Chapter 41. A Man Blessed With Too Much Work (3)
Jinhyeok gathered the team members in a corner of the parking lot.
Just in case, he deliberately avoided the CCTV blind spots.
Watching him, Jongil asked,
“Team Leader, is something wrong?”
“I just have a strange feeling.”
“Something feels strange? What?”
Unlike before, Jinhyeok hadn’t had any time to prepare an explanation.
He couldn’t exactly say the food was suspicious before they had even entered the restaurant.
And if he waited until they were inside, there might not be a chance to warn everyone without the employees noticing.
“You know that feeling sometimes? Like you’ve seen this exact scene in a dream before.”
If he wanted to avoid being treated like a lunatic, blaming it on a dream was probably his safest option.
They might think he had suddenly developed some kind of supernatural gift, but he couldn’t think of anything better.
“Ah! Déjà vu? Haha. That happens to me sometimes too, Team Leader.”
“R-Really? Ahem. Actually, when I took that nap earlier, I had a strange dream. It was way too vivid to feel like an ordinary dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“Well...”
Jinhyeok quickly thought it through and turned the diary app’s future entry into a dream.
He told them he had seen Jongil hospitalized after eating spoiled food, looking half dead.
Jongil, the person supposedly dying in the dream, only grinned.
“Come on, Team Leader. You must think about me all the time! Hehehe.”
His eyes curved into crescents.
He genuinely looked happy.
“No. You probably won’t believe me, but my dreams have a habit of coming true.”
“Hmm... In that case...”
Jongil crossed his arms and remembered what Oh Ilman had done earlier that afternoon.
“Don’t worry! We’ve got Seafood Appraiser Assistant Manager Oh with us! Man, Team Leader, you really should’ve come to the seafood market with us.”
“Seafood market?”
Only after hearing what happened during the day did Jinhyeok finally understand the meaning of the diary entry.
So that’s what ‘I should have listened to Assistant Manager Oh’ meant.
He warned us, and we ate it anyway.
Jinhyeok had no intention of simply going to a different restaurant to avoid being hospitalized.
The future diary had said the problem wasn’t just one spoiled dish.
And as someone who took unusual pride in the Seongun name, Jinhyeok couldn’t overlook something like that.
He looked at the team with a serious expression.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. Nobody eats anything until Assistant Manager Oh checks it first.”
Ilman blinked rapidly.
“Don’t feel pressured. In my dream, Assistant Manager Oh and Senior Staff Choi were the only ones who were completely fine. There’s no harm in being careful.”
“Hmm. I’m not someone who believes in dreams, but if the seafood is in bad condition, I’ll tell you immediately. You won’t end up eating spoiled food.”
Satisfied by Ilman’s reliable answer, Jinhyeok gave the next instruction.
“And this is the most important part. If the condition of this restaurant really is serious...”
Then he gave them a rather strange order.
Even if they discovered something wrong with the food, they were not to show any reaction.
Instead, they were to watch carefully and see if there were any other problems.
Jongil, always one beat late, suddenly clapped his hands.
“Oh! So we’re acting like an inspection team?”
“Uh? Something like that. But strictly speaking, it’s more like a secret inspection. If we openly interfere, things could end half-baked. We’ll pretend to be normal customers and only figure out what’s happening.”
“Hmm! Understood. If it came from Team Leader’s dream, I can believe it! If this turns out to be real, I won’t let them get away with it. First we inspect the food, then we search every corner of the place! And then we flip the whole restaurant upside down! How dare they do something like that under our company’s name!”
Jongil’s absolute faith in Jinhyeok was terrifying.
Looking at how fired up he was, Jinhyeok emphasized again,
“No. I literally just told you to leave them alone. Gather evidence and leave them alone. Okay? Where did the words I said even go?”
“...Y-Yes, Team Leader. Perfect secrecy. I’ll remember. Ugh.”
This was worrying.
Ilman and Iseul, who were following Jongil’s lead, were also radiating murderous energy as if the incident had already happened.
I should make them work separately for a while.
Jinhyeok was beginning to worry that the entire team was becoming more and more like Jongil.
The restaurant owner stood at the counter and watched the table where the Commercial District Analysis Team was sitting.
They were the suckers who had reserved the 250,000-won-per-person Emperor Course designed for tourists.
To an owner who aggressively reused leftover food, their reservation had also given him plenty of time to prepare everything for recycling.
Blue crab dishes drenched in strong seasoning to hide the smell.
King crab that had been in the freezer so long he couldn’t even remember when it had gone in.
All of it was placed on the table.
The customers looked excited, even taking pictures.
The owner smiled in satisfaction.
Only one thing bothered him.
The attitude of the part-time worker who had carried out the food.
The same guy who had been getting on his nerves since yesterday and whom he had already decided to fire.
“Hey, fucker. Are you trying to make it obvious there’s something wrong with the food? Why are your hands shaking while you serve it?”
“...I-I was just worried that if they eat what I brought out and something happens...”
“Ha. Are you the owner? Every restaurant around here does the same thing. Just do what you’re told, you useless idiot!”
“...Y-Yes, sir.”
The owner frowned hard and asked again.
“And why didn’t that table order alcohol?”
“They said they don’t drink...”
“So you just came back? Go get them a bottle of Taean Byeolju.”
His plan was simple.
Hide the bad condition of the food.
Get them drunk.
Then inflate the bill.
“There should be half a bottle left in the corner of the refrigerator from when I tasted it. Pour in whatever soju is left, fill the bottle up, and take it over. Open it yourself and pour everyone a glass. If they open it themselves, they might notice.”
“...What?”
The part-timer couldn’t hide his shock when he was told to mix leftover alcohol and serve it.
He knew the opened bottle had been sitting there for more than a month.
“Ha. It’s free alcohol. Who cares? What, are you worried the booze went bad too? Want to get fired right now?”
The young man squeezed his eyes shut.
He desperately needed money.
And the gangster-like owner scared him enough that he had followed orders until now.
But this was too much.
“...I-I can’t do it anymore, sir. Reusing food people already ate is already wrong, and...”
The owner immediately raised his hand.
The part-timer shut his eyes.
But behind him were customers smiling happily and enjoying themselves.
Ha... No point ruining the mood.
The owner forced himself to suppress his anger.
He pretended to pat the part-timer on the shoulder while whispering threateningly,
