Chapter 6. Blazing Salmon Rice Bowl (1)
“Ta-da! I fixed the motorcycle perfectly.”
Victoria proudly showed them the restored motorcycle.
The bike Yukgap had completely dismantled earlier had returned to its original form through her hands.
The older of the two brothers bowed his head politely.
“Thank you, Boss.”
“No need to thank me. Our chef was the one who took it apart, so it’s only right that I take responsibility and fix it.”
Victoria waved it off casually.
The younger brother looked around Restaurant Shelley with disbelief.
“So this really is a restaurant.”
Yukgap answered bluntly.
“Yeah. It’s not the kind of alchemy workshop you thought it was.”
Honestly, he still found it ridiculous that all this trouble had started over a single pot of soup.
Still, at least they had recovered it safely.
“I never thought anyone would open a restaurant in a back alley like this.”
“Right. This place has never had anything to do with restaurants.”
The two brothers exchanged a few words.
Yukgap looked at them and asked,
“So, are you two actually brothers? Have you been making a living as dismantlers this whole time?”
They both nodded immediately.
“Yes. I’m Kim Jeonghan. This is my younger brother, Kim Yuhan.”
“We work together. Plenty of discarded materials end up in the back alleys.”
Judging from how well they handled the motorcycle, they probably mixed a little theft into their work too, but Yukgap chose not to comment.
Just then, Victoria returned carrying two bowls of her special soup.
“Anyway, try this! It’s a new menu item for our restaurant.”
Strange groans came from the soup divided between the two bowls.
“Ghooo...”
Apparently, the homunculus fused into the soup was still alive.
The brothers stared nervously at the bowls in front of them.
“What is this?”
“It’s alive.”
Victoria ignored their concern and urged them on.
“It’s just ordinary soup. Don’t worry and try it. Come on.”
The brothers exchanged uneasy looks.
Then, trembling, they each swallowed a spoonful.
Soon, sounds of admiration escaped their mouths.
“Mm, this isn’t bad.”
“Yeah. It’s tasty.”
Victoria’s eyes immediately sparkled.
“Right? It’s good, isn’t it?”
She looked delighted to hear praise for the soup she had created.
Yukgap, however, only became more uneasy.
“It’s suspicious that nothing happened after they swallowed that.”
The brothers continued eating while praising the flavor.
“This would work perfectly as an appetizer... this human body now belongs to me.”
“The umami is rich too... Ghooo! I am finally free! I will no longer live imprisoned inside a flask!”
Their expressions suddenly twisted.
Strange voices came out of their mouths.
Victoria screamed while looking back and forth between them.
“Aaaah! I think the soup took over their bodies!”
“Don’t just scream! Do something!”
Yukgap shouted at her.
The homunculi controlling the brothers’ bodies began yelling through their mouths.
“We will no longer be slaves! We shall become the rulers of the world!”
“Homunculi of this land, rise up!”
It seemed their bodies had been completely taken over.
Victoria looked close to tears.
“What do I do? I guess I really shouldn’t serve that soup to customers.”
“The real problem is that you ever thought about selling it in the first place!”
Yukgap could only stare at her in disbelief.
Meanwhile, the homunculi staggered toward the laboratory while controlling the brothers’ bodies.
Victoria screamed.
“Grab them! We can’t let them get into the lab!”
“Whaaa! Why are they so strong?!”
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom...!”
“Chef, do something!”
“You’re the one who made them!”
“I will never return to the flask! I have found freedom!”
“Will you shut up already?!”
Preparing to open the restaurant was proving to be noisy in more ways than one.
“Whew. Busy again today.”
Yukgap muttered as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Three months had passed since the restaurant officially opened.
Today was unusually crowded.
“Hyung! We’re here!”
“You’ve been doing well, right?”
Jeonghan and Yuhan had just entered the restaurant.
The brothers he had met several months ago had somehow become regular customers.
“You’re here. What do you want today?”
Yukgap greeted them warmly.
The brothers answered excitedly.
“The usual!”
“Same for me.”
Yukgap grinned at them.
“Sure. Wait a bit.”
Their first meeting had been extremely chaotic, but now they were welcome customers.
For some reason, whenever the dismantler brothers came by, Yukgap found himself putting a little more effort into the cooking.
“You’re starting to look like a real chef now.”
Victoria teased him.
Yukgap answered casually.
“Of course. I’ve been doing this for three months. At least I don’t make homunculus soup anymore.”
“Hey, that was an honest mistake.”
Victoria complained in a sulky voice.
Combining soup with a homunculus had caused a huge commotion, but fortunately, Victoria had stopped insisting on interfering with his cooking afterward.
Aside from occasionally trying to perform some strange alchemical processing on food meant for customers, she had not caused any major incidents since.
That was fortunate.
Though it also meant the cooking had become entirely Yukgap’s responsibility.
“All right. Let’s make it.”
Yukgap cheerfully drew one of his daggers.
Before coming to the restaurant, he had used those blades for countless missions.
But now, whenever he held one while cooking, a pleasant excitement ran through him.
“Are the salmon rice bowl brothers here again?”
Victoria asked when she saw him preparing the dish.
Yukgap scolded her.
“Hey. Don’t call customers ‘the salmon rice bowl brothers.’”
“But they order nothing else every time they come.”
Victoria complained.
Ignoring her, Yukgap took a salmon from the refrigerator as usual.
“Of course they do. It’s the tastiest thing here.”
“Sigh. Tell them to order something expensive for once.”
Leaving Victoria’s complaints behind him, Yukgap studied the salmon on the cutting board.
A soft layer of fat glistened across the red flesh.
Unlike many other fish, salmon contained a lot of fat, making the texture closer to meat.
That meant he needed to put a little more strength into slicing it.
“Here we go!”
With a short shout, Yukgap drove the dagger into the salmon.
Then he smoothly and flexibly sliced through the flesh.
The deep crimson salmon separated in delicate layers, almost like the petals of a rose falling one by one.
Perhaps because of the salmon’s natural fat, each slice glistened and bounced like jelly.
“Good. Salmon’s done.”
Next came the rice.
He divided freshly cooked, fluffy rice into bowls.
Then he poured on his special salmon sauce and added plenty of shredded radish and onion to cut through the richness.
A little wasabi came as a bonus.
Next, he carefully covered the rice with the freshly sliced salmon.
Then came Restaurant Shelley’s special finishing touch.
“Hey, scrap heap!”
[You called?]
Yukgap placed the salmon rice bowls in front of Robert.
“Cook just the outside a little.”
Robert’s chest opened.
A torch emerged.
A fierce flame immediately burst out.
[Receive the baptism of fire!]
Robert shouted dramatically.
The flames barely skimmed across the salmon.
Only the outer surface was seared, releasing a rich, savory aroma.
Exactly three seconds under intense flame.
Crisp on the outside.
Soft on the inside.
That was the secret behind Yukgap’s signature dish at Restaurant Shelley, the Special Salmon Rice Bowl.
“Do you really have to say that every time you use fire?”
[It is merely a battle cry. A lump of flesh like you would never understand.]
If there was one problem, it was that Robert shouted something strange every time he used the torch.
[Customers. The organic matter you will consume has been completed. Consume it.]
Robert placed the lightly seared salmon rice bowls in front of Jeonghan and Yuhan.
Their faces immediately lit up.
“Whoa, it’s here!”
“Thank you for the meal.”
The brothers happily began eating.
Whatever else they might be, the moment they ate something delicious, they looked just like children.
Victoria watched them with a bored expression.
“You always order the same thing. Don’t you ever get tired of it?”
The brothers did not seem to care.
“Hyung’s salmon rice bowl makes the salmon feel alive. It feels like it could start flopping around at any moment.”
“Exactly. No matter how many times I eat it, I never get tired of it. And the way he lightly sears the top of the salmon like tataki makes it perfect.”
The brothers kept praising the dish.
Victoria muttered with disappointment.
“But it doesn’t contain any of my special alchemy. True progress only happens when cooking and alchemy merge and are reborn as an uncertain new entity!”
If not for the previous incident, she definitely would have tried doing something to the salmon bowl with alchemy again.
The brothers stared at her in disbelief.
“What exactly are you trying to feed us?”
“What is a salmon bowl supposed to become after it ‘bears fruit’?”
Victoria sighed at their lukewarm reaction.
“As expected, pioneers are always persecuted.”
Robert, on the other hand, spoke proudly.
[I can produce flames of approximately three thousand degrees with this torch. I could turn foolish lumps of flesh like you into piles of charcoal instantly. Be grateful for my generosity in using it merely to cook salmon.]
The brothers whispered to each other.
“I wish the waiter was a little friendlier.”
“Yeah. Sometimes he’s scary.”
Yukgap tapped Robert’s head and jokingly apologized.
“Sorry. No matter how many times I hit this scrap heap, it just won’t get fixed.”
Robert’s eyes lit up as he beeped.
[My body is constructed from reinforced composite plating. My creator, Mary Frankenstein, built me this way. The attacks of insignificant lumps of flesh cannot scratch me.]
At that moment, several rough-looking men entered the restaurant in a group.
The man in front looked around.
“Hey! You’re open for business, right?”
Jeonghan and Yuhan immediately went pale.
“Shit, why are those guys here?”
“Let’s eat quickly and leave!”
They began hurriedly shoveling down their salmon bowls.
Apparently, they wanted to leave before getting involved with those men.
“You know them?”
Yukgap asked curiously.
The brothers quickly whispered into his ear.
“They’re guys who’ve been throwing their weight around the back alleys lately.”
“I heard they sell dangerous drugs. Either way, they’re definitely trouble.”
Yukgap rubbed his chin.
“Hmm. Our restaurant doesn’t really discriminate against customers.”
This was the back alley, a place where people who could not fit into mainstream society gathered.
From the moment they had decided to open a business here, this kind of thing had been inevitable.
No matter who came through the door, Restaurant Shelley had an obligation to accept them as customers.
