It wasn’t big. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t eye-catching. There was no grand sign, no “walk by and you have to stare” kind of atmosphere. In fact, if you only glanced at it from outside, some people might not even realize it was a restaurant at all.
It was tucked deep inside Oakspell. The path leading to it was narrow, pressed between villagers’ houses and low wooden hedges. A small wooden door was left slightly ajar—just enough to hint that someone was inside. Within was a plain little room, with only four or five tables. Even at full capacity, it probably couldn’t seat more than twenty people.
When the seven of them walked in, there was only one table occupied.
The moment they stepped over the threshold, a server approached immediately—quick and practiced—setting up a long table for seven as if she’d known a large group like this was coming.
“Welcome, Sir Alfonso. It’s been a while. You still look as strong as ever.”
That greeting made everyone at the table pause for a beat—everyone except the one being addressed. Romeo let out a faint sigh and replied at once.
“I told you not to call me Alfonso. Just call me Rome.”
The server smiled, like she was thoroughly used to hearing that line.
“Yes, Mr. Rome. Did you bring friends to eat with you today?”
Romeo gave a small nod. His face remained neat and composed as always, but his voice softened just a touch.
“Mm… we were passing through. So I stopped by.”
The server glanced down at the menu notebook in her hands, professional to the bone.
“Would you like the usual, or would you prefer something else today?”
Romeo answered without thinking.
“I’ll have the usual. Everyone else can order whatever they want.”
The moment they got the “order whatever you want” signal, everyone lowered their heads to read their menus.
Some of them were actually reading.
Some were reading purely to look like they were reading.
Ace was firmly in the second group.
He set the menu down like it was nothing more than paper cluttering his table space, then ordered immediately with the confidence of a regular.
“I’ll take the steak with mashed potatoes. And add extra bread.”
Mary lifted a hand slightly—so polite it almost looked like she was apologizing to the air before speaking.
“Grilled chicken salad, dressing on the side, please.”
Sight tilted his head and scanned the menu…
then summarized his entire personality in one breath.
“Fried fish, fried chicken, fries. And beer.”
Valda looked up as if she’d just finished calculating something in her head, then ordered a long list without stumbling once.
“I’ll have the steak with mashed potatoes and extra bread, same as Ace… and the grilled chicken salad, same as Mary, please.”
Lily flipped through the menu like she was choosing spells from a grimoire, then delivered her decision with absolute finality.
“I’ll take the burger extra cheese and bacon.”
The server nodded and wrote quickly, then turned to Earp with a smile that was especially gentle—one that suggested she’d already decided this kid must be having a hard time choosing.
“And what would you like, young master?”
Earp, sitting perfectly straight, swallowed softly. His eyes flicked away for a moment, like he wasn’t used to being called young master in front of other people.
“Uh… I’ll have… fried chicken and fries too, then.”
His voice came out quiet and a little nervous, but he tried to speak as clearly as he could.
The server smiled back with warm kindness.
“Of course. Please wait a moment for your food.”
Then she collected the menus and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the table in the soft, ambient hush of a tiny restaurant.
A tiny restaurant that didn’t match Romeo’s image at all—
and yet, the less it matched him, the more it made everyone feel like this really was a place Romeo had chosen himself.
The moment the server disappeared into the kitchen…
the mood at the table turned strangely still.
Not because the restaurant was quiet. Not because anyone was embarrassed.
But because every pair of eyes turned in the same direction, following that woman with the exact same question:
Why was she completely fine?
Normally, the first time someone even stood and talked to Earp, their face would start to drain of color. Even if Earp said the most ordinary sentence in the world. But she had smiled easily, chatted smoothly, like she was talking to a cute kid—
and somehow, she’d even made Earp the one breaking into a sweat.
Ace was the first to break the silence. He looked at Earp with an expression that was half amused, half impressed, and said it bluntly.
“That waitress is incredible. She even managed to make you sweat, Earp.”
Sight leaned back against his chair like a man who’d lost faith in the world—but still had plenty of faith left for food. He gave a small shrug and replied smoothly.
“She’s probably dealt with tons of customers.”
Romeo, who had been quiet for a long while, lifted his gaze from the table at just the right moment and cut in calmly, as if he were stating something ordinary.
“No… it’s because of her bloodline.”
The word bloodline made everyone freeze for a beat—like the menus in their hands had suddenly turned into a classified guild dossier.
Romeo continued in an even tone, but what came out was far too solid to be dismissed as casual gossip.
“She’s half elf. Half human.”
He paused briefly, like he was arranging the words in his head, then went on, scene by scene.
“Her father… was a former Rank S adventurer. And then he fell in love with an elf woman—two thousand years old.”
It should’ve been a sweet little fairy tale, the kind that ended with and they lived happily ever after.
But reality didn’t give them that kind of mercy.
“When she got pregnant… she became seriously ill. Nothing could cure it.”
Romeo spoke like he was reporting facts from a battlefield. No tears. No dramatic flourishes. But the flatter his tone was…
the colder it felt.
“They came to this village hoping some herb could help. But there wasn’t one. In the end… only unicorn blood could do anything. And even if they managed to get unicorn blood, it only helped her survive…”
His voice didn’t change.
“…her mother didn’t.”
The entire table fell silent again.
This time, it was the kind of silence you get when you don’t even know what face you’re supposed to make anymore.
Romeo paused for a moment, then delivered the final detail—the one that made the picture in everyone’s head click neatly into place.
“The head chef here is her father.”
And suddenly, everything felt… strangely reasonable.
That woman wasn’t just a server in a hidden little restaurant in the middle of an ordinary village. Inside her body flowed the bloodline of a top-tier adventurer, the long-lived blood of an elf, and unicorn blood—something not just anyone could survive.
Romeo concluded with one last sentence, like closing a file.
“So it’s like… she’s someone who doesn’t get affected by things easily.”
After Romeo finished, the whole table seemed to fall quiet again without anyone agreeing to it.
Earp was the first to bring it back up. His voice still carried a hint of nervousness, but his eyes were unmistakably serious.
“From what I know… unicorn blood can completely heal injuries and diseases, isn’t that right?”
Mary turned to him like she was carefully choosing her words, then answered politely—but clearly.
“Normally, yes. Unicorn blood can heal like a miracle cure… but there was research a few years ago that concluded unicorn blood is poisonous to elves.”
Valda immediately added on, like she was snapping the last piece of a puzzle into place instead of letting the point hang in the air.
“And right now, there are only a few dozen unicorns left in the world. Most of them are protected by different kingdoms. Finding a wild unicorn is extremely difficult and dangerous.”
Ace frowned. He wasn’t the type to let a question sit in his head for long.
“Why are they so rare?”
Valda answered systematically, like she was explaining the scarcity of a rare ingredient’s supply chain to the entire table.
“Unicorns don’t reproduce easily. They aren’t born from the normal natural systems the way other living creatures are. Breeding them is basically impossible. And in the wild, it’s even harder.”
Sight nodded as if something clicked, then tossed in a fact in the casual tone of a drunk man who somehow remembered gossip better than his own name.
“Yeah, that tracks. I heard the dwarves got a new unicorn foal once… and they celebrated for two straight years.”
Ace still wasn’t letting it go. He turned toward Rome like someone who’d just found a loophole in the system.
“Then why didn’t he just ask properly? If unicorns exist within kingdoms and he was a Rank S adventurer shouldn’t he have been able to pull some strings? No need to go hunt one himself.”
The answer didn’t come from Rome, like everyone expected.
It came from Lily, who lifted her head from the table with the look of someone who’d just been handed the perfect chance to explain the world’s rules.
“Because there are conditions.”
She continued without leaving room for anyone to interrupt.
“To use unicorn blood as a cure, you have to kill that unicorn. Otherwise, the blood won’t work. Unicorns are saturated with mana particles every piece of them is connected. If you want to take any part of it for use, you have to kill it first. Only then can you use it.”
Silence returned again—this time not the silence of confusion, but the silence of weighing the word kill that had just been dropped in the middle of the table.
Sight murmured softly, like he was speaking more to himself than to anyone else.
“A life for a life, huh.”
Lily nodded at once, as if confirming the unavoidable conclusion.
“Exactly. And that’s the main reason those horned horses get fewer every single day.”
The table’s atmosphere stayed suspended on the phrase a life for a life, as if someone had tossed a heavy stone into the center of the conversation—and everyone was still watching the ripples in silence.
Romeo spoke up on his own this time—his voice calm, but weighted in the way of someone who knew this was not something to misunderstand.
“And the difficult part isn’t just the numbers.”
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He paused briefly, as if making sure everyone was actually listening, then finished his thought.
“Unicorns are high-tier beasts. They may be peaceful by nature, but when it’s time to fight… they become monsters. Even if you’re Rank S, there’s no guarantee you’ll win.”
Sight lifted an eyebrow immediately, like he’d just heard something far beyond late-night drunk trivia.
“I’ve never run into one. Are they really that strong?”
Romeo gave a small nod, then answered in the tone of someone correcting a piece of history most people remembered wrong.
“Back then, when there were still a lot of them, unicorns had only one natural enemy.”
The word dragon tightened the entire table by instinct. Romeo continued at once, leaving no opening for anyone to cut in.
“Dragons, of course. But even dragons didn’t always win and get to taste unicorn flesh. They lost countless times.”
He paused, like he was driving the point in: these weren’t cute fairy-tale animals.
“Later… humans discovered methods to weaken unicorns. The hunts began. And in only a few centuries, their numbers dropped to something heartbreaking.”
After the last sentence left his mouth, silence returned again—by pure instinct.
Not because no one had anything to say,
but because anything worth saying felt too heavy to toss around on a dinner table.
Ace was the one who brushed that heavy air aside first, without making it obvious. He raised a hand as if drawing a line.
“Alright. Let’s park that for now. How do you even know this place?”
Romeo glanced at Ace, then answered in a voice that returned to the usual Rome.
“The chef here knows my father. Old stuff. I never really understood it.”
He gave a small shrug, clearly unwilling to open that door any further.
“But every time I pass through this village, I stop here. Always have, ever since I can remember. I’ve tried the bigger restaurant by the hotel too. That place is good…”
His gaze lifted slightly, and he finished with quiet certainty.
“…but for me, this one is better.”
Then he added, like it was a minor detail that somehow made the whole picture sharper.
“Besides, tomorrow morning’s breakfast at the hotel will be ordered from this restaurant anyway.”
That short explanation dissolved everyone’s remaining curiosity at once—like a perfectly sized puzzle had been placed on the table and completed in one clean motion.
And in the space where the conversation stopped, the smell of food drifted out from the kitchen instead, replacing everything. Warm. Full. Rich—so appetizing it felt like it reached into their stomachs and tugged their hunger awake with invisible fingers.
They fell silent again without agreeing to it.
But this time, it was the same kind of silence for all of them.
A silence of waiting—waiting, intensely, to see what the food from this tiny place Romeo had visited ever since he could remember…
would taste like.
The moment the food was served, everyone almost instinctively looked down at the plates in front of them with the same expression.
It looked ordinary.
No dramatic plating. No sauce smeared into elegant patterns. No attempt to scream take a photo before you eat. No Michelin-star chef performance. It was straightforward food—exactly what you’d expect from a small place that didn’t bother competing with anyone on appearances.
…But the second the first bite hit their tongues, everything changed.
Ace was the first one to get struck.
He went at his steak without a word, no ceremony, no small talk—just cut, bite, chew.
And not long after, his face began to betray him far too clearly for him to pretend he was unaffected.
The doneness was perfect medium-rare. The outside had a thin, crisp crust—just enough char and sear to form that ideal edge—while the inside stayed fully juicy, like it refused to let a single drop of its flavor escape.
The seasoning didn’t try to force anything on him, either. A faint herbal note was used only as a shadow—never covering the meat’s aroma, never stealing the spotlight, never trying to play the main character. Minimal seasoning, maximum precision.
It wasn’t the kind of steak that melted without chewing.
It was tender in the best way: tender enough to be a pleasure, but with just enough bite that chewing felt satisfying—like you could feel this was meat grilled by someone who understood what they were doing.
Every time his teeth pressed down, the fragrance of beef rose instantly, followed by the clean, unmistakable scent of wood-fire charcoal—strong, but perfectly measured—so fragrant it felt like it was reminding him:
This is what real grilling tastes like.
Ace chewed slowly, as if he was afraid the flavor might disappear if he rushed.
And the extra bread…
hit him with a second wave.
It looked so plain it didn’t seem like it could possibly matter. But when he bit into it, the outside was crisp while the inside was chewy-soft—no hardness, not even a hint of dryness. Warm butter and garlic lifted into the air, comforting and exactly what you wanted, like it had been made specifically to sit beside steak.
Ace didn’t explain.
He didn’t justify.
He didn’t break it down like a mission report.
He just… kept eating.
And the happiness on his face said everything more clearly than words ever could—
the kind of happiness that looked like he’d just found the destination of his life on a steak plate in front of him.
On Mary’s side of the table, the moment she took her first bite of the grilled chicken salad, she froze mid-chew for a heartbeat…
and then her eyes slowly began to glass over with a thin sheen of water she couldn’t quite stop.
The greens in her bowl were crisp in the truest sense—fresh, not bruised, not wilted, not dry. Every piece had a firm, living bite, like it had been prepped only moments ago. And when she tossed it with the house dressing—light, gentle, almost subtle—it didn’t smother the vegetables.
It acted more like a conductor, bringing out the sweetness, the clean green brightness, the snap of freshness—pulling each note forward and making everything feel clearer, sharper, more alive.
The grilled chicken was served hot, and when it met the chilled greens, the temperature contrast hit perfectly—like a tiny world forming inside her mouth. The seasoning and herbs that had seeped into the meat locked neatly with the freshness of the vegetables. The chicken was cooked just right: not tough, not dry, never scratchy in the throat—each bite still soft and moist through every strand of fiber.
The total harmony of it all made Mary go quiet for a while, as if she didn’t want the feeling to pass too quickly.
It tasted like something that genuinely brushed the edge of heaven—
and not a single word of exaggeration was required.
As for Sight—who normally didn’t care about food at all, as long as it could serve as something to snack on with a drink…
this time, he actually had to stop and examine what was in front of him like he was inspecting someone’s work.
The fried fish came coated in a special batter—thin and crisp, never trying too hard to sell itself as batter. The bite gave a sharp, clean crunch, but it didn’t drown out the fish. Inside, the flesh was cooked perfectly—fresh, with no trace of fishiness. The texture was so fine it nearly melted on his tongue. And most importantly, the fry was controlled with skill: the heat was held well, and there wasn’t a single annoying hint of greasy oiliness.
The fried chicken refused to lose, either. The coating was a little thicker, yes—but it made the bite more fun, not heavier. The meat inside stayed tender and juicy, fragrant with herbs and seasoning. A slight saltiness and a gentle spice cut neatly against the fried fish, turning the whole trio of fried dishes into something that didn’t end up greasy the way it should have.
And the fries—what looked like the most ordinary thing on the plate—delivered the biggest twist of all.
The outside was crisp, but the inside was smooth and creamy, like it belonged to a completely different world than its plain appearance suggested.
All three items were fried, sure—but each had a clearly different identity. Like they’d been designed to be eaten one after another without repeating themselves. No heavy wall. No fatigue. No boredom.
And then…
the beer arrived to finish the fight.
A special house brew, fermented by the owner. The hop aroma mixed with herbs that carried a faint, warming kick, layered with citrus-like freshness. Honey sugar was used to feed the yeast, giving the aroma a deeper dimension. The bitterness sat at a medium level—but the refreshment was unlike any beer Sight had ever tasted anywhere before.
He went quiet, holding the glass for a long moment.
Then he looked across the food on the table again—
like it had just changed status from bar snacks to the real thing.
It didn’t take long before the entire table turned toward Lily at the exact same time—like someone had silently counted the beat.
Because out of nowhere…
she started crying. Full-on sobbing. For real.
In front of her sat the burger she’d ordered, perfectly innocent, doing absolutely nothing wrong—except it had already been bitten two or three times. A small smear of sauce clung to the corner of her mouth at just the right spot.
The overall image made it genuinely hard to tell whether she was suffering…
or ascending to heaven.
“This is terrifying…! This is too terrifying!”
Lily wailed at full volume with zero shame, one hand gripping the burger like she was afraid it might escape, the other pressed to her chest like her heart couldn’t handle it.
“How can it be this good?! Can I quit being an adventurer and come work here as a server? I don’t need anything else if I can just eat food like this every day, that’s enough!”
It was an absurd, dramatic Lily-style declaration—
but the tears streaming down her face were real enough to convince everyone she wasn’t joking.
The burger in her hands seemed determined to strip away an adventurer’s dignity layer by layer.
It started with the house bun: baked until it smelled warm and fragrant, then buttered and toasted again to leave faint char marks. The outside was crisp—crisp with reason, not hard, not sharp, not the kind that scraped your mouth—just a clean, distinct bite. Inside, it stayed chewy-soft, carrying a gentle wheat aroma that felt perfectly made to hold everything within.
The vegetables were grilled with precision—neither mushy nor burnt—still keeping their sweet crunch, like they’d been timed to act as a perfect separator between richness and salt.
The bacon had the ideal salt level, carrying a smoky spice fragrance that clung to the tip of the nose. The cheese was smooth and mellow, melting just enough without turning into an oily blob, blending seamlessly with the restaurant’s house sauce—
a sauce that was slightly salty, a little tangy, gently spicy, and finished with the faintest sweetness at the end, like it wanted your tongue to travel without ever losing the theme.
But the true protagonist of it all…
was the patty.
The seasoning treated every ingredient with respect at every step. It was grilled in a medium-well style—more done than many people would prefer—yet it made the burger easier to eat. The juices didn’t flood out and disrupt everything else, especially the bun, which was never meant to fight moisture.
Even cooked through a bit more, it wasn’t tough. It wasn’t dry. It still delivered a full, clear beef flavor—and none of the other seasonings tried to invade its spotlight. Everything was proportioned like a golden ratio someone had calculated so that any bite you took would give you the whole experience.
It had gone beyond anything you could call junk food.
And Lily was living proof—sobbing into her burger—
that it was criminally, unfairly delicious.
On Valda and Earp’s side, it wasn’t any different.
Even though they’d ordered dishes that looked just as normal as everyone else’s, the moment they actually took a bite, both of their reactions became so obvious the entire table noticed right away.
Valda—who normally never showed more emotion than necessary—fell quiet for a long while, like she was evaluating craftsmanship out of habit…
but the more she chewed, the more her expression made it clear she was silently accepting a certain truth.
Earp, though…
was worse.
Someone who had lived as if food was nothing but fuel—eating to survive, never eating for pleasure—
had to rethink everything in the first few bites, as if the whole world had just received a version update.
This world still contained one beautiful thing called flavor.
He didn’t say a word, but the way he froze for a beat—then lowered his head and continued eating with unmistakable focus—said more than enough.
As for Valda, even though she’d ordered heavily, she still finished every last bite without leaving a trace. Which, honestly, wasn’t strange—she was someone who burned through energy daily. Her skill set, her work, her lifestyle… her body demanded more fuel than most people’s, every single day.
But today wasn’t simply eating a lot.
It was the kind of eating you did when you’d found something good—and refused to let even a single bite go to waste.
A party of Rank S adventurers who had survived battles, dungeons, and bosses…
had become, in this moment, a group of people utterly defeated by the food in front of them.
While everyone else was getting ambushed by their own plates—hit by flavor before they even had time to brace—
Romeo sat with his food in complete calm.
A plain sandwich. No gimmicks. No theatrics. No dramatic flair. Nothing about it tried to show off or make anyone gasp.
And yet his face was filled with satisfaction.
Not the satisfaction of someone discovering something new—
but the satisfaction of someone coming home.
It was the same dish he ordered every time he came here, and it still did exactly what it was meant to do: it made him feel at ease.
Before long, the customers at the other table stood up and left quietly, without saying much. The young server moved in and cleared their plates with practiced ease.
A small restaurant that looked so simple it was almost forgettable—
and yet it hid a gem inside it, somehow.
When the last plates at their table had been handled and nearly wiped clean, the whole party fell into the same state: calm, quiet, and content in the way that made you not want to move.
The server returned to them again with the same polite smile.
“How was the food at our restaurant?”
Romeo lifted his head slowly, his expression composed as always, and answered with blunt honesty—like he was filing a routine report.
“For me, it’s the same as it always is.”
He paused for a beat, then glanced toward his friends. No explanation needed: faces of satisfied exhaustion, faces of shock like the world had just struck them, and everything in between.
“As for the rest…”
Romeo gave a faint smile, as if he couldn’t be bothered to elaborate, and concluded it in a single sentence.
“Judging from their faces, I’d say they’re satisfied.”
The server let out a quiet laugh, clearly pleased by that answer, and nodded.
“Thank you very much.”
With that, she disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving their table to soak in its happiness—along with the faint, lingering warmth of food still hanging in the air.
But not long after that, the one who walked out from the kitchen wasn’t the server.
It was a man.
A man who looked so ordinary it almost didn’t match the “legendary hidden restaurant” story at all.
His face held a bright, friendly smile. His presence was warm—like the kind uncle next door who liked handing snacks to neighborhood kids. His clothes were simple. No jewelry. No weapon. No visible aura that screamed adventurer.
He walked straight to Romeo like they knew each other well, then greeted him in an easy, casual voice.
“Well then, Mr. Alfonso still impressed with our service today?”
The moment he said Alfonso, several people at the table twitched an eyebrow instantly—especially Romeo, who let out a long sigh.
“I told you don’t call me Alfonso. Just call me Rome.”
The man laughed like he genuinely enjoyed teasing him, his grin widening.
Romeo turned to his friends and introduced the man in a calm, flat tone—like he was introducing an ordinary acquaintance…
even though what came next nearly made a few of them choke on air.
“Everyone… this is the chef of this place. Mash Alexander. The Ultimate Dragon Slayer. Former Rank S adventurer.”
Romeo’s introduction hadn’t even hung in the air for a full second before the table exploded.
Sight, who’d been lifting his beer for a sip, jolted so hard he almost choked. Foam nearly shot up his nose. He stared at the man with eyes wide, like he’d just heard the name of a Demon Lord instead of a chef.
“Wait what?! Ultimate Dragon Slayer… the legendary dragon-slayer?!”
Ace didn’t choke on anything, but his face wasn’t much better. He blinked hard and blurted out immediately, like he was afraid the name would vanish if he didn’t say it out loud.
“The guy who hunted the seven-headed Hydra Dragon alone all the way to the edge of the world in elf territory?!”
Lily, who had been crying over a burger just moments ago, switched modes instantly—this time into a totally different kind of shock. She hugged herself tightly as if trying to brace for the tremor of pure legend.
“The man closest to being called the greatest hero of an entire era… a legendary adventurer?!”
Earp murmured low—almost under his breath—but what came out carried enough weight to quiet the table for a heartbeat.
“Mash Alexander… one of the official allies of House Ripper…”
Valda delivered the final blow with information so formal it felt like she had opened a personal dossier in the middle of dinner.
“The man who once possessed a legendary sword then retired and sealed that blade into the kingdom pillar of Jotun, forming a protective domain for over two thousand years… shielding the magical particles from Muspel, a threat that plagued the Half-Beasts…”
Her last word fell—and the entire restaurant seemed to hit a pause button.
The man in front of them was still smiling the same warm smile, like a kind uncle who had no idea he’d just sent the village kids into collective shock.
He chuckled softly, clearly amused—as if he’d seen this reaction countless times already.
“Haha… easy, easy. Calm down first.”
His tone was gentle and polite to the point it almost didn’t belong next to the stories they’d just spilled onto the table.
“I’m not an adventurer anymore. I’m just a chef who wants a quiet life… with my daughter.”