“Isn’t that too much?” Raissa asks me as I return to my team, and we all look at the trembling spoon in Flaminia’s hand. “She’s the best [Baker] in Amorium, Joey.”

“Is she?” I wink at the little Elf and turn back to look at the pink-haired [Chef].

All the pressure is on Flaminia now. And everyone knows it—well, almost everyone.

“Flaminia, just taste the cake,” Violante sneers, “that idiot wants to spout a bunch of green-eared talk. Let him. I know I didn’t mess up anything. He’s just trying to get in our ears, that Worm.”

To my surprise, Melina, the woman in charge of the ovens, also comes forward. “Violante’s right,” she says angrily.

“Melina!” I hear a shout from the [Blacksmith] guy who comes here to help with the ovens. I didn’t even notice he had come. “Melina,” he goes up to her, looking panicked. “Don’t. I have a terrible feeling that the Human…”

“Shut up, Raul,” Melina pushes him back and turns to Flaminia, staying by Violante’s side. “That… bastard can’t insult everyone in this bakery like that! Who does he think he is?! Flaminia, you are the best of the best. You know your cake is flawless. The base is one of the softest I have ever cooked in the oven. Show him that a rag-tag band of idiots can’t compete with someone who has more than thirty levels on them!”

“Yet someone else will get fired for siding with an idiotic racist,” I say in Clodia’s direction.

The boss of Happy Bakery shoots a dark glance at me but says nothing.

Reinvigorated by the two racists, Flaminia’s hand stops trembling, and she puts the spoon through the cake, scooping up a good chunk.

She puts it in her mouth.

Her eyes go wide in synch with the corners of my mouth going up.

“Clodia,” I say with a bastard’s grin drawn on my face. “Why don’t you go ahead and taste the Cassata? Oh, wait. Let me finish the lesson.”

“So,” I say, stepping in front of the judges, “this recipe is roughly six-hundred years old. Maybe less, maybe more. It’s hard to date it precisely. It’s a dish from where my parents came from: their region was subject to many foreign power whims. But this is one of the many dishes that they have learned how to make – and improved, I must say – from their conquerors. One of the reasons I chose this cake is because it takes some real skill to decorate a rather plain Cassata and because it represents multiple cultures coming together.”

I look around, ignoring the hateful stares from a handful of employees.

“I like Elves. I like Amorium. I like what you do, Clodia. For what matters, I liked Flaminia before she pulled all this crap… I have been extremely harsh because doing otherwise would have broken all the promises I had made to my mother. This Cassata, to me, is a peace offer. Take it or leave it.”

I stare down at the judges as they look at each other and start spooning the Cassata’s glaze and soft underbelly, all filled with sweetened sheep ricotta and chocolate bits.

“Fuck,” Clodia swears out loud as she savors the first bite. “This is... fuck.”

“This is...” Lucillus’s eyes go wide, and his hand trembles.

Antoninus doesn’t say anything and scarfs down the entire thing in the blink of an eye. He basically inhales it.

“Can I have seconds?” The brute asks, offering his plate to me.

“Sure,” I say, putting a bigger slice on his plate and watching him down the food with ravenous bites.

“Are those dark chips... Pigfeed?” Clodia mutters, separating the chocolate chips from the ricotta with a clinical eye.

“You’re enjoying the Pigfeed now, aren’t you?”

“This…” Clodia takes another spoonful with unfocused eyes, most likely wondering if she’s just dreaming.

Lucillus finishes his piece of Cassata and looks between Flaminia and me before slowly exhaling.

“I… it’s Joey’s. Joey wins the taste test.”

A wave of murmurs spreads through the crowd while Violante looks on the verge of tearing her hair out.

Antoninus is offering me his plate for a third serving, and no one has to ask what he’s thinking. His chewing is a loud-enough opinion, clear to all.

Clodia takes a few more bites, most likely hoping it would get worse or less embarrassing for Flaminia. Her strong frame seems to be shrinking now; she shakes her head a few times before looking at the pink-haired [Chef] of hers.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“So?” Melina is the one asking, hoping Clodia won’t declare the defeat of her previous best employee.

“I have traveled a fair share with my mother. I have traveled for work, visiting bakeries across Epretos whenever possible,” Clodia starts saying, putting down her plate. “I have eaten products made by level 40 [Bakers] and [Chefs]…”

“Joey,” she turns to me. “How… how don’t you have any levels? You are a master [Chef] at the very least.”

Everyone looks at me, perhaps waiting to hear that I actually have levels in troves.

“Nope. Not one level in [Baker], [Chef], or any other cooking-related class. But I was one of the very best where I come from if that’s of any comfort.”

“What does that even mean?! Clodia, are you saying that the Worm hasn’t lost?!” Violante shouts. Melina grabs her arm, despair on her face.

Clodia ignores the shouting idiot and turns to her favorite employee.

“Flaminia… I’m sorry. Joey wins.”

…

Violante and Melina had to be escorted out before we could resume our talks.

“Dismissing others’ work and being racist doesn’t work out so well, does it?” I ask Flaminia.

“I…” Flaminia shakes her head, at a loss for words.

“You haven’t tasted the Cassata yet,” I say, moving to cut another piece before Antoninus can sneakily eat the rest. I place it in front of Flaminia, and I hold her gaze.

There’s no scorn, funniness, or anything mean.

I just stare at her like I would at one of my employees.

Taste speaks much louder than words.

Flaminia keeps looking at me as she raises a spoonful to her mouth and slowly savors my cake.

She gives it a few chews before swallowing.

“Fuck,” she whispers, biting her lip. “Fuck…”

She closes her eyes, but a few tears still escape and touch the table below.

At least she accepted reality, I think.

“Cutting that masterpiece of decoration should be a crime,” she says among a few repressed sobs.

Angry, she slams her forearm into her own cake, throwing it to the ground. She doesn’t say anything as she keeps sobbing to herself.

I look at Clodia, who seems on the verge of stepping in, but I shake my head. I’ll take it from here.

“All these levels…” I hear Flaminia say. “What for… fucking rotten roots.”

“You have most likely never met anyone worth their salt,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“Fine? FINE?!” Flaminia shouts at me, her eyes fully red. “What have I worked so hard for, Joey?! WHAT?! This, THIS, is all I have!” She pointed at the cake on the ground, falling to her knees.

I bend down in front of her and pass a finger through the cake’s filling and caramel, putting it in my mouth.

Yeah. Ruined.

“Joey, what are you doing?” Flaminia, her face a mask of pain, still on the ground.

“I can teach you how to make it better,” I tell Flaminia in a deadpan. “We can dilute the filling cream with milk and eggs, and I also know a few tricks to get the same caramel flavor with one-third of the caramel you used.” I clean the residue on my finger on my uniform. “The idea is interesting, but you may only want a few layers. Four thin layers of sponge cake, probably, and three of filling. Make them thinner, so you don’t need to use as much filling. If you slightly wetted the layers before putting the filling in, it would have given the impression of more filling than there actually is. Melina dried out the sponge cake too much. I had a similar problem since that cheese was relatively dry. It means that you need to be extra careful with the sponge cake. I had Truffles take it out before it hardened too much. But even that wouldn’t have been enough for you. You should take the middle part of a sponge cake and slightly wet it. In your case, if this is a cake for nobles, I would also add whatever liquor they like. A strong spirit will offset the sweetness in part but also exalt the particular taste. You’ll need one with a more neutral taste, though, or it will kill the caramel’s flavor.”

“What… what are you saying?” She looks at me with confusion.

I sit on the ground in front of her. I would like to say it’s because it looks cool, but I’m actually pretty tired and light-headed, especially now that the adrenaline is wearing off.

“My mother believed in showing the other cheek when someone wanted to slap you—she wasn’t great at applying it, though. But yeah, she believed it. And that’s what matters to me, Flam.”

Flaminia’s ears perk up at hearing me shorten her name—it’s my peace offer.

Deserving something is a funny concept, you know? It’s hard to say whether Flaminia does or does not deserve a peace offering. She did jack when Violante called me a Worm and spat all that hate. On that count, she still has ways to go before I forgive her completely. But the world doesn’t get any better by throwing people like her to the fringes of society—not without a second chance, at least.

I turn to my team.

If every single one of us did what the military had done to Tiberius and Quintus, what the bakery was about to do to Raissa, what Claudius’s master is putting him through, and whatever the world is doing to Stan and Truffles…

This would be hell, then.

And I don’t stand for any of that.

“I have a few conditions for Clodia, but I just need you to employ more kindness and humbleness from now on. I could take all this shit, but not everyone could. You could have broken a man here. I was lucky to have been through what I have been through. So, if you are ready to take my hand, I can still teach you what I know – from how to bake and how to treat employees to the best managerial moves for a bakery. Oh, and marketing. I’m good at that too.”

Flaminia looks at me as if I was a madman.

“Joey, I… was terrible.”

“We all are,” I nod. “Some of us are figuring it out, though, a little bit more than others. If you want, I can help. You just have to take my hand, Chef.”

I extend my hand, smiling lightly at the distraught woman on the ground in front of me.

But Flaminia’s shoulders tremble.

"I've ruined everything," Flaminia gasps out, her eyes red and swollen with tears. “I thought I was so much better… but all these years of work… I can’t even compare it with what you just did.”

Flaminia hesitates to speak again, but then, she pushes the words out.

“How can I even catch up?”

“You don’t have to do that alone,” I say with a sad smile. “No one does.”

“I didn’t say anything when Violante called you a… that."

“I—I fucked it all up. Everything…” Flaminia starts tearing up again, even more than before. She can’t say another word.

I give her a moment to let it all out as Clodia starts shooing away some of the nosy employees who were getting closer to us. I show Flaminia my open hand.

“Just take it,” I smile sympathetically. “It’s not that hard.”

She squeezes out some more tears and, with eyes closed and mouth trembling, she grabs my hand with all her strength. I scooch forward and pull her in for a hug.

We stay like that for a few minutes before Flaminia, shaking, mutters a ‘thank you.’_

“Aren’t you two getting up?” Clodia, one of the few left in the kitchen, asks.

“Oh, no. My legs have given up. I ain’t getting up unless you princess-carry me, that’s for sure.”