A Commoner Who Can't Enchant Properly Isn't a Good Chef

Interstellar setting + sentinels and guides + insectoid enemies. Mild horror, and there may be quite a few dungeon arcs.

What do you do when all you want is to be a chef, but you're forced to fight bugs?

*

Is there anything worse than losing your job? Yes.

Not only do you lose your job, you're also insulted for being a bad cook.

Not only are you insulted for being a bad cook, you transmigrate to an interstellar age overrun by insectoids.

Good news: After transmigrating, you bind to a System, and food can grant buffs.

Bad news: Your savings are gone, and you have no power, money, or connections.

No matter. When you're at rock bottom, every direction leads uphill.

But here, sentinels and guides are treated as superior, while the insectoid invasion has left the people homeless and displaced.

Chi Minghuai tearfully laments: Making money is hard. Staying alive is even harder.

*

Sentinels are born with heightened senses and do the most dangerous work, yet they can only eat the blandest food.

Yun Wu is furious.

How can anyone swallow something so tasteless?

When no one's looking, the sentinel coldly shoves the food away and bolts.

But sentinels can't handle rich, salty food, or even a little extra vinegar. Their senses overload and they start vomiting blood.

Yun Wu: Thanks for asking. I can't handle even a drop of vinegar.

*

Life is bitter enough, so your mouth needs sweet and sour, numbing spice, and rich aromas.

The young chef returns to her old profession, determined to become the greatest chef in the interstellar age and restore her reputation after being fired.

Her shop opens spotless and clean, but in the blink of an eye, it's reduced to rubble.

She almost has her inventory eaten up by a certain gluttonous sentinel, too.

Chi Minghuai: What a huge loss!

Some Yun: (transfers) 100,000...

Chi Minghuai: !!!

Chi Minghuai: Dear customer, what would you like to order?

*

He can't eat the things he can have, and can't have the things he wants to eat.

Over time, Yun Wu develops an eating disorder and can only rely on nutrient supplements to keep his vital signs going.

He'd thought his life would end either in the line of duty while fighting the insectoids or by starving to death at the dinner table.

But there is always a way out. He actually meets someone who can make food he can eat.

Yun Wu: You're my god!

The cool, reserved sentinel gets attached to the young chef.

Chi: Business is booming, big brother! Go play somewhere else and stop making trouble in the kitchen!

Yun (looking downcast): I guess I came at a bad time. If I'd known he was coming today, I wouldn't have come.

Chi: ...???

Bro, was that really your personality before?

tips:

Basically, it's a story about a young chef trying to run a restaurant, accidentally curing the male lead's eating disorder along the way, and helping clear out the insectoids while she's at it...

1. I made all of this up. ()

2. No censorship, please.

3. There might be a little horror. Just a little.

Theme: Live well.