My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!-Chapter 240: A Messenger Finds Her

Chapter 240: A Messenger Finds Her
Three weeks after Tam’s recovery, the letter arrived.
Marron was two villages away by then, and wanted to focus on her craft as a chef. The Food Cart was helping her and Mokko pull its weight again. "But," Mokko had whispered, "it’s like the Cart is fully carrying its own weight."
She wanted to feel grateful, but now she knew that this respect was fully earned. Not only that, the partnership with her tools were rebuilt into something much stronger than before. Now, Marron, Mokko, and Lucy had been cooking, traveling, and learning together.
Her two companions helped man the cart while she was busy, and they fell into a rhythm that felt right. It hadn’t felt that way since she left the village with the Verdant Ring.
She was also impressed with the messengers in this world. Even in tiny Silvervein Village, a messenger found her in the market square, setting up for the lunch crowd.
"Marron, Owner of Comfort & Crunch?" The young man wore the blue and silver of Lumerian official couriers, his satchel sealed with wax bearing the city’s crest.
"That’s me," Marron said, wiping her hands on her apron.
He handed her a thick envelope. "From the Historical Preservation Society. You’re required to appear before the Council within thirty days regarding illegal possession of dangerous artifacts."
The words landed like stones.
"Required?" Marron repeated.
"Failure to comply will result in confiscation of said artifacts and possible criminal charges." The messenger’s voice was flat, practiced—he’d delivered this speech before. "The hearing is scheduled for the fifteenth of next month, at the Society’s main hall in Lumeria. You’ll need to bring all artifacts in your possession."
He didn’t wait for a response. Just turned and walked away, already moving toward his next delivery.
Marron stood holding the envelope, her hands suddenly cold despite the warm afternoon.
Mokko appeared at her shoulder. "What is it?"
"They’re summoning me. The Society. They want the tools."
"Can they do that?"
"Apparently." Marron broke the seal and pulled out the letter inside—dense text written in formal legal language that she had to read twice to understand. The core message was simple enough: appear before the Council, prove the tools aren’t dangerous, or surrender them to Society custody for preservation.
At the bottom, a single line in different handwriting:
I ed what I witnessed. I’m sorry. —A.V.
Aldric. He’d kept his word about ing honestly. But honest didn’t mean favorable.
"Thirty days," Mokko said, reading over her shoulder. "That’s not much time."
"It’s enough to get to Lumeria." Marron folded the letter carefully. "The question is whether I want to."
"You’re thinking of running?"
"I’m thinking of not putting myself in a position where they can take the tools by force."
In her pack, the tools stirred—not with fear, but with interest. Alert. Paying attention.
The Copper Pot pulsed once:
What will you do?
"I don’t know yet," Marron murmured.
She finished setting up for lunch service, but her mind was elsewhere. The hearing. The Society. Edmund Cross and his belief that Legendary Tools needed to be locked away for everyone’s safety.
She’d saved a child’s life with these tools. Had fed countless people. Had learned and grown and become someone better than she’d been before.
And now someone wanted to take that away because she didn’t have the "proper authority" to carry ancient artifacts.
The lunch crowd came and went. Marron cooked mechanically, her usual focus scattered by worry and anger and the growing certainty that this hearing wouldn’t be fair. The Society had already decided she was a threat. This was just formality before confiscation.
She was packing up as the sun started setting when a familiar sensation made her pause.
Warmth. Not from the Copper Pot, but from something else. Something distant but approaching.
Green growing things. Earth and life and ancient patience.
Marron turned toward the road leading north, back toward the mountains.
The Champion appeared five minutes later, not on her root-mount this time but on foot, walking with the steady pace of someone who’d been traveling all day. She carried a small pack and the Verdant Mortar at her hip, and her green eyes found Marron immediately.
"You received notice from the Society," the Champion said. Not a question.
"How did you—"
"The mountain told me. It knows when its children are threatened." She glanced at the Food Cart, at the tools visible in Marron’s pack. "They want to take them."
"Yes."
"Will you let them?"
Marron’s jaw tightened. "No."
The Champion nodded, unsurprised. "Good. Because we need to talk. About what you’re actually searching for. About what happens if you find all seven tools."
She gestured to a nearby tavern. "Buy me dinner and I’ll tell you what the mountain showed me."
They sat in a corner booth, away from the evening crowd. The Champion ordered tea—a specific blend that made the server raise an eyebrow but nod knowingly—and waited until it arrived before speaking.
"The Verdant Mortar has been unusually communicative lately," she said, pulling the tool from her hip and setting it on the table between them. "Ever since you called for my help, it’s been... agitated. Showing me things."
"What kind of things?"
"The past. The Cataclysm. The creation of the Legendary Tools and why they were scattered afterward." The Champion began removing small pouches from her pack—herbs, dried flowers, what looked like tree bark ground to powder. "I’m going to perform a divination. The Mortar will show us what we need to see."
She placed each ingredient carefully in the Verdant Mortar, layering them with the precision of ritual. Then she picked up the pestle and began to grind.
The motion was slow, circular, hypnotic. The Champion’s eyes went distant as she worked, her breathing falling into rhythm with the grinding. The Mortar began to glow that familiar deep green, and small vines sprouted from its rim.
But these vines didn’t seek light or water. They reached toward Marron, thin tendrils extending across the table like fingers wanting to touch.
"It remembers you," the Champion murmured. "From the competition. It wants you to see this too."
The vines brushed Marron’s hands, and the world shifted.