Before carrying out the operation Elizaveta had tacitly approved, Ivan had to attend to the second most important part of his daily routine: dinner with Isabelle. (The most important was grooming time.)
Since that first dinner, Isabelle had been holding a weekly kimchi festival. It went something like this.
“This week, we have pasta dressed with stir-fried kimchi!”
“Oh...”
Or:
“This week, we'll be having beef sirloin bourguignon with wine-marinated kimchi!”
“Braised kimchi...!!”
Or else:
“This week, we'll be serving the kimchi risotto we had last time with bacon rolls!”
“Uncle, are you crying?”
“Mm.”
It was a veritable feast of food from home (it wasn't). It no longer looked like the kimchi he remembered, nor was it made the same way or from the same ingredients. But wasn't that what kimchi was, anyway?
Come to think of it, even on Earth, pretty much anything made from fermented vegetables was treated as belonging to roughly the same family. Whether you made it with carrots or cabbage, it was all the same.
So Isabelle's kimchi could still be called kimchi, despite its snowy color, bordering on white kimchi, and its primitive preparation, seasoned with nothing but salt and fermented seafood.
And most kimchi tasted good once you stir-fried or braised it, however unfinished it might be. The proprietors of Earth's frozen pork-belly restaurants had proved that time and again.
Thus, at this point, a thought naturally occurred to Ivan. He wanted to practice a forbidden secret art that embodied the aspirations of every Korean.
'Couldn't I wrap some Xpam in kimchi?'
He had kimchi, and didn't he have Xpam, too? Xpam was really a kind of pressed ham, a military ration made by mixing minced meat with flour and compressing it.
And Ivan had a food manufactured with a very similar design philosophy.
'Nutrition bars...!'
Minced meat mixed with grain, set in lard, then compressed for a longer shelf life. The product of a perfect nutritional design.
This cutting-edge food, a distillation of modern civilization's technology, could be considered a kind of pressed ham. Neither the production method nor the finished result was all that different.
So what would happen if he stir-fried or braised it with kimchi?
“Bleeergh—”
“U-Un-Uncle... Uncle's trying to kill me... All of us!!”
“Do humans eat dog food, too? Or was dog food always meant for humans? Then it isn't dog food. It's human food, isn't it? If this was going to happen, why didn't I stop him back then? Couldn't we have just been happy together in the dungeon?”
He ignored the delirious students. Ivan was an excellent agent, and an agent had to seek a solution before lamenting a failure.
Minor failures during an operation, and the resulting collapse of one's comrades, were constants. They could happen at any time.
And so, this was the solution Ivan found.
“You want me to make this... edible?”
“Mm.”
“Do I look like an alchemist to you?”
“You look like a hero.”
“!!!”
In this moment, at least, you surpass your father.
That was the sentiment behind his words, with a spoonful of the reverence ordinary people felt as they gazed up at the hero stepping forward to face the Demon King.
Words addressed to the pioneer of K-food (a native of Thilles), who had first introduced the very concept of “edible kimchi dishes” to this world.
“Fine, I'll give it a shot!”
Isabelle resolved to combine Ivan's “Xpam (it wasn't)” and “kimchi (it wasn't)” into “stir-fried kimchi and Xpam (it wasn't).”
That had been last week.
And today, he would get to taste the results.
“I haven't felt like this in ten years.”
Ivan murmured as he gazed dispassionately at his faintly trembling hands.
Today's “Survival Skills” class had concluded with great success: only thirteen of the forty-two students had fallen behind.
The slightly gentler lessons were unavoidable. When he couldn't give them his full concentration, this kind of class could easily pose a serious threat to student safety.
“Oh, Boss!”
Eugene popped out from among the students staggering away after class. He approached with a grin and whispered quietly.
“You're going again today, right? To Miss Isabelle's dinner?”
“Mm.”
“Well, well. I wonder if I should really be tagging along?”
“Hm?”
Anyone from Earth ought to know better than to miss this opportunity.
Ivan sighed quietly. Apparently, not enough time had passed since Eugene's possession for him to miss food from home.
What a shame. Give it another thirty years, and he would be begging for it himself.
“Well, we aren't the ones Miss Isabelle wants to feed, are we? The rest of us can just ask her to pack up some leftovers later, even if they're cold.”
“Food tastes best when it's warm.”
“Seriously? You're saying that when you normally eat what look like blocks of wood...? Miss Isabelle likes you, Boss. The rest of us are just in the way.”
“...?”
Ivan couldn't help letting out an incredulous laugh.
As he had reflected before, he was objectivity about oneself incarnate. In other words, he was unbiased, rational, and sensible. An inflated sense of self-importance was not among the few faults he had identified in himself.
He couldn't very well become the subject of something like “My dad's friend keeps hitting on me” or “My professor wants to have dinner alone with me. What should I do?”
There was a fifteen-year age gap between him and Isabelle, and on average, people weren't readily attracted to members of the opposite sex ten or more years their senior.
Besides, he had spent many years in military service. Soldiers invariably looked older than their age. Just as command sergeants major might look sixty when they were actually in their forties.
Even if his long, luxuriant beard enhanced his appeal, the sheer age difference was a formidable barrier in itself.
He had been through far too much to ignore all those conditions and seriously wonder, 'Does she like me?' over a small act of kindness.
Even if her affection were genuine, it would make no difference. The people who had loved him, and the people he had loved, were all dead. He had no wish to go through that again.
Weren't these people he would have to leave someday, no matter what?
“Don't talk nonsense. Think of Isabelle's feelings.”
“Uh...? Huh?”
Having gently set the foolish Possessor straight with some mature advice, Ivan finished tidying the classroom.
* * *
“Hmm...”
Normally, the only information the Status window displayed about other people was their [Name], [Age], and [Race], plus their [Level].
Other information gradually unlocked according to [Affinity] and [Understanding]. Just as it did in the usual system stories with status windows.
In other words, Eugene could access information on people he had “grown close enough to.”
[Isabelle de Etoile]
[Hero]
[Lv.37]
[Mana Detection Lv.3
Survival Instinct Lv.2
Sword Master Lv.1
Swordsmanship Style: Hero Lv.7
Thilles-Style Cooking Lv.9]
Like this: if he had a grasp of someone, he could more or less inspect their skill window, too. And if he added a little more [Understanding]...
“Miss Isabelle likes Boss.”
DING!
[Your understanding of this character increases.]
[Character: Favorability toward Ivan Petrovich Yeremov]
[91 (Extremely Friendly)]
“I think... I was right.”
Eugene scratched his head vigorously and moved on.
Well, there was no particular reason for him to help Miss Isabelle.
And with Boss's personality, even if he did help, there was no way it would work out.
“Does Boss like Miss Isabelle?”
[Ivan Petrovich Yeremov]
[Character: Favorability toward Isabelle de Etoile]
[27 (Neutral)]
“Aha.”
Eugene chuckled and packed his bag. Just before leaving the empty classroom, he suddenly stopped and stared into the air.
“Status window, what does Boss think of us?”
[Character: Favorability toward Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin]
[21 (Neutral)]
[Character: Favorability toward Oswald Eastvelfen]
[20 (Neutral)]
[Character: Favorability toward Yuri Frank]
[20 (Neutral)]
“Wow.”
That was remarkably dispassionate.
Eugene chuckled and shook his head. Neither romantic prospects nor the bond of coming from the same world made much of a difference, then.
“Is there anyone Boss actually likes? Anyone with a favorability of fifty or higher?”
He asked without expecting much, but the Status window immediately flashed blue.
[Character: Favorability toward Ivan Seregeyevich Krasilof]
[99 (Absolute)]
[This value cannot change due to the subject's death.]
[Character: Favorability toward Raella Cherenovika]
[87 (Very Friendly)]
[This value cannot change due to the subject's death.]
[Character: Favorability toward Alexei Verkhsky]
[83 (Very Friendly)]
[This value cannot change due to the subject's death.]
Eugene stared at the brilliant blue light filling his vision, his mouth hanging open for a moment.
He cautiously reached out and scrolled down. The list, sorted by favorability in descending order, kept rolling past.
Due to the subject's death.
Due to the subject's death.
Due to the subject's death.
Their names and favorability scores varied wildly, but every one of those countless people had that sentence attached to the end of their entry.
After scrolling for a long time, Eugene finally closed the Status window and quietly bowed his head.
“Well, won't it be all right if we get to know each other better from now on?”
Eugene gave a brisk nod and picked up his bag. He would start by helping Miss Isabelle out at dinner tonight. Surely something would change then, one way or another.
