[Essence of the Chef of Dasmur]
[Upon consumption, permanently gain one at random among a Dasmur chef’s traits, stats, or experiences.]
It had been quite a long time since I’d obtained this item.
A colossal dungeon that had upended Chuncheon.
This was the reward for clearing that dungeon.
“It’s already been months.”
Back then, the grade was too high for me to use.
Nothing less than a Top-Grade Ingredient.
When I acquired it,
my standing was only [Intermediate Chef].
“Touching a top-grade ingredient would’ve been too risky.”
At the time I couldn’t even handle it properly.
So I’d kept it tucked away carefully in my shadow.
But—
“Now is different.”
My level had surpassed 30.
After my class changed to [War Chef], my cooking-mastery trait also reached Advanced.
On top of that—
[Dining Hall Lv.4]
The Dining Hall, a facility that boosts a chef’s mastery.
I’d been steadily investing Occupation Points, and it had reached Level 4.
“I was too busy with this and that to have time to cook until now.”
It was winter.
Our unit had cut down external activity and moved into internal consolidation.
I suddenly had a lot more time.
At last,
I could attempt a proper dish.
“It seems like I could just eat it as-is and get an effect, but....”
According to [Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)],
this orb was a “Top-Grade Ingredient.”
Eat a top-grade ingredient raw without cooking it?
“That’d be a waste.”
I ransacked both my shadow and the unit’s food stores.
The ingredients inside.
From those, I pulled only the high-end items and carried them to the Dining Hall.
And—
“If I’m going to eat it, I should cook it right.”
I began full-on prep.
[Chef’s Eye]
[Butchering the Essence of the Chef of Dasmur]
[Recipe for the Essence of the Chef of Dasmur]
Since it was ultimately an ingredient,
[Chef’s Eye] activated normally.
From the information that flooded my head,
this essence was....
“Closer to water... as an ingredient?”
More precisely, a kind of broth.
Right now it looked like a small round orb.
But the instant I tried to use it in a dish,
this solid-looking orb would turn into a liquid.
“Dasmur... that dungeon’s concept was a world submerged in water.”
Considering this was a chef’s essence from that world,
there was nothing strange about the essence itself also taking a watery form.
“The problem is... how to cook it.”
With an ordinary ingredient, whatever.
But I needed to absorb as much of this “Essence of the Chef of Dasmur” as possible.
Meaning—
“I have to draw out the maximum effect while not degrading the base ingredient’s flavor.”
To cook it properly,
first I needed to know how it tasted.
I lit the burner.
Set a pot on top and dropped in the orb of essence.
Then—
[You are cooking the Essence of the Chef of Dasmur.]
The essence, which had been in the shape of a bead, seemed to melt rapidly,
turning into a clear liquid that filled the pot.
“Let’s see.”
I dipped a spoon into the pot and tasted it lightly.
The taste was...
“Like pork broth?”
If the flavor had been too unusual, I wouldn’t have known how to cook it.
I’d secretly worried,
but this was an ingredient pretty common in Korean cuisine:
a taste and aroma similar to pork-bone broth.
Wait.
If it was pork-broth-like—
A grin.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea how to do this....”
With the dish I had in mind,
I could add a lot of ingredients without worrying that the flavor would fall off a cliff.
****
I needed to raise the dish’s effect.
The method was simpler than you’d think.
First, improve the flavor.
And second—
“Throw in every ingredient with strong effects.”
Monsters our unit had hunted.
Monsters survivors had brought in to trade for combat rations.
And even otherworldly plants harvested from the Ammunition Battalion’s farm.
Setting aside anything with an overpoweringly peculiar aroma or taste,
I tossed in everything that seemed potent.
“It’d be a shame to stop here.”
I added soy sauce and red pepper paste,
then sprinkled a little red pepper powder to build a pleasant burn.
Brought it all to a rolling boil.
“I’ve never made a dish with this exact set of ingredients, but hey.”
I was confident the dish would come out delicious.
Because the dish I intended was—
Ding.
[Your dish is complete.]
[War Chef’s Wholehearted Dasmur Army Stew]
Army stew.
[This dish was made for a specific person. Its effects increase.]
[A dish lavishly filled with high-grade ingredients. Its effects increase greatly!]
Army stew.
In the lean, hungry years,
people took leftover ingredients from U.S. military bases,
threw everything in, added red pepper paste and red pepper powder, and boiled it—so the story goes.
True to its origin—“made by putting anything in”—
it’s a dish that rarely loses flavor even if you add a few extra things.
“The name ‘army stew’ fits pretty well, too.”
In practice,
I’d essentially dumped in the remnants of our unit’s ingredients.
Most important of all—
the effect.
[Upon consumption, permanently gain two at random among a Dasmur chef’s traits, stats, or experiences.]
Just like the name “essence,”
this stew contained everything of a chef from another world.
Traits and stats,
and even experiences.
“By making a high-quality dish, I can get two of the three....”
In raw-ingredient form, you supposedly only got one of the three.
By cooking it with everything I had, I’d at least secured one more.
“But it’s random.”
The problem:
I didn’t get to choose.
“I was hoping cooking it would erase that line, but no.”
Traits, stats, experience.
A chance to gain two at random among those three.
“Among the three....”
What I should aim for was basically obvious.
“Please, traits and stats. Please, traits and stats.”
Traits.
And stats.
My stats were already high, but there’s no harm in pushing them higher.
Though, since they were already high, they weren’t strictly necessary.
The most important thing
was traits.
“Because you can’t buy traits with Points.”
Unlike skills you can obtain by purchasing a [Random Skillbook],
traits don’t appear in the Points Shop.
They’re abilities you can only get through achievements
or leveling up.
My goal ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ now was to purge the monster in that power plant safely.
For that, I needed a new ability that could present a solution.
I was desperate for a trait.
As for the rest—
“Experience? I just need to avoid that.”
“Chef’s experience” sounds impressive,
but it’s still the experience of an alien species.
“That won’t help me.”
That was the one thing I absolutely had to dodge.
Please—
traits and stats...!
Praying like that,
I dipped my spoon into the stew.
“Burp.”
I emptied the bowl.
Then—
[The effect of the skill — Absolute Palate — activates.]
“...Ah, right.”
Come to think of it,
there was that skill.
The passive effect of “Absolute Palate.”
It was—
[For yourself, greatly increases the effects gained through dishes.]
I was just about to check the dish’s effect
when—
[You will permanently gain two at random among a Dasmur chef’s traits, stats, or experiences.]
->
[You will permanently gain a Dasmur chef’s traits, stats, and experiences.]
“Huh?”
My vision went pitch-black.
****
When I came to,
I had arrived in an unknown space.
“...What!?”
No.
Ending up in an unknown space wasn’t the real issue.
The real issue was—
“......”
The being standing before my eyes.
A face that looked half fish, half human.
Similar to what I’d seen before
in the [Erosion Abyss Dasmur] dungeon—
a merman’s face.
“Monster!”
Its appearance resembled the [Pontiff of the Deep Ones].
The saving grace, if any,
was that unlike the Pontiff, who’d stood at five meters tall,
the monster before me seemed to be at about my eye level.
“If it were an enemy on the Pontiff’s level, that would be impossible... but one of these, I can manage.”
I hadn’t exactly been idle all this time.
I was confident I wouldn’t fall behind against most foes.
I moved both hands in a rush.
One hand reached for the [Combat Rations] pouch.
The other tried to draw the [Old-Pattern Sashimi Knife] at my waist, but—
“...!?”
Contrary to my intent,
neither hand budged.
“My body won’t move...!?”
To have my body refuse to move with an enemy right in front of me—
panicking, I tried with all my strength to force motion,
but my body didn’t show the slightest sign of moving.
As if—
“it weren’t my body.”
At that moment,
the monster’s mouth slowly opened.
“His Holiness’s health... has been worsening by the day.”
But,
instead of lunging to bite off my flesh as I’d expected,
what came out of its mouth were rather calm words.
“What kind of nonsense....”
That’s what I wanted to say,
but like my hands and feet, my mouth wouldn’t move as I willed.
It would’ve been better if I’d stayed silent.
“I see. Of all times, now....”
What came out of my mouth
was a regretful answer I hadn’t thought at all.
“...What is this?”
At this point
I could at least tell something was off.
“My mouth” opened again on its own.
“What do the clergy say? I heard they were devoting themselves to His Holiness’s treatment along with the healers.”
“No good news.”
The monster sighed as it spoke.
“The disease is one thing, but the decline in vitality from age is too great. No matter how much sacred power we pour in, we can only hold back the disease’s progress. It will be hard to overcome.”
“Aging is a natural order prepared by God....”
“Mm. The priests say there is no way to reverse that.”
At those words,
“I” answered with genuine sadness.
“That can’t be....”
“So. I ask a favor.”
“A favor?”
“From today, make the menu as healthy as possible.”
At that,
“I” hesitated a little before answering.
“In that case, the taste will inevitably suffer. His Holiness is a very picky eater....”
“It can’t be helped. His Holiness will understand.”
“Mm. Understood.”
The monster who had addressed me turned its back and left the building.
When it vanished,
“I,” left alone, paced around restlessly,
then started muttering to myself.
“For His Holiness’s health to be that poor....”
“For recovery of vitality... I should request permission to use a Sacred Beast byproduct.”
As if making a decision,
“I” stopped muttering.
As my view shifted a bit to the side—
“...Where is this?”
I saw the scenery outside.
Spread before my eyes—
“the sea?”
Seawater high enough to cover “my” body.
And reflected in that seawater—
“Me... no.”
A face similar to human,
yet scaled, with seaweed-like hair sprouting here and there.
“Dasmurian.”
Only then
could I grasp the situation precisely.
“So experience... was like this.”
This was, most likely,
a Dasmur chef’s memory.
A species I had driven to extinction—
the “Dasmurian.”
I was peeking into that chef’s memories.
