The Chef From the Apocalypse Enters the Food Industry - Chapter 126

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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 126. Selling This
As I stood there watching, Jin-woo spoke in a playful tone.
“Boss, let’s sell this.”
“That’s just convenience store ingredients.”
“Exactly. But it tastes good, doesn’t it?”
Instead of answering, I examined the ingredients.
Convenience store fish cakes. Instant broth. Sausages. Triangular kimbap rice. Sliced cheese.
Everything came from a factory.
Things already made by someone else.
I had only combined them.
The factory production line came to mind just then.
Hundreds of units stamped out according to the recipe I had set.
Even mass-produced food tasted the same.
Perhaps it even tasted better.
‘You can eat more for less money. Quality is good, but quantity is happiness too, isn’t it?’
In that very moment of thinking.
Jin-woo picked up his chopsticks for the third time and spoke as if it were nothing special.
“If it tastes good, isn’t that just cooking? Then it’s done.”
“Hmm.”
The sound escaped me without thinking.
Jin-woo looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The words Han Jae-won had thrown at me while holding the noodles.
-Are you thinking about the next product?
That question echoed through my mind again.
‘….’
* * *
“Hmm….”
PD Ga. He had taken unused vacation time and come to the Cafe.
About twenty minutes had passed since he received his coffee and sat down.
‘He’s late?’
The cup was half empty.
Half he had drunk, and half had gone cold while he was thinking.
He was looking out the window.
Not really looking at anything in particular.
Just sitting there.
‘It feels nice to be out after so long.’
The feeling of the noise inside settling down, one might say.
PD Ga thought this wasn’t so bad either.
After waiting for quite some time, the door opened.
“Over here!”
The moment PD Ga spotted someone wearing a long hat, he raised his hand.
“Ah! There you are!”
She wore the hat pulled down low, her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head. It was Sonny.
She walked toward PD Ga with confident strides.
Her shoulders were held noticeably higher than usual—she seemed to be in excellent spirits.
“Did I keep you waiting long?”
“Not really. Though I was about a minute late, wasn’t I?”
“You’re sharp, aren’t you? But it looks like you came earlier than expected?”
“It just happened that way.”
“Hmm. That’s not like you usually. You used to show up quite late before.”
“Is that so? I normally arrive early.”
It was a lie.
But Sonny didn’t press the issue. There was no point creating unnecessary conflict over such things in professional relationships.
In any case, as far as Sonny was concerned, PD Ga was her benefactor, if nothing else.
“Over here!”
She sat down without even glancing at the menu, simply calling for a staff member.
She ordered an iced Americano and settled into her seat.
“This is the first time you’ve contacted me since the broadcast ended, right?”
“Well, yes. It just turned out that way.”
“I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Forget? I pulled off something big thanks to that video you gave me. How could I forget?”
“Hehe. I knew it.”
PD Ga reached for his coffee cup, then set it back down.
He seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
“By the way, what did you think of the broadcast?”
“Me? I thought it was great.”
Sonny smiled as she inserted her straw.
“Great?”
“Yes. Actually, I benefited a lot from it. My subscriber count shot up.”
“By how much?”
“Probably another 300,000 or so. After the broadcast aired.”
“300,000….”
PD Ga let that number sink in for a moment.
He already had 3.5 million subscribers.
Even as YouTube continued to grow globally, 3.5 million was hardly a small number.
Breaking a million subscribers alone was considered a major channel.
But a single broadcast had brought in another 300,000.
There was certainly an effect from his previous appearance as a judge in that competition.
“The numbers have gone up quite a bit, haven’t they?”
“Come on. You know this already. Broadcast and YouTube tend to feed into each other.”
“Isn’t that less common these days?”
“It’s probably less than before. The broadcasting station’s influence has weakened, after all.”
“…It certainly has weakened.”
Here again, I was hearing about the broadcasting station’s declining power.
As PD Ga, my mouth tasted bitter.
Either unaware of that bitterness, Sonny continued chattering away.
“Surprisingly, my viewers didn’t come from the broadcast side. It seems they came from there after the show became a hot topic. It all came in at once.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s like gaining a reader demographic that didn’t exist before? Honestly, without that, even with broadcast backing, reaching 300,000 would have been difficult. Hehe. Anyway, thanks to that, I’ve benefited greatly!”
The broadcasting station has no power. Even what little remains is flowing over to YouTube.
‘I thought this was a lifetime career, but was it a sinking ship all along?’
PD Ga stared blankly out the window for a moment.
Sonny asked me a question.
“By the way, what’s happening with the regular time slot?”
“I don’t know yet. They’re reviewing it upstairs.”
“If that goes through, I’ll be appearing too, right?”
“We’ll have to see how it goes.”
“Hey, don’t be like that. It’s disappointing.”
“Disappointing? Ah….”
“Do you know how much effort I’ve put into this!”
“That’s true. I suppose that’s fair. Then let me give you one definite answer.”
“What is it? The answer I want to hear?”
“Probably. In any case… once it’s confirmed, I promise Sonny will definitely appear. It would be strange if you didn’t, wouldn’t it?”
“I knew it! I knew you had integrity!”
Sonny looked at PD Ga with satisfaction.
‘Done! Resolved!’
She believed her future was bright from here on.
How could it be otherwise?
It was PD Ga’s show, after all.
One proven by a pilot, no less.
I’d heard the previous one was somewhat different, but what did it matter?
What difference did it make?
So many variety shows fail without ever gaining traction and sink without a trace.
Yet this show had guaranteed buzz.
Sonny was determined to appear regardless of the format.
Even if she had to play a somewhat ridiculous character.
But then again.
‘Hmm? That expression doesn’t look good.’
Now that I had gotten what I needed, I noticed something about Sonny too.
PD Ga’s expression.
It didn’t look good at all.
He was supposed to be the one filling in for my show, yet here he was looking so dispirited.
Sonny asked with a worried expression.
“PD, you seem to have something on your mind these days.”
PD Ga didn’t answer right away.
He fell silent for a moment.
Then he lied.
“No, nothing.”
Sonny pulled the straw away from her lips.
“Do you go to Kim Seon-woo’s restaurant often?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’d like to go sometime too. Should we go together next time?”
PD Ga looked at Sonny.
“Why?”
“Just because. I’m curious about it. I like that person. He’s someone whose broadcast persona and real self are almost identical. I come across stronger on air, but he doesn’t have that gap. He seems to live almost the same way whether the camera is there or not.”
“Someone whose broadcast and reality are almost the same. That’s true.”
I chewed on those words.
It was true.
Kim Seon-woo was almost the same in front of the camera or behind it.
At first, that seemed strange to me.
But in the end, it worked.
Wasn’t that how he gained his appeal?
In comparison, I…
‘What am I doing, hiding here like this?’
I had called Sonny here for a reason, yet here I was.
PD Ga felt an inexplicable sense of self-reproach.
Perhaps it was fortunate.
Sonny pressed on more persistently than expected.
“…But what’s the real reason you called me?”
Sonny set down her cup and asked.
“Why are you so curious about my reasons?”
“The PD I know doesn’t seem like the type to call someone to a cafe just to chat about random things.”
PD Ga looked at Sonny silently for a while.
Then finally, he brought up the real reason.
“YouTube.”
“…Yes?”
“Tell me what you think about YouTubers.”
Sonny blinked her eyes.
“Is PD Ga a YouTuber?”
“I’m just asking. Just asking.”
“Come on, there’s no such thing as ‘just asking.’ Hmm… it feels like I’m raising a major competitor.”
“Competitor? More like a collaborator.”
“Hehe. Really? Truly?”
“Of course. Though I’m not entirely sure yet.”
“Hmm…”
Sonny leaned back against the chair. A brief silence fell between them.
Sonny shifted in her seat.
Then she asked seriously.
“What do you want to know?”
* * *
Time passed swiftly.
A week had passed since the broadcast aired, drawing close to two weeks now.
Throughout all this, Oh Tae-sik had been waiting for a phone call for days.
‘What’s happening? He said he’d handle it himself? What exactly is he doing?!’
Sitting in an office chair. On the couch at home. Inside a car.
The location changed, but his actions remained the same.
Phone placed beside him.
Screen lit up periodically to check. Nothing there, so he set it down again.
He repeated this cycle endlessly.
Yet no contact came.
‘What is this? Can’t he handle it?’
Jang On-gyu was not a man who made others wait.
Whenever something arose, orders always came down swiftly.
“Do it this way.”
“Check that.”
“Block that side.”
Short and clear.
Always like that. That man.
Back then it was mixed with formal speech, but now it was casual. Either way.
It meant his work was always reliable.
Oh Tae-sik had grown accustomed to that style.
But no contact came.
‘Why exactly?’
No instructions meant something hadn’t been decided yet.
If nothing was decided, touching it himself would only escalate matters.
That was the method Oh Tae-sik had used to survive under this man.
A way to survive no matter what.
So he waited and waited, but even after several days passed, there was still nothing.
‘Has it all fallen apart?’
No, that couldn’t be.
Oh Tae-sik felt his insides burning with anxiety.
A Chef from the Apocalypse Enters the Food Service Industry
Author |
Heung-haeng
Publisher |
Samyang C&C
Editor-in-Chief |
Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C – Dream Books
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UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260206001
Blog |
blog.naver.com/dreambookss
Twitter(X) |
@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
No part of this book may be used in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C – Dream Books.

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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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