Chapter 166: Ah, You're Saying You Couldn't Eat It Because It Wasn't There (2) The elf scouts trembled as they experienced flavors and textures they had never encountered before with their tongues and teeth.
"Uh… is bunsik really that delicious?"
"What's going on? This is completely different from what Jinseo said!"
Painfolt and Geshtain were dumbfounded at the sight of handsome men and beautiful women who looked like they belonged in a painting or sculpture, wolfing down bunsik.
The scene of other races becoming bewitched by bunsik and losing their senses was not something the two mages were seeing for the first time.
But contrary to Jinseo's expectation that they would hate meat enough to dislike even its smell, the elves showed the most intense reaction of any race that had tried bunsik for the first time.
A dwarf-made sausage for hot dogs, hidden inside fried batter that was crispy outside and fluffy inside.
Ham commonly found in Korea, one of the indispensable ingredients in gimbap.
Stir-fried spicy pork packed with spicy seasoning, and more.
The elves did not just become captivated by bunsik they were tasting for the first time—they reveled in a kind of joy they had never experienced before, through the meat inside that bunsik.
"…There won't be any left for the two of us to eat."
Painfolt had only taken one bite of gimbap, but with the elves devouring the bunsik on the huge tree table like starving ghosts, he was overwhelmed and could no longer reach for the bunsik.
"You said bunsik? Is it a dish only humans eat?"
"The ingredients in this dish called bunsik—this is meat, right? It is, right?"
"C-can we eat more of this?"
Having encountered the new civilization of meat, the elves bombarded Painfolt with questions, and he silently nodded and took out additional bunsik he had stored in subspace storage.
It was easily enough for ten servings, so Painfolt expected everyone would eat their fill and still have leftovers.
"What's this smell? I've never seen any of these dishes!"
"Meat? Really?"
But when other elves, drawn in by the smell, joined in, it ran out in no time.
"I heard elves dislike meat and don't eat it. Was I mistaken?"
"It's not that we dislike it—we couldn't eat it because it wasn't there."
"There's no meat? What do you mean? Does that make sense?"
Geshtain, who had given up on bunsik and was chewing a chocolate bar instead, looked up at the elves with an incredulous expression.
"Well, you see…"
"So that's what it was… heh."
"To think you've maintained a meatless diet for thousands of years… I can't even imagine it. You've truly lived pitiful lives."
After hearing the circumstances, Painfolt and Geshtain looked at the elves with pity and sighed.
In the center of the elves' continent, Keinua, a gigantic World Tree towered high.
The enormous World Tree emitted an immense amount of mana, and when animals were exposed to that mana, it was very common for them to turn into spirits.
Animals that turned into spirits lost their bodies. Setting aside whether spirits could be captured or not, it was impossible to obtain nutrients from a spirit that had lost its body. Naturally, they could not be used as ingredients.
As a result, the Keinua Continent became a place where it was hard to find animals that could be eaten, and the elves had no choice but to live in a society where vegetarianism was forced upon them.
"Wait—if that's the case, shouldn't plants become spirits too? Can you eat plant spirits?"
"In the case of plants, even if they absorb mana, they release it back out again, so it's difficult for them to become spirits. There are plants that become spirits on rare occasions, but as I said—truly rare."
"And if we can't even eat plants, we elves die. Only spirits can live on mana alone."
"R-right. That would be true."
Geshtain scratched the back of his head awkwardly at the elves' reactions, practically begging that they at least had to eat plants.
"In fact, we tried moving all the way out to the edges of the continent, far from the World Tree, and hunting the animals there. But…"
"But?"
"Since we elves have eaten only vegetables for thousands of years, we didn't know how to cook meat in a way that tastes good."
Even if you acquired high-quality meat, if you could not cook it properly, all you would get was tough dishes reeking of an unpleasant smell.
For elves who had lived in an environment where it was difficult to obtain meat for a long time, meat cookery had become a lost technology.
"No, even so, shouldn't meat-based recipes have been passed down? I heard that until a few hundred years ago, elves mingled with humans and other races on the Francia Continent…"
"Ah, well…"
At Painfolt's objection, the young elves who were busily eating bunsik began answering as they recalled what they had heard from the elders.
"Back when travel between continents was possible, only a very small portion of our elves left the Keinua Continent."
"They were adults who had lived at least three hundred or four hundred years, got tired of living here, and left."
"And those who left often didn't return, and instead ended their lives on the continents of other races. They left in the first place because they were sick of life here—if they learned what real meat tasted like, they'd want to come home even less."
"Then couldn't humans like me, or other races, come here and spread meat-eating?"
"I wasn't even born back then, so I don't know the details, but I heard all the tribes unified their policy around rejecting outsiders at the time."
"Also, a lot of the older people say vegetarianism is enough, so why do we need meat? They're negative about meat-eating too. They say they can't find a reason to go all the way out and go through the trouble of hunting just to eat meat when there are plants nearby."
"And have those elders even tasted meat?"
"Since most of them stayed here the whole time… probably not."
"Tsk, tsk. Talking like that without even knowing what meat tastes like. Just because they're older, crushing what young people say—every race is the same."
Geshtain clicked his tongue, hearing a conversation that hinted at conflict born from a generational gap.
"That's why we were very excited when we heard you two were coming here. We had hopes that other races might bring proper, delicious meat dishes."
"But this is beyond expectations! To think I lived more than 120 years without knowing a taste like this—I'm so wronged!"
"You should have come earlier!"
For the young elves, the age they had lived up to now was the same as the period during which they had never once encountered properly cooked meat.
The bunsik they tasted for the first time today was, in itself, an encounter with a new civilization.
Even after eating every bit of bunsik Painfolt had brought without leaving a single piece, they licked the remaining tteokbokki sauce off the plate with their tongues.
And even then, their craving for bunsik did not subside, so they sucked on the wooden forks stained with tteokbokki sauce.
"It looks like I'll have to bring out what's left too."
Painfolt opened subspace storage again and took out the final bunsik he had saved for emergencies, intentionally put into a white plastic bag to distinguish it from the others.
"Painfolt, are you sure?"
"Isn't this their first time tasting bunsik? We can go back later and eat as much as we want, so we should yield this much."
He untied the white plastic bag and set the various bunsik inside down on the table.
Then, so the elves could eat more comfortably, he stood up, took out a Nuxx Bar, and peeled off the wrapper.
Thanks to the World Tree of the Keinua Continent, his body was saturated with mana, but even aside from restoring mana, ice cream was delicious as a dessert in its own right.
Starting with the chocolate coating of the Nuxx Bar, Painfolt bit into it while looking at the elves who were busily eating bunsik.
"When we first ate bunsik, did we make expressions like that?"
"Come on, we weren't that bad. You only get expressions like that if you've lived more than a hundred years without knowing the taste of meat. If I had Jinseo's smartphone, I'd want to take a picture. Anyway, watching those young elves eat, time has already passed like this."
The time that passed while showing bunsik to the elves and talking was about one hour.
Meanwhile, the scout who had gone to the hall was walking back with other elves, and the elf at the very front stood out.
Just looking at his beard, which had grown so long it nearly reached his knees, it was clear he was quite elderly even among elves.
"Welcome, young people of other races."
"Y-young people? Me?"
Startled, Painfolt pointed at himself with the stick of the Nuxx Bar and widened his eyes.
He had never even imagined he would be called "young" even after passing seventy.
"I heard that no matter how long humans live, they struggle to surpass one hundred years. If so, isn't that sufficiently young? And that short other race beside you…"
"I'm a dwarf."
"Your race lives around two hundred years, I believe? In any case, that short other race would also have to be young compared to us. I am Keras, elder of the Alas Tribe. But your face looks very familiar. Son, do you see it too?"
At Elder Keras's words, the elf standing to his left examined Painfolt's face closely.
"Could you be Lord Rainpolt?"
"Huh?"
At the name Rainpolt, Painfolt dropped the Nuxx Bar stick he was holding onto the ground.
"You… know my younger sibling?"
"Then you must be Lord Painfolt. It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Reus. I received much help from your younger sibling—especially regarding magic. Father, do you remember Lord Rainpolt?"
"Rainpolt? Wait… ah, I remember."
"When did you see my younger sibling?"
"It has been roughly… ten years since he visited here, so it was not that long ago."
"Ten years? That long ago?"
For a moment, Painfolt frowned, then understood why that phrasing was used and relaxed his expression.
Elves, like dragons, have a different sense of time from humans. Well, it's a race that can live up to a thousand years if they're long-lived, so it can't be helped.
"We will speak of your younger sibling inside the hall. Before that… I hear you presented dishes with meat in them…"
"Ah, the bunsik we brought is already all gone. But since we heard elves only enjoy vegetarian food, we did prepare dishes separately."
When Elder Keras mentioned the new dishes, Painfolt opened subspace storage and took out plastic bags containing the elf dishes.
Then he arranged plate after plate of various dishes with no meat—white rice, namul, and others—across the table.
"Hm. So this is the vegetarian food other races enjoy…"
Keras quietly examined the vegetarian spread on the table, then ate half a spoonful of white rice.
After that, he tasted each kind of namul evenly with a wooden fork, then took a bite of each of the other dishes as well, and finally set the fork down.
"It has been hundreds of years since I tasted human food… and yet it is quite different from the taste my tongue remembers."
"That may be because it's cuisine made by a human from another continent, not the Francia Continent where I live. Does it not suit your taste?"
"Not at all. Rather, the dishes I just tasted please me far more."
For the first time, the corners of Keras's mouth rose slightly—he had been expressionless the entire time he spoke.
"So the meat dishes you brought, and the dishes I just tasted now, are called bunsik—is that it?"
"Most of it is bunsik, and the rest is food made by a chef from Korea."
"Then if I wish to eat bunsik I have not yet tried, must I go to Korea?"
"You can come to the Francia Continent instead of Korea, and that will be enough."
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