I took the package from the head chef and inspected it carefully.

"This is organic fish?" I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me, "Yes? Don't tell me it's your first time seeing fish."

"I mean… It's packaged like synthfood… I'd thought you have the whole fish or something."

"That is the whole fish, what are you talking about?"

Ok, fine… I guess they can't really transport fresh fish all over the galaxy just by putting them in a container of ice so they have to resort to other ways to keep it 'fresh'.

This seems like the fish was cut up before being packaged and vacuum sealed or something in order to preserve its freshness.

Well… At least it still looks like a fish fillet so I know how to handle it… It would be problematic if it looked like some weird alien thing instead.

I looked around the kitchen, "Am I allowed to use any ingredients here?"

Steiner huffed, "As long as you don't touch any of the other organic stuff. The main taste should come from the fish itself, not whatever you decide to add to it."

I nodded, "Of course. I was just wondering if you would say something like needing me to bring my own ingredients instead."

"Hmph, I don't want to hear you giving me excuses like you only lost because I have better ingredients!"

That's quite an honourable sentiment.

In that case, let me see what I can use here…

I went over to their storage units and pulled open the doors, revealing several different packages of synthfood.

Alright, there's some things here that I recognise which I would be able to use to mix different kinds of sauces and seasonings.

I pulled out a few of them and piled them up in my arms before walking over to my own prep area.

Steiner started his own prep on his side of the kitchen and I noticed something odd.

His prep consisted of just putting the package on a conveyor belt on some kind of machine without opening it up.

He then walked over to the console and tapped on the screen, prompting the conveyor belt to start moving the package into the machine itself.

Eh? Wait… Is that how he's preparing it?

I watched as he tapped various selections on the screen and I quickly realised that the seasoning and cooking was all done within the machine itself… None of it was done by hand.

I was just staring at the sight of it while being completely flabbergasted that this was the standard for cooking here.

He noticed that I was looking at him and he turned to face me, "You'll have to wait a bit. We only have one of these organic cookers since I'm the only one that makes the organic dishes."

I blinked at him, "That's how you cook?"

"How else will you cook?"

"Using the stove? Why else do you have the stove?" I asked, pointing at the only working stove in the corner.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"That? That's used for the non-packaged organic foods, obviously. Though I will admit I'm surprised you even know what a stove is."

Wow… Ok… The standards of cooking have really fallen, I see… At least I can feel vindicated that I was right about him using a machine to cook.

Fuck it, guess I'll do it my way.

I opened the package and laid it down on a pan, checking the contents that were in the package.

There were a few white fish fillets and they were already cleaned so there's no need to wash and dry them.

For now, I took a bowl and started mixing in the synthfoods that I know would give the buttery and lemony taste before adding the ones that would give it the salty taste and mixing them together.

I then took another bowl and mixed in some of the spicy types of synthfoods, especially the ones that I knew that would give the taste of garlic and pepper.

Finally, I put together some cooking oil since I realised there weren't any around here and I specifically mixed mine to taste like olive oil.

Once that was mixed, I pressed the spice mixture on each side of the six fish fillets evenly before bringing them over to the stove.

"What are you doing?!" Steiner yelled at me.

"Cooking," I answered without looking back.

"You're ruining the ingredients, that's what you're doing! You're making me look like a fool for even taking this challenge now!"

"Are you going to judge another chef's cooking before you even tasted it?"

"Hmph. Are you saying that I'm wrong?"

"I'm saying that you might want to stop judging the dish before it's even cooked."

I did not bother checking what his reaction was to my comment and went towards the stove to prepare a pan over the fire.

I then poured the oil I prepared on the pan and let it heat up until it was sizzling before placing the fillets on the pan.

As the fillets began to cook, I watched each one carefully since it would not take long for this to cook.

About two and a half minutes passed before I flipped each of them on the other side while drizzling some of that lemoney, buttery sauce I had prepared earlier over the fillets.

I continued to repeat this until the sides of the fillet started to turn brown and the centre felt somewhat firm.

I picked each of them out from the pan and plated them with the remaining lemoney butter sauce and arranged them in a line.

If it was up to me though, I would have prepared some greens to go along with this but I didn't want him to try and claim this also counted as interfering with the taste of the fish.

I looked over to where Steiner was and found him standing on the other end of the machine where the dishes were in the process of being ejected out of the other side, exactly like how ours had looked like.

Picking up my plates, I brought them over to the serving station at the same time as he did and the head chef frowned when he saw what I had made.

"How… How did you make those?" He asked.

"I cooked them," I answered as a matter of factly before pushing one plate of it over. "Wanna taste?"

"What is this?"

"Lemon butter fish."

He stared at it for a while as though confused by its existence before picking up a fork to reach over to the plate.

He cut off a piece of it and brought it up to his nose to smell it before very slowly opening his mouth to put his fork in it.

Steiner's mouth closed and his empty fork was extracted past his lips, right before he bit down on the fish that was in his mouth.

He chewed once, paused, then chewed again, then another pause, this time stopping longer than the first pause.

I was wondering if he didn't like the lemon or the buttery taste until I realised tears were welling up in the corner of his eyes.

He suddenly turned back to his own plates of fish with a gaze filled with rage before he slammed his fist on the table with a loud bang.

That was when the door to the kitchen suddenly opened and Amber rushed in.

"What happened, Tera?! Are you hurt?!"

What the hell Amber? Were you just standing right behind the door ready to rush in at anytime or something?

Lea and Mara entered right after her alongside the rest of the chefs and the manager.

I gestured to the head chef, "Nothing happened to me… Ask him."

Steiner still had his fist on the table while he was hunched over, almost as if someone had just punched him in the gut or something.

His eyes, however, were locked onto the plates in front of me, "Are those…"

I nodded, "Yeah, made a plate for each of us so feel free to take one."

The three girls immediately took a plate each and retreated away from everyone else, as though afraid that the others would steal it from them.

I took up my own fork and tried a piece of it, bringing it to my mouth to taste.

Hmm… Not too bad… Though I would definitely have liked some pepper to give it a little more kick.

That was when I heard sobbing coming from Steiner's direction and I had to lean closer to hear what he was saying.

"Chef? I'm nothing more than a fraud… What was I so proud of? I am nothing… Pathetic… I am a disgrace… How can I even call myself a chef with this? Everything that I know is a lie… Everyone I know is a goddamned fraud…"

Err… Wow… Those are some heavy words over there, Steiner… Are you ok?

Also… Can I take it that I win? Does that mean I can go look at your organic foods storage now?