The storage door shut with a dull thump, a sound that seemed to suck all the air out of the room. Leo fell backward, landing awkwardly on a pile of cardboard boxes that protested with a tear.
He stayed there on the floor, his chest heaving. The cold, damp air of the megalopolis, thick with the smell of wet asphalt and pollution, had never felt so sweet, so safe. He scrambled away from the door, his eyes fixed on the scratched wood, half-expecting it to dissolve into a portal to hell once more.
Nothing happened. It was just a door.
It was a dream. A hallucination. Stress. His mind desperately tried to weave a net of rationality to save him from madness.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, an electric buzz against his leg. He pulled it out with a trembling hand. On the glowing purple screen, a timer counted down with merciless precision.
23:59:47
It wasn't a dream.
A strangled cry escaped his throat. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling toward his terminal. The city lights, filtered through the dirty window, painted neon stripes across his pale face. He needed a solution. Now.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, 21st-century logic taking over.
"how to cook an egg for a dragon"
Enter.
Results: Thousands of pages of RPG guides. Fantasy series fan clubs. A video of a chef making a giant ostrich egg. Useless.
He rephrased, desperation sharpening his words.
"dangerous client threatening delivery driver"
Enter.
Articles on workplace safety. Tips for "de-escalating verbal conflicts." The number for a couriers' union. Leo let out a laugh that sounded like a sob. He pictured the call. "Yeah, hi, my client is a ten-thousand-ton dragon and he's going to 'recycle' me if I don't bring him a little egg."
The timer on his phone now read 23:48:12.
The panic was hardening into an icy dread. He wasn't going to die. Not like this. Not over an egg.
His mind, searching for any escape route, dug deep into his past, unearthing memories he had sealed away. Culinary school. The smell of spices and the heat of the kitchens. The dream of becoming a chef, a dream he'd sacrificed to pay his family's bills.
And with the memory came another. The sleepless nights, spent not on official cookbooks, but in the dark corners of the web. Forums. Places where renegade and obsessive chefs traded secrets. Techniques that bordered on alchemy. Ingredients that didn't exist in any market.
He opened an old folder on his terminal, protected by three layers of forgotten passwords that his fingers, by pure instinct, remembered. And there it was. A single link.
"The Secret Banquet."
The interface was a ghost from the internet's past, pure text on a black background. No images, no ads. Just raw knowledge. He typed in the search bar, his heart hammering against his ribs.
egg
The results were a catalogue of the bizarre. "Naga Sea Eggs: Properties and Risks.""Debate: Can a Cockatrice Egg Yolk Truly Petrify?" It was a madhouse. He scrolled down, hope draining away, until a title caught his eye. It was an old post, by a user named "Umami_Witch".
"A Handler's Guide to Ethereal-Sourced Ingredients (Beginner's Level)"
Leo clicked. The text was a survival manual disguised as a culinary guide. It spoke of how "residual energy" in ingredients from other realities could be poisonous. It mentioned using "Griffin's Tears" as a salt substitute and how the shell of a "Basilisk Egg" had to be disposed of in a dimensional vacuum to avoid contamination.
At the end of the post was an addendum, written in a tired, irritated tone.
"For the newbies who have bitten off more than they can chew: do not contact me. This is not a help desk. But if your rating is about to be 'recycled' and you have no other option, there's a place in the Neon District, Alley 4. No name. Look for the paper lantern with the kanji for 'Flavor' (味). Knock three times. And pray to the gods you don't believe in that I don't kick you out."
22:17:03.
Leo didn't think. He grabbed his jacket, the keys to his electric scooter, and ran out into the night. The rain fell mercilessly, turning the city's neon lights into colorful blurs on the asphalt. He cut through traffic, the timer in his pocket feeling like it was burning through his leg.
Alley 4 was a dark fissure between two gleaming skyscrapers, smelling of trash and stagnant water. And there, at the very end, it was. A small, dark wooden door that looked centuries old. Above it, a single paper lantern swayed, its soft, warm light an anomaly in this world of cold LED lights. On it, the kanji: 味.[1]
He stopped in front of the door, the sound of his own ragged breathing echoing in the silent alley. He raised a hand, which was shaking violently.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The door slid aside without a single sound.
The interior was tiny but radiated a profound calm. A dark wooden counter, polished to a mirror shine. Three leather stools. Behind the counter, a young woman with black hair tied in a tight bun was cleaning a long, thin knife. The black steel blade seemed to drink the light, not reflect it.
She didn't look at him. Her attention was entirely on the knife. Her voice, when she spoke, was calm, precise, and as sharp as the blade in her hands.
"Are you lost, newbie?"
She paused, wiping a cloth along the length of the blade.
"Or are you just another idiot who promised something they can't deliver to a client who doesn't accept excuses?"
[1]
The kanji 味 (pronounced "aji" or "mi" in Japanese) means "flavor" or "taste".