The celebration banquet for the Silver Tier promotion of "Linked Hearts" was meant to be a relaxed evening, full of congratulatory toasts, questionable punch, and way too many roasted root vegetables. The arena organizers had spared no expense: long tables draped in velvet, dancing lights suspended midair, a bard who kept insisting on singing a song called "Ode to the Unexpected King."
MC had never been to such an event before. He adjusted his scratchy formal collar every three seconds, trying to look cool despite sweating through his new tunic. Kaela wore her usual beast-skin cloak, glaring at anyone who asked about table manners. Lina somehow got talked into a fiery red dress with slits way too high for her comfort, and Iris… well, Iris wore her normal robes, but with a flower tucked into her hair like someone had dared her to participate in society.
Everything was going fine—too fine. And MC knew from experience that in his life, "too fine" meant "impending chaos."
Then came the stew.
A hearty vegetable-beef mix, thick with herbs, bubbling gently in ornate silver pots. Kaela sniffed it suspiciously. "Smells like rabbit food."
Lina, ladling some into her bowl, shrugged. "You eat moss. Don't judge."
MC, halfway through a bite, paused. "I… think it tastes weirdly minty."
That's when Iris stood up. Her spoon hovered mid-air. Her eyes narrowed. She tilted her head in that subtle, emotionless way she had when something didn't add up.
"Pause," she whispered.
Time locked. The air around her shimmered. Only the party—and strangely, the stew—remained unaffected.
With a flick of her hand, she moved across the banquet like a ghost, brushing aside illusions, reading the subtle threads of magic woven into the scene. And there he was—a guild servant with too-clean gloves, standing near the kitchen exit, stuffing a vial back into his coat.
She snapped her fingers. Time resumed.
The moment returned with sound and movement crashing back like a tidal wave—and Iris's palm connecting with the saboteur's chest, freezing him in place with a time-lock field that encased his limbs in shimmering blue light.
Everyone stared.
The bard stopped mid-note. A fork clattered to the ground. A noblewoman screamed, "Assassins?!"
Lina stood up, looked at the guy, looked at the soup in her bowl, then at the crowd. "Oh, we're doing drama? Cool."
And with zero hesitation, she hurled the bowl like a flaming discus.
The hot, mint-poisoned stew sailed in a majestic arc, spinning in slow motion before splattering across the face of the frozen saboteur. A thick splat, followed by stunned silence. It dripped off his nose dramatically.
Then everything exploded.
Panic. Accusations. Guild representatives shouting. One nearby noble began yelling about "culinary terrorism." Another swore it was a setup by "the Harem King to eliminate rivals with soup-based tactics." Kaela laughed so hard she actually fell out of her chair. MC tried to explain that they didn't poison anything, but at this point he was too busy wiping carrot chunks off his shirt to be convincing.
Security wizards rushed in. The would-be saboteur was hauled off mid-sputter, still time-locked. Investigators began interrogating other staff. One guy fainted just from being looked at by Iris.
Meanwhile, the "Linked Hearts" party sat awkwardly at the only table now untouched by food, fire, or interrogators.
MC sighed. "So… dinner's canceled?"
Lina leaned back and smirked. "Worth it."
Iris calmly began drying her gloves with a spell. "The sabotage was crude. They assumed we'd never taste-test."
Kaela picked up a still-warm roll and sniffed it. "So we're famous now, right? Like, famous-failed-to-die-famous?"
MC groaned and dropped his head to the table. "Can we just go back to fighting giant slimes or something?"
In the aftermath, a scandal broke across the Guild network. Accusations flew. Conspiracies bloomed. Someone posted an artist's sketch of MC triumphantly hurling poisoned stew like a hero, even though that didn't happen, and it went viral on the guild boards. They gained a hundred new followers. At least three smaller guilds sent "Linked Hearts" fan letters. Someone even sent a gift basket of non-toxic cookies.
For every attempt to sabotage them, it seemed the universe only made them more memorable.
Their legend grew, not from glory—but from absurdity.
And the stew? That became a meme. One that followed MC for months.
In every tavern they visited after that, at least one person whispered, "Is that the Soup King?"
END OF CHAPTER 36