[ Undercity - The Golden Catfish Restaurant ]

“Ah, why does this place have to be so big?”

In an effort to understand the layout of my current environment, I take the time to carefully take note of where everything is while walking around and finding a way up to the top floor.

So far, I’ve been to the dining areas on the right. The main stage at the bottom floor. The warehouse and storage area at the back. The kitchens. The bars. The staff sections on the left side. And I figured out how to get to the VIP rooms on the top.

It took quite longer than I expected because I kept running into people, just because of how dense the crowd is. But I think my mental map of this restaurant is completed, finally.

As I walk around another corner, the cheering of the crowd from all the way down below suddenly flares up again.

—Also, why are they so loud?

Is it really all so exciting down there?

—————……….

“L-ladies and gentlemen, did you see what just happened?”

On the slowly spinning stage, an obstacle course made from dirty laundry, unclean dishes, and messy floors and windows was laid out.

Under the gazes of hundreds and hundreds of audience, a blue-white flash dashed through the scene with a speed that was almost impossible to follow with the naked eye, leaving the surfaces she passed by with nothing but cleanly-sparkles.

“Participant No.24, Miss Vena is quite terrifying! Nothing could stop her in her tracks! Her completion time was easily the fastest by far!”

After finishing the test, Vena silently readjusted her gloves, then bowed to the mechanical-rabbit-head presenter and the audience,

A series of applause immediately followed.

“But don’t put the nail on it just yet ladies and gentlemen, because speed isn’t everything! What ultimately decides who wins the competition is the beauty of the participants while they complete their tasks!!”

The presenter’s mechanical voice reverberates loudly within the halls of the Golden Catfish Restaurant.

Meanwhile, at every corner of this place, the events of the beauty pageant were being broadcasted in real-time.

A monitor in the balcony dining and bar area, surrounded by excited faces; another monitor inside the indoor swimming area, the place was also filled with people gathered around to watch.

Along with all the free drinks, the food, and the music, the atmosphere of excitement could only continue to heat up.

Ding~!

“The audience's votes are in! We will combine them with the judges’ scores.”

Back on the stage, the presenter turns his mechanical rabbit head to announce to the crowd.

Behind him, the large monitor that spans the entire height of this massive restaurant started to show the scores tallied up next to the name and face of each participant.

“It looks like Number 24: Miss Vena—has won this first round by a landslide ”

“OOoooooOOoooooohhh~!!”

“Here are the lists of people who are eliminated from the event, please give them a round of applause and bid our farewell…”

“Then, with haste, we shall move on to the next round of competition~!”

“OOoooooOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhh~!!”

…..

In the second round, the dancing competition, Vena also completely left everyone in the dust! Her elegant, traditional movements made even the musicians playing their instruments on the side erupt in a passionate fervor!

“Miss Vena destroyed the competition yet again!”

“We thought she was just a maid, but in fact, she was—a super maid!”

“Is there nothing she can’t do?!”

—And now it was time for the third round of contests.

The wheel spun…

“Cooking~!”

With the announcement of the mechanical rabbit-head presenter, the music intensified as the spinning center of the stage rotated around to greet the audience with 16 functioning, fully-equipped cooking stations for each of the remaining participants.

“That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, true beauty is not only the beauty of the body or the mind but also the beauty of the heart. And since your heart is who you are—and you are what you eat. What you then decide to cook for yourself and others to eat is definitely another reflection of your inner beauty…”

“OoOooooooOOOoooooooOOOhh~!”

Standing in front of her designated cooking area, a certain white-haired maid grimly looked over all the tools and ingredients, not moving an inch.

Despite the fact that she was only here for the investigation, Vena who had completely gotten swept up in the atmosphere was now dead-set on winning without even realizing it.

…Cooking, cooking. I don’t really have a signature dish. Or anything most people would find impressive…

For a cooking competition such as this, it was vital that one not only had to make food that tasted good but also looked good—which was quite troublesome for a beginner cook like her.

However…

When Vena’s eyes eventually landed on the baking oven, a faint smile of someone suddenly appeared in her mind.

—Exactly, why would she need anything else?

“Right now, of course, all eyes are on what Miss Vena will do. But she’s not the only one who can still impress! There’s also someone else in the running for first place!”

As the presenter wearing a mechanical rabbit head speaks, the scoreboard on the massive monitor highlights the existence of the people who are also in the lead.

“Participant Number 02: Miss Li Hua. A lead chef in one of Anorlon’s most famous restaurants!”

“If there’s someone who can put up a fight with our super maid, it would be her!”

On the other side of the stage, Miss Li Hua put the finishing touch on her dish.

—[Participant No.02 has submitted her meal!]

“Ladies and gentlemen, and it looks like Miss Li Hua has finally presented her meal to the judges, let’s take a look.”

“A fancy fish dish made from the infamously poisonous Hetun… do we even have something like this in our kitchen? I didn’t even know this at all! How interesting~! It seems most of the craftsmanship went into the sauce, I’m very curious as to how it tastes.”

“Don’t you feel your mouth watering already? Unfortunately, for this round, we’ll only have the judges be the ones to have a taste of the participants' lovingly made meal.”

A resounding ‘aaaaaaaaaawwwww~’ came from the audience in front of the stage.

At the same time…

—[Participant No.24 has submitted her meal!]

“Ooooh~! It also looks like Miss Vena is also done with her meal which turned out to beeeee~.... —eh?”

“A simple bowl of chocolate cookies?”

After the confused announcement of the presenter, the audiences everywhere within the Golden Catfish Restaurant began murmuring among themselves.

What was she doing? Why was she making something so simple? Was there something special about the cookies that they didn’t understand?

A few of the other participants have also finished their meals and submitted them, but unfortunately, no one really paid attention to what they were doing that much.

—What everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for, was the result of the judges' scores between the meals of Miss Li Hua and Vena.

“The judges’ scores are in! Ladies and gentlemen!”

“5 out of 6 of them voted fooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrr~!”

“Vena—!!”

But this time, after the announcement was made, the audience didn’t cheer—rather, most of them were quite confused.

They were not the only ones who couldn’t believe it either.

Back on the stage, Miss Li Hua—a blonde woman wearing a chef hat—stared at the mechanical-rabbit-head presenter in complete shock.

“T-there’s no way—”

“If you want, you can try it for yourself.”

But then suddenly, under the eyes of everyone watching, Vena appeared beside her. With a friendly smile, she offered a single piece of the cookies she’d just made.

“...”

Hesitantly, Miss Li Hua looked at the face of the white-haired maid, before taking the piece of cookie from her hands.

Crack~!

The soft, mellow taste of the chocolate chips, combining with the delicately crunchy flavor of the freshly baked cookie dough!

More than anything—

—The emotions… the passion… just how much…!

Realizing the ‘magnitude’ of the creations of her opponent, the heart and care put into every crumb of this piece of cookie.

Miss Hua…

Fell to her knees.

“It was a brilliant battle, but…

“I lost.”

There was a moment of silence within the Golden Catfish restaurant.

After a while…

…..

…..

“OooooooooooOOOOoooooooOoooooooooOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooohhhhhHHHH~!!”

The crowd erupted in cheers!

—————……….

[ The House of Mistresses - Unseen Corridor ]

“Here’s the crest!”

Second Sister Rinne shouts and holds up a small golden emblem in her hand.

Inside her room, Ninth Sister Miho, Eden, Bery the Cerberus, and I, all stand around patiently waiting as Second Sister Rinne goes through her stuff to find the crest.

—Because of her request, we promised not to touch anything.

“Can you reach Lady Lucianna with it?” Ninth Sister Miho asks.

“It doesn’t…”  Second Sister Rinne brings the crest close to her face to stare at with an exaggerated frown. “Seems to be working.”

The golden crest dully reflects the lanterns’ flames, unresponsive to any kind of input Second Sister Rinne might have given to it.

“Well, I mean, I guess that’s to be expected.”

With an ‘I guess it can't be helped’ kind of shrug, Ninth Sister Miho turns to Eden, who’s currently walking around the room with Bery the Cerberus inspecting various objects—a bookshelf filled with novels, a strange statue of a fox, and a traditional string instrument with a name that I can’t quite remember leaning against the wall.

“Sorry, Little Eden. It looks like we came here for nothing after all,” Ninth Sister Miho says apologetically.

“Um..”

Shuffling Bery the Cerberus in her arms, Little Eden quietly nods without showing much emotion.

Despite being the one who brought it up, perhaps she didn’t expect the crest to work in the first place?

“Anyhow, Rinne, you should have something in your room that could come in handy later, right? Maybe we should pick up some and bring them back to the theater room so that at least we don’t have to leave empty-handed,” says Ninth Sister Miho.

“But aside from some books, clothes, and other accessories, I don’t really have anything here, though.” Second Sister Rinne looks around her room a bit, before cupping her cheeks with sadness. “Regrettably, I’ve always simply asked Linlin and Minjee to bring me my tea, so I don’t have any dried tea leaves here either…”

“...”

So in the end, even though Little Eden had just casually pulled off a miracle to get us into this room, it’s still not going to be of much help, huh?

—Or… that’s what I would say if I didn’t notice something just now.

While I passively listen to the two of my sisters' talk, my eyes wander around the room and eventually land on the full-size, wooden wardrobe standing in the corner.

Immediately, something in my head clicks.

“I just realized something.”

The other three people in the room turn to look at me.

“The clothes that the body is wearing, we all only have a limited amount of them, right? So if we simply look through every single one of our closets, we’d be able to figure out which one is missing…”

I leave the rest of my sentence unspoken. Even then, they all should have understood my implication.

If my memories serve me correctly, we should all only have three of the same type of clothes given to us by Lady Lucianna—mine are probably still in my room as well.

“Eh? I guess I only have three… What about you, Miho?”

“I also have the same number… I did make some similar clothes to them for myself, but they're not really the same.”

As both of my sisters are touching their chins with thoughtful looks on their faces, I proceed to walk over and open the wardrobe to investigate.

There are really two of the same type of clothes as the one all of my sisters are wearing—neatly folded on one of the stacks of various other outfits in here.

In order not to pry too much, I decide to close the wardrobe for now.

“Anyways, the point is that if we can somehow go into the rooms of the other sisters,” I turn to Second Sister Rinne and Ninth Sister Miho and say. “Then we’d also be able to find which one of them has a missing uniform.”

—Then the rest should be a simple process of elimination….

“The problem is that we can’t just go into another one of our rooms even if we want to, though.”

“Rinne has a point, we can’t just do it again, right?”

“It should be… possible.”

“““Eh?”””

Simultaneously, all three of us turn to look at Eden who’s standing beside Second Sister Rinne’s makeup mirror.

Perhaps thinking that what she said was a joke, Ninth Sister Miho laughs a little.

“Come on, Little Eden, what are the odds of actually opening two 1 out of 500 doors back to back—”

“Do we want… to try it out… now?”

Turning to us, Eden tilts her head slightly.

The little black-furred puppy in her arms sends out a low ‘hnnng~’.

Ninth Sister Miho, Second Sister Rinne, and I look at each other.

—And that’s how we’ve come to stand outside under the red lamps in front of the same door again.

Shhhaaa~!

Before any of us could have said anything, Eden’s already slid the doors open and revealed the room on the other side.

—The dark red color furniture that I can immediately recognize, and the same scent of oriental perfume that reaches my nose.

“No way…” Second Sister Rinne opens her eyes wide in disbelief.

“This is kind of crazy. Little Eden, do you happen to be one of Lady Fortuna’s illegitimate children by any chance?” Ninth Sister Miho can’t help but ask.

At the question, Eden only puts one finger on her lips before answering.

“Eden… got a kiss from her… earlier today.”

“Honestly…” says Second Sister Rinne.

“I’d believe it,” says Ninth Sister Miho.

“...”

The scarlet flames in the corridor sway; the shadows move and weave all around us, like hands reaching out at our ankles.

Unlike the two of my sisters, I’m more conflicted than impressed with what’s currently happening.

I don’t even know what to say about it exactly but….

—Why does this feel so much like blatant cheating, ma?

—————……….