Sitting on the shiny floor, with a large layer of sweat on his body, Rou finished cleaning the last dirty dish in what could now be called the kitchen. Rou couldn't imagine how long it must have been since the last time the place had been in use, the layers of dirt had nests of bugs growing rapidly among the soil, coupled with a layer of fungus that for a moment seemed tempting to Rou after he hadn't had a bite to eat in hours.
With nothing but her exhaustion, Rou picked up a wet magazine, with some white secretions stuck between the pages. He quickly tossed the pasted pages into the trash, focusing on a yellowish headline in the main headline, "Fort Abaroh has fallen, it is estimated that about 5 million people failed to flee the disaster."
"Abaroh, what kind of place is that?" wondered Rou, Abaroh was an odd name to be in the Americas, "Maybe it's somewhere in Europe or Africa, that would make more sense...but 5 million people, what kind of situation is that."
On the visible part of the news, there was an image of a stone construction, of the castle type that rose over 400 meters high, surrounded by 6 main towers where there was a row of cannons, covered by a cloud of dust and fire.
For a moment Rou thought it was a game, but looking better at the image, he could notice hundreds of corpses crushed in the rubble, with a level of detail beyond the capacity of the technology of the time he was in.
Still, what kind of confrontation was this? As much as it was the past, and Rou did not know the location of Abaroh Fortress, problems between countries were solved through dialogue between their bureaucratic machines, but... what if the enemy was not a country?
Lost in thought, Rou was again called by the sound of his stomach. Whenever he could, he checked all the kitchen furniture, the shelves and the drawers where the products should be, but everything was empty.
Without a shred of strength, with nothing but strange thoughts in his head, Rou threw himself on the floor and decided to sleep for a while, Brother Kang, as the bald Gio called him, should be back soon.
"Hey brat, what are you doing lying in the middle of my kitchen," an unfamiliar deep voice called out to Rou, who was hugging a pot pretending to eat the contents inside. When the man was about to kick Rou, the fatty moved nimbly like a leopard and caught the man's leg.
"AH! You crazy bastard, stop biting my leg! " Rou woke up after a bitter and slightly salty taste entered his mouth, being pushed to the side, he saw a man about six feet tall, with a big bag on his back cleaning his leg that had the trace of Rou's saliva on it.
"B-Brother Kang...?" asked Rou doubtfully, the man was well built physically and looked quite dangerous, the kind of person you wouldn't want to meet on the street during the night, if he got angry Rou was likely to get a good beating.
After Brother Kang cleaned his wound, he threw the bag to the side of the ground and spoke, "I don't know who the hell you are, but this won't go easy on you," revealing his arms, Brother Kang prepared to attack Rou.
"What can I do, how the hell did this happen?" Rou raised his hands to protect his body quickly, if an experienced warrior saw the way he wrapped his body he would congratulate Rou, no one had ever seen such a useless defense while exposing every single one of his weak points to his opponent.
"Wait...why is everything so clean", Brother Kang for the first time noticed that his beloved kitchen, where he prepared his favorite dishes, such as ribs from the seventh hell, res with surprise sauce(if the customer reaches a state close to death, the restaurant is not responsible for that), or you better die, there were only two people who kept their consciousness after tasting the dishes before the ambulance took him away urgently.
Without waiting for Brother Kang to regain the desire to beat him, Rou raised his right hand, and pointed it at his body saying, "I cleaned up all this mess, I hope you will be grateful and give me something to eat", even if he was about to get beaten up, Rou prioritized his primary need over his own safety and did not lower his gaze, while the man, who seemed to have come out of prison looked at him sternly.
"I'm dead, I'm definitely dead," Rou thought. The man raised a butcher knife, which Rou took about ten minutes to make spotless, and without revealing any sign of gentleness, Brother Kang raised it and pointed it at Rou's neck, asking, "Answer, do you know how to cook."
Rou quickly affirmed with a vertical movement of his head, while his back, completely sweaty, let his clothes stick to his body forming a disastrous image for anyone who looked at it.
"I see, I think Gio told me about it...How was it..., Cro?, Dio?, Tuo?" brother Kang buried the knife on the table beside Rou's fingers and began to wander through his thoughts as he took out the things in the shopping bag.
"R-Rou...my name is Rou, I'm new in town."
"Right, Rou, welcome to my restaurant the snake's nest," the Kang brother pulled the gray shirt that covered his body and revealed the back of his back, posing like the bodybuilders on TV do. There were symbols that were familiar among mobsters, some wore tigers, others dragons, even wolves and scorpions, but Brother Kang, had a golden two-headed snake on his back, highlighting some scars from the past in a place near his heart.
"I hope I don't disappoint you sir," Rou lowered his head, he looked really pathetic, but now he was at the bottom of the food chain and couldn't fight the real one around him, plus, most importantly, he hadn't eaten, and his potential boss seemed to have no problem hiring him, even without knowing his past.
"Well, well, I like you brat. I must say I've never seen this place so clean since the last time we took out old Tyron's gang of monkeys, come on, help me out here. Today I'll show you one of the most luxurious dishes in our snake tail."
Rou received a large amount of meat that Brother Kang pulled out of the bag, just one of the pieces of ribs alone must have weighed around 130 pounds. Using all his strength, Rou forced himself to move slowly, trying not to fall as he set the meat down on a counter about 8 feet long.
"You've got strength under that fat brat, that pleases me. Now go on and get on with the others," Brother Kang pointed to the entrance of the kitchen, where there were about 40 bags, with all kinds of products that filled Rou with desire.
"Remember, you can't touch the food unless everything is ready, tonight a very important customer is coming, so together with you I hope to manage to surprise him in the best way", there went Rou's hope of tasting the raw meat, even so, if he helped in the preparation of the food, he could taste the dishes without Brother Kang telling him anything.
When the last bag was left in place, Rou looked like a wounded cat at Brother Kang, who was sautéing a large portion of meat in a pot that could easily hold 50 pounds of meat. The essence of cooked meat was quite appealing, and on more than one occasion, some people, who were on the other side of the kitchen, would come over to watch Brother Kang prepare the dishes under a curtain of fire.
Full against Rou's plans, he had to bring every pot, spoon, sauce, meat that Brother Kang asked for, where some names, Rou did not know.
"Brother Kang, what is Kari's tail," Rou said checking the spice area, thinking of an exotic product with a bitter taste.
"Seriously you must have lived in a cave, how the hell do you not know what Kari's tail is, haven't you eaten meat in the last while?", brother Kang walked away from the cooking area and walked towards the cooling area pulling the spoon in his hands, where there were large cuts of meat, which Rou, in his last strength hung on some arm length hooks.
"Take a good look brat, this is a Kari's tail," Brother Kang pulled out a large piece of meat, which had a slight greenish color on its ends, as was a large cut of tiger shark. With ease, he threw the piece of meat on his shoulder and walked to the cooking area adding, "I hope you don't forget, in the snake nest we don't allow useless people in our ranks, if you ask again, you will go without food."
Rou felt a great revelation inside him, this was not the old America of his memories, it might not even be the same world he lived in. He didn't have to be a fool to understand that the Kari creature was really well known where he was, so much so that it was easy to serve one plate of it to feed 20 people.
Patting his face, Rou did not dare to make another mistake, after filling his stomach, he would look for all the information of the place he was in.