Fish and Fire
In the Dungeon City of Bastion, one tavern always found its way onto every top-five list whenever people discussed the finest establishments in the city.
“Come on in, ya! To the Rainbow Cup!”
“Newbie, I’m pretty sure we never agreed on a fixed greeting like that.”
“Lit came up with it while eating breakfast this morning. What do you think?”
“Well, it’s nice to see you putting in the effort.”
“Pyapya! Lit is going to work super hard, buy high-tier gear, and head into the dungeon! Then Lit will gather a mountain of maseok and confess to the boss!”
“...Lit, aren’t you a guy?”
“Nope.”
“Huh?”
The tavern. Rainbow Cup.
Its dreamlike atmosphere, born from rainbow-colored lighting, blended with the unusual ingredients harvested from creatures native to the dungeon, creating a strange and irresistible synergy. Having opened only a month earlier, it had already become a famous landmark in Bastion, the Dungeon City, where adventurers never stopped coming.
If there was one peculiar detail, it was that the ratio of stunning men and beautiful women on staff was so high that customers sometimes spouted nonsense like “the owner and employees are delicious and the food is kind.”
Because of this, rumors spread that they only hired based on looks.
They were true. Hard as it was to believe, they really did hire based on appearance.
...
In a makeshift interview room tucked into a corner on the third floor of the Rainbow Cup.
“Hey, Bacon.”
“Yes? What did you just say?”
He had clearly heard her call him Bacon to his face, yet the man unconsciously asked again because he couldn’t believe it was real.
The girl clicked her tongue at his reaction, then offered a half-hearted apology with an expression that showed zero remorse.
“Oh. Sorry, I accidentally said out loud what I was only thinking. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that you’ve failed. Thanks for your time at the interview. You can leave now~”
The red twin-tailed girl waved one hand at the man as if shooing him away. Her half-lidded eyes glowed a venomous red, brimming with irritation and boredom.
Unwilling to accept the interviewer’s attitude, the man ignored her request to leave, stood up, and spoke in a rush.
“...What’s the reason? I have more than nine years of experience as a tavern server. I can handle simple cooking, laundry, bathroom cleaning, lockpicking, and even onion prep perfectly. I’m high-quality labor!”
“But.”
“But?”
Her eyes scanned him with the same detached look one might use to judge the marbling of meat. A sly smile soon curved her lips, and her red mouth opened slowly.
“You’re ugly, aren’t you.”
“Excuse me…? What kind of bullshit is that?”
Watching the man’s bewildered face, she sighed as if to say you really don’t get it? then slowly crossed her legs. Fixing her gaze on the ceiling because she couldn’t stand the sight of his face, the girl twirled her red hair around one finger and spoke in a surprisingly serious tone.
“Look, think about it for a second. A customer walks in full of expectation. If the first thing they see is some Bacon bowing in greeting, how do you think they’d feel? Like shit, obviously~ So for that reason, Bacon, you’ve failed. Understand now?”
“Don’t you think that’s going way too far?!”
“Don’t get so worked up, Bacon. It’s only making those greasy wrinkles of yours even deeper.”
At the sight of the girl covering her mouth and giggling, the man’s vision went completely black. He learned that a person could actually lose their mind when pushed past a certain level of rage.
“Goddamn it, you little—!”
“Kyaa~♡ A bad adult is trying to commit violence against a little girl~ Won’t somebody help me~”
“Haa....”
“Sigh.”
The other interviewers let out small sighs as they watched Croma attempt to reject a clearly talented individual simply because of his looks. In their hearts they wanted to give her a good knock on the head and hire the applicant on the spot, but no one on staff dared oppose Croma. She had been granted partial management authority over the Rainbow Cup by the owner, Noir.
Thanks to Croma Ira—the demon of lookism who operated under the philosophy that employees were the face of the tavern—the Rainbow Cup remained critically short-staffed today as well.
“What? This isn’t the menu you ordered? Hey! Newbie! Come here a second!”
“Ah, please leave the dropped items alone! I’ll clean it up!”
“Three sausages for table five, three Pasta B sets, and three honey wines!”
“Boss! Is the sea-cockroach pasta still not ready?”
“Sorry, just a little longer. Ah, and please correct it to pearl lobster instead of sea-cockroach.”
“...Everyone who needs to know already knows, don’t they?”
“After analyzing sales by the month, I found that calling it pearl lobster instead of directly saying sea-cockroach produces higher revenue.”
“Umm, if you’ve put that much thought into it, I have nothing to say. I’ll make the correction from now on.”
“Excellent. I like good children who listen well.”
The staff member clutched their pounding chest once again while watching Noir speak with a tiny smile that appeared perhaps once a day, casually uttering words that could easily be misunderstood.
“...Wow, this is seriously bad for my heart.”
Her short dark-blue bob cut just below the nape of her neck and an expression colder than an ice statue. The cool smile that occasionally broke that frozen face carried devastating power. On top of that, her base appearance was already stunning because she was a half-elf.
“Hm? What’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?”
“Not at all. I was just thinking how beautiful you are today as well.”
“Hey, stop flirting with the boss and go clear table two!”
“I wasn’t flirting!”
“Oi, senior. I’d appreciate it if you kept things within bounds. The boss belongs to Lit.”
“And who are you supposed to be?”
The poor servers of the Rainbow Cup hurried back and forth across the hall where rainbow lights danced in every direction, raising their voices the entire time. They had been moving and shouting without rest since morning, so they should have been exhausted, yet the smiles never left their faces.
It wasn’t that the work was easy. The pay they received each week was simply so absurdly high that it made them smile on its own… or so one might think. In truth, they were simply being careful. If they let their smiles slip for even a moment, the demon king of nagging—Croma—would deliver a verbal beating that could shatter their self-esteem.
No one knew how things were at other taverns, but in the Rainbow Cup, the word “demon” referred to an object of fear.
And the contractor of that frightening, irritating demon—Noir—remained focused on cooking today as well.
Tap tap tap tap!
The cooking knife gripped in a glove whiter than snow left afterimages as it flew across the cutting board. She minced the prepped onions, stir-fried them, seasoned them simply with salt and pepper, then stir-fried them again. She added water to simmer the softened onions, incorporated cream, eggs, and edible plants that grew naturally in the dungeon, and let everything simmer over gentle heat.
“Done.”
A confident nod that seemed at odds with her expressionless face. Noir slipped off one white glove, drizzled a bit of her special onion sauce onto the back of her hand, blew on it to cool it, and tasted it with a serious expression.
Slurp.
“Mm. Not bad.”
She was clumsier than a three-year-old when it came to emotions, but no one was more sensitive to taste than Noir. This should be enough to satisfy the customers. With that thought, she covered the pot, tossed pasta and sauce into a preheated pan, quickly sautéed them, and moved straight on to the next dish.
Her outstanding assistant and disciple—the sous-chef—had recently suffered severe burns and still hadn’t overcome his fear of fire. She needed to work a little harder.
Whoosh!
She flinched. The moment flames rose along the pan, she felt a gaze on her back. When Noir glanced over her shoulder, a low voice heavy with guilt reached her.
“...This unworthy disciple apologizes for being unable to assist Master....”
A middle-aged man with a deep sword scar over one eye. Rather than a cook, he gave off the sharp, imposing aura of a swordsman. In fact, he was a powerful 6-Tier adventurer. Yet the way he hung his head like a large dog that had done something wrong made him look more like a pathetic husband being scolded by his wife.
At his weak, almost tearful voice, Noir continued shaking the pan and answered calmly.
“Mm, it’s fine. I’m grateful you came out to the kitchen even though it must still be difficult for you.”
“Ugh... Master...!”
Is that truly the half-elf known for having faint emotions?
Ito Sakana, Noir’s first and only disciple, felt his heart cry out as he gazed at his kind and broad-minded master. He couldn’t let tears fall on the ingredients, after all.
And then he rebuked himself.
What is fire that you should fear it! Sakana! Do you really think you’re a fish just because of your name!
With movements born of furious anger, Sakana finished prepping the ingredients in an instant. He slammed flour onto the counter and gritted his teeth. He hadn’t always been afraid of fire. What kind of cook feared flames in the first place?
But then—
“Sakana! Dodge the breath!”
“Graaaagh!!!”
After barely surviving an encounter with a young dragon while searching the Red Zone for high-quality ingredients, his body had begun to reject fire. Whenever he approached it, he would curl up and break into a cold sweat. He was afraid of it.
The man who had walked the path of chivalry for decades, enduring hundreds of sword strikes and nearly losing an eye, had now knelt before fear simply because he had almost died once.
That alone was enough to shatter Sakana’s pride, but what pained him most was the fact that he was causing trouble for his master.
“Are you all right?”
“Ah… Goddess…”
“I am not a goddess.”
He didn’t even know the first thing about cooking, yet he had wanted to help the woman who had saved him in the dungeon. He had wanted to become someone worthy of her strong, beautiful, and gentle gaze. He had volunteered to become her disciple.
Yet look at him now.
Sakana stared at the clear water pooled in his palms.
I really am no different from a fish that has fallen into a well.
Sunk in the swamp of fear, helplessly looking up at the sky while waiting to feel better. How pathetic.
“Haa.”
Knead, knead.
While suppressing the urge to commit seppuku on the spot, Sakana continued kneading the pasta dough.
But then—
…What is that?
A gaze on his back. The Rainbow Cup’s kitchen was open to the outside so guests could watch, and he was used to being observed. This gaze, however, felt different.
It wasn’t mere curiosity. It felt more like…
The stare of a predator eyeing its prey…
“Hm? What’s the matter all of a sudden?”
Sensing something strange, Noir set down her pan and turned around.
“Eh?”
It was a rare reaction from the usually stoic woman. Confusion. Under normal circumstances he would have cheered Thank you! inside his heart, but he couldn’t do that now. Because her gaze was directed behind him.
“Raven? What brings you here so early in the morning?”
Raven? Who is that?
It was a name he had never heard before. Yet—
For Master to greet them so warmly…
Curiosity rose alongside a faint twinge of jealousy.
Sakana took a slow, deep breath, then turned his head to follow Noir’s gaze.
There stood a monstrous figure with the head of a crow, staring at him with greedy eyes.
“Fire….”
This one looks rather tempting.