Chapter 3
“Very expensive food. Have you heard of fine dining?”
Elysia tilted her head.
“Fine... what?”
“Fine dining.”
“What is that?”
“A meal that’s incredibly expensive, comes in small portions, and somehow makes the people eating it feel like they’ve become important.”
The study fell silent.
Elysia blinked for a moment as if trying to understand me, while the old servant openly wore the expression of a man who thought I had finally started saying insane things.
I knew.
If all you heard was that explanation, it sounded like a scam.
Even in Cheongdam-dong, eight out of ten people who didn’t know what fine dining was made that face when I gave them a rough explanation.
These days, fine dining had become fairly mainstream? Popularized? But when I first opened my restaurant, I was genuinely treated like a con artist.
It was an industry where you put one piece of meat on a plate, stand three sprigs of greenery beside it, and claim that you’d captured the flow of the seasons and the chef’s philosophy.
It would be a lie to say that wasn’t suspicious.
But something being suspicious and something being unprofitable were entirely different matters.
“Kyle.”
Elysia said with a hint of laughter in her voice,
“Are you telling me that if I entrust you with the fortune I have left, you can save the family by selling small portions of food to nobles at exorbitant prices?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“You’re awfully confident.”
“I made my living that way in my previous life.”
“Previous life?”
“That’s just an expression.”
There was no benefit to telling her that I was actually a chef from another world and that she was a supporting character who went broke in Chapter One.
The story wouldn’t be about someone who was heading to a gambling house coming to her senses after hearing a strange chef’s nonsense. It would just be about that strange chef getting thrown out of the mansion while she went to the gambling house.
Elysia gazed at my face for a while, then tapped the leather pouch on the desk with her fingertips.
“So what are you going to do?”
I was newly grateful that she was willing to listen.
Crazy people were dangerous, but they were also generous toward interesting proposals.
Especially someone like Elysia, who believed she had already lost every normal option, might listen to crazy ideas more readily than reasonable words.
I looked around the study.
Old bookshelves, a worn carpet that still retained its dignity, a desk whose surface was dusty but whose material was clearly fine, and a herb garden visible through the window.
I’d thought House Monbel was completely destitute, but looking again, there was actually quite a lot that could be sold.
The problem was that no one had thought to sell any of it until now.
“First, we clear out one of the mansion’s small parlors. We’ll accept only one table a day.”
“One table a day?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in urgent need of money.”
“That’s why we can only accept one table.”
Elysia’s eyebrows rose.
“Explain.”
“Nobles don’t pay dearly for ordinary things. If everyone can eat it, then no matter how delicious it is, it ends up as nothing more than good banquet food. But if we can accept only one table a day, if not just anyone can make a reservation, and if only people who have eaten here can talk about it, then it becomes a status symbol rather than food.”
Even as I spoke, I was rapidly calculating in my head.
Kyle’s memories had preserved some idea of how much the nobles of this world were willing to spend on fine food.
The money spent on a single hunting banquet, the cost of a new dress, the price of a bottle of perfume fashionable in the capital, and the cost of a sword bestowed on a knight.
For people like that, drawing money out of them in exchange for food wasn’t impossible.
“Nobles pay for the fact that they’ve done something others haven’t. They also pay for the fact that they’ve eaten something others haven’t. I’ll draw the money you need to win at the gambling house out of their pride.”
The old servant’s lips trembled.
“Kyle, no matter how you look at it, there’s a limit to how much you can charge for a single meal.”
“That would be true of an ordinary meal.”
“Are you saying what you’re talking about isn’t a meal?”
“It is a meal. Just not one whose sole purpose is filling your stomach.”
Having said it, I felt a little obnoxious.
I think I’d spoken this way when I stood before investors in Cheongdam-dong, too.
They had been skeptical then as well, and I had to explain why it would make money with a glass of water in front of me instead of wine.
Thinking about it again, the way of persuading wealthy people wasn’t all that different on Earth and in a romance-fantasy world.
You just had to make it sound a little more impressive, charge a lot more, and make the other person feel as if they were getting ahead of everyone else even while spending their own money.
Elysia asked,
“How much are you planning to charge?”
I answered immediately.
“150 gold per meal.”
The old servant actually staggered this time.
“150 gold?”
Elysia stopped laughing, too.
“Kyle.”
“Yes.”
“Did I hear that wrong?”
“No.”
“150 gold for one person’s meal?”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking for several months of a knight’s pay for one meal?”
“It’s fine, since I’ll be charging nobles.”
“What if that noble cuts your head off?”
“Then I’ll feed him something delicious first.”
Elysia covered her mouth with her hand.
I couldn’t tell whether she was suppressing her laughter or hiding her expression because she found it absurd.
The old servant now looked less like he wanted to stop me and more like he was despairing over the fact that the young lady had begun seriously listening to this mad chef.
I continued.
“Of course, if I grab some random customer right from the start and demand 150 gold, they’ll treat me like a lunatic and throw me out. That’s why the first guest is important. Someone with money, a loose tongue, and enough influence in high society to move people with a single word.”
“Why would someone like that come to our house?”
“To collect a debt, wouldn’t he?”
Elysia’s pupils trembled ever so slightly.
I didn’t miss the reaction.
“I heard Count Klever is coming tomorrow.”
The old servant drew a quiet breath.
The trace of laughter faded from Elysia’s expression as well.
Count Klever was a man owed a considerable portion of House Monbel’s debt.
The greatest creditor was Countess Rosenhart, but Count Klever was the one who could come straight to the mansion and seize its belongings.
“He’s coming to collect a debt.”
“Yes.”
“Not to have a meal.”
“Someone who comes to collect a debt still gets hungry.”
“You’ve got guts in the strangest places.”
“Work in a kitchen long enough and you develop guts. Otherwise, it’s hard to keep a straight face when a customer tells you to wear gloves while making sushi.”
“What’s sushi?”
“I’ll make it for you later.”
I pointed at the leather pouch again.
“If you take that money to the gambling house, the people there won’t have any intention of letting you win. You know that, too.”
Elysia didn’t answer.
“But if you give that money to me, then at least I can take one shot at Count Klever tomorrow. If he finishes his meal and still says he’s going to collect the debt, then I was wrong.”
“And then?”
“Then you can go to the gambling house.”
The old servant looked at me as if he were about to cry.
“Kyle!”
“Uncle, if you tell the young lady to give up on the gambling house entirely in this situation, she won’t listen. So we’ll change the order. I’ll gamble first tomorrow, and if I fail, I’ll let the young lady do it.”
“What you’re doing isn’t gambling?”
“I at least play after looking at my cards.”
The truth was, those cards were a goddamn mess.
The kitchen was a disaster, the ingredients were meager, and the staff didn’t know the first thing about modern service.
There weren’t enough plates, the tablecloths were worn, and if I wanted to make the dishes I had in mind, I needed to sharpen the knives before anything else.
But I knew this hell.
A failing restaurant, cash-strapped investors, inadequate equipment, uncooperative employees, and demanding customers.
Cheongdam-dong hadn’t always been sparkling, either.
If anything, behind those glittering lights, there were usually traces of people ground down to make them shine.
Elysia stared at me for a while.
Her gaze was strange.
Until moments ago, she had been cheerful like someone on her way to die, but now her face looked as if a tiny crack had let in a breath of fresh air.
Something slowly stirred deep in her eyes—too thin to call hope, too hot to call doubt.
“Kyle.”
“Yes.”
“What do you need to make that expensive food you mentioned?”
I answered as if I had been waiting for her to ask.
“Money.”
Elysia laughed.
“I know that.”
“And I need your name. The meal has to be served at House Monbel’s mansion to House Monbel’s guests. If I say I’m going to sell expensive food on the side of the road, I’m a con artist. If I serve it by reservation at a noble’s mansion, it becomes a new kind of luxury.”
“Do you really think the Monbel name is still worth that much?”
“Even a noble name on the verge of ruin is expensive. And the fact that it’s on the verge of ruin can be used, too.”
“How can you use that?”
“The Last Banquet of House Monbel.”
Elysia’s smile stiffened slightly.
I immediately added,
“Of course, I have no intention of making it truly the last. But we can make it sound that way to the guests. An old house on the verge of ruin, staking its last shred of pride on a single meal. Isn’t that the sort of story nobles would love?”
The study fell silent again.
Elysia looked down at the Golden Deer invitation on the desk.
The gold-leafed paper was dazzling, but now it somehow looked cheap.
At least, that was how it looked to me. That paper was a hole that sucked money in, while the table I was going to set was bait that would make money spew back out.
It was obvious which of the two was better.
Elysia picked up the leather pouch. The old servant held his breath, and I watched her fingertips.
She held the pouch for a moment as if feeling its weight, then tossed it casually toward me.
It was heavy.
Too light to represent the value of a human life, neither here nor there as restaurant startup capital, and far too precious to throw into a gambling house.
“Fine.”
Elysia said,
“I’ll give you one day.”
“One day?”
“Prepare that fine dining or whatever you called it before Count Klever comes tomorrow evening. If you succeed, I won’t go to the gambling house.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then let’s go die together.”
“Why would I?”
“You burned through my money.”
She smiled brightly.
“It’s lonely to die alone, you know?”
I held the leather pouch against my chest and fell silent for a moment.
This young lady was definitely crazy.
But if investors were all perfectly sane, the restaurant industry could never exist in this world.
“Understood.”
I bowed my head.
“Tomorrow, I’ll serve Count Klever a 150-gold meal.”
Elysia asked with a smile,
“What if he doesn’t pay?”
“I’ll make him.”
“How?”
I answered sincerely,
“I just have to make it delicious.”
Elysia looked dazed for a moment, then burst out laughing again.
This laugh was less dangerous than the one before.
It was still the laughter of someone who had lost her mind, but at least it wasn’t the laughter of someone about to go hang herself.
That was enough.
I had successfully secured my first investment, but the terms were the worst possible.
Twenty-four hours remained.
The kitchen was a disaster, the staff had received no training, and my first guest was a count who had come to collect a debt.
And the target average spend per customer was 150 gold.
As I left the study, I muttered to myself,
‘Fuck, this is tougher than opening in Cheongdam-dong.’