Every student at Aethertaste Senior Academy was assigned to a guild dorm. These weren't just living quarters; they were culinary brotherhoods, centers of power and influence. The most prestigious was the 'Velvet Palate Hall,' home to elite tasters and critics-in-training. The most powerful was 'Voltagrave Manor,' Reign's personal fiefdom, funded by his family's corporate empire.
Izen checked the location of his assigned guild on his student-issued tablet. His brow furrowed in confusion. The map led him away from the gleaming, modernist towers of the main campus and toward a forgotten, overgrown corner near the academy's outer wall.
He finally found it. It wasn't a hall or a manor. It was a dilapidated, two-story wooden building that looked more like an old barn than a dormitory. A faded, hand-painted sign hung crookedly over the porch. It read:
The Hearthline Guild
Motto: "A full belly warms the soul."
The paint was peeling. Weeds choked the pathway. One of the front windows was boarded up. Compared to the rest of the pristine campus, it was an absolute slum.
'Cozy,' Izen thought, his optimism unassailable. He pushed open the creaking door and stepped inside.
The interior was just as worn as the exterior, but it was clean. The main room was a combination kitchen and dining hall. A long, scarred wooden table sat in the center, and a massive, old-fashioned brick hearth—the guild's namesake—dominated one wall. The air smelled of woodsmoke, yeast, and something faintly medicinal.
Two people were in the room.
One was a tall, lanky boy with glasses so thick they magnified his eyes. He was nervously stirring a large pot over a stove, his movements clumsy. The other was a small, first-year girl with pigtails who was meticulously, and very slowly, trying to chop an onion. She was crying, but it was impossible to tell if it was from the onion or from sadness.
They both looked up as Izen entered, their eyes wide with surprise. They clearly didn't get many visitors.
"Uh… hello?" the lanky boy stammered, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Can we help you?"
"Hi!" Izen said cheerfully, holding up his tablet. "I'm Izen Loxidon. My assignment says this is my new guild."
The boy's jaw dropped. The girl's knife clattered onto the cutting board.
"You're… you're the Izen Loxidon?" the girl whispered, her eyes shining with awe. "The one from the duel? The God of Garbage?"
Izen blinked. "Is that what they're calling me? I was hoping for 'The Recycling Wizard.'"
"I'm Kael," the lanky boy said, wiping his sweaty hand on his apron before shaking Izen's. "I'm the guild master. And this is Elara."
"It's an honor!" Elara squeaked, bowing. "We watched your duel! It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen! You made Judge Pastiche cry!"
"He just had something in his eye," Izen said modestly.
Kael sighed, a wave of melancholy washing over him. "Well, I'm honored to have you, Loxidon-san, but… are you sure this is right? Hearthline is… well, it's the lowest-ranked guild in the entire academy. We're on academic probation. If we don't win a single official duel by the end of the semester, the guild will be disbanded and the building torn down."
Izen looked around the rustic, homey kitchen. "Why? It seems nice here."
"We're a charity guild," Kael explained, gesturing to the bubbling pot. "Our mandate is to use the academy's surplus ingredients to cook for the city's night workers—the street sweepers, the watchmen, the late-shift medics. People the fancy restaurants ignore. But because we don't compete in the high-stakes 'Ladder' duels, we get no funding, no prestige, and no new members. It's just the two of us left."
Izen's eyes lit up. This was better than he could have ever imagined. A whole guild dedicated to the philosophy of using leftovers? A place that saw the value in what others threw away?
"So," Izen said, his smile widening. "You take things people don't want and turn them into delicious food to make people happy?"
"That's the idea," Kael said with a sad shrug. "But our food is… well, it's nutritious, but it's not exactly Aethertaste-level."
Izen walked over to the pot Kael had been stirring. He dipped a spoon in and took a small taste of the thin, watery vegetable soup. His expression didn't change.
"It's a little sleepy," he said simply.
He then unslung the sack of treasures he'd rescued from the disposal bay. He placed the carrot tops, bruised apples, and lamb trimmings on the counter. Kael and Elara stared at the pile of "garbage."
"What are you doing?" Elara asked, confused.
"Waking it up," Izen replied.
He didn't pull out a jackhammer this time. His tools were quieter. He finely minced the lamb trimmings and rendered them in a hot pan, creating a base of rich, savory fat. He roasted the carrot tops until they were slightly charred and aromatic, then blended them with a bit of oil and salt. He grated the bruised apples, squeezing out the juice.
He added the rendered fat to the soup for depth. A spoonful of the apple juice for a surprising hint of bright sweetness. And a dollop of the carrot-top pesto swirled in at the end for a fresh, earthy bitterness. It took him less than five minutes.
"Try it now," he said, handing the spoon back to Kael.
Hesitantly, Kael took a sip.
His eyes, magnified by his thick lenses, went impossibly wide. The soup was completely transformed. It was no longer a watery, bland concoction. It was a complex, layered dish with a deep, meaty savoriness, a bright acidic kick, and a fresh, herbaceous finish. It tasted… alive.
"How…?" Kael stammered, utterly speechless. "This was all from… from scraps."
Elara timidly took a taste as well. Her sad face broke into a radiant smile. "It's delicious! It tastes like a warm blanket!"
Izen just smiled. "Waste nothing," he said, his new catchphrase already feeling like home.
At that moment, the front door creaked open again. All three of them turned to look.
Standing in the doorway, her crimson-streaked hair practically glowing in the dim light and her arms crossed impatiently over her chest, was Nyelle Ardent.
Her fiery eyes scanned the room before locking onto Izen.
"So this is where you were hiding," she said, her voice a low, dangerous purr. "Clown."