Chapter 68
Chapter 68. Summer! Vacation? Business! (3)
After diligently pounding the pavement, the sun had set before they knew it.
But far from becoming less crowded, Marcado Market bustled with people as if peak time was just beginning.
The flickering of torches driving away the tropical night filled the alleys brightly, and stimulating food smells wafted from everywhere.
Her stomach, which had been growling with hunger, ached.
Probably because of the weather being what it was, locals who chose to eat out instead of making home-cooked meals each held plates of food and sat at tables chattering with bright faces.
Exactly the scene that came to mind when thinking of a southern night market.
Originally, travel and food couldn't be separated.
How splendid some tourist attraction was quickly grew hazy, but the taste of food eaten at some restaurant stayed with you for a lifetime.
Even if that restaurant wasn't a fancy restaurant with centerpieces placed on elegant tablecloths, but rather food from a bustling night market.
"Do we have to eat here?"
"You don't know what you're talking about. Enjoying gastronomy with local food is the essence of travel."
"The food we eat at the resort is also local food."
"You've been hungry since earlier—can you hold out until we return to the lodging?"
"Haah, these are new clothes though..."
Neat freak Penelope frowned before the strangely sticky wooden table.
Rather than having complaints, she seemed genuinely pondering whether to sit here or not.
"Wait a moment. I'll go buy some food."
"You want me to stay here alone?"
"Someone has to hold the table, don't you think?"
"..."
"I'm buying, so don't pout your lips."
"I'm not pouting, okay?"
Though Penelope seemed upset, he hadn't dragged her to the middle of the market's restaurant district to trick her.
Previously, when plucking coca leaves from the Montagra Cartel, he'd tried Soltera food.
Should he say it felt like appropriately mixing South American and Central American cuisine?
Personally, he was satisfied.
Probably Penelope would also let go of her anger once she ate.
By the time Jurgen received food from this shop and that shop.
Penelope sat with arms folded after spreading a handkerchief on the chair.
"Did you wait long?"
"I should've gone instead. I became a spectacle."
As she said, Penelope was receiving everyone in the market's hot gazes.
Setting aside her different ethnicity, didn't elegance naturally flow from her?
Seeing such a young lady sitting at a market stall table with an indifferent expression, locals must have found it quite curious.
...Instead of saying that straightforwardly, he tried mixing in a bit of flattery.
"Miss Penelope is so beautiful they couldn't take their eyes off you."
"...Don't say empty words."
It didn't work.
"I'm sorry."
"...You apologize here?"
Moreover, when he apologized, for some reason he got scolded.
Before Penelope's mood, clicking her tongue as if dumbfounded, became more uncomfortable, he quickly set food down on the table.
"Anyway, try eating."
"Why did you buy so much?"
"Isn't the advantage of night markets being able to eat various foods cheaply?"
Once food actually appeared on the table, Penelope quickly showed curiosity while completely hiding her complaints.
"What's this?"
"Skewered grilled meat eaten with a sauce mixed with lime and cilantro."
"This looks like whole grilled corn... Then what's that?"
"A type of risotto with long rice stir-fried in tomato sauce."
"Then this?"
"It's called a taco. Food where you wrap sour cream, vegetables, and meat in soft, flat bread."
"That... squiggly thing?"
"Ah, pig intestines. The pig's large intestine."
"...? You eat that."
Jurgen highly valued Penelope's curiosity toward food.
Plus her reactions were secretly good, so the so-called 'pleasure of feeding' was excellent.
"...!"
Penelope, who ate the skewered grilled meat with perfect etiquette using fork and knife in the middle of the night market, wriggled her eyebrows dramatically.
They say hunger is the best sauce—meat going into a stomach that had starved all day while walking around made her feel completely relieved.
The richly spreading charcoal fragrance, the stimulating spices that were sweet yet wrapped around her tongue smoothly.
Though she couldn't say the meat quality was excellent, the cilantro's fragrant grassy scent and lime's sourness filled the deficiency.
"How is it? Does it suit your taste?"
"...I'm pondering why Britannian food is shaped that way."
"Try this too. Soltera food's vegetable utilization is amazing."
"Shall I?"
After confirming Penelope was satisfied, Jurgen also picked up his fork.
Soltera food for the first time in a while.
Definitely distinctive.
After suffering all day in the scorching heat, one had no appetite, and to supplement that lost appetite, they actively utilized sour and spicy seasonings.
Vegetable dishes developing was probably also to effectively replenish moisture lost through sweat.
"It would've been really nice if we had Cola."
Penelope said regretfully.
"How about this instead of Cola? It's called tequila."
"Tequila? Alcohol?"
"Liquor made from a plant called agave."
Tequila, Soltera's specialty, couldn't be left out either.
"Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing you drink alcohol. If you can't drink, no need to force yourself."
"I drink when there's occasion to drink. I just don't seek it out."
Penelope lifted the glass and tilted her head.
"What's the white powder on the glass?"
"Salt is stuck to the glass rim. First you drink the alcohol like this..."
Should he say people's tastes were all similar? The method of drinking tequila wasn't very different between modern times and here.
Pour the tequila in the small glass into your mouth in one gulp and lick the salt on the glass rim.
Then bite hard into a green lime wedge to blow away the alcohol's lingering scent...
His insides tingled zzzt as intoxication rose up in one breath following the esophagus's shape.
A pleasant one-shot that made him forget the tropical night.
"Heh... Do it like this."
"No refinement, but it looks kind of fun. Give me some too."
Penelope, who watched the demonstration, also poured tequila down in one gulp and wobbled her head.
Judging by her satisfied nasal sound, she quite liked it.
"Haah, it's cool and nice? Don't you have one more glass?"
"What a boring ordinary reaction. I didn't know Miss Penelope had a strong tolerance."
"Hmph, you think you can trick me with this much? Northerners are naturally strong drinkers."
Vitality returned to Penelope's face, which had been wilting in the scorching heat, and as she got appropriately drunk, the atmosphere also became more relaxed.
Penelope, who instantly handled her fourth tequila with tacos as drinking snacks, asked.
"What should we do anyway?"
"Hmm, that's the question."
Today, the two people spent several hours rummaging through Spice District on a treasure hunt.
For peppers to make pepper powder to use in Seasoned Chicken.
To state the conclusion first, they failed.
First, it wasn't that peppers themselves didn't exist.
As explained earlier, Soltera had an optimal environment for cultivating peppers, and they frequently utilized peppers in food too.
Jalapeños commonly used in pickles, habaneros with hellish spiciness that almost made him faint while sampling, poblanos closer to bell peppers than peppers, etc. Various breeds were sold packed in large sacks.
The problem was none of them were what Jurgen was looking for.
"Can't you just use any of them?"
"That would be unreasonable."
Cheongyang peppers were Korea's unique crossbreed.
So what he sought as a substitute was 'guajillo peppers,' which had slightly less spiciness than Cheongyang peppers and a distinctive smoky flavor.
Though hard to see as perfectly similar, they were still most similar to Cheongyang peppers, which was why he'd utilized them when making Seasoned Chicken test versions.
"Guajillo? We found those though."
"We did. But guajillo peppers don't seem to be a major breed in Soltera."
"Does being major or minor matter?"
Penelope tilted her head and poured her sixth tequila into her mouth.
"Being a minor breed means it's cultivated separately by small-scale farms."
That's right.
This was the most critical obstacle.
When he tasted the guajillo peppers found in a market corner, even though a basket was filled, the size, spiciness level, quality, and aroma were all different.
Simple reasoning.
Peppers were delicate crops whose taste changed completely if the cultivation environment changed even slightly.
But because demand for guajillo peppers was low, only small amounts were produced at small-scale farms.
Guajillo peppers from different environments, farming methods, and harvest times ended up in one basket.
Being able to purchase peppers perfectly suitable for making sauce in Nortaris was purely coincidental.
Probably even returning and purchasing from the same shop, the peppers' taste would be different.
"Of course, if it's an amount to operate one shop immediately, securing it isn't difficult..."
The reason for coming on a business trip to this distant place was to procure ingredients when making 'franchises' later.
What was the alpha and omega of franchises?
Standardized manuals.
The same menu must come out no matter who makes it, and predictable taste must be guaranteed whenever you go.
If they made and distributed seasoning with pepper powder in different states each time, franchises wouldn't be established.
"Hmm, that's true."
Even Penelope, whose complexion hadn't changed despite emptying eight tequilas, sighed deeply, seemingly unable to find a sharp answer either.
"Don't worry too much. Isn't today the first day? If we look around the market more, a breakthrough will emerge."
Though he didn't tell her, he was also considering the option of 'giving up on Seasoned Chicken' in the worst case.
Appropriately giving up and moving to the next plan was also important in business.
Still, for now he should do his best as much as possible.
At that moment when Penelope and Jurgen leisurely tilted glasses at the market.
"Hmmmm..."
Serena, who remained alone at the resort enjoying sweet sleep, tossed in bed.
Though her head was still hazy with drowsiness, an annoying sound kept being heard, piercing through her dulled hearing.
How should she say it...
The sound of wood creaking?
"Uuuu... Who's making noise at this hour..."
Even covering her ears tightly with a pillow, Serena grimaced her eyebrows and lips at the noise, where the vibration itself transmitted through the thick cotton.
Was Martha cleaning?
Honestly... she asked not to clean while sleeping, but Martha absolutely never listened.
'The young lady sleeping at this hour is the bad one~' she'd say.
"Martha... I want to sleep quietly..."
Serena, muttering unconsciously, suddenly realized.
Wait.
Come to think of it, this wasn't home, right?
This place was Del Alba Resort in the earthly paradise Costa Bay.
Today Serena arrived at Costa Bay by airship together with Penelope and Jurgen.
The moment she became aware of that fact.
"...!"
The adrenaline concentration in Serena's blood surged to match combat situations.
Creak, creak
This sound was being heard outside Serena's bedroom.
The grandly named 'Ocean Front Suite Villa' had a structure with communal space on the first floor and bedrooms on the second floor.
The bedrooms were separated into three rooms like a hotel, with the three people each using one room.
That is, 'nominally' speaking.
However, Penelope and Jurgen were in a honeymoon relationship.
Not a honeymoon relationship in the political rhetoric sense, but a honeymoon relationship between a man and woman.
Though they didn't seem to be in a sticky relationship like she initially thought, a man and woman's eyes meeting in a romantic resort was natural.
Creak, creak, creak
Then this creaking sound heard from outside the room was...
"Oh my, oh my, oh my...!"
Serena's rich background knowledge deduced that the creaking was the sound of a specific piece of furniture moving.
And consecutively, even the meaning that sound contained.
The presence of at least two or more people moving proved it.
This was definitely...
Probably the two people, thinking Serena would be sleeping soundly, together... together...!
Omitted hereafter.
"E-even so, really..."
Serena fanned her cheeks, heated like well-ripened pink strawberries.
Though Serena was a rolling stone that tumbled into the two's cozy trip, still, having tumbled in, weren't they under the same roof?
There was such a thing as noble dignity!
There was such a thing as noble propriety!
Good gracious gracious gracious.
"Still, not caring about soundproofing like this... H-high-end resorts are nothing special either."
Unable to bear it, Serena consciously moved her thought flow elsewhere.
"They're secretly eating d-delicious things together. Sure. Sure."
Though Serena tried to manage this situation with awkward self-talk...
Creak! Creak! Creak!
The noise between walls grew loud enough to absolutely not ignore.
What was 'creak' until moments ago became 'creak!'
An exclamation mark attached!
"No, what on earth are they eating that's so delicious..."
Serena swallowed gulp and held her breath.
Her ears perked toward outside the door.
"..."
Serena's mouth gradually opened wider and at that moment when she unknowingly held her breath.
Fling!
The door suddenly opened.
At a development not expected by even a hair's breadth, Serena was shocked.
"Nononono! What on earth are you doing! Why are you opening my door! I'm awake!!!"
Could it be...!
Was this trip a planned trap from the beginning?
Was it a quagmire of sticky honey whose purpose was to drag Serena into the trip from the start!
While covering her face with hands at a dynamic event she couldn't bear to watch with open eyes, Serena sneakily opened her eyes into slits.
The person before the wide-open door was...
"Huh? Who... are you?"
***
The two people who returned to the resort riding the waiting carriage.
In Penelope's arms were some food packaged from the night market and three bottles of tequila.
Since they'd started drinking anyway, they decided to gather together and drink a bit more in the living room.
"Is Serena still sleeping? Very fortunate indeed."
Penelope, who swoosh swoosh kicked off her shoes with her toes, yawned lazily while looking around the living room with no presence.
"Miss Penelope, could you check? I'll set up the drinking table."
"Even if she's sleeping, I'll wake her and drag her out."
Penelope, drunk to just the right pleasant degree, answered coyly.
Though she said that outwardly, it was actually Penelope who packed local food saying they should let Serena taste it too.
Penelope, who headed to the second floor with slightly swaying steps...
"Jurgen!"
After checking upstairs, she shouted urgently.
"Serena's disappeared?"