My Food Stall Serves SSS-Grade Delicacies!-Chapter 272: Lucy’s Choice

Greaves lunged.

The cleaver came down in a precise arc—not wild, not angry despite his cracked mask. Seven years with the mandoline had taught him that efficiency mattered even in violence. Especially in violence.

Marron threw herself backward, the Blade still clutched in her hand. The cleaver missed her throat by inches, close enough that she felt the wind of its passage.

She hit the ground hard, the impact driving air from her lungs. The joy was still singing through her veins—complete us, finish this, give me to my sibling—but underneath it, the Blade’s terror was louder now. Clearer.

Not him. Please not him. Don’t let me become that. Don’t let me forget how to care.

Greaves advanced, stepping over her. Not rushing. Not emotional. Just methodical. "You’re untrained. Exhausted. Fighting yourself. This will take thirty seconds. Maybe less."

He raised the cleaver again.

Aldric screamed something—a warning, a plea—and threw himself forward, knife extended. Greaves sidestepped without even looking, backhanded Aldric across the face. Aldric went down, blood streaming from his nose.

"Stay down," Greaves advised. "I’ll process you after. No need to complicate this."

The mandoline on his hip was pulsing frantically now, its red glow intensifying. Through her connection to the Blade, Marron could feel what the Slicer was feeling: So close. My sibling is so close. Just take it. Just reach out and take it. Complete us. Make us whole.

The Slicer didn’t care about Marron’s death. Didn’t care about Aldric’s. Didn’t care about anything except reunion.

Seven years of cutting without caring had taught it to want without wisdom.

Greaves’s cleaver descended.

And Lucy’s jar exploded.

Not shattered—exploded. Glass shards flying outward like shrapnel. Lucy launched herself from the wreckage, a blue comet of desperate courage.

She hit Greaves in the face.

Tendrils wrapped around his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Not trying to suffocate—Lucy was too small for that—but blinding, disorienting. Her glow intensified to brilliant, searing blue.

Greaves stumbled, clawing at his face. "Get it off—"

Lucy held on. Her tendrils dug in, finding purchase in his skin. She pulsed—not with light now, but with something else. Memory.

Slimes had long memories. Longer than humans realized. And Lucy had been with Marron since the beginning, had witnessed everything, had learned what it meant to be companion instead of food.

She pulsed that knowledge into Greaves now—not words, not images, but pure emotion. This is what caring feels like. This is what loyalty means. This is what you lost.

Greaves screamed. Not from pain—from the sudden, overwhelming sensation of feeling something again. The mandoline had hollowed him out so completely that Lucy’s emotional pulse was like pouring water into a dessicated husk.

He tore her from his face and threw her. Lucy hit a tree and fell, her glow dimming.

But those three seconds had been enough.

Marron rolled, came up on her knees, the Blade extended. Not to attack—she had no idea how to fight with it. But to defend. To create distance.

Greaves’s face was bleeding where Lucy’s tendrils had dug in. His professional mask was completely gone now, replaced by something rawer. Angrier.

"The slime," he said, his voice shaking, "made me feel something. After seven years of perfect efficiency, it made me—" He touched his face, looked at the blood on his fingers. "I didn’t like that."

He moved toward Lucy’s fallen form. The blue slime was barely glowing now, hurt and exhausted.

"I think I’ll process you first," Greaves said to Lucy. "Teach you what happens when you make me feel."

"No!" Marron forced herself to her feet, the Blade heavy in her hand. "Leave her alone!"

"Or what?" Greaves turned to face her. "You’ll fight me? You don’t know how to use that. The joy is still burning through you—I can see it in your eyes. You can barely stand. What exactly do you think you can do?"

Marron looked at the Blade in her hand. Scarlet light pulsed along its edge, joy and terror mixed together. The tool was right—she didn’t know how to fight. Had never trained for combat. The Blade had always been for cooking, for precision cuts that honored the ingredient.

But the Blade knew things. Had been made by someone who understood violence as well as craft. And right now, under all the joy and terror, she could feel it trying to teach her one final lesson.

Not how to cut to kill. How to cut to protect.

The distinction mattered.

"I don’t have to know how to fight," Marron said, her voice steadier than she felt. "I just have to know what I’m protecting."

She stepped between Greaves and Lucy.

The Blade’s handle warmed in her grip—not from joy, not from the Slicer’s call, but from something older. The tool remembering what it had been made for before the Cataclysm had scattered everything. Before it had learned only to cut without wisdom.

Guard. Defend. Stand between harm and what you love.

Greaves studied her. The mandoline pulsed urgently at his hip, feeding him information. "Your stance is wrong. Grip too tight. You’re broadcasting every intention. I could disarm you in two moves."

"Then do it," Marron said.

He moved. Fast. Professional. The cleaver came in low, aiming to knock the Blade from her hand.

The Blade moved.

Not Marron’s choice—the tool itself, acting on instinct coded into it centuries ago. It twisted in her grip, met the cleaver’s edge with its own. Metal rang against metal, the impact jarring up Marron’s arm.

But she held on.

Greaves pulled back, surprised. "The Blade moved on its own. Interesting."

He attacked again. This time from above. The Blade parried—not with Marron’s skill, because she had none, but with its own understanding of angles, of force distribution, of how metal met metal.

"It’s protecting you," Greaves observed, circling now. "Teaching you defense even while the joy burns through you. Remarkable. The artifacts are more sophisticated than I realized."

He feinted left, struck right. The Blade caught the blow but barely. Marron stumbled, her legs shaking.

"But protection only lasts as long as you do," Greaves continued. "And you’re exhausted. The joy is eating you alive. Your body is running on fumes. How long can the Blade keep you standing? A minute? Two?"

He was right. Marron could feel it—the joy burning through her like fever, consuming energy she didn’t have. Her vision was blurring at the edges. Her hands were shaking.

Behind her, Lucy was trying to move, trying to glow brighter, trying to help despite being hurt.

To her left, Aldric was getting up, blood streaming from his nose, reaching for his fallen knife.

Beyond them, the three exhausted tools—Cart, Pot, Ladle—were trying to move again despite having nothing left to give.

Everyone she loved was hurt or exhausted or broken. And Greaves was right—she couldn’t keep this up. Couldn’t fight him. Couldn’t win.

But she could stand between him and them. For as long as her body kept moving.

"You asked me earlier," Marron said, the Blade trembling in her grip, "when I stopped seeing people as people. When the mandoline taught you that distinctions don’t matter."

Greaves paused, cleaver raised. "Yes?"

"I have a question for you." Marron’s voice was steady despite everything. "When did you stop seeing yourself as human?"

Greaves’s face flickered—confusion, then irritation. "Irrelevant. Humanity is a construct that—"

"That matters," Marron finished. "That’s what the mandoline took from you. Not morality. Not conscience. Not even empathy, though it took those too. It took your ability to recognize that you matter. That who you are matters. That the choices you make define you, not the efficiency you achieve."

She took a step forward, and the Blade pulsed—not with joy now, but with something fiercer.

"Lucy made you feel something for the first time in seven years," Marron continued. "And you hated it. Not because feeling was painful. Because it reminded you that you’re still human underneath all the efficiency. That you could still choose differently. That the mandoline hasn’t erased you completely."

"Shut up—"

"You’re terrified," Marron said, and now she was the one advancing while Greaves stepped back. "Not of me. Not of death. Of remembering what it was like to care. Of facing what you’ve become and recognizing that you chose this. Every day for seven years, you chose efficiency over humanity. And now—"

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

Greaves swung wildly. Not efficient. Not calculated. Pure emotion breaking through seven years of the mandoline’s teaching.

The Blade caught the blow easily. Because Greaves wasn’t thinking anymore—he was feeling. And feeling made him sloppy.

"The mandoline didn’t make you a monster," Marron said quietly. "It just made it easier to be one. But you’re still human enough to feel Lucy’s loyalty. To recognize what you’ve lost. To be angry that I’m reminding you."

Greaves’s hands were shaking on the cleaver. The mandoline pulsed urgently, trying to restore his calm, his efficiency, his perfect indifference.

But something had cracked. Lucy’s pulse of pure emotion, combined with Marron’s words, had opened a hairline fracture in seven years of carefully constructed emptiness.

"If I’m still human," Greaves said, his voice raw, "then I have to live with what I’ve done. Every client. Every commission. Every—" He looked at his scarred hands. "I can’t. I can’t live with that. The mandoline saves me from having to think about it. Saves me from—"

"From yourself," Marron finished. "Yes. That’s what the Slicer does. Takes away choice so you don’t have to face consequences. But that’s not teaching. That’s not partnership. That’s just—"

She paused, searching for the right word.

"—cowardice."

Greaves’s face twisted. Rage and recognition and desperate denial all mixed together. "I’m not a coward. I built an empire. I served clients across six cities. I became the best at—"

"At running away from who you were. At letting a tool hollow you out so you didn’t have to be human anymore." Marron’s voice was gentle now, almost pitying. "The mandoline taught you efficiency. But it didn’t teach you courage. That takes wisdom. And wisdom is what the Slicer forgot."

For a long moment, Greaves stood frozen. The mandoline pulsed frantically, trying to restore his calm, his purpose, his perfect efficiency. But the crack was widening.

He could feel it happening. Feel the seven years of carefully constructed emptiness beginning to collapse. Feel the weight of what he’d done pressing down, demanding recognition.

"No," he whispered. "No, I can’t—I won’t—"

The mandoline pulsed harder, offering escape. Offering the return of perfect indifference. Just stop thinking. Just cut. Just be efficient.

Greaves looked at Marron. At the Blade in her hand, pulsing with its own fear and determination. At Lucy, still trying to glow despite her injuries. At Aldric, standing with his knife despite the blood on his face.

At people who chose to keep fighting despite having every reason to give up.

And Greaves made his choice.

He raised the cleaver. Not in surrender. Not in peace.

"I won’t remember," he said, his voice hard. "I won’t feel. I won’t care. The mandoline will take it away. Will make me efficient again. And then—"

He lunged forward with the cleaver raised.

And Lucy, barely glowing, threw herself between them one more time.