What the Hell Is Going On...

“Fuck…”

“Hey, Kim! Shut your trap and move the rice already!!”

“Yo!!! Stop slacking and fill up the soup!!!”

“Student! Don’t just stand there—the side dishes are all gone, so go grab more from the back!”

“Kim!!!! Get that damn wild boar out of here!!!”

“Student!! Before you go, feed the yellow one some food!!!”

I seriously want to quit everything.

A kitchen is a special kind of place. To customers, it’s just the room where food gets made. Ingredients are combined, cooked, and turned into meals. But for the people actually working in it, the meaning is completely different.

Every kitchen tool is a weapon assigned to you. Ingredients and spices are consumables that have to be used differently every single moment. Amidst fire, water, and ice swirling everywhere, you have to complete your mission safely. The mission known as “customer orders.”

And the moment one mission ends, another one begins without pause, forcing you to repeat the same brutal process all over again.

Yes. To them, a kitchen is nothing less than a battlefield.

And somehow, I—who thought I had nothing to do with any of this—now found myself standing right in the middle of that battlefield.

To explain how this happened, we need to go back one day.

“What do you mean?”

It was the last day of vacation. I was cleaning the dorm. Since there hadn’t been any rank changes, moving to a better dorm was impossible. Who the hell would want a Bronze-rank dorm anyway? Still, just in case, I was cleaning like my life depended on it.

“I’ll have to pick a dorm again, right? I’d rather stay here if possible.”

“Oh, right. That buildup was ridiculously long.”

I even took a commemorative photo. With that, the prologue goal was achieved ahead of schedule. On top of that, I’d finished registering my abilities recently, so nothing could stand in my way anymore.

“For now, I’ll focus on graduating. If I get held back here, the whole story’s over.”

After graduation, I’d have two choices. Join a guild run by hunters, or apply to the military that had been restructured into a conscription system. Since this was a state-run academy, those were the only real options. Anything else was basically impossible unless you had some massive disqualification.

“I’m pretty good at frying chicken, though.”

“If I can’t do either, I’ll just become a cook soldier or something.”

I could figure out the detailed goals after I graduated anyway. Without thinking too hard, I headed to the store. I needed to buy alcohol and snacks to set up a drinking table for the last day of break.

I’d drunk yesterday to celebrate my return. So today was to celebrate the last day of vacation. Somewhere I thought I heard “You’re really making up another excuse to drink,” but I ignored it completely.

“This place is basically a supermarket rather than a store, huh?”

“This one has fixed hours. The convenience store runs on shifts.”

Piece was slowly getting influenced by the professors—just like the saying that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back. What should I do? Should I deal with her here? Should I kill her, Master?

Hold on. The professor slayer inside me and HAL. I calmed the monsters within and placed the items I wanted to buy on the counter. The moment I tried to pay—

“Student! This card isn’t working?”

“...Huh?”

The card wasn’t working. I thought I’d misheard, but the store owner swiped it again as if to confirm this was reality.

“...One moment.”

The sudden notification that my card had been declined hammered against my eardrums. I doubted my ears and handed over another card, but—

The same cold mechanical voice rang out. I couldn’t understand it at all.

What the hell??? I didn’t commit any crimes this time???

I ignored Piece as she floated up a grappling hook and handed over the emergency cash I kept in my wallet. Only after I gave her every last bill did the store owner, who had been giving me the cold shoulder, finally flash a warm capitalist smile.

Of course, that smile vanished in an instant when I asked for a plastic bag as a freebie.

After a brief scuffle, I ended up with a completely torn paper box. At best you could call it a box. In reality it was basically a paper tray. I stacked the tower of items on the small paper surface and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠barely managed to carry it back to the dorm, like a circus performer balancing on a tightrope.

While setting up the drinking table, Piece asked about the strange phenomenon she’d seen earlier.

“I have no idea. I can’t think of any reason.”

I took a huge bite out of a cooked chicken leg and grabbed the soju bottle to wet my throat. Even though it was oven-roasted, I was satisfied with how the oil seeped out between the roughly torn pieces of meat as I answered.

“Well, I’ll just do bank transfers for a while. The card will get unlocked eventually.”

The new semester would start on Monday. On the other hand, I’d heard from the academy that my ability registration was complete on Saturday. And Sunday had begun with a hangover. Anyway, since I’d spent the whole break productively drinking, I felt a slight sense of accomplishment.

But at that time, I still had no idea.

What was about to happen to me.

Second semester had begun, but not much had changed. The only good thing was that the first day was a holiday for choosing dorms. I tried to apply to keep the same dorm through the academy app, but the server crashed again.

The platform, the app—seriously.

I roughly finished the application and contacted Hye-ji to meet up. Then someone came running toward me from far away, yelling.

“Husband!!! You’re so mean!!!!!!”

It was Elsia. She looked like she was about to jump straight into my arms, but Hye-ji, whose number above her head had gone up by one, gently pushed me aside. Thanks to that, instead of hugging me, Elsia ended up in a deep embrace with the ground.

Watching that, Hye-ji started mocking her.

“Looks like our unnie got even older over break? Must be presbyopia if you can’t even see properly?”

“Oh my, Hye-ji! Why are you stuck to the floor? Are you dead? I can’t hear your heartbeat!”

“You fucking bitch!”

Of course, that mockery didn’t last long.

She must’ve received elf-style sex education while she was away.

“In a world where even the Magic Tower entrance exam academy has one-hit instructors, what do you expect?”

While admiring the skill of the Great Forest’s one-hit instructors, we all had lunch together. I could see Jung Ayeon in the distance too. She was eating with her sister and talking about something. Our eyes met, we waved at each other, and that was enough for a greeting.

Before we knew it, we’d finished lunch and were moving to leave the cafeteria. During lunch and dinner hours, you could pay not only at the kiosk but also directly at the counter. Hye-ji and Elsia paid first and left. Finally, it was my turn.

“Ah, I’ll pay by bank transfer.”

“Yes, please send it here.”

Since the card wasn’t working and I had no cash, I naturally planned to do a bank transfer. But the moment I opened the banking app—

It was incomprehensible. No, I could understand the words themselves, but my brain was refusing to accept what they meant. The text floated there crystal clear.

…What the fuck.

A thousand thoughts rushed through my head as I stared at the text. Why. How. Who. What’s the purpose. What did I do. What are they after. But above all those thoughts, there was one thing I had to prioritize more than anything else.

I made the most pathetic, pitiful face I could manage and asked,

“Um… would it be possible to put it on my tab?”

It was already summer in the second semester. In an anime, this would be the part where they’d shout “Umi da—!! (It’s the sea—!!)” and head to the beach. And right now, I was—

“Holy shit, it’s a water world.”

“Student! Stop talking nonsense and unclog the drain already!!”

I was desperately trying to clear the clogged drain in the kitchen. Every time I stuck my hand in to clear the food waste blocking it, it was incredibly painful. Normally I would’ve finished after just one hour of work. The problem was that I’d tried to run away the moment they said they wouldn’t let me put it on my tab and got caught.

In the end, we’d agreed on five hours of labor.

We usually call sticking a sashimi knife next to someone a threat.

I couldn’t remember the past where I’d had conversations with a chainsaw and an electric saw. The only thing that mattered right now was that I was being threatened.

While I was working hard on the drain for a long time, Elsia and her escort elf appeared in the kitchen.

“Huh? Elsia? What are you doing here?”

“Husband!”

“Did you come to rescue me?”

A spark of hope instantly flared up in my heart and turned into a massive wildfire. Two emotions arose at the same time. Guilt. And gratitude.

At my words, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she began to form a truly beautiful smile. Then Elsia’s mouth opened.

“No! I got caught too!”

As soon as the campfire started, it was like rain poured down. The huge fire vanished without leaving even a single speck of ash in my heart.