For once, Lynn was in her office in the Restaurant Train of Delicacy. Jin had created it for her in advance when designing that particular instance. At that point, he did not know that the kitchen instance could be expanded to suit the Sub System User’s needs.
And when Lynn found out that there was a train car dedicated just for her… she thought it was a waste of space and resources. But in recent times, Lynn came around to appreciate it a lot more.
It allowed Lynn to concentrate solely on her work and provided her with a working space away from the kitchen. It was a great place to relax and gather her thoughts, especially when sometimes she could not feel at ease upon hearing the penguins communicating in a crazy ruckus without her as the Chef handling them.
Lynn was initially uncomfortable to leave them on their own but as the time went by, she realised there were instances when she had overlooked a few steps due to the increasing amount of orders which the penguins immediately corrected her about it.
That was when she began to see that the ‘mess’ the penguins were in, was actually an organised one. Even though she did not fully comprehend why they were so messy in their routine, the food they created was still up to her standard. That was especially true when those penguins came from the Sub System.
But slowly, she came to the conclusion that the penguins NPCs, who had been helping out, were behaving in such a way in order to optimise the workflow within the kitchen. It prevented any wastage of resources as per Lynn’s instructions and that included idle time. (They were clearly not humans!)
The training of her ninja disciples, cooking dishes in advance, having a minimum amount of food stock prepared in case of a flood of customers with the opening of the Raid Event and not to mention her personal ninja training had made her almost as busy as Jin in her own unique way.
Within a month after receiving the Sub System, Lynn had experienced her own cultivation grade to increase at a soaring pace to the point she attained Grade 5 Peak. Even the Sub System was delighted by the quick advancement and showered her with rewards such as refurnishing her office train car with a mini kitchen in order to experiment on things. And because the train car space was limited by width, those equipment were ‘storage friendly’ courtesy of the Sub System.
The Food Sub System had given her equipment in modules so that she could plug and play certain kitchen equipment together. When she advanced to Grade 5 after the major goblin operations, the Sub System bestowed her a new train car right beside her office and it included a fully functional kitchen, similar to the kitchen instance that was being used by the ninja penguins. Needless to say, the kitchen train car had plug and play modules too and she could finally cook what she liked without disturbing the ecosystem of the kitchen.
For example, if she needed more space to test on various broths, she could keep her large cabinet oven via the Sub System and place more cooking stoves in lieu of space. Of course, her experimental cooking now could only be contained within this particular train car. Jin promised that once they had set up the Dungeon City Fortress, he would create a cooking lab for her so she could perform tests on all kinds of other things. After all, science did have a significant impact on the cooking industry.
On the flipside, her office was now filled with books with regards to cooking such as the science of good cooking. Some of it came from the customers that sold their books in the library section on the second and third floor of the store. Among those, some explained things like how fermentation worked, the various ways of achieving different umami (savoury taste) and many more. There were also cooking manuals and recently, the cooking books she bought from the Goblin World for her to peruse. (Fortunately, the Sub System could translate them in the blink of an eye.)
However, what she was most interested in was the Farming World. At the moment, she worked rather closely with the werejackals and werecats since their home instance had become an experimental ground for her food. She had long ago noticed that the tomatoes the werejackals grew were so much juicier than the one she got from the Sub System’s food market.
After that recognition of the Farming World products, her heart desired for more results. She tried comparing the result by getting her own world’s tomato seeds, the ones from the Sub System food market and werejackal’s food products and let them all be grown via the Werehumans method.
The Sub System’s tomatoes were superior to the ones sold in the food market after being grown by the Werehumans and the same was true for the ones from her world. Yet, no matter how well they tended to the crops, those two products could not beat the original tomato taste from the Farming World.
Still, the taste of a raw ingredient was just one aspect of cooking. It did not mean that the other two were in any way inferior especially after they were enhanced via the Werejackal’s farming methods. As a cook, she knew not to ignore any ingredients. No matter what food she was given, Lynn had to find a way to bring out the most potential of those raw ingredients. That was her ultimate goal.
If Jin managed to invade the Farming world and eradicate the mess their inhabitants were in, there might be a chance that Lynn would have access to Farming World’s more exotic products. If possible, she even wished to own some land there, to grow more food and maybe even try to crossbreed some of them to improve it further.
That was one of the reasons why she had been so eager to lend her support during the Town Hall council meeting back when Jin asked for help to go to war. ( And she wished to personally support Jin too.) Unfortunately, the Sub System food market did not have any access to the Farming World products, which was why she was all the more delighted to help Jin out.
Initially, she did not understand why the Farming World had decreased the sales of their goods until they stopped outright. She also regretted not having to purchase more of their products when she still had the chance though back then. (Though the reason she could not buy more was that Lynn’s net profit margin was too meagre as compared to recent times.)
Lynn thought that the products had been too exclusive due to their amazing taste so that the Sub System was unable to purchase it. Only after Jin informed them in the meeting about the circumstances of the Farming world did she learn that inhabitants were already trying their best to be self sufficient against the Demon Rats occupation that they just did not have any extra to sell.
Ever since Jin had announced that they would not be attacking the Demon Rats anytime soon, Lynn was a tad disappointed but she had plenty other things in mind. Firstly, an update to her food menu. After this particular goblin raid event, Lynn realised that more communication was needed to liaise with Jin on the subject. Therefore, she decided to initiate a business meetup with Jin. (That and to make sure Qiu Yue was not hogging onto Jin 24 hours a day.)
Lynn was thinking of producing a special theme menu that would only be available during the duration of a particular theme. Only once in a while would they reintroduce the theme again for nostalgia sake. Jin loved the idea, but he felt it was not feasible in the long run.
“It would place too much stress on you. I want your food to be of the highest quality and cost somewhat reasonable prices since the focus here is after all the dungeons. That is also why the System and I worked out a deal to make the Sub System sell your ingredients at 85% of the selling price. The other 15% will be absorbed by me. I was planning to do the same with the Fishing instance but the System stated that good sushi had to be priced well for them to be recognised.” Jin replied when Lynn introduced that concept to him in her office.
“I agree, the sushi and even the Chef’s cutting techniques is top notch. There’s only one other restaurant that I can think of at the top of my head which could beat Chef Roro’s sushi making skills. Even the quality of fish that we have would not be a match to them.” Lynn told him as Jin took a look at her office.
“That amazing eh? We should go there sometime to bring back a few dishes for Chef Roro to taste. I’m sure it won’t hurt if he gets a chance to compare so he could work harder in the future.” Jin jest as he thought back the time when he purchased Chef Roro. He was one of the top tier chefs offered by the System and his wage was equally of a top tier value too. Any more than that would cost him more than a bomb and even the System would not be willing to loan that kind of amount out for him unless his turnover was in the millions.
“Aaaanyways, affordability is just one factor. The most important thing is for you to not stress out about this ‘theme’ thing. What I’d suggest is that we introduce those goblin themes within your restaurant train cars and even make the penguins wear side goblin masks. Something similar to the high class premium train cars where the penguins are in kimonos etc but of a lower budget. After all, it is an instance, changing some furniture and interior decor in a moment’s notice won’t be an issue at all.” Jin proposed as he took his phone out and showed a few pictures of the products he sold in the redemption counter as references for Lynn.
“Ahh…you know I am not that great with art and design…the best I could make was that high class premium car.” Lynn implied that this should be a job for Jin with all the awesome looking dungeons and interior deco designs.
“Nonsense, you are underestimating yourself too much. The last time I checked your high class premium car, the backdrop, the music and even the little scenery ornaments synchronised well with each other that it gave the relaxing ambience I yearn at times.” Jin complimented Lynn and she felt proud that her work was recognised.
“Hmm….instead of figurines and such, we can use this opportunity to open a small souvenir store at the train station to sell goblin themed tableware, plates, bowls, even saucers! Oh, and we can’t forget accessories like kitchen magnets, aprons, supermarket tote bags etc. This way, the customers won’t be so bored while waiting for the trains too.” Jin added and Lynn was amazed by the business ideas he had.
“Ah! But, But!” Jin suddenly went to the edge of his seat with leaned towards the table, closer to Lynn. “Bread! We can make themed bread! Like those bread with toasted symbols or pictures. Ah, what’s it called again… it’s at the tip of my tongue but I cannot remember how they are called.” Jin looked up as he was trying hard to recall.
“You mean Artisan bread stencilling?” Lynn asked with a grin, seeing how cute Jin could be at times and he typed Lynn’s answer in his phone.
“Ahh, I guess so! Something similar to that. Or donuts! Or erm cupcakes!” Jin started to babble whatever ideas he could think of and Lynn filtered through them and realised that most were actually viable. If they tasted decent and were priced fairly cheap, those goblin themed bread could be sold at a daily basis. Besides, her penguins needed more of a challenge. They were already producing the food faster than Lynn could have imagined especially after she taught them all she knew.
This themed bread would indeed be a challenge for them to take up. She was already looking forward to letting the penguins design and come up the type of baked goods to be sold.
And by directly competing against each other, to see who could sell the most, the champion could learn something about Lynn’s personal knowledge on bread.
Besides, Lynn had sold her own Black pepper pork buns for a living for the past year or so which meant baked goods were within her speciality. “I wonder if it would be a hit…” Lynn imagined a crowd rushing over for the freshly baked bread and perhaps duelling it out just for the last piece of bread. (Oh…on hindsight, she really could predict the future rather well!)
“That way, you do not need to worry that much about those heavy themes…like erm ‘Burning Volcano City Ramen!’ that kind of theme heavy products. If the baked goods sell well, we can continue for perhaps a few more months before phasing them out.” Jin added and Lynn loved the prospects of having an accessory store and a bakery in the restaurant train instance.
“I will get cracking on the bread part but I need you to do me a favour and get those goblin designs up for me to choose from.” Lynn became a little playful with her words and Jin giggled as he nodded wilfully. He hardly saw her this relaxed and yet enthusiastic at the same time. (She also did not want Jin to know that she planned to get her penguins to design too and wondered which one would the customers like the best.)
“It will be up in a jiffy since I have the imposter Jins to do the job! But first, Xiong Da gave me a ton of things to consider before I can meet up with you again.” Jin laughed as he pulled up the suitcase right by his side.
“Hmm maybe… in a few hours, you can look forward to some French toast accompanied by a cup of Black Ivory Coffee.” Lynn chuckled and sent him off. “…and perhaps with some love in it too.” She curled her hair at the side of her ear as she walked towards the experimental kitchen train car to test out the new ideas she had in her head.
