Chapter 1
Summoned to Another World
The exhaust hood hummed continuously as the kitchen assistants bustled around frantically. And squeezed right in between them was me.
I opened my eyes wide to pull myself together. Before me, Korean pancakesājeonāwere sizzling away. People usually say jeon should be pan-fried, but a few fake patients staying in this hospital would call their families if they weren’t served fried jeon on the holiday itself.
Most of those situations ended badly. If we were lucky, it ended with a complaint; if we were unlucky, the hospital director would barge in and pour out all kinds of grievances for a solid two hours.
The assistant, who was piling jeon onto food trays like a madwoman, screamed out.
“Oh no, we’re short on jeon!”
“Got it. I’ll try to make them as fast as I can!”
I swiftly flipped all the nicely browned pancakes from left to right. Jeon packed tightly across a griddle measuring a full meter long. Jeon, jeon, those damn jeon. It was a holiday, and I couldn’t even rest!
To satisfy the picky palates of the demanding patients and the hospital’s non-paying freeloaders, I had to stand in front of the griddle for an hour and a half, frying jeon like a machine. That was my task for today.
“How on earth can they eat this much? Seriously, were they starving or something?”
Tears were useless. Nothing can stand against a raging appetite. Fortunately or unfortunately, after landing a job as a nutritionist at the hospital, my cooking skills had improved dramatically.
“Even if you’re not good at cooking, as long as you balance the nutrition well, it’ll be fine.” “Paperwork will be much more than kitchen work, so you don’t have to worry too much.”
Professor, senior colleagues… are you people even human? Huh?
I know you said that because you haven’t done it yourselves, but when you become a nutritionist, your cooking skills inevitably improve. Why? If you swap places with me right now, you’ll find out!
“Little Nutritionist!”
A sharp voice pierced through the air. From the tone that raised its pitch at the end, I could tell exactly who it was. It was the director of our hospitalāa self-proclaimed Michelin critic in the kitchen.
“Yes…”
As I answered while shrinking back, the director put on a fake, benevolent smile.
“The jeon is a bit thin today, isn’t it?”
Something snapped inside my head.
Ah, the jeon is thin. Before I could even process the thought, I was lunging at the director.
“If it’s thick, you say it’s too thick! If it’s thin, you say it’s too thin! What on earth do you want from me?!”
I shouted, venting my built-up frustration right in front of the director. The kitchen assistants rushed over, trying to pull me away from him, but it was no use. The director’s two arms were already firmly locked in my grip.
“Director, why don’t you try doing it yourself! Stand here for an hour and a half! Try doing it with your own hands!”
“My goodness, what’s wrong with her? Has she gone crazy?”
“Aaargh, I hate this damn cafeteria! It’s the absolute worst in the world! I want to get out of here!”
The kitchen assistants who were clinging to me suddenly pulled back all at once. Right, that must mean they want me to beat up the director. I squeezed my hands gripping the director even tighter. But apparently, that wasn’t what it meant. The director quickly shook me off and scrambled backward.
“What is this, some new kind of protest? Why are you glowing?”
The director’s fox-like eyes brought me back to my senses.
Light? All of a sudden? Everyone in the kitchen was standing frozen, staring at me. A pure, faint white light was rising gently from the floor.
“Eh?”
Looking closely, strange patterns were carved all over the ground. The light was emanating from those patterns. Slowly, the light covered my body, sweeping from my lower half up to my upper body. But holding my spatula, only one thing caught my eye.
“The jeon… the jeon is burning!”
The moment I leaped toward the griddle, the light completely covered my vision. No, it enveloped my entire body. Blundering around, not even knowing where to go, I screamed.
“Aaargh! The jeon! It’s burning!”
As if mocking my struggle, the floor beneath my feet vanished, and I thought I was going to die just like that.
Right, I’m really dying. Dying so unfairly while doing nothing but frying jeon…
Just as those thoughts were echoing loudly in my mind, I felt a solid floor again. It felt as though I had been softly placed somewhere. The white light slowly dispersed like drifting wind.
I survived. Shivering at that realization, I shuddered all over. After all, even rolling in a field of dog dung, living in this world is better than being dead.
But suddenly, through my expanding field of vision, I saw gigantic men fully clad in iron armor.
“It’s a success!”
“The Saintess has finally arrived!”
The massive man standing in the very front line dropped to his knees before me. I didn’t know what had succeeded, but he looked up at me with eyes full of reverence. Where I stood was the highest point of a white altar.
“Savior, you have finally come.”
“Savior? By the way, don’t get too close because you’ll get oil on you. I have to fry jeon… Where is this?”
Even if I wanted to escape, deserting my post was a whole different story! A written apology flashed before my eyes. Now that one person was missing, who was going to fry the jeon?
“Fry jeon? What are you talking about?”
The people in front of me asked back in confusion. Come to think of it, these people were dressed very uniquely. Everyone was wearing armor… Doesn’t this make it look like the Middle Ages… wait, really?
Trembling, I asked.
“Where… is this place?”
At my question, the man put his fist to his chest with a solemn expression.
“This is the sanctuary of the Kingdom of Loderan. I am Cassian, Commander of the First Knights Templar. Saintess, please save our knights who are hovering between life and death due to the curse of a magical beast!”
“Saintess…?”
What is he talking about? The words coming out of Cassian’s mouth made reality feel even more distant.
I looked down at the apricot-colored nitrile gloves on my hands and my grease-stained sanitary uniform. No matter how I looked at it, my appearance was closer to a kitchen auntie than a Saintess.
“Commander or factory manager or whatever, um, I’m not a Saintess, I’m a nutritionist.”
“God answered our call, so you are indeed the Saintess.”
“No, sigh…”
I weakly lowered the hand holding my spatula.
Life was hard enough as it was, so what was up with these hardcore medieval roleplayers?
Then again, seeing how they made me do something like teleportation, it didn’t seem like a complete lie that they summoned me.
“Alright, I get it for now. But I have work to do, so I need to go back.”
“You cannot! Saintess! Please help us!”
Cassian and the people in front of me clasped their hands together and pleaded with me. Facing those desperate gazes felt heavily burdensome.
No, but how do I go back from here? I guess I need to persuade them first to find a way back…
In the end, I nodded and conceded.
“Fine, whether I’m a Saintess or not, we’ll see about that later. You said you need help, right? Once it’s resolved, you have to send me back.”
“We will do anything for you. As long as you help us.”
“Alright. Your knees must hurt. Please stand up.”
Cassian, who had been kneeling, got up quickly. As Cassian turned around sharply, the armored crowd shuffled around to make a path.
“Now. This way, Saintess.”
Following him, I saw a large tent. Cassian lifted the tent flap and went inside, and I followed him in. Inside the tent, broad-shouldered men were lying lined up on cots. Seeing a situation inside that was no different from a hospital ward, I hesitated and stepped back.
“W-What is all this?”
“They are the ones who received the curse of the magical beast. Please cure them.”
I walked inside and examined the knights. Because their boots were taken off, their swollen feet were fully exposed.
“What on earth did you do to make them all end up like this?”
“During the subjugation of the magical beast, several knights’ feet began to swell gradually until they couldn’t even walk.”
“They just need to get treatment.”
“We mobilized mages and summoned healers. But it was useless.”
What kind of fantasy worldview is this again? They want me to cure a curse that neither mages nor healers could fix? I let out a deep sigh and spoke to Cassian.
“First, let me listen to one patient.”
Cassian went to the nearest patient and woke him up.
“Asel. It’s the Commander. Wake up. I brought someone to take care of you.”
The man named Asel looked at me with hazy eyes. I quickly approached him. Cassian hurriedly moved to another groaning patient to check on him.
“How are you feeling right now?”
“In my chest… it feels like a magical beast is sitting in my chest, beating fast, and I’m short of breath.”
Asel thumped his chest with his palm.
Chest feeling tight and heavy…
My eyes moved down to his swollen ankle. I pressed my finger firmly against his ankle and released it. The depression remained sunken without bouncing back.
‘Could this be…’
This was, in all likelihood, a form of malnutrition.
