Surely not — the Dae Jang-geum?

I looked once more at the woman who called herself Jang-geum.

Her hair was pinned up in a neat coiled bun, out of step with the world these days.

Under the apron she was wearing a pale blue hanbok. (TL Note: hanbok — the traditional Korean dress: a short jacket over a long, high-waisted wrap skirt.)

But the apron and the ultra-modern kitchen didn’t match at all.

She was clearly a god at the level of a heavenly maiden or above.

But how did she summon me?

The sudden summons threw me.

It was a different summoning method from Divine Lord Cheollyong, the illegal-tutoring specialist, or Casanova, my business partner(?), or Chris Barnsdale, the point-begging god.

“You do know who I am, don’t you?”

She was the very image of that woman.

She was the twin of Ju Yeong-ae, the actress who played the lead in Dae Jang-geum, and far too exactly for me to put it down to having seen the face often.

Anyone would say it was Dae Jang-geum.

“Yes…, I know you well. But are you really her?”

“That is what human beings call me. So that is my name.”

What was that? Madam Dae Jang-geum had let slip a line with a strange meaning packed into it.

Understanding the world of the gods was going to take a lot more study.

“May I ask if there is a reason you have called me so suddenly?”

My way of speaking was careful, unlike with the other gods.

Something about the god Dae Jang-geum was different.

“Did you not wish for it?”

“Yes? Me?”

“Did you not send up to heaven an earnest wish to be tutored in cooking?”

“H-Hold on, that gets through? My wishes just get straight through to heaven?”

It was enough to make a man gasp.

I did want cooking lessons, but not from anybody at god level.

All I needed was to be able to make food a little better than ramyeon.

Tonight, all I wanted was a spicy rabokki.

“Heaven is not somewhere else. Everything outside my skin is heaven. And so everything I intend and everything I say is heard. The gods who need points, as I do, are watching you especially.”

“Yes? Points?”

Madam Dae Jang-geum was a point enthusiast too.

I have no idea what it is about my points that makes everybody covet them like this.

“The karma you have accumulated is a fine article of trade to the gods. I too earn points from the gods with cooking, putting my own talent to use, but it is not as pure or as strong as the karma human beings earn. Therefore your points are what every god covets.”

Madam Dae Jang-geum explained it kindly, as if she knew what was in my head.

But I still couldn’t understand the world of karma points exactly.

“I didn’t know that karma accumulated by a poor human being was such a fine article of trade. Nothing I’ve been going through lately feels real to me. Why have I never known until now that the gods are this close to human beings?”

“Die, and you will know it all.”

“Yes…”

I’ve died myself.

But the strangeness of this is still in progress.

“You are not a god’s disciple, yet your channel to heaven is open. It is a most unusual phenomenon. It is beyond the level of the shamans’ disciples who take the spirit descent. Short of a god descending into you, learning abilities in this special a way is, in itself…, a privilege.”

“A privilege?”

“Hmm… there are many gods who still do not know about you. But be careful. Not every god is a being to be trusted. No — the gods calculate more exactly than human beings do. Apart from ancestors, every one of them is a cold-blooded trader. On that score, your ancestral line is very solid.”

She seemed less like Dae Jang-geum than like some great general of a god.

She was telling me, little by little, about secrets I didn’t know.

“I am a poor human being. I place myself in your hands.”

“It is I who place myself in yours. You are the first human being to trade karma points directly like this.”

“Are my points sufficient? How does one accumulate points?”

The questions came pouring out of me like a mute man whose speech had broken loose.

A chance like this doesn’t come easily.

How many beings get to talk comfortably with gods while they’re still alive?

“Karma points can be accumulated through good acts and through evil ones. Every act a human being performs is karma in itself. They are settled after death, so they must not be accumulated lightly. Good karma will please the good gods, and evil karma the evil gods will covet. Karma points form at the moment you grant what the other party truly wants. In return for granting the wisher what he wants, you receive the karma he has accumulated since his past lives.”

“Ah…”

The feel of it came to me clearly.

It meant that karma points arise when you fill what the other person wants.

I understood how Casanova hyungnim had managed to take third place in the Olympia Cup.

It was the payment for undoing the bitterness of women who wanted love more desperately than anyone.

“This world is invisible nets tangled and tangled together. I pray that you will accumulate good karma points.”

Madam Dae Jang-geum blessed me, looking at me gently.

I nodded.

I had no wish to go through the world as a villain on purpose.

“I will receive your advice with gratitude.”

“Good. That is enough of that — now let us trade.”

“Yes.”

“The points you have accumulated are fewer than I expected. And I see the trace of a covenant with another god…”

She seemed to mean the one percent contract I made with Casanova hyungnim.

She’s a god, all right — she knew it as if by witchcraft.

Madam Dae Jang-geum’s god level seemed to be high.

Anyone who could succeed inside the nine-fold palace would have outstanding patience and ability.

“The gods who come to see me are all poor, it turns out. I’ve donated a little.”

“You did well. But do not scatter your points about. If I were to die this instant, I would have no karma points, and I would go around the six paths of rebirth as a dog or a pig and gather points in misery. The points you get from wagging your tail at an owner for affection, or from becoming a pig and giving up your body as alms, are fewer than you would think.”

“Yes…”

That warning was very frightening.

My head filled right up with the picture.

But I had no way to measure how many points I had, which left me stuck.

“With the points you hold now, you could receive ability at the level of a low-grade cook. Will you trade?”

“How good is that, in practice?”

“By the standards of human beings, it would be about the level of the famous local place where you live.”

“Yes? Isn’t that already enormous?”

“Become a mid-grade cook and you can be a palace cook invited by the king.”

Wh-Whoa, that’s an extremely high level.

Even a famous local place alone can earn a pile of money out of food.

Become a mid-grade cook and the skill is more than enough to take three stars in the Michelin Guide.

Come to think of it, the abilities of Nova hyung and of Chris Barnsdale, my god of an uncle, were not ordinary either.

The standards of human beings and of gods were clearly different.

“What happens if I become a high-grade cook?”

“You can sell food to the gods, as I do.”

“Ah! The gods…”

That one was simply a wall I couldn’t get over.

It isn’t that my points are few — it’s that Madam Dae Jang-geum’s level is high.

And with points scattered here and there, there won’t be much left.

All things considered, this is a good save.

“Will you trade?”

“Yes! I’ll trade!”

“You have thought well. And keep this in mind. Cooking is not merely for the purpose of making something delicious; you must know that it has the power of a sovereign medicine that can cure the illnesses of a human being’s body and heart.”

“Yes! I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Boy…, you’re a spirited one, exactly as a descendant of the Mountain Mother of Jirisan should be.”

“Who is the Mountain Mother of Jirisan?”

“There is no need for you to know yet.”

Madam Dae Jang-geum only smiled quietly.

Whoever she was, she seemed to be an ancestor of mine that even I don’t know about.

The world of the gods was nothing but complicated.

“Now~ then, let us carry out the contract. Make delicious food that heals the soul. You will be able to acquire points in proportion to how much you move people. And through the trade with me, you will gain something new.”

Oh! I can earn points with cooking? But what’s the something new?

Now I understood why Madam Dae Jang-geum’s skill is expensive.

Unlike the abilities of the other gods, it can earn points.

I didn’t understand that last part.

The gods liked their secrets.

“I will make a contract with the goddess Dae Jang-geum. I will exchange my points for low-grade cooking ability.”

“I thank you…, call me when you have time.”

“Yes, ma’am! I’ll visit now and then and pay my respects!”

Fwaash!

The moment the words ended I was wrapped in light.

And then I was looking at my own room.

There seemed to be almost no change in the time.

“Shall I make a killer rabokki, then~.”

With the crash-course cooking lessons taken, I headed next door to my sisters with a confident stride.

Cooking skill I was curious about myself.

My heart was thumping for no reason.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tack.

Ssssssssss! Sss!

“Ju-a… is your oppa a cook?”

“N-No… his level is barely boiling ramyeon…”

“Then what is that presence? He’s like the top-class chefs who appear on Raid the Fridge!”

“…, Tae-san oppa’s knife work has slashed my heart to pieces. I… think I’ve fallen in love.”

“You’re crazy! Tae-san oppa is spoken for — by me!”

“Hmph! Says who!”

The four girls sitting in the living room had each fallen into a different delusion.

What on earth is there that my oppa can’t do? Could my oppa be…, an alien?

Ju-a, the elder of the twins, watched her brother’s performance blankly.

This was not the brother who used to boil ramyeon any old way.

If her friends hadn’t asked, she wouldn’t have invited her brother.

A friend who came to the house once saw Tae-san oppa and fell for him on the spot.

She passed the photo they took together around the class, and from then on it was bedlam.

Plenty of her friends’ brothers were students at Jangju High School.

Information about Tae-san oppa got out everywhere.

He was known as the legendary fist who cleaned out the school’s violence circle in a single shot, and as a man on joking terms with the board chairman.

He was rich too, with two houses in the most expensive spot in the city.

On top of that he came first in the whole school in his studies, and his face and his build are at super-idol level.

Thanks to their brother, Ju-a and Ju-hui had become the most popular girls in the school.

Getting invited to the twins’ house took a lottery draw.

Ju-a and Ju-hui enjoyed their brother’s popularity too.

Anyone could see he was a splendid brother.

They wanted to show him off everywhere.

And that brother of theirs…, turned out to be tremendous at cooking too.

The moment he came into the house he gave her friends a warm smile.

Her brother went into the kitchen and announced loudly that he would be serving rabokki today.

At her brother’s high spirits the four girls withdrew to the living room.

And then the incident broke out.

He wrapped Mom’s apron around his waist the way chefs do and prepared the ingredients at astonishing speed.

Rabokki looks easy, but the order of the cooking is complicated.

The heart of it is cooking the ramyeon exactly right without letting the tteokbokki broth boil down.

Her brother used all three burners of the induction range.

He boiled the eggs, which cannot be left out.

Before anyone noticed, he had drawn an anchovy stock and was using it as the tteokbokki base.

In went their mother’s own glutinous-rice chili paste, and ketchup.

While the basic broth came to a boil, he minced onion, scallion and garlic.

Knife work like lightning is a scene you only see on TV.

While they were losing their minds over it he cooled the eggs, ran warm water from the purifier and boiled the dumplings and the ramyeon.

While they watched a one-man show, a sweet and spicy aroma spread through the house.

Every one of them swallowed on a dry throat.

They felt the urge to run over right then and shove the food into their mouths.

But her brother, the man himself, was deep in his cooking.

It was only a simple dumpling rabokki, and he had the look of a master creating a great dish.

The atmosphere was such that nobody dared speak to him.

“Ju-a~ was Tae-san oppa always like that?”

“Huh? Well…”

Ju-a couldn’t answer readily.

Her brother had changed.

Starting from last summer vacation, her brother had transformed beyond anything the twins had imagined.

A brother with a thin body, always cowed, with no confidence left in him.

By the time the vacation ended he had become a man with broad shoulders.

He wrote a book and hit an enormous jackpot.

He paid off their father’s debts, and bought a house and a car.

Over the winter vacation he went up to Seoul alone and even took a trip abroad.

He was like the alien hero in a romance-comic novel.

“Our oppa’s always been kind of a big deal~ heh heh.”

Ju-hui, the younger, looked at her brother with respect in her eyes.

Ju-hui, who overflowed with tomboy spirit, couldn’t move an inch against her brother.

“Hungry young ladies, everything is ready~.”

Her brother, who had finished the cooking before anyone noticed, called them over.

Dumpling rabokki, set out on the six-seater table beside the kitchen.

“Whoaaa…”

“This is…, rabokki?”

Dumpling rabokki, laid on a white plate with a wide hollow sunk into it.

Ramyeon and tteokbokki coated in a glossy red broth that stirred the appetite, scallion and onion, carrot, egg and dumplings — all of it had settled into place in harmony.

The rice cakes were springy, the ramyeon noodles taut, the vegetables alive with their own color.

The dumplings and eggs, steamed exactly right, set the rabokki off in particular.

Spicy and sweet aromas stimulated the brain from two directions at once.

For the dot on the dragon’s eye, even the sesame seeds were scattered perfectly.

Saliva went down in gulps.

“Here, try it. It’s the first rabokki I’ve ever made, so I don’t know how it tastes~.”

Her considerate brother held out chopsticks and a small plate he had gotten ready before anyone noticed.

“W-We’ll eat well.”

Bewitched by the smell, the girls quickly picked up chopsticks and fell on it.

The competition was fierce.

And each of them quickly got a mouthful in.

“Ah!”

“Ahh…!”

“Ahhhhh!”

“Haaaaaah…”

Four moans, breaking out at the same time.

“Well? Does it taste all right?”

(End of Chapter 50)