“I’ve been living alone for a few years, so cooking something simple is a piece of cake.”
The key to making delicious fried rice is to use cold, firm rice, and add pre-cooked eggs mixed with soy sauce at the last minute, adjusting the heat as you stir-fry the rice in a wok.
“Heh… What can’t I do?”
As I was getting a bit too full of myself, Wang-wang suddenly started barking at me.
“Woof! Woof!”
“Stop barking… You’ll get complaints.”
While Yeon-hee was enjoying her meal, Wang-wang curiously poked around, eager for a taste.
Yeon-hee offered a little bowl of rice to Wang-wang, who surprisingly devoured it in an instant.
“… This guy, what can’t he eat?”
Looks like he doesn’t just stick to bones.
“Pant, pant— Woof! Woof!”
He was barking for more.
That sight piqued my interest.
I wondered if he preferred my rice or the bones of an orc.
It was a no-brainer, but just for fun, I tossed him an orc bone. Yeon-hee added more fried rice to the bowl and started mixing it with her front paw before devouring it.
Crunch, munch—
He was really enjoying the meal.
“… That’s strange.”
But it was puzzling. Yeon-hee had been eating at home for days, yet today she was acting unusually excited about it.
She flashed a thumbs-up to me and demolished two bowls of fried rice in no time, then held out her bowl asking for more.
‘… Is it really that delicious?’
“Nom nom— It’s really tasty!”
Yeon-hee looked like she was in heaven.
She seemed way more energetic than yesterday. It didn’t seem like just a result of having enough sleep; it was the change I noticed right after she ate.
“Hmm…”
I tilted my head and started stir-frying more rice.
“Eh? Wha?”
Yeon-hee, who had been happily watching me cook, suddenly shouted as if something incredible had happened.
“Clap?”
“…… It says my stamina recovery rate has temporarily increased. Il-wol?”
“…… Clap?”
What does that even mean?
“Um… It basically says that eating the dish made by Il-wol gives a stamina recovery buff…? Hmm… How is that possible?”
‘Honestly, I don’t know either. Oh, could it be because I cooked the rice with Irmana’s water?’
I was too lazy to fetch clean water and instead used lake water from this world, which seemed to have created this effect.
I definitely need to compare it later with regular bottled water.
I showed Yeon-hee the ancient jug, and she exclaimed that the water truly was miraculous, clapping her hands in excitement.
I wondered just how helpful this water could be; the possibilities seemed endless.
‘Irmana… I will continue to honor you today…’
Though she remained silent, I didn’t hesitate to worship Irmana.
‘The quest is still far off, but I look forward to what I might receive later… By the way, it took a lot of time for Yeon-hee to recover, huh?’
Of course, being trapped for a week was a special circumstance, but it seemed Yeon-hee had spent over a day just sleeping.
Still, since she had managed to get enough rest over the last two days, her stamina seemed to be perfectly restored.
From now on, the rest time must increase in proportion to the battle time, and if this cooking helps, I’d definitely consider using it.
“Shall we go?”
Nod—
It was a bit late in the afternoon, but Yeon-hee and I headed outside again.
Our goal was to check out the C-rank dungeon and B-rank dungeon houses we had mentioned a few times.
And today, we had a companion.
“Oh my! Yeon-hee!”
“Ah, hello.”
It was Kang Yeon-su from the White Knight Guild.
She felt bad for not giving us proper advice when we moved to our current place and wanted to show us a few places she personally picked.
‘To be honest, it’s a bit forced.’
Honestly, it would have been more fun for Yeon-hee and me to look around and weigh our options together, but she intruded without any sense of timing.
However, it wasn’t every day that someone as strong as Kang Yeon-su offered assistance. She even called us directly.
What could I say to that? All I could do was nod, agreeing.
Suddenly, I recalled a moment when Kang Yeon-su was raising her power during a fight with Jo Gi-man.
I didn’t see the full extent of Jo Gi-man’s hidden powers, but the combat power I had gauged between Jo Gi-man and Kang Yeon-su wasn’t astronomically different.
With the right equipment and artifacts, and some support, Kang Yeon-su could hold her ground well. Just about that level of difference.
Assessing her that way meant I held Kang Yeon-su in very high regard.
‘So, I can’t afford to upset her.’
Like Helen, Kang Yeon-su began chatting animatedly while pinching Yeon-hee’s cheeks, which wasn’t really making me feel good since she kept getting her hands on my territory.
“Oh wow— Is that the Skeleton Soldier over there?!”
“Clap…”
She genuinely seemed shocked to see me.
Damn it, it was super nerve-racking. I was worried she might realize my hidden potential.
“Wow— You’ve really grown! What’s your secret?”
“Huh? Ah… Well, it’s just that… I was trapped for a week, training hard…”
Yeon-hee was trying to mumble her way through it, but Kang Yeon-su’s eyes had moved past surprise to curiosity.
I knew it well… That crazed sparkle in her eyes was definitely the look she got when collecting.
“Tsk— Hmm— Really? Hmm…”
‘Aah, those swirling, psychotic eyes. They’re really terrifying…’
In my previous life, Kang Yeon-su treated me relatively gently, but every time I saw those eyes, I felt weak in the knees. And I still felt chills now.
‘Monster mana stone collector…’
She had a peculiar hobby as much as her aggressive personality— collecting monster mana stones.
She would collect mana stones from both regular and boss monsters, including any weird variants or peculiar behavior patterns they exhibited.
Now, that she was eyeing me and drooling, she was clearly sensing the shiny core inside my head.
‘Damn it, get your interest off me! I won’t produce a mana stone even if I die!’
Of course, it was just a silent outcry within my mind.
“Does Il-wol revive even after dying?”
“Uh? Ah… Yes, yes…”
“Hehe, I was just curious all of a sudden.”
“Yea…”
‘Please don’t ask that…’
Regrettably, we ended up visiting a few places together, with Kang Yeon-su still chatterboxing exclusively with Yeon-hee.
I was starting to worry if Yeon-hee would end up with a nosebleed from all that chatting.
However, despite her lighthearted attitude, every place she showed us matched exactly what we wanted in terms of location and criteria.
“But they’re all too expensive…”
The downside was that the base price was over 3 billion won.
Since they were great places, it made sense for them to cost a fortune.
Yeon-hee scratched her head awkwardly, while Kang Yeon-su praised her, saying it was nothing to worry about.
‘I see through you, you sly fox.’
“Right now, you don’t have much money, do you? How much could you possibly have? 200 million? 300 million? Did you earn more than that? If you did, I’m sorry. But either way, I can lend you the extra money.”
Kang Yeon-su was pulling Yeon-hee into a scenario I had anticipated.
The easiest way to keep someone under your thumb is to lure them in with a more luxurious place, gradually drawing them in, then binding them with money.
Showing her the best houses and then showing progressively worse ones was certainly a tactic she would consider.
Those great houses kept flashing in front of her eyes, and beside her was Kang Yeon-su, the top-tier hunter, sweet-talking about lending money.
Kang Yeon-su was also quite persuasive; there was no way they wouldn’t end up buying.
Ultimately, they would reach a compromise to settle on a house they had seen before, leading to Yeon-hee getting into debt to Kang Yeon-su.
From then on, Yeon-hee would be riding the Kang Yeon-su train, which had its own merits but also made it tiring as she might fall into other power players’ eyes.
And as expected.
“Y-Yes, we’ll go with this one.”
“Oh ho— Excellent choice! Honestly, this was my favorite, too. Hehe.”
After some deliberation, Yeon-hee chose the second house they had seen.
The price was a whopping 3.8 billion.
And she even said she would cover all the financing herself.
‘Wow, she’s really determined. Does she truly think she can push out Jo Gi-man?’
Regardless, it was a good thing for us.
‘Though it does feel a bit burdensome…’
I realized it was a situation advantageous to Kang Yeon-su while still feeling the burden of being in debt.
“For now, we’ll pay off the debts we owe the guild and take our time repaying this later.”
“Uh, is that okay?”
“You have about 500 million won saved up, right? At this pace, you’ll pay it off in no time. Don’t worry about it.”
So we ended up moving into a 3.8 billion won house without spending a penny.
Kang Yeon-su, noticing our income was surprisingly good, was deep in thought.
‘I bet she’s thinking she should have snagged a more expensive one.’
But the contract was already signed, and we had agreed to move in a week later.
‘Even if I estimate conservatively, we’ll pay off around 3.8 billion in half a year.’
Afterward, we casually chatted over coffee with Kang Yeon-su until she was called away unexpectedly, leading us directly to the hunter market.
We thought it would be wise to stock up on supplies since there were no guarantees we wouldn’t get trapped in the next dungeon as well.
It seemed we weren’t the only ones with that thought in mind; the hunter market was packed.
It was the largest market in the area, filled with hundreds of hunters.
“Oh? Those people over there, aren’t they from the hidden dungeon we went through together? Oh, there too.”
Seeing familiar faces from the dungeon made it clear that those with experience prepared differently.
“Woof! This is delicious! Is this bulgogi flavor?”
“Clap, clap, clap!”
The convenient food inside the dungeon usually resembled jerky.
Just tear it open and chew away.
“But do we really need to buy this much?”
“Clap, clap, clap.”
I stayed hidden just to avoid causing a ruckus, yet I conveyed my thoughts through sounds.
We acquired food that was a high-end type at around 12,000 won per serving, with five different flavors.
We invested a whopping 1 billion won into it.
They offered big discounts for bulk purchases.
Upon buying food for ten thousand people, the seller was grinning from ear to ear, but our initial stock wasn’t enough, so we had to follow them to the factory.
Once we entered the warehouse and quickly emptied out piles of stock, the seller looked completely dumbfounded.
Of course, we had them sign a simple non-disclosure agreement.
“Now that we have our food sorted. Should we buy some daily necessities too? Hmm, like tissues and shampoo? Or maybe stock up on bottled water? Oh! But we have the jug, so maybe we don’t need it? Still, it feels a bit strange to hoard stuff like this as if the world is about to end.”
‘It probably will. Not right now, but… we can’t stop that.’
Whether the world ending is based on one’s perspective, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it had ended if students could no longer attend school and had to fight monsters.
Starting now, it would be wise to invest a portion of our earnings for the future this way.
‘It might be better to stock up on fruits and vegetables too…’
Preparing for farming… there was a lot to consider.
As these thoughts swirled in my head, we made our way home.
It was already completely dark, signaling the evening.
“Not much has happened, but it’s already dark. Hehe.”
‘That’s because you overslept, Yeon-hee…’
“Wait? Are you suggesting it’s my fault for oversleeping?”
“Clap, clap!”
“No, right? That’s just how it looks. Hehe—”
‘What expression am I even making…?’
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