The Banished Hero's Gourmet Adventure: Road to the World's Greatest Chef - With one bite, everything fell apart.

The kitchen floor wasn't where Luke intended to sleep, but when his eyes opened to the pale light of dawn seeping through the stone walls, he realized he'd been lying there all night. Luke slowly pushed himself up. The hard floor's chill lingered across his back. He must have dozed off leaning against the cutting board stand last night. The black cat at his feet didn't stir at all, curled up and breathing softly in sleep. （...So now there are two unwanted lodgers） He smiled bitterly at himself as he stood, stretching his lower back gently. The copper pot gleamed dully in the pale light. The faint aroma of last night's cooking still hung in the air—the lingering scent of soup meant for one person. Soup meant for no one. Luke plunged his hands into the water bucket and washed his face, then surveyed the kitchen again. The stove's fire had gone completely out. The cutting board had the patina of long use, and the copper pot, despite its scratches, hadn't lost the quality of its material. The contrast between the crumbling exterior walls and this well-stocked kitchen felt even starker in the morning light than it had yesterday. （Who on earth gathered all this together?） That's when he heard footsteps on the stairs. The wooden boards creaked—one step, then another, drawing closer. Luke turned toward the kitchen entrance as the door opened, and he caught sight of silver hair. Luke froze. So did the other person. Silence stretched for about three seconds. A girl with long silver hair loosely braided at the back stood before him, a ledger tucked under one arm, looking directly at Luke. Her eyes were jade-green. A small jade earring hung from her right ear. She looked younger than him—sixteen, maybe seventeen. Beneath her composed expression lay a core of quiet strength. Her face showed no signs of sleep, no dishevelment. The kind of person who would be carrying a ledger down the stairs at five in the morning, Luke assessed instantly. "...So you're the one who entered uninvited last night," Her voice was calm. Not angry, not surprised—just confirming facts. That was somehow more frightening. "Ah, yes. I'm terribly sorry. The lock was—" "It wasn't engaged. It's broken," "...You knew?" "I do. There's no budget to repair it," With that, Iris set the ledger on the table. She opened a page. Apparently she intended to do calculations. Luke had been placed outside her field of vision—a deliberate gesture. （...Should I keep talking? Is that okay?） Luke hesitated internally. Should he apologize and explain again? Introduce himself? Pack his things and leave? Three options spun rapidly through his mind. "Please let me explain the situation. I only arrived in the royal capital yesterday—" "I know you were being chased by guards. I could hear their voices from the alley entrance," Iris spoke flatly while turning pages in the ledger, her gaze fixed on the numbers. Luke fell silent. There was no room for excuses. "—So an unlicensed cook hiding in the back of an alley entered through our unlocked door, used the kitchen, and stayed until morning. Is that correct?" "...That's accurate," "Understood," She said she understood, then continued her calculations. What exactly did she understand? Luke thought, but kept it to himself. Silence continued for a while. Luke couldn't tell if he should leave or stay. His gaze drifted toward the kitchen. The arrangement of copper pots. The weight of the stove. The grain of the cutting board. "—You seem to have something to say," Iris had looked up. Those jade eyes caught Luke over the ledger. （She was watching me!） "No, nothing in particular," "Your eyes have been looking in that direction the whole time," Luke's mind filled with regret. Why had he looked? He should have ignored it. He should have just left. But the fact that first-rate tools weren't being used by anyone bothered him too much— "...I just thought, these tools are truly first-rate, even though..." He realized his mistake the moment the words left his mouth. He'd said something terrible. Iris's eyebrow twitched. Just one millimeter. But it definitely moved. Luke caught that millimeter—couldn't miss it. A former hero's eyes, seasoned by countless battles, were good at picking up such changes. （I'm the worst） --- Silence arrived. The sound of the ledger closing. Quietly. Carefully. That made it even more frightening. "My cooking is...bad, then," Her volume hadn't risen at all. But the temperature of the air seemed to drop slightly in that one spot. "No, that's not what I meant—" "You were talking about my cooking, weren't you," "The tools and the cooking are separate matters—" "You said the tools are first-rate, didn't you," "That's—" "What implication does the word 'even though' carry?" Luke was cornered. He wanted the ground to swallow him. Actually, he'd already been trespassing since last night, so he was already in a hole—he just wanted to dig deeper. Iris wasn't raising her voice. A monster screaming in full rage would be far easier to deal with. Quiet anger—he had no idea how to counter it. "...I sincerely apologize," "I accept your apology, but what you meant to say hasn't changed, has it," "How do you know everything?" "It's all written on your face," Luke wanted to cover his face. His honest, straightforward nature was completely backfiring. Back when he was in the party, people often told him, "You wear your feelings too openly." （...But I really do think that, so there's nothing I can do about it） He made a decision. Since he was already this transparent, it was better to be honest than to fumble around. "This kitchen...it's a kitchen that should be used more. The stove, the pots—the materials are first-rate. It pains me to see them dormant for years," Iris paused for a moment. "Are you a cook?" "...Supposedly," "Proof?" Luke reached to his waist and drew out a black-iron knife. The blade, darker than ordinary steel, gleamed quietly in the pale morning light. Iris took a step back. "Wait, please!" "You just drew a—" "It's a knife! A kitchen knife!!" "Why do you have it at your waist?" "...Habit," "Is there a cook in the world who carries a knife at their waist out of habit?" "I can't say there definitely isn't...but..." "Yes, you can," Luke lowered the knife gently. Iris stepped away from the wall, but her expression still said "I don't trust you yet." Understandable. If an illegal trespasser pulled a blade from their waist at five in the morning, anyone would make that face. "Let me make you one dish. With these ingredients, for this kitchen...it's just, it seems a shame," That last "shame" was unnecessary, Luke thought even as he said it. Sure enough, Iris's eyebrow moved this time—two millimeters. Iris considered for a moment, then opened the ingredient shelf at the back of the kitchen. Inside was—half an onion. A small dish of dried beans. A small jar of salt. Three types of herbs. "...This is everything," "It's enough," "What's enough about it?" "I can make something with this," "It clearly doesn't look like enough," After that exchange, Luke simply began to work in silence. First, he took out the onion. He sliced the half-onion paper-thin, right to the edge. The black-iron knife moved along the grain, each cross-section uniform. He placed it in a small pot set over the stove, added water, and applied gentle heat. While the dried beans soaked, he pinched the herbs apart with his fingers and set them aside. He measured the salt—the way a cook measures salt. Not taught by anyone, but a motion that only came from years of experience. He pinched it between his fingers, scattered it into the air, and adjusted the amount by how much fell. Iris was reading the ledger. Or pretending to. The first page hadn't moved at all. As the soup came to a boil, the kitchen filled with aroma. The sweetness of the onion wrapped in the green sharpness of the herbs, the earthy depth of the dried beans dissolving into the base. Poor ingredients, yet the fragrance was anything but poor. It was warm. The kind of smell that pulled up old memories—something you felt you'd smelled before but couldn't quite remember. The black cat at his feet lifted its nose and woke, walking toward the stove. When Luke gestured for it to stay back, the cat paused for one step, then took another. Net zero progress. Same stubborn creature as always. --- "It's ready," He set the soup bowl on the table. The appearance was simple. Clear soup with softened onion and beans settled at the bottom. No garnish. The color was pale amber, with just a hint of green herbs floating on the surface. Not the kind of thing you'd serve at a fine restaurant—but it had dignity. The sincerity of drawing out every last bit of potential from the ingredients seeped through the bowl. Iris quietly closed the ledger and stood. She came to the table and looked at the bowl. For a moment, she said nothing. "...Itadakimasu," She brought her hands together gently. Her lips moved—a prayer to Farumina, the goddess of harvest. Even before this meager morning dish, the grace before meals was performed with care. She brought the spoon to her mouth. For five seconds, she was completely still. Luke watched from the wall. He was cleaning up the leftover soup, but his eyes were on Iris. Five seconds of waiting felt like thirty. "...Didn't it suit your taste?" In that instant, a single tear fell straight from Iris's eye. Luke froze. "Ah—wait—I'm sorry, did something—" "This is unfair," "Huh?" "It's unfair," "No, it's just ordinary soup—onion and dried beans and—" "Be quiet," Luke fell silent. Should he apologize? Bring water? Leave the room? Three options appeared simultaneously in his mind, and he couldn't move. He could handle being yelled at, complaints—those he knew how to respond to. But being watched cry quietly—he had no protocol for that. Luke had been through countless ordeals as a former hero, but he'd never encountered the situation of "standing helplessly before someone crying over food." "What—I mean, why—" "Because it matched too perfectly! Don't you understand?!" Her voice rose at the end. When emotion took hold, her intonation lifted slightly—Luke understood this with his whole body. "I don't understand!! I'm sorry!!" "Don't apologize," "Then what should I do?" "...You don't need to do anything," Even as she said it, she didn't set down the spoon. Still crying, she took another sip. Watching that, Luke found he had nothing to say. A girl of noble bearing, tears unwashed from her face, and a former hero who didn't understand what had gone wrong—they faced each other in the pale kitchen light. Luke didn't know that Iris hadn't eaten a proper meal in three years since her family's fall from grace. He didn't know that the Fernote house had lost its noble standing at court, that a sixteen-year-old girl had inherited a food stall alone, that she'd been scraping by on three copper coins a day. He didn't know that three years of accumulated weight had crumbled with a single spoonful of soup made from meager ingredients. He only felt that something had broken in that moment, and he had been there to witness it. The storm gradually subsided. Iris emptied the bowl and set it on the table, then looked at Luke with those jade eyes. She wiped away the tears cleanly and straightened her posture. Noble upbringing showed itself even in moments like this. "...Would you work here as a live-in cook?" "Is that alright?" "It's not ideal. But this kitchen should be used," With that, she picked up the ledger again. （Should be used, she said） Luke looked at the copper pot. At the stove. At the cutting board. The first-rate tools that had been there since last night, unchanged. He'd decided not to cook for anyone, yet his hands had moved anyway. With the wild herbs and dried meat in the alley.

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Episode 2

Name: The Banished Hero's Gourmet Adventure: Road to the World's Greatest Chef
Author: Novelia

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