All of the team members fall to their behinds in the churned-up dirt, catching their breath in the wake of the battle.


    “That wasn’t too bad, I wouldn’t want to fight more than two of them at a time though.” Marco says.


    “It hit really hard though!” Lucia says, rubbing her chest. “Thank you for your quick response, Ben.”


    “Of course, it is my role after all.” Ben comments, waving away her comment.


    “It seemed weak for a Gold Rank job though.” Shen says, “It would have taken several hits to break through my [Earthen Armor].”


    The Knight’s armor starts to fade into Mana, revealing the battered skeleton beneath, poked with [Salt] growths and small holes.


    The icy armor turning directly into fog, similar to dry ice, before dissipating to Mana however, some of the chunks of ice stay solid.


    “Interesting, what are these?” Marco thinks to himself, standing up to pick up one of the extremely cold chunks of ice.


    Marco fumbles the chunk as the cold burns his hands. “Ouch! These are so cold!”


    “Marco, please be careful when picking up mysterious magical phenomenon.” Ben says, throwing a [Renew] at his hands.


    “Thank you! Do any of you know what these are?” Marco asks, gazing down at the three-inch cube of light blue ice.


    “No, this is something new for me.” Ben says, squatting down to look at the cubes closer. “Can you store these in your [Inventory]?”


    Marco pokes each cube with this pointer finger, the cold burning it slightly more each time but the five chunks of ice disappear. All of the party members push themselves to their feet and start to look around the clearing, looking for anything that can be foraged.


    Marco looks around the clearing for Stinging Nettles like they had found this morning, “If I can find more maybe I can turn them into a pesto sauce and make some food for the group tonight.”


    “There should be ingredients around here, given the other Gold Rank options we had earlier.” Marco says, looking around the base of trees and in the shade for anything edible. He quickly finds a large patch of Stinging Nettles, only picking half so it can regrow, and shoves it into his [Inventory].


    Not finding anything else, the group heads back to the wall. They run into several roaming patrols of undead, including one led by a Brute, which they take out with minimal issues now that they know the Brutes fight.


    The rest of the trip home to the wall is uneventful, arriving back to the massive stone edifice with the sunset turning the gray stone to a gold color. Gatekeeper Renee is still on duty and stops them for a moment before letting them through with confirmation of their completion of the Knight hunt.


    Shen takes the elevator shaft while the red of them take the stairs to the residential area and their rooms. They all clean up and discard under armor into the pile for sure things and Marco changes into a dark purple tunic shirt and black pants, grabbing his apron and knife from the chest at the end of the bed and putting them into his [Inventory].


    He tells his party that he is headed to the kitchens to make dinner for their party and runs down the stairs, excited by new ingredients and nervous to cook for Lucia for the first time.


    Marco arrives to the kitchens to find absolute chaos, people working nearly on top of each other and food going everywhere. He doesn’t see the sisters at first but eventually makes eye contact with them in the far corner of the room. He begins to weave his way through the crowd with a combination of “behind”, “back”, and “corner” managing not to disrupt anyone too badly.


    “What is going on in here? Why is it not orderly?” He says as he gets close enough to the sisters for them to hear.


    “The Chef didn’t show up today and we don’t enjoy leading so many.” Ethil says, Doris nodding beside her.


    “Someone is going to get hurt. Will I cause trouble if I organize them?” Marco says, taking his ankle length apron from his [Inventory] and putting his head through the loop and tying the straps tightly around his waist.


    “No, at least not until Chef Lucas comes back.” Doris says and then turns back to her prepping.


    Marco takes a deep breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose, he prepares to put on his Chef voice. “I hate yelling but I think that is how the current Chef runs this kitchen so it’ll be what they respond to at first.”


    He waits to see if there will be a lull in the noise but after a couple of minutes, he still hasn’t noticed the general volume dimming at all. He sighs to himself and takes a deep breath.


    “ATTENTION! WHO IS CURRENTLY IN CHARGE HERE?” Marco yells at the top of his lungs, noticing those closest to him covering their ears at the extremely loud words. Several of the works look toward an overweight man sitting near the back wall, furthest away from the range of Inscriptions. “YOU!” Marco points to the man and walks quickly toward him, the fat man flinching at the attention from Marco.


    The man is the first overweight person Marco has met on Omnia, the general culture of combat and fitness causing most everyone to have a fit physique. The man, presumably a Sous Chef or something, has a balding head with stringy and greasy brown hair sticking to his forehead. Wide brown eyes look back at Marco as he approaches quickly, other people in the kitchen moving out of the way.


    “Why is the kitchen in such disarray?” Marco asks, speaking at a normal volume now that he is closer to the man.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    “Not my job!” The man says in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, his stained Chef coat has the name Isaac over the left breast.


    “Isaac, you are the Sous Chef? Or next in charge after Chef Lucas?” Marco asks, clenching his teeth in annoyance at the man''s comment, one of Marco’s pet peeves.


    “Yes, I am the Sous Chef,” Isaac says, sticking his nose in the air slightly.


    “Ugh we have a dud here.” Marco thinks. “Then it is your job to organize and lead the kitchen.” He says, “If you’re not going to do it, can I make sure dinner gets made and doesn’t kill someone?”


    “Do whatever you’d like.” Isaac says, waving a hand in the air and going back to looking at the book he has in his lap.


    “Idiot, it is your job.” Marco thinks, taking a deep breath and letting go of his annoyance at the useless man.


    “Alright folks! If it isn’t going to burn or go bad in the next three minutes put it down so we can discuss the plan going forward.” Marco yells above the noise, seeing most people put their knifes or pans down. “Gather up! Let’s see what we are working with here. Group up by station experience please! Prep, Colds, Sides, Pasta, Fish, and Meat please, if you don’t work on stations in this kitchen just go with the group you have the most experience with.”


    “Time to introduce the brigade system I guess.” Marco thinks to himself with a smile.


    The crowd of confused cooks slowly sort themselves into groups, chatting with each other to figure out which group is which.


    “Okay! Now that we are in groups, I am going to quickly explain something called the brigade system! It is not a system like our Sunlight System but a system of organization used in fancy kitchens back home to ease workload.” Marco begins, “First! Your Chef, I know he isn’t current here so we will move on, next in the brigade order is Sous Chef, your second in charge and leader in the case that your chef isn’t here. As it turns out, yours is useless and reading instead of helping with dinner service so we will ignore that as well.”


    Marco takes a deep breath, “I guess I am going to have to be Chef De Partie today if we want the wall to eat tonight.” He sighs and continues explaining, “Next is Chef De Partie, I will be filling in this role tonight to make sure everyone on the wall eats this evening. I will direct all of the stations and the stations are as follows: Garde Manger, in charge of cold items like salads, Saucier, in charge of sauces Poissonnier, in charge of fish cookery, Rotisseur, in charge of meat cookery, Entremetier will be in charge of vegetables and sides tonight.”


    Most of the cooks start to look excited at the new organizational structure, some remain confused and a few of them look angry for some reason.


    “What was on the menu tonight?” Marco asks, receiving about thirty-five conflicting answers. “Alright, we will work with some of the product you’ve all prepped already but we will be shifting directions.”


    Marco explains his menu for the evening, shifting the direction of the Saucier station to be closer to a traditional Tournant, and focusing them on pasta preparation. He starts to explain his menu to the gathered cooks, going for simple fare for speed.


    “The menu for this evening is as follows! Fresh Pappardelle pasta, Stinging Nettle pesto cream sauce, topped with toasted seeds and served with garlic bread. For people requesting a protein this evening, they will receive grilled chicken and for our vegetarian diners; portabella mushroom.” Marco says, adopting Oren’s lecturing pose. “We will need a salad from our Garde Manger station and if we have anyone interested in making dessert, please come find me once we split up! I will come around and explain things as needed. My name is Marco.”


    “Yes Chef!” The assembled cooks’ chant.


    Marco smiles and waits a for everyone to disperse to their stations and then finds a place near the range with room for a cutting board and sets up there. A young girl stays behind, interested in the dessert course for the evening and Marco gives her a recipe for flourless chocolate torte with raspberry coulis.


    Marco starts to wander the kitchen and finds the cooks making the pasta need some help. “A touch more water in the dough.” He adds a splash of water, conjuring a rolling pin and showing them how to roll and stretch the pasta for the best results.


    He pulls his Stinging Nettles from his [Inventory] and brings them to the people he assigned to make the pesto cream.


    “Be very careful with this ingredient, the plant has small fibers that cause extreme irritation when touched. Boil some water and blanch the nettles for one minute before putting them into an ice bath to make them safe to eat.” Marco says to a rod of nods from the Sauciers.


    He watches the hustle and bustle of his newly acquired kitchen, they work smoothly and in groups, working together when needed. He smiles and helps the younger girl in charge of dessert mix the torte batter and grease the pan with butter.


    The next hour flies by, the sisters taking the role of his supervisors and making sure everyone was making food that would be up to Marco’s standards. Marco cooked a huge pot of rice during the break and made a fast vegetable curry with some of vegetables he keeps in his extradimensional space. “Can’t run a kitchen without feeding your cooks.”


    He makes sure everything will be ready in time for dinner and takes over finishing touches so that his cooks can eat family meal. A common practice in kitchens where a big communal meal is made before service to make sure everyone gets at least one meal that day and to bond the cooks closer together.


    Marco, Ethil, and Doris watch all of the pots, tasting and adjusting flavors as necessary. “I’m impressed; these cooks know their stuff but they just didn’t have any guidance.”


    Family meal wraps up quickly and everyone scrubs their hands and returns to the work stations to prepare for the dinner rush, thankfully Marco has decided to just plate everything up family style, large dishes placed in the center of tables to make it easier on the cooks. “A little bit nicer than buffet style, I’ll just serve the proteins and protein substitutions on the side.”


    Marco watches and helps plate up large bowls of Pappardelle tossed with pesto cream sauce and topped with pinenuts, lemon zest, and parmesan. He talks to each any every cook after the last bowl of food leaves the kitchen, telling them all that they did an excellent job and should be proud of their performance today.


    He turns to the far back wall and the man still seated there. Isaac’s mouth hangs open at the display of organization, book long forgotten as he watched Marco put the ever-dysfunctional kitchen in order.


    “How did you do that?” Isaac asks, standing up and waddling over to Marco.


    “Do what? Organize people? Communication and knowledge.” Marco explains and is shocked when Isaac gives him a bow of respect.


    “That was amazing, Chef Lucas is my uncle but he doesn’t talk to people, just yells and replaces people when they quit from the abuse.” Isaac says.


    “I’ve worked for several of those Chefs in my career and vowed I would never treat people like I’d been treated in those places. I kept my promise to myself.” Marco says, “Come on, I saw you didn’t eat any family meal so let''s go get some dinner.” Marco leads the sous chef out of the kitchen and into the dining room.


    Marco is startled at the applause that greets him in the cafeteria. He quickly waves away the clapping and finds his team and sits, gesturing Isaac to an empty chair.


    He sees the bowls of pasta, chicken, mushroom, and garlic bread in the center of the table and smiles, proud of his cooks. He grabs a portion of all of them, with salad and dessert on separate plates.


    The tender pasta is draped in vibrant and creamy sauce all rounded out by that gentle peppery flavor that Stinging Nettles provide. “Everything is delicious, they all did a great job in there. Hopefully Lucas isn’t too mean to them in the future.”


    Marco tells the table about the special dessert and how delicious it turned out; they all try the chocolate torte with raspberry coulis and whipped cream. Embarrassing noises escape from Isaac, people chuckling lightly at the overweight man.


    “It was a great day today!” Marco thinks to himself surrounded by his party members and unbelievably happy.