The Foreigner on the Periphery

"You're out. Let me guide you to the kitchen."

The servant, Gulesh, who claimed he was going to clean the kitchen, had already returned to the room and was waiting for Min-jun.

"Hmm?"

He looked at what the guest held in both hands. However, something else drew his attention far more than the large Frying Pan.

"Why did you bring out that entire luggage bag? It would have been enough to bring just the ingredients for the porridge."

On Solada's orders, Gulesh had already distributed preserved rations suitable for humans to the rest of the party, excluding the patient. Therefore, the kitchen only needed to prepare a small amount of food for the sick woman—something like a thin porridge that could be poured down her throat.

But.

"These are all ingredients."

"...Pardon?"

"All of that? For your wife?"

Min-jun replied firmly.

"Yes. All of it."

"Isn't she unconscious?"

"She swallows just fine if I pour it into her mouth. As you might have noticed, she isn't completely unconscious. She simply lacks control over her body because of the curse. You heard her constantly muttering in the common tongue, didn't you?"

"Yes. She seemed like a truly devout person. But still, all of that..."

"She needs to eat a lot to regain her strength."

Gulesh recalled the woman's name from the fake aliases Min-jun had casually provided for the party.

"Lady Adkiel must have been quite the big eater even when she was healthy?"

Min-jun replied calmly.

"She is, relative to her size."

*

Returning to his bedroom, Solada finally intended to get some proper rest. He planned to relax just for today and begin hunting that wicked Dark Magic practitioner tomorrow. He simply couldn't leave such heaven-cursed scum wandering near his hideout. He would absolutely catch him and sever his upper body from his lower half. Though he had once lived steeped in alcohol and drugs, he still retained at least that much skill.

However, as soon as he lay down with these plans in mind, he faced another obstacle. This time, it wasn't noise. Whatever crept sharply through the crack in the door attacked his sense of smell instead of his hearing.

'What is it this time?!'

It was an aroma capable of driving a person insane. Even though Solada had wandered all sorts of worlds, this was a fragrance he had never encountered in his life. Premature hunger boiled in his gut.

Ultimately unable to endure it, he sprang up from his bed.

Thump! Thump!

Heading toward the first floor where the scent originated, he frowned at the scene unfolding in front of the kitchen.

'Hah, unbelievable.'

All five of the mansion's employees were gathered there.

Gulesh had called them out one by one and introduced them today, but Solada had let it all go in one ear and out the other. He didn't want to pay them any attention or remember their names. They were all men, anyway. He was completely sick and tired of men.

Regardless, just look at their faces now. Drool practically dripped from the corners of their mouths. An unhideable craving spread thickly among them. Did they even realize what kind of expressions they were making?

Their anxious gazes were fixed on the kitchen. The cradle of the sweet smell.

"Ahem."

At his fake cough, the employees flinched in surprise and whipped their heads around. They all scrambled about.

"Ah, Sir Solada! We apologize."

"Why are you all gathered here? Actually, asking is just foolish."

The stanian strode into the kitchen. Inside stood the man who had said he was boiling porridge for his sick wife. The black-haired human was in the middle of boiling a Frying Pan completely full of porridge.

"..."

With his back turned to them, Min-jun projected a telepathic wave.

'Good, the audience has gathered. Or should I say, the diners?'

The Frying Pan replied as if reminding him.

=You remember, right? I can't perfectly utilize my original abilities right now. There are already too many dragons I've brainwashed. I've pretty much reached my limit. Beyond this point, no matter how much you feed them, you won't be able to work them as perfect puppets.=

'I don't expect that much. It's enough if they simply don't leak my presence to the outside world and don't deeply question whatever I do. Just like how I kept forgetting you existed in the past. Like they're bewitched, but not quite. That's sufficient.'

The Committee would undoubtedly struggle to track his whereabouts. Thoroughly searching the countless worlds accessible by a single dimensional leap from Earth was no easy task.

In the end, they would have to rely on local testimonies, but it would take a long time for news from a rural village like this to reach their ears.

Min-jun wanted to go a step further and extend that delay even more.

'I can't just leave the witnesses alone.'

Even so, he couldn't just kill and silence people everywhere he went, so he intended to at least plant a weak suggestion in their minds.

A suggestion that was light in nature but capable of lasting a long time.

=That much seems possible. For ordinary stanians without Supernatural Abilities, even feeding them a little bit will trigger the suggestion. Just like when we bewitched the Earth's parliament members all at once last time.=

'Good. Then, excluding that Weapon Master named Solada, I can handle them all in a single meal.'

A short while later.

The porridge, heavily loaded with the wild beast meat he had Ha Eun-seong hunt in the forest, was finally finished.

Min-jun lifted it and turned around, then put on a startled expression.

"Why are you all gathered here?"

The gathered stanian men entered his line of sight.

"Ah, well..."

Solada scratched the back of his head. It was too embarrassing to admit he had come because the smell was so incredible. Even more so when the food was supposedly for a wife bedridden by a curse.

At that, Min-jun spoke in an apologetic, contrite tone.

"No matter how big of an eater Adkiel is, it seems my greed got the better of me. I cooked too much, and for too long, didn't I? It seems the smell has permeated the mansion. I apologize if it bothered you."

"No need to apologize. But the aroma really is spectacular. Are you a chef by trade?"

"Cooking is indeed my best skill right after ruin exploration."

Min-jun concluded the conversation there and offered a polite bow. He transferred the porridge into a container and walked off with firm steps. The remaining stanians could only stare after him like hounds that had lost the scent.

Gulesh whispered.

"Sir Solada. Can that human woman really eat all of that? I don't think so. Even if the rest of his human party pounced on it."

His tone carried a hint of personal hope.

Gulesh's speculation was soon confirmed as fact.

"My greed really was too much. Almost all of it is left over. Seeing my wife looking so pitiful made me want to feed her even a little more, but..."

Min-jun, returning with the container of almost untouched food, apologized again for causing a nuisance with the smell and headed straight for the sink.

The stanians' eyes bulged at the sight.

"Y-you! What are you trying to do right now?!"

"Pardon? The others are full from the preserved rations you gave them earlier... And they said they're sick of this kind of porridge because they usually eat too much of it. I'm not really feeling it either."

"So?!"

"It can't be helped. Since no one wants to eat it, I have to throw it out..."

"...?!"

At that, the stanians began clamoring, yelling that wasting food would incur the wrath of the heavens. Feigning defeat, Min-jun placed the pot down on the dining table. 'But this is a human-style dish made by a human...' 'What does it matter if the chef is human or stanian?! It just needs to taste good!'

The servants now looked at Solada with pathetic, pleading expressions. He had no choice but to declare that they would share the meal instead of him hoarding it. They were servants working for free, after all; giving them the impression of a stingy master right from the start wouldn't do him any favors.

Following that, a combative and fierce meal unfolded at the dining table. The stanians scarfed down the porridge in a frenzy.

"I'm not sure if it suits your tastes."

"What are you saying?! It's phenomenal. It's the most delicious human food I've ever tasted!"

Watching the spectacle, Min-jun quietly gripped the Frying Pan's handle.

The moment the Magic Tool relayed a certain message through telepathy...

"...!"

Min-jun's eyes deepened.

After a fleeting silence, he spoke to the stanians.

"Then I will take my leave. I need to stay by my wife's side."

He prepared to return to his room. The stanians, having inhaled the food in the blink of an eye, spared no praise for the magnificent cooking. Then, they once again looked at Solada with pleading eyes, words they dared not say as lowly servants tickling their lips.

Solada voiced their desires on their behalf.

"I know you'll be busy nursing her, but if you have some free time during your stay, could you show off your skills again? It'd be one thing if we never tasted it, but now that we've experienced it once, I feel like the flavor will just keep lingering on the tips of our tongues."

Min-jun gave him an odd look before answering.

"Of course."

The servants were overjoyed, and Solada also wore a thoroughly satisfied expression.

*

Following the incident in the kitchen, Min-jun didn't step out of his room a single time until late into the night. His companions did the same.

How much time passed like that?

Swish!

A figure invisible to anyone in the darkness began to move.

It was, naturally, Min-jun.

He surveyed his surroundings from within the shadows.

'As I thought, this is a strange place.'

Ha Eun-seong, who had scouted the area, reported checking all the way down to the third basement floor. Min-jun pressed forward without hesitation or wandering, quickly reaching the bottommost level. Relying solely on his senses, he approached a specific spot. At first glance, it was nothing but an ordinary stone wall.

However.

Slide!

Rumble!

When he infused Magic in a distinct pattern, the stone wall shifted, revealing a hidden space. The noise of the mechanism was completely devoured by the Magic Min-jun had deployed.

Upon seeing what was uncovered, Min-jun's face filled with slight dismay.

'...I don't recall building anything like this.'

Long before he was assigned the designation Asif-666, Min-jun had spent time residing in this dimension.

Back then, he had recognized an impending danger. Because of that, he had scattered resources throughout the dimension that might prove useful in the future, and this was one of those very locations.

The problem, however, was that the vast majority of this treasure vault—which he had flawlessly camouflaged and protected with barriers—had been dismantled and vanished without a trace.

This spot was merely a tiny fragment left over from the original structure. It seemed this mansion had been constructed by repeatedly expanding and renovating buildings directly atop the facility Min-jun left behind long ago. And even within that, directly over the most critical point—the core barrier—someone from a later era had cast yet another barrier to conceal it.

So, who was it?

'Could it be the Committee?'

No.

If it had been them, they would have completely gutted the place; they wouldn't have gone out of their way to weave a new barrier and cover it up like this.

Min-jun fell into thought. It wasn't a barrier he couldn't break through if he tried. However, doing so would be extremely noisy.

It was then.

"...!"

One of the shadow fragments he had scattered around the mansion in advance detected something. It sent him a signal, just like a tripped sensor.

He immediately retreated from the basement. Something requiring his attention had popped up before he could finish his business here.

Min-jun swiftly returned to the first floor and concealed himself in the corner of the expansive hall. From there, he peered up at the second-floor railing.

'He's making his move.'

The silhouette hiding in the dark was unmistakably a stanian.

Likely assuming enough time had passed for the travelers to fall deeply asleep, the figure was silently approaching the room where Min-jun's group was staying.

'No, you can't. Not there.'

Min-jun voluntarily dropped his perfectly maintained concealment.

In that fleeting second, the silhouette advancing toward the room halted.

Min-jun had simply deactivated his stealth; he hadn't made any noise. Even so, the Weapon Master in the second-floor hallway detected his presence in the corner of the lower floor. His superhuman senses had picked up the faint sound of breathing, the subtle body heat, and the sudden weight of his existence.

Without hesitation, the stanian gripped his weapon. A blue aura flared along the Sword's blade. He threw himself over the hallway railing, plummeting toward the first-floor hall like a rushing gale.

A descending blade.

Swish!

The stanian aiming the Dagger harbored no doubts.

He fully believed that this single strike would cleanly sever the neck of that seemingly defenseless human.

That was his entire purpose for heading to the bedroom anyway; a slight change in sequence and location was hardly a major issue.

But then.

Vwoom!

The human's palm suddenly braced against the empty air. A cooking tool rested in that hand, which had blurred out of sight before reappearing.

The stanian's eyes widened. That was undoubtedly... the very Frying Pan that had cooked that phenomenal porridge earlier in the day.

But why pull that out now?

The Weapon Master's assault did not falter from a momentary question. Sharp and unrelenting, it tore through space to strike the human.

And then, the collision.

Clang!

The stanian's eyes practically bulged out of his skull.

Whoosh!

The human and the stanian warrior sprang apart in an instant. The Weapon Master stared at his opponent's Frying Pan in utter disbelief.

'He deflected it?!'

A human deflected an aura-infused strike from a stanian? And with a... Frying Pan?

Only then did he realize his target was no ordinary human.

However, it was already too late.

Min-jun thought to himself. 'Indeed, far too late.'

"It's too late to be surprised now, Gulesh."

The stanian whose name was called—the assassin who had flawlessly played the role of an enthusiastic servant up until this moment—glared at him in sheer shock.

"You...!"

Min-jun recalled the words the man had spoken earlier.

"If a guy like me—with a pathetic job, meager earnings, and absolutely no Supernatural Ability—were to impulsively get married, I wouldn't have the means to handle the aftermath if my wife ever fell ill."

This was the same Gulesh who had repeatedly emphasized his own 'incompetence' and 'insignificance.'

Yet, after sharing the Frying Pan's meal in the kitchen, that Magic Tool had reported this to its master:

That there were more Supernatural Ability Users present than expected.

That aside from Solada, there was another individual on whom the suggestion had failed to take root.

'They can't be agents sent by the Committee. It's impossible for them to have already pinpointed my location, and if they seriously wanted to capture me, there's no way they would send such a sloppy amateur.'

He recalled their claim that today was merely their first day serving Solada.

Though, of course, that could also be a lie.

Complex deduction was no longer necessary.

'I just have to check for myself.'

In the meantime, Gulesh was desperately trying to find an opening to launch another attack. However, a crushing pressure weighing down on the assassin's senses forced him to hesitate.

Furthermore, despite the massive collision just moments ago, the surroundings were unnervingly silent. That only amplified his anxiety.

Whoosh!

At that moment, Min-jun twirled the Frying Pan and seized its handle in a reverse grip. Then, he spoke a single command.

"Longer."

"...?!"

Watching the Frying Pan's handle extend at his command, Gulesh tensed up. Was he planning to use that part as a weapon? A hidden blade disguised as a cooking tool?

However, Min-jun had no intention of wasting energy by deploying 'specialized assassination tools' in front of Gulesh. If brainwashing him through food was impossible, there was another method. Just like when he interrogated assassins back on Earth, he simply needed to press the Magic Tool as close to the target's brain as possible to read his surface consciousness.

Gripping the handle, which was shaped like the elongated snout of a crocodile, Min-jun approached step by step.

Staring at that sight, Gulesh was gripped by a visceral terror completely beyond reason.

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