In the evening, Lotus was pa.s.sing by the kitchen area, when she saw a rather strange sight.In front of the entrance to the kitchen, a single demon was sitting on the floor, crying her eyes out.
"If I remember correctly, she is the head cook, is she not?"
Her skin and hair color were both blue, with lighter shade of blue for hair. She was relatively well endowed.
Her slitted green eyes were more made prominent due to the sclera being black in color.
She was dressed in attire befitting of a master chef.
And she was holding a severed head of a Yak in her lap while nervously laughing.
Because of this, she was covered from head to toe in Yak blood.
That may have been the cause for her acting so disturbed that she is breaking down emotionally. Usually, she would avoid clan members as much as possible in order to focus only on cooking, but now, Lotus was witnessing a rather rare sight of the head cook in distress.
She was positively b.l.o.o.d.y, in a literal sense, trembling and shivering all over.
"Uhm, are you ok?"
Turning her head in Lotus"s direction, she said.
"Do I look like I am ok?"
"I am sorry I asked. Uhm… What is your name?"
"Maira. Maira Tengu"
"What exactly happened here?" Lotus asked, looking at the Tengu clan member with a severed head of a Yak in her lap.
"What happened? Disaster of a cook happened!"
It was almost as though Maira had been driven to the brink of insanity by the antics of certain someone.
"He he he. What was I thinking? Asking him to bring me a piece of Yak meat to cook. I should have known this would happen!"
"Who did you ask?"
"Young Master, of course. He was the one who brought the Yaks here, so I thought he would handle it the best."
"Did he fail to do so?"
"Oh no. He succeeded, all right. He took my biggest butchering knife and brought me the lower body of a Yak, with two hind legs intact. When I asked him what he did with the rest of the corpse, he said "Corpse? I was supposed to kill it? Wait a minute, I need to fix something." Then he came back and gave me this! Saying "Problem solved!" Aha ha ha…"
It was obvious dealing with Ren Karatengu was driving this demon bonkers.
"Every time he comes into the kitchen he makes an unholy abomination, and then if he sees me, he asks me to taste test it. Since he is the leader of the clan, I can"t refuse but…but it almost always tastes awful! You can kill monsters with what he is making!"
"Before Master Korgan announced that Young Master was his heir, I forbid him from ever coming into the kitchen, but now he comes in as often as he pleases and does Great Ones know what in the kitchen. Every time I see the kitchen after he is done there, it looks like he conducted a ma.s.sacre in there….waaaaahhhh…"
She suddenly started to sob.
"Does he at least clean up after himself?" Lotus asked.
"That he does, but I often walk in on him right before he starts cleaning up, and the mental image of the kitchen alone is enough to make me want to throw up"
Now focusing on Lotus, Maira exclaimed.
"I am begging you, Miss Lotus, as his wife, please keep him occupied or entertained enough so that he does not visit the kitchen as often, preferably never!"
By now, Maira was clinging on to Lotus"s shoulders, pleading for Lotus"s aid; much to the latter"s discomfort.
"Isn"t it ok for him to cook as well, it"s not like he is there all day long"
"He spends most of his free time in there, turning the sacred grounds of the kitchen that birthed so many miracles, into an infernal pot of horror. He even made it a habit of making a food and disguising it as another food. One time, I took a bite of a carrot, and it turned out to be one of his creations. I ended up bedridden for the next two days due to it!"
With an expression full of terror, Maira said.
"I can"t even imagine the new abomination Young Master is creating in there…"
Clutching her head, sobbing while imagining Ren asking her to taste test his creation, Maira ended up crying out.
"Please, spare me, Young Master! I don"t want to die!"
By now she was confident that overexposure to Ren"s cooking would be fatal to even the mightiest demon.
"I see. Just out of curiosity, how long have you been a head cook?" Lotus asked.
"Ten years. I am the fourth generation head cook for the Tengu clan, like my mother before me, and my grandmother before her, and great grandmother…."
"Ok, I get it. This job is important to you. Ten years, huh. You look so young, I would never have thought…"
"I am only twenty three, my lady"
"So you started when you were thirteen? Now that"s impressive"
"Thank you, Miss Lotus. At least you are far more reasonable than he is. His personality is fine, but his obsession with cooking scares me, especially with how bad he is at it. I heard from Shaula that Ymit Karatengu, his father, was a tad bit eccentric as well, but I am sure he was nowhere near as strange as Young Master"
"How about you take a break for today?"
Lotus suggested.
"A break. Yes, a break sounds nice"
"And a bath, you look like you need it"
"Yes, of course." It was obvious that Maira was still in shock after Ren"s shenanigans.
She slowly proceeded to head towards the bathing area.
With Maira gone, Lotus proceeded to enter the kitchen.
The sight she saw before her was of Ren Karatengu, holding a longsword in his hands, with a single knife in his mouth, repeatedly slashing and stabbing the large chunk of meat he hung up by the hook.
"Take that, Yak! Take this! And this, and don"t forget this!"
Every time he stabbed the rough meat, he would exclaim like a crazy person.
"This might take a while"
Lotus was not completely sure what to make of this situation.