As we walked through the hallways of the palace, the smell of cooking made my mouth water. It hardly occurred to me earlier but I haven’t eaten anything in the last 24 hours at least…

“O-old man, before we do anything else…” all of my energy was sapped away as soon as my attention went to this fact, I could barely stand straight.

“I’m REALLY hungry, can we eat something? Anything will do.”

“Pihihihi, but of course. You really are quite the wild one, aren’t you?” He waved his hand in the direction of one of the rooms, gesturing for me to go ahead and enter.

As soon as we entered, it was like going into a dungeon, everything felt different, it was so intense, so hot and the smells were incredible.

People running from side to side carrying cooking tools and foods I’ve never even heard of before.

“W-what’s with this place… Is it a battlefield?” I was hesitant in walking it, what if we got in the way of someone here, the food will be ruined.“Pihihihi, of sorts, yes. This room is the main kitchen, the place is usually much calmer, but we have important guests coming in very soon.

The servant’s buffet is over in the backroom, you can take a plate over here.” Corolio pointed to a drawer next to the room we were heading towards and continued “Once you’re done eating, you can bring your plate to the sink behind you.”

He opened a door at the edge of the line of big pots with boiling water spilling out of some of them.

“Here is the backroom, the household servants as well as the servants of our guests all eat and take breaks here.

The buffet is over to the left, eat as much as you’d like and please keep things orderly and clean.” He gave me a bit of a dirty look after saying that. I don’t like the implication here.

I walked into the spacious room, it looked like a wooden cabin on the inside, how strange, this type of building inside of a palace made of stone and marble.

There were a few other people already eating there but it seemed as though each of them just minded their own business and kept to themselves. I took my plate and scoured the buffet.

It was indescribable… I didn’t even know food could have this type of color, those smells. I could even hear meat sizzling on one of the stands.

There was also a large plate with a big bread-looking food on top of it, and from the corners of it spilled the prize!

Tomatoes! Whatever it was, it had tomato sauce in it! I can identify this texture and color anywhere!

I picked up the large knife next to the bread plate and sliced a piece of it.

To my surprise, it wasn’t only tomato sauce inside the bread, there was also some type of meat or at least that’s what I think it was, the bread itself was solid but also kind of soft, how incredible!

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I never knew you could make stuff like that with food.

Going around the buffet I ended up getting too excited about all the food and took so much that things were spilling out of my plate. Of course I took every dish that had tomatoes in it.

Either way, I sat down at the corner of a table at the edge of the backroom and the big moment came.

The first thing I tried was the bread thing from earlier, how is it even possible to make something that tastes so good? The crunchy, yet fluffy and soft encasing complimented the sweetness of the tomato sauce perfectly and the real big taster here was the meat.

I didn’t know meat could be made in this texture, it was just… grains of meat or something, the spices and the small chips of onion and garlic mixed into it were just unbelievable to me, trying to understand the taste made me remember something Snoopsi tried to tell me back when we were children.

‘Noshi you don’t understand how amazing food can be! it’s so amazing but we can only use other foods to describe the taste, isn’t it strange? What if somebody doesn’t know what a tomato tastes like? Would saying Sweet and Sour help at all?

I don’t think so… We have sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy. Those are basically all of the real taste descriptions our language has, isn’t it too general?

So from now on, I will invent ways to describe taste!’

He looked so proud of himself when he climbed on top of the food table and lifted his fork.

Of course he received a death glare from Kiyoko and sat back down just a second later…

I totally get it Snoops! There’s no way to describe the tastes, it’s driving me crazy!

While eating and experiencing true happiness for the first time, it took me 10 minutes to reach the point where I couldn’t eat anymore and my plate was still half full…

Can I take this food out and go give it to Snoopsi? He would lose his mind!

I got up from my seat and went out of the room, to put the plate in the sink, as the grandpa butler told me.

Someone cleared their throat behind me as I was about to drop the plate in the sink

“Young man, please make sure to dispose of your leftovers before putting the plate in the si-” I looked at the terrified expression of the fat kitchen worker who was talking to me and realized I dropped the plate into the sink.

Fuck…

The lady's terrified expression changed to sadness, anger and eventually acceptance, all in the span of 2 seconds before she opened her big mouth and yelled “WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU LITTLE……………!?!”

She just made a sad expression and turned around to leave with a defeated sigh.

I was about to walk away before a hand landed on my shoulder and the same fat lady said “You are going to fix your mistakes now. Take those gloves and clean this sink!

I want it spotless, you hear?!”

Honestly I can’t even complain too much, I’m too happy about getting to eat this food and this whole thing is my mistake regardless.

“All of this tomato sauce makes it look like someone died here, it’s just like BLOOD everywhere, you little troublemak- AHHH, what are you!?” She fell on her butt at the last second and avoided my knife. I couldn’t see clearly but this time I knew what was happening, it’s that damn word, I can’t let it control me!

I tried my hardest to reject the urge to kill her, I felt a big smile grow on my face as I squatted down and grabbed the fat woman’s shoulder I tried as hard as I could to stop myself, my knife was already at her throat, there was blood coming out and the lady was screaming and crying incomprehensibly.

I tried using Sy to break my own arm but it didn’t work, it was stronger than me, I felt tears flowing from my eyes as my fate was being sealed.

I couldn’t even close my eyes, my hand was just about to slice through her throat, as a boot suddenly came into my peripheral view and everything went black.

Next thing I knew, there was a person sitting on top of me holding my shirt collar in his hands.

“Noshi, that’s how we meet again I see. What a fucking retard you are, still just as lame, cowardly and whiny as before.

A capable killer like yourself should grow a little backbone, don’t you think?” Only 2 people ever called me Noshi, I couldn’t make out his voice or see clearly, everything was blurry and vague but it was obvious to me that Snoopsi would never talk to me like that…

There was only 1 other person who would use that name…

But why is he here?