Snip, peel, toss. Snip, peel, toss.
By five-fifty in the afternoon, the corner of the Nebula Prep Kitchen was stacked with a gleaming white pyramid of ten million freshly peeled, basketball-sized Purple Space-Garlic Cloves.
Sitting at the bottom of the white garlic pyramid on his three-inch wooden stool was Lord Kui, the Rank 9 Early Upper-World Scout Envoy.
His hands were covered in sticky garlic juice, his nose was running from six hours of pungent purple garlic fumes, and his fingers were cramping so badly they looked like crooked chicken claws. Yet even as he peeled his ten-millionth clove of space-garlic and tossed it into the barrel with a dull thump, Lord Kui kept muttering under his breath to keep up his tough-guy act.
“Just wait... just wait until the Seventh Heaven’s Golden Sickle Harvester Fleet opens the sky-gate,” Lord Kui grumbled darkly as he scraped a stubborn piece of purple skin off a garlic clove with his bamboo knife. “General Jin Ge has ten thousand golden reaping-ships! The War Gods of the Upper World have eyes like twin suns and fists that shatter star sectors! When they see you mortals making a noble Envoy of the Heaven-Reaping Ministry peel garlic on a three-inch stool, they will burn your hundred galaxies into grey ash!”
