The Chef From the Apocalypse Enters the Food Industry - Chapter 96

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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 96. The Final Round (3)
The studio fell silent.
Ha-yun’s eyebrows rose slightly.
She looked genuinely surprised.
“Minus points?”
“Yes. Minus points. And.”
Jang Han-su continued slowly.
“Whoever reaches 3 points first wins the championship.”
The audience stirred upon hearing the rules.
-So you have to cook fast but still get over half the score?
-One mistake and you’re in serious trouble?
-Right. Losing points is a huge setback.
-But what if someone else gets 3 points first?
-You lose.
-Wow…
-These rules are brutal.
A speed competition that simultaneously demanded caution.
Even if 3 points seemed far away, accumulating -1 points could make it unreachable in an instant.
A madcap format indeed.
Ha-yun crossed her arms.
“This must be fun for the judges.”
“It will be. I think it’ll be fun for me too. Ha ha.”
Jang Han-su laughed and swept his gaze across the audience once more.
“Now then, this isn’t where it ends.”
“What? It’s not over?”
“We need to make it even more thrilling and entertaining!”
He lowered his voice slightly. The atmosphere shifted.
“Today, we’ve specially invited two additional judges.”
The audience stirred.
“Two more?”
Sonny’s eyes widened.
“Yes. Two of them. Come on out, please.”
Two figures walked out from the corridor beside the stage.
They were wearing masks.
The audience murmured. Their identities were unknown. But their gait was different from ordinary people.
Both of them emanated an extraordinary presence.
An aura, one might say.
I watched the two figures quietly.
‘One of them is that person from earlier.’
I recognized them immediately from their gait.
It was Han Jae-won.
That same composed gait I’d exchanged a handshake with in the waiting room moments ago.
And the remaining one.
Jang On-gyu sat down slowly, his gaze piercing through the mask toward me.
I froze in that instant.
‘…A mask.’
It was a mask.
A trivial production choice.
I understood intellectually that PD Ga had put it on to conceal the identity—it helped the broadcast, after all.
But my body reacted first.
My heart skipped a beat.
Thump— thump— thump—
Then it began pounding ferociously.
‘…What?’
I simply went rigid.
Jang On-gyu’s gaze cut through the mask, aimed directly at me.
I stood motionless beneath that stare.
‘…This sensation!’
* * *
It was a mask.
The upper half concealed, but the lower half exposed. He had to eat to judge, after all. The structure was inevitable.
That exposed lower half.
It was pristine. A flawless face unmarred by a single scar.
But.
‘…That.’
My gaze locked onto it.
There was something only my eyes could see.
Overlaid upon that face revealed beneath the mask was the phantom of my past life.
The traces of flesh melted and hardened.
Burn scars forged in an inferno.
That face, which no passage of time could erase from my memory.
Only I could see it.
Beneath that mask right now.
My heart thundered once more.
Thump—
Memories surged forth.
The Apocalypse of my past life.
A city transformed into a sea of flames.
That world where the survivors trampled over one another to climb higher.
Within it, there was one who donned a mask and posed as a savior.
-We can all live together.
-We can all prosper together!
-Let us unite our strength!
The burn scars beneath the mask were his trademark.
He shook the meager rations in his hands.
-It’s an unavoidable sacrifice.
-Please endure it!
Follow me if you want to survive.
He promised he would save them.
He peddled hope that didn’t exist.
-How… how can we survive?
-Just follow me!
And he exploited those who believed in that hope, one by one.
Then.
When they became useless.
-Looks like this is the end.
-What?
-It can’t be helped. You worked hard.
-What? What do you mean…
-Still, you lasted a long time.
-Gasp…!
He discarded them.
He taught despair to people who didn’t even know what despair was.
Corpses always remained in his wake.
Living corpses.
‘…So that was you.’
Click.
Something fell into place in my mind.
* * *
Why was it.
Jang On-gyu.
From the first time I saw him, something felt wrong.
I didn’t know the reason. It was purely instinctive revulsion.
Just being in the same space made my stomach turn.
I couldn’t explain why.
So I always kept my guard up. I even rejected advantageous proposals if they came from him.
I thought it was simply because we didn’t get along.
I was wrong.
‘So that was it.’
There was a reason.
It had existed since my past life.
I despised him. Genuinely.
Never in my life had I hated anyone so thoroughly.
That bastard who played the savior, exploited people, and peddled false hope to manufacture despair.
That very man was now sitting here before me, wearing a mask.
This life was no different.
‘He had merely changed his methods.’
Controlling people through capital, orchestrating schemes to crush his opponents.
What he once did with food in my past life, he now did with money and power.
‘So he lived that way even before the Apocalypse. Always the same man.’
Truly, a creature of unwavering consistency.
Yes. Far too much so.
I drew a slow breath.
If this were the old me, I would have settled it here.
Calculated rationally, done only what was necessary.
But now was different.
Something hot surged upward. A temperature I had never felt before.
‘This isn’t just about this competition.’
Jang On-gyu.
This cooking competition.
PD Ga orchestrated the stage, and I stepped onto this platform.
Perhaps from the beginning, it was all leading to this moment.
What I couldn’t finish in my past life.
‘I’ll finish it here.’
I will defeat you.
Not just in this competition. Everything you’ve built.
Everything you possess. Everything you trampled underfoot to rise above others.
All of it.
‘I’ll destroy it all for you.’
For the first time since entering the food service industry.
A new resolve settled within me.
It cooled and sank, hardening more solidly than ever before.
* * *
That was when it happened.
Jang Han-su’s voice drifted from afar.
“The identities will be revealed at the very end. Until then, it’s a secret!”
The audience erupted with excitement.
I listened to that sound and gazed quietly ahead.
My grip tightened on the wok.
‘Perfect.’
This stage. This position. This very moment.
‘It worked out perfectly.’
I genuinely believed this had become a wonderful opportunity for me.
Sincerely.
* * *
“We’re starting now!”
With Jang Han-su’s shout, the studio erupted.
The lights flooded the stage.
Whoooosh—
The cameras began rolling in unison.
I heard Ern Kim moving beside me.
-Do this right. Show them what authenticity is, even in a short time!
-Yes!
The sound of equipment clashing, lights switching on, ingredients being pulled out.
I listened to those sounds and slowly looked ahead.
‘I’ve already decided what I’m making.’
From the moment I saw the mask in the waiting room.
Or perhaps even long before that.
I was fired up.
To be honest, that’s how it was.
‘Even if I’m someone who dominates the stage, there’s no way I wouldn’t be irritated standing on a stage like this, right?’
The old me wouldn’t have let this emotion show so openly.
I would have calculated, weighed my options, and chosen the most efficient approach.
And then counterattacked.
But now was different.
‘Since I’m fired up, let’s do this properly.’
I reached out my hand.
The first thing I grabbed was a potato.
‘Gnocchi.’
Gnocchi. Italian handmade dumplings made by mashing potatoes and mixing them with flour.
Western cuisine.
The foundation of fine dining basics.
Ern Kim would feel his territory being invaded when he saw this.
That would be good. It was the point, after all.
‘This is a competition. Shaking up your opponent is fundamental.’
I rapidly mashed the potatoes. Mixed in the flour and kneaded the dough.
I moved my hands faster. These were hands that had scraped monster bones clean in my past life.
Potato dough was nothing.
I could do it with my eyes closed.
‘But if I end it here, it won’t be fun.’
I glanced to the side.
Mala sauce. Gochujang.
I laid them out side by side.
Jin-woo blinked beside me.
“Brother, is that…?”
“Yeah.”
“Gnocchi?”
“Yeah.”
“With mala and gochujang on top?”
“Yeah.”
Jin-woo fell silent for a moment, then.
“…This is insane.”
He muttered softly. It wasn’t a complaint. Quite the opposite.
His eyes were sparkling.
‘So he feels it too.’
I let out a quiet laugh and raised the wok.
Sizzle—!
I cranked up the heat. Higher than usual.
Since I was fired up, it only made sense to turn up the flames.
‘The intention is simple.’
The gnocchi is a declaration of war against Ern Kim.
A challenge to step into the realm of fine dining.
A provocation against tradition itself.
So it was meant to be deliberately irritating.
But adding mala and gochujang on top?
‘That’s for Jang On-gyu.’
A savior wrapped in pristine packaging.
Here, a benefactor.
Rotting beneath a respectable facade.
That was Jang On-gyu.
And this dish I’m making now—on the surface it’s gnocchi. Western, traditional, elegant-looking.
But inside, it’s different.
‘I mixed gochujang into the dough.’
The gochujang seeping between the potatoes and flour tinted the dough a subtle red.
You can’t see it from the outside. You have to cut it open to know.
You have to taste it to understand.
Just like you have to taste Jang On-gyu to know what he really is.
And then I wrapped the outside in mala sauce.
The numbing, provocative aroma of mala completely transformed the Western gnocchi into something entirely different.
The numbing tingle of mala. The deep, savory umami of fermented gochujang.
The unexpected flavor created when Korean and Western cuisines collide.
‘Don’t judge by the packaging alone.’
That was what I wanted to convey with this dish.
[I activate the skill 【Ingredient Enhancement】.]
[I layer the skill 【Flavor Enhancement】.]
[The skill 【Heat Control (Lv.Max)】 activates.]
The mala sauce bubbled up inside the wok.
The spicy, numbing aroma instantly engulfed the studio.
“Gasp…!”
“What is that smell?”
Reactions erupted from the judges’ table.
It would be spicy. Extremely spicy, even.
Ern Kim looked my way.
His eyebrows shot up high.
His expression was one of bewilderment.
‘Watch closely.’
I met his gaze as I dropped the gnocchi into the wok.
Sizzle—!
The gnocchi leaped up in the scorching sauce.
The exterior crisped beautifully while the interior cooked through with moisture. The numbing sensation of mala coated the surface like a glaze, and within that layer, the umami of gochujang burst forth—a perfect structure of flavors.
‘Perfect.’
I quickly plated it in the bowl Jin-woo had prepared as my assistant.
I finished with a garnish of herbs.
‘Plating should be honest.’
Not flashy. Let it show as it truly is.
[Dish 【Mala Gochujang Gnocchi】 Complete!]
[Grade: Supreme]
[Upon consumption, intense stimulation and deep umami explode across the palate.]
[Upon consumption, heat spreads throughout the body, revitalizing and energizing.]
I reached toward the bell.
Ding—!
The first bell rang.
The studio fell silent.
Ern Kim was still prepping ingredients. The other contestants were the same.
Only I had rung the bell.
I was the fastest.
Jang Han-su picked up the microphone.
“Oh, already?! The first bell has rung!”
Jin-woo exhaled quietly beside me.
“Brother…”
“Yeah.”
“This is actually insane, right?”

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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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