“Even if you enter a tiger's den, you'll survive as long as you keep your wits about you.”
I'd like to take whoever first said that and throw him into a tiger's den.
Then I'd like to see exactly how he crawls back out.
There are some things you can overcome just by keeping your wits about you, and some things you can't.
My current situation was the latter.
‘Damn it.’
I, Samael (20), son of Goel.
An ordinary low-ranking guard.
I enjoy going to the park on my days off and buying rainbow-colored cotton candy.
I like dogs and cats, but I'm allergic to animal fur.
As it happened, today was the weekend, so under normal circumstances, I would've gone to the park and bought myself some cotton candy.
Then I would've watched the enviable people in the neighborhood walking their dogs and envied them.
But right now…….
“Welcome back, sir!!”
“Welcome back, sir―!!”
……I was in the middle of a criminal organization.
The place looked like an underground gambling hall.
Around twenty organization members were crowded around tables, enjoying various forms of gambling.
The moment we arrived, everything stopped.
Then they all bowed their heads toward the axe-wielding gangster.
“Yeah! Where's the Boss?”
“Yes. He's out at the moment. He'll be back soon.”
“Got it.”
“And who's the gentleman beside you?”
“A chef.”
The gangster who'd killed Katran, the owner of the meat-noodle shop.
Underboss Hamon.
As it turned out, he seemed to hold a fairly high position in the criminal organization.
An organization with around twenty members was respectable enough to qualify as small-to-medium in size, and groups like this often controlled the commercial district of a small area.
“Give me your luggage. I'll carry it for you.”
“No need. Hands off.”
“…….”
I'd spoken informally to the Underboss, so naturally I spoke informally to the lower-ranking members too.
But the bald organization member gave me a chilling look.
Scary.
This is scary….
“Hey, chef. You like gambling?”
“Not interested.”
“Then I'll have someone show you to the kitchen. Stay there. Hey, Kosik. Escort the chef to the kitchen.”
“Yes!”
Hamon put an arm around my shoulders and whispered.
“Hey, chef. If we're treating you nicely, you'd better know your place and cooperate. Means don't cook some shitty food or think about running.”
“…….”
“Our old man has been having a rough time lately, so you're supposed to be a present for him. Do a good job. Then maybe I'll give you something later. Give and take. Yeah?”
Soon, I followed a big-nosed guy called ‘Kosik’ into the kitchen.
The kitchen itself was basically a dumpster.
“Looks like shit, but the fire and water still work.”
“…….”
“Get your cooking ready. The Boss will be here in three hours.”
The fire and water work?
What a joke.
Does giving birth automatically make someone a parent?
Does having fire and water automatically make a place a kitchen?
A kitchen should be clean.
You couldn't cook in a place like this.
For a chef, hygiene was life itself.
Fortunately, there were cleaning supplies such as rubber gloves and detergent.
So I immediately began cleaning the kitchen.
Before long, I had the sink gleaming like new……
‘Wait.’
Why am I cleaning so diligently?
‘For fuck's sake.’
I threw down the steel scrubber and slumped to the floor.
Come to think of it, the kitchen had another door.
And I was alone.
This place seemed to have originally been an operating gambling hall.
When I opened the door, I saw stairs leading up to the surface.
Narrow and dark.
Gulp….
I wanted nothing more than to escape in a single step.
The problem was, I had no idea what was up there.
If I went out and got caught, they'd definitely beat the hell out of me.
And because I was a cripple, the chances of getting caught were high.
They say life is a succession of choices.
Most choices I'd made so far could still be undone.
This choice couldn't.
Do I make a limp-run for it?
Or stay here?
Gambling?
Or meat noodles?
“…….”
I stared through the doorway, unable to make up my mind.
Then a figure appeared on the other side of the stairs.
It was difficult to see in the darkness, but it was definitely a person.
Naturally, I didn't have enough Mana.
In the meantime, the figure disappeared.
‘Damn…. But….’
Apparently, something I'd ‘seen’ once remained recorded for a while.
Roughly calculating it, completely recovering all 100 Mana took about 7 hours.
Recovering 20 should take around 1 hour and 20 minutes.
For now, I killed time by cleaning.
While I did, my Mana gradually recovered.
Only then was I able to identify the figure.
‘Got it.’
Information flooded into my head.
A man in his thirties.
His name was Raden.
His height, weight, three sizes…… none of that mattered.
What mattered was his identity.
‘…He's a member of a northern criminal organization?’
I remembered the conversation I'd had with the gangster at the hospital.
He'd said the southern and northern organizations were fighting each other.
And judging by the direction we'd driven here from, this was still the ‘south.’
But if there was a member of a northern organization here…….
“……A spy?”
Feeling depressed, I began melting pork fat into the broth.
A northern organization member might belong to an enemy group, but having some bastard spying on this place didn't help me escape at all.
Why?
‘Because that bastard's a gangster too…….’
***
Playing the role of a chef came out of nowhere, but the role itself felt oddly familiar.
Not because being a chef was familiar.
To be precise, being placed in an unfamiliar situation and pretending to be an unfamiliar person was familiar.
My father died when I was 10.
I dropped out of school.
And before I got a job at the magic-tool factory at 15, I'd done plenty of other work.
Most of it filthy and unpleasant.
Did you know?
Clean workplaces all tend to look alike.
But every dirty workplace is bizarre in its own unique way.
At one place, I had to grovel constantly.
At another, I had to fight the customers.
When I worked polishing marble in the home of a nobleman with a taste for men while wearing nothing but underwear, I had to observe proper etiquette.
When I sold matches on the street, I had fistfights with beggars every day.
Anyway, maybe because I'd already made meat noodles once, the second attempt was easier.
And perhaps because some of the tension had eased, this time I could actually taste them.
They taste good.
“The Boss is here! Everyone, on your feet!”
Before long, the Boss arrived.
The organization members greeted him.
And apparently Underboss Hamon introduced me.
Something along the lines of:
Aren't you hungry?
I brought you a fucking incredible noodle master.
“A noodle master from Haidin Street?”
“Yes. You like noodles, don't you, Boss? I found him to cheer you up after you've been working day and night lately.”
“You bastard. Didn't even finish school and now you're throwing around fancy phrases…. Fine. I was getting hungry anyway.”
The Boss was an elderly gentleman with a long white beard.
I didn't recognize him.
But he was clearly a major figure in his own right.
“Let's see how it tastes.”
“Yes. Hey! Bring out what's ready!”
Without saying anything, I picked up the finished bowl of meat noodles and walked forward with a limp.
Straight down the middle of a path lined on both sides by organization members.
My hands and feet were trembling, and my knees felt weak.
But my movements were natural.
Even the plate I held in one hand didn't shake.
“So. You're the master?”
“…I am.”
“Your leg's crippled, but you've got a respectable bearing. Smells good too. Put it down.”
Have you ever been nervous watching someone else eat?
I was.
“Let's see―”
Fortunately, the Boss devoured the noodles in no time.
Then he nodded in satisfaction.
“Hmm. Not bad.”
A satisfied smile blossomed across the old man's twisted lips.
I finally breathed again.
I'm alive…….
“Not bad, right? I ate one damn bowl myself and nearly lost my mind. Ha!”
“Indeed. They're good.”
The Boss turned toward me.
Then stared directly into my eyes.
“And extremely familiar.”
Huh.
‘What?’
What is this feeling….
“Pardon? Familiar, you say?”
“Hamon. Did you say Haidin Street?”
“Yes.”
“I've eaten meat noodles there that tasted exactly like these before. That area belongs to those ‘Black Snake’ bastards, so I couldn't go often.”
In that instant, it felt as though all the blood were being drained from my head.
Oh, shit.
‘No way.’
The driver had said earlier that the Boss was such a noodle fanatic that he traveled to other territories looking for them.
Was he actually capable of distinguishing not only flavors, but individual noodle masters……?
“So these aren't the original noodles? This bastard copied someone else's recipe?”
Hamon glared at me.
Huh?
Honestly, if he wanted to understand it that way, I'd be grateful.
Right.
Recipes from famous restaurants get passed around and copied by everyone anyway…… right?
(No.)
But the Boss shook his head.
“No. That's not it. No.”
“Then what is it?”
“Hamon. Wasn't the shop you brought this bastard from called 14-Year Noodles?”
My mind went blank.
14-Year Noodles……
It was almost the same name as Katran's noodle shop.
The Boss must've eaten there last year.
“Hmm…. It was 15-Year Noodles. So that must've been a year ago.”
And Underboss Hamon wasn't an idiot.
“What? You brought this guy from 15-Year Noodles?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“I am. Right?”
Hamon lightly tapped my arm.
Caught off guard, I nodded.
That was when it happened.
All color vanished from the Boss's expression.
“Now that's strange….”
The Boss's face turned serious.
He wasn't merely capable of distinguishing flavor from chef.
“Hamon. Did you know that before I got into this life, I used to run a rice shop and a mill, and sold noodles too?”
“Ah, did you? Is that why you like noodles so much….”
“Back then. The owner of 15-Year Noodles was a man named Katran. An absurdly kindhearted bastard…….”
His next words made it feel as though the world were collapsing.
“He was my disciple.”
The Boss added,
“My most cherished disciple.”
***
It felt as though every drop of blood were being sucked from my body.
Could anyone really be this unlucky?
Katran had been this gangster boss's disciple 15 years ago?
And I'd pretended to be Katran, then served his master's disciple's noodles back to him?
How did this situation even make sense……?
Suddenly, I remembered the [Misfortune: 9] I'd drawn not long ago.
If the 「All-Seeing Eye」 was [Fortune: 9], then this situation was definitely [Misfortune: 9].
“Chef.”
The Boss called me.
The organization members, realizing that something was wrong with the atmosphere, tensed as well.
“Speak.”
My mind had left my body three or four times by now, but my voice remained calm.
“You. Explain this.”
My mind raced.
Then a lightning bolt of inspiration struck.
Could I say I was Katran's disciple?
“Were you perhaps his disciple?”
But.
The moment he asked me first, I felt like answering yes would be a mistake.
“I was not.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you were his friend, and he passed it on to you.”
He kept feeding me hints.
That only made me intensely suspicious.
Why would the person interrogating me deliberately give me an escape route?
“I wasn't his friend either.”
“…….”
The Boss sighed.
“…Right. Of course you weren't. Katran refused to take disciples, and he even refused to teach the recipe to his own master.”
I knew it!
Cold sweat ran down my back.
If I'd taken the bait he'd just thrown me, I would've been killed.
“These noodles… this aroma of pork fat steeped with pomegranate and pepper was Katran's invention. Who are you, and why were you selling this at Katran's shop when you got dragged here?”
SHING―
Sensing the dangerous mood, one of the organization members drew a blade.
“Answer.”
I clenched my teeth.
What do I say?
What can I possibly say to get out of this?
No matter how hard I thought, absolutely nothing came to mind.
But when I glanced over, Underboss Hamon didn't look well.
Ah.
Right!
Who had killed Katran by burying an axe in his head?
That very Underboss—
Hamon!
“I'll tell you the truth. I was a regular customer.”
“A regular?”
“I ate at that shop for years, and I was close with the owner. I helped around the shop many times too.”
“Helped? A customer?”
“He never closed the shop for a single day in 15 years, but how could any human body remain steadfast through enough years for rivers and mountains to change? He was human too, and there were times when he grew weak.”
No.
No.
The suspicion in the old man's eyes was growing.
“Of course, I never learned anything about the recipe itself. The business relied on ingredients prepared beforehand anyway, so there was no way I could know it. But I did end up watching the general order of preparation over his shoulder.”
I desperately connected the details of my story.
As vaguely as possible.
Dodging every specific detail.
“He was a very kind man. When he saw my leg was like this, he treated me especially well…. He knew I had trouble finding decent work, so he sometimes let me help him. That was why.”
Sell everything you can sell.
Even your disability.
“And?”
“…You know how bleak things have become in Gesenna lately. Something bad happened to me as well, and whenever that happened, I'd always found comfort at his shop. So that day, I went to 15-Year Noodles again……. But when I arrived, the owner was already dead.”
The Boss's wrinkled eyes immediately widened.
“Dead?”
“He was. Didn't you see him too?”
I asked Hamon.
“Huh?”
Hamon blinked.
“Wasn't there a corpse lying in front of the shop?”
“Huh? Ah. Y-Yeah! There was. Oh, so that was…! I was wondering who the hell had died there….”
Hamon looked confused, but went along with me anyway.
“It looked as though he'd been struck by a heavy weapon. Whoever could murder an innocent citizen like that must be a vicious bastard with a rotten fucking personality.”
I pushed up my glasses and stared at Hamon.
Hamon awkwardly nodded.
“R-Right….”