A new ingredient

"your asking me what the meaning of life is? The answer depends on who you ask, but to me its simple. Life is about devouring everything you can until you drop dead."-???

***

This truly is an age of gourmet supremacy!

Food has always mattered of course, but until our explorations began it had been seen as something of little true importance.

Once humanity properly took its first steps into the galaxy they discovered an enormous culinary ecosystem.

Wonderous and exotic foods could even have reality altering effects. impossible levels of strength and speed, anomalous abilities and even more could be gained through eating.

And thus gourmet warriors and chefs took center stage in the galaxy.

Oliver had been listening to that particular history lesson on loop for the past 5 minutes while his face was planted in the dirt. 

"ugh fuck, did they really need to punch me in the gut after robbing me? Those thieves have no decency anymore."

After slightly recovering from that nasty gut punch Oliver managed to get up and shambled his way home.

Oliver lived in a rather poor area, of course in the modern era almost no one was actually poor. It was just more based on the vast disparity between the elite and the common people.

The shining lights of advertisements, holograms, and open stores littered the place.

'Its like a garbage heap painted in glitter.'

His home, or rather his state designated apartment was within the middle of a a gigantic complex city structure over a hundred kilometers in height and spread over 20 percent of planet Janssen's land mass.

The smell of cheap synthetic food and stale recycled air filled the place. The planet had been properly terraformed thousands of years ago but due to the immensity of the city, natural air flow wasn't enough. The tragedies of hypoxia had proven that enough.

'With all the people they've recently jammed into the planet its a surprise things are only this bad.' The actual main attraction of planet Janssen was the people on it. The world had more or less become a human breeding center, one of those generally called a hive world, even if it was on the lower end of that scale.

That meant mediocre living conditions, mass immigration from other parts of the galaxy, and state awarded benefits for having children. Oliver particularly despised that last one. 

After around a 10 minute trip Oliver arrived, his apartment was as empty as usual. The grey monotone walls really knew how to suck the motivation out of a person.

"at least i get to be in bed early, i know that punch is gonna leave a nasty bruise on my ribs anyway so i might as well sleep it off instead of wasting some money on healing nanites."

'not like i have anything else to do.' 

But Oliver found it hard to fall asleep, the pain in his gut and his own thoughts kept him up for most of the night.

'Could I have done something differently when those thieves attacked me? Running was an option but I wouldn't have had the stamina to get away.'

'Obviously calling for help wouldn't work, people get robbed daily in that area, Could I have fought back? No, no i don't think so there were three of them and if they were smart at all they probably had something sharp on them.'

"Huh, i really couldn't have done anything to help myself just because I'm not good enough." Oliver really didn't know why but that thought made him cry.

Yet he simply drifted off to sleep afterwards.

Oliver never dreamed, or in his own assumption he never remembered his dreams. 

But tonight was different, Oliver was standing in a grand hall the proportions of which weren't clear. Everything was hazy and illusory but the sensation was like nothing Oliver had ever felt before.

At the end of this hallway sat a figure who seemed to fade in and out reality. The only features visible being a mechanical crown, and their bright scarlet eyes.

Compelled Oliver walked forwards, it seemed that a chair appeared from nowhere a few steps below the mysterious figures own. As Oliver sat down his lucidity surged, he could think, understand, but his feelings were muted as if his mind was surrounded by cotton.

'Where.. where am i?' He should have felt panic but there was nothing.

"You are where you are meant to be, and your location has no meaning."

The strange beings voice was rather deep and monotone even ominous, though its answer was also rather unnerving.

"You can hear my thoughts?"

"I hear many things, though it is rather rude for me to be called ominous and unnerving."

.....

'What?'

"you may ignore that Oliver now lets get to the main focus of this meeting its not like i have all day, of course I do but it shouldn't be taken up by you." 

"alright then?" Oliver stated, the circumstances were setting in with him rather unnaturally quickly.

"Good then finally using your voice, now Oliver tell me. What do you want out of life? What is your desire? What do you deserve?"

Oliver was rather perplexed by the question posed to him, the absurdity of the situation made it hard to think. Though seeing as he was in a dream he let out his true thoughts. 

"What i want out of life is to experience new things and live for as long as i can, Being happy if possible."

"What i desire is to be more than the mundane, and to be as much as i can ever be."

Oliver let out a sigh.

"What I deserve is nothing. I haven't worked for success, I haven't even tried to be something more, I've just lived. Lived in my own inaction, wondering what I could do if i was special. But even if i was special would i really make good use of it?"

The entity paused, thinking of what to say or about any number of other things.

"Self awareness is a great thing, but in your case it does nothing. Your apathy for yourself is a shackle and even if you recognize it you can do nothing to break free from its restraint."

"Not being special is an excuse, the reason you do nothing is because there is no immediate gain, no quantification of your progress. You do nothing because you have no motivation to think you can do better."

"Not being good enough is a myth, taking action is the only recompense that matters."

But a smile was planted on the beings face.

"Yet your still much better that the rabble who lie and just wish for instant success in life, you understand the necessity of work."

"So you will have a chance to experience many things."

"So you shall have the slightest capability of becoming extraordinary."

"But you will start with nothing! and every bit of your success will be up to you."

Oliver couldn't help but feel his heart beat accelerate.

"Yes, yes that's enough that's all I want but I have one question who are you and why are you doing this?"

"Well to be honest there's no real point in introducing myself but just to abate your curiosity one of my many names would be The Scarlet King."

At the mention of the entity's name, space itself seemed to crack apart and unravel and yet with a wave of his hand everything was reverted as to how it once was.

The entity laughed after watching Oliver's reaction which would only be described by imagining a very surprised ground hog. "Though for obvious reasons you shouldn't speak it when your referring to me. As for your other question I'm just plainly bored and I wanted to do something interesting."

Oliver wasn't very surprised by that answer. After all what could such a powerful being want with him of all people?

"Well thank you for the answer anyways... uh is that everything you wanted to talk to me about?" The entity seemed puzzled.

"No its just difficult to think of how id like to go about it, I'm just designing what you'll be given based off of those answers of yours right now."

Oliver found it quite awkward sitting in silence as the entity did whatever it was doing while sitting absolutely still.

"Well yes I know that but I prefer to at least be open about it compared to all those mysterious fucks, oh yes pardon my language."

And so the long silence continued the entity's activity even seemed to begin to strain him a bit. But eventually he finally finished.

"I'll save the main surprise for you later but just remember for every major milestone you reach you'll be able to ask me one question of any type!"

"any other little quality of life things can be asked to your present. I do hope I will see you again Oliver, try to make things entertaining for me at least."

And with that Oliver's consciousness Was sucked out of the resplendent hall and he awoke, And he also regained access to his emotions.

'what?'

he started sweating, his body felt cold he couldn't breathe. Scrambling he managed to get to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet afterwards he laid there and thought.

'WHAT?'