Chapter 78: Jinseo's Counterattack (3) "Of course, to provide services like this, we have to hire many people and make bunsik with great care, so we can't help but incur significant costs. Unlike the bunsik carriages, we ask for your understanding that you will need to pay in order to enjoy it."
After finishing, Oswald began writing the trip costs on the whiteboard.
"At that price… it's reasonable, isn't it? No, is it actually cheap?"
"Putting that aside, we can ride the food truck, a holy relic? How could we let that chance pass? Even if it's expensive, shouldn't we obviously aim to win the drawing!"
"True. It's not as if we're lacking money."
The reason they had been so enthusiastic about the bunsik carriages was to eat bunsik they had never tasted before—it was never only because it was free.
And if the food truck offered even more than that, they couldn't not be tempted.
"Also, I want to tell you in advance, since I believe some of you may misunderstand."
Fedora, who had disappeared off-screen, reappeared and spoke.
"All proceeds from the food truck trip, excluding bunsik sales, will be used to help unfortunate brothers and sisters. This is not an act of using a holy relic to satisfy personal greed. Simply by enjoying bunsik and going on the trip, you will be doing a good deed."
"Oooooh!"
At Fedora's words, the guests burst out in admiration.
They could enjoy bunsik and go on a trip at an affordable price, and on top of that, even do a good deed?
It became a situation where not going on the trip would be the strange choice.
In fact, Jinseo had also intended to donate part of the bunsik sales revenue, but Fedora, Oswald, and many others refused, saying it was fine.
They said that simply selling bunsik at the current prices was already practically a donation.
"Hyung! We're ready!"
"Yes. Then we'll begin sales."
The moment Jinseo finished speaking, the guests surged toward the counter seats as if they had been waiting.
"Three servings of tteokmanduguk!"
"Two servings of dumplings and two servings of spicy pork rice bowl, please!"
"Is it really only possible to book the trip after sales are finished? Can we not do it starting now?"
"That 'game'—can we try it right now, by any chance?"
A massive manor standing alone deep in the mountains.
Until a few months ago, it had been left abandoned with not a single visitor, but ever since Marquis Horus purchased it, everything had completely changed.
That was because the people Marquis Horus had hired at great expense to oppose the food truck were sweating and working hard all over the manor, inside and out.
"Time's up. Everyone, bring out the bunsik you made."
At the head chef's instruction, ten rookie chefs came down from the bunsik carriages with tense faces, carrying the bunsik they had just finished.
They were deliberately making all kinds of bunsik not in a kitchen, but while actually inside the bunsik carriages.
"Please inspect the tonkatsu!"
"It lacks crispiness. Pay more attention to the batter."
"Omelette rice is complete!"
"The egg on the outside is well cooked, but the rice inside is a bit too wet."
The head chef inspected their dishes and pointed out what needed improvement.
However, Marco, the most skilled among them, was still shut away in the secret kitchen.
To recreate Jinseo's bunsik using only the ingredients available here, he had no room to spare to focus on anything else.
And the other chefs were wholly absorbed in training bunsik every day to faithfully reproduce the recipes he made.
"Hey, if we do that, it'll become too similar to the food truck."
"But if we do it this way, it's much more efficient."
"Do you think I don't know that? If we imitate the holy relic too closely, we might get charged with desecration."
"The more we improve it, the more it starts resembling the food truck… This is just… It's hard to show our skill."
Near the stables, blacksmiths and carpenters were modifying the bunsik carriages.
They struggled every time, trying to increase the carriages' speed while also adjusting the size of the cooking area.
"The food truck really is incredible. I once saw it up close, and it truly had an amazing design and an innovative structure."
The food truck, made of a material they had never seen before, was almost treated by the technicians as a holy relic in a different sense.
They wanted, if only for a moment, to borrow the food truck—but they knew it was impossible…
So they had to be satisfied with only referencing drawings of the food truck made by a spy.
"The carbonation is weaker compared to the food truck's cola."
"If we use more magic reagents, we could get closer, but then the price would skyrocket, so it's hard."
In the magic workshop set up beside the stables, mages were attempting to manufacture various drinks.
"How about this ice cream? I tried imitating SeX Ice Joo—what do you think?"
"It's gotten sort of similar in taste, but the mana recovery effect is too low… It's basically pointless."
"Should we increase the proportion of mana potion?"
"No. Then the taste becomes a mess. Are you trying to repeat the last failure again?"
The food truck's ice cream had become quite well known among mages, and there had been attempts to make it themselves before.
But they couldn't get beyond simply mixing mana potion into ice cream, and adding other additional effects was too much.
And most importantly, even recreating the various ice cream flavors was a major hurdle.
So failures kept piling up, and the morale the mages had shown when they first began research at the manor had dropped a lot.
"They say the mages at the Doren Mage Tower eat real ice cream every day…"
"I'm seriously jealous. We have to eat our own failures every time."
"A professor position opened at the Doren Mage Tower about two years ago, and they tried to recruit me. I shouldn't have turned it down. Sigh…"
The mages lamented as they ended the day, believing that someday they would make proper drinks and ice cream.
When the sun fully set and the night deepened, all the hired workers went inside the manor and fell into a deep sleep.
Expecting that tomorrow they would make better bunsik, carriages, and drinks.
Meanwhile, Marquis Horus, who had hired them, clutched his head and sank into anguish.
"This isn't it…"
After reading Lergon's report, he frowned.
He had laughed it off up to the point that the food truck was expanding its sales locations by moving around instead of staying only at the three original spots.
The problem was that the places they stopped were cities the bunsik carriages had been going to first, or party locations the bunsik carriages were scheduled to visit.
The food truck's rampage—"clearing" bunsik carriages by touring up to three places a day like that—was relentless.
As time passed, customers from regions that had originally been within the bunsik carriages' sphere of influence steeled themselves for long-distance travel, and when the report said they eventually visited Falstead Castle to taste the real bunsik, he could only grind his teeth.
In truth, Marquis Horus had anticipated this flow itself, which was why he wanted to decide the match before the food truck could run wild.
"The method you mentioned earlier… I would prefer not to recommend it if possible. A significant number of the people we've hired are sincerely passionate about cooking. If they learn about it, don't you realize it could crush their morale?"
Even so, despite Lergon's objections, he had started executing a plan to smear the food truck from the moment he unveiled the bunsik carriages.
However, his sabotage had been off from the very start.
"How are they getting ingredients at such a cheap price?"
Marquis Horus threatened the cities and merchant groups that had been trading with Jinseo, warning them to stop trading with him, and aside from a tiny handful, they cut ties with Jinseo.
He concluded that the food truck's bunsik prices would inevitably rise, and even if it was limited to the tasting period, he expected them to struggle in a hard battle against the bunsik carriages' free bunsik.
But even now, the prices of all food sold by the food truck remained the same as before.
He tried having people tail them to find their unknown suppliers, but all he received were reports that they vanished into a continent so far away it couldn't be tracked.
Next, he tried slipping lackeys into the food truck disguised as customers, but every attempt failed, wasting money for nothing.
Then he tried to use the method of taking food away in packaging and inserting bugs or foreign matter afterward, but he couldn't even attempt it.
Because the food truck side, as if they sensed the signs, announced they would temporarily stop packaging except for a very small number of regulars.
"Even when I offered that much money, they didn't budge…"
The next method was to win over Jason, who worked for the food truck.
Using another restaurant's name, he tried to scout him by offering ten times his current pay—but even that failed.
Jason had not the slightest intention of betraying the trust he had built with Jinseo and moving to another shop.
And more than anything…
"Do you have games?"
At the question he delivered in an indifferent tone—one whose meaning they couldn't understand at all—the people who came to recruit him couldn't answer.
"Thought so. I'm never leaving the food truck, so stop showing up to bother me."
Jason waved them off, telling Marquis Horus's men to go back.
When they still didn't give up and tried persuading him, Jason swung an adantium ladle into a nearby tree.
Even without using aura, the tree cracked with a loud sound and toppled backward, and Marquis Horus's subordinates had no choice but to flee in shock.
"Is something called a TV really that hard to make?"
Fedora's video, which informed many people that the food truck was a holy relic, created new work for the mages.
Marquis Horus asked if they couldn't just make a TV and use it the same way, but before long, they only gave him the answer that it was impossible no matter how much time and money he poured in.
To make matters worse, hearing the mages say that the place called Korea, where Lee Jinseo lived, might actually be a country specialized in magic rather than bunsik made his frustration burn even hotter.
"They say they like spicy food that much… then why?"
Hearing that the clergy of Kaysus Cathedral liked spicy food quite a bit, he ordered the chefs to present an extremely spicy tteokbokki.
But Marquis Horus, not a chef, made a major mistake.
Spicy flavor was a taste built on pain—if it became too extremely spicy, you couldn't feel anything except pain.
Yet Marquis Horus had only issued the command to make it unconditionally spicier than the special tteokbokki.
"That kind of tteokbokki will never work."
Marco, who understood the true value of special tteokbokki hidden within spiciness, naturally objected.
But Marquis Horus ignored his opinion and served tteokbokki that emphasized only spiciness at Kaysus Cathedral, and the result was disastrous.
All the clergy who participated in the tasting took one bite, frowned, and set down their forks.
"I think the brothers who came today would be better off learning more about tteokbokki before returning."
Fedora wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and politely expressed her refusal.
But it was something she had never done when eating Jinseo's bunsik.
She left the tteokbokki she had been eating and stared at the chefs with a cold, sharp gaze.
Knock, knock.
While Marquis Horus continued clutching his head in anguish, a knocking sound reached his ears.
"Come in."
Lergon opened the door and entered. As he looked at Horus, who was bowing his head, he quietly let out a small sigh.
"Please do not worry too much."
"…"
"Unless they make several more food trucks, they won't be able to deal with all the bunsik carriages currently in operation."
"…"
Even with Lergon's comfort, Marquis Horus kept silent.
"Even if the initial cost was high, once we start selling at a proper price, we should be able to recover some of the losses so far."
"Losses? Do you think I'm doing this to earn pocket change?"
Bang!
Marquis Horus slammed the table hard with both hands.
His goal was never to profit off a business copying bunsik.
He only wanted to watch Oswald and Jinseo suffer severe losses and fall into despair.
But the fear that he would be the one falling into despair at this rate was making him lose his reason.
"When did you say the dwarves' delegation was coming?"
"It is expected in a week."
As he answered, Lergon swallowed dryly.
Even though Marquis Horus had always acted more on emotion than reason, this was the first time Lergon had seen him disregard advice and act like this.
He had just comforted him by saying they could handle it, but Lergon had already sensed defeat.
In this situation, he judged that the best response was to minimize losses as much as possible—and he was already preparing for that.
"That's the opportunity. Send Marco out."
However, Marquis Horus intended to move in the exact opposite direction of Lergon's thoughts.
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