Chapter 120: The Food Truck's Speed Is the Fastest on the Continent! (3) The three boy envoys had been captivated by Jinseo's food truck and all the different things to eat for a long time.
Unable to bear letting the food truck go like this, they volunteered to take on the role of guiding the delegation all the way to the capital of the Crudian Kingdom, the centaurs' nation that used the continent's name as-is.
The distance to the capital of the Crudian Kingdom was quite far, but just the fact that they were together with the food truck made every day nothing but fun for the three envoys.
"How is it? It's good, right?"
"Yes! More, please!"
The children who had finished the snacks they were given in the blink of an eye held their hands out insistently toward the three envoys.
"But this is only a taste. Bunsik and the other dishes are even more amazing."
"Don't you want to enjoy sweet, salty, spicy, and sour all at once?"
"It's called tteok-twig-sun-ra-gim. A feast so incredible it can't even be compared to what we've eaten until now is waiting. Right there in the food truck."
After faithfully finishing their job as hype-men, the three envoys subtly stepped aside so the young centaurs could approach the food truck.
As the smells rose while the three cooks—Jinseo and the others—prepared all kinds of bunsik, everyone swallowed hard.
"Alright, young centaur kids! Thanks for waiting! That food that crossed over from Korea and settled in the Doren Kingdom on the Francia Continent! The food that even the dwarves from the Ashred Continent fell for—enjoy bunsik to your heart's content! That doesn't mean we won't serve the adults, either! Come and eat together!"
With Jason's hearty shout, plates of bunsik started coming out one after another, and centaurs crowded into the counter seats to eat food they had never seen before.
"If you need more, feel free to get more! If you need drinks and snacks, we're handing them out in the Additional Trailer next door, so head over there!"
The food truck cooks served generous portions, focusing on the Tteok-twig-sun-ra-gim set.
Taking the three envoys' opinion that centaurs who ran around on four legs would naturally eat more than humans, everyone was satisfied not only with the taste, but with the amount as well.
Even though they were handing out countless bunsik dishes and other food for free, Jinseo did not need to worry about the cost at all. The delegation had paid the full cost of bunsik and food in advance, allocating it as publicity expenses to introduce humans and dwarves.
"Boss! We're starting with tuna gimbap! We'll bring out vegetable gimbap later!"
"Mr. Jinseo! Five servings of ramen are done!"
"Got it."
Jinseo placed the fried items he had just taken out of the fryer onto a plate together with the other bunsik the other two had finished.
After working together for so long, they could put out the Tteok-twig-sun-ra-gim set nonstop at a speed that was incomparable to the early days.
It's such a relief that bunsik worked here too.
Watching customers happily eat bunsik even though they were a different species made Jinseo smile on its own.
And it looks like I'll be able to clear the quest soon, too.
A quest that simply required reaching a certain amount in sales was a matter of time.
As for food that could satisfy the leader of another species, that only began after meeting them.
The problem was the quest to discover food that applied species preferences for another species.
Even after arriving on the Crudian Continent, Jinseo kept showing the centaurs a variety of bunsik, but he still could not find the thread to pull on for the quest.
In the end, the only method he could choose was to put out even more kinds of bunsik.
"…So if you dip this into that red sauce used on that soft, chewy food we ate earlier… ooh!"
Kedius, Veraul's representative, chewed on gimbap soaked with tteokbokki broth and twitched the space between his eyebrows.
He still was not used to tteokbokki's distinctive chewy texture, but he was thoroughly satisfied with the harmony created when the spiciness and sweetness of the tteokbokki broth melded with gimbap.
"Haha, I never imagined I would come into contact with cooking this delicious through you humans. It makes me regret not meeting humans sooner."
"It's a little hurtful to leave us dwarves out," Geshtain said.
"Oh dear, that was rude of me. I should say again how exquisite and beautiful the horseshoes you gifted us are—so refined our technology cannot even imitate them."
"Haha, if you praise me like that right away, I'll get embarrassed," Geshtain said.
At a table a short distance away from the food truck crowded with centaurs, the joint delegation and Veraul's representative ate bunsik together and chatted in a warm atmosphere.
Kedius the centaur stood, while the other two sat.
Duke Layton and Geshtain tried to speak standing as well, but Kedius urged them to sit, saying he somehow felt sorry making a human and a dwarf with only two legs keep standing.
"You said you're going to the capital in two days, right?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"First, I recommend you stay here a little longer before departing. The entire Crudian Kingdom is in the middle of monster subjugation season, you see. It should be going on near the capital around now."
"Monster subjugation? We didn't see even a single monster on the way here."
Duke Layton reacted with puzzlement at the unexpected mention and set down the Milkis can he was holding.
"You came from another continent, so you wouldn't know. We carry out regular subjugations every time, so you don't see them. It's one of the national policies the royal family considers important enough to dispatch commanders directly. Last year, the second prince participated, so this year it will probably be the youngest princess's turn."
"What? The princess goes out personally?"
"That's how authority is recognized."
Kedius answered as if it were obvious and put sundae dipped lightly in salt into his mouth.
"Hm, that's very different from us. Earning authority that way…"
Duke Layton, on the other hand, fell into thought with a serious expression at the Crudian Kingdom's course of action, which was completely different from the Doren Kingdom's.
"On this Crudian Continent, you must be fast and strong to stand above everyone. Oh—just in time. A soldier who looks like part of the subjugation force is coming this way."
Kedius raised his left hand and pointed toward the plains in the distance.
Like a nomad, Kedius recognized the centaur soldier running from far out in the middle of the plains with his highly developed eyesight.
"You can see that?"
"How can you not see it? He's running this way urgently, but… uh…"
When Kedius saw the flag the centaur running from afar was holding, his complexion turned pale.
The color of the flag bearing the royal family's crest was a deep red. It was the color used for emergencies, or to request urgent support.
"W-What? That's a red flag!"
"This isn't the time to be doing this!"
Not only Kedius but the other centaurs as well recognized the envoy, and they hurriedly set down the bunsik they were eating.
The envoy who barreled straight into Veraul did not slow down and kept running toward the food truck, and the centaurs scattered in all directions to clear a path for him.
"Huff, huff…"
The envoy, battered all over, staggered and slowly lowered the red flag he held in his left hand.
"W-What happened? Tell me!"
Kedius gripped the envoy's shoulders hard with both hands.
"An unidentified… gigantic monster that appeared all of a sudden… Your Highness Angelica…"
"Your Highness Angelica?"
"Urk…"
The envoy could not finish and collapsed sideways.
He was still breathing, but he had fainted from exhaustion, so it was not a situation where anyone could ask more.
Even so, they could not stay flustered forever.
Under Kedius's swift command, soldiers assembled and ran in a group toward the direction the envoy had come from.
"It's certain something happened to Your Highness Angelica. Make Her Highness's safety the top priority!"
At Kedius's shout, additional centaurs quickly finished arming themselves and started running after the soldiers who had already left.
In the rapidly escalating situation, Duke Layton and Geshtain looked at each other and nodded in silence.
They had come as guests, but they could not just stand by after learning that a nation's princess was in danger.
More than anything, they had a means of moving faster than any centaur, so they could not help but step forward.
"Kedius, may we help?"
"Huh? Is that possi—ah…"
Kedius was about to ask how humans and dwarves, far slower than centaurs, could possibly help, but when Duke Layton pointed at the food truck, he immediately understood.
"Jinseo, given the situation, we need your strength," Duke Layton said.
"I'll depart right now."
Jinseo stopped selling bunsik, hastily cleaned up the kitchen, then moved to the driver's seat.
Craid, who had devoured five servings of Tteok-twig-sun-ra-gim in an instant, got into the passenger seat while rubbing his still-hungry stomach, and the others who could be helpful in combat quickly boarded the Additional Trailer.
"We're departing!"
Vroom.
With the engine started, the food truck dashed out of Veraul in the direction the soldiers had run.
Passing the centaurs who had left earlier one by one, the food truck soon caught up to the guards who had departed first.
"Is it this direction?"
When Jinseo rolled down the driver-side window and asked, the guard running alongside nodded repeatedly.
"Yes! That's right!"
"Then we'll go ahead!"
Vroooom.
With the Nitro Booster engaged, the food truck kicked up a fierce sandstorm and vanished from the centaurs' sight in an instant.
"Huff, huff…"
In the middle of a dense forest, a centaur girl lowered her head and panted harshly.
"Urk."
Blood kept flowing from the wound lodged deep in the thigh of her left front leg, staining everything below the knee red.
"Did everyone… escape safely…?"
Angelica Crudian, the Crudian Kingdom's princess, slowly raised her head while worrying about her subordinates.
Sweat mixed with blood ran down her cheeks, pooled at the tip of her chin, then dripped down in steady drops.
A monster subjugation that should have gone smoothly as planned.
But because of an enormous unidentified monster that appeared out of nowhere, the tide of battle had been completely reversed.
Its massive body, huge enough to evoke a dragon said to exist only in ancient history books, made people lose their will to fight just by looking at it, and the subjugation force fell into chaos.
To make things worse, the monsters that had been getting subjugated started counterattacking, and her subordinates began to fall one after another. Unable to stand it, she charged alone at the unidentified monster to draw its attention.
Then she plunged into the nearest forest, successfully pulling the gigantic monster away from her subordinates.
The problem was that even now, other monsters that had followed that gigantic monster continued to pursue her.
"This… can't be the end."
Because her hair tie had snapped, her hair had gotten wildly disheveled and blocked her view. She gathered it into one hand, pulled out a handkerchief, and tied it back up into a ponytail.
Gripping the halberd on her back with both hands, Angelica glared at the monsters closing in on her.
Just as she bit down hard on her lower lip and was about to swing the halberd, the monsters were struck by something that had rushed in fast from behind, then bounced away and flew far off into the distance.
Screeeech.
"Are you, perhaps, Her Highness Angelica?"
What appeared before her, pushing through the dense brush, was Jinseo's food truck.
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