Morcster Chef B3 - Chapter 19-21 (Patreon)

Over the course of the next week, they continued the same pattern. It was, in retrospect, one of the greatest weeks of Arek’s life. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun. They recycled recipes a few times, but usually tried to have something new every day. It was a mixture of challenging themselves and making sure their customers didn’t get bored.

But, like all good things, the week came to an end. However, the end did not come in the form of a day, but a man. A rather portly man, who looked like he could roll considerably faster than he could run.

“I simply cannot allow it,” the man said, crossing his arms. “Your cart is operating without a permit. An orc chef – preposterous. Who knows what he could be putting in the food. This is simply unsafe for the people of Seaside.”

“I could put you in it,” Arek offered. “I haven’t tried human before, but I’d imagine you wouldn’t taste much different than a pig.”

The man’s eyes widened and his jowls quivered in rage. “What did you say?”

“Arek!” Malissa exclaimed. “Don’t be rude.”

“Yes, keep a leash on–”

“Pigs wouldn’t have that much fat on them,” Malissa continued. “It would probably ruin the flavor. There’s such a thing as overkill, you know.”

“Quite true,” Arek mused. “So, which opposing wagon do you think this pompous fool came from? He clearly isn’t with the city.”

“What? That’s blatant lies. I work for the Council of Seaside,” the man said, glaring.

“I don’t doubt that,” Belmont said, adjusting his armor with a clank. “But do you actually do anything with food? Or are you simply a friend of someone running one of these other carts?”

The man’s eye twitched, giving the truth away instantly.

“It doesn’t matter,” the man replied with a growl. “I have the authority to enforce the law, and you are in breach of it. Acquire a certificate of sales to prove that your food is safe to consume, or take your cart elsewhere. We will not risk the lives of the people in this city.”

“You haven’t even told us your name,” Arek drawled. “How are we to know that you aren’t just some random competitor spouting nonsense? You’ve come after the sun set. Little good business happens after night.”

“My name is Joven,” the man spat, adjusting his ill-fitting suit and standing straighter, as if that would convince them of his importance. “And, the next time you open this cart, you had best have that certification. If you don’t, I can promise you that the guard will be waiting to confiscate all of your supplies and remove you from the city for endangering its citizens.”

“The only danger the city will be in is if it comes under siege while you’re in it and near the food supplies,” Arek grumbled, suppressing the rising anger in his chest. It would be so easy to reach out and separate the man’s head from his body with a single flick of his claws. Arek strangled the thought, refusing to let the rage win. He couldn’t even tell if it was the Blessed One curse or his own battle rage anymore.

“I’m sorry?”

“Get lost,” Belmont said. “We heard your message, but you’re ruining my view. Don’t you have somewhere important to be?”

Joven turned his nose up and departed, failing completely at putting on a haughty air and beating a hasty retreat. Arek sighed and shook his head.

“I knew it was too good to be true.”

“We could just ignore him,” Ming said, swinging down from her seat at the top of the cart. “I refrained from blowing him up. You’re welcome.”

“That’s for the best,” Belmont said. “We certainly would have gotten arrested if you did anything like that.”

“Good. Keep praising me.”

“It can’t be that hard to get a certificate thing, can it?” Malissa asked with a frown, ignoring Ming. “Let’s just get one of those.”

“We don’t know how long we have until we need to go deal with the curse,” Arek replied. “Any day now, Magus might find more information about the Howlers. Belmont, this seems like something you might know about. How long would it take to get some sort of bureaucratic approval for us to keep cooking?”

Belmont rubbed his chin, then winced as his gauntlet caught some stray hair on his chin. He yanked his hand back with a curse, then cleared his throat. “It depends on the city. I haven’t looked into anything related to cooking like this before, but almost nothing that has to go through the city is going to be fast unless it’s got something to do with monsters.”

“Why don’t we ask one of the other cart owners?” Ming asked. “If this thingie is real, then they’ve got one.”

“Good idea,” Arek said. “Maybe we should ask a few, because there’s a good chance that one of them reported us to try and get rid of new competition.”

“They should just get better at cooking,” Ming said with a frown. “Then again, I did spread rumors that the cart on the other side of the courtyard gave me violent diarrhea for a week. Do you think that was too much?”

Arek rubbed his forehead. “Maybe don’t admit to that again.”

“Yeah, it was too much,” Ming decided. “I should have just said a day.”

“If you’re talking to anyone, I should go with you,” Malissa said. “We don’t need to give some idiot the wrong idea and end up having you have to fight.”

“Good idea,” Arek said. “Belmont, care to go check with another wagon?”

Belmont nodded and headed to their left while Arek and Malissa made for the nearest cart to their right. It was run by a plump man somewhere in his thirty’s. He had thinning black hair and a pair of spectacles that were far too small for his face.

The man’s rosy cheeks paled as the two approached him. He backed up several steps until his back hit the wall of his cart. “A- can I help you?”

“We were just wondering if you happen to know anything about a certificate of approval for running a cart in the courtyard?” Malissa asked.

The man glanced at Arek nervously. The orc flicked his chef hat and winked.

“I – uh, I do. I’ve got one. Why? Do you work for the city as well as run a cart?”

“Does our cart really look like it has much funding?” Arek asked. They all turned to look at the run down little box. The wheels were still unfixed, and while it had been polished to the best of their abilities, still looked like it had gone out of business a year ago.

“No,” the man admitted. “Why do you ask?”

“Someone just came by and told us that we needed to have a certificate if we wanted to continue selling inside the city,” Malissa said.

The vendor frowned. Now that it was apparent they weren’t going to attack him, his shoulders loosened and he let out his pent up breath. “Really? That’s quite strange. I got the certificate mostly on a formality. I’ve never heard of the city enforcing the regulations.”

“Are there other food carts without them, then?” Arek asked.

“Several. Nobody has ever had issue with it before.” The man rubbed the back of his head. “Uh… you’re sure it was an official that complained?”

“No idea,” Arek replied. “We’re trying to figure that out now. It was some guy called Joven. Ring any bells?”

“Hm. I might have heard the name, but it isn’t resounding with anything in particular. I really don’t know. I suppose you could try to put in a request for a certificate, but they can take quite some time. I was out here selling food for nearly six months before mine was approved.”

“That’s what I was worried about,” Arek said. He rubbed his chin and let out a sigh. “But if this is true – how many other carts don’t have a license?”

“I’m not sure, but at least half.” The man’s eyes widened. “Oh bother. If they start enforcing that law, then all of them are going to be in trouble.”

“Indeed,” Arek said. “Well, thanks for your help.”

He and Malissa bid the vendor farewell and returned to their cart. Arek sat down and drummed his fingers on the ground. “This is excessive. Why would someone want to get rid of us so badly? It wasn’t like the other food trucks were losing all their customers, and this is going to hurt more carts than it’ll help. I’d imagine it would piss quite a few people off.”

“Joven came straight to us, though. Nobody else,” Malissa pointed out. “That doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

“It doesn’t,” Arek agreed. “We’re being targeted, and whoever is doing it is more than willing to take out the other food carts with us. That feels more like a vendetta than someone just enforcing the laws.”

“It could be one of the carts that does have a license just trying to get rid of a lot of competition at once.”

“It could be,” Arek agreed. “But I feel like that would get a lot of people angry at them for no reason. This feels more targeted.”

Belmont and Ming walked over to join them, having finished their own conversation with another food vendor.

“Any luck?” Malissa asked.

“Not many people have the certificate things,” Belmont said. “We’re either starting something or getting caught in the crossfire of something that was already planned.”

“We came to just about the same conclusion,” Arek said. “And now we’re going to need to figure out what to do about it.”

“What do you mean?” Ming asked. “We could just, you know, keep doing what we’re doing. I can blast anyone that tries to take our stuff.”

“Probably not the best strategy for remaining in the town,” Belmont drawled. “I think it would be wise to determine just how hard we’re willing to fight this.”

“You mean we should just give up?” Malissa asked with a frown.

“No. I mean we should figure out if we’re willing to spend the effort to try and either stop them from enforcing the law or get ourselves a certificate. There are other places we could go. It’s not like you and Arek can’t cook anywhere, and we’ve already made a pretty fair amount of coin. I don’t think we’ll be in the negative if we cut our losses.”

“It’s frustrating, but I see what Belmont is getting at,” Arek said. “We really don’t know how much time we have until its time to make a move on the Howlers. Getting into a giant fight over the right to continue working here, then it becoming a moot point in a week would be quite the waste of time.”

“So we just give up?” Ming asked. “That’s lame.”

“I didn’t say that,” Arek said. He paused for a few moments, then a tiny grin tugged at his lips. “Let’s see. The certificate is for cooking inside city walls, right?”

“Yeah,” Ming said.

“What about outside it?”

“It would be pretty ludicrous to try to control what people could do outside,” Belmont said, his eyes lighting up as he figured out what Arek was suggesting. “We could just set the cart up right outside the main gate. We’d still get a lot of travelers, and it isn’t even that far to walk for anyone inside the city proper.”

“If someone really is trying to get rid of us, I doubt that’ll stop them,” Malissa said. “But I’m in agreement. This will buy us a little more time, at least. We’ll also know if we’re being targeted, or if this just happened to be something we were unfortunate enough to get caught up in.”

“Then it’s decided,” Arek said. “We’ll move the cart right outside the city walls tomorrow. Maybe that’ll be the end of things. If it isn’t, we’ll be ready.”

***

It didn’t take long to move the cart. With the four of them, it was a simple matter to lift the wooden structure and carefully carry it outside the city in the early hours of the morning. Arek held the back, while Malissa and Belmont each grabbed one of the front corners.

Ming directed the whole thing, and graciously stopped them from running into the walls too many times. Once they were all moved out, Arek and Malissa went to get ingredients while Ming patrolled the town square to direct any customers toward them.

The sun rose. Arek and Malissa made shrimp pasta again, deciding to stick to something simple, and they day passed quickly. They didn’t get quite as many customers as they had before, but the flow of merchants and travelers entering the city proved to be more than enough.

They were out of food by sundown. No officials came to bother them, so they continued their pattern for the next week without trouble. But, as all things, it didn’t take too long for a problem to arise.

“Half the food wagons are gone,” Ming reported, crossing her arms. “Including one that sold meat pies. I liked those meat pies.”

“Were you eating other wagon’s food while on the job?” Belmont asked.

Ming harrumphed. “You can’t expect me to work without food, and you’re all the way out here. I had to get snacks.”

“Let’s focus on the slightly more important matter,” Malissa suggested, pausing her duty of chopping vegetables. “When you say the wagons are gone – were they kicked off because of their lack of certificate?”

“Dunno,” Ming replied. “They just weren’t there this morning. I know they’ve heard about us moving here, so if that’s the reason, we might see some company.”

And so they did. Over the course of an hour, two more wagons rolled out from the city gates and set up beside them. Arek raised a hand in greeting to one of the vendors, a tall woman in a stout chef’s hat. She returned the greeting with a nod.

“What happened?” Arek called.

“Same thing that happened to you, I think,” the woman said, setting the cart down with a grunt. Her helpers started prepping for the day while she walked over to speak with the Happy Sunflowers. “We got kicked out of the city for not having a certificate of authenticity. I’ve been selling here for two years, and nobody ever asked for something like that. We haven’t had any complaints either. It’s ridiculous. What do you go by? I’ve seen your cart around, but never got a chance to chat.”

“He’s Arek. I’m Malissa. The armored guy is Belmont, and the short one–”

“Ming,” the woman finished, a small grin tugging at her mouth. “I’m Helga. And most of us already know Ming, considering she goes around, buying food from every single cart for most of the day.”

Ming cleared her throat as the other three Happy Sunflowers turned to stare at her.

“I advertise too.”

“She does that as well,” Helga admitted. “To more effect than I expected, to be honest. It’s just kind of hard to say no to her when she starts getting pouty. It’s quite unfair.”

“So we’ve found,” Malissa said with a wry grin. “Do you know why they’re suddenly enforcing this rule? We’ve only been here for a week or two, so the politics of Seaside are still beyond us.”

“No bloody idea,” Helga replied with an irritated sigh. “It’s the first most of us have seen it used as well. I applied for the certificate, but I’ve got no idea how long it will take for it to be approved. I hope you don’t mind us infringing your zone out here.”

“If anything, it’ll help bring more customers here,” Malissa said. “The more carts there are outside the city, the more likely people will come out here to check them out. But… if someone’s playing cheap, it won’t be long before we get kicked out of here as well.”

Helga pressed her lips together and nodded. “I agree, but unfortunately, there isn’t much about I can do about the situation. We don’t exactly have the pull to demand an audience with the city council, and it’ll take months for something like that to happen normally. We might get the certificate before the audience.”

“Then all we can do is keep going as we are and prepare to react if our good friend Joven continues to try and push us out,” Arek said.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t. Good luck today,” Helga said, waving as she headed back to her cart. Arek and Malissa got back to doing their own prep work.

“Do you think we’ll have trouble again?” Malissa asked.

“It’s likely,” Arek admitted. “Joven came after us specifically. It took a week for him to go after the other food carts, but we were only given a day to react. I assume this just means whoever Joven is working for is expanding their target to catch us in it later.”

“So what should we do?” Belmont asked, speaking up for the first time that morning. “Like you said, we won’t be in Seaside for much longer. Do we really want to get in conflict with yet another government? Chances are, this is somehow guild motivated.”

“Makes me wonder which guild,” Arek muttered. “Belmont, instead of looking for customers today, can you try to research what guilds are in the area? Look for the Howlers, the Star Piercers, or any guild somehow related to the two. Also – what was Null’s guild called, Ming?”

“Avenguard,” Ming replied, her face darkening. “You think he’s got something to do with this?”

“Check for them as well,” Arek said. “Just to be safe. Don’t forget they had one of those green orbs that caused the monster horde. That means they might be connected to the Howlers, and Null has a personal grudge against us.”

“Is it that bad?” Ming asked, none of the usual cheer in her voice. “I know he was angry, but do you really think he’d go after us for no reason other than making your lives miserable?”

“I don’t know, Ming. I wasn’t a good person before, and I used to hold grudges like a lifeline. If Null is in the same spot that I was, he could. There’s no reason to make assumptions right now, though.”

“I’ll check the library and talk to some people,” Belmont said. “See what I can find. It shouldn’t take too long, especially if they’re making moves in the local government. I should have something useful by the end of the day.”

“Just be careful,” Malissa said. “If this does have something to do with the Howlers, we might have a bigger problem on our hands.”

“I’m always careful,” Belmont replied. He bid them farewell and headed into the city. Ming followed shortly afterward to rouse up some more customers for the food cart. Arek and Malissa returned their full attention to preparing for the day.

The crowd around the outside of the city was bigger than it had been on previous days, likely due to the migration of the other food carts. Arek wasn’t about to complain. He and Malissa cooked throughout the rest of the day, selling out in the early evening after a supply run to restock on their ingredients.

Ming came back as the sun started to set, claiming the bowl they’d set aside for her. She had two more plates from other food carts balanced in her hands, but neither Arek nor Malissa pointed it out.

Belmont came back an hour after sunset, a troubled expression on his face. Arek set the bowl he was washing aside as Belmont approached.

“Find anything?” the orc asked.

“Unfortunately,” Belmont said, pressing his lips together. “It was a little harder than I thought. There weren’t any official records, and this city is supposed to be another guild-free location, similar to Red Mount. However, after talking with some people in the town hall, it seems that Ox has been spotted in the town several times over the past months.”

“Ox was the leader of Avenguard, wasn’t he?” Arek asked.

Belmont nodded. “And some of his other team members were spotted as well. Nobody recalled Null, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t here or didn’t have some sort of involvement in this.”

Ming’s face fell. “I can’t believe it. I knew he wasn’t really a good person, but why would he do this? It’s so… mean. For no reason!”

“It’s always possible it was a coincidence,” Malissa hedged, but it was clear she was saying it more for Ming’s benefit than any other reason.

“More importantly, it means we shouldn’t be sitting around, waiting for them to make a move,” Belmont said. “He who acts first gains the advantage. If we let them set up a trap for us, we’ll fall right into it.”

“As much as I hate to agree, I think you’re right,” Arek said. He fiddled with one of his fangs and sighed. “I think we should move.”

“What?” Ming’s face fell. “But… you’re having so much fun. I’m having fun!”

“You usually have fun,” Malissa said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “But we can’t deal with the Howlers right now. Not until Magus gets more information on them.”

“I’m sorry,” Ming said. “This is my fault. If I wasn’t part of the team, Null wouldn’t be bothering you.”

“None of that,” Belmont said. He crossed his arms and set his stance, his eyes narrow. “No blaming yourself, Ming. We’ve all brought our fair share of trouble to the group. None of it was our fault.”

“Well, that isn’t entirely true,” Arek rumbled. “Everything I brought was pretty much my fault.”

“You were a different person then. It doesn’t count.”

Arek tipped his head in acknowledgement. He didn’t fully agree with Belmont, but this wasn’t the time to bring it up.

“Belmont is right, Ming,” Malissa said. “Don’t shoulder responsibility for the crimes that other people do. Just because Null is your brother doesn’t mean you’re responsible for him. It’s not like Seaside is the only place we can cook and have fun. We’ll just go elsewhere.”

“We just need to let Magus know first,” Arek said. “This was inevitable anyway. Magus told us to spend three weeks here, and we’ve gotten rid of around two of them. That’s just one week that we lost, which isn’t the worst at all. We can just change the pace up a little for the last one.”

Ming nodded, her face lightening up – but not completely. “Okay. What are we going to do, then?”

“First, we let people know where we’ve gone,” Arek said with a slow smile. “And perhaps we can frame it a little different. If people want to cause us trouble, the least we can do is try to make the road a little rocky for them on the way out. Then we go out to the countryside and kill a week. We haven’t done a dungeon recently, and all of our training has fallen a bit out of practice.”

“There should be a E rank dungeon nearby,” Belmont said. “But you said it yourself – we haven’t been in practice. Are we really prepared for a dungeon? All we’ve done for the last two weeks is relax and cook.”

“We’ll spar some to make sure we’re ready,” Arek promised, starting to put some of the bowls away in his pack. “But frankly, it’s safer than sitting out here if the Howlers really are after us again.”

Belmont tsked. “Damn. You’re likely right, and I’m loathe to just spend the week doing nothing. Let’s do what you’re suggesting, then. If it feels like we’re really too rusty, then we’ll just camp out for a while. That’s far from the worst case scenario anyway.”

Arek and Malissa finished the last of their cleaning duties. The moon was rising in the sky, and most of the other food carts were long gone. After one last sweep to make sure everything was properly put away, the Happy Sunflowers retired to bed in their inn.

The following morning, they woke early. They set out to the market, but not for the same supplies they’d been getting for the last few days.

“Travel rations?” the fish merchant asked, blinking in surprise. “Are you going somewhere? I was under the impression your cart was doing quite well! I visited it myself a little over a week ago, you know. I don’t think you recognized me because of the evening hustle, but I don’t fault you for that. Either way, you’re doing great business!”

“We were,” Arek agreed. “But someone’s trying to get us kicked out of the city. They came around demanding that we get some certificate, but everyone’s in agreement that the certificate takes months to acquire.”

“Seriously? They’ve never enforced that rule before.”

“That’s what we heard as well,” Belmont said, his armor clanking as he crossed his arms. “But there’s nothing to do about it now. We can’t afford to play games with the local government. If they want us gone, we’ll ply our trade elsewhere.”

“How troubling,” the merchant murmured. “That isn’t a good sign at all. I had some friends that ran carts, and they didn’t have certificates either. Whyever would someone want to get rid of the carts? They drive so much trade!”

“It’s beyond us,” Malissa said, studying a strip of dried fish jerky. “But, for now, we’re playing it safe. We can’t afford to have all our belongings confiscated or whatever it is that the council will do to us. How much for enough jerky to last three people a week?”

“For you? Five silver,” the merchant said, shaking his head in disappointment. “I was looking forward to going back to your cart. You mark my words, this isn’t the will of the people.”

“Well, if you could help tell some others the reason we left, we’d appreciate it,” Arek said, rubbing the back of his head and adjusting his chef’s hat. “I hate to just disappear, but we don’t want to get on the bad side of whoever’s in power.”

“Oh you trust me, I will.” The merchant glowered, pausing to smile at Malissa as she handed him the gold. He packed their jerky into a bag and handed it to her. “Are you really going to live off jerky for a week?”

“Oh, we’ve got some other supplies too,” Arek said. “This is just emergency rations. Your fish was great, so we wanted to show you some extra support before we left. Our little business wouldn’t have been a thing without you. A lot of our supplies came from your shop, after all.”

“Then I wish you all the best. I hope you come by Seaside again in the future.”