Chef’s Kiss

There’s pros and cons to everything. Pros and cons to taking different routes to work, pros and cons to different products to buy, even pros and cons to taking a shit now versus later.

There’s even pros and cons to getting to know me as a person.

Most people outweigh the cons against the pros and consider that getting to know me would be too much of a hassle and don’t bother. But this guy…

“Woooow! So although it’s a single stemata, it has multiple functions! It’s so cool!” The red haired trainee said as he dodged the slices of light that approached him.

My stemata is a blue frying pan that has a set area of effect I can use to do various effects and attacks. One of the effects that I like opening with is the ability “Dice.” I can slash from any direction at any target within the space. The slashes are of course limited to how fast I could cut ingredients on a board. After telling him all of these things, his eyes lit up more and more with each word that left my lips. There was nothing but childlike wonder in those eyes.

Should I really be telling him these things?

Meh, what’s the harm? He’ll need more info than that as well as a means to apply what he’s learned effectively if he wants my badge.

“So I’ve been meaning to ask—” He stopped in place as several slices approached him from different directions. “Watch out, dumbass!” I made the motion as if I was tossing some rice in my pan and sent him flying in the air before coming right back down after the slices intersected.

“That was amazing!” He said recovered from his rough fall. “So that ability must be something that allows you to control the gravity of various things in your range. Does that count for inanimate objects as well?!”

“Y-yeah…”

“Wow! Your abilities are so amazing and versatile. You must be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield!”

“Actually, I’m mostly deployed as a support or damage relief.”

“Why is that? You have the capacity to do some real damage.”

I sighed as I slammed the bottom of my frying pan against the tree closest to me. Once I did, the area of effect lifted. At this point, it’s his fault if he doesn’t get any points, not mine.

===

I basically sat down with him and told him the rest of my kit. Along with my dice ability and my toss ability, I have two more that I use when deployed.

The first is douse. I summon a light to heavy rain that could turn into thunderstorms if I expend more stem energy. I usually just use it to put out fires. The second one is “season.” Just like when one seasons some food, I apply an effect that makes anyone in it more susceptible to damage.

“Hm…are you able to overclock it?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Hm…” the kid put his hand to his chin and went deeper into thought. I could practically see the gears in his head turning. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know his name.

“Hey kid, what’s your name—”

“Jack. So now that I think about it, you have all of these abilities to amplify or assist attacks for others, but have you ever tried applying all of these effects to your own dice attack?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I…haven’t really thought about that. It’s so simple too. I wonder why such a thing didn’t cross my mind…

Oh right…It’s because people don’t really hang out with me. Y’know, there’s an area in the cafeteria of the Elizabeth reserved for titled CTs, but sometimes I would hang out in the regular area to try to work up the courage to talk to people.

I never get to that “talking to other people” part…

“So for example,” he continued “To mix up your enemy, you use your toss in between every couple slashes. Throw in some thunderstorms and you’ll have a dangerous technique!”

“Yeah, that’s not bad, Jack!”

“Jack! Have you taken this guy’s badge yet?” A girl with short pink hair stepped into the area with a hulking trainee, and she was apparently wearing his jacket?

“Anna, perfect timing! You have the best stemata to test this out on! Go ahead Mr…uh…”

“Chef’s Kiss.” I chuckled a bit as I got into a battle-ready stance.

“J-jack?! We just finished a pretty intense fight and were about to go look for those regular badges. You don’t have to send another titled CT our way haha…”

Regardless of her pleas, I tapped my stemata on the ground and dashed toward the two. As I did, the bigger one increased the size of his arm and swung it my way. I pointed my stemata toward the incoming arm and diced it into tiny cubes.

Jack was astounded, “wow! So you can enter your own area of effect.”

“Jack, what the hell’s your problem?!” The bigger one retracted his now cut arm while Anna used her stemata to grow himself an entire new hand. So Jack wasn’t kidding…

The pink haired one approached me and before she could enter striking distance, I summoned thunderstorms along with several slices. She bobbed and weaved through each one of cuts except for one. That one was a cut that I applied my toss to to change the trajectory. It was such an unnatural change of direction that it threw her off entirely. She couldn’t move her entire body out of the way and because she couldn’t, she lost an arm in the process. Regardless of the fact, she didn’t flinch as she kept closing the distance.

She’s risking everything to close the distance right now. After fighting a titled CT, she’s probably low on stem energy as well. All I have to do is keep her at bay with my abilities.

But that’s no way to test my abilities!

I grinned from ear to ear as I activated my toss ability and tossed her dozens of feet into the air like some fried rice. As she began to enter freefall, she created a mass of flesh to use as a shield as she plummeted towards me. As a response, I used season to make her more susceptible to damage while using my dicing to send hundreds of slices her way. The bigger one stayed out of my way and bet everything on the girl because he knew I could do fatal damage to him if he were to step in without the girl’s support. As he and Jack watched on the outside of my area of effect, I kept dicing away at the girl while she kept shortening the distance. It didn’t take long for me to finally cut away at everything surrounding her to reveal her main body and as she did, she cut me right across the arm as she did a tactical rollout back on the ground. She successfully landed a hit on me.

“Hah! Game set, Chef’s Kiss! Now I have to…huh?”

“Looks like my estimation was right…”

Her fight with the titled CT was already having her run on E. Add in those flashy attacks and she was bound to use up all her stem energy. The major hint of that was the arm that she still has yet to grow back.

“That was a good fight! Matthews ain’t messing around with you guys! You’re some tough customers!”

“Thanks…can we leave now?” Anna said while she looked as if she was trying to burn a hole through Jack’s head.

“Of course you can! And don’t mind him, I just concluded that this guy is a stemata fanatic. And we kinda became buddies over it!” I put my arm around Jack and let out a hearty laugh.

The bigger trainee tilted his head in confusion. “I’m…glad you found a friend?”

“Let’s just go, Gollie.”

“O-ok…”

As the two left, an announcement blared through the speakers from Nellie Ruth herself. “Fifteen minutes left on the clock! Let’s see what our trainees get up to with such little time left!”

“Oh wait! I forgot to try to take your badge! Bring it on—woah!” Jack was about to take out his stemata, but I threw my titled badge his way and he caught it.

“I think you’re the first trainee in history to win a badge without using their stemata. Stay golden, kid.” I turned around and began to walk off. After all, once we CTs lose our badges in this event, we’re supposed to exit the premises immediately. I gave a wave goodbye as I walked deeper into the forest. “Let’s go out for drinks sometime. Booze on me.”

“Sadly, I’m not old enough to drink. I would love to eat at one of those cook your own food places that I saw on the way here.”

“Ah hell yeah! Whenever you’re down, I’m down! See you on the Elizabeth, man”

He’s the weirdest trainee I’ve met yet.

He’s gonna be a pretty cool friend too…