As we set up our kitchens, his inside his stall, and mine out on the street with a few items I kept in my digitizer, the crowds of people continued to grow. I had to think that a good portion of the popution of Twin Elms had arrived. This was the wastend, after all, so people needed to take entertainment where they could get it. To keep the crowds back, the guards that had originally wanted to extort us had become the peacekeepers. They weren’t very happy about being put to work so early in the morning, but they were already trapped. When everything was done under the counter, their superiors would look the other way. If they acted out now out in the open, their behavior would be swiftly punished.

  “Hey.” The lead guard whispered. “If you lose this thing, you’re still going to owe us the twenty-five rge crystals.”

  I smirked at him. “Once you’ve tasted what I can make, you’d probably pay me those crystals.”

  He gave me a look of disbelief, but the girl Misty who was staying nearby stood up in my defense. “It’s true! His food is the best!”

  The guard wasn’t convinced by a little girl like her and only continued to look doubtful. Misty seemed unsatisfied with that, but I gred at her and she jumped back to work. Somehow, I had recruited her as kitchen help. She had brought all of the kitchen utensils she had in her hovel of a home and then helped set them up to create my impromptu kitchen. At the moment, she was washing the seaweed and resuspending some of it in water. Of course, I used my water, and not this world’s crap.

  “Don’t forget, you need to follow the recipe! Same ingredients!” The vendor I was challenging called out, gring suspiciously my way.

  “Of course!” I waved. “However, I’ll naturally need to make a few… substitutions.”

  “Wait…” He blinked. “What do you mean, substitutions?”

  “The competition is to have me use my ingredients over yours. However, I don’t have any of your… crabs… and I suppose you’re not interested in giving me some?”

  The man immediately pulled the hunk of crab he had lying around away like he expected me to jump over the table and take it from him. The other spectators nodded when they saw what was happening. If I couldn’t obtain the ingredients, then I couldn’t cook the soup. I would have no choice but to substitute it.

  “I’d need to approve any substitutions!” He responded defensively.

  “I’m just using this crab meat I have in a can.” I raised a can in my hands.

  “Canned crab meat? Is that stuff even still edible?” He frowned.

  Some canned foods sted a fair amount of time, but the seafood had a bad reputation for spoiling within the cans. Few types of meat managed to st the test of time, which was why they were considered so valuable, even compared to the more nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits.

  “I can only hope so.” I shrugged.

  The man let out a chuckle. “Fine… dried seaweed? Canned crab? I see how it is. Did you encounter some old kitchen store that hadn’t been ransacked? Do you think your old food is going to outcompete the fresh ingredients I serve?”

  His confidence seemed to grow as he realized that everything I offered was preserved. A couple of people in the crowds also chuckled at that. His logic wasn’t even particurly bad. I wouldn’t call myself a chef, but even I knew that fresh ingredients trumped preserved ingredients. The only problem was that these fresh ingredients came from an irradiated, mutated world. Meanwhile, my preserved ingredients had come from farm-raised crops designed to be eaten by humans.

  Either way, I had engineered the match so there was no way I’d lose. Originally, it was just supposed to be testing out my seaweed versus his seaweed. Even though I didn’t doubt the quality of the stuff that I had been sent the night before, there was still a chance I could lose the competition that way. He had mentioned that his crab was gamey and that the seaweed-covered up that taste. Without knowing what his soup even tasted like, there could be many ways in which a more subtle seaweed could make the soup worse.

  The only way I could guarantee my soup tasted better was to use all of my ingredients. Using my water was the most obvious change that no one here would question, but I had also gotten permission to swap out the seaweed and the crab. Of course, I also pnned to take it farther than that, offering various substitutions but always making it seem like I was on the losing side. As the competition was in full swing, he was increasingly more excited by his victory, while the guard leader had an increasingly sour look on his face.

  He had only been trying to extort me, and he was spending his time guarding me on this bet. If he got the money in the end, it’d be worth it, but if I wasn’t, he’d potentially lose out on that entire morning.

  He didn’t need to worry so much though. I had this all covered. I had even left the aromatic stuff out of the soup early on so that my soup didn’t emit any smells. The vendor’s soup began to release a very pungent taste. It wouldn’t be considered mouth-watering, but if you were starving, you wouldn’t say no. Meanwhile, my soup didn’t smell like anything but water vapor. I also kept the cap on all of my ingredients so no one could see them. It gave everyone the impression that my food was fvorless and boring, and I was on my way to losing.

  “Hehe… just remember everyone, I always use the best ingredients!” The vendor cried out, initiating a little bit of cpping. His smug boldness was only growing rger. Misty shot a gre his way, but I managed to keep her quiet.

  “Let’s begin.”

  I felt like I had given it enough time at this point. I gestured to Misty and she brought me the cleaned seaweed and I threw it into my bowling water. I was careful to keep the lids on everything as I tossed one ingredient after another into the soup. The one nice thing about preserved ingredients is that there wasn’t a whole lot of prep work. As soon as the food was soft and warm, it was good enough to eat, not that most of the people of this world cared too much about bacteria or worms.

  I had learned that whether it was the radiation, the lifestyle, or the effects of the MGV, the human digestive tract was far more resistant to illness. This was how raiders could get away with eating canned and spoiled food for so many years, let alone the mutated creatures that had questionable nutritional value. I had avoided eating or drinking anything from this world as much as possible. Thankfully, with the digitizer, there was rarely a moment I was without food.

  For example, the extra ingredients I was using for this competition were just a couple of things I had on me. The can of crab meat had been one of the many different samples I intended to try out once I had a meeting with the Twin Elm’s elites. Now, it was being put to a different use.

  “I’m ready,” The challenging vendor decred, dropping his spoon with a spsh before smugly looking my way. “Don’t tell me you need more cooking time. Speed should also be considered a factor when it comes to the viability of my business. If your soup takes all day to cook, who’s going to waste time?”

  He was trying to gloat even more over his alleged victory and dig it in. Even though the crowd was leaning in his direction, especially since I was an unrecognized stranger and he was an established resident, he didn’t hesitate to kick me while I was down. Thankfully, I had been pying the loser on purpose.

  I merely smiled at him. “I’m ready when you are.”

  He gave me a sharp look and then a snort before opening up his pot. A rise of steam came out and smell drifted out amongst the stalls of watching spectators. Many of them swallowed back their saliva. It was morning and most of them skipped breakfast. Breakfast was a luxury in the wastend that few could afford. Either way, they were all pretty hungry, and the smell of cooking food was enough for them, even if it smelled a bit unpleasant to my nose.

  He spooned out five bowls and handed them to the selected judges. The judges had turned out to be the two men he had brought, two guards, and a random stranger as an impartial third party. While we had been cooking, he had learned about the rather tenuous retionship I had with my guards, and it had bolstered his confidence even more. He hadn’t offered to bribe them, but there had been a shared look that seemed to suggest he’d give them some crystals if they voted his way. This implied gift only went to the two judges, which didn’t include the guard leader.

  “Very good!”

  “The best!”

  “Mmm! The crab is especially tangy today!”

  As expected, the judges all gave their opinions extremely positively. The only one that was muted was the impartial judge, who merely nodded after tasting it.

  “If you vote for me, I’ll naturally offer you a second bowl,” I responded meekly, causing the leering vendor still holding his spoon to snort.

  I opened up my pot, and although the smell had started leaking out, it had been covered up by the pungent smell of the other guy. It wasn’t until the lid came off that the decadent sent finally emerged and overwhelmed everything else.

  “My turn.” I pulled out a spoon with a smile.

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