Chapter 202: Forty Years of Life in Another World (2) Rainfolt held a paper cup of fish cake broth in both hands and began telling the story of how he came to eat bunsik for the first time in his life.
The twenty-one magicians who ended up in Korea out of nowhere had to endure countless hardships as they tried to adapt to the utterly unfamiliar country called Korea.
Miraculously, as foreigners, they were able to communicate with Koreans without any difficulty at all.
But when they realized they could not freely use magic the way they had on the Francia Continent in a Korea where they could not feel mana at all, they fell into despair.
On top of that, since they had no passports and nothing whatsoever to prove their identities, they were branded illegal overstayers and forced to live on the run.
Each time, they used magic to escape the crisis, but because it took a long time to obtain mana again in order to use magic, it was impossible to keep avoiding things in the same way every time.
In the end, they had to take refuge deep in a mountain valley in Gangwon Province where people's eyes could not reach.
"To respond to sudden situations like this, every magician who came to the past with me stored all kinds of goods and food in their own Interspatial Storage. But because we turned back time itself, it was all useless. It was a mistake we made because it was our first time attempting regression."
"That must have been very hard. But there was no news or article about something like that forty years ago at all—what happened?"
"That's because back then, there was no SNS like there is now, and the internet was not very developed either. It was an era where even brick phones were rare, let alone smartphones. In that situation, even if someone claimed they witnessed foreigners using the kind of magic you only see in movies while running away, it would've been dismissed as nonsense."
"Ah, that makes sense."
"In a way, we were lucky. If it happened these days, we wouldn't even have been able to hide like this. People would've mistaken me and my companions for aliens and forced us to reveal new technology—whatever that trendy term is these days. We might've been locked in a basement and tortured."
Rainfolt spoke of the hardships he suffered in the early days after coming to Korea with a laugh, but back then, it was something he could never have laughed at.
After running from people and starving for over five days, everyone was on the verge of losing their minds from extreme hunger.
In the end, Rainfolt decided it would be better to get caught alone, even if the police caught him, so he took the burden on himself and went down to the city alone to find food.
But since he did not have a single coin, there was no way for him to obtain food, and the place where he stopped with slumped shoulders was in front of a bunsik shop with a shabby sign.
"I was sitting down in front of the shop, just sighing over and over, when the grandmother who owned the place said that to me. She asked why a young man who looked perfectly fine was acting like this. I blanked at the word 'young man,' then only later remembered that I had returned to thirty years old, and I snapped my eyes up to look at her."
Rainfolt calmly told the story from forty years ago, when he could not even feel happy despite regaining his youth and only felt dejected.
"Looking back, she was a very strange grandmother. She spoke to me in Korean as if it were nothing, even though I must have looked like a foreigner in every way. But I didn't have any room to think about things like that. I just kept repeating that I was hungry."
"Little Grandfather..."
Fedora squeezed Rainfolt's wrinkled right hand tightly with both hands.
"After hearing my answer, the grandmother stared hard at my pathetic state that was no different from a beggar, then went back inside. When she came out again, she silently held out a black bag packed with bunsik. It was nowhere near enough for twenty-one people to eat their fill, but since I was in a position of being fed for free, I couldn't ask for more."
Gulp, gulp.
As he recalled those memories and felt his throat go dry, Rainfolt drank the fish cake broth in consecutive swallows.
"Without even having time to properly say thank you, I hugged that bag of bunsik and ran like mad back to where my companions were hiding. The companions who had been waiting only for me to return put their heads together and devoured those foods they had never seen in their lives. I still cannot forget the taste of the bunsik we ate that day."
It had already been more than forty years since he ended up staying in Korea.
Now, aside from his appearance, he was practically Korean, yet the moment he first encountered bunsik remained vividly clear in his memory even now.
"Unlike other foods, it felt comforting. Maybe I would've felt that way no matter what I ate because I was so hungry, but from that day onward, bunsik came to hold a special meaning for us foreigners."
From that day on, the twenty-one magicians devoted themselves to creating a new spatial transfer spell formula in order to return to the Francia Continent.
Even so, while living new lives and enjoying Korean culture, which was completely different from the Francia Continent, they would order bunsik once a month and eat together.
"In Korea, there is no magic, but instead there are sciences and engineering, and technologies as wondrous as magic. The shock of seeing a car that moved on its own without using mana is still vivid in my mind."
"I was often amazed whenever abilities that science could never explain were displayed through the food truck."
"And I am the same whenever I see abilities that cannot be explained by magic alone."
"This food truck is an object made through the fusion of science and magic, so it must look equally mysterious to you, a Korean, and to you, who came from the Francia Continent."
"Personally, I am extremely curious how you created the currency exchange system."
"The currency exchange system?"
Lee Jinseo explained in detail the function that automatically exchanged the Francia Continent's currency into Korean money, and after hearing everything, Rainfolt looked around the food truck with eyes that said he could not believe it.
"No, you even implemented a function like that with magic? How fascinating."
"Rainfolt-nim, you did not know the food truck had that function?"
"Twenty-one magicians came to Korea, including myself, but each of us had different specialties. So when we built the food truck, we divided the research by field, and a significant portion of the abilities installed in the food truck are things I do not understand. I would be asked whether it was acceptable to add this sort of magic, and I only checked whether it would conflict with other magic or not."
Creating the food truck itself—a vehicle that could travel between worlds—did not take that long.
But in order to operate the food truck, they had to gather mana little by little over a long period from what flowed in the mountains, and to endure while staring at only that required an unbearably long time.
In that situation, rather than waiting endlessly until the mana filled, a suggestion arose among the companions: they should add extra functions.
So they added functions one by one, and since they were making it anyway, they even added various convenience functions as well—until forty years slipped by in an instant.
"And as we incorporated science we learned in Korea, more and more parts went beyond what I could understand. Strictly speaking, engineering is included too, but in any case, this food truck is a masterpiece that combines magic and science. I only devoted myself to spatial transfer magic."
"It was also unusual that it included game-like elements such as quests."
"Hm? Th-that was really included?"
"So Rainfolt-nim did not add it?"
"Ah, well… a few of the companions who came with me were completely absorbed in games. During research, they even secretly went into the city and stayed up all night at a PC bang. Later, I heard they even received a suggestion through in-game whispers to become a pro gamer. I don't know much about games, so I just thought, 'They're good,' but to go so far as to introduce a quest system—those fellows had incredible obsession."
As he recalled scolding those companions who stayed up all night at a PC bang, asking what they would do if they were discovered, he closed his eyes.
"Looking back now, the time we spent making all this together, dreaming of the day we would return home, was the happiest period after we regressed and came to Korea."
There were many fights, and it was not always enjoyable, but Rainfolt judged that living while rubbing shoulders with the twenty-one people in the same situation was not so bad.
"I have talked too long."
Rainfolt looked down at the empty plate still marked with ketchup and rubbed his stomach.
"Somehow my stomach is empty again. Lee Jinseo, can you make the bunsik I ate for the first time after coming to Korea?"
"Of course. What would you like me to make?"
"Tteokbokki, fried food, and sundae—the fundamentals of bunsik."
Watching Rainfolt order Tteok-twi-sun without even a moment's hesitation, Lee Jinseo smiled with his eyes.
"You really know how to eat bunsik properly."
"Who do you think I am? I keep telling you—I have lived in Korea longer than you. I have eaten at least twice as much bunsik as you have. There were plenty of times I ate bunsik for all three meals of the day."
"Hahaha… yes. Understood."
Time passed beyond midnight, and stillness settled around the junk shop.
In the darkness where everyone slept, only the sound of insects echoed softly, and the moon floating in the dark sky shone faintly.
Creeeak.
With a rough sound, the container door opened, and Rainfolt stepped outside holding a black bag.
He went deeper into the junk shop, where all kinds of miscellaneous items were piled up, and looked around.
After confirming there was no one else, Rainfolt stretched his right hand out toward empty air.
A moment later, a gentle light spread outward, the surrounding junk vanished, and the graves of his former companions—hidden by magic so others would not notice—revealed themselves.
"Have you been well?"
Rainfolt stood before the leftmost gravestone among the twenty gravestones lined up in a row.
"Kelin, you always picked out only gimmari fried food and got scolded by the rest of us. Because of you, the others had to eat only sweet potato fries. I'm only saying it now, but sweet potato fries were not really to my taste. So even now, eat evenly."
Rainfolt placed one gimmari fried food in front of Kelin's gravestone, then set sweet potato fries and squid fries neatly beside it.
"Peria, among the sundae parts you only ate the liver and left the lungs. You weren't the only one who couldn't get used to that unique mushy texture, but since we couldn't throw away bunsik we obtained with difficulty, I had to take responsibility and eat it all. So this time I brought only the liver. Ah, right—you have to dip it in tteokbokki broth."
Rainfolt put finely chopped pork liver into a plastic bowl of tteokbokki broth, then added sundae that still held warmth, and placed it before her gravestone.
"Endel, you truly loved the boiled egg that went into tteokbokki. Later, you even got chickens yourself and made a small chicken coop. Here—since it's been a while, eat your fill."
Rainfolt placed, one by one, the bunsik his departed companions had liked, in order, in front of their gravestones.
"The time I spent with all of you has, before I knew it… passed this far. And I am the only one left. The one who urged you on is the one left to the end. Shamelessly."
Having watched each and every one of his companions' final moments, he had decided that until the moment he ended his own life, he would remain and guard their last traces, then follow after them.
"This wretched man… my granddaughter came and found him. Here, in this other world. I was truly glad, and grateful. Even though she is infuriatingly the exact opposite of me in food preferences."
Recalling old memories of bickering with his companions over bunsik preferences, Rainfolt smiled faintly.
"My granddaughter told me this. She said my older brother was desperately searching for me, so I should please return. But tell me… can I abandon all of you and go back to my homeland?"
With guilt still etched into his heart, he lowered his head.
"What do you think?"
Rainfolt turned to ask Lee Jinseo, who was standing behind him.
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