Chairman, My cooking

The inside of the Dressing Room was full of nothing but pure white or black Chef's uniforms, so I asked just in case.

For a moment, my mind went completely blank.

The Chairman wanting to taste my food after a long time meant... uh.

So, he was telling me to cook.

He was asking me, as I was leaving aside the top-tier chefs hired specifically to satisfy the Iron Blood Chairman's palate.

Wasn't I summoned because of what happened yesterday?

Why is cooking all of a sudden?

"Do you understand now why I said we are short on time? The Chairman has his Dinner at 21:00 every day. And the current time is 19:17."

He said, pushing up his Gold-rimmed Glasses. My eyes widened.

Dumbfounded and unable to move easily at first, I quickly stepped inside the Coordinator Device on the wall of the Dressing Room.

My body moved before my head and heart could comprehend it. Preparing the Isiho Chairman's Dinner was something that demanded such a reaction.

There was no time to question or protest. I had to start cooking even a little bit faster.

What could I do? I was a corporate slave.

If the Chairman wanted to eat my food, then of course I had to cook.

My gaze sharpened, and my brain went into overdrive. Before I knew it, my Way of Thinking had shifted from that of a bar Manager to that of a Chef.

Even if I wasn't a real Head Chef, I still possessed cooking Skills on the level of a cook. It was enough to boast about having learned cooking techniques wherever I went.

And thinking about it from that perspective...

I was fucked.

Oh my god, I have to Finish preparing and Serving it by 9 o'clock.

To think I only had about 100 minutes left to prepare the food.

If I were making food for myself, 15 minutes would be more than enough, let Alone 100, but the story changes when the person I'm Serving is Isiho's Iron Blood Chairman.

I had to prepare the food with absolute perfection.

The course, Plating, and taste had to suit the dignity of the person eating it.

1 hour and 40 minutes was an incredibly tight timeframe. Honestly, even if I were given two hours, I didn't think I'd be satisfied.

Especially since my senses had dulled a lot after taking a week off from Kitchen Work to focus solely on Cocktail Practice.

What should I do about the recipe? If I used the exact same recipes I used at the restaurant, I would definitely fail.

To the Chairman's strict gastronomic standards, it would feel incredibly boring and uncreative.

As I stood there pondering, the Coordinator Device, which had been popping up various Interface notifications on the Mirror Display, had already dressed me in a perfectly fitting Chef's Uniform.

The color was black. Without even glancing at the luxurious fabric or the gleaming buttons, I immediately dashed out of the device and out of the Dressing Room.

Chief Secretary Jenkinson clicked his tongue at my Awkward, hobbling sprint.

"Is there somewhere on your body that is uncomfortable?"

"Ah, yes. Because of what happened yesterday."

Uncomfortable was an understatement. I felt like I was going to die from muscle pain. Every time I took a Step, my thighs pulled wildly and throbbed.

"Yesterday... did you perhaps sustain an injury?"

"Ah, no. It's not an injury. It's Simple Muscle Pain. It just makes moving uncomfortable."

For a moment, the Seduction of saying I was injured and would find it hard to cook crossed my mind, but I gave it up.

The person in front of me was Chief Secretary Jenkinson, someone who looked like he wouldn't bleed a single drop even if you stabbed him.

He wasn't the kind of generous human who would grant rest just because a corporate cog, a mere salaryman, got hurt.

"That's a relief. If the quality of the dish you serve the Chairman had dropped because of an injury, a severe penalty might have been applied to your salary."

Of course. This was the Black Company Isiho corporation I knew.

It wasn't a place that gave sick Leave because an Employee got injured; it was a place that threatened To Cut your pay if your injury caused a drop in work efficiency. It was that kind of city, and that kind of company.

And I was already a member of Dusk City and Isiho, too much so to be surprised anew or hurt by it.

If anything, it was the overly friendly atmosphere and high-level Employee Welfare at Dragon's Lair that were abnormal.

It felt like waking up from a dream and returning to reality.

"Although you weren't the 'real' one, it's only been a week since you quit the Head Chef job... and since you say you have no injuries, I will trust that you won't ruin the Chairman's meal."

You should know best that an excuse like muscle pain won't work in front of the Chairman.

Kei Jenkinson said so and turned his head.

The wall in the direction he pointed opened, creating a pure white Passageway.

"That way is the kitchen. I was told they cleared the space and filled it with ingredients for what you will cook for the Chairman's satisfying Dinner today."

You will probably be able to find every kind of food ingredient available in Dusk City in the Pantry over there.

He added that and shouted toward me one last time as I headed toward the kitchen at a quick pace.

"Ah, and."

"Yes?"

"The Chairman mentioned there is a specific type of food he wants for this meal."

My expression crumpled.

Are you kidding me? You should have told me that first.

The Recipe Composition Direction changes completely depending on whether the Customer has specific needs or not.

The irritation that surged for a moment completely subsided at the Chief Secretary's following words.

"He said he wants to try your Hometown Food. He mentioned all the ingredients would be prepared... Hmm. He said you would understand what this means.

I still don't quite get it. Isn't your Hometown Neo Tokyo? He hasn't seemed to eat Japanese food lately, but has his appetite for it returned?"

"..."

* * *

I sometimes mocked myself. 'I've completely become a Duskian now.'

But that didn't mean I had lost my own Identity.

Even though I was using the surname Nakamura, I rarely used Korean recently, to the point where even my soliloquies were in the city language.

Still, I was a Korean, and my Hometown was Korea.

I came from Korea.

Naturally, it wasn't the Korea that the people here thought of.

I didn't come from the 22nd-century New Mecha Korea ruled by Artificial Intelligence, but from the Republic of Korea, the 21st-century Democracy.

I came From Another World, an Era a Century Ago that might be the past of this World.

As long as I live here in Dusk City, that will probably be a secret I will hide for the rest of my life and take to my grave.

Naturally, no one knew that secret.

Even if I told them, who would believe it?

That while taking a shower, I suddenly underwent something like Time Travel or Dimensional Travel and ended up being dropped into an Incomprehensible Cyberpunk City.

However, even if they didn't know all the secrets, there was someone who knew a part of it.

Isiho's Iron Blood Chairman was one of them.

The Chairman knew that I wasn't a Japanese Person.

He was the one who provided me with a Fake ID from Neo Tokyo in the first place, and he was the one who gave me the surname Nakamura, so in a way, it was obvious.

When I first met the Chairman and pleaded for a job, I wasn't used to this city.

Because I had spent too much time in the Laboratory, I lacked common sense and didn't fully understand the meaning my Origin held in this city.

Because of that, I couldn't help but be immediately seen through.

As soon as the Iron Blood Chairman saw me speak, he realized that I wasn't from Dusk and that my city language wasn't perfect yet.

And he immediately spoke to me in other languages.

In Japanese, in Chinese, in Vietnamese, in Thai. In Malay and Indonesian.

After I spoke numerous Asian Languages and he observed my reactions, surprisingly, he smiled.

I don't think I'll Ever be able to forget the sight of his mouth, which hadn't shown a single Change in Expression, twitching.

That was the first time I saw the Iron Blood Chairman reveal his emotions on the surface. And I never saw it again.

The Chairman smiled and said.

"Interesting. You have Utility Value."

In Korean.

Less than a minute after meeting me, the Chairman had figured out my nationality and had already finished calculating the Gains and Losses of accepting me as an Employee.

He was that kind of monster-like human. There was a reason why I feared Isiho's Chairman.

It was partly because he was a high-ranking person at the top who held a tight grip on a part of my secret, my weakness, and my livelihood... but more than anything, his very existence was different from an ordinary person's.

The feeling that his very species was different.

He was truly, literally, a genius born to reign over others from birth.

Looking at him made me think, *So this is the kind of person who becomes the Master of a Megacorp.*

*It takes someone like this to stand at the very top of the endless Human Social Pyramid.*

I felt nothing but such admiration, astonishment, fear, and pressure.

And today, I had to serve the food I made to that Chairman.

And of all things, he said it was my Hometown Food.

“Korean Food.”

I had known early on that the Chairman enjoyed gastronomy, and that investing in hotel restaurants was a kind of 'hobby' for him.

Even so, I never dreamed he would take an interest in Korean Food, which was practically The Public Enemy of the World.

Even less so that he would specifically demand it from me like this.

Did this mean he had tried the foods of all other countries except Korean Food, and was sick of the rest?

“This is troublesome.”

Rather than being glad, I was in a difficult Position.

There was no reason to be glad in the first place. It wasn't like I had outstanding patriotism, nor could I film and upload a video for Profit Generation titled something like, “The Reason Why Megacorp Isiho”s Chairman Tasted Korean Food and Was Moved. The Greatness of K-Food!'

An ordinary Chef would be delighted to receive an order to make his or her Hometown Food, but unfortunately, I wasn't.

Honestly, I wasn't very confident.

It had been ages since I last made Korean Food, or even anything similar.

It felt like it had been more than a year.

If I had wanted to try, I could have during my days working at the restaurant.

Japanese food and Korean Food were definitely different, but they had many similarities, and I could undoubtedly imitate Korean Food using Japanese ingredients.

There were times when I felt the urge to do so over and over, but in the end, I never did.

I was busy enough just learning Japanese food, and above all, the cost of ingredients was too expensive.

An ordinary Bowl of Rice, One Shrimp, and One Geun of Meat cost hundreds of City Dollars.

They weren't cheap enough ingredients for me to use Freely for the personal reason of feeling nostalgic for my Hometown.

Even using them for Japanese food practice would have drawn looks.

Moreover, by the time I was working at the restaurant, I had already realized what it meant to be a Korean.

I couldn't do it, even if just out of anxiety that someone might recognize it.

For those reasons, I was no longer very accustomed to Korean Food. Japanese food was more Comfortable.

I didn't remember many recipes, and if I limited them to the luxurious kinds that could be served to the Isiho Chairman, the number of options decreased even further.

I also had to exclude dishes that took longer than an hour, and in traditional Korean full-course meals, there were quite a few dishes that required a long time to develop their flavor...

My head spun rapidly, overheating.

A conclusion didn't come easily.

Conceiving a dish to serve the Chairman was this damn difficult.

While fiercely agonizing over it, I passed through the Sterilization Room and, before I knew it, was standing in front of the kitchen station.

As I hobbled into the Pantry, a hollow laugh escaped me.

Good lord, he said all the ingredients would be prepared.

What is this...