Yeonhwa, the Cooking King(3)

Irina, a mid-rank soldier.

As can be seen from her rank, she was an ordinary soldier who had not yet become a knight.

Although it had been over a year since she joined as a soldier, she was still in the position of a soldier, unable to build up proper achievements.

Moreover, she had recently caused an incident due to conflict with a junior soldier and had fallen to the position of warehouse keeper.

If there was anything better, it was that she had an easygoing personality, so she didn’t particularly care that her promotion opportunity was delayed, and rather enjoyed the warehouse keeper job assigned as punishment.

No, to be more precise, Irina was even grateful for the warehouse keeper job that had fallen to her.

Unlike the high-rank soldiers who are given opportunities for knight promotion, the work of mid-rank soldiers like her was not much different from the miscellaneous tasks of low-rank soldiers.

Unless a war broke out, all they did during normal times was receive basic training and suffer from the strict discipline of seniors who tried to establish hierarchy despite having no real skills.

So rather than that, the job of warehouse keeper, which involved doing training halfheartedly and working less than five hours a day, was much better for Irina, even if there were fewer opportunities to build achievements.

Additionally, when the work hours were over, she had time to go to the training grounds and watch the knights who were training during her remaining free time.

Although she had no desire for knight promotion, Irina greatly respected and admired the knights themselves.

Especially since she liked them so much that she would secretly go watch some knights, including the knight captain Haran, during break times, Irina was showing extremely high satisfaction with her current job.

Moreover, although she hadn’t had many achievements, Irina, who had been a soldier for a long time, had what’s called experience, and therefore had been doing the warehouse keeper job, which didn’t have much to do, with a relaxed attitude until now.

Until she met Yeonhwa, who came to get ingredients today.

At first, she thought she was just an ordinary cook.

Although one of the magicians who came with her seemed similar to the hero she had heard rumors about, anyway, Irina thought Yeonhwa herself was an ordinary cook.

Therefore, when Yeonhwa had just entered the warehouse to get ingredients, Irina was thinking lightly.

‘At most, she’ll just pack some ingredients in a sack and go.’

Since it was a palace party, she thought she might take a lot, and seeing that she brought magicians with her, she thought she would actually take a lot.

But from what she heard, Yeonhwa was the only cook in charge of preparing the party from start to finish.

Therefore, she thought that even if she took a lot, she would only take enough to match the number of palace party participants.

But she realized that thought was wrong, and at the same time, Irina’s relaxed expression, which had never broken while doing the warehouse keeper job until now, broke when she saw two mountains coming out behind Yeonhwa.

Creak───

“Move it slowly, don’t rush!”

The sound of the protective magic wrapping the ingredients rubbing against the warehouse entrance echoed loudly.

Of course, at that sound louder than beating a drum, not only Irina and her fellow soldier, but even the soldiers on patrol opened their mouths wide, looking at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

“Hey, Irina… Am I seeing this right…?”

The voice of Irina’s fellow soldier speaking beside her was heard, but that sound didn’t reach Irina’s ears.

Literally mountains.

When two mountains of ingredients wrapped in magic were floating out of the warehouse like that, how could any words enter her ears?

This seemed to be the case not only for Irina but for all the surrounding soldiers, but even in this atmosphere that had frozen like stone, only the three people responsible were actively speaking.

“Alright! Now that we’ve got all the ingredients, let’s get going!”

“With this amount, everyone will be able to eat their fill at the party.”

“Then I’ll open the gate.”

Yeonhwa walking ahead while spinning a kitchen knife on her palm, and the two magicians behind her responding to her words and preparing to return.

And seeing the gate opening far larger than the one that opened earlier, befitting the mountains of ingredients each over 10m tall, Irina reflexively moved her body.

“Wa-Wait a moment!!”

“Hm? What is it, do you have something to say?”

Yeonhwa turning to look at Irina at her call.

Stopping an honored guest who was trying to leave was clearly rude as a soldier, but Irina had no choice as it was something she had to do as the keeper of the food warehouse.

Therefore, Irina, who had stopped Yeonhwa, quickly chose the words to say in her head and then put the question she had to ask first into her mouth.

“Th… That is… Are you really going to take all of those…?”

“That’s the plan, is there a problem? They didn’t set a limit, and I heard the warehouse has excess ingredients these days, so isn’t this amount just right? Or is it too much?”

“N-No! There’s no problem even if you take all that amount! Yes!”

Irina was flustered at Yeonhwa’s question but quickly answered.

As she said, even if Yeonhwa took all of that, there wouldn’t be a food shortage.

Conversely, one could say she was taking just the right amount.

With that much, they could fill the current food warehouse just right with the remaining ingredients overflowing in the spare warehouse.

‘The only problem is that the amount in the spare warehouse is about half of the food warehouse…’

This means that the amount Yeonhwa is trying to take is equivalent to half the amount in the food warehouse.

Half of the ingredients in the food warehouse would be more than enough for at least 5,000 portions.

And after finishing that thought, Irina looked at Yeonhwa, who was looking at her with an expression that seemed to ask what the problem was, and continued the words she had cut off earlier.

“From what I know, I heard you’re in charge of preparing the party alone…”

“Yes, and?”

“No, I don’t mean to disrespect you… I’m just worried if you can handle that much ingredients alone…”

You idiot.

Irina inwardly muttered, chastising herself even after finishing her words.

Saying she didn’t mean to disrespect but then saying insulting words, what was she thinking? Even to herself, she could only say it was a rash statement, and Irina wanted to tear her hair out.

But while Irina was regretting her statement just now, a small laughter reached her ears.

“Kuhuk…”

No, to be precise, it was more like a sound of suppressing laughter rather than laughter.

Carefully raising her head at that, the owner of the laughter was none other than Yeonhwa.

Yeonhwa covering her mouth and suppressing her laughter as if she found Irina’s words just now funny.

And before Irina could tilt her head at that puzzling behavior, Yeonhwa said, raising her eyes with a glimpse of confidence:

“You’re worrying too much. An hour is enough for that amount.”

Yeonhwa’s words raising even greater questions than her laughter just now.

However, as if she had no intention of engaging in further conversation, Yeonhwa turned her body with those final words and walked towards the gate that was swallowing the mountains of ingredients.

Woong─────

The mountains of ingredients that seemed to have filled this space in front of the warehouse until just now disappeared, and then Yeonhwa, who had moved away from Irina, led the two magicians and walked into the gate.

Bang──!

Seeing the gate that disappeared cleanly as if compressed and annihilated, Irina stood for a moment with her mouth open blankly before coming to her senses with a start.

Both what had just happened and the conversation she had in such a flustered state felt like a dream and didn’t feel real.

So even after coming to her senses, Irina pinched her cheek once, wondering if she was still dreaming.

“Kyaak…!”

At least it hurt, so it wasn’t a dream.

And only after confirming that did Irina accept reality and mutter a low soliloquy.

That this party would be the greatest scale in history.

A soliloquy filled with certainty.

The darkness of the gate passed through my vision once, and then sunlight newly filled my sight.

As I slowly opened my eyes that had been closed, the familiar scenery of the temple came into view.

In terms of time, it hadn’t even been thirty minutes, let alone an hour, but since I had used my brain quite a bit in selecting ingredients, it felt like I had returned after a full day.

“Finally arrived…!”

“Hey.”

So I was about to shout happily while stretching my stiff body, but Isolde’s voice that was heard before I could finish shouting stopped my mouth.

When I turned around with a slightly pouty expression at that, Isolde made an indifferent expression in return and continued her previous voice as a question.

“Where are you going to put this?”

“Huh?”

“This isn’t a size that can be brought into the temple. Even if we bring it in, there’s nowhere to put it.”

Isolde asked thus, pointing at the mountain of ingredients floating bundled together with magic.

Certainly, as Isolde said, there was no space inside the temple to bring in mountains of ingredients of that size, and two of them at that.

The amount that could be put into the temple’s kitchen would be about 1/6 of this mountain.

Even putting in that much would clearly fill the temple’s large kitchen, so I nodded, thinking Isolde’s question was natural.

And I spoke the answer without even needing to think about it.

“Of course…”

“Um… Cook Yeonhwa?”

I would have said it if it weren’t for the familiar girl’s voice heard from behind me.

The all too familiar voice heard from behind me. Turning my head at that voice, five girls standing there came into view.

The five girls who often stick together normally.

“Why are you all here?”

Arin, Kana, Riana, Shati, Pina.

It’s the weekend today so they shouldn’t have gone to the academy, so why are those five gathered in front of me?

In this incomprehensible situation, I asked thus, and the one who answered my words was Kana, who was closest to my current form, Yeonhwa.

“Well, since the Day of Divine Manifestation is in two days, we came to the temple to help with various preparations. Pina said there was a lot of work piled up, so…”

As if Kana’s words weren’t a lie, the five I saw were all holding about a dozen sacred banners in their arms.

It seemed they had come out planning to go around sticking those now, but they had met me at a good timing.

And as I finished grasping the situation up to there, Arin, the owner of the voice that had interrupted my words earlier, pointed at the huge mountains of ingredients floating on either side of me and asked me once again.

“So what on earth is that…?”

“Ah, these are things I brought from the food warehouse because I’m in charge of preparing the palace party for this Day of Divine Manifestation.”

“…Are all of those ingredients to be used for the Divine Manifestation party?”

“That’s right.”

Arin let out a helpless laugh as if she couldn’t believe my words.

It was the same for the other four beside her.

The sight of those five reminded me of the soldiers I had seen earlier at the warehouse, making me want to laugh, but I barely held it in and drew the kitchen knife from my waist.

Even if I told them to go, they didn’t seem like they would leave until they saw what they wanted to see, so I just drew the kitchen knife and showed the answer I was about to give Isolde earlier through action instead.

I raised the kitchen knife and swung it horizontally.

“Cutting Board”

Not the ‘Laying Out the Cutting Board’ skill which is a cook’s battle preparation skill, but literally the technique ‘Cutting Board’ that summons a cutting board needed for cooking.

As I inwardly recited that name and muttered, a cutting board that would fill half of the temple street, which was easily 50m wide, fell from the sky.

Boom───!!!

The wooden cutting board falling with an extremely heavy sound.

But the cutting board maintained a clean state without a speck of dust even though it fell on the street, and I pointed at that cutting board and shouted loudly.

“Isolde! Sister Meiyel! Throw the ingredients there! We’re starting the preparation right now!”

It would be better to start quickly now, as even the time to explain and convince those guys is precious.