Umami Stories: The Laughter Tournament

In a world of 10 corrupt kingdoms ruled by the suffering-feeding Gourmand, the poorest kingdom of Murmur has nothing but its children’s laughter — distilled into Joy Salt, the most coveted luxury ingredient, harvested in brutal Laughter Farms. When cook Callum abandons his newborn son Bren to steal Murmur’s Joy Salt and found the hidden 20th Umami Kingdom, Bren spends 13 years mastering haute cuisine to enter the Tournament of Kings, defeating nine royal chefs by serving luxury dishes that mimic their opulence but are made without stolen suffering — Birthday For One, Lullaby For The Deaf, Name Day Soup, Second Breath Mousse, Widow’s Tax Loaf, Traitor’s Stew, Border Paint, Sun-Struck Soup, and Throne Room Broth — each exposing and starving the Gourmand’s hunger for pain. In the final battle he faces his father, whose 30-course “Childhood Vault” rebuilds Bren’s stolen life in Joy Salt, but Bren’s last dish is simple porridge seasoned only with the freely given memory of his father’s laughter when he was born; the un-stealable love chokes the Gourmand to death, Callum breaks, and Bren inherits the empire only to shut it all down, returning to Murmur where father and son spend 40 years serving porridge to the grey children of the Farms, proving the only ingredient a god can’t digest is love that was never taken.

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Attributions:

Title: ElectricGuitar#003
Author: GuitarStringTheory
Source: https://freesound.org/s/754428/
License: Creative Commons 0

Title: Dark entrance
Author: Victor_Natas
Source: https://freesound.org/s/612179/
License: Attribution 4.0