"Are Marine officers really that free, to have time to come bother me…"
Rayfa gave up arguing with Corazon over how he addressed him. He knew Corazon's mischievous nature far too well. The more seriously he took it, the more shameless his brother would become.
Ignoring him was the best option.
"I just got back from a mission," Corazon said seriously. "I heard Little Ray Ray has been eating and drinking an unusual amount lately. I was worried you might have been bullied again, or frightened by something."
Rayfa knew Corazon was probably telling the truth.
His behavior over the past ten days really had been abnormal, so it was only natural for Corazon to worry.
"I'm fine," Rayfa shook his head. "No one bullied me."
"Are you sure?" Corazon asked, clearly unconvinced.
"Really," Rayfa replied. "Father Sengoku brought me a few small gifts from the coast a few days ago. One of them was a kind of meat that tasted incredible when grilled. But there was not much of it. After I finished it, I kept craving more, so I started looking for other good food. I ran all over Marineford, tried countless signature dishes, but they all felt like they were missing something…"
Rayfa deliberately left out the Gourmet System. He explained the situation with a mix of truth and omission, enough to ease Corazon's concern.
"I see." Corazon waved his hand and leaned back in his chair, smiling. "You really scared me for nothing. This is actually normal. You should have asked me earlier. If you had, you would not have needed to run all over the place."
"Hm?" Rayfa caught the hidden meaning in his words. "You mean you know what's going on?"
"Of course," Corazon said smugly. "I am your all-knowing big brother, Little Ray Ray."
Rayfa clenched his teeth, suppressing the urge to punch him. "Then tell me. What exactly is it?"
Sensing that Rayfa was close to losing his temper, Corazon finally stopped teasing him. He grinned and said, "The meat Father Sengoku brought back for you was most likely Sea King meat. The so-called signature dishes in Marineford's ordinary restaurants all use common ingredients."
"You should understand that in cooking, the quality of the ingredients has a huge impact on flavor and texture. Most Sea Kings have flesh that ordinary ingredients simply cannot compare to. Your grilling method was simple, but the ingredient itself was far superior, so of course the taste felt different."
"Ingredients… ingredients?" Rayfa's eyes lit up.
That was it.
If the issue lay with the ingredients, then it finally made sense why he had eaten so many things in the past without ever triggering the Gourmet System.
"Sea Kings…" The more Rayfa thought about it, the more reasonable Corazon's explanation seemed. It was the most logical conclusion. "Looks like the Gourmet System's definition of 'gourmet' is far more complex than I imagined. Still, at least now I have a clue."
"Thanks for the reminder. I'll treat you to a meal someday."
After thanking Corazon, Rayfa hurried away.
"Hey, hey, hey. You're just going to leave me here like this?" Corazon shouted at his retreating back.
When Rayfa disappeared from sight, Corazon shook his head and laughed softly. "That kid… he's been awfully impulsive lately. Has he changed?"
"Well, if you're not eating, I will." Corazon rubbed his hands together and licked his lips as he looked at the barely touched dishes on the table.
"Time to get to work."
With Corazon's reminder, Rayfa realized that the problem lay with the ingredients. He immediately changed his strategy and stopped wandering aimlessly between restaurants.
Instead, he set his sights directly on Sea Kings.
His understanding of the Gourmet System was still shallow. He did not know what kind of food qualified as "gourmet," nor which factors influenced the system's judgment. The simplest solution was to replicate something already recognized as "gourmet," namely the grilled meat he had made himself.
Rayfa was very clear about his own abilities. He did not believe his cooking technique surpassed that of professional chefs, nor that it met the Gourmet System's standards through skill alone.
If technique was not the issue, then the root cause was obviously the ingredients.
That was why Rayfa reacted so quickly after Corazon's reminder. He had simply been too caught up in the situation before to see it clearly.
After this realization, he immediately abandoned all pointless effort.
His next target was the Sea Kings.
Sea Kings were extremely common marine creatures in this world. They were enormous in size, diverse in species, and wildly different in appearance. Most of them were fiercely aggressive, and they were the greatest fear of ordinary sailors, since encountering one often meant disaster.
Fortunately, the majority of Sea Kings gathered in the Calm Belt on both sides of the Grand Line. Although they existed throughout the oceans, their distribution outside the Calm Belt was relatively sparse.
If not for this, the sea itself might have been completely off-limits to most people.
When Rayfa decided to target Sea Kings, he never intended to hunt one himself. He was not that confident.
In front of the world's top-tier fighters, Sea Kings seemed almost trivial. Even the rare colossal variants posed little threat to high-ranking powerhouses.
But that only applied to the strong.
For ordinary people, it was a completely different story.
Even the smaller Sea Kings were dozens of meters long, while the larger ones could reach hundreds of meters. If any one of them had appeared on Earth in Rayfa's previous life, it would have been a monster on par with Godzilla.
An average person would be lucky not to collapse in fear when facing such a creature. Fighting it would be pure insanity.
Because of that, Rayfa never considered obtaining Sea King meat by himself.
But just because he could not do it did not mean the people around him could not.
After all, he was the son of a Marine Admiral. Among those he knew, there were plenty who could deal with Sea Kings effortlessly.
The only question was who he should ask for help.
His frugal father, Sengoku, was undoubtedly the closest person to him. That much was undeniable. But Sengoku's personality was rigid and stubborn. If Rayfa insisted on eating Sea King meat without a good reason, he would not only fail but might even be scolded harshly.
Based on Rayfa's understanding of him, that outcome was highly likely.
So Sengoku was out.
He was not an option.
Then, aside from Father Sengoku, who else could he turn to?