My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!

The Captain must have finally realized, they really mean to kill me, if given the chance.

He bolted.

For someone with such an ordinary appearance, he moved with surprising speed, darting toward a tunnel that, no doubt, branched off into rooms leading them away from the marble chamber. His footsteps echoed frantically against the stone as he ran.

He made it perhaps ten steps before Guildmaster Halloway raised one hand almost lazily.

The air itself seemed to solidify around the Captain, wrapping him in invisible bindings that yanked him backward like a fish on a line. He slammed into the marble floor with a satisfying crack, and the magical restraints tightened, pinning his arms to his sides and his legs together.

"Did you really think," Halloway said, his voice carrying a dangerous calm, "that I became Guildmaster by being slow?"

The Captain struggled against the bindings, his ordinary face contorted with rage and fear. "You don't understand what I was trying to accomplish! The evolution, the advancement, the—"

"I understand perfectly." Halloway's weathered face was carved from granite. "You were willing to murder my chefs for a theory. That's all I need to know."

Marron looked at the Captain writhing on the floor and felt her stomach turn. Not from pity—she had none left for him—but from the knowledge of what came next. She glanced at Elena, whose face had gone pale, and at the other mimics who had begun to gather at the chamber's edges, drawn by the commotion.

Some things needed to be done. But not everyone needed to witness them.

"Could we..." Marron cleared her throat. "Could everyone be spared seeing the execution? I know it needs to happen, but—"

"Say no more." The Lieutenant's voice was firm but understanding. He looked at Halloway. "Guildmaster, if you would assist me? We can handle this quickly and cleanly elsewhere."

Halloway nodded, his expression softening slightly as he looked at Marron. "You've seen enough horrors in this place. We'll take care of this." He gestured toward the passage the Captain had tried to escape through. "The dungeon can have its meal. Just... not here."

The magical bindings lifted the Captain off the ground, and he began to thrash more violently. "No! You can't—I was trying to help! The dungeon needs proper—"

His voice cut off as Halloway added a silencing spell to the restraints. The Captain's mouth moved wordlessly as the Lieutenant fell into step beside the Guildmaster, and together they carried him toward the passage.

The Lieutenant paused at the threshold and looked back at Marron. Something in his pale eyes had changed—softened, maybe, or simply opened up to possibilities he'd never considered before.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For showing me there was another way."

Then they were gone, the Captain's silent struggles disappearing into the darkness.

Marron stood in the sudden quiet of the marble chamber, feeling the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on her shoulders. The beautiful kitchen, the threatening furnace, the lies and the revelations and the—

"MARRON!"

She turned just in time to see Mokko barreling toward her, his massive frame somehow moving with surprising grace. He swept her up in a hug that lifted her completely off her feet, his wooden spoon still clutched in one hand.

"We thought you were dead!" His voice rumbled with emotion. "The cart went silent for days and we couldn't track you and—" He set her down but kept his huge hands on her shoulders, as if reassuring himself she was real. "Are you hurt? Did they—"

"I'm okay," Marron managed, though her voice cracked on the words. "I'm okay, Mokko, I—"

Something cool and gelatinous pressed against her leg. She looked down to see Lucy in her true form—a translucent blue slime with those sharp, intelligent eyes floating in her center. The slime rippled and shifted, forming temporary tendrils that wrapped around Marron's ankles in what could only be described as a hug.

"Idiot," Lucy's voice bubbled up from her core, but there was no heat in it. "Making us chase you all the way into a dungeon. Do you know how hard it is to maintain daggers when you're mostly liquid?"

The absurdity of it—Lucy complaining about weapon maintenance while hugging her legs as a slime, Mokko still gripping her shoulders like she might evaporate, the contrast between this moment and the horror of five minutes ago—broke something inside Marron.

She burst into tears.

Not delicate crying, not quiet sobs, but full, gasping, body-shaking tears of relief and joy and exhaustion. She'd been holding herself together for so long—through the separation, the survival, the cooking, the Lieutenant, Elena, the Captain's twisted plans—and now, surrounded by her friends, her family, she finally felt safe enough to fall apart.

"Hey, hey," Mokko said, pulling her back into his hug. "It's okay. We've got you now."

Lucy's slime form rippled with what might have been distress. "Don't cry. You know I can't hug properly like this. It's unsanitary."

That made Marron laugh through her tears, which made her cry harder, which made her laugh again. Mokko just held her and let her shake, one massive hand patting her back with surprising gentleness.

Elena watched from across the chamber, her own eyes bright with unshed tears. Even if she wasn't sure what she was, she understood the weight of reunion, the relief of finding your people in the darkness.

"I missed you both so much," Marron finally managed to say, her voice muffled against Mokko's middle.

"We missed you too," Mokko rumbled. "The kitchen hasn't been the same without you."

Lucy looked less like a blob now and more shaped like a humanoid woman. Marron stopped hugging Mokko's massive stomach and turned to Lucy. She could hug her now, and she looked just as cool and soft as before. "You've grown!"

She nodded and smiled, her hair ribbon now split between two pigtails. "Started last week. Grandmaster said you must still be alive and cooking, then."

She crossed her arms but couldn't quite hide her smile. "Besides, someone had to come get you. Mokko was useless without his cooking partner."

"I was not useless—"

"You tried to make soup. It was somehow both burnt and raw."

"That was one time—"

Marron laughed again, real and bright and free, as her friends bickered with the comfortable rhythm of family. The dungeon still loomed around them, the Captain's fate still waited to be completed, and Elena still faced questions about her own existence.

But for this moment, in this marble chamber, Marron was home.

In another world, home wasn't a place. It was the very team who braved through the deep dark so they could help you walk back into the light.

"What took you guys so long?!"