Chapter 211: Bring Some Popcorn, Jinseo (1) Whoooosh… crash.
Caw, caw.
The sound of waves and seagulls echoed along the long stretch of coastline.
The sky was clear, without a single cloud.
It was the perfect weather to enjoy playing in the water under the warm sunlight.
But the people gathered here had by no means come to the summer beach for leisure.
In the direction where the 1,000 elite soldiers had fixed their eyes, having gathered for the purpose of properly sealing the Dark Dragon Evelyn, a young girl sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.
And around the food truck parked behind them, hundreds of chefs waited in a state of tension.
"Hyung-nim, are we really going to fight the Dark Dragon Evelyn here? My heart's pounding so hard I can barely think straight."
Jason, one of the food truck's helpers, kept taking deep breaths with a pale face.
"Please calm yourself. We are not here to fight that dragon. We only need to serve the food."
"R-right."
"Still, we really are about to face the Dark Dragon Evelyn. Before arriving here, it was hard to feel like we were heading into a battle with a dragon, but now it truly feels different."
Until they left Falstead Castle and arrived here, where the Dark Dragon Evelyn was sealed, the mood had remained friendly and relaxed.
But now that the Dark Dragon Evelyn and the 1,000 elite soldiers stood facing each other, only tension hung in the stillness.
"Whew, what killer weather. On a day like this, I ought to be wearing a bikini and sunbathing, but because of that damned niece of mine, I can't even do that."
Charlotte grumbled as she looked down at her niece, trapped inside a transparent hemispherical barrier.
"Tch… the structure of the magic formula maintaining the seal is a complete mess. So I really did slap this seal together in a rush. It's a miracle it held out for three whole months."
She stretched out her right hand and placed it against the barrier surrounding the Dark Dragon Evelyn.
Flaaash.
As an intense light burst outward in every direction, the soldiers standing behind Charlotte hurriedly turned their heads aside.
"Mmm..."
Evelyn, whose eyes were still closed, slowly rose to her feet as she spread apart the arms that had been wrapped around her knees.
"How does it feel to be released from the seal?"
"Auntie..."
Evelyn opened her eyes and swept her surroundings with narrowed eyes.
"So you brought these vermin here..."
After spotting the troops standing behind Charlotte, Evelyn's eyes narrowed even further.
"That's right. This time, I brought them to properly fix your rotten attitude."
"These vermin? Me...?"
Hundreds of years ago, a great army had once gathered and stood against Evelyn in order to seal the Dark Dragon, who had been consumed by madness.
Remembering what had happened back then, Evelyn once more looked over how many troops had assembled.
"Too few..."
But the troops gathered now to seal her once again were absurdly few compared to that time, and Evelyn instinctively knew that their power was also weaker than it had been when the hero's party had stood with Charlotte in the past.
"They are weak vermin, so they will… die."
"No, those children won't die."
"They won't die?"
"Mm-hm. Just watch."
Flaaash.
As Charlotte slowly lifted both hands upward, a massive pillar of light rose between her and Evelyn.
"This isn't the only one. Just wait a moment."
No sooner had she finished speaking than more pillars of light shot up toward the sky one after another.
Soon, dozens of pillars of light had appeared, and rings of light connected them, forming an enormous circle large enough to encompass all 1,000 soldiers and more.
Inside that circle, Charlotte's red hair rippled like waves with the surging flow of mana.
"Like this. I adjusted a spell I made ages ago and left gathering dust. It's Dragon's Blessing. What do you think? Pretty incredible, right?"
The mages who had improved the invincibility spell together with Charlotte gave it the name Dragon's Blessing instead of its original name.
Since it consumed so much mana that no one but a dragon could cast it in the first place, the name was also meant as a sign of respect toward her.
"So even if they fight you, not a single casualty will occur."
"I… won't kill them?"
"Who said you'd kill them? Could you even? What kind of aunt kills her niece? It'll be enough if we weaken you to the point where you can be sealed again for even longer than before, until you finally grow up properly."
Having finished Dragon's Blessing, Charlotte turned to face the soldiers waiting behind her.
"All right, preparations are done, so go give that damned niece of mine the beating she deserves. You've all grown stronger! Charge!"
Charlotte shouted as she pointed at Evelyn.
But not a single person actually charged at Evelyn.
Craid, who stood at the very front, had tried to run forward, but when he realized that no one else was moving except him, he loosened his grip on the hilt of his sword.
Their opponent was a dragon, the strongest form of life.
Even if they had been granted protection through another dragon's magic, it was hard to completely shake off their doubts about whether they really could fight without dying.
"Oh dear, I only explained it with words, so of course you don't believe me. This won't do."
Charlotte lifted her right hand, then pointed at one of the people in the front row.
"M-me? You mean… me?"
"That's right, Hayward. You."
Now that even his name had been called, Hayward trembled as he stepped forward, feeling that something very bad was about to happen.
"All right, everyone, move back. I'm going to fire off one breath attack to show you that Dragon's Blessing really works."
"What? A-are you serious?"
"It'll be a little hot."
Charlotte clenched both hands as she began gathering mana, then opened her mouth wide.
At once, the soldiers gathered nearby fled in a panic, and Hayward began running in a zigzag to avoid the direction Charlotte was facing.
"Don't dodge! You're making a mess!"
Fwoooosh.
"Hot, hot, hot, hot! It's burning!"
"It's hot, isn't it?"
"Please stop! At this rate, I'm going to die!"
"But it's bearable, isn't it?"
"Huh?"
Hayward stopped in place and lowered his gaze.
The ground the breath had swept across had been scorched black, and smoke rose wildly from it.
But Hayward, who had taken the breath head-on, was completely fine without so much as a burn or a single injury.
"I-I'm not dead? I thought all my hair would get completely singed off… but I'm fine?"
"See? I told you the truth. You won't die. Do you believe me now?"
Charlotte shrugged, then floated high into the air.
"All right, vermin. I've done everything I needed to, so now you go beat that crazy niece of mine properly."
After waving at the soldiers looking up at her, she flew straight toward the food truck parked far away.
Shiiing.
Craid drew his greatsword from its scabbard and gripped it tightly with both hands.
Like the others, he too had doubted whether Dragon's Blessing truly worked, but after seeing his comrade remain unharmed even after taking a breath attack, he no longer had the slightest reason to fear.
"All right, everyone, charge!"
"Waaahhh!"
Craid was the first to dash toward the Dark Dragon Evelyn, and the soldiers followed him with loud battle cries.
"The weather really is fantastic."
Meanwhile, Charlotte had instantly changed by magic into a short-sleeved shirt and dolphin shorts, then lay down on a folding sunbed and opened a can of cola.
Pssht.
Gulp, gulp.
"Khhh...."
She let out a satisfied sound as she enjoyed the distinctive fizzy sensation bursting across her mouth.
The pleasure of drinking a carbonated beverage under the blazing sun felt even more special than usual.
"Jinseo, you brought it, right?"
"Caramel flavor, correct?"
Charlotte thrust her hand into the tub Jinseo gave her, then stuffed a fistful of popcorn into her mouth.
"Let's see now… my niece is back in her original form, and these people..."
Charlotte crunched on the freshly popped popcorn Jinseo had made while watching the soldiers fight against the enormous Dark Dragon.
"Haaat!"
Craid shouted as he delivered a powerful blow to the Dark Dragon Evelyn's right ankle.
"Hah! Hah!"
He continued his attacks, and cracks began appearing in the thick scales he had thought would never break.
"It hurts..."
The moment the Dark Dragon Evelyn swung her left foreleg forward, Craid held his sword horizontally and blocked her attack.
"Hup!"
Craid shouted again, but was forced backward by the impact.
"As expected, the power of a dragon is… incredible. But I withstood it without falling. I..."
After confirming that he could endure a dragon's attack, Craid felt courage surge through him even more strongly.
"How troublesome..."
Whoooosh.
This time Evelyn swung her right foreleg widely, and with the sound of the wind being torn apart, clouds of dust billowed in every direction.
Craid quickly ducked to avoid the attack, but the soldiers behind him took the hit directly and were sent flying far away.
"Aaaagh!"
"I-I'm flying!"
Some of the soldiers who flailed in midair while screaming fell and tumbled near the sunbed where Charlotte was lying.
"Ugh… my body aches, but… to be hit by a dragon and only feel this much, isn't that amazing?"
"It's real! We didn't die! We got kicked head-on by a dragon's foreleg!"
"We were fine even after taking its breath, so an attack like this is basically nothing!"
To the 1,000 soldiers under Dragon's Blessing, the Dark Dragon Evelyn's breath was almost ineffective.
And even when they were struck directly, they felt only a level of pain they could endure, so they were able to get back up easily.
"Kids, are you all right?"
"Yes! We're perfectly fine!"
The soldiers answered confidently toward Charlotte, who was eating popcorn beside them.
"Dragon's Blessing is truly incredible!"
"As expected of Lady Charlotte! We believed in you!"
"Believed in me, my ass..."
Tap, tap, tap.
Charlotte snickered and flicked popcorn from the tub with her thumb, popping one kernel into each soldier's mouth.
"A wave of intense hunger is going to hit you soon. When it does, don't hesitate. Fill your stomachs first, then go back to fighting. If you stubbornly insist on fighting longer, you might run out of strength and end up crawling all the way back here."
"Yes! We'll keep that in mind!"
After answering, the soldiers picked up the weapons they had dropped and ran back toward Evelyn.
Behind those soldiers, who kept getting hit by the Dark Dragon Evelyn's attacks, flying away, and then rushing back in again, the cardinals of the Heirem Order, including Fedora, stood lined up in a row.
"All right, brothers and sisters. Are you all prepared?"
At Fedora's words, the other cardinals nodded.
"Then let us begin."
They started eating the "double-extra-special tteokbokki" served in cups, spearing it with toothpicks.
It was a new menu item Jinseo had created especially for this battle, boasting an even more intense spiciness than the previous special tteokbokki.
If the goal had simply been to increase the pain by making it spicier, then all he had to do was pour in capsaicin sauce.
But tteokbokki made that way would become a grotesque dish that was nothing but spicy, with no taste left at all.
And through repeated taste tests, they had already confirmed that the pain gained from eating tteokbokki made that way did not increase divine power.
So a few days earlier, Jinseo had completed a sauce that pushed the spiciness to its absolute limit while still preserving the original taste of tteokbokki, and today he presented it to the cardinals for the first time.
"Huff! It's really s-so spicy?"
"I… I never imagined it would be this spicy."
"This is... double-extra-special tteokbokki?"
The moment they took the first bite, intense reactions erupted among the cardinals.
Thanks to the food truck branch that had opened in the Holy Land, they already enjoyed tteokbokki on a regular basis, but the spiciness far exceeded their expectations, leaving them all shaken.
"It truly is… spicy even for me. And yet it hasn't lost the original taste of tteokbokki."
Sweat began pouring down Fedora's face like rain after she had eaten half the double-extra-special tteokbokki, and her lips had turned red.
Even so, she could not stop eating it.
Part of the reason was her sense of duty to save the world, but it was also because she had already become addicted to the intense spiciness.
"I-I can hear… His voice!"
Flaaash.
Fedora was the first among the cardinals to emit an intense light.
"M-me too!"
"It's true! I… I can hear it!"
Flaaash, flaaash, flaaash.
As blessings that only high-ranking clergy could use were cast one after another, the soldiers stared in amazement and gripped their weapons tightly for a moment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Read 15 more chapters ahead on NovelDex!
https://noveldex.io/series/mythical-otherworld-food-truck
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━