UA – Dormitories – Mirio's room -
Had one looked inside the small bedroom of the dormitories reserved to the upper years of UA, nobody would have seen the Legendary Pro Hero All Might and the young man he openly declared to be his Successor, whoever entered the small bedroom would have just seen two chastised kids sitting on the bed with their heads low and Sir Nighteye staring down at them with an expression of disgusted disappointment.
Mirio was also sporting a brand-new black eye courtesy of his old friend Tamaki that had used Mirio's own trust in him to deliver a swift answer to the blond retelling of the reason behind Nejire's disappearance two hours prior, before flying out of the window to look for the missing girl.
"So. Let's have a recap, shall we?" Nighteye said with a tone both acidic and cold, and the two Heroes he was looking down upon had at least the decency to flinch and lower their heads even more.
"You." he said, pointing at Mirio.
"Lied and kept secrets from a girl you professed to Love because you didn't trust her enough to share the secret behind your Quirk's 'Mutation'...A very poor excuse we will soon also go through." Nighteye said with narrowed eyes.
"Mister Toshinori told me to keep the secret at all cost…" the Hero Student muttered.
"I will soon tear Toshinori a new one. Now it's your turn." the other replied, and surprisingly Toshinori seemed to crumple in on himself and try to become even smaller than Nighteye no matter his immense sizes.
"You lied to her, Mirio. To the girl you said was the most important person to you. A girl I was told by your common friend was being incredibly patient with you. And somehow I too helped in causing this fracture between you two, but in my defense you never once told me you were already occupied with her when I called you."
"Young Mirio's training-"
"It's not the be-all-end-all, Toshinori! All for One is out there, yes, but forcing things to go faster doesn't make results show-up faster."
"Young Hado should have just been more understanding and patient…" Toshinori muttered.
"Nobody can be that patient, Toshinori. Nobody can put their entire personal life on hold. Nobody is YOU. We all have our limits, our breaking point." The way Nighteye said this while looking straight at Mirio made the young man pale considerably.
"You…"
"Yes, I know."
"Know what?" Toshinori asked.
"It is not a matter we will discuss tonight. Now I want to know what caused the protegee of a dear friend of mine to disappear like that. Ryukyu is beside herself in worry and is still combing the city to find miss Nejire, and you two should thank God her worry is overruling her anger for now, she is still part dragon and tearing you two to shreds will soon become her new priority once she has found her Intern." Nighteye answered.
"I...Me and young Mirio may have said some...unpleasant things...To Miss Hado when we talked." Toshinori admitted with a defeated tone.
"Like her being a hypocrite for not waiting? For asking just the bare minimum explanation as to why her own feelings were being put aside? Asking why she was being taken as a commodity?"
"There may have been a selfish in there as well…B-But Mister Toshinori is not at fault! He just misunderstood the situation!" Mirio muttered.
"With how you were whining and crying on yourself, it was not hard for somebody with ZERO social skills like him to misunderstand." the man replied, sighing in dismay.
"I-I-I do have social skills!" Toshinori tried saying.
"And Quirkless pigs fly. Stay quiet and wait your turn, you have caused enough damage as it is!" Nighteye snapped.
"Yessir…" the muscled giant muttered with a weak voice.
"Now. This is what is going to happen: you two WILL apologize to that girl as soon as we find her, on your knees if you must! THEN Mirio will come clean to Nejire about One for All in excruciating and complete details. If she will give you a second chance then everything will be okay and we will just forget this whole incident, but if she still wants nothing to do with you and Toshinori, then you two will keep a minimum distance from her of fifty meters and not bother her unless she starts a conversation first or unless absolutely necessary. Are we clear?" Nighteye ordered with not a shred of mercy to be found in his tone.
"Yessir." both blonds answered, utterly defeated.
"Very well. This farce has gone-on for far too long. It's time for me to personally return some common sense in this mess since you two apparently are not mature enough yet to be left on your own devices! I am taking over! Objections?!"
"No, sir!"
"Good. Also...If in the meantime we look for Miss Hado something has happened that resulted in her being hurt or worse...I will personally enact punishment on you two. Ten times over. So pray she doesn't even have a hair out of place when we find her." the Pro Hero declared with a dark tone, and his victims found themselves fervently praying nothing happened to Nejire in the few hours she had been away.
Meanwhile – Other Dimension – Tian-Fa Continent - Forest -
Nejire was lying on her side completely paralyzed, able only to blink as she watched Izuku work on a giant dead creature to cut it in various parts.
She had been apparently transported into a different world while clinging to the Young Chef, and while at the beginning she thought it was only a matter of simple teleportation...She soon saw two moons hanging in the sky, flying rock formations and mutated animals she was damn sure were not original of her home world, along a waterfall flowing in reverse and many other strange sights in the two days they had traveled towards Izuku's destination.
The lightning-spitting purple leopards they met for example were already a telling sight as that sort of thing would get on the media on a regular basis, considering how obscenely rare it was to find Quirks on animals.
When she finally asked for details, Izuku explained what was happening behind the scene of Green Cloud Restaurant and himself, like his Isekai as Zaus in another world, how that was not the first time he had traveled to another dimension to find Ingredients to add to his storage and breeding area for his restaurant and he even showed her part of his hidden skills.
It was after the third day of travel passed and they were just camping by the fire that things went pear-shaped; she had asked if his girlfriend knew about all of that, and when he had said he was still keeping everything a secret Nejire...Kind of went on a rant against him...And said very bad and rude things about him.
Surprisingly, he had taken it all in stride with not even a frown and just waited for her to finish insulting him, then he asked a simple question with a very bored tone.
"So it's right when your Beloved Mirio does it, but we others have to be paragons of virtue instead? You sound like a hypocrite here."
To her shame, Nejire had, in a moment of blind anger, tried shooting him with one of her Quirk's spiral cannons, BUT IT WAS A WEAK ONE! HONEST!...He replied by simply disappearing from view and hitting her in the chest with the knuckles of two fingers from his right hand.
A simple tap and she went down limp like a sack of potatoes, unable to move or talk, and she kind of had a lot of questions to ask after experiencing that on top of the hundred of thousands still lingering in her head! And she couldn't ask a single one! IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING!
Now there she was, after watching him take on a flock of at least six bison-like beasts the size of those English double buses and covered in a carapace thick enough to shame a tank, and he defeated them all alone and bare-handed, knocking them down in just a couple minutes while his robot bodyguard just stood by Nejire to protect her just in case, and now she was wondering WHY a Quirkless like him was not in UA all the same even without Powers seen that such a label meant nothing to him!
Fwoosh !
A lively fire was soon burning in front of her once he was finished removing the last bison's carapace using the strange bone knife he could summon from the tattoo on his wrist at will, THEN he made everything fade away and disappear like magic!
SO. MANY. QUESTIONS! MUST! ASK! MUST! KNOW!
"Have you calmed down?" Izuku finally asked, having cut a big slab of rock into an extremely thin disk with that same knife.
"…"
Sigh! "Blink once for Yes and twice for No." he gave a sigh and asked again, in the meantime he also positioned the disk of rock on the fire and was continuously flipping it over.
"…" Nejire just gave a groan and blinked once.
"Good. I will unlock you, but at the first sign you are even just thinking of attacking me, I will block you again and just drag you along until I have completed my Mission." the young Chef said, studying her face for a few seconds then...poking, for the lack of a better term, the back of Nejire's skull, right at the base of her neck, and the girl felt her body return responsive.
"Aaah! Aaah! I can move!" she exclaimed once done some test vocalization while moving her limbs around.
"Yes, that is normal." Izuku answered, unimpressed, while selecting a piece of bison meat and recalling it from the System Storage to cut it into several thick steaks.
"What was that? How can you block somebody like that? How does it work? Why do you go to other Worlds? What's with your Sponsor? Why do you say you are Quirkless? If you are Quirkless then how can you do those things? What is your knife made of? How can you summon it from a tattoo? What is that animal? Why does it have a carapace? Are you going to eat it? Why did you not tell your girlfriend about this? Why-"
"WOOOOO! Breath!" The young Chef begged once he found a long-enough hole in that barrage of questions to stop her.
"Was...Was I like that too when I was still a Hero maniac?" he also thought in worry, having finally seen the thing from the outside.
"But I need to know!" Nejire answered with a very distraught expression.
Sigh! "Okay. I used Knocking to block you and capture two of those bison alive for breeding. It is basically me attacking nerve clusters and pressure points of the body to make it stop moving, among other things as it has a huge variety of effects.
You just watched me fight against Armored Bison, a beast of this world I decided to capture as an Extra since I am given extra 'Experience Points' based on the number and quality of Ingredients I capture during these sorties.
We are here because my Sponsor is an extra-dimensional being that decided to help me become the best Chef of our World, and in order to do this, I am required to go hunting for Ingredients into other worlds. In exchange this Entity I have no clue how to physically describe makes me stronger. I literally Level-up like in a Video Game, that is why I talk about Experience points.
I am Quirkless, but not powerless, after my life as Zaus I now possessGourmet Cells, a more advanced form of cells compared to normal humans, giving me another set of Powers, beside strength and speed.
The Knife is made with the bone of some Stupidly-strong Monster, that is why it can cut everything and can be hidden in a tattoo on my wrist…That should be all."
"That is a lot to take in." Nejire admitted.
"You asked. You may not believe it, but sure as the sky is blue, I am living it." Izuku answered.
"You didn't tell me why you are keeping this a secret from your girlfriend and family." she then said.
"…"
"Izuku?"
"...I am afraid, okay?" he admitted with a shaken breath, and the girl saw the fire reflect on the tears that threatened to spill from his cloudy eyes.
"Afraid of what?" At that question the girl moved to sit a bit closer to him.
"I am afraid that they will ask me to stop. That they will declare this too dangerous and demand me to drop everything. But I am not a porcelain doll! I don't want to abandon another dream!" he answered.
"They are just worried about you, they fear you may not be able to keep on doing this."
"And I am supposed to live in a bubble so to make them sleep well at night? What makes THEIR happiness more important than mine?"
"And what makes yours more important than theirs?" Nejire asked back, voice soft and gentle.
"Mine is not more important than theirs, I am just afraid they won't try to understand."
"You-"
"I said that they won't try to understand, not that they can't. I trust my family and Momo and her family with my life, I am just afraid they won't trust ME and my skills enough to not try to stop me."
"...I guess we both are on the same boat, uh? We trust our loved ones completely, but they in exchange don't trust us enough to give us a chance…" Nejire muttered while hugging her knees close to her chest.
"I can tell you what Mirio is keeping a secret from you, if you want." Izuku said.
"And how do you know?"
"My Sponsor. It saw me knowing this as important to understand why I was told by All Might that nothing could help me become a Quirkless Hero before my Isekai happened."
"Your Sponsor is strange."
"Eh! Imagine Cthulhu. Then Imagine the guy has a cousin that is obsessed with Cooking and there you have my Sponsor."
"Creepy...I know there must be a reason why he never told me...But by now I want to have a clear picture of the situation. No, I need to understand. What is this grand secret?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Sigh! "To put it simply: All Might can pass his Quirk to other people. He passed it to Mirio because he saw in him a powerful Heir already able to use most of the Quirk's power immediately without needing much initial training. But Toshinori was also afraid of people knowing his Quirk could be passed to others so he told Mirio to keep it a secret just so to not have the wrong sort of people demand the Quirk to be handed over. I guess Mirio then took that being a Chosen One as some Divine Mission, that is why even you were not told."
"...That's it?" Nejire asked in disbelief.
"Yep! It's not even a matter of matching a fixed set of criteria. Toshinori could have chosen anybody, but one day he saw Mirio and said 'Yeah, he will do!', and the rest is history."
"And I was not deemed trustworthy of knowing such a simple thing?" she asked, shock clear to be seen on her face.
"You should ask them, I only know how the Quirk works." Izuku answered, shrugging.
"YOU TOLD ME YOU WORK FOR AN ELDRITCH BEING BEYOND HUMAN UNDERSTANDING! THAT YOU GO TO OTHER DIMENSIONS! THAT YOU HAD A SECOND LIFE DURING A COMA WHERE YOU GAINED SUPERPOWERS! HOW IS THAT OKAY TO SHARE COMPARED TO 'I inherited All Might's Quirk, please don't tell a soul'?! YOUR SECRET IS BLOODY GIGANTIC COMPARED TO MIRIO'S AND YOU STILL SHARED IT WITH ME! And we have been friends for just a couple weeks!" Nejire shrieked in disbelief.
"Beats me." Izuku admitted with a shrug.
"Also, Eh! Mine is bigger." he then added with a smirk.
"This is a serious matter, fool." Nejire replied with a playful slap to his shoulder, but a small smile still peaked-out on her mouth at his corny joke, and that in itself was a small Mission Success for the young Chef.
"I was just trying to cheer you up."
"Izuku…"
"Yes?"
"Why did youdecide to become a Chef after waking-up with that strength? With powers like those you could have become a Hero even without a Quirk." Nejire asked.
"…"
"Icchan?"
"...You can call it revenge, in a sense."
"Revenge?"
"When I was a kid I wanted to be a Hero, yes, but I wanted to become one on my terms, my way. When I was told I had absolutely no chance to become a Hero without a Quirk I was devastated. I had lost the ONLY thing I wanted in life, the only future I envisioned for myself." Izuku explained, his voice was void and dull.
"Then the coma happened?" Nejire asked, gently moving his head on her shoulder as a show of comfort.
"As Zaus I was an average boy, neither strong nor weak. But then I was recognized as a talent for cooking, and was trained as a Chef, and as a Cooking Student I had the exact same chance as anybody else, something I did not have in my original life. My failures would have been my own, and my victories would have been my own. Then as I told you, Joie happened and everything went down the drain."
"You were brainwashed, it was not the real you to do those things." Nejire answered.
"I still have flashes of the things I did, and they were all terrible." he answered while shaking.
"It was not you, it was just a monster borrowing your face. But what does this have to do with your revenge against the Heroes?"
"Eh! That is very childish. I just decided that if they did not want me as a Hero when I was powerless, then I did not want them after gaining powers.
I never asked for an easy way to be a Hero, I just wanted a chance to either fail or succeed; and since I could not even have that, as soon as I got powers and understood that the guys in charge would have liked to treat me like a new and easily marketable Hero...I just turned my back to them and opened my Restaurant instead. I decided to help people in the way I came to enjoy: with good food." Izuku answered.
"That's very childish."
"And yet I am happy. Don't be mistaken, it hurts A LOT whenever I remember that I could have been a Hero if only I was born with a Quirk, but I am still pushing forward and I don't regret a thing."
"Then The System arrived." Nejire said with a sigh.
"Yep! And now between Healing Cooking and Utility Dishes I risk calling on me even too much attention." the young Chef admitted groaning.
"But it also means you can become a Hero once again!" Nejire offered.
"...Can I?"
"Do you want to?"
"Do I even have what it takes?"
"If Endeavor is a Pro Hero, anybody can become one!"
"Are you trying to cheer me up?" he asked, smiling weakly.
"Maybe." she replied, smirking.
Sigh! "Now that I managed to put that dream behind me…"
"Maybe it's destiny, you have to become a Hero, in one way or another. Maybe as a Chef instead of Heir of All Might." the girl offered.
"That is honestly scary! I just want the simple life of a Chef! Now give me a hand, as a peace offering, you will help me see what recipes the Bison meat is good for! Luckily I have a lot of meat to experiment with!" Izuku answered, chuckling.
"I am all for it! But why is it a peace offering?" Nejire asked.
"Because I made you angry," he answered, making her develop a shy smile.
"I started it by going off on you. Come on! Let's start cooking! I have lots of questions to ask!"
"Okay! Okay! I promise I will answer them all!" Izuku answered with a laugh, something Nejire was secretly happy to hear, she did not want to ruin her friendship with the young Chef, especially because of Mirio.
Meanwhile – Starlight City – Emperor's Palace -
A man in overly-ornate robes sitting a throne sculptured out of the massive skull of a giant beast was at the moment looking at a very old man with sickly-looking yellowed skin completely covered n wrinkles, the living mummy had sunken eyes and yet he was still looking at the scattered bones in front of him in great interest.
"Ooooh! Hohohohoho! Yeees! This is just a confirmation! The vision I had was true! The Oracle of Bones merely confirmed it!"
"So the Ancestral Taotie is really about to return?" the Emperor asked with narrowed eyes.
"Yes, my Emperor! The very first Taotie! He who fathered them all! One of his children has been chosen to become the Vessel for his Rebirth!" the extremely old man answered, excited.
"The Greatest Monster, the Father of Hunger, the sum of all Greed...So many ominous names for the strongest Divine beast…" the Emperor said with a malevolent smirk as he rose from his throne to pace around the empty room.
"And yet his power is unmatched! His rebirth is close to being complete! Your Greatness must capture him right after his last molting! That will be the last transformation before his return is complete and the moment when the monster will be at his weakest! Capture the reborn Ancestral Taotie right after the last molting, gouge-out his heart and fuse yours with it! With both your powers combined, Godhood will be yours!" the old fossil answered, cackling madly.
"Godhood. Finally! With Godhood in my hands, my reign will truly be eternal!" the Emperor said with a similar crazed smile.
"The birth of a new God! I am assisting in the birth of a new God!" the old man said with a worshipful tone.
"And this new God will remember your assistance! Go call my General and tell him to collect the strongest warriors and Beast Tamers!" the Emperor ordered.
"Yes, my Emperor! The last molting will show us the way thanks to the monstrous Qi it will release! I will personally guide the search!" the old man yelled while hurrying outside with swiftness, completely unnatural for somebody looking like a living dried-up corpse.
"Huhuhu! An Empire ruled by a God...Yes, I like it. It suits me." the Emperor muttered to himself with a feral smile.
With Izuku and Nejire - several hours later -
Izuku was still eating…
He had eaten ONE ENTIRE BISON BEAST and was still hungry!
The young Chef's experiments had been a success, that monster's meat not only was delicious, it was also smooth and tender and with a natural faint smokey taste that really made you crave for more! And that just by roasting it on a hot rock with no condiments! The recipes Izuku created with that meat were all to die for!
But how much did Nejire eat? Two big steaks, that's all, barely one kilogram of meat, and that was a new record for her...Izuku? He had just eaten something even bigger than an elephant and was still going strong in chewing!
"How?!" she asked with bulged-out eyes after yet another five kilograms of steak disappeared in the Chef's bottomless stomach.
"What?" he asked back.
"How can you still be hungry!? How much do you eat?!"
"...It's a secret, okay?" he answered, embarrassed.
"I am already going to keep a big secret of yours, Izu! May as well add another!" she answered.
Sigh! "...I normally eat 200 kgs of meat, 180 kgs of carbs, 150 kgs of fish, 300 kgs of vegetables, 120 liters of water, 100 liters of cola, 30 eggs, 150 kgs of dessert and one coffee...At lunch. For dinner I repeat that menu, but with more fish than meat. I eat like that every day. I am overeating today because this kind of meat is extremely compatible with my Gourmet Cells, something that will make them grow stronger faster." Izuku muttered, ashamed.
"…"
"Gourmet Cells demand a lot of Calories to work, and since mine are slowly recovering from my Isekai, they are still weakened. The more time passes, the more I will need to eat. Please don't tell anybody, it's embarrassing." he added.
"...Lift your shirt." Nejire demanded with a strange, dull tone.
"Wha?!"
"LIFT IT!"
"O-Okay!" the young Chef complied, showing her a set of godly abs so perfect they looked sculptured by hand by God himself.
"...I eat in a week a one-hundredth of what you eat in a single lunch, and I have gained five pounds and have to break my back to maintain my figure...And you instead have just eaten an entire MONSTER and still look like a living statue of a Greek God?! WHY?!" she shrieked with a red face.
"I have a good metabolism?" he tried saying, choosing the worst possible answer to give to a woman.
"GODDAMNIT!" Nejire roared in mad fury, and marched to the camping tent Izuku had brought along for his trip to lock herself inside it.
"...Nejire-chan?…"
"NO! I am angry at you and at your stupid 'I can eat whatever I want and not get fat!' Cheat! People like you are my worst enemy!" she replied from inside.
"...Will you forgive me if I tell you I can teach you how to do it?"
"...I am listening." she said as her head peeked out from the tent in a very adorable way.
"It's called Food Immersion. It's something I wanted to teach Momo, but I can teach it to you too, as an apology for dragging you here, even if it was a mistake."
"Really?"
"Really, really," he answered.
"Okay! When will we start?"
"Tomorrow, now I will clean up and go to sleep." Izuku answered.
"About that…" the girl said with a red face.
"Yes?"
"You keep sleeping outside...You can get in the tent, it's warmer here...I-If you promise to keep your hands to yourself and don't do anything perverted." she offered with a low whisper.
"O-O-Okay." answered the young Chef, and once entered the tent with very nervous steps, he moved into a corner of the small thing and fell asleep with both arms straight at his sides so as not to risk getting too close to Nejire…
He still somehow woke up the following day with the girl using his entire body as a living body pillow and extra source of heat; poor Nejire will spend hours apologizing for it after they return to walking.
The next day – Mountains -
The wind howled deafeningly in their ears as soon as they walked up the mountains separating them from Starlight City, with snow soon piling-up everywhere the higher they moved, and Nejire was once again impressed and thankful to learn Izuku was indeed so paranoid he packed provisions and equipment just in case he met both very cold or very hot climates, even if the super-warm jacket he had took along was a bit too small for her, but in exchange of not freezing to death while wearing only her school uniform she got determined and finally did zip it closed after a short struggle.
"Y-Y-You sure you will be f-f-fine?" she asked between her clattering teeth.
"I will use it as a form of training," Izuku answered with a strained tone, as his Chef uniform was not a proper cover for that freezing cold, but to the girl's surprise the young man's white breath became steadily thinner and thinner until it stopped coming out, in its place he had soon started breathing out small frozen dust.
"Okay, I still got the breathing technique down…" he muttered with a shaky smile.
"W-W-What kind of training can you do by freezing?" Nejire asked, sneezing often and hugging herself.
"As we speak my Gourmet Cells are evolving to adapt to this environment: muscles and fat and every single cell of my body is being modified to minimize as much loss of warmth as possible, and my reserves of Calories are being burned to maintain my body temperature.
The more time I spend here, the more time my Cells have time to adapt and optimize my body's heat management." He answered, hugging himself and shivering a little.
"Y-You are evolving in real time?" she asked.
"Pretty much. Here, come closer." Izuku offered while hugging Nejire closer and guiding her through the wind, and even with Whitey walking in front of them as a shield of sort against most of the wind, the temperature was till absolutely freezing.
"T-T-Thank you!" Normally Nejire would have refused an offer like that, but any extra heat was precious more than gold to her in that situation, so she clung to the Young Chef as much as she could.
"There, that looks like a cave, we will rest there for a bit." Izuku said, pushing her forward a bit to help her trudge through the snow towards the small aperture on the side of the mountain.
"H-H-Hallelujah! ACHOOO!" the young woman cheered with a LOUD sneeze that rocked her entire body.
Cave – ten minutes later -
The small cave used to have a common mountain bear inside, used to since now the animal was being cooked into a stew on the fire started by the young Chef, with Nejire sitting so close to the flames it looked like she was trying to immolate herself.
"It's not much, but Whitey should act as a good enough door to keep most of the warmth inside." the Chef said while stealing a glance at the chubby robot standing at the small opening in the rock and acting as an improvised door for the two.
"I-Is every sortie of yours so extreme?" Nejire asked, shivering still even after getting even closer to the fire.
"I think so, the one before this was in a very hot and humid forest." Izuku answered.
"A-A-A-And you don't want to stop?"
"And lose the chance to see new Ingredients? To try new tastes? It's not a luxury cruise, yes, but I get to see new worlds and different cultures and creatures! It may not be the Gourmet World, but I keep seeing beautiful things! I have a level of freedom nobody else has, and I can use it to taste and try new amazing things." he answered, and Nejire had to admit that the excitement he showed while saying all that and the way the fire made his eyes shine...It was kind of captivating.
"I am still cold, though." she muttered.
Sigh! "Here." What he did next made her squeak in embarrassment and turn bright red as he sat next to her, covered them both with a heavy blanket and then hugged her tight to share with her as much heat of his body he could.
"This is the best I can do, I gave you all the blankets I brought with me." he said with an utterly innocent tone.
"I-I-It should be enough." she answered, and she did feel herself heat-up, but she could not tell if it was just the blanket and his hug...Or something else.
GUAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
"EEEEEK!" any doubt though took a backseat as a loud and monstrous roar echoed everywhere, it was so furious and deafening it caused her body to be overcome by primordial fear, so much SHE hugged the life out of Izuku while Whitey silently watched outside with flashing red eyes and waiting for the attack order.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!...THUMP!...THUMP!...Thump!…Thump…Thump...Thum…
The steps that passed in front of the cave were impossibly heavy and loud, meaning that whatever had just walked in front of their hiding spot was enormous, so much so that its body had seemingly halted the storm as a whole for the short moment it had passed by their camp.
GUAAAAAAAAAAOH!
The same howl of hunger and madness echoed once again in the cave, slowly losing power as the galloping giant beast ran away from them on the notes of its heavy steps and the gruesome crunching sound of the thing munching on whatever was unlucky enough to cross paths with it.
"That sounded like something big." Izuku, face still smothered in Nejire's neck, muttered with narrowed eyes fixed on the cave's entrance.
"And hungry!" she added, trying to play off her hugging him to avoid any awkwardness.
"Hopefully by tomorrow it will be long gone, for now let's eat and go to sleep, tomorrow we will descend the mountain and finally reach our destination, Starlight City." Izuku answered.
"That System thing said that passing the mountain was the fastest and safest way!"
"I guess that thing was not deemed a threat big enough to worry about...Somehow." he answered.
"How?!"
"Beats me, the System has very askew standards. Come, let's eat!"
"O-Okay. And don't worry, this time I won't end up hugging you in my sleep!" Nejire promised.
...She Failed. She failed horribly. And Izuku was once again victim of Nejire's full body hug, only this time he also woke-up covered by the young woman's very long hair, but the latter was not exactly an issue since they had an amazing scent he found he enjoyed to be smothered in.
The Following Day -
It was with a huge sense of relief that Nejire started seeing the top of the trees of the forest under the mountain and the faint body of a giant city beyond that in the distance, and she became even happier when Izuku climbed on Whitey's back so that they could take a custom shortcut by jumping down every ravine they found instead of looking for paths pointing downward.
"Like this is faster!" Izuku explained with a cheeky smile.
"Yup! Just moving in a straight line!" Nejire answered while floating behind the robot, the thing instead simply pummeled to the ground, creating a crater at each heavy landing, and that meant they took only one hour to descend from the mountain instead of five or six like normal people.
A thing they decided to not comment about was the gruesome spectacle they met along the way: half eaten creatures and hooves mark measuring several meters in diameter, meaning that the mysterious monster they heard the night prior had gone on a merry slaughter where it had eaten hundreds of creatures and even trees from the forest below before disappearing God knows where far from the city fortunately.
The forest itself was a vast expanse of trees that grew fairly apart from one another, thus leaving plenty of space for paved roads to be built between them, one of which leading towards the far away city the duo was now walking on.
"Uhm…" Izuku said once looked at the sky.
"What is it?" Nejire asked.
"It's getting kinda late for breakfast, and is too soon for lunch. Want to go midway?" he asked.
"You mean that Brunch thing?"
"Yep!"
"Oooh! I always wanted to have one of those! Yes!" the young woman answered with shining eyes.
"Hahahaha! Then let's set-up a temporary camp. I was not given money worth anything in this world, so we better eat now here."
"Okay! But what about your mission? You have to learn a dish from this world besides capturing a living animal."
"Eeeh! The dish part should technically be easy," he answered sheepishly.
"Uh?"
"You see, we Chefs are a kind of prideful bunch. The Most famous we are, the most Pride we take in our work...So if I find the most Famous and snotty Chef of that city, MAYBE I can challenge him in a cooking duel with said recipe as the prize should I win. The only problem will then be winning, but I will cross that bridge when I will get there." he answered.
"So you are prideful too?" Nejire asked with a smirk.
"Kinda, I hardly let it go above my head, but I am also always ready to defend my skills."
"It's okay, the first step is always recognizing that you have a problem!" she answered with a mocking tone.
"Suuure, Miss 'I won the Title of Miss UA Pageant three times in a row'. You are the epitome of humility!"
"HEY! I told you that just because I take pride in my being cute, okay?" she countered with her face burning red.
"Yes, yes. You are incredibly pretty, we know." Izuku answered, chuckling.
Nejire's face turned WAY REDDER at that admission.
"Good to see you have good eyesight." she muttered shyly.
"HALT!" It was then that a group of six people in heavy armour accompanying a decrepit old man in monk robes resembling a living mummy walked up to them from way ahead.
"Yes? What can I do for you?" Izuku asked, he and Nejire subtly getting ready for a fight just in case, along Whitey's eyes turning red immediately.
"Are you two Travelers?" the guard at the head of the group asked harshly.
"Yes, sir. Me and my...My Fiancee are traveling. He is a Wandering Chef." Nejire answered, and it was a miracle if Izuku's eyes did not bulge-out at her addressing herself as his fiancee.
"Oh, man! She is taken? Come on!" one of the younger guards in the back moaned in despair.
"Don't be a dick! A real man doesn't steal another guy's woman! We are not one of those spoiled brats from the Clans!" the guy's senior answered while slapping the back of his head.
"A Traveler, yes?" Uncaring of the banter behind him, the old monk walked closer to the two.
"Yes sir?" Izuku answered.
"Uhm…" the monk muttered while taking out from his robes a long strip of parchment covered in inscriptions and moving it between them and around Whitey.
"I see. Have you perhaps met a giant creature recently?"
"Met, not really, heard it gallop in front of our camp? Then yes." Nejire answered, unnerved by the sight of a mummy speaking with them.
"Aaah! Wonderful! When was it then? Tell me!" the monk demanded.
"Yesterday night, it moved down from the mountain and probably ran through the forest...That direction if we go by the hooves print it left behind." Izuku answered while pointing towards the area he saw from the mountain had the most trees that had been eaten.
"Yesterday night, and was it eating?"
"Lots, I think? I believe it ate everything it met, trees too." Nejire answered.
"PERFECT! SIMPLY PERFECT! IT MEANS THE TIME IS RIGHT!" the monk exclaimed with a scary worshipful tone.
"What?" Izuku asked, confused.
"There have been sight-seeings of a very dangerous beast nearby. Big as a mountain and extremely hungry, we have been tasked to hunt and secure that beast for the safety of the populace, just in case you better hurry towards the city. Even if ridiculously big, that monster is also fast, so you don't want that creature to set its sight on you." the Guards Captain explained.
"Oh! I see! We were about to set up a small camp to eat something before getting in the city...We have no money…" Nejire answered.
"Uh? Why?"
"We got robbed." Izuku answered immediately.
"You are lucky they only took the money and left your girl alone. If you need a place to stay, look for Spring Flower Inn, the owner is a very generous man, bring him something of value or offer to work for him in the kitchen and he will let you use one of the rooms he gives to peregrines. It won't be luxurious, but better than sleeping outside." the same soldier answered.
"Ah! Thank you, sir!" both teens answered with a bow.
"Enough chit-chat! That monster needs to be captured! For the Honor of our Emperor!" the monk shrieked in annoyance while marching forward without even a small nod of farewell.
"Please forgive him, an important figure he may be, but manners are not his forte. Travel safety and don't stray from the path. And welcome to Starlight City!" The Captain apologized for the monk before pushing his men forward to chase the crazed mummy in the direction of the mysterious giant monster.
"…" Both Izuku and Nejire watched in silence until the strange group disappeared deeper into the forest.
"Well...That happened." Izuku said with a sigh.
"This world sure is full of strange people." Nejire admitted.
"That it is. Let's go set-up the camp, I will take care of collecting wood."
"Okay! Then I will prepare everything else!" Nejire answered.
"Perfect, I will leave Whitey with you, just in case." the young Chef answered.
"You sure?"
"I can defend myself no problem, just as I know you are not weak. Whitey is just to appease my paranoia, I won't let a friend of mine get hurt if I can help it."
"Just go, Knight in shining armor! I'll be safe!" Nejire answered, smirking, and yet pleased to see him worry about her, even if there was no need at all.
Having separated from both the girl and robot, Izuku walked a bit through the unnaturally-silent forest to collect enough wood to start a fire to cook their food, the canopy closing just a bit more than the part above the path so as to cast darker shadows here and there.
"So silent. I guess that giant creature scared most of the animals into hiding or even fleeing, not that I blame them, predators as big as that thing do have that effect," he muttered, unaware that there was a pair of lively eyes following his every movement.
"…" As Izuku continued to gather wood for his camp, he could not shake the feeling of eyes on his back, however, every time he turned to see what was causing him to feel this way all he was met with was the silent forest behind him.
Shrugging it off, he finished picking up the final pieces he needed to start the fire and decided to head back.
"Kyuuh…" On his way back he felt them again, this time accompanied by a soft cry, and decided he would force the owner of those eyes to get closer while gathering a few small rocks as well.
Suddenly he heard a branch get shaken, quickly pivoting on his foot he used his middle finger to flick a few of the small pebbles in the direction of the noise.
"...Should have got it." he muttered, feeling confident that he got what he thought was following him.
Crack! Then suddenly he heard a twig snap from his opposite direction, making him once again turn around and shoot pebbles towards the source of the noise to try to force the culprit out.
Crack! Again, something cracked from behind the Chef! Whatever it was, it was very fast and stealthy, even too much compared to the other creatures he had met up until that moment in that world.
"Whatever it is, it has similar stealth abilities of the Licorice Viper from the Gourmet World. It can erase its presence completely! This is not good…" Out of stones he quickly turned again to brace himself for an attack, mid-turn however he already felt the unexpected weight on his side and fell onto the ground.
"Damn it!" Quickly shoving off his attacker, he stood up getting ready for a fight, only to then stop mid-stance when he looked down at a creature resembling a small white fluffy fox looking up at him with big ice-blue eyes.
"And who you may be?" Izuku asked, both cautious and entranced by the sheer cuteness of the thing.
"Kyuuuh…" the tiny thing answered with pinned down ears and a long whine.
"The creature the Host is now looking at is a Taotie. This specimen is currently in Rest Mode after going through his last molting, it has now reached maturity. If the Host wants, now it will be the perfect time to capture it and add it as an Ingredient to his Restaurant. The creature's state of starvation from the mentally and physically exhausting molting will make it an easy target." the System said.
"Ingredient? No! If ever, I would prefer keeping him as a Pet if he wants! The poor dear is already starving and probably scared from whatever monstrosity destroyed this part of the woods, he doesn't deserve to die like that!...And he is just too cute and fluffy, I can't kill it if he looks at me like that!" Izuku answered.
"Is the Host aware that a Taotie eats just as much as he does when in Rest Mode?" the System asked.
"Is it a problem?" Izuku asked back.
"Not really. Jewel Meat will be a perfect food for the Taotie, and once captured, the Thunder Phoenix, that Ingredient too will be perfect to raise this Creature as the Host's beloved Pet and Companion." the Entity answered.
"Good to know!...Now I just need to see if he actually is interested in joining me." the young Chef replied with a wide smile.
Taking in the Taotie's features, Izuku began to notice many more details compared to when he first glanced at the small animal that now kept studying his every move in great interest.
"Hey there, little one! I am not your enemy, you know?" the Chef muttered with a low and gentle tone; the first thing he noticed was the animal's size, the closest thing that could come to mind would be a house cat at best.
Crouching down, he slowly lifted his hand towards the Taotie's face to show he meant no harm, and after a moment of cautious sniffing, the animal tilted its head down, allowing Izuku to rub the top of its head.
"Okay, wow this is damn fluffy!" Izuku thought in wonder, the Taotie's fur almost felt like he was touching a small cloud! The animal's fur was most fluffy and longer on the head, chest, back and tail while the rest of the body was covered by shorter and incredibly smooth fur.
Looking closer, the young Chef spotted few small cloud-like markings on both sides of the Taotie's torso fur, as if the animal really used to be part of an actual cloud.
The last feature he took notice of were the eyes, now that we moved closer he could feel a peculiar warmth akin to trust mimicking his own, a feeling that made both Chef and Taotie feel more relaxed with each other, but as Izuku looked closer, he also felt a bone-chilling coldness to them that held a never ending-hunger buried deep inside.
"Aaah! This won't do! You are hungry, don't you?" he asked.
"Kyuuuh…" the small Taotie answered with a low whine.
"I see. What about a small snack then?" Izuku said with a smirk, and chuckling at the lively way the small thing jumped up and down in excitement.
"Here, here. All for you!" luckily the System seemed to understand his needs and permitted him to summon a huge chunk of meat from his storage.
"KYUUUUH!" The Taotie's eyes shone so bright at the sight of the one hundred or so kilograms of meat that for an instant Izuku thought a laser would have actually shot-out from the animal's orbs.
Rip! Rip! Crunch!
It took maybe three minutes to the small thing to devour the entire boulder of meat Izuku summoned, no matter the tiny bites the Taotie was taking with its small mouth, and yet, what would be a shocking spectacle for anybody else, for a Chef that did spend most of his life in the Gourmet World, watching such a tiny being eat so much and so ravenously was just the norm.
"So? Can I consider us Partners?" Izuku asked.
"...Kyuh…" To Izuku's surprise, the small animal actually took a very clear thinking pose while closing its eyes.
"Okay, this tiny thing is hella smart then." the young Chef thought in wonder.
"Kyuuh!" Having reached a decision, the small Taotie jumped on Izuku's shoulders and wrapped itself around his neck until it bit down on its own tail, and actually fell briefly asleep with a soft, adorable snoring.
"I'll take that as a yes then, thank you! I think I will call you Shiro, do you like it?" Izuku asked.
"...Kyuh!" again thinking a bit about it, the small Taotie went into silent contemplation before giving a nod and a small lick to the Chef's cheek.
"Awesome! Let's go!" he said with a wide smile while walking back towards the camp.
"Who would have thought that this Lord would have found a new Partner so soon after being reborn! A Traveler from another world and a God of Cooking Candidate to boot! Finally Luck smiles upon my egregious persona as well!" the small Taotie thought while snuggling closer to his new Partner.
The walk back to the small camp was rather uneventful after that, and besides Nejire's LOUD squeals of joy once she saw their new companion, nothing much happened while the rest of the morning went on without incidents as they walked towards Starlight City.
It was towards the sunset that the girl actually found a small lake to take a bath in, since while the System was helpful enough to keep both her school uniform and her Hero Costume clean (and Nejire still did not understand how the Entity could summon both set of clothes at will from her closet back in UA), a bath was still a bath! And better yet: Izuku didn't even try to spy on her!
...And yet she also found the thing a bit of a letdown...
"Aaah! All clean! I feel at peace with the world!...And a bit peckish still...I blame Icchan's Training." Nejire said with a happy sigh, having decided to wear her Hero Costume just in case they met other soldiers.
"Kyuuh!" The small pet that had joined them welcomed her with a soft whine.
"Are you hungry, little Shiro?" she asked, cooing.
"Kyuuh!" the thing answered with his ears lowered.
"Then let's go find Icchan, so he will give us some food for dinner, okay?" Nejire offered, and with a giggle she watched the pet turn starry eyed and dash away.
"Oh! You know where he is? Let's go!" Nejire said, floating behind the small thing to find the young Chef…
And walk on HIM bathing...Without a shred of clothing on…
"OH GOD! I AM THE PERVERT! THE SCENE IS HAPPENING IN REVERSE!" the poor girl mentally shrieked in horror, and with wide eyes and a crimson face she grabbed lil' Shiro and hurried away before Izuku could notice she had unwillingly memorized every detail of every inch of his body as the light of the setting sun shone on certain body parts in a very glorious way.
When Izuku, dressed again in his Chef attire, returned to their small camp, he found a jittery Nejire looking straight at the fire she made with unblinking eyes and a face so red to look ready to burst to flames.
"You okay?" he asked.
"YES!" she yelled, still refusing to look at him.
"Okay...I take from the fire that you and Shiro-kun are a bit hungry?" Izuku asked.
"Y-Yes?"
"Oh! No problem, we will have an early dinner then. Are you okay with it?"
"O-Of course! What's on the menu?" Nejire asked, finally looking at him with a shaky smile.
"I luckily brought along a lot of food just in case I took too long to find the city. So we will have sausages! What do you think? Do you prefer them big or small? I even have a truly huge one if you are very hungry!" the young Chef answered with an innocent smile while summoning the Ingredients from the System's storage.
"KYAAAAAAH!" the poor girl answered with a loud shriek, she then ran away and hid inside the tent.
"...Something I said?" Izuku asked with a confused tone.
"Kyuuuh." Shiro answered.
Sigh! "Even after living an entire separate life, women are still a mystery to me." the Chef admitted with a defeated sigh.
"Nejire-chan? You did not answer, do you want my sausage or not?"
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"...Women," he muttered.
Starlight City – Main Entrance Gate – Few hours later -
The place was bustling in activity even under the pale light of the full moons above it, with a huge flow of people coming and going from the main gate under the watchful eyes of the guards on the walls and at the immense doors proper, the entire ity had a very elaborate and ancient-looking style, that day the two Travelers could see lanterns and banners everywhere advertising some sort of Tournament that will soon take place somewhere in that giant city.
Silently followed by Whitey, both Izuku and Nejire navigated their way forward towards the centre of the city, marveling at the sights and the smells of the numerous food stalls everywhere, or at the people in flowing robes flying freely in the air while riding flying swords, gourds, lances or strange creatures.
CRASH!
Nejire shrieked at seeing a guy fly out of a window of a nearby Restaurant to tumble on the floor like a ball.
"You are courting death! I am the Young Master of the Yang Clan! That seat was mine by right!" the chubby young man that threw the guy out declared with a haughty tone.
"You fool! If there is somebody courting death, that is you! I am the Young Master of the Xiaolong Clan! That seat is mine!" the guy that had just been defenestrated bellowed in answer before launching himself back inside to start a wild brawl between the two and their servants and personal guards.
"I'll cripple you!"
"NO! I will cripple you!"
"Kowtow to me and beg for mercy before I smash your legs!"
"I will smash your sister, you asshole!"
"You smashing my sister? I will smash your mother, you piece of shit!"
"...Let's just go." Izuku said with a groan.
"Yeah, we better." Nejire, unnerved to the extreme by the dialogue between the two morons, quietly followed behind the Chef towards what looked like an Inn of sorts.
"That must be the place the guard talked about." he said, pointing at the humble building adorned by tall cherry trees.
"Please! In memory of our old friendship!" there they saw an old man arguing with the In Owner while carrying an heavily-breathing young woman on his back-
"I am not forgetting that, but with the Festival his majesty the Emperor is organizing, I can't possibly let you use one of our rooms for free," the Inn owner answered with an apologetic tone.
"Please, my friend! Even just a small one! My granddaughter needs a proper bed to rest in if I want to heal her!"
"I-I can't! Please understand!"
"Um, excuse me?" It was then that Izuku jumped into the conversation.
"Yes?" the owner asked.
"Good evening. I am a wandering Chef and this is-"
"I am his woman." Nejire said, face turning into a cute shade of red at using the same excuse again.
"M-My woman. I was wondering if I could exchange some Ingredients with you as a way to pay for a room." Izuku, face equally red, asked.
"...Depends on the Ingredients." the Owner answered with narrowed eyes.
"Oh! I-I got some! I can show you!" he answered.
"Very well, come with me to the kitchen, my Inn Chef will judge if what you bring will be worth enough for a room. But if it isn't, don't expect me to not kick you out without mercy. Even the rooms I have for the peregrines are full today."
"Of course, Sir." the young Chef answered.
"Good, let's go."
"Young man!" the old man said, grabbing Izuku's shoulder.
"Release the Host." and Whitey immediately grabbed the man's hand in a crushing hold.
"UH?!" the old man uttered in surprise as he failed to break free of the robot's hold, and turned even more shocked when he failed to grasp Whitey's true power, or even Shiro's that was already glaring at him hard enough to almost freeze the guy's blood solid.
"Whitey let him go." Izuku asked, and luckily the robot complied.
"What do you need, Sir?" he asked.
"P-Please! If you actually manage to get a room, let us share it with you two! This old man will pay you back! On my honour! But my granddaughter needs medicines and a warm bed...Please…" he begged.
"Oh! Of course! No problem!" Izuku answered, especially once seen Nejire's own begging look.
"AH! Thank you, my boy! Thank you!" The old man looked ready to burst into tears of gratitude as he watched Izuku and Nejire walk towards the kitchens following the Inn owner.
Several Minutes later – Inn Room -
The room was small and cozy, with several small beds on one side, a small table in the middle and a small fireplace on the floor at the opposite side of the room; it was clearly a very cheap room, but the four people using it now did not really care about that.
"Finally! I can finally help my granddaughter!" the old man said in elation.
"Do you need some help?" Izuku asked.
"No need, my boy! I know what to do...But I still don't know the names of my benefactors!"
"Izuku, my name is Izuku Midoriya."
"And I am Nejire Hado!" the girl said.
"Young Izuku, Young Nejire, you have my gratitude, now please, forgive me but I will need to focus on treating my beloved granddaughter."
"Here, let me help you."
After helping the sick young woman lie on one of the beds, both Chef and Hero student watched in silence as pills and other strange concoctions were poured down her throat as the old man worked tirelessly to try and help her.
"What happened to her?" Nejire asked once every medicine went used and the old man stopped working to take a breath,
"She is...She is just a victim of a fool's quest for power." he answered with a shaken sigh.
"Quest for power?" Izuku asked, confused.
"..."
The old man looked at the pale, shivering young girl sleeping on the bed with a scrunched expression and gave a sigh, when he looked back at them again, both Chef and Hero Student saw him become even more frail and defenseless.
"My name is Sun Mu-Cheng, and I have two sons…Or used to have two sons." he started saying.
"Twins. Lao Mu-Cheng and Zao Mu-Cheng. When they were born my happiness knew no bounds, two strong heirs! I said, and they were truly two young boys blessed by the Heavens! When other kids crawled, they ran! When other sons and daughters said their first words, my Twins declared small poems! Strong and Smart, there seemed to be no end to their potential…" Old man Sun said.
"Then what happened?" Izuku asked.
"They took separated Paths to greatness: Lao followed the path of the Scholars, he was bright (frighteningly so) and knew that a lone stone cannot change the course of a river, so he forged alliances, connected with Lords and Servants of the great families and formed bonds of Friendship and Peace. He wanted not just his hand to rule, but a chain of hands to shape the world."
"Zao was not like him?" Nejire asked.
"Zao was more direct, he believed that a mighty Leader could guide the pack without help, so he started to seek greatness through his own personal might. He mastered the way of the sword and of the lance and even his fists became strong enough to crack mountains. He believed that he needed not Allies to achieve his goal, only overwhelming power to squash his enemies." Sun answered, sighing in dismay.
"I am starting to understand where this story is going…" Izuku admitted with a grimace.
"Oh! I too believed so, I too had started to fear a fight between them once their ideals clashed." the old man replied, his chuckle was completely devoid of mirth, but a mockery of a human's laugh.
"But?" Nejire asked.
"That fight never happened because as it turned out, Lao was the menace, not Zao…"
"Uh?!" both Dimensional Travelers uttered as one.
"The vilest poisons in Zao's tea caused the mightiest warrior in this City's millennial history to die with a pathetic whimper. Lao himself admitted it before banishing me and little Su from the family." Sun explained with tears once again forming in his eyes.
"But...Why?!"
"Because while Zao was like a mighty Dragon boldly opening its wings and maw to challenge whoever crossed his path, Lao was a poisonous snake. He managed to hide his venom behind a colorful and meek personality while manipulating everybody from the shadows and sinking his teeth in the neck of whoever stood in his way...And even I, his father, was so foolish to fall for his tricks. Now my own brother is Championing Lao and his daughter Chacha as the greatest geniuses of the Mu-Cheng Clan." the old man answered, and after that a pained bestial howl tore its way from his throat as he fell on his knees to cry his eyes out.
"That is why Miss Su is reduced like that?" Izuku asked.
"Yes! That accursed son of mine dared to poison his own niece! The last remnant of his brother! The nectar of the Dantian-withering Flower now flows in her veins destroying not only her once-mighty power, but her future as well! A cripple that will soon turn sterile as well! And even if I love her with all myself, I can't even muster the strength of putting an end to her misery with my own hands! This old fool has failed so much even the Gods refuse to strike him down!" Sun yelled in despair.
"Can't you challenge your son for this? Show he was the culprit?" Nejire asked.
"How?! My brother is at a level of Cultivation way beyond mine, and even should I manage the impossible and defeat him, every other Elder is already proudly standing behind Lao...The Emperor's son himself is secretly helping along, supplying Lao and Chacha with Elixirs and Heavenly Treasures to increase their power even more. If I challenge them, my life will be snuffled in an instant by a single Assassin at the orders of the Prince. I can't leave Su Mu-Cheng alone in this world as a cripple, I prefer to swallow the bitter remains of my pride and bear the weight of a total humiliation." the old man replied.
"So there is no way?" Izuku asked.
"Eh….Hehehehe!" The laugh the Chef got in answer made his skin crawl, it was filled to the brim in such foul bitterness it sounded coming from an angry ghost.
"Oh, yes there is! Remember that Tournament I talked to you about? The one that has as a prize the Storm Phoenix you are looking for? The Emperor himself is sponsoring it, just as I mentioned. And Chacha Mu-Cheng is taking part as a representative of the Mu-Cheng Clan! For me and my son Zao and my granddaughter Su to finally get Justice we would need to openly Challenge Chacha during the finals and defeat her! Too bad I can't do that due to my own crippled Cultivation! Only Su herself could have done that...But of course Lao must have planned for this as well since now she too is forever crippled! Hahahahaha! There is truly no justice under the Heavens! The Righteous will always fall in ruin at the hands of the Devils! Ahahahahaha!" it looked like Sun had finally reached the breaking point as laughter and crying mixed chaotically on his face.
"Can't you do anything, Izuku?" Nejire whispered.
"Maybe? I don't know if my Healing Cuisine can actually fix that." he answered.
"Is Healing cuisine the thing you do to heal people with food?" she asked, confused.
"Exactly that, I basically use the innate Life Energy of the Ingredients to heal people. It's a bit more complex than that, but that is basically what happens when I use it."
"Ok, and that can help her?"
"I...I don't know…"
"Can you ask your Sponsor?" Nejire asked.
"I-"
"Indeed Healing Cuisine can heal the woman known as Su Mu-Cheng. But the Host will need to be extra careful during preparation or he will actually speed-up the Customer's sickness and cause her death. On the grounds of this…"
Abrupt Mission: Heal Su Mu-Cheng from her Dantian-withering Flower Poisoning and save her life and Cultivation.
Reward: 10% bonus on Experience Points and Unlocking of the Mors Oil Ingredient.
Punishment for failure: Host will lose 90% of the accumulated experience points he has, will lose Washing Machine privileges for two months and Su Mu-Cheng will die.
"I can actually do this." Izuku declared.
"Good!"
"But if I fail I will make things worse and kill her."
"Ah…" Nejire muttered, paling considerably.
"Uh?" Sun finally noticed their muttering and looked at them in puzzlement.
"Sorry, I was spacing-out a bit. I was wondering if I could actually cook something for you, Mister Sun, you look like you have not eaten in days."
"Oh, Yes, you are a wandering Chef...To be fair I was worried about stabilizing little Su's conditions enough to have her at least survive the poisoning, and now I have burned through the few crystals I had on me so food was a luxury I could not give myself or her...Even staying here is merely a favour the owner is doing me because he owed me one...I...I could use something warm to eat, honestly. But I must ask it to be something even Little Su can eat, she herself has been starving, and even if those do fill the stomach, medicines and elixirs can hardly be considered food." the old man answered with a sigh.
"No worries, I will prepare a stew, so between broth and tender meat you both will be able to fill your stomach." Izuku answered.
"Are you aware though that this poor old man won't be able to pay you?" Sun admitted with his voice filled in shame.
"I am treating you, not selling." he answered with a gentle smile.
"Thank you, please forgive an old man that has forgotten good people do exist out there…" he answered, tentatively returning the smile, albeit weakly.
"It's okay." Izuku answered, and used his connection to the System's storage powers to retrieve a big pot and the Ingredients he needed.
"That shell! Is that the meat of a Warrior Bison?" Sun asked with his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
"Yes? Icchan and I caught several of them, is it wrong?" Nejire asked.
"Nothing wrong with that, it's just a surprise to see somebody so young go against such a high level beast. And even more so for us to actually eat that for free, Warrior Bison meat is a delicacy, didn't you know?"
"I recognize its high quality as a very good Ingredient, that is what I need now to help you two." Izuku answered while summoning the Sea Dragon Kitchen Knife from the tattoo on his wrist.
That was when he saw old man Sun turn extremely pale and look at the knife with wide bulged-out eyes, the sharp intake of air he took almost made the Chef jump out of his skin.
"T-T-That knife! T-The Qi it exudes! What is it made of?!" he demanded while trying to grab it…
And as soon as his hand grabbed Izuku's around the handle, everything around the old man disappeared, and he found himself in an endless white expanse while holding in his hand the very tip of the giant claw of the Sea Dragon herself, a being large enough to dwarf mountains and with each claw so vast a single swipe of one could easily demolish an entire city...And the thing was now locking eyes with the old man in furious contempt.
"Who are you to try to steal the knife of my Master? A knife made with one of my own mighty fangs?!" the Dragon demanded with a booming female voice louder than every storm or rumbling seas combined.
"B-B-B-Beyond even a Crystal Soul Sovereign Core Cultivator! An Existence that has ascended to real Godhood! A-A-A Divine Treasure! A DIVINE TREASURE KITCHEN KNIFE!" Sun Mu-Cheng shrieked in hysteric fear as the Dragon possessed such an immense power even the Legendary peak Existences of his world looked as pathetic as a firefly compared to the sun itself! That was her own Presence!
Mighty! Invincible! Divine!
Once everything returned to normal and the Dragon expelled the old man from her Inner Space back into the real world, his hand immediately let go of the knife and he backed-off while looking at Izuku in shock and awe.
"Please don't touch it, a kitchen knife is a Chef's Soul and Life. If you really want a closer look, just ask." Izuku warned him.
"T-That knife has been made with a Divine Beast fang?! A Divine Treasure in the shape of a kitchen knife! That is beyond preposterous! Beyond blasphemy! It's insanity in its purest form!" Sun declared while panting heavily and actually looking like he had gotten several years older still.
"Is it bad news?" Nejire asked.
"It just means that my equipment is very good, he is overreacting." Izuku answered, shrugging.
"May I?" Sun begged with a small voice.
"...Here." After studying the man's face with narrowed eyes for a couple seconds, the young Chef slowly handed the kitchen knife to him and watched as the old man studied it in every detail in reverence.
"This knife. Such beautiful craftsmanship…" Sun muttered as he studied each and every scale that had been engraved on the knife handle with impossible precision, enough to make them look and feel almost alive.
Then he studied the smooth blade: long and thin and yet sharp enough the old man believed it could cut even Gods and Destiny itself, and finally he marveled at how light yet unbreakable the thing felt in his hands.
"I have never seen such a masterpiece, whoever created this must be a legendary being that has mastered the art of forging like nobody else before." Sun declared, voice full of awe, as he returned the knife to Izuku.
"Sort of," the young Chef admitted.
The System had long disclosed to Izuku the nature of the God of Cooking Kitchen Set he will unlock as he advanced in his training, so he was no longer surprised to know that his Equipment is and will be composed of things made from Divine Creatures, especially since it kind of made sense since he was supposed to Ascend to Godhood himself sometime in the far future.
"Indeed that knife was made by a supreme master...Only such a supreme lord of the forge can create a Divine Treasure so 'pure' the beast's soul is fully preserved inside of it, to the point the Treasure itself is sentient! W-W-Who are you, young Sir?" Sun asked, still with a trembling voice.
"Young Sir?" both Izuku and Nejire parroted at the same time.
"I told you, I am just a wandering Chef! I am just traveling to increase my skills," Izuku answered, unnerved by the man's unblinking eyes.
"So young but already so strong he can hunt a pack of Warrior Bison by himself and treat them as mere Ingredients one can just pluck at their leisure...Possessing a knife that is in truth a sentient Divine Treasure beyond even the treasures rumored to be in the Emperor's own treasury, a Treasure so rare only a handful of similar Level creations exist in the entire mortal realm, and accompanied by a mysterious Pet and a Puppet even somebody of my own Cultivation cannot tell the strength of.
For a mere Chef to be like this...What Sect does he come from? What Clan can be so prosperous and powerful even their Servants are so outlandish? I never heard of a Midoriya Clan, but whoever he works for, they must certainly hold him in high regard to demand his kitchen knife to be a Divine Treasure , this goes even beyond being extravagant!...Unless...Can it be? Can it be that he actually is a Young Master of a powerful Clan from a far-away land that decided to walk the path of a Chef? It would explain why he has such strength and resources, no matter how strange it sounds.
It may be best to try to ingratiate him, the backing of such a mysterious force could be what I need to make sure Little Su will be safe should the worst happen…" thinking that, Sun also took a glance at Nejire, and his expression turned a bit sour.
"He already has a beautiful and young mistress following him everywhere, obviously to still take care of his 'needs' without the risks of unwanted Bastards popping-up at a later date from a random brothel...It may mean it could be necessary for Little Su to take a similar Duty to make sure she will be safe under the protection of his Clan, but even if I hate it, it may be the only chance to assure her safety..."
"Are you okay? You are strangely silent, Sun-san." Nejire asked with an innocent smile.
"Nothing, dear. It's nothing.'' The old man forcefully banished the idea of his beloved granddaughter being probably forced to help the girl to sate the urges of the young Chef in front of him to gain some safety and gave her a small smile to go along with his answer.
"Then I will start immediately, luckily the small fireplace in this room is not just nice to look at, but barely big enough for my pots to fit in there." Izuku answered in relief, he too had found the man's silence unnerving, and he immediately summoned more Ingredients and started to work diligently after sitting on the floor close to the fire.
"At least he is a good young man. It could have been worse, he could have been one of those arrogant Young Masters thinking with their crotch, he may actually treat Little Su nicely. Miss Nejire seems happy to be with him." he thought, sighing.
"Warrior Bison, Jewel Meat, Scorpio-dile tail meat, bones of those Fire Vultures…System? Can I have some Thunder Potatoes from the Gourmet World? Those and Bone Carrots." Izuku muttered.
"Analysis. The Host can purchase the unlocking of those two minor Ingredients for a small fee thanks to his proximity to reaching Level 3. The Unlocking of both Ingredients will be 500 experience points each. Initiate Purchase?" the System answered.
"Urk!...O-Okay. I accept it." Izuku answered with a pained expression.
"Very well, the Host is now able to utilize both Gourmet World Ingredients freely. Congratulations."
"Hurray…" the young Chef muttered with a sigh.
When the young Chef started working, old man Sun simply watched him out of boredom, compared to Nejire instead looking at him with an excited expression, something the old Cultivator could not quite understand as Izuku was just going through the motions of washing the Ingredients in a small water basin.
"Kyuuun!" Crunch! Crunch! "Kyuun!" In the meantime, the strange fluffy white pet rested near the Chef's leg and somehow biting through and eating the discarded carapace of the Warrior Bison the Chef threw at it with no apparent effort, a shell that would normally have even cannonballs and hits by medium-stage Cultivators harmlessly bounce off.
"Izu! Izu!" Finally Nejire asked.
"Yes?"
"Will you do that knife trick again?"
"Huhuhu! Of course! It always happens when I go fast," he answered, chuckling.
"Yay!"
"What is she talking ab-" for the second time that day, Old Sun's eyes threatened to plop out of his sockets as he watched A GODDAMN CHEF! Moving his knife so fast the blade managed to split into tens of spectral copies of itself as he started cutting the huge slab of bison meat into perfect cubes barely an inch big, all exactly the same size and shape and with no effort whatsoever. And then doing the same with the other cuts of meat as well.
"THAT IS THE SACRED HUNDRED GHOST BLADES TECHNIQUE OF THE ANCIENT SWORD PAVILION! HOW?!" Old Sun shrieked with a high-pitch voice.
"The what from the what Pavilion?" Nejire asked, curious.
"Sounds important, even if the name is a bit edgy." Izuku answered, and he was still cutting Ingredients with the same astounding speed generating solid after-images of his knife.
"The most guarded secret of the Sacred Sword Pavilion only the personal Students of the Pavilion Great Master are permitted to learn...Used for cooking...And he is pulling it off constantly with no effort. The last one able to use it for so long and so proficiently was the Sword Pavilion's Founder himself: Holy Sword Saint Ran-Mao...Who are you people?" Old Sun asked with a weak voice.
"Believe it or not, even if I explain it you wouldn't understand, or even believe me." Izuku admitted, sighing and barely fighting-off the headache this entire trip had tried giving him ever since he and Nejire arrived.
"I...That food...I-It has Qi inside still...What are you doing? How are you doing it?" the old man asked.
"Uhn? The knife makes it a bit easier, but I basically use my own power to seal Life Energy inside the Ingredients long enough for that to fuse with them and the resulting Dish. I am just slowing down the rate of dissipation until Life is infused into the Ingredients permanently. That's the gist." Izuku answered.
"What you call Life, I call Qi. And what you do is on par with the work of Alchemists when they prepare Elixirs. That is what you are doing isn't it?" Old Sun turned somber and actually sat next to Izuku on the floor to better watch him work.
"You are very observant," the young Chef said while stir-frying various herbs until fragrant.
"Because Elixir-Making is my own specialty, and I can recognize a fellow Master when I see them. That potato you are using has an exceptional affinity to Lightning Qi. Very similar to the rare Lightning Mint that grows in our mountains." he said, voice now calm and low, to not distract the Chef.
"Very nutritious too, and the small electric shocks it gives when cooked in a certain way will help her weakened heart to keep beating. This is a Bone Carrot instead." Izuku answered, and handed him a pure-white carrot literally made of bone.
"Fascinating," Tock! Tock! "Hard as a bone, but the scent is of a common carrot, very sweet." Sun said while studying the thing.
"It will heal Miss Su's bones, making them return healthy and strong. That poison is corroding even her bone marrow, this will help cleanse it." the young Chef answered, showing how those carrots had been easily cut and were now turning incredibly soft once cooked.
"It's Icchan's secret skill, Healing Cooking! He can Heal everybody with his food." Nejire added, making him blush at the praise.
"I would normally scoff at such a notion, but the Qi flowing in that pot is nothing short of a Miracle. Poison Qi, Lightning Qi, Earth Qi, Water Qi, Fire Qi, Wind Qi….There are pills that can boost one's healing by mixing two or three different kinds of Qi together, but you are managing to mix triple that amount while keeping them all in harmony and make them work together. And with a common pot, not a Pill Furnace, that too is a great show of skill. But why use Poison Qi? I imagine it is to fight Poison with Poison, but the wrong choice or ratio will actually make things worse." Sun asked.
"Scorpio-dile Poison induces heart attacks and organ failure by forcefully accelerating the heartbeat and blood flow of the victim. I plan to turn that into a heart medicine, especially to stop the poison inside Su's body from forming clots by keeping her blood flowing."
"I see, that is why you added Warrior Bison meat, they normally feed on poisonous animals and herbs, they are naturally immune to similar toxins," Old man Sun hummed, looking pensive.
"Ehm...I am not following?" Nejire admitted sheepishly.
"Just guessing the inner workings of the recipe, my dear…"
"Yes?" Izuku asked.
"There is a bug that it's said to actually feed on that accursed flower's pollen...If I manage to capture a few, would it be possible to use them?"
"Eeeew!"
"Hahaha! You would be surprised to know that many bugs actually taste very similar to chicken!" Izuku answered, laughing at poor Nejire's horrified expression.
"I will need to check them first, but yes, if I grind them and rapidly desiccate them, I can add them to the stock." he answered.
"Good! They may be rare, but for little Su this old man is ready to turn even the underworld upside-down! You focus on your Healing Dish, Sir Izuku. I will be back soon!" old Man Sun declared, and left the room in an awe-inspiring burst of speed.
"...He is a very strange guy, but you can't deny he loves his niece." Izuku admitted once sure the man had left.
"Can you really save her, Izu?" Nejire asked.
"I can only trust the Ingredients' will. They are sure we both can heal her if we work together, and I want to trust them." he answered, smiling a little.
"Must be nice hearing their voices." Nejire said with a sad smile.
"Very…Thank you…"
"For what?"
"For not stopping me. For letting me continue this Mission. For not demandingI just throw it away, or even just abandoning me, even if you had every right to do it." he muttered with a low voice and a sigh.
He was surprised to feel the weight of her head on his shoulder and the warmth of her arm circling his shoulders in a tight embrace.
"I can see the passion you put in this, the pure strength behind every step you take or every swing of that knife. You mumble and blush and stutter, you are shy and unsure of yourself…But then you grab the knife and become another person, because that is who you want to be: a Chef. And a chef can't be scared of his Ingredients, or afraid of making a bad dish." Nejire said, sighing.
"…"
"A Hero I think is the same. We can be scared, worried, we can doubt ourselves and our reasons, but then we wear our costumes and start smiling, even just so that others will smile as well." Nejire said.
"...Nejire…"
"You promised you will tell Momo and your Parents the full story of what you do, of all this, and I promise you that I will help you talk them into not stopping you, but you must promise me you will be careful. Always, every time." she answered.
"I will, promise." he answered.
"Swear it." she answered while showing him her pinkie finger.
"I swear." he answered, intertwining his pinkie with hers.
"Good!"
"Thank you, Nejire. Thank you." the young Chef admitted, and surprised her with a small kiss on her forehead.
"Myuuuuu!" and in answer the girl's face turned bright red in embarrassment.
"Huhuhu! Sorry, but you asking for a pinkie promise was just too adorable!"
"ICCHAAAAAAN!" the young woman answered with a long whine of shame, and punched his shoulder over and over with zero strength behind each hit, unfortunately making him laugh louder.
"Sorry, sorry." he said, smirking.
"Baka...Baka Izu…" Nejire muttered with a soft whisper, and leaning her head again on his shoulder with a pout while watching him tirelessly stirring the stew.
In the silence that followed her blush slowly subsided and her eyes drifted close to the notes of the gentle bubbling of the stew and the Chef's soft breathing...His shoulder was very comfy and warm...
One hour later -
"SIR IZUKU! I-"
"Ssssh!" the Chef hissed, and the old man almost managed to bite his tongue clean off in his haste to shut up...Although he soon developed a knowing smile.
"Don't read too much into this! This is not what it looks like!" Izuku hissed with a red face.
In the hour the Old Man had took to find his bugs, Nejire not only had fallen asleep leaning on Izuku's shoulder, but had actually slipped down to lie her head on his lap without even awakening, and while the notion in itself did make the Chef's heart almost stop, the mind-numbing flare of pain from the girl headbutting his dick for an instant killed any sort of romantic feeling he may have had.
She still looked illegally-cute if you asked him, though.
"Did you find them?" he asked.
"Yes! Fate must be on our side, because I found five of them even! Even just one would have been a gift from the Gods, but five? Almost impossible. My son must be blessing us from the Heavens!" Old Sun said while delivering Izuku a folded handkerchief containing 5 plump beetles each the size of a walnut and with a golden carapace, dead but without a single mark on them.
"Just to be on the safe side, I used my Qi to stop their breathing so as not to damage them," he explained.
"System?" Izuku mentally asked while checking them himself.
"These beetles are a suitable Ingredient. If The Host prepares them properly into powder form, they will help fight-off the effects of the Flower. Congratulations! Even if not personally captured by the Host they will be added as a Spice to the Restaurant's storage." the Entity answered.
"They are perfect and may be what we need to make this work…" Izuku answered, and with his eyes closed he neared the dead bugs to his face until they touched his forehead.
"I give thanks to you for being my Ingredients, please help me save young Miss Su." he muttered, and under old man Sun's disbelieving eyes, those dead bugs briefly gave a shy spark of light.
"They will help. I will start immediately!" Izuku declared in determination, and with a fast swipe of his knife, the outer shell, the legs and the heads of the bugs were removed.
The remaining meat was then cleaned of the blood and the tiny organs removed, then grounded into a paste and put on the fire into a tiny pot where the mixture went stirred nonstop.
"That thing you did, for an instant you formed a connection with the bugs,"
"I can hear the Voice of the Ingredients, and understand their will. I offered them my gratitude following the teachings of Food Honor and Food Etiquette, and in exchange they offered me their help and suggestion of how to better use them for this." Izuku explained.
"The dead bugs talked to you?"
"They are dead as animals, but they are alive as Ingredients. I always offer my thanks to Ingredients when I cook them, because I am grateful for their becoming part of me once eaten, each and every time I eat I thank them from the bottom of my heart." he answered, slowly turning the bugs' meat into a drier and drier mixture as he stirred.
"I think I understand. It does match the beliefs of the Monks of the Beast Kingdom Temple. No Death, only Transformation and Transcendence." Old Sun commented.
"Icchan that sounded kind of silly, but also nice." Nejire yawned while stirring awake.
"Was that a good nap?" Izuku asked, smiling gently and looking at the girl still with her head on his lap.
"...Y-Y-Yeah…" finally noticing she not only had got her head on his lap but also turned around in her sleep to bury her face in his stomach (damn, he had rock-hard abs!), she was officially unsure what to do.
"The stew is almost ready, if you want I can prepare your portion without the bug spice." he answered, smiling gently and not reacting at having her in that position on his lap. Even if her Female Pride did sting a bit about that lack of reaction.
"...Is it good?" she tried asking.
"Do you trust me?"
"Okay."
"Perfect!"
"You mean we can eat that too?" Old Sun asked.
"While officially made to heal Miss Su, the dish has still been prepared with healing properties in mind and to be extremely nutritious as well. You may not have poison in you, but every other effect will still be good for your body. I promise." Izuku answered.
"Then I am eager to taste it myself." the Old man answered.
"Good!" he answered, smiling wide.
Once the stew was finally ready, four dishes went rapidly filled, with old man Sun carefully lifting his granddaughter in a sitting position.
"Here, Little Su. Grandpa found a generous young Sir to cook for us," he muttered, looking at the very pale girl with eyes filled with unshod tears.
"Ehm, shouldn't you try it first?" Izuku said.
"Uh?"
"You said you are a master in Elixir Making, yes? You are then the best one to tell if it will work." Izuku said.
"You are right. Please allow me…" the old man said while trying both meat and vegetables and then the broth.
"Host? The System has already analyzed the stew and declared it a 100% success, why asking for this man's opinion?" the Entity asked.
"Me and you know it will work, but he doesn't. It's a way to gain his trust, his desperation should not force him to blindly trust the first guy passing by offering a solution." the young Chef thought in answer.
"Oh my! The taste is sublime! Even beyond the chefs at the Phoenix Palace Restaurant! I dare say...UH?!" Old Man Sun's praise stopped abruptly when he felt every cell in his body shake in unrestrained energy.
"T-This fluctuation! Can it be?!" The surge of power he felt radiating from his chest was immense, soon making a faint golden aura cover his entire being.
Moving from a formal sitting position on his knees to a cross-legged meditation pose, the old man circled that storm of energy through every corner of his body, through every pathway of his Qi.
"...What is he doing now?" Nejire asked.
"This man is doing what in this world is called Cultivation. It can be summarized as him circling his Life Energy through his body to strengthen it and purifying each and every cell so to bring his body, soul and mind to a higher state of being and gain greater strength and power." the System answered, and for the first time, it was not only Izuku to hear the Entity's voice.
"Was that…" Nejire asked, amazed.
"My Sponsor, yes."
"That voice was really inhuman."
"I got used to it." the Chef answered, and at the same time the light around old Sun's body turned from gold to pure-white, and when that aura faded away, both teens felt like everything around them, pretty much Reality itself, shuddered slightly, as if stretching to accommodate Sun's own presence in the Universe, before everything returned to normal.
"A Breakthrough...After all these years of stagnation...I achieved a Breakthrough thanks to your stew." Sun muttered while locking eyes with Izuku, and the young Chef could see tears rapidly mount in the old man's eyes.
To the two Travelers' shock, Sun moved into a deep bow, leaning down until his forehead was glued to the floor before letting his tears run free.
"Sun-san!" both yelled at the same time with wide eyes.
"My old wounds, scars and crippling blows no experts could heal, gone. My stagnating Cultivation, uplifted into a Breakthrough, and even my own illness...Everything is fading away thanks to you! You gave to this old fool a second chance without asking anything in exchange! And as I suspect, my granddaughter too will heal thanks to your food, a miracle I thought only the personal Doctors of the Emperor were capable of! Whatever you want in exchange, just ask and Old Sun will give it to you! Everything! Even my own life!" the old man answered with a tone of absolute gratitude, unaware that his features had turned slightly younger as well.
"We'll talk about it later, for now we need to feed the stew to Miss Su, she needs it more than anybody else!" Izuku answered, already bringing the young woman's dish to her mouth.
"OF COURSE! Please, allow me!" Sun answered, snapping out of his amazement to immediately move to help the barely-conscious woman eating her fill.
The next day -
Young Su Mu-Cheng did not know where she was, she only felt a strange lightness encompassing her whole body, a sense of weightlessness and inner peace she found very enjoyable; too bad the glare of the sun shining on her eyes managed to cut through the most peaceful sleep she had in a long time and forcing her to open her eyes so to better send her hateful scowl to the accursed fireball in the sky...
And meet the tear-stained eyes of her beloved grandpa, and as soon as their eyes met, she saw any form of reason abandon the kind old man to allow maddening euphoria to take full control.
"YOU ARE ALIVE! MY LITTLE SU CAME BACK TO ME! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The laugh that echoed in the young woman's ears was full of relief, and unfortunately the hug that followed said laugh was so tight Su feared her bones would be turned to dust.
"W-What is happening!?" she finally asked.
"It's a long story, Miss." The answer came from another person, as her grandfather was too occupied with his weeping at her return to actually talk.
"Where am I? And who are you?" she asked.
"As I said, it's kind of a long story." the young green-haired man answered with a sheepish, and dare she say it, a supremely adorable expression.
Whatever that story was, Su felt like she really REALLY needed to hear about it!
(Tremble in fear in front of the mighty Shiro! 3 )
This is the first part of 2. I don't know how it came this long...Don't get used to it! XD
This Arc will be centered on the " Wuxia/Xianxia" Genre.
The one after this, that will come later, will be Sci-Fi…
Then there will be Western Fantasy.
Then "Fighting World" (Think Street Fighter ).
Then I will mix and match every genre.
Heck, I may even do some small crossover...I don't know!
Extra Chapter – Dimensional Ingredient Hunts! (Happen between chapters) -
Minotaur Spicy Noodles!
Outside a very generic-looking Magic School/Academy -
Under a solitary tree in a slightly isolated corner of the school gardens stood three girls: a young mage with short blue hair, a blond dwarf girl and a pink-haired girl with two giant pom-poms at the side of her head for a hairstyle, and all of them were damn BOOOOOOOOOOOORED!
the pink-haired girl was mindlessly swinging her sword around with half-lidded eyes.
The dwarf girl was asleep against the tree's bark and faintly snoring.
The mage was just reading an ancient-looking book once again.
"I am bored." the warrior said.
"Me too honestly, Rosemary." the mage answered, sighing.
"Mom...Dad...Enough kids...Stop having kids…Read a book...Or something…" their dwarf friend grunted in her sleep with a scrunched nose.
"Same nightmare?" Rosemary asked.
"Same nightmare." the mage answered, shrugging.
"Daaamn...I don't ask for a dragon or some other creature to attack the Academy...But can something cool happen?"
"Our life can't be just excitement,"
"I know, Sage! I just...I just want a small adventure!" she said with a whine.
"No." Sage answered.
"A Tiny one? A Tiny-Tiny one?"
"Define tiny." the Mage asked with narrowed eyes.
"Get up, a small flock of Minotaurs has been spotted getting close to the city's border, we need to see why they are getting this close and report to our professors." The last member of the group, a tall dark-skinned elf with a wild mane of red hair, butted-in once joined the trio.
"That tiny! LET'S GO!" Rosemary yelled with gleaming eyes while running forward.
"...Do I want to know?" the elf girl asked with a sigh.
"You just helped us fight-off boredom, Thyme." Sage answered while pocketing the book, this time without erasing it from existence, and waking-up her sleeping friend.
"Gweh?!" the short blond gurgled once her eyes snapped open.
"New mission, Parsley. We need to do some reconnaissance," Thyme explained.
"Oh, okay! Let's go." the dwarf girl answered.
"Do we need to fight them?" Rosemary asked, excited.
"A Minotaur is not an easy enemy, and a flock as big as three dozen of them even less so. They have a tough skin that makes arrows bounce off, hit fast and hit HARD. We only need to study them from afar and report their movements, then the teachers will dispatch some pro High Guardians to deal with them." Thyme answered.
"Oh! Okay...I guess…" Rosemary answered, sounding a bit put-off.
"We already risked ourlives recently, let's not tempt fate." Parsley asked, sighing.
"Alright, alright. I will slow down…" the warrior girl answered, sighing.
A LONG WALK LATER – Woods -
The city was just beyond a small hill and the trees had just started getting thicker when Thyme stopped the group.
"What is it? What is it?" Rosemary asked immediately.
"Blood...Viscous...Agk! Too stinky to be human. Must be the Minotaurs." the elf answered.
"We are getting close, be careful," Sage muttered, a comment that convinced her friends to pull-out their weapons and lower themselves down on a crouch while moving forward, until the strangest thing happened.
"Is that...A skeleton?" Parsley asked.
"Yes, a Minotaur one," Thyme answered.
"There is another!" Rosemary said once walked just a few steps away from the perfectly clean half-human-half-bovine skeleton they saw propped against a tree...Then another...And another...And another.
"Did some animals eat them?" Sage asked.
"The bones are too clean, and the skeleton has been disassembled instead of bitten to pieces. Animals don't do this." Thyme answered.
"Magic?" Parsley asked.
"Or a very skilled hunter, let's go." Rosemary answered, pushing forward.
And it was not too long after finding even more skeletons that something else happened, an amazing, GODLY scent of cooked meat started filling the air!
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Shockingly it was not only Rosemary's stomach to release such an ungodly roar, but the other girls as well, proved by all of them having their face turning way redder in shame.
"Well, we DID skip lunch to come here…" Parsley tried saying with a weak laugh to try to justify the thing.
"Somebody is cooking? Here? In the middle of the beast's territory?" Thyme muttered, confused.
"Maybe they are trying to attract other beasts. We better tell them to stop before they call on them more attention than what they can handle." Sage suggested.
"We better."
"Do you think they will let us have a bite of the bait though? Smells so good!" Rosemary tried asking.
"ROSE!" Sage hissed, disappointed.
"Sorry, sorry."
What they found once followed the trail of numerous cleaned bones of Minotaurs and other assorted beasts and the amazing scent of cooking food, was a lone young man in green Chef attire surrounded by woks with fire burning lively under them and a chubby white robot mounting guard nearby.
"Found the culprit." Thyme said with narrowed eyes.
"MOOOOOOOO!" to their horror the very last Minotaur still in the area chose that moment to charge the Chef.
"Troublemaker!" the robot yelled with his eyes shining in a blinding red light.
"No need, Whitey." the Chef answered, nonplussed, while still studying the woks.
"MOOOOO!" The beast was soon upon him ready to grab the young man, then the Chef moved.
Tap!
Under the utterly shocked eyes of the girls, the unassuming young man simply side-stepped the Minotaur so fast his body turned blurry and then merely tapped the Monster's left temple with a finger flick of his middle finger, all while still not sparing the Minotaur even just a glance.
"M-M-Moo...Oooo…" the tall Monster could manage another three steps before falling down face-first, unconscious.
"Capture completed. Put it with the female one, Whitey." Izuku ordered, unfazed.
"Understood." the robot replied, and once grabbed the paralyzed Minotaur by the scruff of the neck, a circle of light appeared around the beast to whisk it away into the breeding area of the System storage.
"That was the last one, good. Just in time." Izuku muttered, finally relaxing a little.
"Hey, you shouldn't be here, you know?" Parsley tried saying.
"Just a minute and I am done," he answered.
"You really-" Rosemary tried answering.
"A minute, please. It's finally ready."
"THIS IS NO PLACE FOR-" Sage's answer, that was about to sound annoyingly condescending in tone, died instantly as soon as the Chef actually removed the lids from every wok.
Sweet merciful God, every Dish smelled amazing! It was a meaty, spicy aroma that simply exploded everywhere once freed from the confinement of the woks' lids!
It was Godly!
Amazing!
Otherworldly!
For Fuck's sake, it was Orgasmic! LITERALLY!
"All ready! Minotaur Spicy Noodles, Ground Dragon cutlets, Fried Monster Bird Nuggets, Choo-choo Slime Soup, Sweet-N'-Sour Minotaur ribs and Roasted Bo-Boar sausages! They really are good Ingredients, I knew it!" Izuku said with a pleased smile, and gave a last toss to the noodles proper while humming the reprise of the Scarborough Fair song.
If asked, those four girls will vehemently deny that they got momentarily distracted by the short fly in the air of those gorgeous noodles and their thick meat broth and by the cutie Chef cooking them. Especially by the cutie Chef, that adorable smile of his did absolutely nothing to them.
Nu-uh! Nothing at all!
"Sorry if I ignored you, but the last moments are crucial for making a good Dish, do you want some?" Izuku asked with a beaming smile that DID momentarily blind Thyme.
"FUCK! Too innocent and cute!" the elf mentally hissed in horror while looking away.
"Don't mind if I do!" Rosemary answered immediately while running towards him.
"WAIT!" Sage yelled.
"Relax, relax. I admit the situation is strange, but I have no bad intentions." he answered.
"If you know it's strange, then why are you here?" Parsley asked, shouldering her hammer and looking at the Chef with narrowed eyes.
"I am a wandering Chef. I just finished collecting my new Ingredients and was eager to try them with some Test Dishes, that's all." Izuku answered, shrugging.
"A Wandering Chef?" Thyme asked.
"Yup! Traveling everywhere to seek new tastes, and watching them in the wild is the best way to get the right inspiration for a dish." he answered.
"Minotaurs are not edible," she countered.
"They become so if you blanch their meat and then let it boil for one hour and change the water frequently. Adding a pitch of honey to the water while boiling also helps since it can break-down the meat's fibers faster. Do that and it becomes buttery soft." Izuku answered.
"Oh...This doesn't mean it will taste-"
"OH MY GAWWD!" Thyme's new counterargument went eclipsed by Rosemary's orgasm-in-all-but-name she shamelessly went through once tried the noodles.
"Are they good?" Izuku asked.
"Amazinh! Id's so dam' gud!" the girl replied with her mouth still full while inhaling her portion.
"Glad to hear that! Eat as much as you want then," Izuku answered, smiling wide.
"We don't exactly have our wallets with us," Parsley admitted.
"Who talked about money?" he asked back, confused.
"Free of charge? Why?" Sage asked, suspicious.
"Because you are helping me try new recipes. You are already acting as Test Subjects, asking for money too seems unfair. AND I can tell you have not eaten in a while, as a Chef, an empty stomach is unforgivable." Izuku answered, patting the grass next to the woks.
"Come, I should have made enough for all of you,"
Sigh! "Okay...Just a bite and then we will drag you away. This is no place for Chefs." Sage conceded.
They took a bite, then another, and another, and another until every single wok was empty, and yet Rosemary and Parsley insisted on licking a couple clean, for Sage's shame.
"SO? Were they good Dishes?" Izuku asked.
"…"
"…"
"GRAB HIM!" Rosemary yelled, and all four tried pouncing on the Chef at once.
One hour later – Academy -
"We are very sorry for the attempted assault of our students against you." the middle woman of the trio talking with Izuku said with a sigh.
"They are idiots," the oldest of the three added.
"They are not, they only acted on impulse, and already apologized." the youngest countered.
"It's okay, it was just a bit more extreme as an answer to my cooking." he answered.
"What you prepared as a demonstration was great, yeah. Wanna work here?" the old lady asked, smirking.
"Hehehe! I am honoured, but I can't. I am traveling to broaden my horizons as a Chef and have still a lot to see and experience. Maybe one day," he answered, smiling wide.
"Our Academy's doors will always be open for you, my dear, should you change your mind," the Middle one answered.
"Especially with that smile of yours, got a couple students already planning for a Fan Club." Old One added, her smirk now turning malevolent.
"Wha-"
"Just ignore her." Young One cut him off with a kind of forced smile.
"O-Okay."
"Where will you go now?" Middle One asked.
"South, probably," Izuku answered, getting BAD vibes from the entire situation and so deciding it was better for him to give them the completely wrong direction he was planning to move to.
"Where exactly?" Young One asked.
"South." he answered, smiling cheekily.
"Definitely going home. The fastest, the better." he also thought, unnerved.
There was just something wrong in that world, in its people and how they looked/talked, in its food, in its creatures...EVERYWHERE! Even the lampposts looked out of place! That was why he hurried to find those Minotaurs the System's Mission was about. He didn't want to stay there longer than necessary.
Crash!
It was then that one of the professors, Caraway, entered the Triad's Office in a rush and sealed the door shut while breathing raggedly...He also summoned to himself the various pieces of furniture to further barricade the door after casting a magical barrier around it.
"What is happening?" Old One asked with a sigh of dismay.
"Has our guest spoken with somebody?" Caraway asked in return.
"Uh? Yeah...I-I think I spoke with most of your female students and a couple boys after I was done cooking the Spicy Minotaur Noodles for everybody." Izuku answered.
"Thank you for the recipe, by the way." Old One interrupted.
"Glad you liked it."
"Well...It just so happens that those same students are hunting you down now." Caraway said, and looking unnerved as the barricaded door was already shaking heavily under a clear combined assault of a mob outside.
"UH?! Why?!" the young Chef asked with Whitey immediately sensing his nervousness and switching to Battle Mode to protect him.
"Weeeeell…."
"Out with it, Professor." Middle One said.
"Apparently they appreciate him a bit too much. 'The First non-toxic Real Man I have ever seen that is not a Simp'. To quote one of the students." Caraway answered.
"…" Izuku's eyes dulled-out considerably at that answer.
A smokey portal opened behind him then, so as to let a red-skinned devil woman walk out.
"Can't blame them. No Toxic Masculinity to be seen anywhere, and yet manly. Sure of himself, and yet humble at the same time...Virile and yet sensible...Smart and soft-spoken...Truly a rare specimen…" the woman said while hugging their Guest from behind, with her hands roaming WAAAAY too much to be proper.
"Hands-off! I saw him first!" Young One hissed while pushing the female demon away from the Chef.
"He is our dear Guest and cooked for us, I feel like a bit of reward is in order." the other answered.
"And YOU will be the one rewarding him?!" Young One hissed with narrowed eyes.
"Let's be honest, besides talking with a child-like innocent voice, you don't really have much to offer."
"HOW DARE YOU?!"
"Are they all like that?" Middle One asked with a groan.
"Ehm! Some are even worse, Madame. WAY worse." Caraway admitted.
"Bunch of thirsty thots." Old One commented while rolling her eyes.
"Then I guess we will need to help our Guest-"
CRASH!
"Escape…" Middle One finished saying with wide eyes as Izuku had chosen that moment of general distraction to do the smartest thing: jump out of the window, uncaring he was on the fifth floor.
"NO!" Both Young One and Demon Teacher yelled in horror.
BOOOM!
To everybody's shock both Izuku and Whitey landed on their feet so hard they each created a crater on impact, but showed absolutely zero damage and actually ran away at high speed, soon followed by the wide group of students chasing the Chef.
"Woow!"
"Okay, that was impressive. Stupid, but impressive." Old One admitted with a loud laugh.
With Izuku -
"WHY YOU SENT ME HERE, SYSTEM?! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY?! THEY ALL ARE FUCKING INSANE!" Izuku thought in hysterics while dodging traps, ropes, spells and even flying tackles left and right.
He thanked God he had such a great Mastery of Knocking to use it subconsciously while ranting against the Entity that sent him in that world of psychos, soon littering the entire school ground of paralyzed students, and a couple teachers, but THEY. KEPT. COMING!
"The System underestimated the reaction of the world's female population to meeting a Human Being not only normal, but with high 'Heart-Throbbing Abilities' as The Host. As an apology an extra 5% Experience Points will be added to the total once returned home. The System apologies for the traumatizing experience and promises there will be more extensive checks when selecting the next world to avoid other missteps like this one." the System answered.
"YOU BETTER!" the Chef answered, and then shrieked for real when a hand grabbed his sleeve to drag him behind a giant bush.
"Troublemak-"
"SSSSSSH!" the red haired boy hissed while still holding Izuku close.
"HE WENT THAT WAY! DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" a short girl with purple hair roared while guiding the group forward and past the bush, soon leaving the two boys and one robot alone.
"…" ever so slowly the boy removed his hand from Izuku's mouth to let him breathe freely.
"They are gone. You okay?" the student asked.
"Y-Yeah. Just a bit unnerved…" he admitted.
"Amaryllis is guiding the hunt, they won't renounce easily." the other boy answered with a sigh.
"And you are not helping them because?"
"Because you don't deserve it, Izuku." he answered.
"Snap-kun?"
"You...You are nice, okay? Y-You don't see things in either Black or White like they do! You see the shades of grey in the middle! The whole picture!"
"O-Okay?"
"I just don't want to be a MANLY MAN like my father, I just want to...To be classy, okay? I like cute things, I may like to put on some nail polish, yeah...But this doesn't mean I don't like girls or other boys things! And yet, here everybody says 'Then Become a Girl!'...I don't want that! I just want to enjoy more cute stuff, or feel cute myself! Not...Not change my life completely!" Snapdragon said in distraught.
"I don't know what to say." Izuku admitted.
"You didn't need to say anything to make me realize this, you showed me that there is more to life. The others here, they all treat Life as if Male and Female are two different things, two different Races! But not you...You see Life as it is: a beautiful mix of different colours!
You understand that nothing can be put in a precise and air-tight frame and that's it, you understand that things can be both cute and manly, or both rough and sweet or-or...Or That a boy can dress like a girl and still dream to meet the perfect girl...I like being a boy! I don't want a Vagina! I like my junk where it is!" he said.
"And that puts you way above the Asylum Escapees filling this city," Izuku admitted, sighing.
"Asylum Escapees?" Snapdragon asked with an expression of amused surprise.
"I am not from around here, and let me tell you, there must be something in the water that turns people insane!"
"Huhuhu! I knew you came from some strange place, besides cooking like a God, you are too nice to be real." the other admitted with a chuckle.
"Would you believe me if I said that I see nothing special in me instead?" the Chef asked, chuckling as well.
"And that is also a very endearing quality…"
"Yes?"
"Let me come with you. No matter where, let me follow you and see the world like you do." Snapdragon asked, suddenly.
"No."
"W-W-Why!?"
"I won't let you throw away your future just to follow me. Even just to escape this Asylum. You can prove you have what it takes to be one of those Guardians without being EXACTLY like your father or anybody else wants you to be. If you come with me, it will just mean you spending the rest of your life running away from your problems. And I KNOW you are stronger than that." Izuku answered.
...He may also prefer to avoid explaining to anybody else his Dimension-Hopping hobby.
"But...But everybody here wants me to become what I am not! I am not an insufferable Manly Man or a Transgender! I am ME! I WANT TO BE ME!" he answered, looking ready to burst into tears.
"Then do it: be YOU. Be yourself, be Snapdragon. The Snapdragon you want to be." Izuku answered, grabbing his shoulder.
"I-I-I can do it? I-I-Is it possible?" the boy asked, scared.
"Snap, do not let ANYBODY dictate what you can or cannot do, feel or look. You can be whatever you want. I believe in you."
"Even if I want to be a boy that likes to feel pretty like a girl, without being one?"
"Yes, if that is what you want. There is NOTHING inferior or Superior in any gender, biological or otherwise. No matter what others may say to feel better about themselves...Do not feel insecure yourself just because others had to forcefully drag you down to appease their Ego. You don't deserve it." Izuku answered.
"I don't?" Snapdragon asked in disbelief.
"No, you don't. You are objectively one of the nicest persons in this entire city, the one that has the potential to break free and being more than just a bland, soulless, bi-dimensional character cut-out everybody else here seems happy to be just to fit the mold they were told to fit." the Chef answered.
"I…"
"Promise me you will be Yourself, no matter what shape YOU want to be." Izuku asked.
"Even...Even if I want to be a boy that likes cute stuff?"
"Then be the prettiest boy this world has ever seen."
"...You are not making it easier for me not to come with you…" Snapdragon admitted with a low voice.
"Huhuhu! Trust me, my life is way too chaotic, and this place needs you to up the Average Sanity of the academy before they decommission it and turn it into an asylum for real." Izuku answered, making him chuckle.
"Then go, I will buy you some time!" the other answered, nodding.
"Okay, thank you, Snap-kun!" the young Chef answered while already running away closely followed by Whitey.
"Bye...God why the only decent guy had to leave in a rush…" Snapdragon muttered with a broken heart.
"Where did he go!?" one of the girls at the head of the horde demanded.
"HE WENT THAT WAY!" he answered while pointing in Izuku's opposite direction.
"GRAB HIM! HE IS THE ONLY DECENT GUY AROUND THAT DOESN'T SUFFER FROM TOXIC MASCULINITY! DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" another yelled, soon leaving the young man alone.
"...I am starting to see why you said people here are insane, Izuku…" Snapdragon muttered with a sigh.
"...I wonder...He said I could not follow him while I was a student here. But Nothing says I can't hunt him down and join him in his travels AFTER I am done and graduate. I am not letting you go, Izuku, not in the slightest!" the young man muttered to himself with a small smile and a blush while returning to his room in the academy.
"AH! Snapdragon! Have you decided? Will you try the Transition Magic?" Caraway asked once seen him.
"Yes, I decided. I will flush that potion down the toilet, where it belongs." The student answered with a smile that spoke of a great weight finally being removed by his shoulders, and with a spring in his steps he returned to his room leaving behind an utterly-shocked Professor that looked unable to comprehend what had just happened.
He won't change to accommodate anybody! Whoever did not like how he lived his life could happily jump off a cliff for all he cared, his Father and his Professors included! He was Snapdragon! He was himself! What HE wanted to be!
Although...Yeah, he was straight as an arrow, but for Izuku...For him he felt he could actually make an exception.
…
Honestly, the portal back home couldn't open fast enough if you asked Izuku.
