Chapter 32 – A Gourmet Tactic

“Of course… that’s not it! In the first place, if I didn’t like you, would we be sitting here eating meat? It’s a win-win.”

Hee-na looked at Woo Min-ah with a slightly suspicious eye and then shrugged her shoulders.

“Right. You treat me so well, Unnie, so what does the reason matter?”

“Right? Ah, right. But don’t bring that newly created seed. It will only make the story complicated and give them something to nitpick.”

“I plan to do that too.”

At the cool answer, Woo Min-ah grinned.

“Anyway, thank you for the advice. Just as you said, Unnie, I should pack something and try talking to him subtly.”

Hee-na decided to try using a gourmet tactic, not a beauty tactic, on Kang Jin-hyun, just as Woo Min-ah said.

Without knowing what kind of repercussion that would bring in the future…

* * *

Knock, knock, knock.

Hee-na took advantage of the break time right before lunch and knocked on Hunter Kang Jin-hyun’s private office.

‘Once a dungeon raid is over, he locks himself in his office for a while and rarely comes out. So whenever you go, you should be able to meet him easily.’

It was a location she found out through Woo Min-ah.

“Who is it?”

A low voice was heard beyond the door. It was Kang Jin-hyun.

Hee-na answered carefully while tightly gripping the handle of the five-tier lunch box in her hand.

“Hello. My name is Lee Hee-na… I was the member of the cleaning team who fell into the labor camp with you before.”

Fearing that he might not remember her, she mumbled and added an explanation.

“Ah. Miss Hee-na. Come in.”

Fortunately, Kang Jin-hyun did not seem to have forgotten Hee-na.

‘Thank goodness.’

Just as she was about to grab the doorknob with a sigh of relief, the door slid open. Kang Jin-hyun had opened the door himself from the inside.

“Ah, thank you.”

Hee-na bowed her waist deeply, making an ideal 90-degree bow that a true subordinate would show.

“No, there’s no need to go this far… Ah, yes.”

At that burdensome greeting, Kang Jin-hyun bowed his waist in turn.

At the S-class Hunter’s bowing, Hee-na bent her waist even deeper, and Kang Jin-hyun bent his head further in embarrassment.

Hee-na and Kang Jin-hyun bowed to each other for a while as if they were competing to see who could bend their waist deeper.

“…So Miss Hee-na, what business brings you here?”

Fitting for an S-class Hunter, Kang Jin-hyun regained his senses first and asked for her business.

Hee-na recalled Woo Min-ah’s words.

‘Feed him first so he can’t back out.’

Woo Min-ah had said to stuff food into his mouth no matter what.

Hee-na gathered her courage and held out the lunch box tier to Kang Jin-hyun.

“Since you saved my brother and helped me in many ways, I was thinking how to express my gratitude. Since cooking is at least what I know how to do… I made some food. If you haven’t eaten yet, how about having a few bites…?”

At Hee-na’s invitation, Kang Jin-hyun wore a burdened face.

According to Woo Min-ah, this was not because Hee-na’s sincerity was burdensome. It was because he was embarrassed that his short-appetite eating habits would be revealed.

“I only did what I naturally had to do. It is not something to receive such excessive gratitude for.”

“Hunter Kang Jin-hyun, if you haven’t had lunch, would you like to have a bite here before you go?”

Hee-na decided to push forward like this. It was a brazenness unusual for her. The outer rim of her ears turned red in embarrassment.

However, thinking of the livelihood resting on her shoulders and the value of the dungeon byproduct she might have to compensate for, stubbornness naturally rose.

“I really packed this with all my heart, so I want to watch you eat even if only for a moment.”

Hee-na slipped right past Kang Jin-hyun’s side. It was a step so combative that even the S-class combat Hunter was swept along.

Hee-na reached directly in front of the low tea table.

In a corner of the office, a soft-looking sofa and tea table were placed. It seemed to be a place to welcome visiting guests.

“Now! I didn’t know what you would like, Hunter Kang Jin-hyun, so I prepared this and that.”

Hee-na set the lunch box down with a thud on the table. Then she quickly untied the wrapping cloth, separated the five-tier lunch box, and lined them up.

In the bottom tier, she prepared gimbap that the Hunters downstairs would go crazy for, and above that, she packed sandwiches colorfully by ingredient.

In the third tier, she filled fried chicken, which is practically Korea’s traditional food. Not knowing what flavor he would like, she filled it colorfully with fried, soy sauce-glazed, and common red gochujang-glazed chicken.

In the fourth compartment, she tightly stuffed bacon-vegetable rolls and fried tofu rice balls.

Finally, in the top tier, she carefully sliced and placed fruit as a palate cleanser. The apples were lightly soaked in salt water so they wouldn’t brown, then carved into rabbit shapes.

And she carefully prepared melon and pineapple, which she had never bought and eaten because they were normally expensive, to fill the final tier to the brim.

This five-tier lunch box was art itself, integrating Hee-na’s sincerity and hand-taste.

Perhaps Kang Jin-hyun also recognized the charisma of the D-class Homemaker contained in this lunch box, as he hesitated.

“This is…”

“It is nothing much, but I prepared it humbly.”

Actually, contrary to Hee-na’s words, this lunch box was a huge ‘deal.’

Was it not the lunch box filled after pondering over the menu again and again until late last night!

She had agonized so much that she felt packing this one five-tier lunch box was harder than rolling sixty lines of gimbap herself.

Hee-na pulled out the utensils she prepared and forced them into Kang Jin-hyun’s hand.

Although he was an S-class Hunter, perhaps because he felt the sorrow contained in the touch of Hee-na, the D-class Homemaker, Kang Jin-hyun could not easily shake off her hand.

“But isn’t this too much to eat alone…?”

He muttered excuses in advance, saying the amount was too much.

Hee-na coaxed the S-class Hunter as if dealing with a child throwing a tantrum over food, and pushed the lunch box in front of him.

“I know. I know it’s a lot to eat it all, so please just taste one of each.”

“Then, considering your sincerity… Thank you.”

Kang Jin-hyun sat down on the sofa with a sigh. Then he reached his hand toward the food spread out in front of him.

Kang Jin-hyun picked up a round gimbap and put it in his mouth casually.

As always, normal food was too salty, bland, or fishy for him.

This gimbap would not be any different. He thought so.

And the moment he put the gimbap in his mouth and bit into it with his molars, Kang Jin-hyun received a shock as if the world were turning upside down.

“…!”

The last moment he remembered was up to here.

It was right after Kang Jin-hyun stuffed the last piece of apple remaining in the lunch box into his mouth that he regained his senses.

“Is your stomach alright?”

“…Pardon?”

Hee-na looked at Kang Jin-hyun, who acted as if he had suddenly awakened from a dream.

Kang Jin-hyun was looking down alternately at the piece of apple he was eating and the empty lunch box with an expression of ‘What just happened?’

Hee-na knew the meaning of that expression now. It was a positive sign!

‘My hand-taste skill worked!’

When she grilled meat for Woo Min-ah, Woo Min-ah’s expression was like that, and the expressions of the Hunters who tried Hee-na’s gimbap for the first time, and her brother’s expression after eating home-cooked food, were also like that.

A face that couldn’t even realize what they had eaten because it was too delicious.

Hee-na spoke in a worried tone toward Kang Jin-hyun, who was blankly staring at the empty lunch box.

“The amount must have been a bit much to eat alone, do you need some digestive medicine?”

Before any illicit solicitation or whatever, Kang Jin-hyun ate severely much and fast.

She packed an amount that would be at least five servings, tightly pressed, but he finished it all in less than thirty minutes.

How fast was the S-class’s chopstick work; it was so rapid that an afterimage remained. In addition, Kang Jin-hyun swallowed the food as soon as he put it in his mouth.

‘Ate’ was too instantaneous of an expression to use. Kang Jin-hyun gulped down the food almost like a liquid.

Even if an S-class’s body was like steel, would his internal organs to digest that be strong enough to match the S-class level? It made her worry to that extent.

Kang Jin-hyun, who slowly regained his senses, hurriedly set down his chopsticks and asked.

“…Miss Hee-na, what did you just feed me?”

Hee-na answered honestly.

“A lunch box.”

“Is it really just a simple lunch box?”

A lunch box is a lunch box, what else was there to explain?

However, Kang Jin-hyun’s gaze was too serious. Hee-na explained the composition of the lunch box thinking she should say something.

“Yes. It’s a lunch box with gimbap in the 1st tier, sandwiches in the 2nd tier, fried chicken in the 3rd tier, bacon-vegetable rolls and fried tofu rice balls in the 4th tier, and fruit in the 5th tier. I made it myself.”

At Hee-na’s answer, Kang Jin-hyun murmured softly.

“You made it, yourself, Miss Hee-na?”

“Yes. Would I have asked someone else to pack a thank-you lunch box instead? If so, I would have told you earlier. This is food I cooked myself, selecting the ingredients from the start.”

Hee-na emphasized and emphasized again that this was a masterpiece made through her own hands. That way, the words she would bring up next would be well-received.

“Selecting the ingredients, yourself, from the start, and cooking it.”

It was unknown why he broke his words one by one to sound scary to the listener.

Hee-na now calculated the timing to bring up the main point.

‘I have to make a decision before lunch time is completely over!’

“Excuse me, Hunter Kang Jin-hyun…”

It was just as she was about to solemnly bring up the prepared line.

“Miss Hee-na, I have something to tell you.”

Kang Jin-hyun, who seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, beat her to the punch.

Hee-na beat her chest internally but replied pretending nothing was wrong.

“Yes? What is it?”

The Homemaker of the Dungeon