Chapter 34: New Family Members (3)

TL: Haku

Editor: Hungry Panda

“Whew…”

The kitchen of the Duke of Trepin’s Castle.

Harin was sweating profusely as she was cooking something.

“Is it a success this time?”

A steaming cream soup in a luxurious bowl was in front of Harin.

It was even a ultra luxurious soup as a lobster swimming in it.

And a system message that her eyes were waiting for popped up.

“Alright!”

Harin smiled brightly, enough to show her pearly white teeth.

She wiped the beads of sweat that were trailing down her forehead, as she checked the information of the dish.

Lobster Cream Soup

Category – Soup Dish

Rank – Luxurious

Dish Score – 275

Dish Value – 9235 gold

Satiation – +80

It’s a luxurious dish harmonizing the tender meat of a lobster and savoury cream.

It was made through the influence of a wonderful chef, whose Cooking Proficiency has reached high-cla.s.s.

Inherent Ability

After consumption, for 3 hours, your Vitality increases by 500 and your Offensive Power increases by 20%.

As Harin read the information window of the dish, she felt it was worthwhile. A dish she liked was made.

‘If I just work a little harder, I’ll be able to make dishes that will be worth over 10,000 gold!’

The Dish Value that was written in the Dish Information had something to do with the worth that it would be set around at when you set up a restaurant in Kailran and sold it.

The Lobster Cream Soup’s worth was 9235 gold.

When converted into cash, it was a little less than 20,000 Won[1].

If its value went up a little more, there wouldn’t be much difference in price from luxurious food you ate in reality.

On top of that, since the Lobster Cream Soup’s production cost was a little less than 4 thousand, she felt that she could survive just setting up a store and selling food in Kailran in the future.

“Shall I rest a little now?”

It seemed as though Harin’s throat was dry as she gulped down cold water, while she sat in the corner of the kitchen.

‘But surely after coming into the kitchen of the Duke’s Castle, my Cooking Proficiency is increasing quickly.’

A satisfied smile formed on Harin’s mouth.

And naturally, she remembered Ian, who did the Camping Ground Quest with her.

‘I wonder what Ian is doing right now.’

However, just then, a message popped up in front of Harin’s eyes.

Harin was momentarily taken aback at the very excellent timing of the arrival of Ian’s message but she responded hurriedly.

And shortly after, Ian’s message continued in a slightly cautious manner.

Harin’s face lit up.

As dishes could not be sold in the auction, she could only set up a restaurant or sell to users personally, but Ian had proposed first just in time.

On top of that, while grinding to raise her Proficiency, there were mountains of food made by her.

‘It’s absolutely not because I miss Ian.’

Harin forcibly denied her unknown(?) feelings as she sent a message to Ian.

Harin, who sent the message, hurriedly began to clean up the kitchen.

Ian, who met Harin in the square of the Duke’s Castle, was fobbed off with all the food, the products of Harin’s grinding from the past two days.

“I’m really only taking the ingredient cost for all this.”

At Harin’s words, Ian laughed bashfully.

“Haha, I don’t mind buying this at the full price…”

“No, Ian, I was able to complete a cla.s.s quest that I was stuck on thanks to you, and even get this necklace, so I should at least do this for you.”

While Ian looked at the food he received from Harin, he was in shock.

This was because this was the first time he had seen dishes that were worth thousands of gold.

Even by just adding up the value roughly written in the information windows, it seemed as though it was well over 200,000 gold.

Quant.i.tatively as well as qualitatively, it was an incredible amount.

The payment of 30,000 gold that Harin was taking as the price for the dishes was so low that he was feeling apologetic.

“Thank you, Harin. How will I repay this grace…”

At Ian’s chatter, Harin’s eyes slightly shone.

“Then, would you mind doing me two favours?”

At Harin’s words that were out of his expectation, Ian was momentarily taken aback.

‘As… As expected. There was no reason for her to give such expensive dishes so cheaply.’

Ian blamed his thoughtless mouth but he couldn’t go back now.

“Of, of course. Whatever it is, just say it.”

Harin felt that Ian’s pupil slightly quivered but she ignored it as she continued her words.

“Hm, my first favour is.”

Harin pulled out a small memo pad from her chest.

“…?”

Harin held out her memo pad to Ian.

“You said you’re going to the northern area to hunt. The ingredients written here can only be found in the north. Please collect these as you see them.”

Different cooking ingredients were jam-packed on the memo pad and written in very small letters.

Ian nodded his head at the favour that wasn’t too difficult.

“Well, something like that is no problem…”

“And my second favour is.”

Ian was startled.

‘What the h.e.l.l, there’s a second?’

He was nervous.

This was because Harin’s way of speaking was unusual.

‘What the h.e.l.l? What kind of favour will she ask? Will she ask me to help her with another quest? Or, she won’t make me an a.s.sistant chef or something like that, right?’

There was only one thing that Ian was afraid of.

That was exactly losing time to level up, as his heart was unsteady that he wasn’t able to hunt for two days while trying to extend new family members recently.

Harin opened her mouth towards Ian, who shook uneasily(?).

The favour that was completely unpredictable.

“Help me with my next school a.s.signment!”

“Huh?”

At Ian’s response that came out in an almost reflexive manner, Harin smiled pleasantly as she blinked her big eyes.

‘School a.s.signment? Is it not a favour that’s in-game?’

Harin’s words continued.

“When I asked Carwin, I heard that you’re attending Korea University.”

Ian nodded with a bitter expression.

“I’m also a student at Korea University. I’m a second year in the Department of Hotel Cuisine.”

Ian began to feel confused.

“Ah…”

“You like to eat delicious things, right, Ian?”

Ian nodded with a bitter expression.

“That, that’s right.”

“Our department has a vacation a.s.signment and you just need to help me a little with that.”

Ian was lamenting.

‘I even need to get out of the house?’

This unlucky feeling that he’ll be sacrificing at least 1 level!

“What… What’s the a.s.signment?”

Harin smiled brightly.

“It’s an a.s.signment where we need to develop our own recipe during the break individually.”

It was a Department of Hotel Cuisine-like vacation a.s.signment. However, Ian wondered.

“Will I… even be of help? I can’t even cook ramen properly…”

However, Ian’s worry proved to be unfounded.

From the beginning, there was no reason for Harin to expect anything related to cooking from Ian.

“Don’t worry. You just need to eat.”

“Huh?”

“You just need to eat all the food I make and pick the most delicious one.”

Harin added another word towards Ian, who was in a daze.

“You must help me, alright?”

Ian, who separated with Harin, lastly headed towards the auction.

‘Euh… Why the h.e.l.l did Harin exactly ask me to help her with something like that?’

Ian began to think critically about the reason why Harin asked him for his help with her vacation a.s.signment.

‘Is it possibly because she has no friends that could eat her dishes for her? Since Harin is a little unique, she does seem like she might not have any friends…’

Ian, who thought he was extremely normal, was troubled.

‘Still, it’s a relief. If it’s just something like eating a couple dishes and coming back, it shouldn’t take up that much time. She probably asked me to come to the school’s lab, right?’

In the meantime, Ian was diligently calculating the amount of time that would be used up.

‘If I run out the rented room, 30 minutes should be enough to get there and back.’

Ian’s mind got complicated.

Ian, who was already at 7125 days of solo life, could not even grasp the sense of what Harin’s feelings were.

However, as he reached the auction, before he knew it, he had completely forgotten what Harin had said and began to diligently change his items.

There were many reasons why he had 20 years of experience living a solo life.

Before he knew it, Ian’s mind was so focused that it seemed like he would be sucked into the list of auction goods.

‘This place is quite dangerous and there isn’t a lot of information. I need to set myself up with just the best level equipment.’

Ian switched out most of his equipment parts with a large sum of about 400,000 gold and lastly began to search for a weapon.

As Ian had to cover his living expenses without the support of his parents, he normally had an incredibly scrooge-like mind.

However, when purchasing items for hunting, he spent his gold incredibly liberally even before resetting.

When buying a set of clothes to wear outside, he even found 10,000 Won[2] to be a waste but it was Ian, who purchased items with asking prices that were worth hundreds of thousands of Won without much thought.

‘Could there possibly be a bow with an effect similar to the Mother Nature’s set?’

Because he realized that it was difficult to display his fighting power with a staff, he wanted to switch to a bow if he could.

However, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find a bow with the option to reinforce Familiars.

‘Let’s broaden the search range.’

Firstly, he didn’t have a restriction on the weapon type and as he began to search through weapons that were related to options reinforcing Familiars, quite a lot of things popped up.

And amongst them, Ian discovered a weapon with a modifier that really drew his eyes towards it.

‘Ancient Summoner’s Knuckle?’

Ian hurriedly clicked on it.

Ancient Summoner’s Steel Knuckle

Cla.s.sification – Knuckle

Rank – Heroic

Equip Limit – Over lv 38

Offensive Power – 205-235

Durability – 314/314

Option – Strength +20

Agility +15%

Leaders.h.i.+p +40

All Vitality of Familiars that are summoned increases by 10% and their Offensive Power increases by 25%. The critical strike damage of the Familiars increases by 55%.

When critical damage is dealt to an enemy, an inherent ability from one of the summoned Familiars will be invoked randomly.

(An ability that cannot be activated by physical conditions will not be invoked.)

A weapon used by incredible, ancient Summoners and has the ability to respond to Familiars.

There was nothing to think about.

‘I need to buy this no matter what!’

Ian momentarily flinched at the high price of 900,000 gold but his finger was already pressing the purchase b.u.t.ton.

“Euh… it is a little expensive but with these kinds of stats, there should be no problem using it up to at least lv 50, so…’

It was quite a big spending but it was that worthy of an item.

Especially the ‘when critical damage is dealt to an enemy, an inherent ability from one of the summoned Familiars will be invoked randomly.’ part was appealing.

‘It’s a relief that there’s an invoke restriction.’

The restriction that an ability that cannot be activated by physical conditions will not be invoked…

Ian, who remembered Bbookbbook’s inherent ability, momentarily had gooseb.u.mps.

If it wasn’t for that restriction, the ability to squeeze into Bbookbbook’s sh.e.l.l may have manifested.

‘If that skill was invoked, will my neck also go in like a turtle’s neck?’

Of course, that wouldn’t have been the case, but as it was such an appalling thought even just by imagining it, Ian’s body s.h.i.+vered.

‘Now, let’s go to Crupia Snow Mountain!’

All preparations were complete.

Now endless hunting awaited Ian.

To use the portal that went to the northern continent, Ian moved towards the gate in the middle of the town.