The Chef From the Apocalypse Enters the Food Industry - Chapter 101

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 101. The Final
No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind, all that came out was profanity.
Look at that. Kim Seon-woo laughing over there. And that damn bastard laughing right beside him.
I couldn’t stand it.
And yet.
It still wasn’t over. Not yet.
Jang On-gyu repeated this to himself.
A donation? Fine. The profits vanished? Fine.
But the structure of the food service industry wasn’t that simple.
‘The commodification itself doesn’t disappear.’
The distribution lines were in his hands.
Who managed the donation was a separate matter entirely.
‘There’s always a loophole to slip through.’
Was it because he’d found one?
The corners of Jang On-gyu’s mouth rose again.
Naturally.
This time, his eyes were smiling too.
* * *
Before the commotion died down, I turned my head and found Jin-woo standing beside me.
His eyes were sparkling bright.
He was excited.
He’d been clenching and unclenching his fists since earlier. This guy’s body reacts before his mind does.
“Jin-woo.”
“Yes, hyung!”
His voice was loud. Not because the studio was noisy, but because that’s just how he is.
“That was seriously amazing! A donation! You were so cool, hyung!”
His eyes sparkled.
Even if his mouth stays shut, his body can’t hide anything. His feet were bouncing up and down.
“Well, the prize money’s gone now. But we still have the final round. Are you nervous?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Then he corrected himself.
“…Actually, a little bit.”
“A little is fine.”
Jin-woo tilted his head.
“Huh?”
“If you weren’t nervous at all, that’d be the real problem, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh! That’s true!”
“You can do this, right?”
Jin-woo clenched his fist.
My knuckles clenched tight, tendons standing out beneath the skin hardened by years of culinary work.
I grinned widely, teeth fully bared.
“Let’s go crazy, hyung.”
“Yeah!”
Charity, donations—none of it mattered. Flipping Jang On-gyu’s board was satisfying enough.
The cathartic release felt good. The audience’s fervor felt good too.
But the core truth remained singular.
Creating the finest dish on this stage.
That was the entirety of this battle.
Everything else was secondary.
I spoke to Jin-woo.
“Let’s go.”
It was time to cook again.
* * *
Jang Han-su took center stage.
“Alright! That intermission segment ran longer than expected with the surprise announcement! Let’s move straight into the final round!”
His voice filled the studio completely.
“Chefs! All you need to do is complete one final dish! Now, who will present first?”
The scoreboard timer began counting down.
60:00
One hour.
Beep—
The buzzer sounded.
‘PD Ga. Is this an attempt to hype things up from the outside?’
Everyone was already feeling the urgency anyway. The score was tied 2:2:2.
Even with my bombshell statement during the break.
It remained effective.
Manipulating the situation to move quickly, then adding another layer like this.
‘That guy’s obsessed with broadcasting.’
The moment the signal appeared, all three teams moved simultaneously.
Ern Kim walked first.
Shoulders back. Chin raised.
“Hmph. Hmmm~”
He even hummed incongruously.
He moved toward the ingredient station with ease, and even the way he rolled up his sleeves while selecting ingredients was elegant.
But his stride was wider than usual.
If you looked closely.
The rhythm of his heels striking the stage floor was faster.
At least, I felt it.
‘Rushing inside, but maintaining composure on the outside.’
Is this the pride of a Michelin two-star chef?
He’s the type who thinks charging forward means losing, so he does that.
Jeong Si-woo was the complete opposite.
“Hmm….”
His expression hardened, and he said nothing.
He lowered his head.
His eyes swept across the ingredient station with serious intent.
His gaze was unwavering.
‘That man sees nothing but his own cooking right now. Surprising, really. Or is that just how chefs naturally are?’
He truly embodied the spirit of a chef.
Though Jang On-gyu brought him and my first impression wasn’t great, he might be a better person than I thought.
* * *
I looked at Jin-woo.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
We moved quickly as well.
There was no time to waste.
The outline of the finished dish was already forming in my mind. The issue was the ingredients.
What was available would determine the final shape of my vision.
Twelve steps to the ingredient station.
Jin-woo followed half a step behind me.
I swept my eyes across the ingredients.
My gaze moved swiftly.
‘Even now, these are quality items.’
Beef. Chicken. Seafood. Vegetables.
I mentally catalogued each one.
The beef had decent marbling, the chicken was whole, the seafood included shrimp, shellfish, and…
Flounder!
‘Hmm… I haven’t worked much with fish until now.’
Yes, with this…
Couldn’t this become a dish that delivers a proper twist at the end?
A dish suddenly came to mind.
Flop-!
There was a particularly fresh one moving about, unusually lively for a flounder.
Its size was just right.
I pressed it with my hand.
Squish-
The flesh yielded elastically and sprang back.
The gills I opened were a vivid crimson.
‘Perfect. It’s fresh.’
If I had these ingredients, I could make the dish I had in mind.
* * *
The dish I would create.
It was, for reference, one of the dishes I learned from Haran.
Namely, Song Seo Gye Eo.
One of the pinnacle dishes of Chinese cuisine.
It’s a dish where you make crosshatch cuts on a whole fish and deep-fry it until the flesh blooms like a pinecone.
‘Making it is seriously difficult.’
Originally, it’s made with gye eo.
For reference, gye eo is what we know by the name mandarin fish.
Anyway.
Since the ingredient is mandarin fish, it’s called Song Seo Gye Eo, but there’s no mandarin fish here.
‘There’s no way this competition would prepare mandarin fish for us.’
Even PD Ga must have found mandarin fish impossible to source.
It doesn’t matter.
In my opinion, flounder is more than sufficient. Actually, it’s better. The delicate subtlety of white fish suits the dish I envisioned even more.
The outline in my mind solidified.
‘This is it.’
With that conviction, I decided to go with the flounder.
* * *
Preparing the flounder I’d brought.
“Jin-woo.”
“Yes!”
“The flounder—remove the organs and debone it. Spread the flesh as wide as possible. Be careful not to tear the skin.”
“Got it! Flounder prep!”
I entrusted that to Jin-woo.
Some might say that’s a big task.
‘I trust him.’
I trusted Jin-woo’s knife skills, which had improved by leaps and bounds. Moreover.
‘Jin-woo was also there when I learned Song Seo Gye Eo from Haran.’
I trusted the experience we’d shared together.
“Relax!”
“Yes! Let’s go!”
Jin-woo picked up the flounder.
His hands were tense, but they didn’t waver.
‘I have to trust him.’
While Jin-woo went off to prep the flounder.
I selected the remaining ingredients.
‘This is the final round. So I’ll pay attention to every detail until the end.’
Shrimp. Shiitake mushrooms. Bamboo shoots.
I found what I needed to fill the dish.
And gochujang. Plum extract. Soy sauce.
I gathered all the sauce ingredients at once.
‘Now that’s the kick.’
I cradled the ingredients in my arms and returned to the cutting board.
I glanced at the timer for no particular reason.
One minute and eighteen seconds had passed.
‘Faster than I thought.’
* * *
‘This is even faster.’
While I was prepping the ingredients I’d brought, Jin-woo did his part.
On the cutting board beside me lay a flounder, splayed open.
It was the flesh Jin-woo had prepared.
The bones were cleanly stripped, and there wasn’t a single knife mark on the meat.
It meant he’d done it properly.
‘Clean work. When did he get this good?’
I trusted him, but this exceeded my expectations.
Since Jin-woo had done the prep work so well, now I needed to step up my game.
I picked up the knife again.
I released the tension from my right hand.
“Precision knife work isn’t about force—it’s about angle. Jin-woo, watch carefully.”
“You’re teaching here too?”
“You should always be learning. Watch.”
I gripped with my fingers, not my wrist.
I rested the blade’s spine between my index and thumb, while the other three fingers wrapped around the handle without gripping too tightly.
I made sure to show it clearly from Jin-woo’s angle.
So he could see how freely the knife tip moved.
Then the first cut went in.
Swish—swish—
I drew the blade horizontally across the flesh.
‘My target is exactly two millimeters.’
The knife tip sliced through the flesh at two-millimeter intervals.
The key here was one thing.
Cut, but stop just above the skin.
Don’t cut all the way through.
The fish flesh will fall apart.
Cut the flesh but preserve the skin. That’s the essence of the crosshatch pattern for song-seo-gye-eo.
‘Though this is song-seo gwang-eo.’
Second. Third.
Swish. Swish.
The spacing was perfectly uniform.
Not a machine—hands. Accomplishing this with bare hands.
‘Now, let me increase the speed.’
Shhhhh―!
The knife found its rhythm.
Horizontal cuts finished, then rotated to vertical. Same spacing, same depth, same speed.
A crosshatch pattern began etching into the flounder flesh on the cutting board.
One line. Two lines. Three lines.
Each time the blade’s edge glided across the flesh, a thin incision appeared, and the meat began to separate microscopically.
Still closed for now. But when it’s fried, those gaps will open.
“I’m raising it further. Watch closely.”
I increased the speed.
Rat-a-tat-tat―
My hands blurred as the speed climbed higher.
The sound from the blade’s edge resonated throughout the entire studio.
There was rhythm to it.
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.
PD Ga wouldn’t miss this moment.
The timer vanished from the screen, and my hands were zoomed in for a close-up.
‘Good instincts.’
All eyes snapped toward me in an instant, and the audience stirred.
I continued cutting while savoring their attention.
-What is that?
-Look at that knife work…
-The pattern kind of looks like a checkerboard.
-Insane, look at that speed.
-Is that level of precision even possible?
-Can’t even see his hands, seriously.
The audience gasped in amazement and wonder.
That’s when I caught a glimpse of Han Jae-won leaning forward toward the monitor.
* * *
Seonwoo’s observation wasn’t mistaken.
Han Jae-won was leaning forward intently, concentrating, when Im Ha-yun’s voice reached his ears.
“That’s….”
Im Ha-yun asked from beside Han Jae-won.
“What is it?”
Was there a dish Im Ha-yun didn’t know?
Well, Chinese cuisine might be an exception. Thinking that way, Han Jae-won answered.
“Song Shu Ji Yu. A traditional Chinese technique. You make a checkerboard pattern of cuts into a whole fish and then deep-fry it. The blade has to separate the flesh but never break through the skin.”
“That’s incredibly difficult, isn’t it?”
Sonny asked.
“It’s beyond difficult. Most chefs wouldn’t even attempt it. Especially not in such a time-pressured situation like this.”
Han Jae-won kept his eyes fixed on the monitor.
“Why not?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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