Chapter 51: A Blanket Is Dangerous (3) (51/225)
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" When the white-haired mage slammed hIS staff down, the monsters trembled and retreated.
"There's always one or two idiots who don't listen at times like this." Hayward shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth as he recalled a past fight.
"Run, you fools…" In a low voice, the white-haired mage spoke to the companion hesitating behind him. It was the complete opposite of the bold tone he'd shown in front of the monsters.
"Ah… what a heartbreaking scene."
Julien's eyes trembled as he empathized with the mage on the TV screen. Even so, he didn't forget to suck down cola through his straw.
Yes. That's it. Please just stay absorbed in the movie. Please.
Jinseo looked back and forth between the three, who couldn't take their eyes off the TV. His plan to keep the otherworlders tied down through NetXlix was working exactly as intended.
But it hadn't gone smoothly from the start.
Even choosing an appropriate movie had been a hurdle.
On a whim, Jinseo had asked if they could read a book. Their reactions crushed his hopes. Hayward and Craid shook their heads, and only Julien showed curiosity, saying he'd never seen written characters in that format before.
Instead, the three who came to Korea could understand and speak Korean. It was thanks to the food truck's inherent ability—those who moved to another world through it would be able to understand the local language.
In the end, the movies he could show them were limited to Korean films or films dubbed in Korean.
Still, once he turned a movie on, he succeeded in holding their attention.
Of course, he didn't just play a movie.
When you watched a movie, popcorn and cola were nonnegotiable. With their eyes enslaved by the screen and their mouths occupied by popcorn, they didn't even think about going outside.
At first it was absolute chaos… but now I can finally watch in peace.
As Jinseo expected, Hayward and Julien's reaction when they first encountered dramas and movies through NetXlix had been intense. Julien's barrage of questions had nearly worked Jinseo to death.
But once they started focusing on enjoying the video itself, they began using their imagination to understand and accept things even when questions popped up.
"But those people aren't using aura. And they still seem to be using magic."
"I don't think that kind of magic is an efficient way to spend mana… but I'm sure they have their reasons. Personally, I'd like to study it."
"Interesting."
Crunch, crunch.
True to himself, Craid was monopolizing an entire bag of popcorn. Unlike the others, he was also drinking from a 1.5-liter bottle of cola one-handed.
Just as he was about to tear open a third bag of popcorn, the movie ended and the credits began to roll.
"You said that was Part 1, right? When are you playing the next one?"
"When the food we ordered arrives, we'll eat first, then I'll put it on. By the way—are the clothes okay?"
"They're great. Easy to move in. The fabric isn't rough, and it doesn't smell either, so it's even better."
Hayward touched his T-shirt, enjoying the soft feel. Now that a day had passed since they came to Korea, they'd changed out of the tracksuits they'd first entered in.
While Jinseo had been staring into his closet before bed, wondering what clothes to give them, the three had quietly appeared behind him and simply picked for themselves.
I thought they'd choose jeans. That really surprised me.
The clothes they all chose in common were something Jinseo had found useful during his military service, and the only type of clothing he still used after discharge.
Padded military liner jackets—"kkalkkali."
Jinseo also put one on for the first time in a while.
"This 'kkalkkali'… it's lighter than I thought."
"Wearing this makes me feel relaxed for some reason."
"It makes you too relaxed. That's the problem."
"…."
Craid was the only one who couldn't wear one. He stared at the others' liners with envy. There wasn't a size that fit his huge frame, so he'd had to give up.
Instead, he wore only an XXL T-shirt, stretched taut enough to show the outline of his chest.
Unlike the tops—where everyone but one matched with T-shirts and liners—the bottoms varied.
Hayward wore military pants Jinseo had worn while enlisted.
Julien wore old drill-uniform pants Jinseo's father had worn during his school days.
For Craid, who looked awkward no matter what Jinseo handed him, Jinseo gave him loose, calf-length shorts. They were pants Jinseo had bought back when he wasn't as tall as he was now, and on Craid's massive body, they ended up looking like regular shorts.
"Ah… this is nice."
Reclining at an angle, Hayward pressed his back against the floor in front of the sofa and propped one leg up.
"I feel like I'm melting. I don't want to stand up again."
"It's warm. I never imagined you could heat the floor for warmth."
Once the movie ended, everyone lay down on the warm floor and didn't feel like getting up.
Jinseo remembered hearing that when Korea hosted the Winter Olympics, foreign athletes who experienced ondol heating supposedly wouldn't get up off the floor.
The three otherworlders from the Francia Continent were no different.
Jinseo, too, lay there with them, basking in the warmth of ondol heating he hadn't felt in a long time.
But this…
Three men wearing kkalkkali and refusing to get up.
That alone made the apartment atmosphere feel like a barracks room filled with senior privates.
Ding-dong.
Hearing the doorbell, Jinseo got up and hurried to the entryway.
"Thank you. We'll enjoy it."
When Jinseo came back holding an armful of delivery food in both hands, the three who'd been lying down all sat up at once.
"Oh! What's this? More new bunsik?"
"Just try it first. And this is tteokbokki."
"Tteokbokki? If it's tteokbokki, you can make it in the food truck. Why buy it?"
"This is rose tteokbokki. It's tteokbokki I've never made before. I roughly know the recipe, but I need to taste it to get the flavor right."
Jinseo set the delivery food in the middle of the living room floor and went into the kitchen to grab utensils.
Then the other three started setting up the meal on their own.
They spread newspaper on the floor, distributed the small plates Jinseo had, scraped around the edges of plastic-wrapped containers with wooden chopsticks…
It took only a day for these foreigners to fully adapt to Korea's delivery-food culture.
"Oh, this is less spicy than the previous tteokbokki, isn't it? But it still has that distinct taste…"
"At this level, even I can eat it without trouble. I like it."
"It feels similar to the Italian bunsik we ate yesterday."
Watching them eat rose tteokbokki—a variation of tteokbokki they'd grown used to—brought back a memory from eight years ago.
This really takes me back.
Back when his parents were still healthy, Jinseo had taken army buddies he'd brought home on leave to Jinseo's Snack Bar.
"Yeah, eat a lot. You worked hard through military life, so relax today and get some rest."
"Sir! Thank you!"
"I prepared plenty, so if you need more, don't be shy and say so."
"Ma'am! It's delicious!"
Those warm memories of eating bunsik together in a cheerful atmosphere…
Now, the three men in front of him overlapped with that memory.
The buddies he'd laughed and talked with back then had been too busy with their own lives, and he hadn't seen them in years.
Jinseo picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts.
Should I reach out after all this time…?
The moment his finger hovered over the call button, he snapped back to reality.
Leaving these three alone and going out to meet someone was unimaginable.
Jinseo set the phone down on the table beside the sofa, saving it for later.
"Every time I eat, I'm reminded—Korean cooks all serve mysterious food."
After finishing the rose tteokbokki, Craid unscrewed the cap on a 1.5-liter bottle of MacX cola.
"Is there a movie that depicts their lives?"
"Yeah. Now I suddenly want to watch something like that too."
"A cook, huh? Hmm…"
Jinseo slowly sifted through the movies he'd seen that had cooks as the main character.
There's Food X… and if we expand into animation, there's Rat X… Ah. That one.
With mischief rising in him, Jinseo searched up the title that came to mind and smiled faintly.
"Alright. Starting now."
At the word "starting," the three crowded back in front of the TV.
A moment later, when the movie began, they reacted with surprise.
"What? A ship that big exists?"
"A magic vessel!"
"…Big."
It was definitely a movie with a cook in it, just like they asked.
But the content unfolding on screen exceeded their expectations every time.
Maybe that was why—they watched in silence for a while.
Then they gradually became captivated by the blunt protagonist's action.
Of course. It's S X S X. His action scenes are always brutal.
An action movie about the strongest cook in history fighting on a massive ship, killing enemies by snapping their necks.
The three besides Jinseo only truly understood two things as they watched: the protagonist was a cook, and no one in the movie could beat him.
But that was enough for them.
"Are all cooks here like that? So it's not just Jinseo who's strong."
"It's personally unfortunate that there are no mages, but those unidentified weapons are no different from magic, so it's fine."
"I want to fight him once."
Crack.
Without realizing it, Craid crushed an empty cola can in one hand.
"Ah… it's over."
The thrilling story ended with the protagonist's duel against the final boss. The three wanted it to continue, but with the credits rolling on, they had no choice but to let go.
"Man, that was fun. But just watching people fight like that makes my body itch."
Hayward stood up and began loosening up his stiff body.
"Same."
Maybe it was the afterglow of the action film.
The two besides Julien looked like they couldn't contain the heat boiling inside them.
This feels like it's getting even more troublesome…
The first place Jinseo thought of to vent their energy was a gym, but he quickly erased it from his mind.
With Craid's monstrous strength, he might actually bench five thousand. Every person in the gym would inevitably stare. And it wouldn't stop there—questions about his diet would trigger an endless interrogation.
Jinseo absolutely did not want that.
"Then… want to try that?"
Jinseo pulled out the last resort that could keep their attention inside the apartment, not outside.
Fun that could devour time.
Convenience that could be enjoyed indoors, not in the dangerous outdoors.
Addictive power already proven through Jason.
"I'll set up the Pl X 5."
It was gaming.
What Jinseo picked was a genre that let them measure each other's skill directly.
A versus fighting game.
At first, since Hayward and Craid didn't understand the controls or even how fighting game systems worked, they kept losing to Jinseo.
Even so, they became completely absorbed in this culture called "games."
They couldn't be satisfied with just one game.
Starting with the masterpiece S X 2, then moving through King X Fighters and into Tek X, they eventually went past Sam X and were playing the newest title.
A sleekly animated 2D fighting game: Guil X Gear.
Since they were people who actually fought while holding real weapons, it was one of the most fitting games—along with Sam X.
"You're worse than I expected."
"Hmm. I hate to say this, but I'm disappointed."
"…."
Jinseo had been toying with them under the excuse of "teaching," but before long, the roles reversed and he ended up being toyed with.
In the end, Jinseo got pushed out and Hayward and Craid monopolized the Pl X 5.
How does that make any sense? I've played fighting games for years. How am I losing to people who haven't even played for a full day?
For once, Jinseo was actually irritated. Like any Korean, getting told he was bad at games made his blood flare.
No… if I think about it, this outcome is obvious.
Those two had endured countless life-or-death situations in the real world—not a virtual space called a game. The mind games in a few short seconds were basically their daily routine.
The real "faster hands than eyes" types were sitting in front of the Pl X 5.
No—strictly speaking, people whose eyes and hands were both insanely fast.
"Won again. Everyone here is weak."
"Korea… bunsik is impressive, but when it comes to games, it's below expectations."
After sweeping the hardest CPU difficulty, the two went into online matches and racked up win after win. Watching them, Jinseo realized true pro-gamer talent didn't belong to Korea—it belonged to another world.
"Hm. Winning all the time is boring."
Only after they alternated and each hit fifty straight wins—skipping meals in the process—did they finally let go of the controllers. Then they flopped down and enjoyed the warm floor like it was the most natural thing in the world.
…I don't even want to look at games for a while.
Sick of gaming, Jinseo went into his room.
There, Julien sat alone in the corner, holding a CD player with both hands. He lifted his head.
"You're still listening to music?"
"The songs in this world… they're incredible."
Jinseo had wracked his brain to keep three otherworlders from going outside for a week.
But the one who had truly become a shut-in was none other than Julien.
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