Chapter 126: It Tastes Good, Though

TL: LittlePeach

Royce Durante.

He looked back over his life, retracing where he had gone wrong.

No matter how much he thought about it, he could only come up with one mistake.

‘I should’ve shot that fat bastard Mario Miller before he had the chance to pull some stupid shit.’

But Mario, the USB Bern branch chief, had already been riddled with bullets and killed by a furious group of North Korean diplomats long ago.

And now, thanks to him, even the Avinante Family had been swept up in that absurd vortex of rage and reduced to this sorry state.

‘Just how badly did he fuck up that letter of protest for those goddamn bastards to come storming in here this furious?’

He never should have trusted that greedy pig’s silver tongue.

But it was already too late for regrets, and the situation was only spiraling further out of control.

“I-I surrender!”

Yes. In the end, this was the only way it could have gone.

The fight had effectively been over from the moment dozens of Family members staying in the main house were all neutralized by their suicide attack.

Against a North Korean assassination squad professionally trained to kill, there was nothing a mere Mafia family could do.

“I surrender! Stop fighting!”

Alessandro Russo, boss of the Avinante Family, crawled out of his Maserati with both hands raised high.

Royce, an officer of the Family, also shuffled out beside Alessandro with his hands raised.

“Try anything stupid and we’ll shoot every last one of you dead!”

“W-we’re unarmed!”

“Hands up high!”

Five men from the North Korean side slowly approached with their rifles trained on them.

Alessandro hurriedly cried out as though confessing his sins.

“W-we don’t need to keep killing each other! I-I was actually the one trying to stop all this!”

“...What the hell are you talking about?”

“We have nothing to do with Branch Chief Mario! And we bear no grudge against Secretary Pak Mun-ju either!”

At Alessandro’s rapid-fire excuses, the North Korean man’s expression turned puzzled for a moment.

Unable to tell what that expression meant, Alessandro grew even more desperate.

“If there’s been some misunderstanding, I want to clear it all up, every last bit of it! E-even regarding the three members of our Family who died in Switzerland, we swear we won’t make an issue of it!”

Despite his desperate appeal, the North Korean agents responded coldly.

“...What is this bastard babbling about? Enough empty talk. Quickly bring Pak Mun-ju before me!”

“W-what do you mean?”

“I saw it clearly in the photograph. I saw Pak Mun-ju enter your building!”

“...?”

“Quickly hand over Pak Mun-ju, the man you bastards are hiding!”

The conversation just kept spinning its wheels.

None of it made any sense.

Hand over Pak Mun-ju?

They had been certain these people had come for revenge because they had threatened Secretary Pak Mun-ju in Switzerland.

Watching the conversation fail to connect at all, Royce instinctively realized that these men had come here for an entirely different reason.

‘Don’t tell me they’re like those North Korean bastards who attacked the Swiss bank....’

His mind spun furiously.

“No, wait. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding between us....”

That was when it happened.

Ting, clang!

A light metallic sound rang out from somewhere.

“Small world.”

One of the five North Korean agents, a man lingering at the far left, muttered under his breath.

He casually rolled the object in his hand behind the other North Korean agents.

“So those three who barged into that hotel room in Switzerland weren’t just contract killers. They were Avinante Family men?”

Before Royce’s mind could fully register what the object rolling across the ground was, instinctive alarm seized him.

He grabbed Alessandro beside him, wrapped his arms around him, and rolled them both to the ground.

Then came the blast.

BOOOOM!

“!!!”

“!, !!”

Someone’s scream was swallowed by the explosion.

Riiiiiiing.

The blast left his ears ringing.

The shock rattled his entire body so violently that it felt as though every bone in him were being crushed to pieces.

“U-ugh....”

Only when Royce heard Alessandro groaning beneath him did he finally realize that he was still alive.

But his relief lasted only a moment.

“These damned US imperialist reactionaries killed Comrade Section Chief!”

He turned his head blankly and saw that the one shouting was the very same man who had rolled the grenade moments earlier.

The man lay sprawled on the ground and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Avenge Comrade Section Chief!”

“Everyone, charge!”

“Waaaaaagh! Croak, every last one of you!”

“Quickly shoot them all dead!”

Gunfire erupted wildly from every direction, and Royce nearly lost his mind altogether.

His dazed gaze followed the man who had thrown the grenade.

‘You were the one who set it off.’

He wanted to scream the protest at the top of his lungs.

But for some reason, his mouth would not open.

No words came out at all.

Bang, bang-bang!

***

Screams and gunfire crossed endlessly behind me.

“Leave not a single one alive!”

“Avenge Comrade Section Chief!”

Rat-a-tat!

Brrrrrat!

The crazed North Korean agents tore through every corner of the winery, hunting down the remaining Mafia members.

Meanwhile, I leisurely slipped away from the chaos.

Most of the vehicles had been smashed, burned, or crushed beyond recognition, so I had no choice but to cross the vineyard on foot.

“Sss, haa.”

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Brrrrrat!

It was still absolute carnage behind me, but the breeze carrying the scent of the vineyard across my cheeks was pleasantly cool.

I took my time walking until I reached the rooftop of the empty mansion where Maximilien and his sister were waiting.

“I’m back.”

“....”

“....”

The moment I stepped onto the rooftop, both of them stared straight at me.

For some reason, a disbelieving laugh tugged at Maximilien’s lips.

“Sunny Kick, you crazy bastard.... You’ve gotten even more insane since the last time I saw you.”

“How much did you see?”

“From the part where you casually walked out from between those wrecked Maseratis. When the hell did you even get into the middle of all that?”

“Drove in there. Skillfully?”

“Good grief....”

He must have watched most of what I did through the scope of his sniper rifle.

There happened to be a mat spread out on the floor, so I promptly plopped down on it.

Bella clicked her tongue in disbelief and walked over to me.

“What the hell were you doing in the middle of that firefight?”

“Nothing much. Fired a few shots, threw a few grenades.”

“You’ve got guts. I finally understand why my brother calls you a lunatic.”

She came right up beside me, then suddenly clamped a hand over her nose and instinctively backed away.

Sniff, sniff.

“Ugh. Sunny Kick, have you been drinking?”

“A little inside the winery.”

“That does not smell like a little. You smell like you fell into a vat of booze....”

Apparently, after taking several swigs of the high-proof rectified spirits in the cellar, the smell of alcohol had soaked into my entire body.

Maximilien also leaned over slightly and sniffed.

“To be fair, that wasn’t something you could do sober.”

Anyway.

Feeling strangely embarrassed, I changed the subject.

“Alessandro’s dead. He was nothing like the man you expected.”

“Right? If I hadn’t listened to you, I would’ve killed some poor low-level grunt who had nothing to do with it, called that revenge, and gone home satisfied....”

There was plenty more I had to tell him.

Namely, about the loan agreements and debt documents that had been stored separately in the basement of the winery’s main house, which was still burning even now.

Once I explained everything, Maximilien bit his lip and sighed.

“At least the people who had their property mortgaged to the Avinante Family can breathe a little easier now. And I can finally leave for Russia without anything weighing on me.”

It was as though one of the burdens that had been strangling Maximilien had finally fallen from his shoulders.

Bella silently patted him on the back.

“Shall we go?”

“We should.”

After wrapping everything up, we turned our eyes back toward the battlefield.

Bang, rat-a-tat-tat....

Crackle....

Vigna del Fuoco, the Vineyard of Fire, burned fiercely against the backdrop of faint gunfire in the distance.

Beyond that scene, the morning sun had already begun bathing the world in bright light.

Only then did a belated concern suddenly occur to me.

‘Come to think of it, what am I going to do about that car?’

Between the buildings blazing beneath the sunlight.

Whoooosh!

I could see the rear end of the Bugak Team car I had driven straight into the place.

It was a burner car prepared for the operation, so there should be no risk of anyone tracing it back to us.

‘...Wait. I wasn’t the one who crashed it. Pak Mun-ju was.’

I didn’t know anything about it.

Pak Mun-ju did it.

Right to the very end, those words were practically magic.

***

Maximilien booked two tickets on a late-night flight to Vladivostok, Russia.

“Before I leave, I want to open my restaurant one last time today. No idea how many customers will show up, though.”

When I asked why he had deliberately chosen a night flight, he gave me an awkward smile and explained.

Apparently, he still had lingering feelings for the restaurant that had once been his dream.

If he simply vanished off to Russia like this, there was no telling when he would ever get another chance to open a proper restaurant under his own name.

“If we clean everything up, we should be able to serve about ten tables.”

“Want me to help?”

“You still got it?”

“I cooked for a few days in China. Turns out I’m not rusty yet.”

“Good. For someone as skilled as you, Sunny Kick, I’d gladly give up a corner of my kitchen.”

My cooking skills had been well regarded even at Wang Chunsam’s Eatery.

I was more than happy to take part in his modest little farewell ritual.

“Then we’ll make it a chef’s tasting menu.”

Since we were only opening for one day, we kept the menu to a minimum.

Caprese salad, vongole pasta, and Margherita pizza.

Three dishes that could be called the fundamentals of an Italian restaurant.

“Oppa, what should I do?”

“Bella, you take the dining room. And please serve the guests a refreshing smile along with their meals.”

“Pfft. Trying to dump all the dirty work on me again?”

“Isn’t being the restaurant’s figurehead the most important job of all?”

“Smooth talker.”

Since all three of us were on the same page, there was no reason to hesitate.

First, we all thoroughly swept and cleaned the wrecked restaurant.

Afterward, we got in the car and hurried off to the market.

“Well, look who it is! Maxim. You been doing all right?”

“The place got a little chaotic, so I went on a short trip with my sister. Have you been well too, sir?”

“Same as always.”

“If you have time today, stop by for a meal. It’s my last day in business.”

“Oh, Mamma mia!”

Tomatoes, olive oil, flour, mozzarella, basil, and so on.

Once we finished shopping and returned, we began preparing in earnest.

We kneaded the dough until it turned smooth and elastic, then left it to proof at room temperature, while ripe tomatoes simmered down into a rich sauce.

A hot wood fire blazed once more inside the oven that had sat cold for so long.

“Make me one pizza as a taste test.”

“Sure. I was starting to get hungry anyway.”

At my request, Maximilien smiled gently and nodded.

He dusted the dough with flour, stretched it thin, and spread a generous layer of sauce over it.

Then he topped it with basil and a heap of mozzarella before finishing it with a quick swirl of olive oil.

“Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn in there.”

“Got it.”

The rich aroma of garlic sizzling in oil.

Fresh pasta dough piling up one batch after another.

Even the mouthwatering smell of pizza baking inside the oven.

Everything was coming together perfectly.

But that peaceful moment did not last long.

“You fucking bastard, Sunny Kick! Do you seriously want to get shot?!”

Maximilien let out a bloodcurdling scream.

He had discovered the pieces of canned pineapple I had secretly placed on the pizza fresh out of the oven.

And he was not joking. He actually drew his pistol and aimed it at me.

“Get that hideous abomination out of my sight right now!”

So I immediately got rid of it by putting it in my mouth.

Nom nom.

‘Tastes good, though.’

*****

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