Chapter 18: Perfection

“I bet you do. And I wish I could tell you no as punishment for breaking my window. But it wouldn’t be fair to the boy, I suppose.” Pico nodded towards a small meeting table at one corner of his surprisingly large office. “Sit. We can talk this out.”

After calling for some cold drinks and cracker-like snacks, Pico looked at Arthur across the table. “So you already have your class? That’s quick.”

“It was sort of an accident. I didn’t know about the visions. And I was working with Ella.”

“Oh, really? That’s a point in your favor. You can’t find much better guidance in the city.” Pico popped one of the crackers into his mouth and chewed. “Another point in your favor is, frankly, that you’re an offworlder. There are guests and then there are guests, you see. While you coming from exceptionally far away, doesn’t necessarily mean our duties to you are larger, but…”

“But we’d be a pretty poor excuse for a city if we didn’t try to support you as well as we could,” Karbo said.

Pico nodded. “Something like that. But that doesn’t mean those two things are enough. What’s your class? Do you have your primary skill yet?”

Arthur shook his head. “Only one of my secondary skills. I don’t have my primary yet.”

“Any idea what it will be?”

“The class is teamaster, and I’m guessing the skill will be related to boba. That’s what triggered the vision, anyway.”

“Boba?”

As succinctly as he could, Arthur tried to explain what boba was, the variations of it he knew and planned on replicating. The badger looked fascinated by all of it.

“Well, that makes this even harder.” Pico tapped the table in front of him. “Normally, not having your primary skill would make me say no. It’s very, very early to entrust you with a cart. But you are talking about novel food from a strange world. That’s… valuable to us.”

“Who else is applying?” Karbo asked.

“Nobody yet. Most people were reluctant to damage my office windows to get here that quickly. But if I had to guess, I’m going to hear a few proposals for meat stands and noodle vendors. The usual. And we have plenty of that kind of thing.”

He rose from the table, slapping the tabletop with his hand as he did. “I think what I’ve decided is this. I’m going to hold off on the decision for a few days, claiming exceptional circumstances. Arthur, that means you have a chance. If you can get your skill up and running by then, and if you can bring me something that justifies your request as a sample, I’ll consider giving you the stand. But if you can’t…”

“I understand. You can’t just waste it.” Arthur stood as well. “Are you sure that I deserve a shot though? I’m sure there are people with a higher cooking level.”

“It’s not like that. If you fail, you fail. It won’t be the end of the world. But if you succeed, you will grow rapidly. Everyone needs that chance. Giving it to you isn’t a waste. Especially if this… what did you call it?”

“Boba.”

“If this boba tea ends up being as you describe, I think it will be a wonderful addition to the choices in this area.” He walked over to a nearby door, opening it and signaling another badger into the room. “My assistant will be glad to show you out. I’m sure you have a lot of work to do.”

“It sounds like it.” Arthur bowed his head, slightly. “And thank you for the opportunity.”

“No problem. And not so fast, Karbo,” the mayor said, grabbing a wincing Karbo by the arm as he tried to sneak away. “I think we still have some talking to do about my window.”

—

“So they’re giving you a cart? Just like that?”

Ella was back home from work, and had prepared some cold meat sandwiches for herself, Milo, and Arthur to eat as they talked. Given the exercise of the day, both he and Milo were sucking down the calories like there was no tomorrow, and once again Arthur found himself debating whether or not he was eating the best food he had ever tasted.

“Not just like that. I need my primary skill. And to impress the mayor. And, I guess, to know how to run a small business. It seems like a lot.”

“It is,” Milo said. “But there’s no use waiting. You need to get experience somehow, and usually, it takes the city a lot longer to figure out a way to do that. You need to do this.”

“Yeah. That’s the impression I got.”

“Nobody is going to force you into this, Arthur,” Ella said, pushing another sandwich at him as he polished off his second serving. “I, at least, remember that it’s only been a few days since you got here. And it’s going to be an awful lot of work, whether you succeed or not. Is this something you want to do? I can explain to them if you don’t.”

“Thanks.” Arthur appreciated Ella more than she knew, not just for her hospitality but also because of what she was doing now. Everyone else was excited. Besides Eito, Arthur didn’t know a single person besides Ella who considered the stress and consequences of an action instead of just pushing forward. “Do you think I even have a chance?”

“Normally, no. Frankly, you can’t cook yet,” Ella said. “But that’s a matter of time and effort. And I saw you working, the past few days. You love this, whether you know it or not.”

“And that makes a difference?”

“It does. I think you know it does.”

Arthur thought back to his life on Earth. He had never been good at his job. It was part of the reason why it was hard. Other people in his department, even people he had surpassed, had it easier because they enjoyed the work. They put in more hours with less stress and got more done than other people. Arthur, on the other hand, had brute forced it, pouring in more and more effort until he got the results he wanted. But he had never liked it, it had always been hard, and he had always been miserable trying. He envied the people who made it work without all that, who got to accomplish things without getting ulcers.

“Maybe.”

“Definitely. And I’ll help, Arthur. I thought something like this might happen, and I have a bit of time off I’ve been meaning to take. I can help you figure out the best way to train yourself into that skill. The only question is, do you want to?”

Arthur looked at Milo, who nodded encouragingly. And looking inside himself, he found he was doing the same thing, trying to give himself permission to work towards something he wanted, despite how fast everything was moving.

“Yes. I do. And thanks, Ella.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Ella said, standing up and clearing plates from the table. “Help me clean up this food mess, Arthur. I suspect we will need the space by the time this is all done. And get ready for work. It’s not going to be entirely fun.”

Ella wasn’t lying.

Were there fun parts? Sure. Setting up his workspace for the big push was a blast. Ella brought in every spare heat source and brewing vessel she could lay her hands on, dragging in tons of equipment until every corner of the kitchen was set up for baking, brewing, cooling, or drinking in some respect or another.

The experiment design was fun, too, even though it wasn’t very simple. Ella would provide minor guidance, correcting major mistakes before they absolutely ruined batches of food. Otherwise, she said, helping beyond working as an assistant would hinder Arthur’s growth. He’d make his own choices regarding how long he’d knead bread, how long he’d let it rise, what temperature he’d bake at, and how long he’d leave it over the heat.

“That’s what the system wants to see. Not that there aren’t assistant classes; I employ some. But that’s not what you want, so you have to drive the major parts of this yourself.”

After a few hours of organizing that Ella swore would pay off in the end, Arthur was ready to go. And then, for the most part, the fun stopped. He ruined batch after batch of bread, either cooking it too long, leaving it too doughy, or just generally messing up one important step or another. He brewed batch after batch of tea, eventually narrowing down his brewing methods for two or three different varieties of leaves to what Ella told him was an acceptable range.

And he ground, and ground, and ground his skills. Food Scientist shot up by another level, taking him to level five and pushing forward his bread skill enough that he got his first acceptable batch of little doughy lumps for the tea. That let him start experimenting with cream in his various brews, adding it at different points in the cooling process to learn what effect that had.

It was stressful, but it was progress. Everything was getting a little better constantly. But still, his primary skill made no appearance. He baked more, and brewed more, and hours passed, but nothing happened.

“Arthur. That’s the last batch for today.”

“It can’t be. Nothing has happened.”

“That’s not true. Just because the skill hasn’t appeared doesn’t mean you didn’t make progress.” Ella pulled him away from the baking bread and brewing tea and more or less shoved him onto his bed. “I’ll clean up. You need to sleep.”

“I can keep going.”

“You certainly could. But you won’t. It wouldn’t help at this point, anyway. Just rest. We can try again in the morning.”

He didn’t hear her. He was already asleep.

—

That night, he had a dream, different enough from his normal dreams that he recognized it as another system vision.

In the dream, he was perfect. He knew exactly what heat, down to a fraction of a degree, was needed to bake the bread. He weighed tea to the gram, knew the fat content of his cream, and applied spices with a precision that bordered on the molecular.

In every way, dream-Arthur was the master of his kitchen. He spilled nothing. He ruined nothing. Everything always came out exactly as he wanted it to, as he developed new innovations that would let him shave off even more remaining variables, creating perfection out of chaos and leaving nothing up to chance at all.

He didn’t realize the dream had been a nightmare until he shot up in bed, fully awake, drenched in sweat, and breathing like he had just won a footrace with a rabid bear. He checked his status screen in a dead panic, breathing a huge sigh of relief as he realized the vision hadn’t heralded the coming of a new skill.

He laid back down on a different patch of sheet, flipping back the covers to let his clammy skin evaporate back to dryness. Whatever the vision had shown him, it was pure terror. Every bit of joy Ella brought to the kitchen, every pinch of flour selected with love and thrown haphazardly into a bowl in a kind of imprecise homey magic, was absent entirely. It was cooking-as-career in a dark way, with all the soul and fun of a corporate lawyer taking a shot at making partner.

And whatever it was, it was the opposite of what he wanted.