"Tamamo, Kiyo, everything's ready?"
"はいはい~ everything is A-OK!"
"Ok, good."
I take a deep breath, and with a big rice spoon in my hand, I raise it up to the side of my mouth and bellow,
"DINNER'S READAAAAAYYYYYYYY!"
Having let out the true war cry, I stand with my arms folded in Chaldea's cafeteria kitchen, gazing through the large open window that separates the people manning the kitchen, which would be myself, Tamamo, and Kiyohime, from the rest of the cafeteria. Tamamo and Kiyohime peek over too, popping up from beneath the counter on either side of me like moles in that whack-a-mole game machine.
"You think they heard you?" Tamamo asks curiously.
"Oh, they did," I nod confidently. "If nothing else, Salter'll let everyone else know."
"How? She only cares about herself."
"Just watch..."
A few seconds of sheer silence pass as we wait, and soon, the silence gets torn down by the sliding cafeteria doors getting kicked down with impunity by a certain alternate Saber, who flash-steps right in front of me with sparkles flying off her face. I'm pretty sure Salter doesn't normally know how to flash-step.
"Reporting for dinner duty, Master," Salter declares eagerly, keeping her stoic, icy look that's being melted by the slight sign of drool on the left corner of her mouth.
"Aye, dinner's ready," I repeat myself, handing her a bowl of fluffy white rice puffing with steam fresh out of the huge rice cooker pot we've got in the corner of the kitchen. I want to ask Olga later why they decided to get a giant-ass rice cooker, but whatever the reason, it's a good thing it's here. "The others comin'?"
"I do not know," Salter shakes her head, receiving the bowl of rice. The bowl I've given her is not actually a rice bowl, but a large soup bowl instead, not because there aren't smaller bowls here, but because I know those smaller bowls isn't about to satisfy Salter's appetite anytime soon.
But as if to answer me in Salter's stead, more Servants start showing up at the cafeteria, though it's clear that some of them are only here to investigate what that loud noise was just now.
"Kiyo-chan, lay out the bowls of miso soup on the counter, pu-re-su ~ " Tamamo, speaking in Japanese to her friend, says "please" in romanji, and Kiyohime takes the bowls of miso soup that Tamamo is pouring out with her ladle from the large metal vat of miso soup that she's cooked and carefully and beautifully lines them up on the counter where I stand so that the Servants can take them at their convenience.
Salter still hasn't sat down, since unlike Artoria, she seems to prefer having dishes with her rice, and she's been sniffing the air hungrily. No surprise, none of the Servants have consumed any actual food over the course of the Singularity since all they really need is mana, so Servants like Salter who take great pleasure in eating food would naturally be famished, just not in the life-threatening way.
And so seeing this, I stop scooping out rice into the smaller rice bowls for the Servants to take with the bowls of miso soup and head back over to the stoves. Another large metal vat sits next to the miso soup vat, but this one's halfway filled with crimini mushrooms, zucchini, and chicken sauteed with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic sauce. Picking the entire thing up with my bare hands, even though doing this is dangerous for normal people since the handles are still very hot, I carry the large vat carefully out of the kitchen and head over to the long table that we've set up for all the Servants to gather and have some dinner.
As I head out, Artoria, who's tailed Salter to see what she's up to, gasps quite loudly at the sight of not only Salter holding a big bowl of fluffy white rice but also me carrying a delicious-smelling vat of sauteed mushroom, zucchini, and chicken over to the table that I'm headed for.
"Is dinner ready, Master?" Artoria bounds over to me, with Lily in tow as well, marveling at the sight of the food as I slip the vat into a large hole that I've magically drilled into the table specifically to accommodate these large vats. It's more efficient just to bring out these large vats wholesome rather than to dole them out individually - things like rice and soup, on the other hand, are more suited to individual portions.
"Yup, it's ready. Help yourself to some rice over on the counter, though if you wanna wait a bit, I can give you a bigger bowl, just like the one that Salter has." I point over to Salter, who's actually right next to me, already sitting down and wolfing down rice while waiting for me to properly set the vat up.
"Yes, of course! Please, take your time," Artoria says, but she's only saying that: when I glance at her briefly, her eyes have become stars, mesmerized by the sight of good food after going two days without it, pretty much.
The sight of the King of Britain marveling over food hasn't gotten old yet, and I hope it never does.
I get down on the floor and scoot underneath the table, slapping a small rune down on the floor underneath the vat, and I snap my fingers lightly to light the rune on fire. A small but brightly dancing flame ignites on the center of the rune, and it immediately begins heating up the vat from underneath, just like a stove, but I adjust the flame's temperature to ensure that it's never going to overcook the food in the vat; it's only going to provide enough heat for the vat to absorb and keep the food warm.
"Mkay...that's done..." I groan a little as I get back up from underneath the table, just in time to see Tamamo and Kiyohime carrying in the other vats too that have crispy marinated beef cooked with red bell peppers, onions, and sweet 'n sour sauce, among a lot of other sauces and honey tempura shrimp mixed with sweetened walnuts and small bite-sized pieces of scallions, respectively. "Oh, thanks, just set them down and I'll take care of 'em."
"Oooh, Master! Did you cook all this?" St. George beams proudly as I duck underneath the table again to set the flame for the crispy beef vat.
"Yeah, these three big vats - I cooked these, Tamamo made the miso soup, and Kiyo made some sukiyaki," I explain, igniting the second rune flame and crawling over to the third one to take care of that.
"This is certainly a grand feast, Master. I wonder if we would be able to eat it all...?" Siegfried, who's made friends with St. George, ponders aloud, worriedly scans the vats and estimates their quantities.
"Ah, Sir Siegfried, if you are worried about not being able to finish all the food, don't worry," Lily cheerfully reassures Siegfried.
"Oh, are there some of us who have large appetites today?"
Lily nods, pointing over to her two older selves, who've sat together on the long table and are already halfway done with their large bowls of rice.
"Ah...I see. With those two, yes..." Siegfried clears his throat politely after seeing the two Artoria's practically inhale their rice. "We need not worry about the potential waste of food."
"Sir Siegfried, I will not tolerate any comments about our eating habits!" Artoria barks over to them while Salter straight up doesn't care. Given how those two usually act around each other, it's still pretty jarring to see them sit together for chow and just eat.
"S-Sorry!" Siegfried apologizes swiftly.
When I emerge from underneath the table after lighting the third rune flame, I see that everyone's now filing into the cafeteria, including Da Vinci, Roman, and Olga. Using Salter as bait to get everyone to come eat dinner worked out, if only a bit slowly.
"Master, I've brought the tongs ~ where should I put them?" Tamamo asks sweetly.
"Ah, just set them in the vats themselves, they should be long enough for it," I tell her, but then I realize she's only brought a set of three tongs, one for each vat. "I'll bring some more."
"Worry not, Master, I have them here ~ " Kiyohime sings over, exiting the kitchen with armfuls of more large tongs, and I hurry over to her to relief her of her burden and distribute the wares accordingly so that each vat has at least three, maybe four, pairs of tongs.
"Senpai! Please, let me help too," Matthew, hurrying over quickly to us as if she's alarmed that she wasn't here from the beginning to help out, joins me as I stride back over to the kitchen.
"Uh, help me get everyone their rice and miso soup," I ask her, and then I turn around to the rest of the Servants. "Everyone, feel free to take a seat somewhere and start eating, we'll get you your rice and soup here."
"Tch...what's with this...trying to win everyone's approval by cooking..." Jalter scornfully remarks with a look of raw disgust on her face, walking towards the table with Jeanne and Gilles close behind them. "Servants don't even need food, so isn't this all just a pathetic waste of effort?"
"Now, now, Jalter, let's not insult Master's cooking. It looks good, doesn't it? Come, let's have some," Jeanne suggests in her usual upbeat manner. I can't imagine being able to deal with Jalter with such a positive outlook and attitude even for a day - truly, Jeanne is a Saint, even if she herself refuses to admit it.
"Hey, August, why did you - why did you turn the cafeteria into your own personal kitchen?!"
Stomping over to me in the kitchen, Olga yells at me all demandingly and shit while I'm still handing out rice and miso soup with the help of Matthew, Kiyohime, and Tamamo.
"Didn't Da Vinci tell you? I was looking around for you to get your permission to use the kitchen, but Da Vinci said that you were off busy somewhere and she said it was okay if we used the cafeteria." I shrug a little, dual-wielding bowls of rice. "It's not like there's anyone else here who's about to use it."
"But why can't you just make dinner at your own house?"
"You think I'll be able to fucking cook for nineteen people in my house when I could barely cook for five?" I give Olga my own stinkeye. "Oh, and while we're here, bump that number up to twenty-two."
"You didn't need to make me dinner, too!" Olga exclaims.
"Okay, that's fine, then. Don't eat."
Throwing some quality words of bluntness at her, I walk swiftly past her to deliver my next load of rice bowls, handing them to Vlad and Carmilla.
"Hmm...these meat dishes appear quite the delicacies, but if they were to have some more blood in them..." Vlad murmurs, gazing carefully at the vats of food around him.
Ah shit, I forgot Vlad is a vampire here.
"I'm sorry, we didn't have any meat that had blood in them. I know how to cook meat with blood in it, but I can't cook it here because I just don't have access to any bloody meat," I apologize. "If you'd like to wait, we can go to my hometown through the portal that Da Vinci made and I can serve you a meal that's more to your liking."
Vlad strokes his magnificent beard, considering the option.
"Then I shall take you up on this offer. I am looking forward to it - do not disappoint me, Master," he decides, just like a king.
"Yeah, I'll try my best not to." I turn around to Kiyohime, who's tending to the large pots of sukiyaki in the kitchen now. "Kiyo, do you need help over there?"
"Ah...y-yes, please!" Kiyohime calls, and I promptly go over to join her and help her carry the pots of sukiyaki over to the tables as well, distributing them evenly throughout the tables. By this point, everyone who isn't among the first to arrive have come by, and everyone's sitting down to get in on some of this food before Artoria and Salter devour everything just between the two of them.
"Busy, busy, busy ~ " Tamamo sings, giving me a great big smile every time we pass, and I chuckle back. I've worked in several different restaurants before back when I was a junior and senior in high school to prepare myself to enter the workforce after graduating, as I didn't have any plans to go to college since my dad was already training me to take over his job one day once I was out of school. Then again, going off to work at restaurants and whatnot didn't really have anything to do with my job, but I never really questioned my dad when he suggested that I do so anyway. Probably to build character, but...
In any case, side tangent aside, this reminds me of those times. As annoying as it was to work as a server/waiter, it was still overall fun, and part of me misses those times.
"Meister, König Artoria - er, both of them have already consumed all of this particular dish!" Mozart calls, pointing down at the vat with the sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, and chicken - well, used to. After setting down a platter of lightly sugared crispy bread that I baked in the oven in the middle of the long table, I glance over, and I verify for myself that the vat is, in fact, very empty.
"How the hell!?" I bark down at the two Artoria's, though I'm not angry about it, just surprised, and Salter frowns defiantly back up at me while Artoria cringes a little, looking rather apologetic as she quickly tries to wipe some soy and ginger sauce off the corners of her mouth. "That was meant for at least ten people and you two cleared it in eight minutes!?"
"And I intended to get some for Marie, too..." Mozart sighs with much concern.
"Ah, not to worry, Mozart, there are plenty of other foods we can partake in," Marie tries to reassure Mozart. "See, Sanson has gotten us some."
"Indeed, these foods look quite the delicacy. Now, Marie, if you will..." Sanson, having brought over a huge plate that he's piled up quite high with food from the rest of the tables, seats himself on Marie's unoccupied side, sets down the plate, and uses a fork to pick up a piece of honey walnut shrimp to guide it towards Marie's mouth. "I believe this is what gentlemen and gentlewomen of this modern era do. Say 'ahhhh'..."
"Aaaahhh..." Marie complies quite willingly, and Sanson feeds Marie that piece of shrimp. "Mmmm ~ ! C'est vraiment très bon! Master, did you cook this for us?"
"Er, yeah. Is it good?" I ask, since I don't understand her French. I want to assume that she finds it good, given her bright expression in her reaction, but assumptions are dangerous.
"Of course! Your cooking is fantastic, Master! Could you make this for us every day?"
"Eeeeeeeeee! ! !"
Out of nowhere, Tamamo, still holding onto the soup ladle that she's brought with her from the kitchen from tending to the giant pot of Kyoto-style udon noodles that she's cooking up, slides right behind me and seizes my arm.
"Miss Marie, I'm sorry to say, but this man is taken!" Tamamo declares firmly.
"Aha ~ I'm so sorry, Mademoiselle Tamamo. I meant no harm ~ " Marie cheerfully clasps her hands together while Mozart eyes Sanson suspiciously. If I were Mozart, I'd do the same, honestly, considering the fact that Sanson was going on about how he wanted to chop Marie's head off a second time or something back in the Singularity.
"And speaking of which!" Tamamo lets go of my arm to glare up at me with her hands on her hips. "You've done enough here, Master! Please, do help yourself before all the food runs out! It's already happened to a degree, what, with these two also dining!" She gestures down to the two Artoria's.
"By the way, what's happening to the udon?" I mention, which causes Tamamo to jump in alarm and dash back into the kitchen to check on the noodles. This frees me up to glance back into the vat, which is basically empty, just a mass of soy sauce and ginger sauce residue by this point.
So I pull the vat out of the table and take it back to the kitchen to toss it into the massive sink in the corner, and I pull out another one to set on one of the empty open-top stoves.
"Senpai, do you need help?" Matthew asks, always eager to help out as she has been ever since she's arrived in the cafeteria.
"Yes please. You're not hungry?" I ask her, setting out ingredients for a fresh dish, which includes eggs, salt, black pepper, chili peppers, cornstarch, flour, and rice wine, among others.
"I could ask the same of you," Matthew replies crisply.
"Touche. I'll make this one last dish and we can go eat, assuming there's still some left for us."
"If you're hungry, Master, please just say the word," Kiyohime says pleasantly, daintily tiptoeing over to my side and offering me a piece of shabu-shabu boiled in one of her sukiyaki pots that's still cooking with a pair of steel chopsticks. "This is for you. Ahhhh..."
"Matthew, grab one of the bags of chicken in the freezer for me? Thanks," I tell my self-proclaimed underclassman before quickly nabbing the piece of shabu-shabu from Kiyohime's chopsticks, right when Tamamo glances our way to see what Kiyohime is up to.
"K-K-K-K-K-Kiyohimeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ! ! !" Tamamo screeeches, though as quietly as possible while still getting the message across.
"Ehehe ~ it seems I have won this battle, Tamamo-san," Kiyohime gives Tamamo a playful little grin, which leaves Caster fuming in place.
"Master, how could you?! How could you betray me like this...?!" Tamamo tearfully turns away from me. "And to think we even shared the same bed during the week before we departed for this Singularity...! This fox is greatly wounded - "
"But you just went in and slept with me without really giving me an option about it," I mention, bluntly as always.
"S-Sleep with you?" Kiyohime gasps a little. "I knew it...Master, do not trust that wily fox, she is trying to prepare you to eat you up just at the right moment...! In fact, she has already eaten you up - !"
"Well, no, not like that."
"Oh? Not...?"
"No, we just slept together. No lewds."
"No lewds...?" Kiyohime gives Tamamo quite the stinkeye of her own before shaking her head. "Tamamo-san, I'm disappointed."
"But why in Amaterasu-sama's name would you be disappointed in me for that?!" Tamamo screeches again.
"Okay, let's chill out for a second, Tamamo. You can do the same for me, that udon's comin' along just fine," I offer to Tamamo the same chance to do what Kiyohime did, figuring she'd love to seize the offer, and she does. Jumping back into form, she swiftly scoops up a chopstickful of udon noodles and calls over to me.
"But of course, if you wish, Master ~ ! Come, come, please, have a taste of my absolutely exquisite Kyoto-style udon, handcrafted with nothing but my finest love for my Master!" Tamamo exclaims quite happily, and I slurp up the udon from her chopsticks.
Oh wow, Tamamo's udon is excellent. As an udon enthusiast myself, as udon, ramen, and pho are my three favorite styles of Asian noodles, I haven't had udon in a long while, so Tamamo making some is a prime opportunity for me to feast on some.
"It's really good," I nod heartily, finding myself smiling at her udon. The texture and softness of the udon are just perfect, not so soft that you could cut them with just your tongue, but not too tough that they're hard to chew - well, udon shouldn't be like that anyway, but I've had bad udon before, which isn't pleasant. The udon broth is indeed lovely, true to Tamamo's own proclamation, nice and strong to give the noodles their distinct flavor but not too overpowering so that the noodles themselves can be enjoyed without the broth dominating the overall experience. Also, the broth itself is just how I like it, nice, deep and rich - it's almost uncanny, that Tamamo can make udon that I'd love to a tee. "I could have a bowl of this and just call it my dinner, actually."
At my complement, though, Tamamo squeals like a fangirl. Kiyohime, clearly, isn't at all pleased by this.
"And what about my sukiyaki, Master?" Kiyohime asks me suspiciously. "Will you not partake of it?"
"No, I'll have some of it too," I shake my head, preparing some saucepans and cracking some eggs into one of them.
"Promise?"
"Well, I don't know if it's necessary to make a promise over that, I did say that I'd love to try both of your food..."
"Then a promise it is."
I just sigh - I guess Kiyohime can be just as unreasonable as Tamamo can be.
In any case, Matthew's gotten me all the ingredients I need, and I get to work. Since the others are waiting, I decide to hasten the process - rather than use the stove fire, I snap my fingers again underneath the vat, and I use my own flames to immediately heat up the vat. I also ignite my hand with my flames and dip it into the vat itself as I begin to add chicken battered in egg mix and flour batter into the vat, and the kitchen fills with sharp hissing and sizzling noises once again. Working diligently to make sure that the chicken cooks as quickly as possible without compromising on the quality, at least not too much, I grab the vat by its side handles and flip the contents inside up a few times, and I drip some of the flames in my hand into the vat itself and continue tossing the chicken, tossing the flames along with it.
"Y-You can even cook with your own flames, Senpai...?!" Matthew asks in a hushed voice, mesmerized by the sight of me using my own power to cook food, of all things.
"I don't usually do it, since it's really mana-inefficient, but the one advantage that it does have is that it cooks food faster," I tell her while Tamamo and Kiyohime, once they, too, realize that I'm using my own mana to cook food, look on eagerly. "Since my flames're a product of my mana, they're more effective at cooking stuff, especially when it's applied directly like this."
"But wouldn't applying fire directly to food normally be a bad idea...?" Matthew points out.
"Yeah, it would be, but y'know, magic is a funny thing sometimes..."
And in just seven minutes flat, I've got myself a whole vat-ful of orange chicken sizzling before me. I can only hope that this is good; cooking with my own flames is risky because while food does get cooked faster, there's a chance that the flavor could be off, because the flames that I use are too strong and can simply burn away some of the flavor, either by ruining the quality of the chicken or by simply burning away too much of the sauce or flavoring, but I think I've done a good enough job not doing either.
"This Kiyohime can do that too, but...I end up burning the food instead," Kiyohime murmurs a bit sadly. "So, Master, would you like to teach me how to use my flames more effectively? It seems you have plenty of experience in this..."
"No, he's teaching me first!" Tamamo butts in, as per usual.
"But I thought both of you already knew how to cook," I point out. "You don't need me to teach you, you two cook better than me."
"But that's simply not true!" Caster protests. "And I can prove it! Matthew-chan, have this piece of chicken. What do you think about it?"
Fishing out a piece of sizzling orange chicken from the vat, Tamamo feeds it to Matthew, who bites into it as Fou comes slinking into the kitchen, eager to see what Matthew's up to.
"Mmmmm ~ ! Senpai, this is really good! It's just as good as the one they make at that one restaurant, the - the Panda Express restaurant, I think it was called!" she agrees, nodding fervently.
"Ah, that's because I basically copied them," I shrug. "Their recipes are good since they're perfect for making large amounts at once." I take a piece of orange chicken from the vat and stoop to feed it to Fou, who also eagerly munches on the piece of orange chicken quite happily.
"Ah, Master, me too," Kiyohime offers her own mouth to me. "And I would also like you to return the favor, if you will. Aaaahhhh ~ "
"No, no, not Kiyo-chan, Master, me first! I was first, you know!" Tamamo mimics Kiyohime, so now I have two girls on either side of me enthusiastically waiting for me to feed them pieces of orange chicken.
Rather than stand here and deplore my situation, I immediately dip my hands down into the vat, carefully whip out a piece of chicken each to dual-wield them, and place them into each of the ladies' mouths. Mission accomplished.
"Senpai, something tells me that you've got it a bit rough now..." Matthew remarks awkwardly as Fou leaps up into her arms while both Kiyohime and Tamamo begin to gush over my cooking while I taste my own chicken too to see just how good it is. Hm, it is actually pretty good - I didn't expect it to turn out quite this well.
"I'll manage, I think," I reassure Matthew. "Somehow."
