I’m a Young God, Won’t You Raise Me?

Restaurant Day 2!
How about starting a new adventure tonight? Make sure to stay up late.

Someone has come to the restaurant! It doesn’t seem to be a customer.

Go downstairs and take a look.

I opened my eyes at the cheerful sound of the notification.

‘He’s here.’

The moment I saw the system window in front of me, I knew the time had come.

Once you reached level 10, the restaurant owner would appear the following morning to give you permission to enter the dungeon.

And from that point onward, the daily quota would also be unlocked.

Just thinking about having to hand over my precious Gold to the owner was already painful.

If that quota didn’t exist, there were countless things I could do with that money.

Thinking about it, I got out of bed.

“…?”

Dominic wasn’t there.

I quickly looked around and immediately jumped out of bed.

I searched the entire room.

“Mr. Dominic? Where are you? Please answer me, Mr. Dominic…”

I murmured his name as I searched everywhere, but he didn’t appear.

It seemed he wasn’t in the room.

I hurriedly opened the door and ran down the hallway.

‘Is he downstairs? He has to be there.’

Up until then, Dominic had never left my side even once.

A possibility began filling my mind.

‘What if he recovered his memories?’

Even though he now looked like a pudding slime, he was still the worst catastrophe imaginable.

I knew he would recover his memories someday.

But not yet.

I still hadn’t found any solution.

If it happened now, it would be as though I had personally summoned a calamity and unleashed it upon the world.

‘Besides, I already destroyed the place he could have gone back to.’

Samra had said that Three Worlds had been closed.

The butlers were beings tied to that Trial as well, so after the ending, they had most likely been sent back to Call of the Void before disappearing together with Three Worlds.

If “Master” recovered his memories under those circumstances.

He wouldn’t spare me, the Special Missions Team, or the Trials—perhaps not even planet Earth.

In Call of the Void, Master had shown me exactly what kind of existence he was.

That scene where he tore open the palm of his own hand with his fingernails.

That moment when he repeated death and resurrection over and over again.

No! No! Don’t remember it! No! No! No!

I stopped halfway down the stairs and braced myself against the wall.

My vision was trembling so much that I couldn’t keep my balance.

I desperately tried to steady my breathing, but my legs wouldn’t respond.

“…!”

My body swayed.

I was about to tumble down the stairs.

“Whoa! Be more careful.”

Someone caught me before I fell.

“You’re rather clumsy on your feet.”

I couldn’t help staring in complete astonishment.

“Mr. Gunbam! Are you alright?”

That deep, pleasant voice was filled with concern.

Dominic.

He was sitting on a table on the first floor.

He still had the same pudding slime appearance.

The moment I saw his soft body, I felt so relieved that all the strength left my own.

‘There’s still time.’

Once I calmed down, I finally looked at the person who had caught me.

He was a man with long crimson hair like flames that reached his waist.

Dark, sturdy horns protruded from both sides of his head.

“Hoo… So you’re the new chef. You’re nothing but a newborn.”

The man with reptilian pupils smiled, baring his teeth.

In an arrogant voice, he declared,

“I am the owner of this place, Infernum.”

I looked at him in a daze.

It wasn’t the worst scenario I had imagined.

But it wasn’t the one I had expected either.

I never thought I would one day see a slime and a Fire Dragon together.

By reflex, the first thing I did was greet him.

“Oh, great sovereign of the Fire Dragons. This humble mortal pays his respects to you. I am Lamb.”

Those words were a greeting you only learned very late in the story of Slay to Plate.

After replaying the game over and over, I had memorized them.

Normally, you only learned them after completing several side quests and mastering the proper etiquette for dealing with dragons.

Hearing them so early, Infernum’s expression filled with satisfaction.

He made no attempt to hide his emotions as he praised me.

“Not bad at all. I see you’re well educated.”

His red eyes, gleaming like embedded gemstones, settled on me.

“But you’re not a mortal, are you? You’re merely a newborn Young God.”

Calling a twenty-four-year-old man a “newborn” was already strange enough.

And on top of that, he had said I wasn’t a mortal.

Infernum was perceiving me as something other than human.

I remembered the new title I had received.

Young God.

The truth was that the title itself didn’t mean much to me.

To me, it was something like obtaining a second class.

‘Now that I think about it… why haven’t I received the Epic Quest yet?’

It was obvious the story didn’t end with simply closing three Trials, yet nothing new had appeared.

Perhaps it had something to do with the system window exhausting all of its energy.

Hoping the Epic Quest would appear before I completed Slay to Plate, I thought back to Infernum’s words.

An ordinary NPC would never call someone a “Young God.”

‘Although, come to think of it, if he were an ordinary NPC, Dominic wouldn’t have any reason to be here.’

In Call of the Void, Dominic treated NPCs as though they were worth less than insects.

If he had come downstairs to meet Infernum instead of staying with me, there had to be a reason.

I arrived at what seemed to me the most logical conclusion.

“Forgive my boldness, but are you a god, my lord?”

The moment he heard my question, Infernum burst into hearty laughter.

His hair, rippling like flames, swayed with his laughter.

“Hahaha! I am not a god. But I am an existence infinitely close to one.”

Could that hierarchy be the reason Dominic could see him?

I still didn’t truly understand what the concept of “rank” meant.

The first thing I did was focus on the most obvious characteristic.

I compared Infernum’s red hair with Captain Kwak Hanmuk’s.

But the impression they gave was completely different.

‘Although Captain Kwak’s hair is dyed.’

I remembered him complaining that it was already time to touch up his roots.

In any case, aside from the red hair, I couldn’t find any other obvious similarities between them.

At least, not based on what I knew.

“Little one. How did you end up in my restaurant?”

I pushed my thoughts about Captain Kwak Hanmuk aside and focused on Infernum again.

“I wished to become a chef, so I decided to settle within Lord Infernum’s domain.”

“Hmm.”

Infernum frowned slightly and snapped his fingers.

Whoosh.

Flames appeared in the air, and from within them emerged a contract.

It was the restaurant’s lease agreement.

Beneath the large text stating a monthly rent of 1G was a clause written in tiny letters.

(However, once the restaurant begins operating, the amount and due date of the rent may be changed, and any such changes shall be entirely at the owner’s discretion.)

The rent remained at 1G only before the restaurant opened for business.

The moment you entered the dungeon to gather ingredients and started serving customers, the monthly rent became a daily quota, and that amount increased as the days of operation passed.

From that point onward, the true business of hell began.

If you failed to pay the quota, you had to offer one of your teammates as food for a monster.

And if a party of five lost even a single member, conquering the upper floors of the dungeon became impossible.

From the moment you lost a teammate, the quotas continued increasing little by little, you could no longer keep up, and the monsters devoured the remaining members one after another until the inevitable end was total annihilation.

And that monster was.

The Fire Dragon Infernum, sitting right in front of me.

In reality, Slay to Plate was practically one enormous restaurant built for Infernum.

“Little one, did you read the contract carefully?”

I answered with a heavy heart.

“Yes…”

“Starting today, I will allow you to access a new area. However, little one, it would be better if you didn’t enter such a dangerous place.”

Couldn’t there be a special children’s discount instead of advice? Something like a huge reduction in the daily quota.

I swallowed the comment that had almost slipped out and smiled.

“Thank you for worrying about me. But I wish to fulfill my dream of becoming a chef.”

Infernum clicked his tongue.

At that moment, Dominic, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, crossed the table and approached me.

“You were sleeping so deeply that I didn’t want to wake you, Mr. Gunbam.”

“Mr. Dominic…”

It felt as though my heart had nearly jumped out of my chest first thing in the morning.

Next time, I wanted to ask him to wake me up even if he had to hit me.

And if he couldn’t do it physically with that slime body, he could at least pinch my nose shut.

I looked back and forth between Infernum and Dominic before asking cautiously,

“May I ask what the two of you were talking about so early this morning…?”

As I spoke, I checked the time.

It struck me as strange that Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyuno and the Captains still hadn’t come downstairs despite all the noise we were making on the first floor.

When I saw the time in the system window, I froze.

5:30 a.m.

In Slay to Plate, everyone fell asleep at midnight, and the new day began at six in the morning.

Both falling asleep and waking up were processes enforced by the system.

Yet I had awakened before the designated time.

‘What…? Why?’

I had no idea what kind of anomaly had caused that.

Dominic replied as calmly as ever.

“I attended to the visitor while you were sleeping, Mr. Gunbam. The more refined a restaurant is, the more attentive its service should be, don’t you think? Lord Infernum possesses extraordinarily broad knowledge on many subjects. It was a very pleasant conversation.”

“That’s right, little one. I sensed an unusual presence and came early to take a look. Then this gentleman welcomed me.”

Infernum looked at Dominic with a faint trace of respect in his eyes.

“I was told you were traveling with him. What unfortunate luck, to have ended up in my territory of all places.”

It seemed Infernum didn’t know Dominic’s true identity.

Rather, it looked as though Dominic had deliberately concealed it.

In any case, if he had attended to the guest in my place, there wasn’t much I could say.

‘I’m sure he has his reasons.’

I couldn’t ask him directly in front of Infernum, so I changed the subject.

“Lord Infernum, I have a request.”

“What is it?”

“Would you allow me to enter the dungeon during the daytime as well?”

“The daytime dungeon?”

Infernum repeated my words in obvious surprise.

In Slay to Plate, players only explored the dungeon at night because of the fire energy.

During the day, when the sun was high in the sky, that energy increased tremendously, strengthening the monsters under the Fire Dragons’ dominion as well.

A monster on the first floor of the daytime dungeon possessed power comparable to a monster on the ninety-ninth floor of the nighttime dungeon.

That was why the daytime dungeon was normally post-game content meant for after completing the game’s ending.

In other words, I was asking for permission to enter an area intended for level 99 characters.

Infernum clicked his tongue once more.

“It’s far too dangerous for a little one like you.”

And he was right.

If you died inside the dungeon, you were immediately devoured and became food for Infernum.

That was one of the reasons Slay to Plate was so difficult.

Outside the dungeon, you could die as many times as necessary and revive in the restaurant’s rooms.

But inside the dungeon—the truly dangerous place—a single death meant becoming a monster’s meal.

And the daytime dungeon was, by far, the place where death came most easily.

However, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.

“Stay here and have a cup of tea. I’ve heard you make excellent tea.”

Don’t tell me he meant the grass tea.

It was the only tea I had made since arriving in Slay to Plate.

I looked at Dominic.

He merely flicked his ears as if to say it had nothing to do with him.

I turned back to Infernum with the utmost respect.

“Grass tea is far too humble to serve someone like you, Lord Infernum. My intention is to make this restaurant prosper and serve you dishes truly worthy of your status.”

“Hmm.”

“My skills are still limited, but fortunately, my companions are extraordinarily capable. I’m certain we’ll be able to obtain ingredients of the highest quality even in the daytime dungeon. I beg you, Lord Infernum.”

Infernum stared at me.

“Little one. Do you know what happens if you die in the dungeon?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Does that mean you wish to become my food?”

His pupils narrowed even further.

He kept his gaze fixed on me for a long time.

When I didn’t answer, he narrowed his eyes and muttered,

“Yes… If I could devour you, I would enjoy a fine banquet again after such a long time…”

The sincerity with which he spoke about his appetite was unsettling.

But I didn’t feel genuine fear.

Because I had already experienced true terror earlier that morning.

Besides.

This was exactly what I had expected.

I knew Infernum’s true nature.

“Ah… No matter how much I devour, this hunger never disappears. Gunbam… bring me the supreme culinary delicacy.”

In the game, Infernum was willing to do anything to obtain the finest delicacy.

Seeing that I remained unfazed, he let out a short laugh.

“Do as you wish.”

He extended a finger toward me.

A thin thread of flame shot forward and touched the back of my hand.

I felt a slight burning sensation.

Then a red seal appeared on my skin.

You have received the Fire Dragon’s Seal. From this moment onward, you have permission to enter the dungeon.

Without realizing it, I glanced sideways at Dominic.

His body was glowing with obvious displeasure.

Since the two of us were bound by a contract, I imagined he disliked me forming a connection with another existence.

Just as I had expected, he seemed rather annoyed.

Even so, he also seemed to understand that it was necessary to complete the Trial, so he decided to tolerate it.

“Little one I look forward to the day you take your place upon my table.”

Flames enveloped Infernum, and he disappeared.

Only Dominic and I remained on the restaurant’s first floor.

I held out my hand to him.

However, instead of climbing onto it, Dominic simply looked up at me.

The pudding slime stared at me intently and said,

“The dish you promised to prepare for me, Mr. Gunbam.”

The gentle glow radiating from his body sent a chill down my spine.

With perfect courtesy, Dominic made his request.

“Could you prepare it using that Fire Dragon?”