Esther slammed the table and rushed into the kitchen. There, she saw several birds trying to hold a frying pan over a fire. She stormed over and grabbed the bird that wore a chef’s hat.

However, she noticed that her cube was slowly glowing red, so she loosened her grip on it.

“Tell me. Why does it taste like Mom?”

The bird’s eyes shook. “P-Please believe me! We’re not using human meat!”

“No! That’s not what I meant! Why does it taste like Mom’s cooking?”

Before the bird could give her the answer, someone grabbed her from behind. It was N. He freed the bird and shoved Esther out of the kitchen.

“Are you crazy!? You almost died! Don’t hurt friendly NPCs!”

Esther regained her balance and looked back at N. “I know. I saw the cube glow red.” And she’d loosened her grip on the bird. “Now step aside. I need answers!”

“No. I don’t trust you with it.” N crossed his arms and stood in the doorway. “But I can answer for you. The chefs take the memories of the tastiest food you’ve ever had and mix them with what you’ve ordered.”

Before Esther could ask why he was so sure, the bird chef from before poked its head out of the doorway and pecked N’s arm. “Hey! Revealing our secret recipes like that?”

“Not really a secret if you think about it.”

“...I’m charging you one Coin for meals from now on.”

N had his mouth agape. He wanted to protest, but he couldn’t actually do anything. Dejected, he left the doorway and sat down at a table.

Having no reason to go in the kitchen anymore, Esther followed and also sat down at the table.

“So… I assume that you’re done?”

“Yes.” N sighed and swept his hair back. “And before you ask, Police is trying to help Color map out the Bazaar.”

“...Color doesn’t know Korean.” Esther accidentally blurted that out. But it was okay. It was still salvageable. “She’s a friend of mine from another country visiting Korea, if you’re wondering.”

N stared at Esther for a few seconds before nodding. “What bad luck, huh? To be caught up in this.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yeah….”

After that, they stayed silent, only occasionally ordering food and eating without disturbing the other. But eventually, Freya and Police arrived back.

Esther knew because she could feel Freya hugging her from behind.

“‘Kay. Enough hugging. Where’s the map?”

“Here!”

Esther unfurled the map on the table and looked at it. Unlike what she’d expected, it was expertly done.

Either Freya was better at this than she’d thought or Police had a really heavy hand in this.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that most, if not everything here was useless. Rolling the map back up, Esther patted Freya.

“Aww… I wanted to do the patting!”

Tough luck.

N coughed. It made Esther realize again that they weren’t the only people in the room. She blushed and made Freya sit down next to her.

“Okay, enough of that. Let’s discuss the next level.” N reached into his pocket and took out four pieces of paper. “I found this hint lying around in the previous level. Please have a look.”

Esther obliged and looked through the paper. It was in Korean, so she had to translate for Freya.

“Lamat’s Garden. There are only two types of enemies there: Dropsnakes and Trents. But there are also many traps. One good thing is that everything there is weak to fire. Got it?”

Freya nodded.

Despite this information being plentiful enough, Esther still had more questions. “Won’t the enemies be weak to fire?”

“Yes. They’re plants,” N answered.

“What about uhhh… Plant magic. If I hypothetically have it, of course.”

N frowned. He drummed his fingers on the table before nodding. “You mean Nature Magic? Yeah, they’ll have a big advantage there. If you do you any Nature Mage, you don’t need to worry about their safety.”

Good. I don’t need to worry about Freya, then.

“How much time left until the level?”

“Ask the Operator.”

“Operator, how much time?”

[2:22:18:49]

….Fuck me.

“Ehem, anyways.” N cleared his throat. “E and Color, you guys should buy something to cover your head.”

“...Why?”

“Because it’s dangerous to be a woman here. Your future teammates will see you as vulnerable and try to kill you to get more contributions. Even though having a mask would make people think that you’re a young boy, it’s better than letting them know that you’re woman.”

“Already ahead of you.” Esther placed her helmet on the table. No, she didn’t anticipate this. Not a little bit. But she wanted to feel smug about it.

“I see.… Color?”

Freya shook her head.

“Then you should go to the mask store on the map.”

With everything he wanted to say having been said, N excused himself to go to his room. Police soon followed.

Only Esther and Freya were left on the first floor.

“So you wanna cuddle or—”

Esther stopped her with a wave of her hand. Conjuring a ball of blue Fire with her left hand, she chuckled.

“We train.”