WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 74: 12. Academy Festival Common Sense (4)

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* * *

Arm straight, gaze and target aligned.

Inhale, exhale halfway. Hold.

Control the recoil and tremor, then slowly squeeze the trigger with your index finger. Fire.

-Bang!!

-Bang, bang!!

The time from recognizing a target to aiming and firing was less than a second. Testing the handgun's performance, Ivan pierced all twelve targets almost simultaneously.

"Senior, you're seriously giving it your all...?"

"Nicely done."

"No, uh..."

If there was a friendly armory, or a shooting booth, near the person he was protecting, checking its performance and zeroing the sights was basic common sense. It was a place where he could expect a supply of weapons should anything happen.

Ivan received the grand prize, an enormous doll, from the flustered Dmitry and handed it to Isabelle.

He heard awed murmurs and excited chatter, but ignored it. Hitting targets five meters away was hardly worth praise.

"Next."

"Uh... Mister, you're kind of enjoying this, aren't you...?"

Isabelle's eyes lit up as she clenched her fist.

"All right! At this rate, let's destroy the whole festival today!"

She nodded eagerly and took the lead.

Ivan was satisfied with how things were going too. Learning each booth's location and characteristics, and tiring the children out as much as possible, would help with his protection assignment.

* * *

Blindfolded pumpkin splitting with a wooden sword...

Hm. Wasn't this a Japanese custom? Ivan was confused.

"Put this on, then start four paces back!"

"Hm."

He put on the blindfold the booth owner handed him with such confidence and tested the wooden sword's weight. It was ordinary.

Naturally, splitting a pumpkin with a wooden sword was not a feat a beginner could manage. A pumpkin might look hard on the outside, but it was hollow within, making it a crop that absorbed impact.

To smash one with such a light wooden sword, one had to land a blow precisely on the right point. Doing it blindfolded was twice as difficult.

A skilled swordsman could judge the direction they faced even with their eyes shut, but aligning their blade's path down to the centimeter and driving it in required an advanced technique beyond repeated practice.

-Crack!

Ivan removed the blindfold and handed the booth owner the wooden sword dripping with pumpkin juice.

He received praise for the fastest successful strike and another needlessly huge doll, which he gave to Aesidis this time, then calmly turned away.

"Next."

"This mister is really enjoying himself!!"

For some reason, Isabelle seemed extremely excited.

* * *

A traditional game where players scooped up small fish with a paper net.

It was the sort of booth that tested delicate fingertip control, a skill that might be useful for survival or disarming traps.

"Next."

Throwing darts at a roulette wheel.

It was a comprehensive test of dynamic visual acuity, reaction speed, and throwing skill. It could be classified as assassination training.

"Next."

A traditional game where players threw small balls into rings.

Throwing small explosives was the most basic of basics, so Ivan achieved a score difference that even Harry Potter catching the Snitch could not overcome.

"Next."

* * *

That day, Isabelle, Aesidis, and Elphihara received armfuls of dolls, lollipops, blankets, fishbowls, and other prizes.

Only two hours had passed since they began exploring that morning.

* * *

This was surprisingly fun.

When Isabelle had first thought about going to the festival with this crazy old man, she had never expected things to turn out this way.

At most, she thought he would trail after them like a doll, only saying maddening things like "Hm." She had not expected him to enjoy the festival so seriously.

"Mister, hehe, thank you."

"Hm."

She had not received the prizes alone, but Ivan had generously distributed every bit of loot he won from the stalls among his party members.

Isabelle hugged the enormous brown bear doll, Krasilov's national animal, and smiled brightly. What did it matter if she gave up a few turns? She had practically monopolized him all morning.

"All right, you've played house long enough, haven't you? Let's go eat something! Ah, don't take that out! A proper meal!"

Grinning, Aesidis grabbed Ivan's arm and marched ahead.

"Is there anything you want to eat? We'll pick something you like, Uncle. Um... Meat? How about meat?"

"Whatever you want."

As they headed for the street packed with restaurants and taverns, Ivan slowly shook his head. Street food was all much the same.

They served greasy dishes with cheap ingredients and heavy spices, food with terrible nutritional balance.

It dissatisfied him, but he could not say he felt no pride either. After all, this abundance of goods and lively street scenes would have been hard to imagine only four years ago.

"Wow, there are really too many people..."

Aesidis leaned against Ivan's chest and whispered. Around lunchtime, the street lined with stalls had become far too crowded.

The rich scent of grilling meat filled the air. Ivan lightly wrapped an arm around Aesidis, protecting her as she pressed against him, and looked around.

The problem was not what to eat. It was finding somewhere to sit first.

"Brother!!!"

A shrill voice rang out from far away. Ivan turned and saw a familiar face jumping up and waving.

It was Eugene.

"Brother! Over here! Here! Wow, it's so good to see you in person!"

"...?"

"Come quickly! We're finished without you, brother!!"

The stall where Eugene stood had a strangely lonely atmosphere despite being in the middle of this bustling commercial district. Not a single customer was anywhere in sight.

Ivan soon understood why. Every passerby covered their nose and hurried away whenever they passed the stall.

A familiar yet peculiar stench wafted from it.

"Ugh, is that pickled herring...?"

"No."

Ivan looked at Eugene with unsteady eyes.

Eugene, Oswald behind him, and Yuri as well.

All of them watched him with confident, warm eyes.

Come on. Don't you recognize that smell?

Ah, right.

That was it.

That was exactly the smell.

Ivan barely managed to open his dry mouth.

"It's... kimchi."

"...? You know this dish?"

"Of course I do."

"Right... Um. Well, if it's something Uncle likes, I'll try it!"

It smelled like some kind of fermented salted dish. Was it another Droan specialty?

Isabelle from Tilles and Elphihara from Kallion already had stiff expressions.

Aesidis smiled triumphantly and led Ivan toward the stall.

* * *

"How did you even make this?"

"Pickled fish, vegetables, salt, and chili powder. If you mix them in order, they surprisingly turn into kimchi!"

"...Amazing..."

Ivan was genuinely impressed. Of all the many masterpieces he had created by mobilizing the sharp intellect of the modern twenty-first century, was the Nutrient Bar not the only one that had retained any practical value?

Three Koreans together really could think of making kimchi themselves.

This was not strange in itself. Salting vegetables with salt and spices was common in Krasilov too. Pickled carrots and mushroom pickles were made that way.

But seasoning it with fermented fish sauce, then letting the salted vegetables oxidize as they were... That was closer to simply rotting food, so it was a rather unusual cooking method.

With trembling eyes, Ivan looked down at the plate piled high with red cabbage.

"Um, Uncle. Are... are you going to eat that?"

"..."

Aesidis looked at him anxiously, but Ivan did not stop his chopsticks.

Chopsticks.

It had been so long since he last held them that he fumbled a few times. Still, the sensation brought back the emotions of an ancient past, making Ivan shiver slightly.

-Crunch.

The under-fermented lettuce broke with a cheerful crunch, and vegetable juice mixed with chili powder splattered around them. Isabelle recoiled with a shudder.

Then carefully, slowly, Ivan placed a piece of kimchi in his mouth for the first time in thirty years.

-Crunch, crunch.

The Kim Seonwoo within him suddenly awoke and screamed. He could have sworn he heard, "This isn't kimchi...!" but Ivan quickly composed himself. Unlike narrow-minded modern people with picky palates, Ivan was a very tolerant and generous man.

More than that, he simply wanted to fully enjoy this moment.

With the reverence of an ascetic monk, crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

"Do you have anything else?"

"We've prepared everything we could, brother. Hehehe..."

Eugene rubbed his hands together with a sly smile.

"Kimchi stew, stir-fried kimchi, tofu kimchi. What would you like first?"

"Tofu...? You have tofu too?"

"We didn't know how to make tofu, so we prepared something as close as possible. It looks the same. Since we're at it, you should try that first!"

At Eugene's gesture, Oswald came over with a large bowl, looking uneasy.

With an exaggerated flourish, Eugene respectfully set it on the table and spoke.

"The masterpiece of our fine dining, stir-fried kimchi with feta."

"Oh... Ohhh..."

Neat white rectangular blocks, slightly warped in places. Beneath them lay a generous bed of stir-fried cabbage.

With a little imagination, it was unmistakably tofu kimchi itself!

"Feta?"

"Yes, feta cheese. It's a traditional cheese made from sheep's milk. The taste is... beside the point, but it really looks and feels exactly the same."

"Oh..."

Ivan raised his chopsticks in admiration. Despite its firm texture, it crumbled softly when pressure was applied, not all that different from old tofu.

He placed a lump of stir-fried lettuce on it and took a bite, filling his mouth with saltiness.

Feta was one of the saltiest cheeses imaginable. Kimchi was fundamentally a type of salted vegetable. When their synergy combined, this honestly could not be called food fit for human consumption.

Ivan did not care. The taste was not important.

-Crunch!!

Mana raced through his nerves. With a surgeon's precision, he severed his sense of taste exactly, without the slightest error.

He induced an overload in his nervous system and focused the raging mana entirely on touch. Now, his sense of touch was sharp enough to predict the sign of an attack from the direction a trembling strand of hair moved.

Drawing on every bit of that skill, he slowly closed his molars.

-Crunch.

What people commonly called texture during chewing was a complex harmony of taste and touch. He had given up half of it by abandoning taste, but that was fine. A superhuman's sense of touch allowed him to feel every ingredient that touched his tongue, molars, and gums.

The beautiful result of that combination was this.

A block of cheese with a texture remarkably similar to firm, dried tofu, and which looked like tofu too.

Cabbage kimchi that was red, under-fermented, and crunchy, so poorly stir-fried that it had not even wilted.

As he enjoyed the vegetable stems springing back crisply beneath his molars and the cheese crumbling softly, pressed together by his teeth...

What did taste matter? This was the sensation of home. Ivan's extremely developed synesthesia had naturally been trained to the point where touch could evoke taste.

"Brother... Brother? Are you crying right now?"

"...Excellent..."

Among the three horrified transmigrators, Isabelle frozen in terror, Elphihara who had taken one bite and spat it all out, and Aesidis who held her nose while forcing down one piece after another,

Ivan shed a single tear.

* * *

"Hey, student."

"Yes, customer!!"

A man chewing on fried meat gestured to the stall attendant.

The attendant rushed over with a bright expression to this customer who was paying a suspiciously large amount of money.

"Can you see that man sitting at that stall over there?"

"Yes, customer!"

"Could you deliver this to him?"

"Huh? Um... You just want me to pass it along?"

"I'd appreciate it. This is for your trouble."

"Oh my!! You really don't have to! Yes, customer! I'll go right away!"

After bowing several times, the attendant headed toward the bizarre stall that reeked horribly. Toward the strange man sitting with several others at the booth that had not received a single customer all morning, stuffing food into his mouth alone.

Unable to contain their curiosity, the attendant opened the note along the way. It contained only a disorderly string of numbers that seemed meaningless.

What was this, some kind of assignment?

Thinking like a university student, the attendant delivered the note.

The man stared blankly at it, then suddenly grabbed the student by the scruff and growled.

"Who sent this?"

Ignoring the kimchi stew that had spilled everywhere, which contained neither kimchi nor was a stew, Ivan glared at the young student with a stupid expression.

No one was sitting where the terrified student pointed.

"Senior."

* * *

Footnotes:

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