Another World Metal Factory

Chapter 18

People need to eat to live. This is a common truth for dwarves, elves, Mazoku, and all other living beings.

The same applied to the metal workshop. Having simple meals for breakfast and dinner was the workshop’s routine.

The Factory Manager ate rice and side dishes from the refrigerator, while Channing and Illia ate pre-purchased bread and soup.

Illia usually cooked the soup, and the Factory Manager often ate it with them instead of Korean soup. Sometimes the Factory Manager cooked Doenjang stew or other stews, but it wasn’t a frequent occurrence.

Alternatively, they all went to Richel’s restaurant to eat out.

However, for lunch, they always ate the food Richel brought. They had been regularly receiving deliveries even before Illia arrived, so they just continued the practice.

The Factory Manager also felt it would be burdensome to ask Illia to cook on top of cleaning, laundry, and other chores.

-Everyone, Richel’s here!-

“Hello!”

The sword hanging by the door announced, and Richel walked into the workshop with a cheerful greeting.

“Oh! Food! Food!”

Channing, who was grinding a welding mask with a hand grinder, turned off the grinder, took off his gloves, and smiled. The Factory Manager also turned off his machine and removed his dust mask.

“Go wash your hands! Illia too!”

“Yes, yes!”

“Ah! Wait a minute!”

Richel urgently called out to the workshop members who were about to wash their hands after taking off their gloves, and they all stopped and looked at her.

Richel raised her empty hands towards them.

“I’m sorry! I came to tell you that there’s no food today.”

“What?! What do you mean suddenly?!”

Channing shouted with a surprised expression. He seemed shocked by the news of no food, as he was quite hungry.

“Let’s hear the reason!”

Channing hurriedly walked forward and shouted, and Richel awkwardly smiled, scratching her head, and began to speak.

“Well… you see. The cauldron suddenly cracked, and the kitchen is a mess. The soup that was boiling spilled everywhere. Because of that, business is completely ruined for today.”

Channing sighed deeply.

“Ugh… I’m hungry…”

Illia patted Channing’s head as he slumped to the floor.

“So, you can’t do business today either?”

“Just today? At this rate, I’ll have to close for a few days.”

“What?! We were all going to gather and drink tonight.”

At the conversation between the Factory Manager and Richel, Channing, who had been lying down, jumped up and shouted, and Richel, startled, slapped him on the shoulder.

“You scared me… Besides, is our place the only pub? You can go somewhere else. Let me take a break for once!”

“Your beer is the best. Other places water down their beer. And it’s the closest.”

“That’s true… Anyway, it can’t be helped for a few days. Bear with it.”

At Richel’s declaration, Channing sighed deeply again and lowered his head, and Illia shook her head, looking at him.

The Factory Manager, watching them, silently went to the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and took something out. It was a pack of cup noodles wrapped in plastic.

“For now, let’s have cup noodles for lunch. Richel, are you going to eat too?”

When the Factory Manager called out, Richel peeked into the kitchen and replied.

“Oh? Can I eat too?”

“Since you’re here. Anyway, we’re the only ones who order deliveries. Besides, you probably came to ask me to fix the cauldron, so we can eat together and then you can go.”

Richel smiled brightly and nodded.

“As expected, Factory Manager-nim is perceptive. You’re right, I came to ask you to fix the cauldron.”

“I thought so. Go and have a seat.”

The Factory Manager took out four cup noodles.

Since the water came from a water purifier in a corner of the workshop, there was no need to boil it separately.

Richel watched with a curious expression as the Factory Manager, Channing, and Illia opened the cup noodles and poured the powdered soup inside.

“That’s amazing. You’re saying that if you just pour hot water in it, it becomes food?”

“Yes. It’s common food in Factory Manager-nim’s hometown.”

Illia answered Richel’s question and handed her a cup noodle filled with water. Richel carefully examined the cup noodle placed in front of her.

There were unknown letters written on the lid.

Thinking it must be the writing from the Factory Manager’s hometown, Richel became interested in the incredibly neat and clean illustration on the lid.

“Whoever drew this is really good. But what does it say?”

“I don’t know either. Ah! Don’t open it yet. You have to wait a little longer before you eat it.”

As Richel tried to open the lid of the cup noodles, Illia stopped her, and Richel closed the lid again.

After about three minutes, the four of them, sitting around the table, opened their respective cup noodles. As hot steam billowed out, Richel was slightly surprised and looked inside.

Thin, long, yellow objects were submerged in red broth. Richel glanced at the others.

The Factory Manager was unwrapping wooden chopsticks, while Channing and Illia were holding forks. Richel looked at the fork in front of her with a curious expression.

Thinking that the metal fork looked like a farming tool used for moving straw, Richel opened her mouth.

“How do you use this small, farming tool-looking thing?”

At Richel’s question, Channing stabbed the fork into the open cup noodles. And then he lifted the fork as it was. Long noodles clung to the fork and were lifted up.

“You eat it like this.”

“Wow. What a fascinating utensil. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Watching Channing skillfully lift the noodles with the fork, Richel let out a gasp of admiration.

Following Channing and Illia, Richel carefully stabbed the fork into the noodles. When the noodles followed the fork upwards, she made a surprised expression.

“It’s quite convenient. And this strangely long thing is also fascinating. What is this? I’ve never seen this kind of food before.”

“It’s wheat flour dough made thin and long. Try it. It’s better than you think.”

Channing answered, slurping the noodles, and Illia also carefully brought the noodles to her mouth with slightly clumsy hand movements.

Richel, who had been watching them closely, also cautiously put the noodles into her mouth.

With a slurping sound, the noodles disappeared into Richel’s mouth. Surprised by the unique texture of the noodles and the spicy taste that followed, Richel’s eyes widened.

“Spicy! But delicious. This is amazing!”

Seeing Richel’s impressed reaction, Channing burst into laughter.

“I’m glad you like it. Then eat quickly. If you wait too long, they’ll get soggy and won’t taste as good.”

The Factory Manager said, bringing his own cup noodles to his mouth.

Watching him, Richel, as if she found it curious, asked a question.

“Factory Manager, you’re so good at eating with those two sticks. It’s amazing.”

“Well, I guess it would be amazing if you’ve never seen it before. It’s nothing special.”

Chatting like this, the four of them finished their meals.

2.

After the meal, the Factory Manager slowly walked towards the restaurant. Since Richel had stayed at the workshop to play with Illia for a while, he was walking alone.

It was a shop called the Red Rooster, which functioned as a restaurant, a pub, and an inn. The Factory Manager often came here to drink, so it was a very familiar place.

Oscar, who was sitting in front of the door basking in the sunlight, saw the Factory Manager and stood up to greet him.

“Hey! Black Hair’s here?”

“Yeah. I heard the cauldron broke? Your shop sure is eventful.”

“The way you talk… We’ve been really unlucky. Business is completely ruined for today.”

They exchanged sarcastic remarks while laughing.

Oscar, the owner of the Red Rooster and Richel’s father, was a middle-aged man with an impressive red beard and hair. A former mercenary, he was a man with a protruding belly, but his arms and body were still firmly muscled.

“You get to take a break for once. Good for you.”

“Good for me, my ass! We can still serve things other than soup, so we have to do business in the evening. I even did a major cleaning, which I never do.”

The Factory Manager burst into laughter, and Oscar, with a slightly grimacing face, looked at him.

“Even so, isn’t it a bit much to laugh?”

“Hahaha! Sorry. Richel was happy that she might get a few days off, but it seems like that’s not going to happen, so I’m laughing.”

After thinking for a moment, Oscar also burst into laughter.

“That girl, I wondered why she didn’t come and you came alone, so that’s what it was! I should go get her quickly. We need to prepare for the evening business.”

“Hahaha. Let her rest a little longer. She must really want a break. She’s a young woman after all.”

“He talks as if she’s not his own daughter. Knowing Richel’s personality, if she has free time, she’ll just cause trouble. It’s better for her to be busy with work.”

“Oh my. You’re here?”

While the Factory Manager and Oscar were chatting, the door opened with the sound of voices from outside, and someone walked out. It was Chelline, Oscar’s wife and Richel’s mother.

“Hey! I came after hearing the news.”

“News travels fast. Come in quickly.”

The Factory Manager entered the restaurant. All the chairs in the dining area were on top of the tables, and the wooden floor was wet and damp.

“It was a complete mess, so we were cleaning. The soup was overflowing, and it ended up like this.”

Listening to Chelline’s words, the Factory Manager entered the kitchen. A medieval-style kitchen, like something out of a movie, came into view.

On one side, there was a fireplace for cooking, and around it, sausages, salted meat, and other ingredients were hanging from the ceiling.

In the corner, there was a huge wooden tub filled with water, and next to it, vegetables were piled up. And near the fireplace was the cauldron.

Seeing the cauldron, the Factory Manager let out a gasp of admiration.

“It’s broken in half magnificently.”

“Hahaha! It really is! It’s split cleanly in half…”

Seeing the huge three-legged cauldron, big enough for a person to fit inside, split in half, the Factory Manager jokingly remarked. Oscar, who was laughing next to him and saying how impressive it was, was slapped on the back by his wife and stopped talking.

“We were boiling the soup when it suddenly cracked. Can you fix it?”

At Chelline’s question, the Factory Manager examined the cross-section of the broken cauldron.

It was cleanly split, but the surface was rough. And in between, there were empty holes. They were traces of air that had entered when the molten metal was poured into the mold.

The Factory Manager judged that the cauldron probably cracked because of those parts.

“No. This isn’t something you can fix by patching it up. It looks like it was made using a casting method, but there were air bubbles inside when it was made.”

“Air bubbles inside? The cauldron?”

Chelline asked, and the Factory Manager nodded and continued his explanation.

“It seems like they didn’t pour it all at once, but whatever the reason, that part was weakened, and the accumulated fatigue caused it to crack. We could weld it, but then another part might crack later. It’s better to make a new one.”

At the Factory Manager’s diagnosis, Chelline put her hand on her forehead.

“Sigh… This is troublesome. It was a cauldron we used for quite a long time…”

“Well, you can take it to Popper and ask him to melt it down and make a new one. We can’t do it at our workshop.”

The Factory Manager took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, and seeing that, Oscar clapped his hands and opened his mouth.

“Ah. Why don’t you make one at your workshop?”

“A cauldron?”

“Yeah. What do you think?”

The Factory Manager thought for a moment and then looked at Oscar.

“Free meals for our workshop members for three months. If you agree to that, I’ll do it.”

“How about two months?”

“If you also include meat dishes.”

Oscar nodded, and the Factory Manager and Oscar shook hands and reached an agreement.

“What are you deciding on your own?!”

Chelline slapped Oscar hard on the back.

“Ouch!”

“Still, if he makes a cauldron in exchange for free meals for two months, that seems reasonable. Good, please make a good one.”

At Chelline’s approval, the Factory Manager nodded and started taking measurements here and there with a measuring tape.