Ch 7 - Profession Arts

It didn't take the duo long to find a restaurant. They smelled something delicious coming from a nearby building. Turning to look, it appeared to be a small house that was turned into a restaurant.

"Wanna eat here?" Quinn asked. Ella nodded her head, so he brought them into the restaurant.

The inside of the restaurant had been styled after a tavern. There were well made wooden tables, and a bar counter. There wasn't any beer or kegs anywhere behind the counter though. Instead, there was a kitchen, to let the customer see their order and watch the process of making the food.

Currently, there wasn't anyone in the restaurant at the moment except for them. The owner must have been in the back room or something.

Quinn and Ella sat down at the bar counter. There was a bell that had a piece of paper stuck to it saying "ring for service". Ella promptly hit it, and a man came out from one of the back rooms.

"Oh, customers! Welcome, what would you like to eat today?" the man asked in a polite voice. He appeared to be in his 60's, wearing an old fashion style chef outfit. He had a stern face, but a friendly expression.

"What's on your menu?" Quinn asked.

"One second please…" he said, walking behind the counter. He pulled out a piece of paper. "Here's a list of everything we serve".

The menu didn't have that many dishes. But there was a good range of foods, some that Quinn didn't know of. There was generic food like eggs and bacon, pancakes and other stuff that Quinn was familiar with, but there were other foods that he never heard of. Rosemary soufflé, roasted caiman, horn rabbit stew, a lot of other exotic sounding foods were served as well.

Quinn knew that these dishes were probably common from another world, so he wasn't surprised about the food choices. Most people when first arriving in the dungeon have a culture shock. It's completely natural, since it happens when you go somewhere new and the culture is very different. Since people who come to the dungeon all come from different worlds, it's natural to feel shocked when exploring all of the different things there.

One thing to note is that there aren't that many different worlds that have people sent to the dungeon. It's most likely due to the fact that the majority of worlds have yet to develop an intelligent population.

Anyways, Quinn was indifferent from the selection of known and unknown foods presented to him. But, Ella was a different story. There were images for about half of the food options, and Ella was drooling when she looked at all of them.

"What do you want to eat?" Quinn asked Ella. He took a napkin and wiped off the drool on her face.

"Umm… I don't know. They all look so good" she was indecisive. It seemed that she didn't know most of the foods, but since they all looked so good, she didn't know what to try.

"How about this?" Quinn asked, pointing towards an image on the menu. It was called 'Fire Badger Meat Buns'. It looked like a round and buttered bun, with red meat sticking out from the middle. It cost 18 manacoins for 6 of them.

"Doesn't it look good? Plus, we can split it, 3 for both of us" Quinn said.

Ella nodded her head, with more drool dripping down. Quinn wiped her face again and called for the man.

"What will you be ordering today?" he came over and asked.

"Can we get one plate of the fire badger meat buns?"

"Sure, it'll take a while to make it".

"Thanks, uhh…" Quinn realized that he didn't know the man's name.

"Call me Paul".

"Okay, thanks Paul. My name's Quinn".

The two of them quickly introduced themselves.

"Well Quinn, I hope you'll like my cooking" Paul said in an upbeat tone.

He went behind the counter and started making the food. First, he went back once again, this time to get the necessary ingredients. He came back out front with some buns in a basket as well as a chunk of red meat.

Taking the meat, he put it on a cutting board and sliced it into thin strips. Then, he put the strips onto a tray, slathered it with a red sauce and spices before putting into what appears to be an oven.

The meat started to cook, so Paul prepared the bread. Taking a knife, Quinn and Ella watched as he carefully cut open the tops of the buns and slowly hollowed them out. This was to make sure that there was enough space for the meat to be stuffed in.

He went back into the storeroom once again, this time coming out with some sort of exotic butter. Taking a knife, he proceeded to spread the butter on the inside of the buns.

By the time he finished, a fragrant aroma was seeping out of the oven. Paul opened the oven and took out the meat, which seemed to be glistening under the light.

He used two spoons to scoop the meat delicately into each of the buns. After, he moved them onto two different plates.

"I assume you two were splitting the buns between you, so I put them onto two plates just for you. Enjoy". Paul said, placing down the plates in front of Quinn and Ella.

"Amazing…" Ella mumbled, mesmerized by the food. Quinn agreed with her; the preparation and presentation were quite amazing. He couldn't imagine how much work went into perfecting the technique.

The two of them dug in, enjoying their food. The flavour was amazing. A perfectly hard crust surrounding the soft inside and the fragrant and somewhat spicy red badger meat on the inside, separated from the bread by a layer of exotic butter.

Quinn felt that if this was in a restaurant on Earth, it would rival some high end restaurants.

"Delicious…" Ella said, finishing her buns.

"Second that" Quinn added. He paid the 18 manacoins as well.

"Heh, seems like you guys enjoyed your meal" Paul chuckled and put away the manacoins.

"Yep, I'm surprised this place isn't filled with customers yet".

"Well, no one really comes here anymore…" his voice died down.

"Why is that?"

He sighed. "That's a long story…"

"We have time," Quinn replied. They didn't have much to do at the moment. Since they couldn't find an art suitable for Ella at the moment, all they needed to do was find a way to make some manacoins. He didn't really know what he could do in terms of working, but he'll figure that out later.

"If you say so. When did it all begin…?"

"I guess it first started when I came to the dungeon. I was a chef in my past life, from a world called Agligoth. This whole dungeon was a new world for me. I moved through the first challenge and came here".

"But, now I'm stuck. I don't know any martial or magic arts, so I can't complete this floor challenge. Luckily, I don't really need to. I can stay on this floor and work as a chef. It isn't the best job, but it's what I love to do".

"I even found love here. My wife, Wendy, is absolutely amazing. She's the love of my life, and we love each other dearly. Actually, she should be coming back anytime now".

"Anyways, around a couple months ago, There… was an issue with someone powerful…"

Paul began to trail off, clearly being nervous about discussing his situation.

"It's okay if you don't want to continue," Quinn politely said. "I don't want to intrude on your private life if it makes you feel uncomfortable".

"No, no, it's okay. The thing is… I just have trouble saying it…" Paul apologized.

Before he could continue, the door opened. A woman walked in. She looked to be the same as Paul, about 60 years old. She wore an elegant outfit, one that suited her perfectly. It looked like some sort of wizard robe, but toned down and altered to look more natural.

"Oh, sorry for interrupting you three" she quickly apologized after seeing that she came in the middle of their discussion.

"Don't worry, it's fine" Quinn brushed it off.

"If you say so. What were you talking about?" she asked.

"We were wondering why Paul didn't have as many customers, right Ella?"

"Yep!" she added.

"Oh, is that so. I assume Paul hasn't gotten to tell you what happened" Wendy predicted.

"How did you know?"

"Oh, he's too irritated by the whole situation" Wendy let out a small laugh.

"What?! No!" Paul tried to defend himself but it was futile.

"Do you want to know what happened?" Wendy asked Quinn and Ella, ignoring Paul's denial.

"Sure" "Uh huh" they both were intrigued.

"Well, to make it simple, it's because of me".

"What?!" Quinn was surprised. How did Wendy, Paul's wife, make him lose all of his customers?

"Let me explain," she said. "In the city, there's a community called the underground. They do dirty things like slave trading, robbery, killing and more. They want to recruit me because of my art, so they're trying to force me to join them. About a month ago, they started threatening our regulars, forcing them to stop eating here".

"Now, most people know not to eat here, so the only customers that we get are penniless newbies that just came from the first floor".

"Paul's upset that he can't do anything to stop them, and irritated that he can't cook food for anyone except us".

"Well" she paused, glancing at both Quinn and Ella. "You two are exceptions".

"Anyways" she continued. "It doesn't matter too much. I still make enough money to support both of us. So we're doing just fine without customers".

"Well that's good at least," Quinn said. "But why are they going to such great lengths to recruit you?"

"It's because of my alchemy art".

"Alchemy art? What's that?" He had never heard of an art called potion-making.

"It's a really coveted profession art".

"Hold up. Profession art? What's that?"

"You don't know what a profession art is?" Paul jumped into the discussion. It seems like he's perfectly fine talking about things that don't relate to his lack of customers.

"I know that there are martial arts and magic arts, but I've never heard of profession arts" For some reason, despite him living on the first floor of the dungeon for five years, he'd never heard about profession arts.

"Well," Wendy said. "A profession art is a type of art that's not focused on fighting, but rather production. Alchemy, for example, is turning one thing into another".

"That's neat".

"Yep. Technically anything can be considered a profession art, as long as you produce something. So, there's a cooking art, blacksmithing art, tailor art, mining art, scribe art, etc. Most common jobs can be considered a profession art".

"Then what's the difference between a regular job and a profession art?" Quinn questioned.

"How well you do it. Think about it this way. Anyone can make a sandwich, or cook up an egg. But they aren't chefs. Similarly, a chef can work at a restaurant and cook good meals, but that doesn't mean they understand the art of cooking".

"Ohhh" It clicked in his head. So even though Quinn knew how to cook decently, it couldn't be considered a cooking art since he didn't have a deep understanding of cooking.

"Wait a minute" he realized. "Actually, I was taking Ella here to find her a suitable art for her. Don't you think that she should learn a profession art?"

"That sounds like a splendid idea" Wendy agreed with his idea. Paul also nodded his head.

"What do you think?" Quinn asked Ella.

"I want to learn how to cook like Paul!" she said happily.

"Is that okay with you" he asked Paul.

"Sure. That works out perfectly" he gave his approval.

"That's great".

"Actually, Quinn" Wendy suddenly asked. "I was wondering if you'd like to learn alchemy from me".

"Say what?"

"Me and Paul," she grabbed Paul's hand. "We know that we're getting old, and we've been looking for someone to teach our skills to. We'd actually asked some others that were regulars to our restaurant if they'd like to learn, but they all turned us down when they learned that it was a profession art".

She grew sentimental. "Plus, ever since we stopped getting customers, a few people came and asked if I could teach them alchemy. It was quite obvious that they were a part of the underground and had other plans. Even though I won't teach them the art of alchemy, I'm afraid that I might get attacked by the underground, so I'd at least want my alchemy to live on".

"Well, why not?" Quinn had nothing to lose. Frankly, he didn't think that the underground would attack her suddenly. "But isn't there some sort of authority or government? Why haven't they gotten rid of the whole underground yet?"

"We do have the city guards, but this system of authority is terrible. Since this is the gladiator floor, you can become the ruler if you beat the current ruler in a gladiator fight. Of course, you have to prove yourself worthy of that first, but that's beside the point".

"Currently, the ruler is absurdly strong, but incredibly lazy when it comes to running this floor, so he leaves it to his subordinates. A lot of them are corrupt, so they let the underground get away with a lot of stuff".

"That's a problem," Quinn said. "Still, I don't think that the underground would be so daring to openly attack you".

"I think so too, but you can never be too careful" Wendy expressed her doubts. "Anyways, do you want to start learning?"

"Not quite yet. Me and Ella are new to the floor, so we need to find a way to earn manacoins and a place to stay" Quinn explained their situation.

"That's not a problem at all" She brushed off his concerns. "We have a spare bedroom which you two can use. And trust me, even after learning the basics, you can earn a lot of profit from alchemy. I'm still baffled that no one else took up my offer".

"That's very nice of you" he thanked Wendy for her help.

"No problem. It'll be more lively with more people around, other than Paul who's boring".

"Hey!" Once again, his complaints fell on deaf ears.