My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!-Chapter 226: Refusing the Tools’ Will

Chapter 226: Refusing the Tools’ Will
The Champion’s hand tightened around the Verdant Mortar’s pestle, and the tool flared bright green—not fire-light or sun-light, but the luminous green of spring leaves backlit by dawn.
A sound left the crowd—a unified exhale full of shock and awe and something like religious recognition.
The green light pulsed once, twice, and Marron felt it resonate with her chest, not her hands. With her core, not her skill. With something fundamental about who she was rather than what she could do.
Tool Recognizes Toolbearer, Not Owner
The knowledge came from nowhere and everywhere, written in sensation rather than words.
"It chose you," someone whispered from the watching terraces.
The Champion shook her head slowly, her green eyes never leaving Marron’s face. "No."
She paused, let the moment stretch, let every watcher understand the distinction.
"It recognized her."
The difference was apparently significant. Whispers rippled through the audience again, excited and awed.
Then, more gently, the Champion continued: "And I do not give it up simply because it stirs for you."
Relief and disappointment tangled in Marron’s chest, creating something complicated and uncomfortable. On one hand, she’d found the fifth tool. It was here, real, powerful. On the other hand, it was already serving its purpose, already partnered with someone who understood and honored it.
"I wouldn’t take it like that," Marron said quietly, meaning it absolutely. "Not when you’ve used it to heal more living things than I can count."
As if in response to her words, the plants around the Ring rustled though the air was still. Vines at the terrace edges crept almost imperceptibly toward Marron’s feet, extending tendrils like curious fingers.
"You feel the bond, don’t you?" the Champion murmured, watching the plants’ movement with interest.
"Yes," Marron admitted. The pull toward the Verdant Mortar was stronger than anything she’d felt from her other tools—not possessive, not desperate, but
right
. Like they were meant to work together.
"And it is stronger than the others."
"Yes."
"Does that frighten you?"
Marron considered that. The honest answer rose before the comfortable one. "...Yes."
That made the Champion smile—truly smile, not just the faint curve from before. "Good. That means it matters."
The third round had not been called. No announcement from the judges. No new ingredients appearing on the counter.
Instead, the Champion tapped the stone once with the Verdant Mortar’s pestle.
The sound was soft but it carried, resonating through stone and air and bone.
Challenge Shift Invoked: Soul Round
Gasps erupted from the terraces—louder than before, shocked and awed in equal measure.
"No one ever calls Soul against the Champion!"
"It hasn’t happened in decades!"
"This isn’t a battle anymore—" someone whispered in reverent tones.
"It’s a choosing."
The mountain answered the pestle’s tap.
Between them, from a crack in the stone counter that Marron could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago, a single plant began to grow.
It rose slowly, gracefully, emerging from impossible stone like it had been waiting underground for this exact moment. Golden stem that gleamed like hammered metal. Trembling leaves that shifted between green and silver depending on the angle of light. And at its apex, one small white bloom glowing faintly with internal luminescence.
The air around it seemed to thicken, become heavy with significance.
"Root of Renewal," someone breathed from the terraces. "That’s—that can heal a village—"
"Or kill one just as easily if misused—"
A life that could save or destroy, depending on who wielded it and with what understanding.
The Champion loosened her grip on the Verdant Mortar... but did not release it. The tool remained at her hip, still pulsing with that deep green light.
"Nose to tail," she said quietly, her voice pitched for Marron alone though the mountain carried it to every watcher. "Nothing wasted. Not the roots. Not the stem. Not the flower. Not the soil that holds it. Not the space it occupied. Not the life it lived."
Her green eyes lifted to meet Marron’s directly.
"Show me how you say thank you to a living thing that gives itself to you."
There was no crowd now. No Ring. No competition. No judges watching.
Only two women, one plant, and a mountain listening to every breath between them.
Marron’s four tools went silent, waiting to see what she would do.
She approached the bloom slowly, with the kind of careful attention she’d learned from months of partnering with Legendary Tools that taught through action rather than words.
She knelt on the hot stone, feeling heat soak through her knees, and studied the Root of Renewal. Its golden stem pulsed with life. Its trembling leaves caught light like prayer flags. Its white bloom glowed with the soft luminescence of something that knew its own value.
She could cut it—the Precision Blade would make it quick, clean, perfect. She could uproot it—the Generous Ladle could measure exactly how much to take. She could preserve it—the Copper Pot’s patient heat would transform it into medicine.
But those weren’t what the Champion had asked for.
Show me how you say thank you.
Marron didn’t reach for her tools.
She didn’t reach for the plant either.
Instead, she placed her palm flat against the warm stone beside the crack where the Root of Renewal grew, feeling the mountain’s living heat through rock that should have been dead and cold.
And she whispered: "Grow again."
Heat tingled through her hand—not burning, but vital. The warmth of life recognizing life, of care meeting care.
The Copper Pot hummed. The Food Cart’s lesson flared in her chest—
care before profit, always care before profit
.
The Generous Ladle pulsed—
give what is needed, not what is wanted
.
The Precision Blade chimed—
remove only what doesn’t serve
.
And the Verdant Mortar, at the Champion’s hip, blazed green like summer forest at noon.
The Root of Renewal trembled. Its golden stem began to split—not breaking, but dividing with organic grace. The division moved downward to the roots, then upward to the leaves and bloom.
Slowly, impossibly, the plant split into two. Then three.
New life without stolen life. Perfect exchange. Multiplication through respect rather than consumption.
The mountain rang like a cathedral bell—deep, resonant, a sound that came from the stone’s core and traveled through every rock and root and living thing connected to it.
Soul Round: Honored by No Contest
The Champion stood frozen, her hand still on the Verdant Mortar, her green eyes wide with something that might have been shock or recognition or wonder.
Then, slowly, she knelt too. Mirroring Marron’s position across the stone counter.
"That," she said with absolute reverence, "was its answer."
She studied Marron as though seeing her for the very first time—not as a rival, not as a threat, not as a collector come to take what wasn’t hers, but as something else entirely.
An equal. A fellow caretaker. Someone who understood.
"Will you take it from me now, Collector?" the Champion asked, and her voice held no judgment. Just genuine curiosity about what would happen next.
Marron’s heart ached at the question, at the implicit trust it contained.
"No," she said immediately.
The four tools in her possession screamed protest—confusion, yearning, need. They wanted their fifth partner. They wanted completion. They wanted to move toward the unity they’d been created for.
But Marron held firm. "I won’t take what is still doing its work through you."
A deep silence fell across the Verdant Ring.
The Champion stood, brushing dust from her knees, and regarded Marron with those ancient forest eyes.
Then she held the Verdant Mortar out... halfway. Not offering. Not withholding. Just presenting.
"Then earn the right another way," she murmured. "Not by force. Not by victory. Not by need."
"By what?" Marron asked, though she thought she might already know.
"By standing with me."
A different kind of challenge. A different kind of bond. Stronger than metal and magic, deeper than partnership and possession.
"Heal what the mountains cannot reach anymore."
The Champion’s voice gained an edge of old grief, of accumulated loss over years of watching.
"Prove to the Verdant Mortar that your hands will never let the world go barren."
Then she drew the tool back to her chest, cradling it like one would hold something precious and alive.
"Do that..." The Champion’s eyes held promise and challenge in equal measure. "And I will come to you."
Not "I will give it to you." Not "You may take it."
"I will come to you."
As if she and the Verdant Mortar were inseparable. As if you couldn’t have one without the other.
The crowd parted as the Champion turned, her living cloak trailing green and brown. Not one soul dared touch her as she walked back up the stone steps, ascending through the terraced gardens, and vanished into the green and gray and ancient stone of the upper mountain.
The Verdant Ring was silent.
Then, slowly, the whispers began:
"They’ve chosen each other..."
"They just don’t know it yet..."
"Did you see the way the tools resonated—"
"Soul Round Honored by No Contest hasn’t happened since—"
Marron stood alone on the central platform, heart hammering, chest almost painful from the connection humming between her and something living just out of reach.
The bond to the Verdant Mortar was stronger than any she held with her four tools. Different in fundamental ways she couldn’t articulate yet.
Because this one breathed back.
Mokko approached carefully, reading her face, her posture, the way she stood as if rooted to the stone. "So... did you win?"
Marron exhaled slowly, hands still warm from where she’d touched the mountain and asked it to grow.
"No," she said, watching the last place the Champion had stood, where small white blooms still grew from impossible cracks in stone.
"I was chosen to become worthy."