[Side Story] Summer In Greek City (2)

“Why are you busy again? This needs to change, seriously! Hmph!”

Not feeling El’s warmth at all, Rurin huffed and jumped off the bed, landing with both feet on the ground.

Then she threw her pajamas onto the bed. Cleaning up is the Lurun’s job.

“Lurururu, lururun!”

As she sluggishly walked off to wash, the Luruns started bustling. Their master had awakened, so it was time to present her clothes.

Rurin reached the sink and, ignoring the absence of El, did a sloppy cat-face wash, then started walking sluggishly again.

Then the Luruns present her clothes, and Rurin picks the one she likes.

“Today…this one, since I’m annoyed.”

Annoyance and pink clothing have no real connection, but in her gloomy mood, Rurin picked her outfit and began dressing. The Luruns backed away.

There had once been a huge fuss when they tried dressing her. Rurin dislikes even female Luruns dressing her, let alone the house-guarding monsters.

Only El is allowed to dress her. So if he’s not around, she has no choice but to do it herself.

“Lurururun! Lururun!”

The Luruns gestured and mumbled to Rurin, sharing small updates like the lair’s temperature.

Rurin nodded absentmindedly, gave vague replies, and headed to the dining hall.

As she stepped onto the stairs leading to the restaurant, a wave of heat hit her. It was completely different from the air in the lair.

“Ugh. It’s hot.”

As she climbed to the restaurant, the heat enveloped Rurin. If the stairs were hot, then the dining room was a full-on heatstorm.

She hated the heat. That’s the obvious reaction. But even in this heat, Rurin never left for the lair until the restaurant closed.

Watching her husband work made even the heat bearable. So now that she was up, she looked around the restaurant for El—cheeks puffed, of course.

But El had gone down to the market and wasn’t in the restaurant.

“It’s hot! Hot hot hot! Where’s my husband in this heat! Ughhh.”

Like a wilted orchid leaf, Rurin flopped over and grumbled again.

She figured he must’ve gone to the market or the lord’s estate, but seeing it with her own eyes just made her cheeks puff up more.

Like a balloon about to pop.

“He’s the worst.”

Finally, Rurin stomped the floor with her soles and let out a long breath.

Well, there was nothing she could do. Time to go back to the cool lair. That’s what she thought—until her hand went to her belly and she stopped.

“It’s hot, I’m going to the lair and having beer. My husband’s not around! I’m a drinking wife now!”

No one was around, but Rurin shouted like she was complaining directly to El and stomped off toward the fridge.

Burning with the desire to punish him by drinking all the beer, Rurin stopped just before opening the fridge.

“Huh?”

She spotted food left on the kitchen counter.

He wasn’t planning to be gone long, so unlike before, he didn’t prep a full meal. Instead, half-finished bibim-guksu was sitting there.

The mere fact that there was food piqued Rurin’s interest, and she moved toward the kitchen.

“What’s this?”

In front of Rurin’s eyes were red sauce and freshly made buckwheat noodles.

There were no toppings like vegetables or meat—just the sauce and noodles—but to Rurin, it was still a proper dish.

But the red color made her flinch. She had suffered too many times from red-colored things before—like the time she lost her mind over Buldak Bokkeummyun. It was so spicy, she breathed fire.

El even called Buldak Bokkeummyun “dragon-slaying ramen”.

So Rurin put on a wary expression. But memories of tasty red food also resurfaced in her brain.

That’s why red-colored food was always hit or miss for Rurin.

“Red stuff is just unpredictable. Red is the problem.”

Thinking of “red” must have reminded her of Red Dragons. She shook her head and cautiously sniffed the sauce.

Sniff sniff.

There wasn’t much of a spicy smell.

“So I’m supposed to mix this red stuff with the noodles? Kind of like that ramen thing?”

Growl.

Plus, she was hungry—too hungry to overthink it. But her fear of Buldak Bokkeummyun was still strong, so she cautiously dipped her pinky finger into the sauce.

“Ooh?”

The salty-sour-sweet mix of the sauce snapped her groggy, just-woken-up brain awake in an instant.

Blinking, Rurin stared at the sauce she’d touched with her pinky.

“Not spicy. Tastes good. Is this for me? Good ol’ me will eat it, mm-hmm.”

Nodding to herself, Rurin spun around and skipped over to the fridge.

First things first—she popped open a beer. Food is food, but in this heat, you can’t skip cold beer.

Holding the bowl of sauce in one hand and the plate of pre-cooked noodles in the other, Rurin carefully descended to the lair, stomach growling and determined not to drop anything.

Normally, she’d lounge at a dining table to eat, but not today. Not without El. In this scorching heat, she didn’t want to spend even a second up there.

Having brought her food, Rurin trotted down into the cool lair and headed toward its core chamber, where the Luruns were finishing their own meal.

“You guys eatin’, run?”

“Lururu, lururun!”

The Luruns nodded. They looked surprised—once she goes up to the restaurant, she usually doesn’t come down until dinner—but Rurin shook her head.

“It’s fine. Eat. I’ve got food too. El went somewhere today.”

“Lurun lurun, lurururun.”

The Luruns nodded, and Rurin sat beside them, cracked open her beer, and took a good long swig.

“Ahh, refreshing! It’s really hot outside. You guys better not go up there.”

Shuddering again at the thought of the heat, Rurin set her beer can down beside her and picked up a fork.

“Hehehe.”

Grinning, she added the sauce to the plate. Just a moderate amount for now. She began mixing it with her fork, still wary of the red stuff—determined not to be a fool who dumped in the entire thing.

“But…there’s nothing else? Kind of a boring one.”

Rurin wondered aloud about other toppings. But this was all she had. So she aggressively mixed the noodles with her fork, creating a very incomplete bibim-guksu.

Beside her, the Luruns were munching on truffles—the diamond of the mushroom world, as they’re called.

It was already well-known in the northern lands that Luruns were monsters specially gifted at locating truffles.

So the Luruns, nibbling the black truffles with their teeth like they were shaving them, tilted their heads at Rurin’s question.

Of course, it was a rhetorical question, but they thought she was talking to them.

“Lurururun, lururunrun!”

“Oh? You’re saying there’s nothing else? I wasn’t even talking to you. I’m eating this, run.”

With that, Rurin opened her mouth and slurped the bibim-guksu into it.

Using only half the sauce had been the right call—it definitely wasn’t meant for a single serving.

“This is delicious! Oh wow, what’s this? It’s tangy, a little sweet, and the noodles still have that springiness. Of course—it’s El’s noodles. Hehe.”

“Lurun?”

Only the Luruns were there to hear her. And they responded by wearing puzzled expressions again.

“Not you, run!”

Rurin yelled at them to ignore her and resumed slurping the noodles. After eating more than half, her eyes wandered longingly to the truffles the Luruns were nibbling.

“That stuff isn’t great by itself… But it tasted pretty good in pasta, if I remember correctly.”

Recalling that memory, Rurin held out her hand toward the Luruns.

“Got any leftovers?”

Of course they did—they stockpile truffles. Thanks to Rurin, they teleported to the northern lands once a week to gather them in bulk.

“Lurun, lurun!”

They responded affirmatively and brought the truffles over. Rurin withdrew her hand and pointed at the bibim-guksu.

“Could you slice those up and add them in here, run?”

“Lurun! Lurun!”

Whose command was this? The command of a monster king—a dragon. The Luruns quickly grabbed a knife and began thinly slicing the black truffles over the noodles.

Black exteriors and white flesh were shredded and fluttered down onto the bibim-guksu.

“Thanks. Hehe, now there’s something to chew. Oh? The aroma’s even better now?”

Rurin popped a bite of truffle-topped noodles into her mouth with the face of someone who’d made a grand discovery.

The truffles that grow in these northern lands are a bit different from the ones on Earth.

They’re darker on the outside, paler on the inside, and taste far better—at least, according to the truffle-loving Luruns.

That’s why this bibim-guksu became something on a whole different level. The unique aroma and truffles melded with the buckwheat noodles and sauce, coming alive in her mouth.

Later, this truffle bibim-guksu would revive the bedridden Rayne, boost the young Greek boy’s strength, and eventually be served freely to the exhausted citizens of Greek City in the town square—but…

The very person who created it slurped it up without a single thought.

Unaware that the mix of pink and red had made her already alluring lips even redder.

She finished the soba noodles in a flash and brought the half-finished beer can to her lips again.

“Oooh. Still cold.”

Then came a satisfied “Kwah!” as she downed the rest and stood up with a jolt.

“I want one more.”

But going up to the restaurant meant fighting the heat again. After a brief pause, Rurin scurried back upstairs. For some reason, she felt El’s presence approaching.

If it was just about getting beer, she would’ve agonized over the heat—but El coming back? A totally different story.

Rurin dashed up to the restaurant. Sweat trickled down her forehead from the run, but she wiped it off and burst outside.

Sure enough, there he was, walking from afar.

She wanted to demand all sorts of compensation for waking up alone this morning—but once she saw his face, she just started waving like crazy.

“Honey, when did you wake up?”

El’s voice echoed from afar, and Rurin smiled—still completely unaware that her lips had become even redder.