Nikalos stared blankly at Xie Qi and nodded hesitantly.
Xie Qi smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and straightened his collar, offering him the head chef's encouragement.
After Nikalos left, a screen of light suddenly appeared before Xie Qi's eyes.
[Congratulations, prisoner, on completing side quest 1: Prepare a perfect dinner for the guests (1/7)]
[Side quest reward: Points +10, Chef's Knife (fine) ×1 (placed in inventory)]
Now that he was alone in the kitchen, Xie Qi asked the system whether it could temporarily turn off the livestream. After receiving an affirmative answer, he silently summoned the weapon, and a long knife appeared in his hand.
It looked just like the chef's knife he had used to cut meat, but a closer look revealed that its blade was sharper and shimmered with a faint blue light.
As soon as he gripped the handle, information about the knife automatically appeared in his mind.
[Name: Chef's Knife]
[Type: Weapon]
[Quality: Fine]
[Attack power: Relatively strong]
[Attribute: None]
[Can be taken out of the instance: Yes]
[Special trait: A knife stained with human blood. When used against a human, it triggers a life-steal buff that reduces the target's stamina by 1% per second]
From the clean, smooth surface of the blade, there was no way to tell it had already been stained with so much blood.
In particular, the special trait said that injuring a human would cause their stamina to drop. By that calculation, as long as someone was wounded by the knife, their stamina would fall from full to zero in less than two minutes.
Wouldn't they be at his mercy by then?
Xie Qi made a quick estimate and realized that, in this instance, the knife could be considered a divine weapon.
He hadn't expected to get such a good weapon just for cooking a meal. There was a chance he could get other good things from the remaining six meals, too. At that thought, Xie Qi was very satisfied with the game's generosity.
But what he didn't know was that side quests in ordinary instances could never reward weapons, especially weapons of fine quality.
It was only because the flame mark had raised the level of the instance he entered, and the identity card he drew was highly unusual, that the game's first reward was so generous.
But if Xie Qi expected to receive rewards of this caliber every time, he was bound to be disappointed.
Just as Xie Qi was carefully admiring his newly acquired weapon, a timid voice sounded from the kitchen doorway:
"H-head chef, the mistress said, said that when you're done, you should go, go upstairs and see her..."
Her voice trembled, and she sounded as cautious as if she feared disturbing a wild beast.
Xie Qi turned to look, and the freckle-faced maid shuddered involuntarily.
He didn't know how he appeared to others at that moment.
A black-haired man dressed in a pristine white chef's uniform was staring at a knife half an arm's length long in his hand, an eerie smile on his pale face.
The sight was so horrifying that the maid hurried away as soon as she had spoken, afraid the head chef might chop her up too if he happened to be in a good mood.
Unaware of what the maid was thinking, Xie Qi heard only that the mistress wanted to see him.
He put the long knife back in his inventory, straightened his clothes, and left the kitchen.
It wasn't surprising that Mrs. Caster wanted to see him. After all, his words at the dinner table had come close to crossing a line. If his position as head chef hadn't been so important, Mrs. Caster wouldn't have smoothed things over for him on the spot.
No one remained by the long table. The uninvited guests had returned to their rooms to rest, and the servants hadn't stayed in the living room either. Xie Qi was alone in the entire space.
As he climbed the stairs, the portrait that had always hung there in his memories came into view.
Not long before, the others had also stopped here after dinner.
"Thank you for your generous hospitality, Mrs. Caster. We were very satisfied with dinner."
The man with glasses, Bailey Kirkland, addressed their hostess after putting down his knife and fork.
During the meal, everyone had introduced themselves to Mrs. Caster.
Bailey was a well-known lawyer who spent much of his time in Washington, providing legal defense for the wealthy.
He had been on the cruise ship to accompany a client, but he was the only one who had survived the disaster. There was no telling in which stretch of sea the wealthy businessman had died.
"I'm glad the meal was to your liking. I see your clothes are still wet. Please follow Sai Basi to the guest rooms and get some rest. The maids will bring clean clothes to your rooms."
Mrs. Caster elegantly wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. The butler standing beside her bowed to the guests and gestured for them to follow him with his left hand.
Normally, the first thing she should have done upon meeting them was let them change and bathe. But perhaps because they had been nervous, only now did they realize that, for some inexplicable reason, they had eaten a meal with the villa's owner while wearing wet clothes.
Now that they could feel how sticky and uncomfortable their clothes were, none of them felt like looking around anymore. One by one, they followed Butler Nika upstairs.
The enormous portrait seemed to welcome them, and they couldn't help studying it as they passed.
They hadn't been able to see it clearly from downstairs, but now that they were closer, they saw that it depicted four people.
A married couple stood behind two young children. They wore magnificent clothes, and the family's golden hair stood out vividly against the muted colors of the painting.
Perhaps because the painting was so old, the faces of the people in it were blurred, with only the outlines of their features faintly visible.
Seeing that the guests were curious about the painting, the butler ahead of them suddenly spoke:
"This portrait was painted while the previous Mr. and Mrs. Caster were still alive. They passed away many years ago, leaving only Mr. Caster and Miss Caster living here. But not long after the mistress married into the family, the brother and sister suddenly fell ill. I heard it was a hereditary illness, and they passed away shortly afterward. Since then, the mistress has lived here alone."
Nika told them about the villa's owner, then said, "The mistress has lived alone for a long time and cannot help feeling a little lonely. So whenever guests come, we are all delighted to welcome them. We also hope you won't disappoint her kindness and will make happy memories here."
Everyone readily agreed, then followed the butler and each chose a room to rest in.
Once the voices in the corridor had faded, the smile that had never left the silver-haired butler's face suddenly vanished. His entire face became stiff and rigid as a mask.
He raised one hand, pointing from one side to the other with a white-gloved fingertip. After counting, he muttered to himself, "Eight people. There's one extra. It seems we have a spare."
With that, the butler turned around and slowly descended the stairs.
"Mistress, please go upstairs and rest."
Mrs. Caster placed her hand in the butler's palm, her full, bright-red lips spreading in a grin. "I was very satisfied with today's meal. Have Kani take care of the rest later as well."
"Yes, mistress."
Seeing that Mrs. Caster was in a very good mood, the butler tilted his head and asked directly, "Didn't you find what Kanibari said at the table just now strange, mistress?"
"Hmm? Strange?"
Mrs. Caster's amber eyes seemed to glow in the candlelight.
"Doesn't that make it more interesting?"