It could’ve been another fun day of leveling by hunting bats in the dungeon—except it wasn’t. My activities in Do-Melta were dependent on my mood. I grinded levels when I felt like it, and I did other stuff if the mood struck me. I’d taken care of my school stuff, so I thought I deserved that freedom. My basic activities here included eating stuff, drinking stuff, pseudocooking, and exploring Freida looking for bargains. But today, I was on an unprecedentedly difficult mission.
The stage today was set at the Divers Guild dining hall, where Divers gathered in search of food and respite. The food here provided Divers with the energy to get through the day with a side of hell and despair. Looking around, I saw all sorts of people: some were sipping on drinks and sitting idly like I usually did after school, a male Diver was hitting on a pretty Diver lady, a giddy Diver was sitting in front of the most expensive plate of food on the menu, which he’d ordered, someone was carefully grooming their tail and ears with a comb, and someone was sticking their finger in a pot of honey and licking it. With the wide range of people and situations here, this was the perfect place for people-watching.
This place was also open twenty-four seven for people who went on overnight dives, so it wasn’t uncommon to see bodies slumped over chairs late at night or early in the morning as if this were an airport or ferry terminal. They weren’t dead though, so you shouldn’t mess with them.
On my table were various seasonings, my trusty cassette stove, and two cloches to cover my food. The cloches were silver dome things used to hide ingredients and dishes like the ones on Dotch Cooking Show or Iron Chef. They were originally meant to keep food warm and to increase customers’ anticipation for the dishes being served, but I digress.
The reason I’d prepared these things was because I was about to take on a virtually impossible mission of nightmarish difficulty.
“Kudo Akira’s Few Minutes Cooking!” I announced like I was in a certain daytime TV program.
“Oooh!” Scrae clapped, her silver ponytail bouncing around with the movement. She was as adorable as ever.
As usual, I was cooking in the corner of the dining hall using ingredients I’d gathered in the dungeon. I’d invited Scrae because I would’ve felt lonely doing it by myself.
“My assistant today will be Miss Scrael, representing the Long-Ears!” I said.
Though, Scrae didn’t introduce herself or say some assistantish line like “Happy to be here today!”
“Akira, Akira, how long are you gonna keep up this lame act?” she complained.
“It’s not lame,” I said. “Getting into the role for these things is important. It makes you feel like a real chef, and you want the food to be good, right?”
“Everything you bring is good. I can’t wait,” she said excitedly.
Unfortunately for her, I was about to betray her expectations and send her to rock bottom, like Avīci or Cocytus from the Divine Comedy. There was no flaming castle or frozen Satan, but I’d bet some Zimbabwean dollars that she was gonna be upset with me until the next time I brought her some actual good food.
“Okay, our main ingredient today will be one of the guild dining hall’s three disgusting dishes: the Mystery Porridge!” I announced as if I was on a cooking show, revealing the porridge under the cloche with a smile on my face.
Scrae made an unintelligible sound of shock and confusion as expected. This infamous dish was practically a weapon, and it was the very dish responsible for sending Scrae and her emissary friend into the pits of despair. See “Those Who Are Ruled by Soy Sauce” for more details.
As soon as I removed the cloche, Scrae’s face became completely devoid of emotion; even the highlights of her eyes disappeared. She must be getting flashbacks.
After a pause, she turned away and said, “I just remembered I have something to do. Bye, Akira.”
“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t go!” I said, trying to stop her as she prepared to leave.
“No, no, no, no! I can’t drink that stuff!”
“Yes, you can! Probably, maybe, possibly!”
“Akira, that stuff isn’t food. It’s a monster in the form of porridge or maybe some sort of poison,” said Scrae.
“No, it isn’t. Sure, it might taste monstrously bad and has some poison-swamp-like qualities to it, but look, other people are drinking it too. See?”
I pointed at a group of Divers who were having an early dinner, and before them were bowls of the same Mystery Porridge. They scooped portions of it into their mouths as their eyes spun. As soon as their spoons went into their mouths, they coughed loudly, maybe because of an involuntary reaction to the sourness or bitterness, but they forced the porridge down their throats with sheer willpower. It nearly brought tears to my eyes—though I couldn’t help but wonder how no one had died from it yet.
What was up with it anyway? There was this strange phenomenon where people were compelled to drink the porridge even though they didn’t want to. Maybe it had some sort of illicit substance in it like those ramen from a case in a foreign country a while ago where someone laced them with powdered poppy plants. No one would be able to tell if they’d mixed sketchy stuff in the food, so there had to be something addictive in it we didn’t know about.
“I guess these Divers are inhuman if they’d drink that,” said Scrae.
“We’re Divers too, and we’re drinking this...” I pointed out.
If Divers were inhuman, so were we. I mean, our physical capabilities made us kind of inhuman already, but still. The only ones who were truly inhuman in that sense were Sensei and Lion-Maru. We were completely normal compared to them.
The porridge in front of me bubbled like a poison swamp. It probably would look just like one if I dumped some purple food coloring in there.
Scrae shot a stern look at it and asked, “What are you gonna do with that?”
“I’m gonna season it so anyone can drink it,” I said.
“Impossible! No way! You can’t! It’s bad even with shoy sauce. I’ve never tried, but I know,” said Scrae.
I remembered how she’d refused to add soy sauce to it because she claimed it’d be a waste of soy sauce. She loved soy sauce, but even she didn’t believe that dousing the porridge in the stuff would make it taste any better.
“You’re right,” I said. “Making this taste better won’t be an easy task. That’s why we’re gonna season it properly. I brought everything we need to pull it off.”
“What did you bring?”
“Behold this giant clam I found in the Submerged City!” I exclaimed and showed off tonight’s key ingredient.
“A ghost clam!” said Scrae, her ears twitching.
Ghost clams were giant bivalves found in the Submerged City at depth level 18. They looked like big clams, and my godly translation powers translated them as “clams,” so they were probably clams. The word “ghost” in its name made it sound like some sort of apparition that spit out mirages, but I was probably the only one who thought so.
The ghost clams were dangerously good. These were even bigger than the non-native quahogs, and they tasted like clams but with tenfold the umami. Ghost clams were known to be one of the tastiest ingredients found in the dungeon, and they were so good that even Chorus Seals often fought over them. Those seals usually spent all day relaxing in the sun, but the looks in their eyes changed whenever they spotted one of these tasty bivalves.
Scrae seemed to have deduced what was coming next. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna use this?”
“I am,” I said.