The Uninvited Guest 2
Sssssk—!
The last dish was finished atop the glowing hot steel plate. Even the sound of it carried a strange allure, one that set the mouth watering just to listen.
With clean, precise hands, Ash transferred the food onto the prepared plates. Every eye in the yard followed those hands.
Before long, the feast Ash had prepared filled the table from end to end.
Huiguorou pork glistening with rich, silky sauce. Skewers grilled to a perfect light char, every ingredient's color vivid and alive. And finally, a vegetable stir-fry breathing out a fragrant, savory aroma.
To everyone gathered there, it looked less like food and more like a work of art.
"The ingredients were unfamiliar to me, so I made do with what was on hand. Eat it before it cools."
Ash said it in the same even tone as always.
But no one could bring themselves to speak. A breathless silence hung over the table for a moment, every gaze locked on the plates he had set down.
"Uh…"
The first to break the silence was Akina.
"This—this is really okay for us to eat, right?"
Ash nodded without a word.
"…Really?"
"Don't worry and eat. If it runs out, I'll make more."
As if those words were a signal, everyone's hands began to move, hesitant at first — and then, at last, someone took a bite.
"Mmmph!"
Ifrit's eyes went as round as lanterns, the LED hearts glowing in her cyber-eyes flickering furiously.
"…This is insane."
She chewed nonstop, staring blankly into the air as if trying to comprehend what had just happened inside her mouth.
"Wow, no, hold on—what do I even call this flavor? Why is it this good? Why?!"
Jack O'Lantern was next.
He snatched off his ever-present jack-o'-lantern helmet and, without even bothering to sweep the sweat-soaked red hair from his face, crammed an entire skewer into his mouth.
His admittedly handsome face scrunched up like a stuffed dumpling.
"Insane… this is actually insane…!"
Dullahan said nothing.
He didn't remove his helmet either.
Instead, he popped open the exterior plating at his throat and slid the food inside.
A moment later.
A single phrase flickered across his visor.
Santa was no less devoted to the food.
Tossing the cigarette he always clutched like a lifelong creed carelessly onto the ground, he dove into the huiguorou with both hands, shoveling it in with utter abandon.
He didn't say a word.
He simply kept pushing more into his mouth.
Ash stopped Akina just as she was about to grab the food with her bare hands, and addressed the table.
"Suits your palates, I take it?"
No one answered.
They were all too busy waging war with their hands for another bite. Watching them, Ash let out a low chuckle.
"I see it does. Eat plenty."
The moment Ash finished speaking, the backyard transformed into an outright battlefield.
Everyone moved with tactical ferocity, fighting for every last morsel. Conversation was nowhere to be found.
Like people who hadn't eaten in a week, there was only the primal, ravenous lunge toward anything delicious.
With everyone eating and drinking like mad, the food vanished in no time. Watching the plates empty, Ash stepped back to the fire once more.
And so the second course came out, then the third. The group in the backyard kept up their battle-style feasting throughout.
Only when the third plate, too, had been scraped perfectly clean did everyone finally slump down wherever they sat, groaning with contentment.
"I could die happy right now. I mean it."
Santa said it while thumping his belly. Only then did everyone's mouths loosen, and the conversation turned to exactly one subject.
"Hey, so."
Jack O'Lantern spoke meaningfully, watching Ash wield his chest armor like a wok even at that very moment.
"…What exactly is Ash's deal, anyway?"
At that, everyone turned to look at Jack.
Perhaps the attention was a bit much for him — Jack hurriedly pulled his pumpkin helmet back on and continued.
"He's great at fighting. Great at cooking. Even the way he talks is cool. How do I put it — the man's just incredibly classy, y'know? Sometimes I swear he can't actually be a humanoid."
At those words, Ifrit's face went rigid.
Then she lit up her heart-shaped eyes with the gravest of expressions.
"I just got a feeling. Something's clicking."
At her grave look, everyone's eyes shifted to Ifrit. Chin in hand, she eyed Ash sideways like a detective analyzing a case.
"Right. It was strange from the very beginning. That aloof, effortlessly cool attitude. That dignity he never loses, no matter the situation. And especially — cooking skill this close to perfection. Now, at last, every piece of the puzzle fits."
Ash, who had been eavesdropping as if it were small talk, turned his head.
"My, you've uncovered my true identity?"
"Fufufu."
Her expression snapping instantly into stern seriousness, Ifrit pointed at Ash.
"The truth is, he was never a humanoid at all."
"…Oh?"
Ash responded.
"Everyone see that? Did you all see that 'Oh?'!"
"So what, madam knight, do you take 'me' to be?"
"Hmm… a Super Cooking Humanoid?"
Santa sprayed out the drink he'd been swallowing.
But Ifrit paid it no mind and pressed on.
"Y'know, like — one of the Trinity corporations poured everything into building him, an ultra-premium custom model made exclusively for the suits upstairs. Right?"
Ash turned his head away at once.
A brief silence settled over the table.
The one to break it was Akina.
Her face flushed somewhere along the way, the girl clapped her hands and cried out.
"Ahh! That explains it! I said he handled his blade so well — turns out that was actually his cooking skill, wasn't it? Wasn't it?!"
Ash turned his head.
"Someone, take Sojeo's drink away from her."
Dullahan, his visor flashing [LMAOOOOOOOOO], plucked Akina's cup right out of her hand.
"Ahh! My drink!"
Beginning with Akina's wail, the flagging atmosphere flared back to life in an instant.
"Kwahaha! 'Super Cooking Humanoid'! First time in my life I've heard that word combo, and honestly? Not bad!"
At Santa's words, Ifrit puffed her chest out proudly.
"Right?! See, Gramps, you've got taste!"
"Madam knight. That was not a compliment."
Just then, Ash — done with his cooking — came over carrying the fourth plate.
"We've run out of ingredients. This is the last of it."
What Ash set down at the center of the table was a smaller but more refined portion of the grilled meat and vegetable stir-fry. Steaming wisps rose from it, carrying a rich, nutty fragrance across the yard.
Drawn by that aroma, everyone sprawled around the yard gathered back to the table.
Full as they already were, their eyes sparkled brighter than ever. And just as every hand reached for the food, a steel hand shot out and stopped them.
"One moment, first."
It was Ash.
Holding everyone's hands at bay, he repeated his earlier words exactly.
"As I said — this is the last of it."
Everyone stared at him in puzzlement.
Ash turned away from all those questioning eyes and looked toward a dark corner of the shadowed backyard.
"You came all this way. It would be a shame not to at least have a taste, no?"
A moment later.
From the darkness Ash had been watching, a slender figure emerged.
Ifrit's face twisted hard.
"Siren? What the hell are you doing here?"
At her words, the woman in the pulled-down cap — Siren — opened her mouth, fidgeting.
"Th-that's… um… it's because of me… I mean, I still owed Ash credits from the bet, and I never got to thank him properly, so I came looking, but I didn't know there were guests, so… um…"
Watching Siren trail off, Ifrit's face hardened, but she didn't press the attack.
After all, Siren was no host here, and it had been Ash himself who'd offered her a seat.
"Come and sit. Luckily, there's still food left."
There was no ill will in his actions, nor any particular warmth either. Just the indifferent, commonsense courtesy of making room for a guest.
Siren stood dazed for a moment, then removed the cap that hid her entire face and cautiously stepped forward to take her seat.
Watching her, Santa guffawed.
"Ah, now that I look, it's the girl who sparred with Ash, eh? What possessed you to make a bet with this monster, tsk tsk! Anyway, caught the broadcast, lass? Miss Rank Number One?"
It was impossible to tell whether the old man's muttering was consolation or mockery — but strangely, the stiffened air loosened at his words.
Ifrit, who had been radiating hostility, lifted the liquor bottle.
"Well, fine, you did put up a fight. Getting flattened hurts enough, and then coughing up three million credits on top of it. Have a drink? On me — a toast to your total rout."
Still teasing her, Ifrit poured liquor into the cup set before Siren before the girl had a chance to say a word.
"…And why'd you have to show up today of all days, unnie?"
"Hey, obviously I came because it's today. Perfect day for a party, isn't it? Better question — why are you here today?"
Siren just pouted and didn't answer. It was Ash, quietly observing the pair's baffling riddle-game, who cut in.
"Today? What, pray tell, is today?"
"Oh, right, you wouldn't know! What today is, you see—"
As a tipsy Jack O'Lantern started to explain, Dullahan cut him off.
"…Fair point."
Jack O'Lantern nodded, immediately convinced.
That only made Ash more suspicious.
So he turned in search of answers — to Santa and Akina, the closest things he had to reliable sources.
"What in the world is today, that everyone carries on so?"
But answers were not to be had there either.
Akina only grinned slyly, and Santa tilted his cup back while waggling his eyebrows.
"…Truly? All of you, like this?"
Then —
Santa set down the cup he'd been sipping from and spoke.
"About time it started."
And with that, he removed his sunglasses — the ones he wore like a second skin, the ones he'd taken off only once before, to face Ash in single combat.
Then, without a word, he simply tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.
He was not the only one to raise his head.
Everyone at the table — even Siren, who had joined them mere minutes ago — looked upward.
Everyone except Ash.
"What is everyone—"
"Oh! It's starting!"
At Ifrit's cry, a strange resonant hum swelled across the city.
Vuuuummm…
At that sound, Ash, too, raised his head and looked toward a single point.
The very heart of the city.
From the summit of the Core Spire — the tower that pierced the heavens, ordinarily plastered with holographic ads for the corporations' newest products — a single line of golden energy began to stream outward.
The light spread along soft, sweeping arcs.
Soon taking the shape of a vast dome, it blanketed the entire night sky of Sanctum, washing the city's brilliant neon sprawl in gold.
A sight so majestic it stole the breath away.
It was the manifestation of The Veil — the absolute barrier that shielded Sanctum from the ion storms.
"Truly. No matter how many times I see it, it never loses its grandeur."
No one answered Santa's murmur.
Everyone simply kept their faces turned up toward the gold-drenched night sky, gazing blankly at the overwhelming spectacle.
Ash was no exception.
Even his optical sensors, which glowed their usual cyan, shimmered gold beneath the light flooding the sky.
Mankind's last line of defense.
The Veil had descended.
And that meant the 'Activity Period' — the season that encouraged Pathfinders to venture out and explore — had come to an end.
Thus began the Rest Period.