Chapter 152

Chapter 152: The Broken Power of Buff Food

The director of Saetbyeol Daycare, where Yeona had just started attending, continued.

-Not only that, but a mischievous boy named Seong-won snatched Yeona's snack and ate it......

Someone snatched Yeona's snack?

'That brat took my daughter's snack!'

Did Yeona lose her temper and hit the boy named Seong-won?

That seemed unlikely. Yeona had never shown any bad habits with her hands.

She had a slight mischievous streak, but her nature was very kind.

The teacher continued.

-The dessert snack that Seong-won snatched contained peanuts, and Seong-won has a severe peanut allergy. We always give him a separate peanut-free snack, but because he ate Yeona's snack, he had an allergic reaction and went into convulsions.

An allergic convulsion was serious.

"That must have been alarming...... Is the boy named Seong-won all right?"

As a chef, I was well aware of the dangers of food allergies.

Menus always noted which allergens were present.

'Awakened are practically immune to food allergies, though.'

In any case, food allergies were dangerous for adults, but especially life-threatening for children.

That was why daycare kitchen staff and assigned teachers had to be extremely careful.

However, since the child had snatched a friend's snack while playing around, it was hard to assign blame.

-Fortunately, Yeona used her Awakened ability, as you had informed us about beforehand, and treated Seong-won. Thanks to that, the allergic reaction subsided. We took him to the hospital just to be safe, and thankfully they said he was perfectly fine.

"That is a relief."

-It is all thanks to Yeona. The reason I am calling is that Seong-won's parents, who rushed to the hospital after we contacted them, watched the CCTV footage I showed them and said they wanted to express their gratitude and repay Yeona and her parents.

Repayment.

I wanted to say it was unnecessary, but.

It was not me who had done this. It was Yeona.

So I wanted to hear from the person involved.

This too was part of her education.

"Let me talk to Yeona about it first. Whether she wants to receive anything or not."

-Understood. And thank you once again for entrusting Yeona to our daycare. Thanks to Yeona, a major accident was averted.

"I will have to give Yeona lots of praise when she gets home."

-Yes, please do. Most children, when their snack is taken, either lash out or burst into tears. But Yeona instead healed Seong-won, who was in pain. How did you raise her to be so kind? I would love to know your parenting secrets.

Honestly, it was less that Ria and I had educated Yeona well.

Yeona had learned more from watching Rin.

Rin was truly an angel without equal in the world.

Yeona adored and looked up to her sister.

So naturally, she was adopting the same good nature.

'This is exactly why a positive role model matters.'

They say children are mirrors of their parents.

But Yeona seemed more influenced by her sister Rin than by us.

-After the incident, Yeona became very popular among the children. She is getting along well with everyone.

"I am glad she is adapting well."

A weight lifted from my shoulders.

Yeona had spent most of her time inside the Rift.

Both Ria's and my workplace were inside the Rift, after all.

We came out to our home outside the Rift occasionally.

We took vacations and traveled too.

But Yeona had almost never socialized with children her own age.

On top of that, she had enrolled a year or two later than other children.

And instead of black hair and dark eyes, she had silver hair and blue eyes, the spitting image of her mother.

I had worried the other children might treat Yeona differently, but that concern proved unfounded.

She seemed to be adapting well, which was a relief.

After hanging up.

Ria and Rin, who had been listening on speakerphone beside me, also breathed sighs of relief.

"Thank goodness."

"Thank goodness."

They had been worried about Yeona too.

"Really, what a relief. By the way, Yeona made quite a splash on her very first day."

"That is our girl."

"My little sister is amazing."

We truly had a remarkable daughter.

When pickup time arrived, I went to get Yeona.

Upon arriving at the daycare, the teacher called Yeona over.

"Daddy!"

Arms wide open, beaming, she came running.

I scooped her up in my arms.

"How was daycare, Yeona? Was it fun?"

"Yeah, I made lots of fwiends."

"Ha ha! Lucky you."

"It was great. But I missed Daddy and Mommy and Unni so much."

"Did you? Then let us go home to see Mommy and Rin."

"Okay!"

After saying goodbye to the teacher, I turned to leave.

Five children came out.

"Wow, that must be Yeona's daddy!"

"Yeona's daddy is super famous!"

"I saw him on Mutube!"

"Mister, Yeona is so pretty!"

"We love Yeona!"

Ha ha, adorable little ones.

The ones calling Yeona pretty and saying they loved her were boys.

"Are you all in the same class as Yeona? Please be good friends with our Yeona."

Just friends, please.

I had heard that these days, kids had boyfriends and girlfriends even in daycare.

Absolutely not. Just be good friends.

The children answered innocently.

"Okay!"

"We will be good fwiends!"

Adorable little ones.

I also exchanged greetings with other parents who had come for pickup.

"Oh my...... it really is Chef An Seon-u. I am a fan!"

"Your daughter is so adorable!"

"The pride of our Mapo District Sinsu-dong, Hunter An Seon-u. Thank you once again for protecting our property values."

The residents of this neighborhood were all very friendly toward me.

I had saved their homes by closing the Third Floor Rift that had opened in Sinsu-dong, Mapo District.

After greeting the parents, we headed home.

When we walked in the door.

"Yeona!"

"Unni!"

The sisters hugged each other tightly.

Anyone watching would have thought they had been separated for ages.

We gathered on the living room sofa and listened to Yeona talk about her day at daycare.

What she had learned, who she had befriended, and even the incident the director had told us about on the phone.

I asked Yeona.

"Yeona, Seong-won's parents want to thank you. Is there a gift you would like?"

Yeona shook her head.

"No. Nuffing."

I had expected that.

But then Yeona quickly changed her mind.

"Actuwy, there is!"

"What is it, Yeona?"

"I want to be fwiends with Seong-won!"

That was the repayment she wanted. The unexpected answer caught Ria and me off guard.

Ria asked Yeona.

"Seong-won took your snack, though. You still want to be friends?"

"Yeah, Seong-won took my snack because he is a pwankster and because he wanted to be fwiends with Yeona."

Yeona's answer surprised us twice.

Once at how fluently she explained it, and again that she understood the boy had been acting out because he wanted to be friends.

Honestly, more than wanting to be friends, the boy named Seong-won had probably been smitten because Yeona was too pretty and cute.

At that age, children who had a crush would try to get attention by being mischievously playful.

"Our Yeona is so smart. Whose daughter could she be?"

"Hehe! Yeona is smart because she takes after Daddy and Mommy."

"Ha ha! How cute. All right, Yeona. I will pass that along to Seong-won's parents."

"Okay!"

And so our family gained another daily joy.

Listening to Yeona happily recount her day at daycare every evening.

***

I began researching buff cuisine in earnest.

To make the best use of the Application skill.

'Buff dishes do not stack identical effects.'

Comparing sandwiches, for example.

A dish that raised Strength 10%, Agility 15%, Stamina 13%.

And a dish that raised Strength 15%, Agility 10%, Stamina 15%.

If both were used through the Application skill.

The result would be Strength 15%, Agility 15%, Stamina 15%.

Meaning that of the buff options from both dishes, the higher percentage for each stat was applied.

'So I should add ingredients that specialize in each individual stat.'

For stat buff dishes, sandwiches and hamburgers typically performed well.

This time I tried a hamburger.

The main ingredient was.

'Minotaur meat from a High-Grade Monster I hunted with Ria a few days ago.'

A monster that resembled a bull.

The meat tasted very similar to beef but was extremely tough.

So I first did a two-day sous vide to tenderize it.

Then smoked it Texas brisket-style for twenty hours.

The result was exceptionally tender meat.

First, I took a long baguette from the Rift bakery, cut it into thirds, and halved each section.

I spread mustard sauce on the bread, piled on thinly sliced meat, added thinly grilled ham, cheese I had made from Pullo's milk, and pickles, then topped it with the bread lid to complete the Cuban Sandwich.

A system message appeared.

[Master's Minotaur Cuban Sandwich]

[Blessing of Dexterity Effect: For 6 hours, Strength +26%, Agility +5%, Stamina +15%, Mana +3% increase]

A very satisfying result.

"As expected, using Minotaur meat gives a high Strength stat increase ratio."

Next I made a classic sandwich using S-Rank Darot, or Applecherry.

[S-Rank Master's Darot Sandwich]

[Blessing of Dexterity Effect: For 6 hours, Strength +16%, Agility +27%, Stamina +31%, Mana +22% increase]

[S-Rank Fruit Effect: Decay Immunity, All Attribute Resistance +0.02 permanent increase]

As expected, the S-Rank Applecherry sandwich excelled in Agility and Stamina.

Finally.

[S-Rank Arcana Mana Herb Fruit Sandwich]

[Blessing of Dexterity Effect: For 6 hours, Mana +30% increase]

[S-Rank Herb Effect: For 6 hours, Mana Recovery Speed +250% increase]

A fresh cream sandwich with Arcana Mana Herb and various fresh fruits between bread.

A Mana-specialized buff food.

I stored all three in Acresia and used the Application skill.

The result.

'Strength 26%, Agility 27%, Stamina 31%, Mana 30% increase.'

Among identical stat increase options, only the highest for each stat was applied.

Extremely high stat boosts.

[STATUS: Strength 147.9(+38.5) / Agility 171.1(+46.2) / Dexterity 225.8 / Mana 351.5(+105.45) / Stamina 203(+62.9)]

Strength, Agility, Stamina, and Mana had risen by an average of sixty-three points.

A truly staggering stat increase.

'And if I stack Yeona's Benedictum buff and Bard Damon's performance buff on top of this, the stat gains would be insane.'

I had recently confirmed that Yeona's Benedictum buff and Damon's performance buff stacked.

Now there was one final puzzle piece remaining.

'If I can recruit an alchemist with a good skill, we achieve the complete form.'

My cooking buffs.

Yeona's Legendary buffs.

Damon's performance buffs.

And an alchemist's temporary ability-boosting potion.

All four were different types of buffs, allowing stat increase stacking.

The ultimate buff package.

To complete it, I absolutely needed to recruit an alchemist with a Unique-Grade skill.

"The problem is that the alchemist with the Unique-Grade skill is so young......"

An Awakened with a Unique alchemy skill named Bekele Theodos.

He was only fifteen years old and held Ethiopian nationality.

He was reportedly being developed under government sponsorship.

Recruiting him, let alone making contact, would be far from easy.

'Developing nations are especially sensitive about brain drain.'

When a promising Awakened appeared in a developing country, powerful nations around the world would try to get them to naturalize.

That was why the Ethiopian government was keeping Bekele tightly guarded and refusing outside contact.

Our Wind Forest Guild had attempted contact with Bekele but was immediately shut down.

However, we were told that if the guild master visited Ethiopia in person, they would be willing to arrange a meeting.

So I planned to visit Ethiopia soon.