creak.
The door of the extra trailer opened, and Jason and Aston came out and sat down around the campfire.
Crackle, crackle.
The three men gathered before the campfire still kept their mouths tightly shut.
"Jinseo..."
Jason was the first to break the silence, looking sorrowfully at Jinseo across the fire.
"I know now that I can't stop you from leaving, Jinseo. Even the highest people couldn't shake your resolve."
For a while, Jason had resented Jinseo for not telling him that he was leaving the Francia Continent.
But he realized that the Jinseo he knew would never do something like that without a reason, and had waited only for a chance when the three of them could talk alone.
Yet in the heavy atmosphere, it had been difficult to speak easily, and now that they were nearly at the Holy Land, Jason became certain that if he did not ask now, he might never get another chance, so he gathered his courage and opened his mouth.
"But I want you to tell me at least one thing. I want to know what reason made you decide to leave."
"All right."
Because he could not speak carelessly about Regression, Jinseo had not told anyone about Regression except those who already knew.
However, it was difficult to hide the truth from the two people who had worked alongside him as helpers ever since he started the food truck business.
"You both know that I came from Korea, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"And that Korea is far away from the Francia Continent, correct?"
"The truth is… Korea is a different world from the Francia Continent."
In a calm tone, Jinseo began revealing the truth he had been unable to speak of until now.
He explained that the reason he had driven a food truck and sold bunsik in another world was to choose "Regression," one of the rewards he could receive once he raised the Mobile Cooking Facility's rank to the maximum.
And that once he chose Regression, the timelines would become misaligned, making it almost impossible for him to ever meet the people of this other world again.
Jason and Aston were stunned at first by a truth they had never even imagined, but later they silently listened to Jinseo's story, sipping coffee from paper cups.
"…So I decided to return to the time when my parents were still alive."
After finishing, Jinseo looked down at Nero and Owl.
At some point the two spirits had fallen asleep, but the two men listening to him were now completely wide awake.
"I see..."
Jason drew up both knees and buried his face between them.
"My parents are already gone, just like yours, Jinseo… and sometimes I still see them in my dreams."
The corners of Jason's eyes slowly grew damp as he recalled a childhood that had been poor, but happy.
"But if there were a way to meet them again, then of course I would want to see my parents alive in real life, not just in dreams. If I could regress like you, Jinseo, then I definitely would have made the same choice."
"If I could meet my late mother again, I would have made the exact same choice as you, Mr. Jinseo. I understand."
Aston, like Jason, sympathized with how Jinseo felt.
"I am truly… sorry for hiding this and not telling you all this time."
"No. This isn't the kind of thing you could say easily. I was honestly eating my heart out, wondering whether you were leaving because you had become disappointed in this world."
"How could I ever be disappointed? This world is just as precious to me as my homeland."
"Mr. Jinseo… you truly must have suffered a great deal all this time."
"No. Now… I feel a little relieved."
Now that the three men shared the same secret, they lifted their heads and looked up at the sky.
Under the gentle moonlight pouring down from the dark night sky, Jinseo forced a faint smile.
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