“Shall we try standing in line too, for the time being?”
“Yeah. When else will we able to try eating Dragon meat? They said it also raises stats, so if we don’t take a chance like this we’re gonna regret it forever.”
Hon, Garrick, Billeo, and the others stood in line. The greed for stats was intense no matter what your profession was. Intelligence and Wisdom were the most important for Magicians, but they would never hesitate to take a chance to improve their physical strength or Agility. Everyone was the same regarding their bodily well-being, regardless of profession, gender, or age!
In such a fashion, the customers waiting to eat the food were steadily increasing.
A soup that literally had a Dragon swum in it and left! Black bean noodles with sauce made using the King Hydra’s incredible meat and noodles made of flour! There was barely any meat in the Skeleton Bone Hangover Soup, but it still raised stats like Strength, Agility, or Vitality by 1 or 2. It was because the effect possessed by the ultimate cooking ingredients, the Hydra and Imoogi meat, were supplemented by the Cooking skill.
Weed reaped excessive profits as he produced an enormous amount of food. It was such an amount that an army chef would be emotionally touched if they came and saw it.
“As expected, business is hard at first. Once it starts doing well, it’s crazy because of the customers pressing in.”
The greatest trouble for a business was taxes! But in Morata, even if he technically paid the taxes, it would all return to Weed’s pocket in the end.
Weed employed Morata’s residents to help him with the kitchen tasks. A jackpot restaurant that drew in the customers didn’t make food, it made money. As long as it was popular, there weren’t many enterprises as profitable as the food business. Especially if you could totally rip everyone off like now!
– Cooking skill proficiency has increased.
His Cooking skill had also gone up twice from Intermediate level 6 to 8. He had worked hard to brew liquor at the River of Lamentation to accumulate proficiency. That had already put him at level 7, but because the King Hydra and Imoogi meat were fundamentally good food ingredients and so precious, his Cooking skill proficiency was still surging up.
The Imoogi meat was even causing a panic, hoarding phenomenon. Because the amount of meat was already fixed, there was an uproar of people trying to buy.
“Weed-nim, please give me just 7 servings.”
“I’m buying 12 servings.”
The meat frozen by Bingryong was being imported via Yellowy! The meat sold like hotcakes as soon as it thawed. The smoke of grilling meat was everywhere on the rocky mountain because of those who were personally grilling their meat by setting bonfires.
“We also sell Imoogi Bone Broth.”
The lightning fast sale of bone broth that didn’t even give off anymore grease, as it had been steeped a whole twelve times!
Drinks, which couldn’t be left out when selling meat, were also prepared.
“Wangisul at 30 Gold, Baeknyunju at 80 Gold. Quantities are limited, so buy them quickly.”
[T/N: Wangisul is a spoof of the popular soju Chamisul, and Baeknyunju is a rewritten form of Baekseju, a rice-based fermented wine.]
The flower girl, who had been captured by the Vampire Torido and turned to stone, Prina, was selling alcohol.
Weed was even selling off all the alcohol he had brewed in this occasion. Because he could get a higher price for restaurant sale than individual sale.
* * *
Adventurers arrived at the destroyed Embinyu Fortress.
“Hmm, so this was the ferocious battlefield.”
“It has an eerie feeling, as if something is going to come out.”
Hon, Billeo, Garrick, and the others had moved to the River of Lamentations basin towards the evening. They had emptied their pockets of even their change until their stats stopped rising from eating the Hydra and Imoogi meat.
“I see you are eating a lot. I will specially give you a 20 Silver discount for each plate of meat. Since it is very precious meat, please enjoy.”
When they heard Weed’s words, they were, of course, so thankful that they were moved to tears. It’s not like they didn’t think he was cheap, but he was the one holding the knife!
After eating the food, they went to use the movement portal. However, Morata’s Soldiers and Paladins were blocking their way.
“You cannot use the portal.”
Hon asked politely, “What kind of request must we take? Is there a quest, by any chance?”
At their question that was aimed towards getting permission to use the movement portal, the Soldiers shook their heads.
“You must pay a usage fee.”
“A fee?”
“Each person is 350 gold.”
Having used all the money they had to eat meat, Hon and the group fell into an embarrassing situation.
Looking at the group, Hon asked, “What to do?”
“What else? We’ve gotta get the money.”
The Magician Easton rummaged through his pockets one by one. He had always had the pleasure of making lots of money through the production of magic goods, but thanks to drinking alcohol while eating meat, his pockets were completely empty.
“There’s no helping it. Let’s take this chance to get rid of things we aren’t using.”
“Shall we?”
“Yeah, we might as well organize our packs now.”