"And here we have one of our finest specimen-- you may have already heard of this one, we are quite famous for it in the black market. You'll be pleased to note the extraordinary color, which would be hard to find elsewhere..."

Seafood.

Yup, nothing else to say. It was seafood. What was seafood? Their cargo was seafood. Seafood.

This entire trade. They built an underground canal. Used an illegal gambling ring to cover up. All for this. A trade. For. Seafood.

"Beautiful," I said faintly, but my heart wasn't really in it. No, maybe it was more accurate to say my soul wasn't really in it?

Ah yes. Perhaps the best expression would be, my soul wasn't really in me anymore.

"Continuing on, here you can see our blue-finned sharks, only found off the shores of Tristen. As your lady most likely knows, they are quite a delicacy among nobles..."

Lemon Quiche, what a fine salesperson you are. If you were in our farmer's market back in Minstia, you would've sold out in the first hour.

"...and that's our batch for today," finished the triumphant lady in front of the shark tank. She looked the happiest I'd seen her yet, which, great for her! But not great for me, or for Rosa, whose fan had stopped moving for the past hour Lemon Quiche had been excitedly showcasing their cargo to us.

"Wonderful, I think my lady has seen everything," I said, my voice pleasant but slightly weak. At least we'd gotten used to the smell. Was that something to be happy about? I didn't know anymore. "Shall we?"

With a graceful nod, Lemon Quiche began shooing the hardworking sailors around us aside and marched through the giant underground warehouse full of tanks. I was glad the mohawk guy I'd mentioned to Lemon Quiche as having led us to her was not present-- it would've gotten real scary real fast if he had been, and Lemon Quiche had questioned him. Hey, so not everything was going wrong. In fact, everything would have been going perfectly right, if only we weren't so terribly wrong.

As we left, I glanced at the poor swimming fishies, mourning for them with my soul. Oh wait, that's right, my soul had already left me an hour ago.

Ah well. I can mourn for both of us, soul-less or not.

It was funny how the way to this warehouse had taken us so long-- in fact, it had sort of felt like a few weeks¹author: *sneezes*-- but we were back in the original warehouse in the blink of an eye. Eh, that was probably because I was feeling numb.²author: *sneezes again guiltily* And probably because my soul was still not back yet. Or something.³author: *avoids eye contact*

"When should we expect to hear back from you?" asked Lemon Quiche once we had safely returned to the door. Her eyes shined expectantly, and I gave her a weak smile.

"Let me check with my, uh, my superior," I told her, then leaned towards Rosa. "My lady?" I said, biting back a sob.

"Murmur murmur," Rosa sighed, and I nodded sadly in agreement. Truer words had never been spoken.

Still, Lemon Quiche really didn't deserve all of this-- she'd been nonstop explaining everything (and by everything, I meant everything) to us in such detail and enthusiasm for the past hour, really doing her absolute best-- so I properly set my shoulders back and gave her a nice business smile. "Once my superior has reached a decision, we will let you know. And don't worry-- we'll find a way to contact you. You'll know that it's us from our code names, Turkey Sandwich and Shepherd's Pie."

"Wonderful. I look forward to hearing from you soon." With a polite smile of her own, she gave us a bow and turned to go before I stopped her with a hand. She paused. "Yes?"

"Please let the Baron know that we were absolutely satisfied with your service and explanation," I said, making sure my voice was firm.

Lemon Quiche blinked in surprise, and a small smile curled up her lips. "Thank you," she offered, still professional, then went on her way. After all, once we didn't reply to them in a few weeks, the blame might go to her, and she had been nothing but very hardworking the entire time. She deserved better.

Once she was safely away (and we were safely up the balcony again, this time hidden within the crowd near the middle), we stared numbly into the arena where, apparently, the judging was taking place.

"Well, now," I finally said, breaking the heavy silence between us. I opened my mouth to say more, except I had nothing more to say, so I said it again. "Well now."

"Man. Seafood," Rosa answered emphatically, and we sighed in harmony.

Exactly right.

Well, in retrospect, it had worked out fine. Worries had been piling into me the moment I'd thought of the possibility of an entire illegal slave trade happening right below the surface of this smelly seaside town, and hey, at least it turned out to be a seafood trade! I'd been imagining children, sobbing woman, mere babies being auctioned off on a stage as nobles in masks called out prices to the auctioneer in a top hat--

Nope.  And you know what? Thank goodness for that. 

I exhaled slowly. "And if you think about it, it does make sense. It wouldn't have been this easy to infiltrate this trade otherwise. If it really was a traitorous arms trade, would they really have let us in like that? It would've been too risky." I had briefly considered the possibility that they were actually just stringing us along, hiding their real trade inside this extra-elaborate cover story of a seafood trade, but I hadn't detected the slightest bit of triumph in Lemon Quiche. Besides, she'd been way too invested in this entire seafood thing for me to hold any credible doubts about that.

I sighed for maybe the tenth time in the past thirty minutes. That was quite the passion she had for all that fish.

When Rosa didn't answer (or move, for that matter), I gave her a sidelong glance and rolled my eyes at the apparent frustration in her eyes. 

Whoops, here came Rosa in her I'm-going-to-flip-something!! mode. I probably needed to do something before she decided she was going to flip the person next to her.

"Aw, c'mon, Rosa. You did do a good job there. We did it! We bluffed our way in! You knew somehow that they were suspicious, and we infiltrated on little information! And goodness, I still don't know how you knew she was suspicious in the first place. That was pretty shocking."

Rosa scoffed at my attempt to comfort her. "Finding illegal activities is easy. You just look for the most suspicious people in the most suspicious places."

"Easy for you to say," I shot back, then paused. The places Rosa had found had all been in different shady areas, like the corner of the warehouse or underneath another balcony, darkened by the shadow. Hmm, maybe she did have some logic there. But again, this probably wouldn't work without an innate talent at recognizing suspicious people... "Anyways," I said, stressing each syllable, "my point is, our plan worked. We didn't fail, we just didn't succeed. And we survived! We can be satisfied with that for now."

"Yes, but, but..." Rosa pressed her lips together for a second, then let out a guttural shout. "Gah! I'm so frustrated I could flip something!"

"Gah, indeed," I agreed miserably, grimacing. "Actually, you're right. Ugh! And we worked so hard, too! Gah!"

"Gah!"

"Gah!"

"Gah!"

"Gah!"

"Gah!"

"Gah-- oh look, I think Cook's looking for us."

Rosa snorted. "You mean, Cookie Monster's looking for us?"

"Hah, yeah. Cookie Monster's looking for us. 'Scuse us, coming through."

Halfway down the ladder, a great sound rose up among the crowd, and I twisted around to see what was happening. "What? What? What's happening? Why is everyone shouting?" ...though nobody answered me, of course.

"Hurry down!" Rosa shouted from above me, which was a fair point.

We reached Cook's side in no time, where he and his unfriendly friend Friendly Man was waiting for us, groaning. "This shouldn't have happened," Friendly Man moaned.

"What's up, Friendly Man," demanded Rosa, hands on her hips. "What shouldn't have happened?"

Cook-- ahem, Cookie Monster and the other man was also grimacing. What was the other guy's name? Oh, Pig Eater. "We didn't win," he grumbled.

I rolled my eyes. "That's it? Isn't that what happens like half the time in gambling anyways?"

"That was close to an entire month's paycheck that I saved up for," Cook snapped, and I remembered that he was technically my actual superior.

"Oh no, that sounds horrible," I said immediately, an expression of heartfelt sympathy shining in my eyes now. I clasped my two hands together. "How devastating. I can't believe it! Shouldn't have happened. That just sounds absolutely horrifying. My condolences."

From Cook's narrow-eyed glare, I could tell he didn't buy it, but I forged on anyways. "Who did you bet on?"

"Dry Tomato."

Next to me, Rosa gasped, apparently affronted. "But I told you to bet on Potato Peeler!"

"Well, Potato Peeler didn't win either, so there you have it," snapped Friendly Man. I eyed him wearily. For a man who called himself Friendly Man, he sure didn't try to be very friendly. Though I knew that from the beginning, it was still pretty ironic.

Rosa was gasping again, looking completely shocked now. "What?" she said, as if she couldn't believe her ears. "Potato Peeler didn't win either?!"

"Then who won?" I asked, ignoring how Rosa was repeating "I can't believe my ears!" at my side.

Cook answered, but at that time another great roar rose up, and I couldn't hear him.

"Who?"

He huffed and repeated himself. "Kilit!"

"Kill it?!"

"No! It's--"

"Wait, so you don't get money back if you win your bets? Then what do you get?" Rosa was asking beside me.

"Isn't it obvious? We get the best fresh seafood in the black market!" Friendly Man answered. "Look, they even brought out blue-finned sharks today!"

"What! Wait, what! Don't tell me, is that why-- is that how-- what!" yelled Rosa, sputtering. "What!?!!"

On my other side, Pig Eater was shaking his head, his eyes trained on the arena. "I can't believe she won," he murmured. "She had the least chances of them all."

"BEEP!" Rosa swore. "Is that why Cook's specialty once-a-month-only special menu is always a seafood dish?!" 

Meanwhile, I clapped my hands together. "Ohh! Skillet! So that's her name. And here I thought they were just talking about her frying pan all this time!"

---

A/N: What if I told you, after all this time, that this story was a wish fulfillment self-insert...? Because who doesn't wish they were a nefarious illegal cook competitor known for her devastating frying pan and winning against all odds??!

And yes, this was a lowkey jab at all the isekai stories that somehow always, always has to do with slave trades. Haha.

+++ because I'm grateful for all of you for sticking through this arc with me⁴it was supposed to be at most 4 chapters long!!!!!! what is this abomination that is 8 chapters??!?!?, here is a Random Deleted Scene from today's chapter:

Rosa pressed her lips together for a second, then yelled. "Ugh! I'm so BEEPing stressed!"

I raised my hands up, palms out. "Whoa, there, chillax, ma dude. Take a chill pill. Re to the lax, my man."