Chapter 1

Chapter 1: My Cooking and Girlfriend Were Stolen

My cooking was stolen.

The head chef, who was also the executive chef, stole my original dishes and won one of the world's three major culinary competitions.

He had previously used my creative dishes multiple times on TV variety shows, and even won a famous Youngflix cooking survival program's second season using my creative dishes.

If only that were all.

'Now he's gone so far as to steal my girlfriend too...?'

Through the locker room connected to the restaurant's employee break room, I could hear the sounds of the chef having a secret rendezvous with Yu Seon-yeong, the senior cook who had been my girlfriend for two years.

I had come to check because it was suspicious that the chef, who rarely came to the kitchen, and Yu Seon-yeong were both missing. And I was right.

This must have been why Yu Seon-yeong had been particularly dismissive and seemed to be keeping me in check lately.

The chef probably made her an offer she couldn't refuse—perhaps promising to make her the sous chef instead of me, or to make her a star chef through TV appearances.

'We were going to break up anyway since we only stressed each other out and were worse than strangers, but still, this isn't right. And not in the workplace of all places...'

I felt sick to my stomach with disgust.

I tried to open the locker room door, but it was locked from inside.

At that moment, the sounds from inside stopped.

"Yu Seon-yeong, open the door."

There was no answer.

After a moment, Yu Seon-yeong cracked the door open slightly.

She had already straightened her clothes.

However, she couldn't hide the cold sweat and slightly disheveled hair.

"Wh-what? I was changing. Didn't you see the 'in use' sign? What are you trying to do, opening the door without knocking when a female employee is changing? How undignified."

She came at me with shameless audacity.

The staff were already busy moving around preparing for opening.

No sane employee would come near the break room during the busy pre-opening hours.

That's why they dared to do such brazen things.

"Move aside."

I pushed Yu Seon-yeong out of the way and went inside.

"Seon-u, what do you think you're doing?"

I ignored her and looked around.

Then I opened an empty cabinet.

This was the only empty single-tier cabinet large enough for a person to hide in.

When I opened the door, sure enough.

"Assistant kitchen manager..."

The chef looked flustered, wearing only his underwear and undershirt.

The ugly truth of Korea's top star chef and the head chef of Pungjeong, one of only two Michelin three-star restaurants in the country.

"Come out."

He awkwardly emerged from the cabinet.

I looked back and forth between the chef and Yu Seon-yeong, whose face had turned deathly pale, and let out a sigh before speaking.

"Chef, you come back to work after so long just to fool around with a subordinate in the locker room?"

When the chef, who had always looked down on me, got called out by me, he raised his hackles as if he had never been flustered.

"Fool around...? You little bastard, do you want to quit? Want me to make you quit?"

Caught rolling around with someone else's girlfriend, yet acting indignant as usual as if nothing happened.

It reminded me once again of how much he looked down on me and treated me like a lunatic.

"I was going to quit anyway. How can I continue working in the same place as a thieving bastard who steals both my cooking and my girlfriend?"

I took off my toque (chef's hat) and tossed it at his face.

The chef grabbed my collar with an angry expression.

"Thief...? Are you crazy? Do you know who I am? If I blacklist you, you won't be able to work in this industry!"

He was right. Limited to Korea, at least.

Well, if it came to it, I could go overseas, or run a modest restaurant in the Korean countryside.

Besides, he would never actually do that.

"Go ahead and try. I don't have much to lose, but if I open my mouth, you'll lose everything."

Just the fact that he stole someone else's creative dishes and passed them off as his own would end his TV appearances forever.

The end of his life as a star chef.

"Do you have proof?"

"I have plenty of proof. All the dishes the chef stole on broadcasts—I created them all when I was working in Italy. I have witnesses who can testify, and video evidence too."

The recorded footage included videos of the head chef at the famous restaurant where I worked during my culinary studies in Italy confirming my creative dishes.

And that wasn't all. I pulled out a pen from my pocket.

"I also have audio recordings here. By the way, I'm recording right now too."

After being burned by the chef several times, I had been carrying around a pen with a recording function to secure evidence.

"You little bastard! Give me that!"

The chef repeatedly reached out to snatch the recorder pen I was holding.

I dodged his hands and then tripped him with a leg sweep.

"Agh!"

As the fallen chef tried to raise his upper body, I grabbed his collar and said,

"Chef, this is a warning, so listen carefully. Remove all five dishes I created from Pungjeong's course menu starting tomorrow."

"Wh-why are those your dishes?"

"You know that better than anyone."

The dish the head chef won with at the world culinary competition, the dish he presented in the finals of the Youngflix cooking survival program, and three others.

Half of Pungjeong's current ten-course menu consisted of my original dishes.

But until now, the chef had deceived the public, claiming they were all original signature dishes he had developed.

"Still, by tomorrow I need time to plan the menu..."

"The fact that it's by tomorrow instead of today is already the maximum consideration. If you don't change it, the first thing I'll do is send the currently recording file to your wife."

When I mentioned his wife, his face turned deathly pale.

Pungjeong was a restaurant inside a five-star hotel, and the hotel's owner was the chef's wife's father—his father-in-law.

"Also, if you try to pull any tricks to block my path, I will make you lose everything you've built up."

"..."

"This isn't advice, it's a threat."

The chef couldn't answer easily with trembling eyes, then gave a slight nod.

And lastly.

"Let's settle for exactly two hits, no more, no less."

Before the chef could protest, my fist flew first.

Thud!

While holding his collar with my left hand, I gave him a satisfying punch to the jaw with my right fist.

"This is for stealing my cooking all this time."

Thud!

"This is for fooling around with my girlfriend."

When I said "ex-girlfriend," I could hear Yu Seon-yeong, who had been trembling at the door, hiccup.

I hit him twice.

Still, my chest didn't feel relieved.

As I raised my fist one more time, the chef protested while covering his bleeding mouth with his hand.

"Y-you said two hits!"

For nearly three years, the chef had left the kitchen to me while he only went around doing TV appearances, home shopping, and external events, so the days he was in the kitchen were very few.

Pungjeong was originally a Michelin one-star restaurant until three years ago.

I was the one who raised Pungjeong to Michelin three-star status two years in a row.

With my original menu and adding details to the existing dishes, we received even higher evaluations.

The contribution to receiving the Michelin three-star rating wasn't the head chef's—my share was overwhelmingly larger.

The chef didn't know gratitude and had been treating me worse than a kitchen assistant.

"This is for constantly nitpicking and tormenting me!"

"Aaagh!"

Since the chef was covering his mouth and jaw with his hands, I had no choice but to hit his nose.

I heard a "crack" when I hit him.

Seeing the chef covering his nose in pain and bleeding, my chest finally felt somewhat relieved.

He would never report me anyway.

After finishing my business, I grabbed my coat from my cabinet and was about to leave the locker room when Yu Seon-yeong grabbed my lapel.

"Seon-u, no, oppa. I can explain everything. Just talk to me for a moment..."

"Get lost."

I cut off her words and pushed her aside as she blocked the door, then walked out.

I headed straight to the kitchen and washed the blood off my hands.

Seeing this, Jae-seong, my right-hand man in charge of steaks, asked,

"Sous chef, is something wrong?"

"Nothing much. Just that I'm quitting Pungjeong starting today."

When I spoke casually, the kitchen suddenly stopped.

"Quitting?"

"Why? Did the chef curse at the sous chef again?"

"The kitchen can't run without the sous chef...!"

I felt sorry for the kitchen staff, but it couldn't be helped.

"That's what happened. Even without me today, Jae-seong, try to manage somehow under your command. You did it before when I couldn't come in because I was sick."

"Chef...!"

The kitchen staff's expressions became very gloomy.

"If the sous chef quits, I'm quitting too...!"

When Ji-young, the youngest assistant, said this, several others agreed.

As Ji-young said, escaping quickly might actually be better.

Starting tomorrow, the menu would change to hastily prepared dishes by the head chef, and it wouldn't be easy to supply fresh ingredients by tomorrow.

Also, once the highly praised Pungjeong signature dishes were removed, the ratings would inevitably fall.

* * *

After quitting, I gave up my monthly rental room in Seoul.

For the next two years, I rested and traveled around the world on a culinary journey.

I visited the restaurants in Italy and America where I had worked to greet my mentor chefs.

I also worked temporarily to supplement my travel expenses and learned new cooking skills.

Then one day, the world changed dramatically.

Something called dimensional rifts began appearing all over the world, and monsters started crawling out from within them.

Also, superhumans capable of dealing with them, commonly called Hunters, awakened and revealed themselves.

Due to that aftermath, my future became somewhat uncertain.

'I struggled to get a plane ticket and returned to Korea, but the entire global food service industry is in crisis...'

Actually, it wasn't just the food service industry—the entire world economy was in crisis.

The flow of global logistics wasn't smooth due to attacks by monsters emerging from the rifts.

As a result, the food company that had promised to invest in the fine dining restaurant I was going to open suddenly canceled their investment promise.

"What should I do now? Sigh!"

And now, after struggling to get a plane ticket back home, I was sitting on the wooden floor of my hometown's rural house, worrying about my future.

'I don't want to take out a big loan and overextend myself. Maybe I should just open a small casual dining restaurant instead.'

The economy was worse than the old COVID pandemic, and they were saying starting a business was hell, so I wasn't sure if that was the right choice.

'Well, if it doesn't work out, I can just work at one of my mentors' restaurants.'

They were Michelin three-star and two-star fine dining restaurants, respectively.

Both mentors had offered me head chef positions.

I had declined those positions simply because I wanted to open my own restaurant.

'Let's take some time and think slowly. For now, let me clean up the yard first.'

The yard was overgrown with weeds.

It wouldn't be bad to pull them all out and make a small garden to tend.

I headed to the storage shed to find a sickle.

A fairly large storage shed about 5 pyeong in size. I stood in front, opened the shed door, and went inside.

'Where's the sickle?'

I couldn't see it anywhere despite looking around.

Since this was a rural house where farming had been done, there should definitely be one.

Soon, something covered by a sack about 2 meters tall in the corner of the shed caught my eye.

First, I moved the heavy boxes blocking the way one by one.

I stood in front and removed the sack covering something.

'...'

What had been covered by the sack was a cabinet.

As bad memories started to surface, I immediately shook them off and opened the cabinet door, hoping to find a sickle.

"Huh...?"

Forget the sickle—there was nothing at all.

No, it was so pitch-black dark that I couldn't see anything inside the cabinet.

As if the cabinet had been painted with light-absorbing Vantablack.

"What? Is something wrong with my eyes?"

I reached my hand toward the cabinet to see if there really was nothing inside.

Then it went in smoothly without any obstruction.

At that moment, part of the old, rotting wooden pallet top plate I was standing on gave way, causing me to lose my balance and fall toward the pitch-black dark cabinet.

"Aaagh! What the—!"

My body should have bumped into the inside of the cabinet, but as if there was a huge space, there was nothing to catch on.

Soon my body completely entered inside the cabinet and as I was about to fall.

My vision changed.

"Where is this?"

The smell was also different from the stuffy smell of the storage shed—a pleasant forest scent that felt refreshing to the lungs.

This wasn't the storage shed but a clearing in front of a small cave.

I had been transported to a completely different location.

Soon, something appeared before my eyes.

[You have entered the undiscovered rift area '???' for the first time.]

[You will acquire a new skill as an achievement reward.]

[You are not an Awakened. You cannot learn the skill.]

[Awakening will begin first in order to learn the skill.]

Wait, awakening? I'm becoming a superhuman...?

One unrealistic situation after another occurred.

Eventually, my body grew hot as if contrast dye was being injected during an MRI or CT scan, and I felt changes occurring.

In the midst of this confusion, I thought,

'If I become a Hunter, should I just open a restaurant inside a rift?'

The current food service industry was a red ocean.

However, with a shift in perspective, if I sold food to Hunters inside rifts, wouldn't that be a blue ocean?