HRB 64

The most important thing was that hanging out with them wasn’t fun anymore. Boram seemed strangely depressed, and Arthur felt more distant than ever.

Besides, for some reason, Eddie didn’t feel like competing with Arthur as he was now.

In the past, he seemed to have sparred with the Hero every day, enjoyed it quite a bit, and thought of him as a genius, an insurmountable mountain.

But lately, he felt… surprisingly weak. Eddie felt like he could win every time if they fought ten times.

“It’s because of his injuries. Isn’t it obvious?”

Augustine, who wasn’t one to keep such questions to himself, asked outright, and Arthur made that excuse nonchalantly.

No, it’s not just because of the injuries…

Augustine inwardly felt a lot but chose to close his mouth instead of asking more.

And he distanced himself, using busyness as an excuse.

Thanks to that, he had been quite bored lately, apart from being busy with work. Even that was now nearing completion, and he didn’t know what to do with his time.

It was one of the knights he was talking to who brought him news like a welcome rain.

“Come to think of it, we were talking about this, Mr. Augustine, you said you went there once before, didn’t you?”

“Where?”

He had been half-listening to the conversation while lost in thought, and he asked in bewilderment. The knight opened his mouth with a smile.

“Eddie’s Inn, I mean.”

“Ah.”

A familiar name. A place he had revisited in his mind before he got busy.

“I did go…”

He had been excited to compete with someone he wanted to fight, only to get smacked on the back by his ideal man. He hadn’t even seen the famous food, so it felt a bit off to say he had ‘been there.’

“How was it? It’s famous these days.”

Augustine cleared his throat. There was no need to be honest here.

“Is it famous?”

As far as Augustine knew, it was rumored that they sold unique snacks, but it wasn’t quite famous yet.

But the knight who brought it up nodded nonchalantly.

“Yes, they sell amazing snacks, I hear?”

“They sell rice wine that goes well with it, and it’s super popular these days.”

Augustine blinked.

In Augustine’s mind, Eddie’s Inn was famous for its notoriously spicy Fire Chicken Noodle, but he had never heard of the things they were talking about now.

It wasn’t like he had been holed up in the chapel for days. It was amazing how quickly he had become out of touch with the rumors just because he had been a little busy.

Augustine blankly watched them chatter about Kimchi Pancake and rice wine, and a light flashed in his mind.

He had some free time.

…Should he go?

Eddie’s Inn didn’t have many troublemaking customers. In the first place, it wasn’t a place with that many customers to begin with, and even when the number of customers gradually increased, most of them were tourists, so it was far from a place where troublemakers regularly came and went.

Now, there were quite a few of what you might call local customers, and since the first floor was more of a bar, there were bound to be some people who caused trouble while drunk…

“Get out.”

Usually, Gerold cut them off.

He only used polite language, but everyone knew it meant “Get lost.”

Gerold already had a cold impression, so that alone was enough to make most people back down.

But how could they be troublemakers if they gave up so easily?

There were some customers who were too drunk to know what they were doing, or who protested against such expulsions.

Whenever that happened, Gerold freely showed off why Sorcery was an advanced field of study.

Besides, after Ketron came, perhaps because of Ketron’s unique sense of intimidation, even fewer people caused trouble after the rumor spread that he was an employee of Eddie’s Inn.

Sebastian was there too, though he wasn’t of much help in that regard.

Since they were able to easily chase away troublemaking customers in that way, Eddie had become accustomed to running an inn without them.

“Eddie.”

And the day he paid the price for that habituation began with Gerold’s absence.

“Yeah?”

“May I be excused for a while?”

Eddie blinked, momentarily speechless.

Gerold was leaving?

Ever since he had volunteered to be Eddie’s subordinate rather than an employee of the inn, Gerold had never left Eddie’s side, as he always did.

“It won’t take long.”

Was it something related to E? Eddie felt complicated, but how could he hold him back when the employee who had been taking care of Eddie and working without a day off for so long was taking a break for the first time in a long time?

“Of course. Take a good rest while you’re at it.”

Eddie bluffed.

Gerold, who handled all the inn’s affairs with Sorcery, was leaving. It had been daunting even when things were slow, but now that the Kimchi Pancake and rice wine combination was gaining popularity, it was even more daunting from the start.

But it was something Eddie couldn’t refuse.

“I’ll leave a Magical Spirit, so you don’t have to worry about safety and minor tasks.”

Gerold, the giving tree, even thoughtfully left a Magical Spirit and left.

“What, Mr. Gerold’s not here?”

Sebastian, who Eddie thought would be happy, wore a lukewarm expression when he heard that Gerold would be away for a few days.

But he soon snorted loudly, as if he couldn’t tolerate himself feeling that way.

“Well, I’m glad I don’t have to study for a while since he’s not here!”

Eddie, who was often told he was oblivious, could clearly see that Sebastian was saying something different from what he really felt.

“Sebastian, you’re getting attached to Gerold.”

“…I don’t know what that means, but it kind of makes me feel bad?”

Ketron, who had never been on good terms with Gerold, didn’t care whether Gerold was away or not, and it seemed that Gerold’s temporary absence was treated as a minor event at Eddie’s Inn.

But neither Eddie, Ketron, nor even Sebastian knew exactly what kind of repercussions Gerold’s absence would bring.

The Kimchi Pancake and rice wine combination that Eddie had come up with wasn’t popular from the start.

Of course, Kimchi Pancake was unfamiliar, and the rice wine that came with it was even more unfamiliar, so like the Fire Chicken Noodle, no one really ordered it at first.

But now Eddie’s Inn wasn’t the place that was always empty, and it had quite a few regulars.

That meant there were quite a few people who were willing to try experimental menus.

“This, this taste…!”

And everyone’s reaction was similar.

At first, they would look at the Kimchi Pancake and say, “Hmm,” but after taking a bite, they would say, “Mmm~!” and after taking a sip of rice wine, they would exclaim, “Ahhh!” with a blissful expression.

Every time Eddie saw something flashing over people’s heads, he thought to himself.

It’s like a live-action version of Cooking Master Boy.

Anyway, it was a good thing that what he was aiming for was working. After all, Kimchi Pancake and rice wine were an inseparable combination, weren’t they? Especially on rainy days, you always think of it, right?

Eddie took out all four types of rice wine he had in the convenience store and let the customers choose the rice wine they wanted, and he added a special condition to the menu.

[20% discount on Kimchi Pancake + rice wine orders on rainy days.]

As the Kimchi Pancake and rice wine combination began to gain popularity, something a little unusual happened. More and more people started visiting Eddie’s Inn to try this rumored combination.

That meant that the Kimchi was running out at an alarming rate.

“Don’t tell me we have to make more again?”

Sebastian looked at the dwindling Kimchi container with a horrified expression, and Eddie couldn’t bring himself to say yes and turned his head away.

The Jjajanggetti that he had posted together was also selling like hotcakes.

From that point on, Eddie’s Inn began to rise in status from ‘a place to stop by while sightseeing’ to ‘a place you must visit to try the famous food.’

Among them were some Nobles. They weren’t great Nobles, but the fact that they were Nobles was important.

Eddie, who had never met any significant Nobles directly since coming to this world, was amazed by the Nobles who visited the inn.

He felt as if his inn had leveled up in a game and the types of customers had become more diverse, which made him feel quite good.

He had imagined that he would be beheaded if he made even a small mistake with the Nobles in a society with a class system, but after experiencing it, he was relieved to find that the power of the Nobles in this world was far from that.

Of course, everyone seemed to try to keep a certain distance because getting involved with Nobles could lead to various complicated things.

Unlike what he had worried about, everyone was basically well-mannered, so there weren’t any major problems just because Noble customers were coming and going.

So, for a while, it was okay.

It wasn’t as comfortable as when Gerold himself was there, but the Magical Spirit that Gerold had left behind was helping a lot. Thanks to that, Eddie had to move around busily, but it wasn’t too bad.

So that day’s incident was something no one had expected.

It was the morning of the third day since Gerold had left.

At that time, according to the morning routine, Ketron was exercising in the backyard, Sebastian was busily trimming cabbage again, and Eddie was organizing the ledger.

Even though the inn had suddenly become quite a hot place, people usually flocked there after lunchtime, so only the morning menu of egg rice and udon was selling modestly at that time.

Eddie, who was organizing the ledger, suddenly raised his head at the sound of someone clearing their throat and saw a man standing proudly at the entrance of the inn. He was a customer.

“Welcome.”

As if by the sad instinct of the service industry, Eddie smiled and greeted him as soon as he made eye contact with the customer, and he saw the man’s eyes widen at the sight.