Chapter 101: A Generous Reward (Thanks to my username really is handsome Big Shot's Alliance Leader, 5/43)

What exactly is a Chef's obsession?

Before Baimu could dwell on it too long, the Chef who had returned to Miare City revealed the answer through a narrator and a black-and-white flashback.

In short, just two words—

【Family】.

The Chef was not an orphan with no one to rely on; on the contrary, his family was very well-off, his father being the CEO of a large corporation.

But the company's main business was quite interesting.

It was pre-made meals.

Namely, convenient food centrally produced and scientifically packaged in modern, standardized central kitchens, including but not limited to ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook, ready-to-heat, and ready-to-assemble varieties.

It belonged to the hottest segment of the restaurant industry in Kalos at the moment.

The Chef's family was the leading force in pre-made meals, selling not only throughout the Kalos region but also spreading them to the outside world.

Naturally, the Chef's father hoped the Chef would inherit this business, but the Chef, who had lived year-round with his grandfather—a professional culinary master—stubbornly believed that some pre-made meals were an unorthodox path.

Such things only made people unable to tell good food from bad, and had no reason to exist at all.

At the same time, he believed that the Western chefs produced by those Western culinary training schools were less like chefs and more like machines, always making a dish with the same ingredients and the same heat.

Being replaced by pre-made meals was only fitting.

So after falling out with his family, he resolutely took the wok and iron spatula his grandfather had passed down to him and headed off to a Western culinary training school, hoping to carve out a different world for himself.

Unfortunately, he had thought too highly of himself, and inevitably ran into walls everywhere.

When he fell out with his family, he also uttered the bold declaration that he would carve out his own sky by himself, and offered up Zumi's classic quote.

Only by constantly worrying, researching, absorbing knowledge, and putting it into practice—such down-to-earth effort—can one grope toward that brilliant, momentary beauty of cuisine.

This is something pre-made meals, made by machines and measured by recipes, could absolutely never achieve.

The latter part was the Chef's personal touch.

At this point.

The flashback in the footage ended.

Baimu's feelings were complicated; he hadn't expected the Chef to have such an experience. No wonder the Chef would rather dash himself against a wall than turn back—turning back would be a compromise on pre-made meals.

So pre-made meals were the obsession?

Apparently not.

Baimu saw the Chef lying in bed, endlessly sending…, looking as though he were wrestling with something, and understood that the Chef's mindset had grown during his travels in the Kalos region, and that he no longer held such great hostility toward pre-made meals.

So how would he resolve his obsession?

The next day.

The Chef gave Baimu the answer.

【You went to find your father in person and asked to have a talk with him.】

【Your father agreed】

In an office, the Chef and a middle-aged man stared at each other across a desk.

【You chatted about recent events, and asked each other whether the other was in good health】

【You noticed your father's body was aging, and felt a pang of sadness】

【You apologized to your father, saying that pre-made meals did have their reason for existing, and that not all pre-made meals were as worthless as he had once thought】

【Your father was greatly comforted, but when you once again reiterated your dream, your father fell silent】

【You told him that the key seasoning that makes cuisine delicious is joy. When one eats with a happy smile on one's face, the deliciousness one feels will be several times the original. And seeing others smile as they taste the food is precisely the Chef's joy. In order to make other people and oneself happy and joyful, not a single compromise is permitted】

【You will definitely become a first-rate chef, and a powerful Trainer. You will enter the Miare Conference, to prove your resolve】

【You did not wait for your father's response; after bowing, you left】

A long stretch of narration.

Yet it brimmed with the Chef's will.

As he walked out of the company building, Baimu saw the Chef bathed in sunlight; his Psyduck poked its head out of the bag, and then hopped out.

The next moment.

The light of evolution enveloped Psyduck's body.

"So the obsession has been laid to rest…"

Baimu smiled; it seemed the Chef's obsession had been failing to apologize to his father, and to solemnly state his dream once.