Chapter 223: Epilogue - Aston's Work Journal (3) As I drove the food truck all over the continent, running into customers who had visited it in the past became one of the ordinary things in life.
The reactions of the customers who ate the bunsik I made while recalling their memories of the bunsik Mr. Jinseo used to make were almost always the same.
They would realize it tasted different from the bunsik they remembered and make a subtle expression, but if I asked them directly, they would force out compliments they did not truly mean, saying the taste was unchanged.
Since I had grown used to it, I often forgot, but the food truck was a sacred relic of the Heirem Order. It was only natural that people would find it difficult to speak honestly about the food when I was cooking in something so precious.
But the longtime regulars who had spent so much time with the food truck paid no attention to such circumstances and judged my bunsik coldly. For me to improve, their sharp advice mattered more than anything else.
Regrettably, after Mr. Jinseo left, there were almost no chances to gather all of them together in one place the way we used to. Most of the time, I either ran into them by chance while driving the food truck around, or arranged separate meetings and reunited with them that way.
I believe it was because the link that connected everyone, Mr. Jinseo, was gone.
Tomorrow, I will be meeting Craid and Hayward again after a long time.
In order to judge whether Hayward was satisfied with the food, many different things had to be taken into account, but in Craid's case, it was simple.
I only had to look at how much he ate.
My current goal is to get Craid to eat five servings.
My final goal is ten servings, the amount he sometimes used to eat before Mr. Jinseo left.
The hero of the Girvante Kingdom.
The Lone Swordsman.
Those were the two titles people thought of first the moment they saw him.
And after the final battle two years ago against the Dark Dragon Evelyn, he gained the new title of Dragon Slayer as well, giving him a dignity that no one could approach.
But among those three titles, Craid greatly preferred being called the strongest glutton on the Francia Continent.
After Jinseo left the Francia Continent, he and Hayward traveled all over it, living in a way befitting that title of glutton.
Countless chefs showed off their skills in order to win his recognition, and thanks to that, he was able to try every kind of food imaginable.
But no matter what he ate, Craid could not feel a thrill greater than the one he felt when he first tasted bunsik from the food truck.
After Jinseo left, there was only one kind of food that could soothe the emptiness lodged deep in his heart.
It was the food cooked by the food truck Aston was now driving in Jinseo's place.
"It has been a long time since Half-and-Half MuMani."
Sitting in the middle counter seat of the food truck, Craid took a deep breath as he looked down at the golden fried chicken and the seasoned chicken coated in bright red sauce.
Crunch, munch, crunch.
Gulp, gulp.
He took a huge bite of the fried chicken, refreshed his mouth with pickled radish, then tore into the seasoned chicken without hesitation, and after that chugged straight from a 1.5-liter bottle of cola....
As Craid focused solely on eating Half-and-Half MuMani, silence settled over the surroundings.
Gulp.
As Aston counted the number of chicken bones coming out of his mouth one by one, he swallowed dryly.
"Your skill seems close to Jinseo's."
Craid answered in his usual blunt expression as he sucked the sauce off his fingers.
"However, your speed in making it is still far off. At this rate, I think I can only eat five servings."
In front of Craid, who had wiped out five servings in an instant, a heap of chicken bones with not a scrap of meat left on them was piled high on the plate.
"You're really picky. It already tastes good enough at this level."
Hayward, who was eating Half-and-Half MuMani beside him, clicked his tongue in reproach, and Aston gave a bitter smile.
He had succeeded in making Craid eat the five servings he had been aiming for, but the phrase at this level caught in his mind.
But there was nothing he could do.
The person he was being compared to was none other than Jinseo, the cook who had become a legend on the Francia Continent.
Two years was simply far too short a time to catch up to him.
"Good grief, you already ate that much... I wouldn't even dare."
"You're not eating more?"
"Ever since that side effect, eating a lot makes me nervous. You should try Taekick while watching that video, then you'd understand my pain!"
After going through a brutal dieting process, Hayward had long since returned to his original lean body, but from then on he had become especially sensitive about how much he ate.
Charlotte had personally told him, and more than once at that, that the side effects had disappeared completely, but letting his guard down was still dangerous.
Even so, because he could not be satisfied with only one serving of Half-and-Half MuMani, which came the closest to the taste of what Jinseo had made, Hayward had ended up eating two servings.
"Still, Half-and-Half MuMani is as delicious as ever. It reminds me of the time I tore into chicken to my heart's content together with Julien in Korea. It was really fun."
"I had fun too."
"Yes, everyone... had fun."
The two men smiled faintly as they thought of Julien's empty place.
Now that Painfolt Artran had returned to the Francia Continent, his disciple Julien had started walking the path of a mage again after once stepping away from it.
On top of that, he was soon to marry Mary, who had helped him when he served as acting headmaster at the Doren Magic Tower.
Blessing that future of his, Craid and Hayward set out on their wandering journey as a pair.
It was regrettable that one of the trio who had once been together was no longer by their side, but it was not sad.
"Did you say Julien's wedding is three months from now?"
"Yes. We were asked to prepare the wedding banquet."
"That is good. By then, I hope your skill will have improved enough for me to eat ten servings."
"Yes, please look forward to it."
After hearing Aston's confident reply, Craid finished the rest of the cola in the bottle and stood up.
"Hayward, let's go."
Craid lightly tapped the back of Hayward, who was still sitting at the counter.
"Hayward?"
"Ah, I was just thinking about the old days."
Hayward made a sorrowful expression as he felt yet another empty place.
Back when Jinseo was there, the food truck had always been filled with a warm and lively atmosphere, and the regulars were happy while eating his bunsik.
Among them, there was one man and one woman who treated each other with especially unusual feelings, and Hayward could not forget them.
He recalled Jinseo busily making bunsik in the kitchen, and Fedora Artran sitting quietly at the counter watching his back.
"I thought Jinseo would get married before Julien did."
Thud.
The portable TeXris slipped from Jason's resting hand and fell to the ground.
"It's already been two years since I last saw that guy's face. It really is... such a pity."
In the end, Hayward rubbed his dry face as he thought of the two people who had parted without ever coming together.
Aston, Stella, and Jason all lowered their heads deeply, and Craid silently placed a hand on Hayward's shoulder.
"Sorry for ruining the mood. But it really is such a shame. Even I, as an outsider, felt that way, so how much worse must it have been for the people involved..."
Hayward stood up, rubbing his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand.
"Here, this is for the chicken."
"Mr. Jinseo told us not to take money from you two..."
"When Jinseo comes back again, I'll get it back from him. So take it."
Making a promise that could not be fulfilled, Hayward turned away.
As he walked off with slumped shoulders, Craid kept patting him on the back.
Before Mr. Jinseo appeared, the cook who represented the Doren Kingdom was unquestionably Mr. Marco.
The reason that man, who had once lost his passion for cooking and disappeared from sight, picked up a kitchen knife again was Mr. Jinseo's bunsik.
After many twists and turns, he became a member of the food truck, and he still remains in charge of the branch at Selfier Castle in the Girvante Kingdom.
The most recent news I heard was that, starting a few months ago, he had stopped coming out to the branch and had been shutting himself away in his personal kitchen, focusing only on researching bunsik.
I can understand why he made that choice.
He probably felt the same burden that I felt after inheriting the food truck from Mr. Jinseo.
Even though immersing himself only in cooking, like he used to, does seem like him, I still cannot help worrying.
I am planning to stop by the Girvante Kingdom soon, so after such a long time, I should go see him in person and greet him.
I will bring tteok-twi-sun that I made myself, and we can talk together about our memories of Mr. Jinseo.
The food truck branch located at Selfier Castle, the capital of the Girvante Kingdom.
Now, two years after Jinseo left, many customers still came to the branch to enjoy bunsik.
However, it had already been three months since Marco, who was supposed to lead the branch, stopped showing his face.
After Jinseo left the Francia Continent, he spared no effort in trying to further improve the bunsik Jinseo had left behind.
He mastered the various recipes Jinseo had brought from Korea and that Painfolt Artran had translated, and even beyond that, he refused to be satisfied, continually refining them and pouring his heart into creating even more delicious bunsik.
As a result, Marco spent more and more time shut away in his private kitchen, while the time he showed his face at the branch steadily decreased.
Jinseo's request that he continue making delicious bunsik even after he was gone had, before he knew it, become shackles that locked him away in solitude.
"Mr. Jinseo, about the breadcrumbs used in Japanese-style pork cutlet. In order to make it crispier..."
Marco turned his head to the side and asked the question, then realized there was no Jinseo to kindly answer him, and stood there blankly.
"In order to make it crispier..."
Repeating the words he had been saying, he ran his fingertips over the chopping board resting on the table.
After wandering for a long time, Marco picked up a kitchen knife again and became a member of the food truck, but the truth was that the time he spent together with Jinseo was not all that long.
Because he had joined late, each time he met Jinseo he spoke with even greater passion, having deep discussions about cooking, and whenever each of them proposed some brilliant new idea, they would admire one another.
"This is not the kind of thing I should be asking..."
Marco shook his head, regretting that he had not talked with Jinseo more.
Not about cooking, but about what kind of life Jinseo had lived, and what he had hoped for as he made bunsik.
If he had, perhaps when Jinseo chose Regression and tried to leave everyone behind, he might have been able to persuade him somehow. That lingering regret still remained.
"If he saw what I look like now, Mr. Jinseo would definitely scold me. Hahaha...."
Blaming himself for once again cutting himself off from others and burying himself only in cooking like he had in the past, without looking around at the people beside him, he set the kitchen knife down on the chopping board.
"Mr. Jinseo."
Marco looked down at the recipe book Jinseo had left behind, one he still had not fully mastered, and smiled faintly.
"You're doing well... right?"
The dragons written about in fairy tales and history books were beings of fear and awe, absolute beings that none could approach.
But the dragon I saw with my own two eyes was far too different from what I had imagined.
Blowing on her food with little huffs as she hurriedly ate freshly made tteok-twi-sun, then boldly gulped down cola before making an exhilarated expression, Lady Charlotte's face was no different from that of an ordinary human.
Even though she was not human, she expressed emotions more human than anyone else, and like everyone else, she grieved over her parting with Mr. Jinseo.
So much so that although everyone else gathered to see Mr. Jinseo off, she alone did not attend.
Even so, it is a relief that she seems to have recovered her spirits afterward.
Not because she forgot the sorrow of Mr. Jinseo's departure, but because she seems to be pouring her strength into educating her nephew, who had been walking a misguided path.
"Good job, good job, good job!"
Charlotte clapped over and over as she watched the children spinning in circles and dancing in front of her.
"Good job, good job... good job... huff, huff."
But unable to keep up with the vigorous energy of the children, who never tired no matter how much they ran around, she finally collapsed onto the spot, breathing hard.
No matter that she was a dragon, taking care of children was simply far too exhausting.
Whether that child was ten years old, or a nephew over two thousand years old.
"Whew, I should catch my breath and watch this."
Charlotte opened the Interspatial Storage, took out an iXpad, and started playing a video.
"You are still watching that video over and over."
"Oh, you're here?"
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