I, Kudo Akira, had once again casually stopped by the Divers Guild as if I were visiting a friend’s house on the way home from school. I’d sat on a chair and chilled for a while sipping on some juice, then I’d taken my time considering heading out into the dungeon.
I was enjoying a certain well-known beverage that claimed to be made from one hundred percent pure oranges when I saw Scrael approaching from the food pickup area of the dining hall. Her silver ponytail was bobbing back and forth as she glanced around and stood on her tiptoes, seeming to be searching for an empty seat.
It was evening time, just before the dining hall got busy with everyone coming in for dinner; yet, it was also just around the time when Divers began to get back from the dungeon, so the seats were starting to get filled already.
There were people taking a break after rinsing off at the washing area, laying out their spoils for the day on a table while discussing how to split them, holding meetings for night dives, stopping by the guild just to chat, and even having their supper—most Divers were terrible with following regular schedules. In other words, it was right before rush hour here.
Getting a better look, I noticed that the Long-Ears emissary I’d met a while back was also with Scrae. She was wearing a hooded cape to protect her from the sand, yet I caught glimpses of her eyes from under the hood. She, like Scrae, was holding a tray with a steaming food container on it. They seemed to be eating together.
“Hey!” I waved.
“Oh, Akira,” said Scrae in her usual flat tone, her long ears perking up as she noticed me. She walked toward me right away with her emissary friend in tow. “You haven’t left yet?”
“Nope. I thought I’d take it nice and slow today,” I said, then turned to her friend. “It’s been a while. Hello.”
“Mm-hmm,” nodded the emissary.
“What are you eating today?” I asked them.
“This bad-tasting porridge,” said Scrae.
“Dubious raw materials,” said the emissary.
“Oh...” I said, immediately understanding what they were talking about.
It was supposed to be porridge. Somehow, its ingredients were a mystery, yet for some reason, this shady dish was still being served at the dining hall. Supposedly, it was made with some sort of grain, but the true identity of that grain was unknown with only a small handful of people privy to it. The Mystery Porridge was one of the guild dining hall’s top three disgusting dishes—and yes, that was the actual name of the porridge; this contributed to why I was skeptical of the naming sense of the people from this world.
Anyway, the porridge tasted, well, absolutely horrid. It was bad. Putting it lightly, it was pretty much vomit, and air bubbles popped up out of the steamy, grainy, sloppy goop. At least it didn’t have that sour vomit smell, but it was just like puke in every other way. This thing lulled victims into a false sense of security with its lack of odor, yet, like some sort of poisonous mushroom, it inflicted terrible suffering on anyone who ate it.
As an aside, one of the other two infamous disgusting dishes was Nasty Soup, which was made with the greens that Walker Rabbits were always munching on—the same one that Instructor Seeker had eaten in a struggle after he’d weighed the unpleasant bitterness against his hunger. Yet, it was popular among some circles, and some rookie Divers could even be seen chasing Walker Rabbits around to fight over their greens. They tasted just as bad as you might imagine though.
The third and final dish was the most dubious of all: the Mystery Steak. There was no telling what kind of meat it was, so I’d never even had a taste of it before. It was a pretty big chunk of meat offered for cheap, so I figured it was some sort of shrimp-flavored insect or meat-flavored rubber. I’d bet five million perica that I was right.
“Why the Mystery Porridge?” I asked.
I was genuinely curious because Scrae made more than enough to afford better food. She knew how to manage her finances, unlike gambling degenerates like Instructor Seeker. She surely had savings even at the end of the month when others tend to run low on funds.
“My village is in need, so I only keep the bare minimum and send back the rest,” said Scrae.
“I see,” I said.
“I do it for shoy sauce.”
“Ah, I see.”
The Long-Ears village seemed to have officially decided to produce its own soy sauce, and she was helping fund the project. Come to think of it, I’d indeed handed her the recipe a while back.
“You didn’t have to get the Mystery Porridge though, did you? That seems a bit overkill,” I said.
“I’m willing to put up with it for the sake of shoy sauce,” said Scrae.
“Shoy sauce for everyone,” said the emissary, raising her arms in the air.
I’d never imagined Long-Ears would end up loving soy sauce that much. They were so addicted that they wouldn’t be satisfied anymore by just pouring some on their hand and licking it. It was like a drug to them.
I couldn’t help but wonder about the porridge. “Can you really stand eating that stuff?” I asked.
Scrae looked down at her bowl with a sour expression. “To be honest...I’m regretting it.”
“It’s worse than I imagined,” agreed the emissary. “I suspect Divers who can eat this without throwing it back up have tremendous willpower.”
I’d heard that it tasted so bad it left a vivid imprint on one’s psyche, yet some people even had strange cravings for it when they became high-ranking Divers later on. I’d personally seen Divers in such a state of derangement many times. They all had weird looks in their eyes as if they’d been hit by a Hypno Eye’s beam.
Scrae strengthened her resolve and brought her spoon into her mouth.
“It tastes awful...” she muttered, then hung her head.
Her friend then scooped a spoonful of the porridge into her own mouth. “Oof...”
It was so bad she’d nearly spit it out. Her eyes were tearing up from her retching.
This part of being a Diver was hellish. I decided to lend them a helping hand in escaping this nightmare.
“Why don’t you put some soy sauce on it?” I asked.
“We can’t waste shoy sauce like that.”
“Shoy sauce is precious and should be used on better food. Pouring it into this slop would be blasphemy.”
The two seemed to be in agreement. But if that would be considered blasphemy, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people in Japan had been sinning in their eyes. Some people (not Divers) even drank it straight out of the bottle.
Anyway, the emissary girl sure was talkative today. She hadn’t been able to speak Common Tongue very well before, so maybe she’d been studying. She wasn’t quite fluent yet, but her accent wasn’t noticeable anymore.
Suddenly, we heard someone say loudly, “Whoa, check out what they’re eating. What are they, broke?”
“What kind of Long-Ears eat that crap? They must be really bad at diving.”
“Ha ha ha!” they laughed mockingly while looking in our direction.
“Hmm.”
“Ugh.”
Scrae and the emissary were visibly annoyed. I couldn’t blame them. Those Divers looked like they were far lower in rank than Scrae too. Had they not heard of her even though she’d been climbing up the ranks at an incredible rate? That was highly unlikely. She was the only Long-Ears Diver in Freida as far as I knew, and Silvertail, with her iconic silver ponytail, was quickly becoming one of the most famous Divers around. In other words, these Divers were simply jealous.