They Told Me to Build Good Karma by Selling Side Dishes - Chapter 60

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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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60. Kimchi-Making (5)

‘Is this the growth of a part-timer?’

I gave a thumbs up and moved on to the next task.

‘Bean sprout seasoning… bean sprouts.’

The freshly blanched bean sprouts released white steam as I transferred them to a wide stainless steel bowl, then tossed them with salt, minced garlic, sesame seeds, and sesame oil.

“Bean sprouts ready!”
“Bean Sprout Container Area all set!!”

Perfect synchronization.

Lee Hae-ra handed me the plastic container right on cue, then swiftly transported the side dishes I’d prepared to the display case. Her cheeks flushed with the intensity of her effort.

‘Her eyes are gleaming with vitality.’

“Boss… your hands really are fast….”
“You can’t run a business if you’re slow.”

Lee Hae-ra’s hands weren’t particularly slow either. Every time she moved a side dish, she wiped the display glass, adjusted the container position, and double-checked the date sticker.

‘She’s truly an exceptional part-timer.’

I removed my gloves and asked her a question.

“You look like you’ve done this many times before?”
“Oh, yes! I’ve been helping my parents at their restaurant since I was young! I did serving, dishwashing, all sorts of things….”
“No wonder your hands are so practiced!”

Without that kind of experience, such fluid movements would have been impossible.

“Now I’ll make the final side dish!”
“Yes!”

As I laid the thinly sliced zucchini onto the pan, it quickly turned translucent as it absorbed the oil.

A pinch of salt and a spoonful of minced garlic. Then, before turning off the heat, I drizzled sesame oil across it in one smooth motion.

“Zucchini is ready!”

I tilted the pan and transferred the sautéed zucchini into a container. The golden-brown edges overlapped atop one another, creating a glistening, appetizing sheen.

“The color is so beautiful, isn’t it?”
“The zucchini looks as pretty as white snowflakes.”

Lee Hae-ra suddenly snapped to attention as she peered inside.

“I’ll move the zucchini container to its spot…!”

Noticing that one section of the display shelf had just become vacant, she slid the sautéed zucchini into place and even adjusted the alignment perfectly.

“You know, it’s rare to find someone who works in such perfect sync with you. You two are really in harmony!”
“R-really?!”
“Yes! For your first day, you’ve done such a wonderful job.”

Lee Hae-ra’s face lit up brilliantly. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and the hem of her apron was slightly damp.

“Since we’re done now, would you like to go see the cabbage I brined yesterday?”
“Yes, yes! I’d love to see it!”

There was still time before customers arrived. Lee Hae-ra, her expression tinged with anticipation, followed eagerly behind me.

The moment I passed through the kitchen and opened the back door, a mountain of plastic-covered cabbage gleamed in the sunlight.

“Wow… wow… wow! We don’t make kimchi for kimchi-making season at my house. This is the first time I’ve ever seen so much.”

Lee Hae-ra covered her mouth with both hands, unable to contain her astonishment.

“H-how many heads is this?”
“Two hundred heads?”
“Boss… did you do all this by yourself?”
“No. I started to do it alone, but I got help from some close friends. Want to see?”
“Yes, yes! I want to see!”

I pulled back the plastic sheeting in front of Lee Hae-ra, revealing the napa cabbage that had absorbed salt throughout the night.

“What do you think?”
“You can tell at a glance it’s been salted perfectly!”
“Want to taste it?”
“Yes!!”

I selected the best-salted cabbage leaf, tore off a single stalk, and brought it to Lee Hae-ra’s mouth.

“Chew carefully.”

Lee Hae-ra swallowed hard, then placed the cabbage in her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise at the crisp, crunching texture.

“Is salted cabbage supposed to be this crispy?”
“When it’s salted properly, it is.”
“It’s not salty at all, and the more I chew, the sweeter it tastes…! It’s delicious even on its own?”
“Imagine how delicious the kimchi will be made with this.”

Lee Hae-ra nodded repeatedly.

“I’m so looking forward to your kimchi-making kimchi, boss!”
“So am I.”

With a sense of satisfaction, I reorganized the plastic sheeting and inspected the cabbage once more. The salt had penetrated evenly throughout—the preparation was complete.

“Now I need to prepare the kimchi filling.”
“Starting now?”
“Yes. I need to go buy the kimchi ingredients after I see off Lee Hae-ra, our first customer. I need to buy oysters too.”
“…You add oysters?”
“Yes. I add oysters. They give the kimchi a slightly refreshing taste.”

Just then, a bell chimed from the shop, and the first customer appeared.

“It sounds like we have a customer?”
“Oh! Yes, I’ll go right away!”

I covered the plastic back over the ingredients and watched Lee Hae-ra’s retreating figure with a satisfied smile.

‘Real experience.’

“Welcome! Thank you for coming to Hyang-suk’s Side Dish Shop!”

A middle-aged woman stood at the door holding a shopping basket.

“Is it okay if I come in? The shop door was open, so I came inside.”
“Of course!”

The customer glanced over the side dish display case once, then opened the glass door and began selecting items—braised beef, seasoned spinach, and seasoned bean sprouts, in that order.

“You must be a new part-timer?”
“Oh, no! I came to help the owner.”
“Is that so? Your movements are so practiced, I thought you were an employee.”

Lee Hae-ra bowed her head with flushed cheeks.

“Thank you….”

She naturally moved toward the counter.

“How much are these three?”
“That’s twelve thousand five hundred won!”

Oh?

She had apparently calculated it instantly in her head. When the customer handed over the bill, Lee Hae-ra accepted it respectfully with both hands.

But as she reached for the change, her hands tangled and a coin rolled across the counter and fell to the floor.

“Oh… ah!”

Just as Lee Hae-ra hurriedly bent down, I picked up the coin.

“Take your time. Lee Hae-ra.”
“Ah, yes!”

I handed the coins to Lee Hae-ra while addressing the female customer.

“You’re selecting mostly today’s freshly made side dishes. You certainly have a discerning eye!”
“Of course! They looked like they were made today, so I picked them right away.”
“And the side dishes suit your palate?”
“Hyang-suk’s side dishes are delicious, so I come here all the time!”

This time, Lee Hae-ra perfectly calculated the change and handed it to the customer.

“Thank you!”
“Come again.”

The customer smiled as she received the bag.

“Have a wonderful day.”

The moment the door closed, Lee Hae-ra placed both hands over her heart and exhaled deeply.

“M-ma’am… I….”
“You did great. Really, truly. And you didn’t even shake on your first customer!”
“Th-thank you. The coins were….”
“Oh, everyone makes mistakes with those.”

I untied my apron strings, signaling it was time for me to leave.

“I need to step out for a bit to buy kimchi-making ingredients. You can handle things, right?”
“Yes! I can do it!”
“Call me if anything comes up.”

Though I wasn’t sure if my phone would connect once I entered the Dimensional Space….

***

Upon entering the Dimensional Space, I crouched before the organized Vegetable Garden and mentally catalogued the kimchi-making ingredients.

“…For kimchi, I need fresh shrimp, salted shrimp, mustard greens, minari, ginger, green onions, pear, radish, red chili powder, garlic, and ingredients for making broth….”

I checked them off one by one, bending and straightening my fingers.

‘The red chili powder is fine since I made plenty before… and I already bought the shrimp and fish sauce from the Neighborhood Mart.’

I just needed to harvest the green onions, ginger, minari, and radishes.

I headed first to the Minari Patch. Pale green stems clustered together, growing above furrows where water pooled gently. When I pulled one stem, the roots tore through the soil and came right up.

[Minari with Exquisite Flavor (A)]

The refreshing fragrance of minari spread through the air.

“Excellent, the aroma….”
“Minari has such a nice smell, meow.”

I selected only the tender stems and snapped off an armful. Once these went into the kimchi seasoning, the flavor would be absolutely divine.

‘That’s about 300 grams?’

…If I harvested the entire Minari Patch at once, the kimchi preparation would be done.

“The kimchi will be delicious already, won’t it?”
“I want to eat kimchi with ramen, meow.”

I tilted my head and asked.

“You’re not a Divine Being. You’re human.”
“Meooow?! What are you saying, meow! To a sacred Divine Being like me, meow!”

Because Hae-tae spoke like a human, I suppose. Undeterred by the countless meowing punches coming my way, I approached the Ginger Field.

Beside the minari. In slightly firmer soil, bumpy ginger roots lay buried. As I brushed away the dirt with my palm and dug slowly, what looked like about 200 grams of golden ginger came right up.

[Ginger with Distinctive Aroma (A)]

When I held it to my nose, a pungent aroma pierced through.

‘I’ll need to harvest about 200 of these.’

I dug up a few more pieces of ginger to check their condition, then explored the other fields. While I was at it, I went to the Radish Field and Green Onion Field, harvested a few items, and moved them over.

[Radish True to Basics (B)]
[Green Onion Infused with Forest’s Breath (S)]

‘Lucky!’

The green onion came right out.

Once I’d gathered all the ingredients in one spot, a rather impressive bundle of kimchi-making materials had come together.

I paused to catch my breath and looked around.

‘Grandmother Hyang-suk did this every year, didn’t she….’

She must have done it alone back then. Why didn’t I ever offer to help when Grandmother Hyang-suk was alive?

“Why are you just standing there?”
“I was thinking about how Grandmother Hyang-suk did all this by herself every year, and it made me feel strange.”
“Hyang-suk didn’t do it alone.”

Puzzled by what that meant, I lowered my head to look at Hae-tae.

“Do I need to harvest a lot of these?”
“Huh? Yes. You need to harvest plenty.”

Hae-tae strode purposefully toward the center of the Vegetable Garden in response to my answer. Then he tapped the soil with his front paws, as if knocking on a door.

“Earthworms, it’s time to work.”

Those earthworms I’d met each time the season changed? Plump earthworms poked their heads up from all over the place.

“About those kimchi-making ingredients you harvested. How much do you need?”
“Twenty times what I already picked?”

Hae-tae called out loudly.

“Please harvest twenty times more from over there!”

The earth cracked and crumbled as everything surged upward—minari shoots burst forth with a whoosh, ginger chunks thudded out, radishes tumbled with a dull clang, and green onions slipped free with a soft sound! The ingredients kept emerging in an endless stream.

“So this is what Grandmother Hyang-suk saw when she did this….”

Now I understood why she’d done it alone. Hae-tae bounded back onto my head with a light spring.

“I’ll move them for you now, meow.”
“You’ll really move them?”
“That’s right, meow. If you’re having trouble carrying them, I’ll send them as fast as a delivery service, meow.”

Hae-tae conducted the empty air with his front paws as if he’d done this countless times before. That was the moment.

Wind rushed up from beneath my feet, and all the kimchi-making ingredients I’d just harvested swirled together in an instant, gathering at the Dimensional Space entrance and forming an enormous mountain of produce.

The minari stacked in layers, ginger rolled tumbling across, and radishes piled on top of each other as they were pushed along.

“This is… this is twenty times the amount, right?”
“It should be exactly twenty times, meow.”

I fell silent for a moment, staring at the mountain of ingredients piled before me, when a question suddenly occurred to me.

“Wait a minute.”
“Meow?”
“…Why didn’t you help me when I was harvesting the cabbage the other day?”

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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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