Faced with the captain's very literal reminder, the very next day Song-dae had to go see a psychologist and share what he had been dealing with lately. The doctor asked what Song-dae really wanted to do deep down, and he instantly remembered the time when his dad was still alive, back then, when his dad stood blankly in the rain without grabbing an umbrella to cover himself.
When the boy asked why, he just said that his lifelong goal was to become a super chef, able to cook all kinds of the most delicious food for his wife and son to enjoy.
Because he remembered the past when his dad was around, Song-dae now confessed to the psychologist that he just wanted to become a great chef like his dad. That's all.
After the therapy session, Song-dae returned to report to Dong-hoon. He curiously asked, "You told the doctor to help you get the hell out of this Kanglim Outpost, right?"
Just as he was about to ask why Dong-hoon had joined this dining hall in the first place, Song-dae was reminded by the captain, who had just shown up behind him, about moving to the TOD unit. Since it was Seok-ho's late-night snack time, he didn't forget to remind Dong-hoon to make some boiled noodles with two eggs to get his energy up. Dong-hoon just hated that he couldn't shove the noodle packet right into the captain's mouth and be done with it.
While cooking, Dong-hoon wasn't paying attention and almost poured the bowl of rotten eggs into the noodle pot. Luckily, Song-dae stopped him. Through his appraising eyes, Song-dae had realized that all the eggs brought to the outpost were completely rotten. Dong-hoon didn't believe it and tried cracking another one to see, and sure enough, it was pitch black, too.
The captain absolutely couldn't eat without eggs. Luckily, out of the two rotten egg cartons, Song-dae discovered there was one single egg left that was usable. As a result, he was lucky enough not to disappoint the captain, serving a soft-boiled egg that looked super appetizing.
Dong-hoon's anger level towards Song-dae steadily dropped to twenty percent, which helped him feel somewhat relieved inside.
While cleaning up and sorting the trash, the quest progress panel quickly updated. Use the chef's sharp eye skill, completed two out of three times. Remaining time for the mission, two days.
While he still didn't know how to do the next mission, Dong-hoon showed up and asked Song-dae why he planned to move to the TOD side. The reason this buddy was frustrated was that if Song-dae was here, Dong-hoon would get time off, but if not, he would have to run the kitchen all by himself without a single day off. It wasn't like he was sad about losing his little bro Song-dae.
Hearing a bit of the story from these boys, Lieutenant Ye-jin went to see the captain to ask if he could rethink switching Song-dae's position, because she had seen that ever since that boy arrived, the vibe in the kitchen had been way more lively. Dealing with a guy who followed discipline above all else and who could never take back a decision once it was made, the lieutenant could only follow Captain Seok-ho's orders.
Song-dae was at the phone booth right then, calling his mom to ask if she was doing okay lately. Song-dae was pretty lucky to have a mom who always cared and checked up on him. She was still afraid her kid would easily get bullied and picked on after enlisting, but luckily he was pretty sociable.
Song-dae comforted his mom, saying, "I'm strong like Dad, so I'm totally fine."
He was strong in front of his mom like that, but behind the phone, tears were slowly falling.
His tears fell, and a heaven-sent recipe dropped down. Song-dae received a brand new cooking recipe instantly. He accepted the new recipe, just to see how far he could go before getting transferred.
During the cooking prep for the next day, the master sergeant stopped by the kitchen and smelled something exactly like spoiled rice. He turned around and blamed Dong-hoon, demanding to know why the rice smelled moldy, and Dong-hoon just screamed back, "I'm not an alchemist! I can't turn it into unmoldy rice!" The two of them argued back and forth, leaving the whole kitchen just sitting there watching.
Song-dae stepped closer, took a sniff, and also noticed an unbearable smell. But he had the system's eyes. For this kind of smelly rice, he only needed to use one ingredient, which was white vinegar, used to remove odors extremely well. Without thinking much, he brought out the vinegar and sprinkled it into the rice, instantly receiving fifty experience points. His level went up from three to four.
According to today's menu, there was also bean sprout soup. According to the system's evaluation, there was a bit too much salt in the soup, so it needed more water to reduce the salt, and Song-dae added it right away. The dish's level was two and a half stars. A hint notification popped up again, saying that if he added roasted chili peppers, it would boost the flavor. That turned the two and a half star dish into a solid three star rated dish, just enough to complete one of the four system targets.
Right then, Dong-hoon came back and asked Song-dae what kind of magic trick he had pulled on the soup pot. Are you planning to poison the whole outpost or what?
A bit later, squad after squad of soldiers arrived at the dining hall, but as usual, nobody cared at all about today's soup, scared it would be like Dong-hoon's dark seaweed soup from the other day. The master sergeant was a little scared himself when he saw the bowl of bean sprout soup. Everyone looked at him with expectant eyes, until the master sergeant closed his eyes, waiting for that gross feeling to hit.
But unexpectedly, after sipping a mouthful of soup, he felt like he was totally tripping.
This freaking dish is truly extraordinary.
Then he slurped down the entire bowl of soup non-stop. Even Dong-hoon got praised by association, hearing that today's dish was really good. Everyone else also picked up their spoons to try it. Everybody felt like they had just met their first love amidst a fresh sea breeze.
The sight of people eating like they were starving instantly shattered Dong-hoon's perception. On this battlefield right now, his gross dishes were no longer torturing them, because the bean sprouts were the savior for every single person, giving everyone in the outpost an incredibly fierce fighting spirit to take down North Korean enemies one by one. The master sergeant himself confidently and majestically stood in the middle of a hail of bullets, pulling out two guns and shooting perfectly without missing a single shot, leading the bean sprout brothers to successfully take down the enemy. He declared that this was the true victory of military food rations.
Dong-hoon didn't believe this dish was that delicious until he tried it, and then he almost followed in everyone's footsteps too. He really didn't know what kind of spell this kid had cast to make it taste so damn good.
Now Dong-hoon discovered that his status toward the kid had gone from hatred to liking him by a whole twenty percent. Which, honestly, looked a little strange written out like that.