Chapter 127
“A whole cow, you say? Perhaps you mean an assorted set of Hanwoo cuts…?”
At the employee’s cautious clarification, the Heavenly Demon shook her head.
“No.”
Then she continued calmly.
“I said to bring out one whole cow—‘all’ of it.”
‘Eek?!’
I was horrified inwardly at the Heavenly Demon’s statement.
Were you really going to eat an entire cow by yourself?
The Heavenly Demon’s body was, at most, only slightly larger than mine.
Just where was one whole cow supposed to fit in that tiny frame?
Dark couldn’t do that either!
‘Surely the Heavenly Demon isn’t just ordering whatever she wants because I’m paying, right?’
I shot the Heavenly Demon a suspicious sidelong glare, but that did not seem to be the case at all.
‘Ugh, if she orders an entire Hanwoo cow at this fancy restaurant, how much is that going to cost….’
I tried roughly crunching the numbers in my head, but I couldn’t come up with an estimate at all.
But I had already grandly declared that she should order as much as she wanted, so I couldn’t take it back now.
‘I-it’s fine. I’m rich…. And the Heavenly Demon has sponsored me a ton all this time, so I can splurge that much….’
Reassuring myself vigorously, I forced myself to nod at the employee as though I were perfectly calm.
“Prepare it as the Heavenly Demon wishes.”
“O-oh, understood! I’ll prepare it immediately!”
The employee bowed deeply and hurried out of the room.
Not long after, a veritable mountain of meat began piling up on the wide dining table.
Tenderloin, sirloin, chuck flap, short ribs, and so on.
Red meat of every cut kept arriving on huge trays, while skilled employees began grilling it rapidly beside the brazier.
Once the well-grilled meat was placed on the Heavenly Demon’s plate, she raised her chopsticks as if she had been waiting for it.
‘W-wow….’
What followed was sheer astonishment.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The Heavenly Demon devoured the meat at tremendous speed.
It wasn’t as though she was eating crudely, stuffing it down in a frenzy.
The motion of taking food to her mouth with her chopsticks was extremely neat, but the speed was simply abnormal.
‘It looks like some kind of trick.’
Plates were emptied almost as soon as they were filled.
Several employees could barely keep up with her eating speed as they grilled the meat.
Out of genuine curiosity, I asked the Heavenly Demon,
“Do you normally eat this much…?”
“This One’s body is a vessel for the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. The calories needed to maintain the body and circulate qi are naturally different from those of ordinary mortals.”
“I-I see.”
Not human….
Maybe I should regard her not as a human, but as something like a tank or a fighter jet.
As expected of the world’s number-two ranker.
Anyway, watching a mountain of meat vanish nonstop before my eyes, my appetite began to stir as well.
‘Then shall I eat some too?’
Shhk.
I cut the premium Hanwoo set before me with a fork and knife.
Since raw meat was much tastier than grilled meat, I bit into a piece of uncooked, red, blood-tinged meat.
‘Mmm, I knew Hanwoo was the best.’
Just as the tender texture melting in my mouth put me in a good mood,
another employee served something in front of me.
“Jinjo-nim. This is fresh Hanwoo blood from an animal slaughtered today.”
It was red blood in a crystal wineglass.
‘Oh yeah!’
I didn’t show it outwardly, but I cheered inside.
I had subtly asked the Association President to prepare some blood if possible, but I hadn’t expected him to arrange it so perfectly.
I had eaten Hanwoo blood sausage plenty of times, but this was my first time drinking it in liquid form.
Besides.
‘Blood in a wineglass? That’s every vampire’s dream!’
Like a scene from a movie, I elegantly held the stem of the glass and swirled the blood around.
I had always wanted to try this at least once, and my dream had come true!
***
‘As expected, she truly is a nonhuman existence.’
While eating, the Heavenly Demon watched Jinjo’s meal out of the corner of her eye.
The sight of her putting raw meat into her mouth without hesitation and enjoying fresh blood like wine.
It was quite grotesque, yet at the same time, it overflowed with astonishing elegance.
‘She is different from her appearance.’
The Heavenly Demon admired inwardly.
Judging by her appearance alone, she was a delicate girl smaller even than herself.
Moreover, the Heavenly Demon could not sense so much as qi or killing intent from her.
But even in these trivial details, it was clear that she was a monster unlike an ordinary human.
‘Hehe. Jinjo, the more I watch you, the more interesting you become.’
That contradictory appearance drew the Heavenly Demon’s interest even further.
***
As the food continued to arrive, empty plates piled up like a tower.
I quietly held blood in my mouth and surveyed the situation from the corner of my eye.
‘She’s really eating an entire cow….’
I was starting to worry about how much the total bill would be.
At a fancy restaurant like this, eating that much Hanwoo would cost tens of millions of won.
But Noble Demeanor would never allow me to hint that she should stop eating now.
‘I am rich. I am rich…. I am an extremely wealthy vampire tycoon with mountains of money….’
Chanting the mantra internally, I forced myself to maintain a nonchalant expression.
Yet it wasn’t easy.
‘I have to spend a lot on upgrading my domain, too!’
Vamp-sniffle.
Because inside, I was sobbing my eyes out.
Fortunately, before long, the Heavenly Demon set down her chopsticks.
‘Ah! Finally!’
I had been worried that she might say she wanted to eat another one, so I was immensely relieved.
“It was an excellent meal. This One thanks you for the hospitality.”
The Heavenly Demon lightly nodded with a satisfied expression.
‘Phew, it’s finally over.’
I let out a sigh of relief and stood up.
Then I took out my special card and tried to pay, but—
“Jinjo-nim. The Association President will be covering today’s meal.”
‘W-what?!’
I widened my eyes at the unexpected news.
Association President Kim Taeseong was paying the entire price of a whole Hanwoo cow?
‘Association President, you’re the best! What a champ!’
My mood shot sky-high in an instant, but I showed nothing outwardly and nodded as though it were only natural.
It was immediately after we left the restaurant in an exceptionally good mood.
“Then, let us cleanse our palates.”
At the Heavenly Demon’s offhand remark as she looked down the street, I doubted my ears.
‘She can still eat after an entire cow?!’
“Street food sounds good.”
Completely unaware of my flustered inner thoughts, the Heavenly Demon was already walking.
We slowly strolled through a busy district not far from the restaurant.
Fortunately, no misfortune such as a crowd gathering or our being photographed occurred.
Thanks to the perception-obscuring mask Lili had made, I could avoid people’s gazes.
The Heavenly Demon also seemed to use a method of her own, since the people around us naturally looked away.
They seemed to perceive her as nothing more than an ordinary child.
After walking a little, we came upon a street lined with street food.
“Hmm….”
The Heavenly Demon seriously examined Korean street snacks—tteokbokki, chicken skewers, bungeoppang, and so on—then began tasting one of each variety.
Munch, munch.
The sight of the world’s strongest eating bungeoppang with a solemn expression while dressed in black martial-arts robes was quite novel.
“Korean street food is delicious.”
In any case, it seemed like my favorability campaign was going well.
If I treated her this well, using the wish ticket would be much easier, too.
After walking for a while, we took a break and sat side by side on a quiet park bench, where we talked.
“…Were you also treated as cute by the Climber community, Heavenly Demon?”
“There were those who considered This One cute. This One could not understand it. You, too, seemed to suffer such troubles from time to time.”
“Indeed! Jinjo cannot understand it either!”
As rankers inhabiting girls’ bodies, we had formed a subtle bond of shared understanding.
It was while we were making small talk over snacks.
Bzzzz-.
A fly began buzzing around the Heavenly Demon’s face.
A normal person would likely wave a hand and shoo it away.
But the Heavenly Demon was different.
She lightly extended the wooden stick of the chicken skewer she held.
Shrak.
A very small, light sound.
Before I could even blink, a fly was impaled on the tip of the skewer.
Her skill was extraordinarily fast and precise.
But on closer inspection, there was an even more astonishing point.
She had pierced precisely both wings and pinned them so that it could not move, without touching the insect’s body at all.
‘What the hell, how did she do that?!’
I was startled.
“There is a flying insect.”
The Heavenly Demon casually flicked the skewer and tossed the insect to the ground.
Wow… that was insanely cool….
Yet seeing that scene made pointless competitiveness flare up inside me.
‘I may be Jinjo in name, but if I let that slide, I’ll lose face.’
As it happened, I had a good method.
Scout Mosquito Familiar No. 9 had been left hovering in the air.
I immediately sent Mosquito No. 9 a covert telepathic command.
‘Fly precisely between my chopsticks right now, then stop as if only your wings have been caught. Stay still so your body isn’t hurt!’
As soon as the command was delivered, I elegantly raised the wooden chopsticks in my hand toward the air.
-Bzzzz.
Then, under my perfect control, No. 9 slipped its body between my chopsticks without a hair’s breadth of error.
Tap.
I did not apply pressure to the chopsticks, merely pretending to hold them lightly.
To an observer, it looked exactly as though I had snatched a flying mosquito with chopsticks in one swift motion and precisely subdued only its wings.
“……!”
Seeing that, the Heavenly Demon’s eyebrow rose slightly.
My shoulders lifted with pride.
‘I did splendidly!’
With a pleased heart, I released No. 9 from the chopsticks and sent it back into the sky.
***
‘Oh?’
The Heavenly Demon watched the situation before her with interest.
‘Did she reproduce This One’s technique after seeing it just once?’
A technique that subdued tiny creatures using nothing but speed and precision.
This was not something anyone could do simply by being strong.
It required delicate control of force, an art that even most martial artists could not easily perform.
Yet Jinjo had just learned the technique from a single glance and demonstrated the exact same thing right before her eyes.
No. Rather, she had displayed an even more refined technique, one level above, as if to show off.
‘It looked as though the mosquito had entered between the chopsticks of its own accord.’
Moreover, Jinjo had shown the composure to let the tiny creature live instead of killing it.
She had ostentatiously flaunted her lofty control, contrasting it with the Heavenly Demon’s rough restraint.
‘Jinjo, you…… just how much more interesting do you intend to make yourself to This One?’