Recipe for the Apocalypse: I Cooked an S-Rank Monster

Chapter 7: At the Commander's Table

"You're a CIV-7. You went outside the perimeter without authorization. You brought unquarantined monster tissue into the fort."

Aldric Sonnenveld didn't shout. He didn't slam his fist on the desk. His voice was flat as untempered steel, hard, cold, with no room to argue. He sat behind the command desk with his back straight, two officers flanking him, and in the corner of the room Griggs stood with a smile he couldn't quite hide.

Dash stood in the center of the room. Beside him was a cooler holding thirty kilos of Sandvein Lizard meat. Kael had carried it in, but Voss ordered her out before Dash entered. This is civilian business, Voss had said. Hunters don't get a say.

"Do you know the penalty?" Aldric asked.

"Execution or exile," Dash answered.

"Yes." Aldric stared at him. His eyes were gray. Unblinking. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't do both. Right now. Tonight."

In the corner, Griggs smiled wider.

Dash didn't answer with words. He knelt down. Opened the cooler. Pulled out two kilos of Sandvein Lizard meat, the back leg, the cleanest cut. Then from his jacket pocket came his fillet knife. From under the cooler came a palm-sized portable stove and a small cast-iron skillet he had brought from the kitchen.

"What are you..." one of the officers started.

"Quiet," Aldric said. His eyes never left Dash. "Let him."

Dash set the stove on the floor. Lit a small flame. Put the skillet on top. Coarse salt from his pocket, two handfuls, rubbed into the surface of the meat. Dry-brine. No talking. No explanations. His hands moved like he had done this a thousand times in the kitchen of The Rusty Skillet.

Twenty minutes of waiting. Dash stood. Silent. Staring at the skillet. Aldric watched him. The officers watched him. Griggs, in the corner, started getting restless. His foot tapped the floor.

"What is..." Griggs started.

"Quiet," Aldric repeated.

Slow render. Meat into the skillet. Low flame. The Sandvein Lizard fat began to melt, slow as warmed honey. The smell rose. Filled the command room that usually smelled of sweat, iron, and stale coffee. That smell, roasted meat, caramelized collagen, something warm and alive, made both officers stop writing.

Forty minutes.

Griggs stopped tapping his foot. He swallowed. Aldric, a man who hadn't smiled since the sky tore open three years ago, took a deep breath. His nostrils flared. His jaw relaxed just a fraction.

Dash lifted the meat. Cut one thin slice. Placed it on a small plate he had brought. Handed it to the command desk.

"Eat," Dash said. Not an order. Not a plea. A statement.

Aldric looked at the slice. Looked at Dash. Looked at Griggs in the corner. Then he picked up the slice with two fingers and put it in his mouth.

Chewed. For a long time.

Swallowed.

His eyes, those gray eyes that never showed anything, widened. Just a little. Just a millimeter. But in this room, a millimeter was enough to make both officers hold their breath.

Under his skin, Aldric felt thick. A layer that wasn't there before. Like thin steel right beneath the surface. At the edge of his vision, faintly: [+25% Physical DEF | 00:28:00]

Aldric set the plate down. Looked at Dash. For a long time. Then looked at Griggs.

"Get out."

Griggs blinked. "Sir?"

"Get out, Griggs."

"But Commander, this CIV-7..."

"Get out. Right now. Before I change the execution order to you for speaking out of turn in the command room."

Griggs left. The door clanged shut. His smile was gone.

Aldric looked back at Dash. "You have six days. Cook for Kael's platoon. Ten people. Next week's perimeter patrol." He leaned forward. "If they come back without injury because of your buff, without injury, Vreeland, not just scratches, zero injuries, you get an official position. Rank. Access. Protection."

"And if I fail?"

Aldric didn't answer. He didn't need to. His silence was louder than any sentence.

"Get out," he said finally. "And take your skillet. My floor isn't a kitchen."

Dash knelt. Picked up the stove. Picked up the skillet. Picked up the cooler. Walked to the door.

"Vreeland."

Dash stopped. Turned.

Aldric was looking at him. And for a fraction of a second, so brief, so small, there was something in his eyes that wasn't granite. Wasn't steel. Something tired.

"If this works," Aldric said, "you'll be more valuable than every Hunter in this fort. And that makes you a target. You understand?"

Dash nodded. Walked out.

**

The Rusty Skillet kitchen. Nine at night.

Dash walked in and found Wren already sitting on the floor, her back against the dead oven, knees pulled to her chest. Beside her, Theo sat in a chair with his notebook open, writing.

"I heard you need an assistant," Wren said without looking up.

Dash set down the cooler. "Who told you?"

"All of Ironway. You cooked in front of the Commander. Griggs walked out of the command room looking like he got slapped. And tomorrow you're cooking for ten Hunters." Wren looked up. Her eyes were big. Hungry. Not just hungry for food. Hungry for a place. "I can smell poison. You already know that. And I can cut. And I don't ask for pay."

"Then what do you want?"

"Food." One word. No drama. No tears. Just a fact. "I haven't eaten in two days. Sometimes three. I don't ask for much. One portion a day. And a bed that isn't an air vent."

Dash looked at Theo.

Theo nodded slowly. "This kid's tongue is an anomaly. I've been testing her for the last three days. She can detect residual VSP down to zero point three percent. My equipment needs a lab and reagents. Her tongue just needs one lick." He looked at Wren. "And she learns fast. Her cuts aren't perfect yet, but her instincts are right."

Dash let out a long breath. He looked at Wren, still sitting on the floor, looking at him with eyes way too old for a nineteen-year-old face.

"You start tomorrow," Dash said. "Four in the morning. You're one minute late, you don't eat. You're two minutes late, you don't eat and I throw out every piece of meat you touched."

Wren grinned. Wide. Like a kid who just got a present. "Four o'clock. I'll be here at three thirty."

"Good. Now get out. I need to study."

Wren stood up. Brushed the dust off her pants. Walked to the door. Stopped. Turned back.

"Dash."

"What?"

"Thank you."

She left. The door closed.

Dash stared at the door. Then looked at Theo. "You didn't have to test her. You could have used your time for research."

"I'm old, kid. Research without hands that can cut and a tongue that can taste is just theory on paper." Theo closed his notebook. "You need a team. I'm the theory. That kid is the sensor. And you," he tapped Dash's chest, "you're the hands."

Theo stood. Grabbed his thermos. Walked to the door. "Page forty-seven. Read it tonight. Before you sleep."

"Why?"

"Because in six days you're cooking for a platoon that's going to walk a patrol route right past a Rank-B nest." Theo turned back. "And Rank-C techniques don't work on Rank-B. Read it. Page forty-seven."

He walked out.

Dash was alone. He opened Theo's notebook. Flipped the pages. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-seven.

There, written in red ink and underlined twice:

VSP in Rank-B and above has a secondary structure. A crust layer. Dry-brine plus slow render is not enough. The crust does not break at 58 degrees Celsius. Requires additional technique. Unidentified.

And below it, in capital letters:

Warning: Cooking Rank-B with Rank-C techniques equals toxin explosion. VSP fragments explosively. Fatal to the cook and everyone within a 3-meter radius. Do not attempt without proper technique.

Dash closed the notebook.

Six days. Ten Hunters. One Rank-B nest on their route. And he didn't know how to cook Rank-B without killing everyone around him.

He looked at his hands. Shaking. Always shaking.

"I don't know how," he whispered to the empty kitchen. "And if I get it wrong..."

He didn't finish the sentence.

Outside, the night wind of Ironway carried the smell of sulfur from the south. And somewhere in the dark, something bigger than an Ashback Jackal, bigger than a Gristle-Boar, bigger than anything he had ever filleted, was breathing.