The dim glow of the Reality Core's holographic message illuminated Yamete's unimpressed face as he read the words for the fifth time. "'Requirement: The Soup.' That's it? That's the big clue?" He kicked at a pebble, which promptly glitched through the floor. "What kind of cryptic nonsense—"
GLich-chan floated upside down, her tiny legs kicking idly in the air. "Oh come on, this is Glitchvale. Last week we fought a boss battle against a sentient parking meter. Soup as a plot device is practically Shakespearean by comparison."
Gary, who had been quietly licking what appeared to be a month-old jelly stain off his interior, perked up. "I know a guy who knows a guy who might know about special soups. Chef Cleaver! He runs that underground ramen stand next to the glitchy teleporter."
"The same Chef Cleaver who tried to julienne us with a cheese grater last month?" Yamete raised an eyebrow.
"To be fair," GLich-chan interjected, "we did crash his Michelin-starred pop-up restaurant."
Gary nodded enthusiastically, sending a stale corn chip tumbling from his rim. "Exactly! And since we're not currently in tiny pieces, that basically makes us friends now. Glitchvale rules."
The journey to Chef Cleaver's new establishment took them through what could charitably be called the "bad part of town," assuming your town was designed by a sleep-deprived coder. Buildings flickered between different architectural styles, streets twisted back on themselves like tangled headphone cords, and at one point they had to wait five minutes for a loading screen to finish buffering just to cross the road.
"Ah, here we are," Gary announced proudly as they reached a suspiciously normal-looking food cart. The sign read "Cleaver's Culinary Catastrophes" in dripping red letters that might have been paint or possibly something more organic.
The cart's window slid open with a dramatic squeak, revealing Chef Cleaver's scarred face glaring out at them. His cleaver (the regular kind, not the sentient kind he sometimes used in battle) glinted under the flickering neon. "You." His voice dripped with the kind of disdain usually reserved for people who put ketchup on sushi. "The glitch-mongers who ruined my perfect score on Yelp."
Yamete opened his mouth to protest, but GLich-chan floated forward, hands raised placatingly. "In our defense, that health inspector was already a zombie before we got there."
Cleaver's eye twitched. "He was only half-zombie! And his review still counted!" The chef took a deep, steadying breath that did very little actual steadying. "What do you want?"
"We need to find The Soup," Yamete said, deciding bluntness was their best approach.
All the color drained from Cleaver's face. His cleaver clattered to the floor. "N-no. Absolutely not. I may hate you, but I'm not a monster. Nobody deserves that."
Gary tilted his can. "Is this about the time you put wasabi in the—"
"This is about the fabric of reality!" Cleaver hissed, looking around nervously. He leaned out of the window, his chef's hat brushing against a suspiciously sticky awning. "The Soup isn't food. It's... it's the primordial code. The broth at the bottom of the universe's pot. The—"
"Okay, we get it, it's metaphor soup," GLich-chan interrupted. "Where is it?"
Cleaver's mustache quivered. "The Kitchen at the End of the Reality. But you'll never get past the Guardians of the—"
"Great, thanks!" Gary chirped, already rolling away. As they left, they could hear Cleaver screaming after them, "—the Garnish Golems! They'll puree you into—" The rest was cut off as the street folded in on itself again.
The trio stood before what appeared to be an ordinary pantry door floating in midair. The words "Employees Only" were scratched into the wood, along with several knife marks and what looked like a sauce-based threat.
"Okay," Yamete said, cracking his knuckles. "Standard dungeon rules. Gary, you're on trap duty. GLich, look for any weird code. I'll—"
The door swung open before he could finish. Inside was... a perfectly normal industrial kitchen. Stainless steel counters gleamed under harsh fluorescent lights. Steam rose from various pots. The only unusual feature was that all the appliances were floating three inches above their surfaces.
And standing at the center island was a seven-foot-tall figure in an immaculate chef's whites. As they watched, the figure turned, revealing not a face, but a smooth surface where features should be, like a mannequin dipped in porcelain. In its hands was a ladle that pulsed with eerie energy.
"Ah," the figure said in a voice like a hundred microwave beeps harmonizing. "The uninvited guests have arrived. How... predictable."
GLich-chan squinted. "Are you... the Soup?"
The figure's ladle twitched. "I am the Chef. The Soup is... elsewhere." It gestured with its free hand, and suddenly every pot lid in the kitchen began rattling violently. "But first, you must pass my trial."
Yamete groaned. "Let me guess. A cooking challenge?"
The Chef's blank face somehow conveyed amusement. "Oh no. Something far worse." With a dramatic flourish, it produced three hairnets. "Health and safety inspection."
What followed was the most bureaucratic battle Glitchvale had ever witnessed. The Chef hurled clipboards like shurikens, summoned paper tornadoes of permit applications, and at one point transformed into a giant version of the "Employees Must Wash Hands" sign.
Gary, ever the pragmatist, solved the encounter by vomiting a half-digested expiration date sticker onto the Chef's pristine whites. The resulting existential crisis ("I... I'm not food-safe?!") caused the entity to short-circuit into a puddle of sanitizer gel.
As the kitchen dissolved around them, they found themselves standing before a simple stone pedestal. On it sat an ordinary-looking bowl filled with liquid that shifted colors like a corrupted texture file.
GLich-chan hovered closer. "That's... it? That's the legendary Soup?"
Yamete peered into the bowl. His reflection glitched through seven different hairstyles before settling on "bedhead." "Looks like someone left their ramen in the debug room too long."
Gary, never one for subtlety, immediately dunked the Really Big Spoon into the liquid. The Soup shimmered violently before solidifying into the second Reality Core, which looked suspiciously like a fancy bouillon cube.
As Yamete picked it up, the remaining Soup evaporated into pixels that formed a new message: "Core #3: In the trash where it belongs."
All three turned slowly to look at Gary, who had the decency to look embarrassed. "What? I don't check my can THAT often..."