1 – Welcoming the New Year

Ding-dong.

The sound of the doorbell echoed through the spacious house.

Ha-yeon, who was on her phone in the living room, turned off her phone and looked at the intercom.

“Already here?”

After confirming who rang the bell, she opened the front door without delay, revealing a blue-haired beauty.

It was Elin Maiasa.

“Why are you here so early? Wasn’t our appointment for 8 o’clock?”

Today was the last day of the year.

Therefore, she had invited people she was casually acquainted with to her house, and the appointment time was 8 o’clock, but it was only 6 o’clock now.

“I came to help. Aren’t you making dinner?”

“I was just going to order something… like chicken, sweet and sour chicken, or chicken feet.”

“With this Level 1 chef here? Besides, why is it all chicken dishes?”

Come to think of it, Ha-yeon remembered Elin being quite good at cooking.

As a Hunter, she hadn’t bothered to get a license, but she could easily get one if she wanted to.

She hadn’t realized that.

“But I don’t have any ingredients at my house.”

“Don’t worry, I bought them.”

She said, showing the interdimensional artifact hanging on her finger.

Ha-yeon, letting out a hollow laugh at her perfect preparation, guided Elin to the living room and prepared to assist her.

After changing into neat clothes, she saw Elin wearing a stylish apron that she had brought, and she also put on an apron over her clothes.

“What are you going to make?”

“Hmm… Dakgalbi and glass noodles? And since it’s New Year’s, I’ll make some Tteokguk too. I’ll also make some rice balls and skewers to eat simply when you arrive.”

Although she was a foreigner, she had lived in Korea before, so she knew Korean culture and food well.

“I’ll make the Dakgalbi, glass noodles, and Tteokguk, so make the rice balls.”

“Okay.”

Ha-yeon was also quite good at cooking.

Not great, but good enough to cook for herself.

She could easily make rice balls.

It’s just that she was too lazy and preferred to order food.

Elin took out the ingredients from the interdimensional space and started cooking, and Ha-yeon heated up instant rice and took out ingredients such as seaweed flakes and salt.

“By the way, who all is coming today?”

While cooking, Elin asked Ha-yeon, and she, who remembered roughly, gave her the answer.

“Besides us two, Veronica, Kaede, and Duke, Ha-jeong, and Fallen, I guess.”

“Isn’t this a complete British Dungeon party?”

“Well… now that you mention it, it is.”

It was a raid that had ended quite a while ago, but it was quite large in scale, and it was the raid group where she first met Elin, so she remembered it.

All the people in this party now were members of that raid group at the time.

For the record, Delia was also invited, but she couldn’t come due to her raid schedule.

Having to go on a raid even on New Year’s, how pitiful.

While she was thinking that, the bell rang again.

“Hmm? Who is it?”

Taking off her plastic gloves and opening the front door, it was none other than Kaede.

Originally, she might not have been able to come since she was in Japan, but she happened to be visiting Korea for a while and stopped by.

In the first place, according to Kaede, she had no affection for her family except for her older brother, younger sibling, and mother.

Moreover, all three of them had gone on raids to other places, so she came here.

“Long time no see…”

“Um… well, it’s been a while since we met in real life.”

She had taught Kaede how to play games when they met before, and they had been playing games together until a few days ago.

It was a bonus that she was surprised that Kaede was better at games than she thought.

“Come on in.”

Kaede took off the padding she was wearing and hung it in a corner of the living room sofa.

After standing still for a moment, she took out rice cakes and dumplings from the pocket artifact hanging on her waist and handed them to Elin.

“Here.”

“Thanks. I was too lazy to buy them, but I thought I should eat them anyway.”

Elin, having received the additional ingredients from Kaede, placed them among the ingredients, and Kaede, having finished her mission, immediately lay down on the sofa.

“……”

She fell asleep.

She didn’t even move.

She didn’t seem like this when they first met, so why is she like this?

Hmm… maybe she’s tired.

‘She must be tired.’

Due to the nature of Kaede’s skill, Darkness, she often worked at night, unlike them who were active during the day, so it couldn’t be helped.

“No, maybe it’s a good thing.”

She had the thought that she wanted her to help a little… but that thought immediately disappeared as the next thought came to mind.

Kaede’s food was, to put it simply… poison.

Not just bad-tasting, but real poison with toxic ingredients.

One of Kaede’s skills, ‘Man-dok’ (Ten Thousand Poisons), was an S-class skill that could turn anything into a poison with a known composition if she put in just a little mana.

The last time she made food, she accidentally put in some mana and almost died because the default value, nausea, was applied.

So, they usually didn’t ask Kaede to make food.

“About this much is done.”

Ha-yeon, having finished making some simple rice balls to eat, put all the rice balls on a plate and moved them to the table, and then prepared to make skewers.

She took out the skewers that Elin had prepared in advance, as well as fish cakes, sausages, onions, pickled radish, and seasoned chicken with her personal taste from the refrigerator.

When she pressed the button on the seasoned chicken packaging, the chicken was quickly heated by mana, and after a while, she cut it to a size that was good for skewering.

“Try this.”

While she was preparing to make skewers, Elin, who was cooking next to her, had finished making the Dakgalbi and picked up one of the many pieces of Dakgalbi with chopsticks and fed it to her.

After chewing the meat for a moment, Ha-yeon gave a thumbs up.

“It’s the best.”

As Elin made it, the seasoning and the tenderness of the meat were perfect.

Ha-yeon, whose standards were as firm as a Michelin star when it came to chicken, received her confirmation, and she also smiled with satisfaction and put the Dakgalbi on a suitable plate and placed the plate in the center of the table.

Suppressing the desire to eat quickly, she grabbed the skewers again, but this time the bell rang, stopping her movement.

Naturally getting up from her seat and opening the front door, it was none other than Duke holding Jokbal (pig’s trotters) in one hand.

“Long time no see, kid.”

“Kid? I’m only in my mid-30s.”

“You’re in your early to mid-20s.”

Duke handed the Jokbal to Ha-yeon and yawned sleepily, then sat down on the sofa.

Oh, Jokbal, I really wanted to eat it.

“Eusha……”

After sitting on the soft sofa, he blanked out for a moment, then looked at Kaede next to him.

“Why is she like this?”

“How would I know? She’s probably just tired.”

Saying that, she went back to her seat where she was making skewers and made skewers.

She simply put in fish cakes, pickled radish, Dakgalbi in the center, and then roughly put in the remaining ingredients.

Hmm… about 10 should be enough, this isn’t the main dish.

When she had made about 4 with mechanical hand movements, the doorbell rang again.

At that sound, she tried to get up from her seat again, but she sat back down.

“Uncle, go and open it.”

“What? Me?”

“You have nothing else to do, right?”

At those words, he frowned, then got up from the sofa and opened the front door.

He absolutely, absolutely didn’t want to do it in his heart, but he probably felt a little bad just sitting there when he came to someone else’s house for a meal.

“Oh, you’re here.”

“You’ve arrived too.”

It was Veronica, whose voice alone was enough to know who it was, even though her appearance was not visible.

The two weren’t on bad terms, but they weren’t on good terms either because of their personalities.

Still, they were comrades, so they didn’t show it.

“Long time no see.”

After a while, Veronica came in with Duke, and she smiled slightly at Ha-yeon, who was making skewers, and greeted her.

Veronica, who came into the house, took off her red long padding, which was a similar color to her hair, and rolled up her sleeves.

Then, she naturally came to Ha-yeon’s side and made the rest of the skewers together, following the skewers that had been made.

“Oh… I wouldn’t have thought Veronica would have ever cooked something.”

“I’ve been learning recently. I live alone now.”

Around the time they had finished making all the skewers like that.

Elin had also finished making the glass noodles and Tteok, and almost all the food to eat was ready.

“Fallen suddenly has a raid and can’t come.”

At Kaede’s words, who had woken up and looked at her phone, Ha-yeon nodded roughly.

It was a shame, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Then is Ha-jeong the only one left?”

Since Jin Ha-jeong was the only person who had promised to come here, she left the food that had been made and lay down on the floor.

While resting like that for a while, the bell rang for the last time.

“I’ll go.”

Getting up from the floor and heading to the front door, she opened the front door, which she didn’t know how many times she had opened today, and saw a handsome black-haired man, that is, Jin Ha-jeong, standing there.

“You’re here?”

“Um… everyone else is already here? I didn’t get the time wrong, did I?”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t. You came on time. Hmm?”

They had met a few days ago on Christmas and went to a restaurant together, but they hadn’t met in between, so it felt like it had been a while since they had met.

While doing so, she brushed off the late fallen leaves on his shoulder with her hand and came into the house.

“So, is everyone here now?”

As he came in, everyone crawled down to the table and prepared to eat, and Elin poured beer into everyone’s glasses with water.

Ha-yeon held up that glass.

“Cheers!”

“”Cheers!””

Clinking the glasses filled with beer.

The party began.