My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!

Halloway returned with a sigh, accompanied by his four guards. As he approached, Marron looked up from a cup of tea.

"We need to talk," he said quietly. "All of us."

Charity closed her notebook. Lucy shifted nervously on Marron's shoulder while Mokko's ears turned toward the guildmaster.

"What did it tell you?" Marron asked.

He ignored her question and continued walking. When they were safely inside his office, he sat down for a moment.

"Your cart," he began, then paused. "Marron, do you know what you've been cooking with?"

She frowned. "It's my cart. From when I first arrived. I know it's magical, but—"

"It's a Legendary Tool. One of seven artifacts that have shaped culinary history for centuries."

Marron's tea mug slipped from her fingers and clattered on the table. Lucy squeaked. Mokko looked at her with concern.

"That's impossible," Marron whispered. "It's just... I mean, it helps my cooking, but it's not..."

"Look around the guild hall," Halloway said. "My office has a tapestry, but there are also paintings on the walls."

Marron took Lucy with her and looked at the paintings on the walls. She had seen them before but never really studied them. Now she could see what she'd missed.

In each painting, there were seven figures holding different kitchen equipment, but they were inconsistent. Sometimes there was a wok, or she saw a knife beside a blender. There was only one constant tool: a food cart-shaped silhouette.

When they returned to Halloway's office, he pointed to his tapestry. It showed silhouettes of:

- knife

- wok

- whisk

- saucepan

- pot

- food cart

"Since the Tools are legends, nobody can agree on what they are," Halloway said.

"Some say the knife was lost centuries ago. Others say the wok was destroyed in the Dragon Wars. But the cart appears in every single painting and legend."

Marron's hands shook as she looked at the tapestry. "But I didn't know. When I arrived, it was just there with me. I thought it was part of being summoned."

"Normally, that's true. We believed dungeons spawn because of extra magical energy. While we would leave that research to the mages…for Whetvale specifically?"

He put a hand on Marron's shoulder, looking sorry for her. "The mimic confirmed it. They were looking for the cart because it can make their dungeon stronger."

Marron was shocked when Guildmaster Halloway told her that the mimics swarmed Brookvale because it had shops stocked with magical items.

"We thought they just hoarded them, but…they sacrifice stolen items. And your cart is a large source of culinary magic."

Charity saw the gravity of the situation. "Whoever brings that cart back to their dungeon…"

Halloway nodded. "…could make a dungeon so powerful, not even the Blacktip Adventurer's party could clear it."

The thought hit Marron like cold water. She'd known the cart made her food taste better, but she hadn't realized it was so valuable.

Did I really make money because my food was good, or because the cart made everything tastier? How many of these dishes are actually successful because of me?

"There's more," Halloway continued, pulling Marron out of her thoughts. "I need to tell you about Juno."

Charity's pen stopped midair.

"Are you sure, guildmaster?"

Before Halloway could respond, someone knocked on the door.

"Guildmaster," an apprentice bowed before he entered. "You had an appointment with Zehra at four?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you, Avery." He motioned for Charity, Marron, Mokko, and Lucy to leave.

"I think that's enough for today. I'll see you all tomorrow."

+

As Marron, Mokko, and Lucy returned to their room, she felt weighed down by responsibility.

"All this time I've just been a walking target."

Mokko shook his head. "No. You're also a chef trying to get by. Like the rest of us. Comfort & Crunch might be strong, but it can't create talent from nothing."

Marron thought of every meal she'd made, every satisfied customer, every moment of pride in her cooking. How much of it had been real?

"I guess so," she said. Her cart couldn't improve terrible cooking. "It's crazy that I own a Legendary Tool that can strengthen a dungeon."

"Yes and no," Mokko replied. "It's just a cart to me. The chef who uses it matters more."

Marron felt touched by that.

"So all seventeen chefs you worked with did different things?"

The great brown bear nodded. "Most of them did nice things for people. Two tried to use it for profit, and the cart didn't like that. But only one ever wanted to visit a dungeon with it."

His eyes looked nostalgic and sad. "She wasn't a fighter, but tried her best."

Marron felt sad for her. "What happened?"

Mokko shook his head. "The party tried their best, but the paladin said the chef was acting strange on the 5th floor. She didn't want me to go with them because she didn't want the mimics copying me."

"Strange?" Lucy asked, bouncing on Mokko's shoulder.

"Cold! Like, the further they went, the more she didn't want to continue. The mage said she killed the knight, but found out too late that they'd been replaced by mimics."

Marron's hands flew to her mouth in shock. "How'd they do that?"

"Well," Mokko mumbled, adjusting his glasses. "Most of them are dumb, usually. But they had a leader. Only the paladin came ba—Marron!"

They had walked through the guild quarters and entered Marron's room. It was spacious and decorated with the same painting of the Legendary Tools.

Mokko was about to say something when he heard Marron cry out.

"Mokko, it's gone," she whispered.

"That's impossible, we parked it right—" he turned to the sliding glass door to the balcony, expecting to see Comfort & Crunch.

Instead, he saw nothing.

The cart was gone.

She was moving before her mind could catch up, pulling open the door and running with desperate urgency. Behind her, Mokko's heavy footsteps thundered as he tried to keep up, with Lucy bouncing on his shoulder.

They burst out of the guild into the afternoon sunlight, running through Whetvale's streets. Marron's heart pounded as she checked every alley, every corner where someone might have hidden a food cart.

"Excuse me!" she called to a merchant. "Have you seen a food cart? Wooden, with cooking equipment?"

The merchant shook his head. "Sorry, haven't seen anything like that."

She asked three more people. A blacksmith. A woman carrying groceries. A group of children playing in the street.

Nobody had seen Comfort & Crunch.

Panic was setting in when she felt a small tug on her sleeve.

Marron looked down to see a street kid, maybe eight years old, with dirt-smudged cheeks and torn clothes. The kind of child who did odd jobs for coins, including running messages.

"Someone wanted me to give this to you," the kid said, pressing a folded piece of paper into her hand.

"Wait—" Marron started, but the child had already melted back into the crowd, disappearing between market stalls like smoke.

With shaking hands, Marron unfolded the paper. The message was written in a language she'd never seen before, but the System translated it for her.

The Legendary Tool has been reclaimed by the Whetvale Dungeon. Come alone by moonrise or lose it forever.

"What does it say?" Mokko asked, reading over her shoulder.

Marron's blood ran cold. "It's a trap."

Uh-oh," Lucy said, tendrils coiling nervously. "We should tell Halloway."

"But they have my cart," Marron said quietly. "If I don't go, they might destroy it. Or use it to make the dungeon stronger."

Mokko's expression was firm. "Then we go together. All three of us."

Marron checked the note.

Come alone.

"The message says alone. If I bring you, they might..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

Would they hurt Mokko and Lucy just because I didn't follow instructions?

"I don't care what the message says," Mokko growled. "You're not going into a dungeon by yourself. That's how people die."

Lucy nodded frantically. "Might get ambushed!"

Marron folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket. She was letting a stranger rile her up.

"You're right...you're right." She managed a small smile. "I'm just worried about the cart."

"We'll get it back," Mokko said confidently. "But we do it smart. Together."

+

They returned to the guild quarters to plan. Mokko and Lucy wanted to get an appointment with Guildmaster Halloway, but Marron reminded them that he was in a meeting with Zehra.

"He might not be free for hours."

"Wait til morning?" Lucy asked hopefully, bouncing next to her jar. "Bring more help?"

"That's probably the smartest thing," Marron agreed. "Let's get some rest and figure this out tomorrow."

But as Mokko and Lucy settled in for the evening, Marron lay awake staring at the ceiling. The note felt like it was burning a hole in her pocket.

Come at moonrise or lose it forever.

Doubt sank in her stomach like a stone.

It could just be a stupid note, but what if it was more serious than that?

What if waiting until sunrise meant the end for Comfort & Crunch?

"I'll feel so guilty if I ignore this, and...the mimics use the cart to strengthen the dungeon."

+

Marron sat up and considered everything Halloway had told them today.

She wrote all the details in her journal. About how he suspected her cart was, in fact, a Legendary Tool. Her pen moved feverishly across the page.

One of seven that shaped culinary history. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could be used as a conduit to power up a dungeon, making its monsters stronger. Maybe it can even make the dungeon deeper than the Adventurer's Guild can handle.

The soft sounds of Mokko's snoring filled the room. Lucy had curled up in her glass jar, and Marron usually felt comforted seeing her slime form bob slowly up and down in the water.

But not tonight.

Instead, Marron closed her journal and slipped out of bed as quietly as she could. She quickly gathered an emergency pack full of essentials: her knives, the antique tinderbox, a small tin of spices, and a pouch full of rice.

Other things she might need, she could always look up using her System, after all.

Just before she left the room, Marron grabbed a piece of paper and wrote:

Left to get the cart back. If you don't see me by morning, I'm in Whetvale Dungeon.

Get Charity and Halloway before you go.

I'm sorry.

-M

She left the note on her pillow and crept toward the door.

+

The sun was setting as Marron made her way through Whetvale's streets toward the dungeon entrance. Her heart hammered in her chest, but she forced herself to keep walking. This was her responsibility. Her cart, her choice.

The dungeon loomed ahead like a massive black tower, its entrance gaping like an open wound. Stale air rolled out of it, thick with damp earth and something that made her skin crawl.

And there, just inside the entrance where the shadows began, she could see it.

Comfort & Crunch.

Her cart sat there as if nothing had happened, cooking equipment gleaming in the last rays of sunlight. It looked perfectly normal, perfectly safe.

Marron's relief was so strong she almost cried. They hadn't destroyed it. They hadn't used it to power the dungeon. It was right there, maybe twenty feet away.

She stepped into the dungeon entrance, her footsteps echoing off stone walls. The temperature dropped immediately, and shadows seemed to press in from all sides.

"Just grab it and go," she whispered to herself. "Fast as you can."

She reached out toward the cart's handle, her fingers almost touching the familiar worn wood—

The floor gave way beneath her feet.

+

Stone cracked and crumbled, falling away like a broken plate. Marron screamed as she plunged into darkness, dust and debris raining down around her. The last thing she saw was her cart, still sitting safely on solid ground above, growing smaller and smaller as she fell.

"MOKKO!" she cried, but her voice was swallowed by the abyss.

The darkness closed around her completely.