WeTried Translations x Flame Comics
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 126: 18. A Date in an Academy Story (2)
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Before carrying out the operation Elizaveta had tacitly approved, Ivan had to take care of the second most important part of his daily routine.
Isabelle’s dinner.
(The most important part was grooming time.)
Ever since last week’s dinner, Isabelle had been holding a weekly kimchi festival. It went something like this.
“This week, we’re having pasta dressed with stir-fried kimchi!”
“Oh....”
Or.
“This week, we’ll have beef sirloin bourguignon with wine-pickled kimchi!”
“Braised kimchi...!!”
Or perhaps.
“This week, we’re having the kimchi risotto from last time with bacon rolls!”
“Uncle, are you crying?”
“Mm.”
It was a feast of hometown dishes. Or rather, it wasn’t.
They no longer resembled the kimchi he remembered. The preparation was different, the ingredients were different, and even the shape was different. Still, kimchi was kimchi.
Even on Earth, anything mostly made of vegetables and fermented was often lumped into roughly the same category as kimchi. It didn’t matter whether it was made with carrots or cabbage.
So Isabelle’s kimchi could still be called kimchi, even though only its snow-white color resembled white kimchi, and it was in the primitive form of being seasoned solely with salt and salted seafood.
Besides, no matter how poorly kimchi turned out, it became delicious once stir-fried or braised. The owners of frozen pork belly restaurants on Earth had proven that many times.
Naturally, Ivan began entertaining a forbidden vision, one that contained the hopes of every Korean.
‘Couldn’t I eat Spam wrapped in kimchi?’
There was kimchi, and there was Spam.
Spam was, in truth, a type of pressed ham. It was a military ration made by mixing ground meat with flour, then compressing it.
Ivan had food made according to a very similar design philosophy.
‘Nutrient Bar...!’
Ground meat mixed with grain, hardened in pork fat, and compressed to improve preservation. A product of perfect nutritional design.
This advanced food, created through the concentrated technology of modern civilization, could be considered a kind of pressed ham. The process and result were not all that different.
What sort of result would come from stir-frying or braising it with kimchi?
“Gweeeeh....”
“U-Uncle... Uncle’s trying to kill me... kill all of us!!”
“Do humans eat dog food? Or was dog food originally something humans ate? Then it isn’t dog food, it’s human food, isn’t it? If that’s the case, why didn’t I stop that person back then? Couldn’t we have just been happy together in the dungeon?”
Ivan ignored the students who had fallen into delirium. He was an excellent agent, and an agent had to seek a solution before grieving over failure.
Minor setbacks and the collapse of comrades caused by them were constants during an operation. They could happen at any time.
So the solution Ivan found was this.
“You want me to make this... edible?”
“Mm.”
“Do I look like an alchemist to you?”
“You look like a Hero.”
“!!!”
At this moment, you’re even greater than your father.
With that sentiment in his heart, along with a measure of the reverence people felt when looking up at the Hero who stood before the Demon King, Ivan addressed the pioneer of K-food, a Tilles native who had first conceived of edible kimchi dishes in this world.
“Fine, I’ll give it a try!”
Isabelle resolved to mix Ivan’s “Spam” that was not Spam and “kimchi” that was not kimchi to create “stir-fried kimchi Spam” that was not stir-fried kimchi Spam.
That had been last week.
Today, he would get to taste the result.
“It’s been ten years since I felt this way.”
Ivan muttered as he looked down indifferently at his faintly trembling hands.
Today’s Survival Skills class had ended successfully, with only thirteen dropouts out of forty-two students.
It couldn’t be helped that the class had become somewhat less harmful. When he couldn’t devote his full concentration to it, this sort of lesson could pose a serious threat to the students’ safety.
“Ah, Brother!”
After class, Eugene emerged from among the students staggering away. He approached with a grin and whispered quietly.
“You’re going today too, right? To Miss Isabelle’s dinner banquet.”
“Mm.”
“I wonder if I should really tag along.”
“Mm?”
Someone from Earth should not let this opportunity pass them by.
Ivan quietly sighed. It seemed Eugene had not been here long enough to miss the food of home.
A regrettable thing. In another thirty years, he would be begging for it himself.
“It’s not like we’re the people Miss Isabelle wants to feed. We can just ask her to pack us some leftovers after they’ve gone cold.”
“Food tastes best when it’s hot.”
“You usually eat things that resemble logs, so what are you talking about...? Miss Isabelle likes you, Brother. We’d just be getting in the way.”
“...?”
Ivan let out a hollow laugh at Eugene’s words.
As he had reflected before, he was the embodiment of objective self-awareness. That meant he was a reasonable, rational, and impartial man. Among the few flaws he had identified in himself, excessive self-consciousness was not one of them.
He could not possibly be the protagonist of situations 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 difference between him and Isabelle, and humans within the average range did not easily feel attraction toward someone of the opposite sex who was over ten years older.
On top of that, he had spent a long time in military service. Soldiers always looked older than they were. Command sergeants major who looked sixty were often only in their forties.
Even if his long, luxuriant beard had improved his appeal, the absolute age difference itself was an enormous barrier.
He had lived through too much to seriously think, She likes me, over one small kindness while ignoring all those conditions.
It would be the same even if the other person’s affection were genuine. Everyone he had loved, and everyone who had loved him, was dead. He had no desire to go through that again.
They were people he would eventually have to leave behind anyway.
“Don’t say such pointless things. Think about Isabelle’s feelings too.”
“Uh...? Uh?”
After offering mature advice to soothe the foolish transmigrator, Ivan finished tidying the classroom.
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“Hmm....”
In general, the records of others displayed in the Status Window only included [Name], [Age], [Species], and perhaps [Level].
Other information gradually unlocked according to [Affinity] and [Understanding], as was customary in Status Window system stories.
From Eugene’s perspective, that meant he could inspect the information of people he had become sufficiently close to.
[Isabelle de Etoile]
[Hero]
[Lv. 37]
[Mana Detection Lv. 3
Survival Instinct Lv. 2
Master of the Sword Lv. 1
Hero Swordsmanship Style Lv. 7
Tilles-style Cuisine Lv. 9]
For people he had figured out, he could more or less inspect even their skill windows. If [Understanding] rose a little further....
“Miss Isabelle likes Brother.”
-Ding!
[Understanding of this individual has increased.]
[Affection toward Individual: Ivan Petrovich Yermof]
[91 (Extremely Favorable)]
“Looks like I was right....”
Eugene scratched his head and started walking.
Not that he had any reason to help Isabelle.
Even if he did help, there was no way things would work out with Brother’s personality.
“Does Brother like Miss Isabelle?”
[Ivan Petrovich Yermof]
[Affection toward Individual: Isabelle de Etoile]
[27 (Neutral)]
“Ah-ha.”
Eugene snickered and packed his bag. Just before leaving the empty classroom, he stopped and looked into the air.
“Status Window, what does Brother think of us?”
[Affection toward Individual: Yevgeny Novikov Karamzin]
[21 (Neutral)]
[Affection toward Individual: Oswald Eastvelpen]
[20 (Neutral)]
[Affection toward Individual: Yuri Frank]
[20 (Neutral)]
“Wow.”
He was really straightforward.
Eugene snickered and shook his head. Romance and even their shared origin in the same world did not seem to make much difference to Ivan.
“Is there anyone Brother likes? Someone with an affection score above fifty.”
He had asked without expecting much, but the Status Window immediately flashed blue.
[Affection toward Individual: Ivan Seregeyevich Krasilov]
[99 (Absolute)]
[This value cannot change due to the target’s death.]
[Affection toward Individual: Raella Cherenovika]
[87 (Very Favorable)]
[This value cannot change due to the target’s death.]
[Affection toward Individual: Alexei Verkhovsky]
[83 (Very Favorable)]
[This value cannot change due to the target’s death.]
Eugene stared blankly at the blue light filling his vision, his mouth slightly open.
Carefully, he reached out and scrolled down. The list, arranged in descending order of affection, continued without end.
Due to the target’s death.
Due to the target’s death.
Due to the target’s death.
That sentence was always attached to people of every kind, with vastly different names and affection scores.
After scrolling for a long time, Eugene finally closed the Status Window and lowered his head.
“Well, won’t it be all right once he gets to know us better?”
Eugene nodded cheerfully and picked up his bag. Starting tonight, he would help Miss Isabelle a little. Maybe something would change somehow.
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Footnotes:
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