Cyberpunk, but urban

Chapter 199. Commissioned Crusade - Eight Chefs

"Ahahaha, that's right, we are the only eight remaining chefs!"

The woman, who looked like a human-shaped shark with a bloody mouth full of sharp teeth, laughed and said, "They are all a bunch of idiots. They are tired of eating ordinary dishes, so they cook their own bodies to explore new cooking methods."

Unlike the other seven chefs who made their own meals, Greta had a different dream, which prevented her from making herself the last dish of her life as soon as she was twisted, as others did.

“Cook, taste, comment, record… adjust the recipe again to better cook other parts… only use teeth and tongue to chew and taste food, until every part of your body is cooked, without stopping for a moment.”

"Isn't it sad? Even though I still have teeth to chew food, there is no space to digest it... Even though I can taste with my tongue, my brain, which can sense taste, has turned into a steak!"

It was a wonderful scene that broke out in front of her. Although their finished products were far from the final dish she had in mind, Greta still envied them a little.

At least the other chefs have found the final dish they wanted, but she is unable to complete the dish she wanted to make due to the poor quality of the raw materials.

"Look at you, it would be nice if you could make yourself into food like those dishes." The ring in Ye Lan's hand lit up, and the ancient simple cassock replaced his suit. The nine-ring Zen staff made a tinkling sound in his hand.

Ye Lan, whose face was hidden by the bamboo hat, said to Greta: "Your heart is full of desires and the sin of cannibalism."

"Huh? Greed? The sin of cannibalism?" Greta asked back in dissatisfaction. In her opinion, Ye Lan was just the kind of person who was picky about food and was stubborn and stubborn.

"As long as it tastes good, that's enough! Why should we care what the ingredients of the dish are?!"

The shark man slammed the door that locked her up, his blood-red eyes full of anger. After countless years of accumulation in Alley 23, cannibalism has never been a sin for the people born in Alley 23.

"Why should I think that the ingredients are the same as me? Isn't it because they smell delicious that we eat them? The best ingredients attract us like the smell of blood in the sea water, how can we ignore them!"

"If you think humans are the best ingredients, why don't you do what the other chefs do and make dishes out of this excellent ingredient that you prepared yourself?"

Ye Lan's words pointed out one of the fallacies that Greta ignored due to her distortion:

"Because you want to live and eat, Greta. You want to eat more people, eat better people, instead of pursuing the most delicious dishes. You are not a chef at all, you are just a diner who can cook for yourself."

"Ha, who knows...but no matter what you say, we'll keep eating!"

Different from ordinary twisters, the members of Algaria's Symphony Orchestra actively embrace distortion, believing that distortion is how they are supposed to be.

Not everyone is a weak little girl like Irene. It is not easy to make Greta admit that she is just blaming the world with just a few words.

The last of the eight chefs took out a short-handled hammer from somewhere and rushed straight towards Ye Lan.

Greta, who is 1.91 meters tall and has thick muscles, runs like an unstoppable mountain of flesh, and the exaggerated strength of her twisted muscles even gives her a speed far beyond common sense.

The two-pronged six-ring staff that was once used by the monk who turned into a monster due to greed for fame drew a wonderful arc in Ye Lan's hand, and in an instant it touched Greta's left ankle.

Dark waves flashed three times in succession at the place where she was hit by Ye Lan, and her ankle, which was hit by the ego equipment [Infinite], instantly lost consciousness.

Greta suddenly lost her balance and fell to the ground. She then rolled over and crashed into Ye Lan. But compared to Greta who could only roll for a while, it was much easier for Ye Lan to dodge.

He even had time to put the bamboo hat on Greta's head as she passed by him, replacing the chef's hat she was wearing and covering her eyes.

"Greta, you are very clear about your sins, but in your eyes, those sins are not sins." Wuliang tapped the ground, and the staff jingled, making a series of calming sounds.

"Hahaha, why do you think eating other things is natural, but eating humans is taboo? Who, why, why do you have such a rule! Because human life is precious? It's a contradiction!"

"Does the life of animals mean nothing? We don't want to talk about some boring principles to measure the importance of one life or another. As for why human life is more valuable than animal life, it's because humans are predators at the top of the food chain. If there are even higher-ranking predators among humans, wouldn't it be perfectly reasonable for them to prey on their own kind?"

Greta got up from the ground while talking. The place where she supported herself was where the kitchen utensils were placed. The knife rack contained all the knives in the hotel kitchen.

"Try this!"

A big hand with pearly white skin grabbed the kitchen knives, and then Greta threw them towards Ye Lan in one breath.

"Shark...you are more like a wild animal living in the city than a human."

Dodging the kitchen knives that pierced through layer of walls and flew straight out of the hotel, Ye Lan approached Greta step by step.

"In this city, people who eat similar food will become more and more similar to each other! Those high and mighty beings have determined the right food for each of us! It is better to become a beast than to be enslaved by those people! If you don't want to be that kind of person, then you can only eat humans of the same kind, right?!"

Ye Lan's previous attack completely destroyed Greta's ankle, and until now, she still cannot walk normally.

“Is this your understanding?”

Walking up to Greta, Ye Lan raised his staff and said to her, "You are wrong. What you eat is never the reason why classes are formed in this city. It is the class that makes people eat different foods."

The staff hit Greta's head, which was still covered with a bamboo hat, and her huge body collapsed instantly.

Chapter 200. Unpalatable

After an unknown amount of time, the pain in her head caused Greta to open her eyes again.

Directly opposite her, Ye Lan, who had changed back into his suit, was sitting there leisurely. Next to him was a stack of seven status preservation boxes, which contained the set meals cooked by the other eight chefs.

"Awake?" Ye Lan asked.

"You didn't kill me directly... What, do you have anything else to ask me?" Greta sat up straight, and every mouth on her body was laughing.

After she had laughed enough, Ye Lan finally spoke to her: "According to what you said, your companions have cooked themselves into meal sets. They stewed themselves, leaving only the tongue to taste the creatures, but there is no way to put the cooked dishes into the current status preservation box."

Greta slapped her thigh and said, "Aha, is that what you want to ask? I pretended to have it. Those idiots put all their efforts into cooking this delicious food. Of course I have to keep it and eat it slowly."

"Yeah……"

Ye Lan stretched out his hand and pushed the set meals stacked beside him to Greta. These set meals cooked by the other twisted eight chefs were opened one by one by Ye Lan and displayed in front of Greta.

"Since you think these are all delicious dishes, then try them."

Greta looked at Ye Lan in confusion, then lowered her head to smell the dishes. After being distorted into a humanoid shark-like appearance, she had an excellent sense of smell and taste. After just a few sniffs, she could sense that the set meals were definitely delicious and pleasantly surprised her.

"Eat it if you want... our noses will never deceive us."

Although she didn't understand what Ye Lan wanted to do, she had been easily defeated by Ye Lan at this moment. So she had to do whatever Ye Lan wanted her to do if she didn't want to die.

Reaching out from one of the meal sets, Greta took out a piece of small steak and put it into her mouth in the normal position. The next second, she spat out the small steak intact.

"This...is not right, how is this possible?"

Is this short rib, made by the oldest chef among them from his own ribs, delicious? It is delicious, even scary.

But Greta could tell that beneath the delicious taste was a terrifying taste that frightened her. This chef, one of the eight chefs of City Star, was already 47 years old this year. It can be said that she had eaten everything that could be eaten in the city.

But when Greta actually opened her mouth to taste the food that was made by her companions with their own hands, she found that she could not understand the taste of these foods.

Feeling that her lifelong cooking skills were negated by these meal sets, Greta panicked and tried all the meal sets made by each of her companions.

“It tastes terrible, doesn’t it?”

"……Correct."

Even if she didn't want to admit it, Greta couldn't deceive her distorted self. These sets were so unpalatable that they shouldn't have been made by the eight chefs.

Ye Lan slowly explained to Greta: "They were already twisted when they chose to cook themselves, and their twisted idea was to make themselves the most delicious delicacy in the world. The taste you taste is what they think is the most delicious taste in the world."

"But how can they cook delicious food with their original skills to cook their distorted delicious selves? The same goes for you. All your dreams and expectations have become what you would never have imagined the moment you were distorted."

"..."

Greta was silent. The food that her fellow eight chefs had exchanged their lives for was just this kind of thing.

Is it really right to listen to that voice in faith?

Greta didn't know it, but she was indeed moved. She was twisted in order to eat more food, more and better food. Facing the fragrant food in front of her, but extremely unpalatable because of the mismatch between the cooking method and the raw materials, she seemed to have been wrong.

"Shouldn't any cooking method be good? Shouldn't anyone care about the ingredients of the food?"

"If the cooking method is good, why can't you eat it? If the raw materials of food are not worth caring about, why do they distort it?"

“Who cares what ingredients are in the food? As long as it tastes good, that’s all that matters!”

“So are these dishes delicious?”

"..."

Greta seemed to be talking to Ye Lan, or just talking to herself to strengthen her belief. But as Ye Lan asked questions, she finally fell silent again.

"If you can't stand it, don't be picky, just swallow it all! Just follow the smell of blood and follow the guidance of your brain to stuff all those delicious foods into your mouth."

“…Is this right?”

"You've already done that, haven't you? Don't listen to that man and just eat whatever you want as usual."

The ring in Ye Lan's hand was glowing abnormally. He rubbed the ring in his hand and guessed that Carmen was probably talking to Greta again at this moment.

He waited quietly, without forcing himself to join Greta and Carmen's conversation. If she could get rid of the distortion with her own mind, then this one of the eight chefs might be the key to his change of Lane 23 in the future.

But if she finally fell into Carmen's arms and chose to twist, it wouldn't take Ye Lan much effort to execute her.

After waiting for half an hour, the bloody mouths on Greta's exposed skin gradually disappeared, and cracks appeared on her shark-like skin.

"It seems that she has it... Although she is not yet at the level of a god, she is not like Irene, who lost her obsession directly."

Ye Lan rummaged around in the staff lounge outside the kitchen and found some clothes for the 47-year-old woman to wear. Once she got rid of her twisted posture, her oversized clothes would no longer fit her.

"After all, he's a member of the original game's Symphony Orchestra, so he should be able to come in handy..."

After a while, Greta finally broke free of the shark skin and returned to her original appearance. This urban star who had killed and eaten countless people was now eating the meal set around her with tears on her face.

While eating, I couldn't help retching.

Greta, who dreams of eating all over the world and having more and better food, ends up eating all the food cooked by her fellow eight chefs.

"It seems that you will never be able to eat human flesh again in this life."

Ye Lan threw the clothes to Greta who was curled up in the shark skin, and said with his back to her.

"Eating a friend's flesh is such a disgusting thing... It's strange that I never thought of it this way in the past."

Chapter 201. It seems that there is no cake in the prison this week

"It seems that different ways of removing distortions will produce different results."

After confirming Greta's condition, Ye Lan left the kitchen to give her enough private space. In this room, no matter what Greta wanted to do, Ye Lan would not pay attention.

After waiting for half an hour, Greta came out after paying her final respects to her former companion.

"That's enough... Our companion at least chose this path contentedly. This kind of condolence is enough."

Greta, who had just cleaned up the hotel's kitchen, came out and said to Ye Lan that as a typical urbanite, Greta had long learned how to quickly forget her dead companions.

"You chose to remove me from that state instead of killing me directly... maybe you still have some use for me?"

Greta then asked Ye Lan, she really needed something to divert her attention at this moment.

"I guess so." Ye Lan glanced at Greta, and then continued to say to her: "Greta, do you still remember the reason why you are twisted?"

"Remember, we want to eat more and better food," said Greta.

"Then what did you give up under the persuasion of that voice?" Ye Lan asked.

"What we gave up... should be the rationality of judging what is food, right?"

Greta herself wasn't sure what she gave up at the touch of that warm voice, but whatever it was, the only consequence of giving it up was to become a monster.

"That's not wrong, but it's far more than just rationality. Distortion requires you to abandon all thoughts in your heart, including empathy, morality, hope, etc. In the end, the only things that will remain in your heart are dreams that are as twisted as your appearance, and the endless desires that arise from them."

Ye Lan reviewed to Greta bit by bit what she was missing after being distorted, making the middle-aged aunt nod repeatedly.

"But although these things are important, they are not that relevant to what I want you to try to do next."

Ye Lan changed the subject and started talking about a new topic: "I remember that you eight chefs believe that only human flesh can be used to make dishes that are far beyond the ordinary with your cooking methods, right?"

"Yes, although this may make you angry, our eight chefs have also studied it for a long time in the past. If we want to make gourmet food that exceeds the limit, using urban people as raw materials is indeed better than other meats."

Greta observed Ye Lan's expression and saw that his emotions did not fluctuate, so she dared to tell him all her thoughts.

"Sometimes, I feel that city people are really amazing. Everything in this city, big or small, can be accomplished by consuming humans."

Ye Lan sighed, and then continued to say to Greta: "First of all, Alley 23, or the Alley of Flavor as it is called here, your culture here believes that cannibalism is not a big deal, so I won't say anything to you."

"But I hate that idea. The moment you commit cannibalism, you've already put yourself on a higher level than your own kind."

Greta thought about what Ye Lan said. Whether it was their eight chefs or most people in Alley 23, they indeed treated their own kind as livestock that could be used at any time. There was even a butcher gang that made a living by slaughtering humans in bulk.

However, in the chaotic environment of the back alley, they had never thought about such things. For those who lived in the back alley, just surviving at the bottom was already a struggle, and when they reached a higher position, the back alley rules that had already become accustomed to them were no longer considered.

"What do you mean?" Greta asked Ye Lan.

"Go and try to change Alley 23. As one of the last eight chefs, with your reputation in the back alley, Greta, you are one of the few individuals who can change the cannibal culture of Alley 23."

"Yes."

"I know you can't understand my thoughts for now... But when you lead the residents of Alley 23 to abandon the cannibalistic back alley culture and achieve the goal of using normal raw materials to complete the craft, you will understand."

After Ye Lan finished speaking, he threw a business card of Yixiang Agency to her and then walked towards the main entrance of the hotel.

Before leaving, he finally said to Greta: "If you have any questions, please contact me using the contact information on the business card. Good luck, chef."

Not long after, the whistle of an old steam train was sounded outside the hotel. When Greta went out to check, Ye Lan had already returned to the office on the Yellow Springs Train.