Chapter 134
“Green tea?”
Sey said, raising an eyebrow.
For a moment, I tensed up, wondering if she didn’t like it, but seeing her mouth moving as she chewed while asking, I realized that wasn’t the case.
“Yes. You like that kind of flavor.”
I still remember how she suddenly recommended Green Tea Cola when we first met. That cola tasted awful.
Sey peculiarly liked that taste. Green Tea Cola was an Extreme Case, but she generally enjoyed sweetness mixed with a similar bitterness.
It was Green Tea Cream Sauce, a secret weapon prepared perfectly for Sey’s palate.
The green powder I had mixed and boiled with Grain Milk was, in fact, Green Tea Powder.
At first glance, one might think: Does this even go together? But surprisingly, it was a sauce quite often used in this industry.
Curious about the taste, I took a bite myself, and as expected, it was good.
It perfectly suited the chewy and savory texture of the Cod Steak.
It added a fun twist to the fish’s mild flavor and even cut through the greasiness.
If it suited my palate this well, even though I didn’t like bitter things, it was simply delicious.
The Green Tea Cream Sauce was truly A Stroke of Genius, a Chef’s Kick.
[It is truly amazing, Test Subject.]
'Right?'
[Yes. It is surprisingly abnormal. It makes me realize anew just how twisted human synesthesia is. I do not understand the reason for deliberately adding a bitter taste receptor to nutritionally perfect food. Do you have some sort of obsession with a specific type of taste?]
I lightly ignored the remark of the ignorant AI Assistant, who knew nothing about the aesthetics of taste.
'I’m so damn good at cooking. So damn cool.'
Patting myself on the back, I watched Sey eat with a pleased expression.
Originally, cooking brought the joy of eating the food you made yourself, but the greater pleasure was Serving it to others.
Seeing her eat so deliciously, I felt full without even eating.
“It is delicious, but… aside from that, your gaze is creeping me out.”
Sey stopped eating and grumbled at my persistent stare, but there was nothing she could do about it anyway.
Once she got a taste of the meals I prepared, she was addicted and could never return to an unrefined palate.
Sey had long since been tamed by my cooking.
It was worth stubbornly insisting that I take Charge of chores like cooking and Cleaning in exchange for free rent, thereby gaining authority over the kitchen.
Now, there is nothing that can stop me…
“Gah.”
A sudden, piercing pain exploded in my side. Frowning, I looked over to see that Sey had approached at some point and was poking me with her finger.
“Enough with the nonsense, if you’re done eating, let’s go get some Exercise.”
“N-no.”
The atmosphere, which had been good just a moment ago, turned icy. I felt my heart sink and my hands trembled.
I hurriedly looked at the dining table, and Sey’s plate was already wiped clean.
When did she eat all that? I had prepared a simple meal since it was morning, but…
“Uh, I haven’t finished eating yet…”
“It’s Fine. You said you feel full without eating when someone else enjoys your food.”
“Come to think of it, I think I might be hungry.”
“It’s Fine. Exercise is naturally most effective when done on an empty stomach.”
“Noooooo―”
“Yes.”
As if taking revenge for my creepy gaze, Sey subdued me as I screamed in resistance and dragged me away.
Our Destination was the place Dragon President had ordered Sey to drag me to by Force if necessary, saying he “could no longer sit Idly by” after the recent cyborg Ninja Kidnapping Incident - the Outskirt Martial Arts Gym run by his acquaintance.
And the Gym Manager was no ordinary person either, fitting for an acquaintance of the Dragon President.
Recalling the stinging memory of my first visit, I was hit by an Extraordinary atmosphere the moment I stepped into the gym.
In a spacious area that looked like a renovated parking lot, in the underground of an old building found by winding through an alleyway, dozens of men and women boasting chocolate abs, bursting forearms and chests, and inverted-triangle shoulders were silently doing their respective exercises.
The experience of having all their eyes snap toward me the moment I first opened the door with the bold letters 'Gym' on it was nothing short of a Horror Movie.
If I tried to back away, Sey was behind me, and in front of me was a fitness Hell.
Someone appeared and saved me from my dilemma.
More accurately, I only thought they had saved me.
Some tiny kid of a girl, looking about the age of a middle school student, trotted out and pulled my hand.
“Oh, a Newcomer! Come here.”
Dragged along while stammering, I found myself deep inside a certain spot in the gym in the Blink of an eye.
Thinking about it now, I should have run away then. It was a mistake to let my Guard down even slightly by the innocent-looking exterior of the young girl.
The girl’s hair was white, a common side effect of anti-aging procedures.
And in the Martial Arts World, there is a saying to beware of women, children, and the Old Man…
The Gym Manager was someone who fit all three of those categories.
“I heard the story from Dragon. Don’t worry. Say goodbye to your weak and frail past! I’ll temper your bones and muscles like steel so you won’t have to Watch out for dark streets and Kidnapping anymore.”
There was no need to explain that bones and muscles, unlike steel, couldn’t be refined by hammering or melting.
The Crazy gym rat-girl hybrid granny knew my body better than I did.
…Why do I have such deep ill-fated ties with gym rats?
With 'real' practical, compressed internal muscles abnormally developed beneath her baggy clothes, she rendered me completely immobile in an instant, then ruthlessly kneaded and violated the muscles and bones of my entire body.
“Squeeze your hand tight. Good… Your grip strength isn’t bad. Your lower body is passable, but your upper body is terribly lacking. A typical lack of weightlifting. I see why he left you to me.”
But your agility is on the decent side, and your output is relatively high compared to your cross-sectional area… it seems like you have a bit of muscle memory too, though it’s sloppy. You must have gotten your hands on some expensive cyberware or an Exercise assistance device somewhere, huh?”
She saw right through my weakness with just a brief glance - that while I had been coasting by using the cheat codes of the Microchip in My Head and a state-of-the-art suit applied with nanotechnology, the actual conditioning and fundamentals of my physical body were dismally Poor.
“I’ll rebuild you from the Ground up, young man.”
The white-haired girl smiled eerily and told me we’d start with a “simple Warm-up” until my body was built.
And then came cycling, jumping rope, bench press, push-up, pull-up, deadlift, chin-up, dumbbell row, and treadmill running…
She uncannily figured out exactly where my muscular limits were and how much more I could do, squeezing my entire body dry and turning me into a pulp by training me while allowing only the exact Stance and Movement.
And as a bonus, she left me with the horrifying words, 'I’ll teach you another Exercise tomorrow, so look forward to it.'
That had been my Hell-like daily routine for the past month.
cooking and then exercising during the day, and working in the evening.
Looking back on it now, nothing but Exercise comes to mind.
The thought, “This is Crazy. I need to escape from here,” crossed my mind countless times, but unfortunately, it was impossible.
As long as I couldn’t beat Sey with Force, avoiding going to the gym was impossible, and once I set foot inside, escape was a distant dream.
If I stealthily approached the entrance/Exit, the muscle-bound thugs, the Hyung-nims, would appear and block the door. The Emergency exit was completely blocked by Exercise equipment, leaving no retreat.
If I didn’t bite the bullet and Finish the entire daily workout routine the Manager had drawn up for me with perfect form, I would never see the Outside World again, even if it killed me.
I once tried to hold out, thinking let’s see how far this goes, and they really didn’t let me Leave…
Seeing them give me a protein pill for a meal, make me sleep on a weight bench, and see the square ring gave me full-body chills.
Today was no different.
Pushed to the point where I thought I might die, I was liberated only after finishing the daily routine, trudging back home with an exhausted body.
After showering and filling my stomach, I’d take the monorail and the route bus dazedly to commute to work.
As always, I prepared to open the shop, and during business hours, I worked as a Barback and an On-site Manager.
I am in the middle of that very routine right now.
…Except for the fact that it was a bit noisy.
[The Dusk City Mayoral Election, which began on the 25th of last month, has already entered its midpoint. There’s a rule in the city regarding voting, isn’t there? “Voter turnout is proportional to the economy, that is, the economic climate.” If that saying holds true, the city must currently be experiencing its worst recession in history, because this time, the voter turnout is recording its worst figures Ever!
While most experts attribute the cause of this current situation to the malicious products of Braincraft, the issuer of the “Voting Right Lottery,” and the City Council that authorized them, some have pointed to chronic political apathy and the one-sided election trend as the problems. The difference in vote percentage between Faction 1 Candidate, El Valentine, and Faction 2 Candidate, D.D. McMillan, has already widened noticeably, further fading the already diminished meaning of voting…]
The time was May.
It was the hot election season in Dusk City.
And at times like this, there were customers who always came visiting.
Crazy political fanatics.