Chapter 8
Hong Mangi and Poming arrived at the seafood market.
The market was already packed with people.
Freshly caught fish gleamed across the display stands, while shouts rang out from every direction.
“Fresh hairtail today~!”
“Squid! On a day like this, squid is the answer!”
Poming’s eyes sparkled as it looked around excitedly.
“Woooow~! So this is a seafood market? This place is heaven!”
“Yeah. We’re buying seafood for today’s business, so keep an eye on things and let me know what looks good.”
Poming excitedly tapped Hong Mangi’s shoulder.
“Then are we buying hagfish today too?”
Hong Mangi let out a dry laugh.
“Hagfish? It isn’t even on the menu yet. Do you even know how to cook it?”
“Ahem! Is there anything I don’t know how to cook?”
Come to think of it, ever since that tattoo-covered gangster Seokhyeoi-haem had come into the food cart and asked, “Don’t you have hagfish?” Hong Mangi had been considering adding it to the menu.
He paused with a thoughtful expression, wondering if he should actually try selling it.
Just then—
“Huh? Huhhh?!”
A booming voice echoed across the market.
“THIEF!!”
A merchant suddenly shouted from deeper inside the market.
People began murmuring as a commotion broke out.
“My abalones are gone!”
“Isn’t that the stuff you were supposed to deliver today?”
“I only had to tape the box shut! The entire box is gone!! Oh no!!!”
Hong Mangi naturally stopped walking.
It wasn’t just one or two abalones.
An entire box had disappeared.
Poming also looked up at Hong Mangi with a tense expression.
“Um... are we supposed to help with this?”
Hong Mangi sighed.
“I don’t know about that.”
Outside of dungeons, Hunters were prohibited from using their abilities to exercise force against others.
If a Hunter attacked someone using their abilities?
Their Hunter privileges would immediately be revoked, and they would even be put on trial.
It was a law meant to allow ordinary civilians and Hunters to live together peacefully.
The merchants in the market were all panicking.
The missing abalones were premium wild abalones, among the most expensive products sold in the market.
“Damn it, who the hell took them?!”
Then—
“...Wait.”
A small shadow moved beside Hong Mangi.
And then—
Flap!
An abalone suddenly dropped to the ground from somewhere above.
Hong Mangi turned his gaze toward it.
“Above the tarp, behind the stall, near the roof.”
Hong Mangi was only an F-rank Hunter.
But thanks to the abilities he had received from Sama Cheon, his senses had become much sharper.
Looking toward that spot, he saw a large seagull rolling its eyes around with an abalone clamped in its beak.
Hong Mangi muttered in disbelief.
“...So the abalone thief was a seagull.”
Poming’s mouth dropped open.
“Good heavens! A thief seagull!”
The seagull seemed to notice Hong Mangi staring at it.
“Nyaaaak!”
It screeched and flapped into the air.
Then two or three more seagulls suddenly appeared from somewhere nearby.
As though they had planned it in advance, the birds each grabbed an abalone and began flying away at once.
Hong Mangi sighed.
“Poming, can you catch them?”
“The seagulls? Of course!”
“Your attack power is only F-rank, though.”
“Ha...! That only applies inside dungeons!! Let me show you what I can really do!”
Then—
“Poming Special! Heavenly Jump!”
Boing!
Poming launched its cotton-ball-like body into the air like a spring and leaped straight into the flock of flying seagulls.
“Hyah!”
With its tiny paws, Poming snatched at one of the abalones.
But the seagulls weren’t pushovers either.
“Nyaaaak!”
One of them pecked Poming’s tail.
“Ow!”
Poming flailed in midair and spun around once.
Thud!
Then it fell directly onto Hong Mangi’s head.
“Poming... did you seriously just lose?”
“To a seagull?”
“Sniff... sniff... it huuurts.”
However, Poming’s attack had startled the seagulls enough that they dropped the abalones they had been carrying.
One of them fell directly onto Hong Mangi’s face.
Plop.
“Ugh... this feels freaking disgusting.”
Hong Mangi peeled the abalone off his face.
Then he picked up the abalones the seagulls had dropped, gathered them in his arms, and approached the merchant.
“Excuse me, here are your abalones.”
“Oh! These are ours! That size is exactly what I was selling! How did you find them? Did you catch the thief?”
“No. Seagulls were taking them one at a time.”
“Oh goodness... Looking at you properly, you’re a Hunter, aren’t you? Thank you! Thank you so much!”
The merchant repeatedly waved his hands in gratitude.
“Oh man, I don’t know how those little bastards managed to take all of them, but you really saved me! Thank you again!!”
After thanking Hong Mangi over and over, the merchant glared toward the seagulls.
The birds were still hovering around the market, looking as though they were wondering whether there were any abalones left to steal.
Meanwhile, Poming, who had been completely defeated by a seagull, puffed up its cheeks and sulked.
“Those thief seagulls... next time, I’ll get my revenge properly!”
Hong Mangi laughed and lightly patted Poming.
“As long as you’re not hurt, it’s fine. You’re an SSS-rank cooking specialist, remember? Hunters and summons should just make use of what they’re good at.”
At that moment, the merchant who had recovered the abalones approached Hong Mangi.
“Hey! As a reward, I’ll give you fifty percent off anything you want. Pick whatever you need and take it.”
“Fifty percent?”
“If it weren’t for you, I would’ve been in serious trouble. Hurry and choose before I change my mind.”
Poming instantly became excited.
“Hagfish! Pick the hagfish!”
Hong Mangi scratched his head.
“Really...? Should I? I mean, I did think it would fit the food cart pretty well. And there was that troublesome custo— I mean, customer asking for it.”
“I know an amazing way to prepare hagfish!!”
“Okay. Sir, I’ll take the hagfish.”
The merchant scooped so much hagfish onto the scale that it almost overflowed, then handed it over with a satisfied smile.
“You’re handsome, polite, and even a fine young Hunter. I’m especially grateful, so I gave you plenty. Come back again, okay?”
“Ah! Thank you.”
Hong Mangi accepted a whole basketful of hagfish at half price.
Poming looked even more excited.
“Let’s go over there too! Maybe because the smell of the sea is so strong, doesn’t it feel like we’re on vacation? Wooow! Look over there! They’re selling squid too! There are shrimp over there! Over there!”
“Hey, Poming... calm down.”
Poming ran around here and there like a Maltese that had finally been taken out for a walk after a long time.
Hong Mangi quickly grabbed it.
“Poming, we need to save our energy if we’re going to prepare for business today. Take it a little smoother, okay?”
“Oh, right! But! What exactly are we cooking today?!”
Hong Mangi pulled out his notepad.
The main dishes he had planned for today were seafood ramen and cockle bibimbap.
“I’m thinking seafood ramen and cockle bibimbap. Can you do it?”
Poming tilted its head.
“Cockle bibimbap? Why?”
“What do you mean why? Just... cockles are in season these days.”
Poming narrowed its eyes suspiciously at Hong Mangi.
“Could it be...”
“What?”
“You just want to eat it yourself, don’t you?”
“What brought that on?”
“This is Poming you’re talking to! As you know, I’m an SSS-rank specialist when it comes to cooking! No matter how much I think about it, cockles aren’t actually in season right now. Aren’t you just craving them?”
“...Maybe I was.”
“Hmm. But no matter what, I’m on my Summoner’s side! However...”
Poming stretched the corners of its mouth into a strange grin.
“What the customers want comes first. A business exists for the customers!”
“Okay, okay. Lecture over. Be quiet already.”
Hong Mangi calmed Poming down and walked toward a nearby cockle stall.
“Ma’am, give me one basket of cockles. No, two baskets.”
While the stall owner skillfully scooped up the cockles, Hong Mangi looked toward Poming.
“We’ll need seasoning sauce, right?”
“Yes! Making the sauce isn’t difficult. You can leave that to me. But we’ll also need garlic and butter!”
“What for? We can just boil the cockles and mix them with the sauce.”
“Come on~! That’s way too lazy! If you stir-fry the cockles with garlic butter, you get a proper mood going! You need little extras like that if you want regular customers!”
Hong Mangi furrowed his brow.
“Garlic butter doesn’t go with cockle bibimbap.”
Poming puffed out its cheeks.
“But doesn’t it sound perfect as drinking food?!”
“...That part is true.”
Hong Mangi nodded in agreement.
Then he said,
“Next up, ramen ingredients!”
Looking over the stalls filled with seafood, Hong Mangi pointed at several items.
“Mussels, clams, squid, shrimp... This should be enough.”
Poming sniffed the air.
“Yup-yup! That’s plenty! Ooh~! Now that I think about it, seafood ramen was an excellent choice! I can already imagine that spicy, refreshing broth!”
“Right?”
“Of course~! But buy scallops too!”
Hong Mangi looked surprised.
“Scallops?”
“Yes! Presentation is important at a food cart. If you put whole scallops into the ramen, it’ll look really luxurious!”
“Seriously?”
Hong Mangi stared at the fresh scallops displayed in front of him.
Honestly, isn’t putting scallops in seafood ramen a little excessive?
But...
Poming was staring at him with sparkling eyes.
“Pleaaase, Chef! No, Summoner!”
“Well... fine.”
Hong Mangi added the scallops to his shopping basket too.
“But if we keep buying expensive ingredients like this, aren’t we going to go out of business in no time?”
Poming grinned brightly.
“It’s fine~! Because today is going to be a huge success?!”
After gathering all the ingredients, Hong Mangi and Poming headed toward the food cart.
Poming asked with an excited expression,
“Who do you think our first customer will be today?”
Hong Mangi shrugged, as though he had no idea either.
“No clue. But judging from my instincts...”
At that moment—
From the distance, the tattoo-covered gangster known as Seokhyeoi-haem appeared.
With an imposing stride, he pulled open the curtain of the food cart and stepped inside.
“Hunter-nim! Did you get hagfish?”
Unlike yesterday, when he had been completely drunk and speaking rudely, today he mixed in a bit of politeness and honorific speech.
Still, the swaggering way he walked with his shoulders raised proudly was exactly the same.
Hong Mangi let out a deep sigh.
“...The most troublesome one ended up being my first customer.”
Then the curtain began opening and closing again and again.
One large man after another entered the food cart like a line of soldiers, noisily taking their seats inside.
“What the...?”
Hong Mangi stared at the sudden flood of customers, half surprised and half excited.
Seokhyeoi-haem dropped heavily into a chair.
“Michelin Hunter-nim! Like I said yesterday, I brought my younger brothers and their crew. Give us the full course today. We’re going to spend enough money to make you rich!”
When he wasn’t drunk, Seokhyeoi-haem didn’t use his dialect.
He turned toward his men.
“Listen up, boys! The own— I mean, the boss here is an active Hunter! And he’s basically Michelin itself! Today we’re going to coat our tongues in gold!”
“Yes, hyung!”
“Boss! Do you have hagfish?!”
