V55C7P2 – Ramen Day
Dozens of cameras were waiting in front of Lee Hyun’s residence.
It was like when a Korean star passed through the airport gate!
“Hey, get out of the way!”
“Please stand inside the camera zones.”
The reporters interviewed every single guest that was invited to Lee Hyun’s house.
“I’m finally here. I came from Amsterdam. It is my first time eating Korean ramyun… I am very honored.”
“Today is an awesome, special day. I’ll have something to brag about to my kids back home. Dad is eating ramyun cooked by Weed-nim! By the way, my kids dream of becoming someone like Weed-nim.”
“My dream came true today. I think I’m going to enjoy a splendid dish of ramyun.”
All the guests finished their interview and came inside just before lunch.
Oberon’s presence stood out among them all.
“Hello, I am Oberon.”
A gold-blond young man spoke to him with a smile on his face.
He was handsome like the typical ones seen in magazines or programs.
“Are you really Oberon-nim?”
“Yes. It is a great honor to meet you, Weed-nim.”
“You are very fluent in Korean.”
“I picked it up as a hobby.”
“A hobby? Then, can you speak other languages?”
“Yes. I can speak Chinese, Japanese and French.”
He was good-looking and even intelligent!
Soon, tables were set up in the yard, people were seated and ate Lee Hyun’s ramyun.
“Thank you for the food.”
Lee Hyun’s ramyun was special, cooked with crabs, fish oil and various seafoods in the soup base.
The problem was that it was too delicious.
“Agh! It’s so hot!”
“Oh man. It’s burning hot but it’s so good that I can’t wait for it to cool down.”
“Steak? Pshh. I can eat ramyun for the rest of my life if it tastes as good as this.”
The flavor broke down all international taste bud barriers.
It satisfied the taste buds perfectly and slipped down the throat, giving an unexplainable sense of fulfillment.
– Yes, you’ve done well.
You lived so diligently until now.
Life will throw hardships, but will also be fruitful and happy.
Keep your best foot forward.
It tasted like the soup had a soul and delivered a message!
A spoonful of soup that had a depth of life.
28 people remained seated after they completely finished their bowl. The kimchi and pickled radish were cleared too.
“By chance is there… more ramyun?”
Someone asked carefully.
At this moment, nothing was more important than ramyun.
They wanted another bowl very badly.
Lee Hyun’s forehead twitched, but he had a conscience.
They took the flight from such far places and how heartless it could be if he cooks just one bowl for them.
“If you can wait for a bit, I will return with more.”
“Hurray!”
“Thank you, Weed-nim!”
The ramyun was cooked once again with loud cheers.
The people cleared seconds and thirds right on the spot.
Lee Hyun’s forehead shrivelled gradually, but each time the ramyun came they blew air on the noodles and ate voraciously.
Once their stomachs filled with warm noodles, they began to converse.
It was their first time meeting in real life, but they were close in Royal Road.
“Now that we’ve all tasted the ramyun, don’t you all agree that he shouldn’t have started as a sculptor?”
“Yeah. If he became a cook he would have slaughtered all competitions.”
“I bet the Hermes Guild would have forfeited after tasting his ramyun.”
“There is no ramyun in Royal Road. Maybe a seafood soup.”
“It’s Weed-nim. He can pull out the noodles from dough and it would be easy for him to make the soup base.”
“Using the finest ingredients in Royal Road, the dish would just be the best.”
Lee Hyun’s cooking skills were already famous, and of all the dishes, his best was ramyun.
When he was young, he always cooked the cheapest ramyun.
He had it for breakfast and dinner, thinking about how he could make it taste better, how to keep the noodles firm and juicy by stirring it with chopsticks.
He gave his all to this one pack of ramyun.
That very essence of flavour was delivered to these people.
***
This ramyun party should have been over with one dish per person!
There were monstrous individuals that ate more than 3, 4 packs, even 7.
They ran out of ramyun halfway and Lee Hyeyun had to go to the store and buy two more boxes.
“Wow… We can film mukbang right here.”
“Hansen-nim. He’s from Netherlands, right? He sure eats a lot.”
So the party that saddened Lee Hyun finally came to an end and Seoyoon served orange juice.
“I don’t know how it will taste. It was freshly squeezed by myself.”
“To what do I owe this honor…”
Of everyone there, they were all males except for two people.
They took the orange juice with two hands like they were blessed.
Lee Hyun was so tired from cooking over 100 servings of ramyun, but he sat down beside Lopez, aka Oberon in Royal Road.
Lopez looked around and spoke.
“It’s such a cozy and warm house.”
“I built a lot of it myself.”
Lee Hyun fixed up his house from time to time.
He bought trees and tiles for decoration, and he also built hen houses and dog homes.
There wasn’t a single corner that didn’t have his fingerprints, but he was never 100% satisfied.
Even those who are happy with plain homes would think the same after seeing Seoyoon’s beautiful adjacent residence.
“I also wanted to build a house but I did not get the chance yet.”
“Is that so? I mean… It’s not easy buying land and building a house.”
Lee Hyun agreed with Oberon.
When he used to live in a semi-basement rent, he wished to own a house of his own.
A wish too big to ask for.
“I am currently living in a worn-down house that I inherited from my family.”
“How old is it?”
“It’s about 150 years old.”
Lee Hyun felt a bad premonition as he listened to Lopez.
Normally, a 150 year-old house would look something like a deserted house that was about to collapse at any moment. However, he caught on the detail that it was a house inherited through generations.
“By chance is the land like 200 pyeong or something?”
“Pyeong? I’m not familiar with the korean measurements. It should be about 290 acres.”
“290 acres… That is quite the number, maybe because it’s an old home.”
Lee Hyun took out his phone immediately and tapped on the calculator.
The result was insane. 355,000 pyeong!
“290 acres?”
“Yes.”
“A house built on such a massive piece of land? Do you run farms as well?”
“I do raise horses. There is also a landing strip?”
“Landing strip?
Lee Hyun heard a word that shouldn’t belong in a house.
“You got a plane at your place?”
“I have a photo of it. Do you want to see?”
Lopez showed him pictures of his home captured in his phone.
It wasn’t a house with a cute sized lawn like the Korean detached homes.
The pictures were taken from the sky on a plane and in those pictures were a landing strip, 3 planes, a massive garden and a mansion.
“This is your home?”
“I have residences in Florida, LA and San Francisco too, but this is my family home.”
Lopez was impressive, an American billionaire!
‘No wonder he has no interest in broadcasts.’
Where would he even consider using the small portions of money from interviews and commercials? He wouldn’t even be able to fill the oil tank on his plane with it.
‘If I was rich like this guy, I wouldn’t regret spending 200 won more on salt. Why would I bother saving? I wouldn’t be able to spend it all no matter how hard I try…’
Lee Hyun couldn’t bear the pain of jealousy that was developing in his lower belly.
“So why did you come all the way to South Korea just for ramyun?”
“Haha. Yeah, because you invited me…”
“Do you not have ramyun at home?”
No matter how rich he was; to Weed he was just a disaster that ate 7 free packs of ramyun!
***
By the time Weed logged into Royal Road, the fate of the continent was much worse.
Thor, the dwarf kingdom had been focused by Kaybern during that time.
“It’s all over. My mine…”
“My house was destroyed.”
They survived for the time being, but Kaybern’s wrath had just begun and the dwarves began to migrate away from Thor.
The draconic warriors from the lair spread out to various parts of the continent and rounded up more monsters.
Seoyoon compensated the dwarves fairly and housed them.
“A dragon that is redrawing the map… I don’t know how this will end.”
The fact that the dwarf race quest surfaced, the situation was becoming more grave.
“Major cities were destroyed, increase in disasters and number of monsters. We can endure this moment, but when will this all end?”
In the past, the Embinyu Cult attempted to dominate the Versailles Continent entirely.
Weed managed to avoid a critical situation via the quest, but if it hadn’t turned out that way, the entire continent would have been under their control.
“The Hermes Guild managed to stop them but… Even I wouldn’t have been able to overcome them if it wasn’t for that special quest. Wouldn’t the Hermes Guild have had quite the struggle if the Embinyu Cult had some kind of hidden power?”
It would have been quite a scene if the two factions collided, but for certain the Embinyu Cult was a threat to the continent.
Now, no one wanted the continent to be destroyed by the dragon, but it could very well happen.
In Royal Road, anything could happen at any time.
“Why now? Life just got easier for me.”
If the dragon cannot be stopped, the world would face a catastrophic end.
The emergence of the savior quest was no coincidence, as Kaybern’s continual attacks posed a threat to the world itself.
Weed’s heavy thoughts were intruded the next moment.
– Mapan: You are here! The goods are on the way to Ulgor Highlands.
The tremendous amount of treasures stolen from Kaybern’s lair!
Weed’s mouth spread wide into a smile.
“K-hu-hu. I assume you took good care of them?”
– Mapan: Of course. Though there were some dwarves that had a different heart.
The dragon’s treasures were overwhelming and there were greedy dwarves among the group.
It was a crisis back at the lair to the forest fire, and some stole a bit of treasure during the trip but most were found out after reviewing the broadcast footages.
Some lucky ones got away, but nothing could be done.
“I will be on my way.”
(To be continued…)