Chapter 212: Bring Some Popcorn, Jinseo (2) "Wow! So this is what a blessing feels like! I'm overflowing with power!"
"Ohhh! Did you see that just now? I dodged the Dark Dragon's attack! Earlier, I got hit and sent flying all the way to where Lady Charlotte was, but now I can actually see it and dodge it with my own eyes! It's not just that my strength is overflowing!"
"To think we only found out how amazing this is now. I wish we could receive this when subjugating monsters too!"
"Ah… but of all times, I got hungry right now! Damn it! I need to keep fighting!"
Aside from a few unlucky ones who felt intense hunger the moment they received the blessing and had to retreat, most of the troops confirmed that they had become overwhelmingly stronger, and their morale rose.
Clang!
"Damn it, my sword broke!"
"Mine's cracked too."
"A dragon really is a dragon. Even after we hit it this hard, it's still perfectly fine instead of collapsing. Meanwhile, our weapons are the ones breaking first."
The knights at the front, who had been unleashing a fierce assault alongside Craid, threw away their ruined swords without hesitation, drew new ones, and swung them again.
"This is strange..."
As the Dark Dragon Evelyn faced 1,000 troops who kept charging at her without dying even after taking her attacks head-on, her irritation gradually began to build.
"Auntie's magic is going against the natural order..."
No matter how powerful a dragon was, turning mortals into eternally undying beings was impossible.
She tried to find a way to break the incomprehensible situation unfolding before her.
But with 1,000 troops constantly rushing at her, she had no time to gather her thoughts.
Watching her niece from afar, Charlotte smiled with narrowed eyes.
"She looks really annoyed. Oh, what flavor is it this time?"
"Cheese flavor."
"Let me see… oh, not bad."
Having started with caramel and moved on through onion and hot chili popcorn, she looked satisfied with the cheese popcorn as she sipped cola through the straw stuck into the can.
"So far, it doesn't look like they've done much damage."
"Well, my niece is a dragon just like me. It hasn't even been half a day since the battle started. If she collapsed already against just 1,000 vermin, she ought to quit being a dragon."
"I'm worried about how much strength they'll actually be able to drain while Dragon's Blessing lasts."
"Well, I guess it looks that way. If you compared my niece to a human, then those kids would be nothing more than mosquitoes. Even if a human gets a bit of blood sucked by mosquitoes, it's not much of a blow."
At Jinseo's concern, Charlotte nodded and rummaged around in the popcorn tub.
"But the story changes if they're mosquitoes that absolutely can't die. No matter how many times you slap them, they keep flying back. If they keep circling around you, then suck your blood and flee whenever you let your guard down, that would be truly irritating, right?"
"Not just irritating. I think it would drive you mad. If 1,000 immortal mosquitoes kept buzzing around you for a whole week, you could forget about getting any sleep."
"Huh? Now that you put it that way, you're right. Ugh… even though I made the comparison myself, that's genuinely horrifying."
Charlotte shuddered and popped some cheese popcorn into her mouth.
"Ah, it got stuck between my teeth. Popcorn is great and all, but that part is annoying."
"But if you're a dragon, staying awake for about a week shouldn't be a problem, should it?"
"That's true, but it's different if you're being attacked nonstop by immortal mosquitoes like that. Oh, looks like something big is coming."
Charlotte, who had been picking popcorn from between her teeth with a fingernail, pointed at her niece, who was drawing in a deep breath to unleash a breath attack.
"Another breath attack?"
"I dodged it earlier, but this time maybe I'll try taking it once. I've gotten curious what it feels like."
When the Dark Dragon Evelyn had used her breath the first time, everyone had been so startled that they dodged. But this time, some of them began gathering in front of her out of curiosity.
Fwoosh.
Unlike Charlotte's, Evelyn's breath came out black and spread in a fan shape, covering the troops who wanted to experience it.
Black energy rose like steam from the ground the breath had swept across, and the grass instantly withered, then blackened and died.
Yet the troops Evelyn had intended to erase were standing there just fine on both feet.
"Ahh, so that's what it felt like."
"Lady Charlotte's breath was hot, but the Dark Dragon's breath stirs up fear!"
"But even if it's fear, it's not really that much. If I had to compare it to something..."
"To what?"
"What would be the best way to put it… right! That's it! It feels about like the kind of fear you get when you happily finish your meal, look down at your plate, and see only half a cockroach left sitting there!"
"Ugh, of all the ways to make a comparison, why would you put it like that?"
Hearing their comrade's words, the knights frowned in disgust.
"Cockroach...?"
The Dark Dragon Evelyn, who had been about to unleash her breath again, froze for a moment when she heard the knights' words.
"My breath is… a cockroach..."
A cockroach, a loathsome vermin far beneath even the vermin she was dealing with now.
At the comparison that made her out to be no different from that cockroach, her pride was crushed, and she could no longer contain the rage surging inside her.
"I cannot forgive this..."
Roaaaar!
The Dark Dragon Evelyn roared and slowly beat her wings.
Then she plunged straight downward toward the soldiers looking up at her.
Boom!
The earth shook, and black energy seeped out from between the long cracks splitting across the ground.
"Ah, that one hurt quite a bit."
"Urgh! Pull me out! I'm stuck in the ground up to my waist!"
But the troops under Dragon's Blessing all remained safe without a single death.
Seeing the knights and soldiers get right back up as if nothing had happened, Evelyn launched one frenzied attack after another, only causing her strength to drain even faster.
"Fried dumplings, 50 servings, are out!"
"Tuna, vegetable, and cheese gimbap, 30 rolls each, are out! You said earlier we didn't need to slice them, right? We'll send them out whole! Oh, and how many udon broths… ten 1.5-liter containers? Yes! I'll bring them out now!"
"Mr. Jinseo! We're out of cheese tteokbokki!"
"Here it is. Thirty servings should be enough, right?"
"Yes! Nero! Over there… see that empty table? Take it there! And go around the other tables too. If any food has gone cold, reheat it with fire magic! Control the power well and don't burn it!"
-Meow!
"And Owl, you go with the other bird spirits and scatter these over there to the soldiers fighting! Doesn't matter if it hits them on the head or not, just throw them everywhere! The soldiers will pick them up and eat them themselves!"
Flap, flap.
After hearing Jason's instructions, Owl flew up high carrying a plastic bag stuffed full of Choco-X Pies.
Then dozens of bird spirits flew after Owl, quickly spread out, and dropped plastic bags full of assorted snacks down to the soldiers on the ground.
"Waaah! Choco-X Pie!"
"There are S-Xickers too! And Mong-X Tongtong!"
The soldiers, who had been fighting nonstop until they were drenched in sweat, cheered when they saw the black plastic bags falling from the sky.
They had been ordered to retreat and fill their stomachs as soon as they felt hungry, but a minimum number of troops still had to be maintained, so some of them endured their hunger and could not leave the battlefield.
So Jason asked the spirits for help and urgently sent in the snacks most popular with the soldiers.
"Everyone filled up, right? Then let's go back to fighting!"
"Wait! More spaghetti is coming out over there! If it's about three servings, let's eat a little more!"
Just as Charlotte had said, the troops under Dragon's Blessing really did devour food like gluttons.
And to keep their stomachs full, the chefs also worked in shifts and cooked without rest.
The method Jinseo chose to feed 1,000 troops efficiently was a buffet.
Thanks to that, there was no time wasted taking individual orders, so Jinseo and the other chefs were able to focus solely on cooking.
The kings of each nation had brought butlers and maids who handled collecting the empty dishes and washing them, while Nero and Owl busily delivered food together with the spirits the elves had brought.
"Jinseo! What are you doing? Your shift ended already! Go rest now!"
"H-has it already?"
Jinseo looked at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall and only then realized that he was already thirty minutes past his scheduled rest time.
"I'll just finish this first!"
Jinseo took the boiled spaghetti noodles out of a long metal container, poured plenty of olive oil over them so they would not bloat, and tossed them thoroughly.
"Spaghetti noodles, 50 servings, are out!"
Among the troops suffering severe hunger due to Dragon's Blessing, there was no one who was picky about food.
Even so, even in a situation where they had to eat in such a rush, preferences still existed.
For troops who wanted something quick, simple, and tasty to fill their stomachs, spaghetti topped with tomato sauce or meat sauce was the most popular.
As soon as the spaghetti came out, it vanished into the soldiers' mouths, so Jinseo devoted himself entirely to boiling spaghetti noodles and making sauce, and time flew by in a blur.
"Then I'll go rest for a bit."
"Yes! Make sure you rest for a full hour! And… what? We're out of sundae? Hold on just a moment!"
Jason hurriedly pulled sundae out of the steamer and started slicing it, while Jinseo looked at him with sympathy and stepped out of the kitchen.
"Phew… time really flew by."
Leaning his back against the food truck, Jinseo let out a long sigh and lowered his head deeply.
"This is really something… it feels like there are 1,000 Lord Craids gathered here."
When he raised his head again, Jinseo let out a small laugh as he watched food being stuffed nonstop into the mouths of the soldiers filling the tables.
"Still, it's such a relief that so many chefs came to help."
Jinseo looked over the row of bunsik carts lined up behind the food truck.
There were more than 100 bunsik carts mobilized for this battle, and the chefs from every nation who had come for it were tirelessly making bunsik and other dishes.
"It's good that everyone's working hard to cook… and to eat..."
A battle against a dragon would inevitably produce countless dead.
And yet not a single casualty had appeared, thanks to Charlotte's magic, Dragon's Blessing.
Jinseo walked toward the sunbed where Charlotte was lying, and the moment she saw him, lying there in sunglasses, she gestured for him to sit beside her.
"Why are you standing there? If you're going to rest, rest properly. Like me."
Charlotte was recovering her mana while savoring affogato, a dessert made by pouring strong espresso over ice cream.
"After working that much, don't you want to rest?"
"To be honest, I want to keep working, but the people around me kept begging me to rest, so I'm taking a break because I have no choice. Even so, I never imagined that just making food would be this helpful."
In battle or war, the importance of supplies could never be overstated.
But even so, this was the first time in his life Jinseo had experienced a battle where meals were this important.
"Even if it's because of Dragon's Blessing… I didn't expect them to eat this well either. The bunsik and dishes you introduced really don't seem to tire people out easily. The problem is, they're eating so much that I'm almost worried the chefs here will collapse before my niece does."
"Ha ha ha..."
"I'm not joking, I'm serious, so make sure you follow the rest schedule thoroughly. I'd like to help too, but I really have no talent for cooking, so I can't help with that."
"Even so, you gave everyone the most important thing of all, Dragon's Blessing."
"Still, if it weren't for your bunsik, they wouldn't be eating this much."
"Which is why I should go back and make more."
Jinseo stood up, rubbing the stiffness from his neck.
There were still fifty minutes left in his rest time, but as he watched the other chefs still cooking, all desire to keep resting vanished.
"Jinseo."
"Yes."
"Don't overdo it, all right? No matter how well those vermin fight, if you collapse midway through, all of this will be for nothing. Understood?"
"Yes, I'll keep that in mind."
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