Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Asado Barbecue, Harpy Revenge

Today, I had prepared a special meat dish.

This was a dish that could not be made inside the restaurant due to space constraints—it had to be done outdoors.

I stacked dried algarrobo wood logs outside and mixed in a small amount of eucalyptus.

Algarrobo wood imparted a soft, subtle aroma, while eucalyptus had a strong fragrance.

Blending the two allowed me to balance the smoked flavor.

"Ria, light it up, please."

"Got it."

Ria ignited the firewood with flame magic.

The logs blazed to life.

Surrounding the fire, large whole beef cuts, beef offal, and pork cuts hung from the metal support frame—the cruz.

This dish was asado.

A traditional barbecue cuisine enjoyed in Argentina and throughout South America.

There were two methods of asado, and the technique of hanging meat on a cruz was called asado a la cruz.

"......That asado is going to be incredible."

Santos, a South American native, licked his lips as he watched the meat sizzle over the heat.

'Asado really is delicious.'

I had toured famous asado restaurants during a trip to Argentina.

It had been a truly enjoyable culinary journey.

The meat continued cooking over the heat of the firewood.

"The aroma is insane."

"I'm drooling so much I might lose it."

"He's been preparing since early this morning."

"That looks amazing......!"

"When's it going to be done?"

Hunters from all three guilds watched the meat, swallowing hard as they waited.

But it was still far from ready.

They would have to wait at least five hours.

'Cooking through indirect heat and smoke takes a long time.'

In the meantime, I had to manage the fire carefully.

And so I made the hunters wait with bated breath as the meat continued to cook.

Roughly four and a half hours passed.

Checking the state of the meat, it looked nearly done.

At this point, I used the Applecherry smoking chips I had prepared back when I first met Ria, adding a layer of sweetness.

'Time to make the chimichurri.'

Eating asado with chimichurri sauce was the traditional way.

I minced parsley, then mixed it with minced garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, chili flakes, salt, and pepper to make a basic chimichurri sauce.

I also prepared a red chimichurri tailored to the Korean palate.

Now it was time to unfasten the wire knots holding the meat to the cruz.

As I reached for the pliers to undo the wire knots, Ria spoke up.

"Seon-u, want me to cut the wires holding the meat?"

"Would you?"

"Yeah."

Ria channeled Aura into her index finger and sliced through the steel wires securing the meat.

'The steel wire cuts like thread.'

Wearing thick heat-resistant gloves with food-safe gloves over them, I transferred the massive hunks of meat directly into Acresia.

After moving all the meat, I headed to the restaurant.

I opened the doors and called out.

"We're open for business."

Hunters swarmed in and formed a line.

I assigned seats to those waiting.

Today, instead of a unified menu, I took orders by cut.

I had even hand-drawn disposable menus specifically for today's service.

"Three servings of beef short ribs and two servings of beef tripe, please."

"Order received."

Traditional asado commonly featured beef short ribs and beef offal cuts.

I took that order and moved on to the next table.

"Two servings of beef short ribs and one serving of sweetbread, please."

When one hunter placed the order, the hunter beside him asked,

"You're really going to eat beef pancreas?"

Sweetbread referred to the thymus or pancreas of a calf or lamb.

The one I used for this asado was the pancreas of a calf.

"I'll cut you a piece later. Try it. This is a genuine delicacy."

Someone who knew their stuff.

Sweetbread was the most expensive cut among asado offerings.

Other tables ordered hanger steak and sirloin as well.

Some even ordered pork belly.

The best seller among them was, predictably, the beef short ribs.

'Short ribs really are delicious.'

I worked in the open kitchen, carving the asado meats and plating them rapidly to fulfill the orders.

Ria served the plated dishes alongside the sauces.

Not a single hunter dared to flirt with Ria while she was serving.

'There are the occasional hunters who stare blankly, but even that only lasts a moment.'

Either a fellow guild member would give them a nudge, or they would snap out of it and look away.

The guild executives and masters had probably given firm instructions not to upset Ria.

The same went for the American Union Guild.

Thanks to that, I could comfortably leave the serving to Ria.

Before long, the customers tasted the asado.

"The meat is unbelievably tender......"

"The smoked aroma is incredible."

"Insane! This is so good......!"

"I've eaten asado at tons of famous restaurants, and this is the best?"

Everyone was raving.

And rightly so—I had used the finest quality meat, firewood, and smoking chips.

Wine orders then began pouring in.

Eating asado apparently made them crave wine.

At the table with the guild masters and Santos, they also ordered sweetbread alongside various cuts of meat.

"You were right, Santos. The sweetbread is the best."

"It's so good......! How is this texture even possible?"

"It really does deserve its spot as the number-two food to eat before you die."

Sweetbread was frequently ranked among must-eat-before-you-die foods by various culinary review organizations.

Every single cut of asado sold like wildfire.

Finally, I sold out every cut completely.

The hunter customers spoke to me on their way out after paying.

"Thanks to you, we ate well again today. Please keep this place running for a long, long time."

"It's so delicious that I look forward to lunchtime every day."

"I can't tell if I came to the Fourth Floor to hunt monsters or for a culinary tour. That's how well I've been eating."

I thanked each of them individually.

And then—

"It's a shame we're leaving tomorrow morning. Thank you for all the wonderful meals."

Blade Saint Kim Gang-hyeon spoke to me before leaving the restaurant.

The Emperor Guild had completed their adaptation training and hunts on the Fourth Floor, and would begin their return journey tomorrow.

Today had been their final meal.

"Thank you for dining at my restaurant every day with your guild members. Please visit again."

"Of course, I intend to. We plan to regroup soon and come back to venture beyond the Central Plains for longer-range hunts."

"I see."

The three guilds that had first visited the Fourth Floor had all hunted only in the vicinity of the Central Plains.

They were wise not to overextend on their first time.

'And recently, the monster population in the Central Plains has been growing.'

With the Named Doppelganger—which had decimated the Central Plains' monster population—now gone, their numbers were gradually increasing.

As a result, monsters occasionally approached the Rift restaurant and the Rift house.

The Rift house was safe thanks to its barrier.

The restaurant was being kept secure by the guilds that had arrived on the Fourth Floor.

I said to the Blade Saint,

"I'll be selling buff sandwiches tomorrow morning. They don't spoil, so you can eat them on the way back."

"Oh, that would be great. Thank you."

He left the restaurant for camp, and then Santos, having finished his meal, spoke to me.

"......That was truly the finest asado I've ever had, even compared to anything in South America."

"I'm glad you were satisfied."

With that, the lunch service came to a close.

After cleaning up, Ria and I enjoyed the various asado cuts I had set aside in Acresia, paired with wine.

Ria's favorite cut was also the sweetbread.

"Mmm, it's so tender and rich. Delicious."

"Have as much as you want."

"Thanks to you, Seon-u, I get to taste new dishes like this all the time. I'm so happy my husband is a chef."

"And I'm happy I get to cook delicious food for someone as beautiful as you, Ria."

We were lovey-dovey even during the meal.

Santos, who had been waiting nearby to take the Gate portal back to the Rift house with us, turned away and averted his gaze from the scene.

Today's lunch service had yielded sixty-five servings of asado.

Plus thirty-six glasses of wine.

***

The next day.

In the morning, I sold thirty-five Applecherry sandwiches.

Twenty went to the departing Emperor Guild, and the rest were sold to interested members of the other two guilds.

That added another fifty million won to the revenue.

On top of that, I had generated 1.7 billion won in stat dish sales to the Union Guild and the Frost Flower Guild over the past several days.

Including previous stat dish sales to the Emperor Guild, the total from stat dishes alone exceeded three billion won.

Adding regular and buff dishes brought the total to approximately 3.5 billion in revenue.

The market rate for magic stones was a post-tax figure.

If a lowest-grade magic stone was worth 300,000 won, the pre-tax value was originally about 335,000 won.

A nine-percent tax was deducted when converting magic stones to currency.

In other words, the 3.5 billion won in magic stone revenue I had earned was my after-tax income.

'Including the money in my bank account, that brings me to roughly 4.6 billion.'

My goal was to accumulate twenty billion won.

It did not seem like it would take as long as I had expected.

Setting that aside.

After finishing the sandwich sales in the morning, I took the afternoon off from business.

Today, Ria, Bell, Ruina, and I had somewhere to go.

While indulging in one of my hobbies—exploring random locations via Gate portal—I had discovered a particular place.

To memorize its location, Ria and I had briefly entered, taken in the surrounding scenery, and returned.

"Is everyone ready?"

"I'm all set."

Ria was outfitted in her Drake leather armor with her sword.

"Woof!"

Bell had nothing special to prepare.

"I'm ready as well."

Ruina was dressed not in her maid's outfit today but in a mage's robe, staff in hand.

"Then I'll open it."

I activated the Gate portal.

The shimmering afterimage of a jungle flickered within the portal.

Ria went in first, followed by Ruina and Bell.

I stepped in after them.

Our destination was a dense jungle forest.

"Where are we?"

When Ruina looked around, Ria answered.

"Probably somewhere in the western jungle zone of the Fourth Floor."

"Ah, I see."

A sound reached our ears.

BUZZ! BUZZ!

Looking up, bees the size of a human fist were flying high overhead.

"Those bees are monsters. Great Honeybees, I believe."

Ria nodded.

"That's right. We came here because we spotted them."

"Ah, to find honey?"

"Exactly."

While Ria and I had been exploring a random location, we had discovered the bees.

Ria had told me they were Great Honeybees—extremely rare monsters.

She said the honey produced by Great Honeybees was of premium quality, and the royal jelly consumed by the Great Honeybee Queen was a luxury item that money alone could not buy.

'Is it tastier than the finest natural pine honey I already have?'

I was curious about the flavor.

Recipes utilizing it were already forming in my mind.

"Then let's go find it."

Ria cautioned me in my excitement.

"Try not to agitate the Great Honeybees. They're very weak monsters and gentle by nature, but if even one of them marks us as enemies and starts attacking, the whole swarm will come."

"Understood."

I had no desire to experience being stung by fist-sized bees far larger than giant hornets.

Bell refrained from barking at the Great Honeybees as well.

"Bell, can you track down a sweet scent?"

"Woof."

"Then lead the way."

"Woof."

We began following Bell slowly.

The jungle was thick with undergrowth, and swamps dotted the path between stretches, making travel extremely difficult.

Still, thanks to Bell guiding us along favorable routes, we managed to move through without major trouble.

The place we arrived at was—

"A flower field......"

A vast flower field bursting with fragrant floral scent.

The petals were remarkably large.

Great Honeybees clung to those flowers, gathering nectar.

"So this is where the Great Honeybees source their honey."

A peaceful scene.

Or so I thought—but the lives of Great Honeybees were far from easy.

A flock of high-grade Harpies dove from the sky, attacking the Great Honeybees.

Powerful talons mercilessly severed their bodies.

'How dare they attack the honeybees......!'

Whether monsters or not, honeybees were beneficial creatures.

Without the pollination role of honeybees, approximately seventy percent of the world's top one hundred crops would suffer scarcity.

"Ria, Ruina. Let's take down the Harpies."

"Got it."

"Yes!"

I launched a steel ball at the Harpies.

THUD!

A single hit from the steel ball release sent one Harpy crashing to the ground.

In the past, I had been the one hunted, but now I was the hunter.

I used the Release Skill in rapid succession against the Harpy flock.

The Harpies spread out wide and dove toward us.

Waiting for them were Ria's Aura-clad sword and Ruina's flame magic.