Chapter 114: Oh No, Only Two Legs (1) "This is..."
After completing the spatial transfer magic, Painfolt Artran tightened his grip on the mana core in his right hand.
As the whitewashed field of view slowly recovered, he lowered his gaze.
The magic circle that had risen above the ground in response to mana slowly sank, then seeped into the earth and vanished without a trace.
"It worked."
After confirming once again that the coordinates recorded in the spellbook matched the coordinates he had inscribed in rune letters when drawing the magic circle, Painfolt Artran closed his eyes, then opened them.
He chose one location from the many coordinates recorded in the spellbook his younger brother wrote and attempted spatial transfer magic, and as a result, he now stood on a vast plain where open grassland stretched far beyond the horizon.
If the contents of the spellbook were correct, this was clearly a continent inhabited by a completely different race—neither human nor dwarf.
Even so, the possibility of finding his younger brother remained slim.
He simply thought that if he traveled around the coordinates written in the spellbook like this, he might at least find his younger brother's remains.
With that desperate wish in his heart, Painfolt Artran stared out at the boundless land.
"Still, you didn't have to come along for something this dangerous..."
"No. As a mage, I can't pass up a chance to go to another continent. And when you cast spatial transfer magic to coordinates you've never visited, isn't it only natural to accept the risk?"
Kelzman, a dwarf mage who barely reached Painfolt Artran's waist, got up while brushing dust from the hem of his robe as if it were nothing.
Just the fact that he was setting foot on a continent inhabited by an unfamiliar race he had never seen before made his chest swell.
"We were lucky this time. There's no guarantee it will be the same next time."
"With your skill, Headmaster, failing would be harder. And shouldn't this be the last time, so what you want can be achieved?"
"Yeah… that's right..."
Painfolt Artran still couldn't forget the incident from more than ten years ago, when the magic his twin brother tried to realize failed and dragged twenty mages into it as well.
That was why he tried to attempt spatial transfer magic alone, without telling the other mages of the mage tower, or even Geshtain.
But Kelzman discovered the spatial transfer magic circle, and in the end, Painfolt Artran had no choice but to allow him to accompany him, unable to refuse his plea to be included.
"Anyway, we should look for people."
"Headmaster, not people—another race..."
"Ah, right."
The two mages closed their eyes, spread their arms to the sides, and began concentrating.
After tracking traces of mana for over ten minutes, both mages turned their heads east and opened their eyes at the same time.
"L-look over there!"
When they confirmed the dust cloud rising near the horizon drawing closer, tension settled over both their faces.
"We should at least prepare a minimum response, right?"
Kelzman had been expecting an encounter with a new race, but now that it was about to happen, his fear only grew larger than his excitement.
"Eat this first."
"What? This isn't the time to be eating—mmph!"
Painfolt Artran opened his Interspatial Storage, pulled out ice cream, shoved it into Kelzman's mouth without warning, and took a huge bite himself.
The mana consumed to realize the spatial transfer magic recovered at a rapid pace, and Painfolt Artran, preparing for contingencies, deployed a transparent hemispherical barrier and wrapped the surrounding area.
Kelzman moved in front of Painfolt Artran, formed a large fireball, and floated one above each hand.
So that if the other side attacked, he could counter immediately.
Clop-clop-clop.
Staring at the dust cloud drawing closer along with the growing sound of hooves, the two men looked straight ahead with tense faces.
"All halt!"
At the voice coming from beyond the dust cloud that covered their vision, Kelzman repeatedly curled and uncurled his fingers under the fireball.
Until the dust cloud rising between Painfolt Artran, Kelzman, and the unknown race settled, both sides stayed silent, only watching each other.
"They don't seem to have any intention of attacking. Should I dismiss the fireballs?"
At Kelzman's question, Painfolt Artran nodded without opening his mouth.
"But… that isn't someone riding a horse. What in the world is that?"
As the fireballs above Kelzman's hands slowly vanished, the ice cream stick that had been in his mouth dropped with a soft thud.
"The upper body is human, but the lower body is a horse… It seems to be the centaur race Charlotte-nim mentioned. Seeing it in person, it's truly bizarre."
If you compared dwarves and humans, there were many striking differences—not only in height, but in appearance.
But both races had two arms and two legs, and the same number of eyes, noses, and mouths, so at the fundamental level there was little difference.
That was why, even after meeting again after hundreds of years, they could quickly grow accustomed to each other's appearance.
But centaurs differed so much in bodily structure that it was hard to approach them lightly.
And the same was true for the centaur side, seeing humans and dwarves for the first time.
"Huh… what is this? Only two legs!"
"And one of them is incredibly short. What could he have gone through to end up with a body like that?"
"Could they have caught some illness we don't know about?"
Unlike Kelzman's gaze, the centaurs were looking down at the two outsiders with pity in their eyes.
They began misunderstanding, thinking the outsiders had suffered some huge accident and only had two legs left out of the four they were supposed to have, and that misconception only grew because neither side could understand the other's language.
But Painfolt Artran, wearing his younger brother's pendant around his neck, quietly listened to the centaurs' conversation and nodded.
"Hm. It seems having four legs is normal here."
"Huh?"
The centaurs who understood Painfolt Artran's words were so startled that they all took a step back at once.
"Sorry to startle you. I'm a human from the Francia Continent—Painfolt Artran."
"Francia Continent? Human?"
"And this is Kelzman, a dwarf from the Ashred Continent. Both Kelzman and I are mages."
"Dwarf? Mage?"
As unknown words poured one after another from Painfolt Artran's mouth, the centaurs only stared, not knowing what to say.
"To put it simply, we are a different race from you, and we came from a different continent. If possible, I'd like to meet someone of high standing and talk."
At Painfolt Artran's proposal, the centaurs exchanged words among themselves, then one of them began running back in the direction they came from.
"Before that… have you ever seen a human mage with the same face as mine?"
At the question he asked with a sliver of hope, the centaurs answered no all at once, and Painfolt Artran lowered his head and let out a quiet sigh.
Creeeak.
The moment Lee Jinseo opened the rusted iron door and stepped into the prison, his expression twisted on its own.
The prison's damp air and the harsh grinding sound he heard every time he opened the iron door were things he found hard to get used to.
"Oh! You're here! You're here!"
"We've been waiting for today!"
In contrast, the prisoners who recognized Lee Jinseo were all smiles.
The prisoners who had been sitting on the cold prison floor sprang up, grabbed the bars with both hands, and couldn't hide their excitement.
"Haha, all right. Please wait a moment."
Together with the guard, Lee Jinseo handed out the earthenware bowls of seolleongtang that had finished cooking outside the prison to the prisoners.
Slurp, slurp, smack.
The prison, which had been noisy with Lee Jinseo's arrival, now filled with only the soft sounds of prisoners drinking broth and chewing rice and ingredients.
The guards who finished handing out the servings also began eating seolleongtang enthusiastically, and Lee Jinseo picked up the last remaining earthenware bowl of seolleongtang and walked to the innermost cell.
"You're here."
Marco welcomed Lee Jinseo warmly and took the hot earthenware bowl.
After swallowing a big spoonful of rice soaked with broth, he chewed well-fermented kkakdugi and enjoyed the crisp texture, a smile slowly spreading at the corners of his mouth.
"Seolleongtang from Jinseo-nim really is delicious."
"To be honest, all I did was heat it up."
"Then I'll correct it to say the seolleongtang Jinseo-ssi brought is still delicious. It's a taste that makes you feel happy."
Ever since letting Marco taste seolleongtang, Lee Jinseo came to the prison where Marco was incarcerated once every two weeks and served seolleongtang as a special meal.
He gave a bowl each to the other prisoners and guards as well, and naturally, everyone waited eagerly for the day Lee Jinseo visited.
"I see. So Paulo-nim, the court chef, is on Bunsik Street..."
While savoring seolleongtang, Marco and Lee Jinseo exchanged stories about the outside world.
"Unlike me, he lacks nothing even outside of cooking, so he will manage Bunsik Street well."
"Come to think of it, I heard it from the guards earlier. They said they've been enjoying good food lately thanks to Marco-nim's cooking."
"Compared to seolleongtang, I can only make dishes that are truly nothing, but everyone eats it deliciously, so I'm only embarrassed."
Starting a month ago, Marco began making meals for the prisoners and guards once a day.
Since it was a prison, the ingredients provided were meager, and the tools and cooking methods he could use were inevitably limited.
At first, he couldn't overcome the harsh environment, and only dishes unworthy of him came out, but as time passed, his cooking skill began to shine again.
Over the roughly month-long period, everyone who ate Marco's cooking and was released expressed the same gratitude, and promised that when Marco opened a shop later, they would definitely become regulars.
"I wasn't going to cook while I was in prison, but when I came to my senses, I ended up getting my hands back on cooking."
"Still, I'm glad you look more lively than before."
"The guards said the same. So these days, I'm trying to make stored foods with leftover ingredients."
"Are those the things set in the corner? May I taste them?"
Lee Jinseo asked while pointing at the jars sealed at the mouth with stones.
"Ah, those… they're close to failures. Is that all right?"
"Yes, it's fine."
Marco lifted the leftmost jar and set it near the bars.
"Huh? Don't tell me..."
Lee Jinseo picked up a white vegetable from the jar with chopsticks and put it into his mouth.
Then he looked at Marco with startled eyes.
"Were you trying to make kimchi?"
"Yes, but there's no ingredient to make it spicy, so it became a failure."
"This is baekkimchi."
It wasn't napa cabbage, but a similar vegetable, and the texture and taste were almost exactly the baekkimchi Lee Jinseo knew.
"Baekkimchi? That's what you call this kind of kimchi?"
"Yes."
"I tried to reproduce kimchi somehow using only ingredients I could get here, and of course it didn't turn spicy, so I thought it was only a failure. I see. There was also this kind of kimchi."
No one even taught him, but he made baekkimchi. And in a place like this. He really is a genius when it comes to cooking.
Lee Jinseo admired Marco's skill again, amazed that even a "failure" led to reproducing a dish that already existed.
"Tasting this makes me curious about the foods in the other jars, too."
"This one became a kimchi with a lot of broth coming out, differently from what I intended… there isn't a kimchi like this, is there?"
"That's closer to dongchimi. It looks like that, too. I'll taste it first."
Just as Lee Jinseo was about to sample the food in another jar while listening to Marco's explanation, the prison entrance opened and a soldier stepped inside.
"Ah! You're here!"
The soldier spotted Lee Jinseo and hurried over to him.
"Jinseo-ssi, the Headmaster of the Doren Mage Tower is urgently looking for you."
"The Headmaster?"
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