The hallways of the school are usually filled with different noises, like the chatter of students and the sound of steps while they move from one class to another. However, the simple presence of the prime heir of the Nakiri family, the founder group of Totsuki academy, was enough to bring all conversation to a quick murmur.

Of course, just having an important family wasn't enough to make this much of an effect: virtually every student that was admitted to the school was the son of a fairly important figure in the culinary world.

What made her stand out were other things.
One was for sure her angelic appearence, from her slim but womanly body that looked almost flawless, her pale skin, her golden long hair, to her piercing but beautiful nonetheless violet eyes.
Another was her composed aura of almost nobility, that made her look unapproachable by the masses.
But what really made the difference was her title.

Since she was an infant, she showed an extremely sensitive and refined palate that in time became a world-famous tool that could weigh a dish or an ingredient to the most precise degree. With this unique ability, she gained the title of The God's Tongue.

Right now, she was simply strolling through the hallways, in company of her trusted assistant, the purple-haired Arato Hisako.
She didn't really need to come to classes, as she far surpassed the ability of her classmates, so she had more time on her hands than most.
At the same time, she had her schedule full of tasting tests that world-famous culinary companies would commission to her.

"I wonder what game i should play with Hisako this evening" she absent-mindedly thought, mentally choosing between different board games.

As the normal students simply moved out of the way, another figure instead hastily  stomped to meet the pair.

When they finally went face to face, Erina noticed her:  "Oh, Kobayashi Rindo-senpai, i didn't expect to run into you. Do you need something?"

The third year red head smiled and giggled "Eheh, Erina-chan, i actually do. Do you have a sec?" So Erina turned to her assistant, who already had her block notes in hand and her glasses on.
"Actually, we were going to meet an important company manager in order to..."
"Well then CANCEL IT, this is just too important to pass! Come with me!" said the second seat of the academy as she basically dragged Erina by her hand.

Hisako was so surprised that she just stood there for a moment before coming to the rescue of Erina, which ultimately was fruitless: when the second seat set her mind to something, nothing short of a bulldozer would stop her.

After a few minutes, the two first years were brought to an empty kitchen. The curtains were closed, and the only light source were the white lamps that shone on the metal surfaces of the counter tops

On one of the tables there was a white plastic bucket, closed with a plug, which reminded Erina of some of her past encounters with Rindo.

"Rindo-senpai, i hope you're not planning to make me taste another of your bizarre ingredients that you found in your travels, are you?" she said.

At which, the third year grinned, slightly squinting her intense yellow eyes "You're perceptive, my dear Erina-chan! It's exactly as you said, but at the same time, it's not. This one is truly something else, you'll see".

Hisako stepped up "As i said, Erina-sama can't be bothered with your tests! We have an important meeting..." but was interrupted by the tantrum of the previously mature-looking senpai "Oooh geez why do you always need to be so strict! It's gonna be fine, it'll take a few minutes trust me!"

Then Rindo recollected slightly, with a confident smile "Besides, i never brought anything that was unworthy of the God's Tongue, right?".

Erina was still unsure, but she knew how stubborn the second seat could be.
She sighed, while tying her hair "Fine, i'll humor you for a few minutes. Hisako, notify the guests of our tardiness" to which her assistant responded "Understood".

Rindo's smile brightened her face "Yay! Now, if you would, i need you to sit down on this chair, facing me. You too Hisako-chan!" she said gesturing towards said chairs.

When the two younger girls were seated, she got from her pockets a couple of blindfolds "I know it sounds strange but i need both of you to judge this ingredient as objectively as possible, and knowing what it is might alter your judgement" she said

Erina stiffened for a second, wondering what ingredient could have such an effect, before finally nodding, choosing to trust the Second Seat.

While she was blindfolded, the most strange ideas popped in her mind. Frog meat? Crocodile meat? No, she already tasted it and she never made a fuss about it. A refined product of animal feces? Despite sounding ridiculous, certain cocoa seeds that were partially digested by certain animals are actually an expensive treat. Mud? That's ridiculous.

While she was still thinking about it, she felt Rindo standing in front of her, and heard the lid of a plastic bucket open. 
"Please say -Aaaaaaah- Erina-chan!" Rindo said in her poor impression of a doctor.

Beneath the blindfold, Erina rolled her eyes at the weird behavior of her upper-classman, and slowly opened her mouth, extending the tongue that people described as divine, to accomodate the treat that was waiting to be tasted.

A moment passed, and she heard "Actually before that, i suggest you not to chew on it, it preserves some of its... peculiar properties. Don't worry, it's plenty small so you can swallow it whole with no-problem. So without further ado, let's go ahead..."

At that moment, she felt something being gently placed on the tip of her tongue.
She was instantly interested in the taste, and felt it indeed was pretty small, but she needed more information, so she slowly and retracted her tongue inside her mouth, hearing at the same time that Rindo was repeating the prosidure with her assistant.

As the "thing" entered into her mouth, she was instantly flooded with an explosion of a complex and rich flavor, something she had never felt before.
As her tongue rolled and shifted, moving the sample around in her mouth in order to expertly place it in the most sensitive places, her exceptional talent made it possible to obtain a huge amount of information from it: it was roughly three cm long, weighed 3.7 grams, its acidic pH was 5.2, and a lot more specifics.

But the flavor was truly the most interesting factor of them all! It was so singular, so authentic, so original and exotic, that she couldn't even imagine the ways this ingredient could revolution the current world of gastronomy!

She stopped herself just in time, as she noticed she had unconsciously placed the sample on her molars and was just about to chew on it. She lightly nibbled on it, appreciating the soft, tender but firm texture, and noticed that even this minimal handling caused the sample to release even more flavor, with a slightly different taste.

After a few minutes, she noticed that what she was doing wasn't anymore tasting, but genuinely enjoing the flavor, no different from a child sucking on a piece of candy.
Slightly embarrassed by this lack of professionality on her part, she begrudgingly decided to put an end to it, and slowly placed the sample at the back of her throat.

With a powerful gulp, she swallowed the thing whole, and felt it fall down her esophagus. At this point, her other senses came to her, since she was not focused anymore on the taste, and she could hear Hisako at her side, slightly panting.
Erina's breathing was slightly faster than usual as well.

She slowly undid her blindfold, and looked up to see the smiling face of her senpai.
"So how was it? Pretty neat huh?" she asked smugly.
Erina sighed, trying to regain a bit of composure, and asked "What is it, and where did you find it?"
Rindo answered, slightly annoyed "I found it in the Amazon Rainforest, but i still need your honest thoughts on it. Then i will tell you exactly what it is"

Erina thought a few seconds about it, then said, slowly "It's the most promising ingredient i've ever tasted. Just a tiny portion of it, raw, without anything done to it, is much superior to many of the dishes that famous chefs from all over the world had brought to me. 
I believe that it has the potential to completely revolution the culinary world, but i would still need to experiment.
Now i'd like to know exactly of what we're talking about"

A smile slowly crept up from the corner of the mouth of Rindo Kobayashi "Homo Pigmeus" she just said.

Erina looked at her, unsure if she was messing with her. She had never heard of anything like it, and she had never studied latin, but she was pretty sure that Homo meant, in fact, Human.

"What do..." and before she could end her sentence, she felt something move from inside of her. She istinctively touched her belly, roughly in the position of her stomach.

"It appears that the little guy has woken up. Probably didn't expect to wake up in the stomach of a high school girl. Well not that it matters now, he won't last long" giggled the red-headed senpai.

"I found a tribe of this tiny little men in the rainforest. Apparently, i'm the first human that has seen them, so they were pretty scared when i stepped onto one of their homes before i could notice the village. They look just like us, only very very small. I tried talking to them but what they say is pretty much gibberish, so i stopped trying. Then i remembered that i had come to find new ingredients, and they potentially were, so i tried one" she explained, slowly removing the lid from the bucket, as Erina was still coming to terms of having a living being inside her stomach.

"and it was... amazing" she said licking her lips, and looking at the contents of the bucket "So i picked up and brought them to Japan, all 1642 of them".

Then she looked at Erina, who looked like she was having a panick attack, touching her belly and breathing heavily, and murmuring "oh no... oh.. no...".
Rindo gently gripped Erina's chin and brought her face to match hers "So... NOW what do you think?"

"I... I have a HUMAN inside of me and it's being digested... we need to save it!"

"We'll save it if you tell me that you don't find any pleasure in the sensation of having it inside of you" she replied smiling

"I... I..." Erina swallowed "... It actually feels good" she realized, sitting back down and looking at the floor. 
She was deep in thought as Rindo spoke again "And to correct your previous statement, they're not, biologically, humans. Their DNA is different, so they aren't just shrunken humans. This makes them no different from very little monkeys. And the issue of consuming live animals, is not really an issue right? It's actually pretty widespread, but you already know that right?"

The red-head walked behind Erina end hugged her from behind.
"So what will it be? Will you use this to heighten further your cooking, or will you continue knowing that you wasted the greatest chance of your life because you cared for the life of tiny monkeys that nobody knew they even existed?" she asked 

After a few seconds, Erina looked at Hisako, who was already looking at her. In the eyes of her assistant, she could see a burning curiosity, the desire of knowing how the brilliant Nakiri Erina could use this new ingredient in her cooking. This was convincing enough to her.

Erina took a deep breath, and said "Hisako, cancel all the appointments for today"
"Understood, Erina-Sama"
"And Rindo-senpai, i'll need that bucket for experimenting. How many are in there?"

The second seat smiled victoriously, and said "500. Actually, now they are 498, the other two are in your stomachs"

"Very well, they shall be enough for today. Follow me, Hisako" said Erina, walking with determinate steps, quickly followed by her assistant.

When they finally got out of the room, Rindo Kobayashi giggled
"It was almost too easy to convince her" she commented, sliding her right hand inside her pocket, to seize quite an unwilling object.
She raised it to eye level to observe the tiny frame of the miniature human as it was twirled between her gigantic fingers, and said "Now onto the next part" and threw the screaming thing in her open maw, before swallowing it alive.

Then she got out of the room as well, in search of another Nakiri family member...

The pair of first years, composed by Nakiri Erina and Arato Hisako, quickly headed to one of the private kitchens that were made available to the God's Tongue.

"Hisako, cover the windows, please, we don't want anyone to know what we are doing right now" Erina ushered, to which Hisako answered "Yes, Erina-sama" and proceeded to do as instructed. 

While her assistant was busy, Erina mechanically brought all the ingredients and tools she intended to use to the table, just like she did contless times before. When everything was put in an almost overly precise fashion, she finally laid her eyes on the white bucket.
She took a deep breath and popped off the lid.

When she looked inside, hundreds of scared eyes met her gaze. They weren't even half the size of her pinky finger, but their were so many that the bucket could barely fit them all while standing.

As she continued studying them, she noticed more details. Their skin was much darker than hers, and were all generally young. She couldn't help but notice a few that were much younger than others. Very few seemed to be older than 30.
Erina hypothesized that it was probably due to their helplessness, at that size they were surely fell prey to most other animals...
"How tragic" she whispered.
She wondered what she looked like to them. A pale, terrifying and enormous face looming above, studying them with her penetrating gaze, not much differently from the predators that had eaten so many of the tiny things. She started feeling pity, and considered changing her mind about the whole ordeal, her beautiful and noble appearence getting a little softer for a moment.

But then her gaze quickly turned as the usual icy glare. What she was looking at was nothing more than food. Food that was soon going to end up in her or Hisako's stomaches to be broken down to nutrients and feed their comparatively gigantic bodies. This was what she set her mind to.

"The first sample already gave me a lot of information, but i still need to know more of the basic ingredient. Consuming it whole had a certainly ... interesting effect" she thought, unconsciously caressing her midriff, where the first victim had long stopped his struggles "but i have to experiment more".

With that, she lowered her hand into the plastic container, and noticed that the crowd started scurrying away from her fingers. Despite being absolutely terrified, they barely moved, their pathetic struggles barely noticeable to the enormous girl. She smiled at the futility of it, while her fingers easily apprehended a young male, espertly pinching him with a delicate touch.

The terrified tiny could do nothing but struggle and scream while he was brought in front of Erina's face, where her predatory gaze finally met his own. 
The pressure he felt just by looking at the giant purple eyes as they were staring at him was enough to freeze him up. As he watched at his crying reflection on her pupils, he instantly realized there was nothing he could do. He was food. Not a living being anymore. And as such, she was going to eat him. Simple as that.

The realization and the absurdity of the situation broke him so deeply, he didn't even notice as she gently put him inside her enormous mouth. He just stared blankly, not even resisting as her giant tongue effortlessly swished him around and finally placed him onto her pearly white molars. Then the upper row suddenly fell upon him like a guillotine.

As Erina bit down on the poor soul, she could feel his insides splattering all over her teeth and tongue, along with a powerful wave of strong flavors, so strong that she had to contain herself not to moan in front of her friend. She chewed a bit more, then swallowed his ground up remains.

"That's certainly a completely different experience from swallowing one whole. Can't say which one i prefer" She thought, trying not to think about what she just ate as a person.

The next test involved different methods of cooking. Thus, she prepared all the necessary equipment and seasoning, all under the adoring gaze of her assistant.
Finally, she inserted her hand inside the bucket and proceeded to gently pluck one at a time, to set them onto the soft palm of her other hand. After a few seconds, a little crowd stood terrified on the creamy skin of the high school girl. Erina looked at them and thought how easy it would be to just close her hand in a fist and turn them all to a meatball of blood and gore.

"Try not to fall there, i don't want to waste any of you" she warned, even though she knew they couldn't understand what she said. 

Then, she brought them all to the stoves, in front of each respective pan or pot in order to be either fried, steamed, simmered, or cooked in other ways. 

They soon caught on to what she was going to do with them, so they soon broke into a panicked frenzy, but they were trapped. One decided to jump, but was quickly snatched up by the other hand of the high school girl.
"I thought i just said not to fall" she sighed, bringing the poor fool directly onto the frying pan, and dropped him. 
As he plummeted towards the searing hot surface, he was already screaming and flailing;
but as he made contact with the olive oil, his struggles increased tenfold, as his skin was instantly burned and his blood boiled, but in mere moments he stopped moving, his howling dying in his throat.

The crowd had stopped moving and screaming, and just stood in shock at what they had just seen. Erina looked at them coldly, before saying "Who is up next?"

The way the others died was neither painless or silent, but Erina forced herself to watch the last moments of every single one of them. It wouldn't feel right to first decide to kill and eat them all, but then not taking responsibility for it.

After a few minutes, a row of small plates was set in front of her, on each one the corpses, often barely recognisable, of the differently cooked tinies. Erina took a deep breath, and proceeded to taste each one along with her assistant. 
When she and Hisako were done eating them, they both concluded that after all, raw, alive and kicking was by far the best way to consume them. Any type of cooking was apparently detrimental to both the flavour and the texture.

Therefore, the issue was how to heighten their qualities as a raw ingredient.
The obvious and simple route cosisted in using sauces and condiments for it like soy sauce, and in some cases ther was a slight improvement but in no way relevant.

The two girls passed the whole evening trying out different combinations, but eventually hit a dead end: it seemed virtually impossible to do something better than the raw and pristine ingredient.

Frustrated, Erina decided to stop for now and keep on trying the next day, so she cleaned up, changed her school shoes, putting them in her locker, and put on her loafers to walk home with Hisako.

When her thigh-high socked feet got inside the stuffy confinement of her expensive leather shoes, she wished she could just wear some of her more comfortable shoes, like her cute flats. "Maybe we should go shopping for shoes one of these days, Hisako" she suggested, turning towards her purple haired friend, who seemed deep in thought, one hand resting on her tummy. After a few moments the assistant jolted up and answered "O-Oh sure Erina-sama, i think that's just a wonderful idea! Some of my shoes are getting old... "

She was definitely troubled, and it wasn't like Erina didn't understand her guilt. Only today, Erina had killed and eaten 104 of the tiny humanoids, while Hisako ate 67.
That meant that currently there were 171 tiny lifeless bodies (or pieces of them) traveling through the digestive systems of the two high school girls.

Thinking about it that way, it certainly sounded barbaric and cruel, but Erina was starting to believe that the things were made to be eaten. She had virtually tasted the meat of every animal that was available on earth, and nothing was even comparable to this. What would they be useful for besides being eaten?
She looked at the bucket that she was carrying with her, her feelings mixed with guilt and curiosity, and then to the road ahead of her.

---

Exhausted, she decided to have a bath the next day, so she changed in her slippers and her pijamas, placed the bucket on the nightstand, got into bed, and got one of her shojo manga that she had recently taken a liking to.

After a few chapters, she felt she was ready to turn off the lights, but as she reached for the switch, she remembered about the little people. 

She suddenly had a craving for something to eat, so she opened the lid, carefully picked up 5 of the tinies and studied them, and laid down.

The terrified little people could do nothing but watch as they desperately held on the soft flesh of Erina's fingers. Far below them her enormous face, sorrounded by a seemingly endless halo of golden hair, studied them for a few seconds.
Then she whispered "It's your fault that i'm eating you, you taste too good to have the right to live" until her lips parted and they all fell towards the abyss.

They all luckily landed on the soft and moist surface of her tongue and were swept up into her mouth, where Erina started to greedily suck on their bodies.

Only then she turned off the lights, enjoying the sensation and the taste of 5 miniature people fighting for their life unside her mouth in order to not be eaten.
After a few minutes, she got tired of playing and stayed for a few seconds with her lips half parted, letting a bit of moonlight inside, panting slightly. Then, her night snacks still in her mouth, she murmured: "You did a good job at entertaining me for this evening, now please be good and struggle a lot while going down" and then swallowed them all in a single, powerful gulp.

With that, she smiled and gently drifted to sleep, lulled by movements and the muffled cries of agony and despair coming from her belly...

"I'M SO BOOOOOOORED" pouted Nakiri Alice, sprawled over a chair in her classroom and looking at the ceiling.

It was a strange sight, a girl of an almost ethereal beauty, with alabaster skin, white hair and red eyes, lazing around in an empty classroom.

Erina's cousin usually had her trusted Ryo Kurokiba at her side for times like these, usually having several cooking matches in a row with him to pass the time, but he apparently was busy for some business at his hometown in Denmark.

A true tragedy for the spoiled Alice, as she had nobody to play with. 
For the moment at least.

Suddenly, none other than the Second Seat of the Elite Ten suddenly barged into the classroom, blasting the door open and shouting "Alice-chaaan are you here?".
Alice jolted and took notice of the sudden appearence "JEEZ... Oh it's just you, Rindo-senpai, you could have knocked first...".

"I see you have got nothing better to do, so come with me!" exclaimed Rindo, basically jumping on the first-year and grabbing her expertly by the collar, probably used to dragging unwilling people.
"Let me goooooo" groaned Alice, uselessly struggling while being basically dragged by the rambunctious third-year out of the room.

"Just trust me, you're going to enjoy it!" assured smiling Rindo; "Somehow i'm even more worried now" grumbled Alice.

------

Alice sighed, now in the same kitchen where just a few minutes before Erina and Hisako had been in "so, what have you brought me here for?".

The redhead smiled, showing her unusually sharp teeth "I think you should see for yourself. Let's call it an agreement." she said "Let's suppose you find an extremely rare species of fish, so rare that you have found just a couple so far, but that is so high-quality that it could change the way you cook it forever, what would you do?
Would you cook it right away or wait for them to breed and reproduce?"

"I would just clone them of course!" Alice answered, almost offended that she was asked such an easy question "Is the fish you're talking about in that plastic box?" she said, pointing to a rather large container.

The Second Seat smiled "That's exactly what i wanted to hear. Well, no, it's not really fish, that was just a metaphor" she said, walking to said container, waving to Alice to do the same.
"What is it then?" Asked Alice, getting more and more curious, like a little kid.
"I'll show you if you promise to never say a word to anyone about it" the redhead said "Yeah, yeah, sure now show me!" answered the white haired girl, her red eyes beaming from the excitement.

Having gained her attention, Kobayashi Rindo slowly opened the box to show its tiny inhabitants to the other girl.
The expression on Alice's face changed from excitemen to surprise "Oh... Are they little people? How did you shrink them? Tell me!" but then realized something and started looking confused "Wait... are you telling me this is the fish? You know that most people don't eat human meat right? You tried eating some? I mean, i know you're weird, but that's entirely a whole another level of weird".

"Don't worry i didn't shrink anybody, they aren't even humans, biologically. They just look like us, i found them in the Amazon forest and nobody has ever documented something like this" assured Rindo, wondering if she had rushed things too much.

The confusion was blown away from Alice's face "Oh! Then it's fine! Can i try some?" she asked, excited like before. The sudden change took Rindo by surprise, who nodded, trying to read into it. Apparently, Alice's specialization on molecular cooking made her rational as a scientist.

The silver-haired girl carefully grabbed 4 tinies (a young kid, two women and a man) inside the box and set them on her right hand, keeping them at eye level.
"Oooh they look so much like us! It's incredible! Well, too bad for you, down the hatch you go!" she snickered, bringing her hand near to her face, while its terrified passengers tried to run away from the giant pale visage, but her thin fingers looked too unstable to climb.

When her wrist finally met her chin, she smiled and started to slowly tilt her hand and head backwards. As the 4 tinies realized what she was up to, they quickly bolted to a run to search for a handhold on the giant palm, trying to hold on the increasingly steep skin.

The young kid was just about to grab the hem of skin between two fingers but slipped on a tiny drop of sweat, so he started tumbling towards the pale lips, that readily opened up to reveal a gigantic wet and dark cavern. The tiny zoomed past the teeth, somehow bounced onto the tongue and immediately fell screaming down the abyss that was Alice's throat.

"Oh my, you surely were eager to get in my stomach, i didn't even get to know how you tasted! You didn't even let me chew or swallow that you were already gone!" she exclaimed, surprised "The next ones won't be so lucky".

The next ones to give in to gravity were the two women, who inevitably fell in her mouth as well. Alice closed her lips, sucking on the tinies and savoring the taste "Mmmmm this really is something else, Rindo-senpai! I get now why you were so pushy all of a sudden! They really are delicious!" she said with her eyes closed, delighted by the stuggles of the terrified women, that were suddenly put to a stop when she started chewing.

The man, who was able to find a relatively secure handhold on her middle finger, as he heard the screams be abruptly replaced by the wet sounds of the giant teeth making mincemeat out of the women, made the mistake to look below him towards the face he was basically dangling over.

As Alice swallowed what little remained of the two tinies, she parted her lips again to let him in as well.
Where before there was a pristine mouth, with a glistening tongue, pearly white, perfect teeth and a dark tunnel where her throat was, now there was the most horrible scenery he had ever seen.

The teeth were splattered with blood, her saliva wasn't clear anymore but had become somewhat red, and in the back he could see a severed arm that had seemingly stuck to the molars. Seeing this slaughter he started wailing, crying and begging for his life in his native language.

When Alice noticed that he wasn't letting go, she said "alright, have at it your way", and bit him down at his midriff. He was cleanly sliced in two pieces, which were promptly slurped and swallowed as well.

----

Meanwhile, in her stomach, the kid felt dizzy. He hit his head quite hard while falling, and the rarefied air didn't let him think straight.

He wondered why he was floating in this pool in the dark. He couldn't see well, but the water seemed somewhat red, and his nose stung so much that he couldn't smell anything. "Mama.. Papa... Where are you? I'm scared" he whimpered, while trying to stay afloat. Suddenly, two things impacted with the water a couple of steps ahead. He managed to swim there, hoping to find someone come to save him.

But what he found was a bisected body, staring with his lifeless eyes at him

---

"My, the little guy has started making a fuss down there, it kinda tickles!" exclaimed Alice, caressing her tummy.

"Enjoy him as long as he lasts. So, do we have a deal? I give you all the remaining samples to be cloned so we can both have a limitless supply?" Rindo asked.
"Sure, it shouldn't be a problem since they're so small, it won't even be that expensive. Just give me a week and i'll probably have the first prototypes ready" answered Alice.

"Perfect! I knew i could count on you! See you un a week then!" Said Rindo, and started walking towards the door, but made only two steps before stopping.
Then she got back, grabbed a handful of tinies and stuffed them in her pockets "I need them to... ehm... experiment! Yes! Goodbye again!" She explained, blushing a little, and storming off.

Alice giggled, thinking that even that senpai could be cute sometimes. Then she looked at the terrified sea of tinies in the box, and smiled. 
"I think we all have something to do at the lab, don't we? I'm afraid taking samples of dna from teeny tiny people from you will be quite tricky, but i know what to do with the ones who don't make it... " she said, licking her lips "Perhaps Mother could lend me a hand..."

Thin strands of light entered through the windows in the Nakiri mansion, and eventually they managed to wake the sleeping Erina up.

She weakly blinked, and groggily raised herself to sit on her bed, rubbing her eye sockets. Her vision still foggy, she opened her mouth in a cute yawn, trying to get herself to wake up properly.
When she eventually managed to focus a bit, the first thing she noticed was the white bucket, with the lid open, resting on its side.

Erina blinked a couple of times, wondering why the hell there was an empty bucket on her nightstand, before suddenly realising "The tinies!" she exclaimed.

She jumped off the bed, scanning the floor, cursing herself for being so naive, and preparing herself for the pain of gathering them all up again, but she suddenly stopped.

She already found them. Erina was just going to put on her slippers, but she couldn't because her slippers were, in fact, full of tinies.

This was certainly unexpected. Was that the best place to hide that they could think of? Impossible, they basically had all night to roam around the house and even with their agonizingly modest speed, they could have gone anywhere.
Could it be possible that they were... hungry? The hunger was so unbearable that they decided to eat the grime and dead skin of her feet that remained stuck in her old slippers?

She leant forward, to get a better view of the group, feeling a bit sorry for them.
What they were doing wasn't really eating, she noticed. More like kissing, and licking the interior of the slipper, almost in... reverence?
Erina was just dumbfounded: what could they possibly be doing?
Just the day before, she was devouring them by the dozen, and now they were worshiping her? They had recognised her as a goddess? While alien and unacceptable, the thought wasn't entirely unpleasant for the high-school girl

But that theory wasn't true either. After all, most of them didn't even spare a glance for her, still intent in feverishly lapping at the fragrant insides of the slipper.

Some however, finally took notice of the stupified giant girl, stopped whatever they were doing and slowly walked up to her, dragging their feet, looking dazed and almost in trance.
Seeing those tiny little things approaching her feet looking like zombies, Erina started to freak out a little: "W-What are you doing? Stay away! Don't get closer, or i'll step on you!" she threatened, hovering her naked foot over the group, which seemed unfazed.

"I'm serious, i'm going to squish you with my foot if you don't stop right now!!" she continued, worried and increasingly scared, walking backwards. The little horde didn't show sign of stopping.

Erina felt anger boiling inside of her: "That's it, you brought this upon yourselves!" she exclaimed, before placing her bare foot on the zone that seemed denser than the rest.

The tinies barely had time to look up to see the enormous pale sole hovering on their heads, covering most of their sight, before it slammed on top of them. They were utterly obliterated, their frail bodies no match for the gigantic slender foot, as their bones were grinded to dust and their organs exploded.

"There!" Erina exclaimed, slowly raising her foot, a bit emboldened by the notion that they still were powerless against her. She felt their liquefied bodies still stuck to her sole, their remains barely recognisable on the wooden floor.

At this point, the forerunners of the group had almost reached her other foot, and knowining that they couldn't possibly harm her, she let them, curious about what they were going to do.

The first to touch Erina's slender toes was a young man in his twenties, and immediately got in between the big and the second toe, and started to lick the flesh in between them, causing Erina to wince a little bit. 

When the rest of the group eventually started to kiss and lick the rest of her feet, she sat down on the bed, blushing. This sensation... she could certainly get used to it.
Hell, she was already addicted to the feeling of dozens of tiny pecks and licks on her toes! It was almost as good as eating them!

But she felt she wanted to experiment a little bit more.

Erina slightly raised the ball of her right foot, the one that had already taken the lives of other tinies just a few moments before.

In just a couple of seconds, some of the tinies crawled under her soles, in order to reach the fragrant and soft flesh beneath. When they resumed licking and kissing, Erina flinched again, almost suppressing a moan of pleasure. This was getting better and better!

She just stayed there for a few minutes, relaxing and enjoying the sensation of having dozens of tiny foot slaves under her, until she remembered what she had to do today.

Then, she did something that surprised even herself: she started to lower the foot back to the floor, pinning the tinies that had previously crawled under there.

With a soft moan, she slowly increased the pressure until she felt them pop under her titanic weight, one after the other, until they all became red stains on her pale elegant sole.

She slowly grabbed her foot, admiring her... footwork and the remains of the tiny people that remained stuck. Then she grabbed a random tiny, incidentally the same that had reached her toes first, and raised him to eye-level, as he was too dazed to notice.

"You have served me well this morning. I'm expecting to receive this treatment from today onward. For today i guess it's enough, but now it's time for breakfast" She solemny said, then closed her eyes and threw the poor soul in her gigantic mouth.

When he collided with her tongue, her eyes shot open: it tasted far better than yesterday!
Erina shwished him around her mouth for a bit more, then swallowed him whole.
No mistake, his taste had far improved, she thought, licking her lips.

What if he was just tastier than the others? To test that theory, she quickly grabbed a dozen of people in her hand, and made them tumble and fall in her wet mouth.

In the dark cavern some were chewed alive under her pearly white molars, while the others got roughly handled by the enormous glistening tongue, until they all fell down her throat when she decided to gulp down the bloody mass of people and body parts.

No doubt. They got far tastier than the day before.

Erina immediatly started to get ready for the day, ideas flying in her brilliant mind, and before she could notice it she had already packed up her stuff, gathered the tinies from the slippers and other shoes in her room and was ready to put on her shoes.

She had an idea. Grinning, she grabbed a handful of people, and sprinkled them into her flats. "You were so good that i think i'm going to need an encore, so get licking down there..." she said as he put them on.

Most of them had safely gathered in safe areas, like under her soft arch and between her slender toes, but some didn't make it and slipped under her heels and the balls of her feet. When she started to put weight on them, she felt their weak bodies give in and pop under her enormous feet.

Smiling at the feeling of tiny tongues lapping at her feet, and of the wet corpses stuck to her soles, she started to walk, to meet Hisako.

As Erina proceeded to her destination, she would seem just a normall high school beauty going to school: humming a soft tone, walking slowly and in a composed manner, seldomly adjusting the hair at the side of her face, which flowed like a golden cascade that glittered in the sun. 
She was a view to behold, and the few students that were lucky enough to get a glimpse of her were stunned as always.

What no one could know however, was the scene of carnage that was currently happening inside her blue leather flats.

Usually, she would have her butler drive her to school but just for today, she felt like it would have been a waste not to enjoy the good weather, or at least that's what she said to the driver.

In truth, she simply was enjoying too much the sensation of the tiny little people beneath her doing their absolute best to please her feet, uncaring of their fate.

A good dozen had been liquefied under her weight as she had put on the flats, but more than enough were still alive, servicing her toes and soles. Occasionally, she would feel one of the unfortunate souls slip under her heel, or the ball of her foot, and then turn wet, to which she would lightly giggle.

"Come on, you can surely do better than that! I'm absolutely cheering for you, trust me! *Giggle* You only need to stay away from my big mean toes and soles and you'll be fine, even a baby could do it! Not that you even have anywhere to hide... " She whispered, basically talking to herself.

"You should take the example from the tiny under my arch in my rhight flat, he was able to survive for so long despite being in such a dangerous position, i'm impressed!" Unfortunately for him, just as she finished the sentence, as Erina rose her heel to initiate the next step he lost the grip on her skin due to the sweat building up in the shoe, so he was catapulted forward. The next moment, he found himself exactly at the center of the ball of her foot. There was no excaping from the titanic pressure his body was about to endure, so he closed his eyes and hoped that the goddess about to take his life would accept his soul as an offering.

*SQUELCH*
His body instantly gave in and was flattened under the unthinkable weight of the high school girl.

"... Oh well, nevermind. Well, do your best trying to survive! Don't stop licking though *Giggle*" Erina murmured, amused.

Hisako had come to meet her halfway, so in a few minutes they were already side by side, walking towards school.

"Hisako, are you ready for experimenting more about the new ingredient? I actually discovered something about them at home, do you want to..." Erina asked, excited and looking forward to continue the activities of the day before, but was politely interrupted by her secretary.

"I'm sorry, Erina-sama, about that, Senzaemon-dono has issued a command to you in particular, he wants you to judge some dishes made by the most promising students of the middle-school section. I'm afraid we just can't cancel this one..." she said, mortified.

Erina was definitely disappointed, but shrugged, saying "Well, work is work i suppose. Let's start as soon as possible so that we can do our stuff later", and picked up her pace, while Hisako walked behind her.

Erina however first made a stop to the changing rooms, and locked the door behind her.

She had sent Hisako forward with an excuse, because she still wanted to surprise her friend with the new discovery and right now wasn't the right moment, so she had to dispose of the "evidence".

She sat down on one of the benches, crossed her pale left leg onto the other, and slowly removed the flat.

The scenery inside was... redder than what she had expected. The continuous motion had ground most of the dead tinies to basically mincemeat, with some occasional red splotches here and there. The rest was coated with a thin and shiny coat of sweat.
It certainly wasn't the most pleasant ride for them, she thought, smiling. 

There were still survivors, about a third of the initial number. Yes, it was satisfactory.

Erina slowly placed her shoe on the bench beside her, with most of its tiny inhabitants still inside, and then observed her naked and soft foot.

It looked like it always did, except for the tiny corpses still stuck, due to both the blood and the sweat. One was miracolously still alive, his lower half pulverized under the ball, just near the big toe, and was feverishly licking the underside of the big toe.

Erina dragged one of her slender fingers sideways across her sole, catching most of what little remained of the tiny people, and observed her work: it looked like she had just dipped her finger in a vase of strawberry jam, except from the dying tiny on the tip of her finger.

Reminishing the times she ate in secret sweets and jams, she giggled and popped the whole finger in her mouth, and savored the taste. The addition of her foot sweat made it sweeter, she noticed.

After enjoying the taste for a minute, she remembered "Crap! I'm gonna be late!", so she repeated the motion with her other foot, and poured the rest of the survivors in her right flat, and raised it to eye level, looking inside.

"Usually i would take my time to savor you guys, but i'm in a hurry, so..." She said, smiling cutely, as she tilted the shoe towards her.

As the ground got increaseangly steep, the tiny people started to slide to where the heel was. None of them resisted, still under the effect of whatever made them act this way.

When the sole of the shoe was basically vertical, Erina opened her cavernous mouth and brought out her glistening tongue, then she placed the entrance of the shoe directly upon it. Even before she started pouring its contents down her throat, most of the tinies were already jumping down to the dark and wet abyss in order to be consumed by their golden-haired goddess, which amused Erina quite a bit.

In a few seconds, all of them had fallen inside her mouth, basically unscathed.

She was wondering how they would all look, so she walked up to one of the mirrors and looked at her reflection, opening her maw. Erina wasn't by any standard a big girl, so her mouthful was relatively modest, but it was still more than enough to fit all 27 tinies at.

The view amused her so much that she started to giggle, so she got her smartphone out and decided to take a photo, striking a cute pose with her open mouth full of tinies. She wasn't used to this, as she was the heir of an important family, but she still was a high school girl after all.

After the flash, she closed her mouth, swishing its contents around with her tongue, and admired the result. The pose was a bit akward, but being the sheltered girl she is she judged it perfect, after all the focus was her face, flawless as ever, so she saved it.

Another idea popped in her mind: Erina switched her camera app to the video function, then opened her mouth, pointed the lens towards her throat, and tapped the recording button. She waited a few seconds, completely motionless, and then tried to swallow without closing her lips. The lump of people strained to enter her esophagus, but still were no match to her powerful throat muscles. 

However, she failed to swallow them in one gulp, so she had to do it again, this time empting her mouth, and then stopped the recording.

Then she cleaned up her feet and her flats, put on her usual thigh highs and loafers, unlocked the room and speeded to where Hisako was waiting for her.

As she walked, she excitedly admired the two latest additions to her gallery.

The video in particular interested her:
the first seconds of motionlessness, only broken by the tinies caressing or licking the surface of her back molars or the tongue they were standing on, or by the occasional tiny falling - or jumping - down her throat (which Erina found funny since she didn't even notice them when she was filming it);

then when her pink wet tongue had risen, hiding for a second the mass of tinies, only to reveal a moment later the few survivors of the first gulp, the existance of the disappeared ones completely erased apart from the distant screams she could faintly hear coming from the dark gaping throat;

and finally the final gulp that sent the rest of the group to their death to be digested inside her stomach.

As she rewatched again and again, she caressed her tummy, feeling the struggles of its tiny, temporary inhabitants, waiting for them to stop and dissolve to become nutrients in her beautiful young body.

"I can't wait to show this to Hisako!" she giggled, and started skipping to her destination. 

Erina was waiting inside the japanese-styled room, the sliding doors facing the inner garden open, waiting for the first examinee.

It wasn't anything new or different from usual, but it was surely something that was keeping her from experimenting and thus impeding her growth as a chef.

She pouted, annoyed, making a mental note abaut talking to her grandpa about not wanting to be bothered for the moment.

She tried to relax, listening to the sound of the falling water in the garden nearby, and trying to get a bit more comfortable on the cushion she was currently kneeling on. It didn't work that well.

The first examinee was a short boy, probably two years younger than her, and as he opened the sliding door to enter, he already looked very nervous.

Erina watched him with her usual cold dignified and haughty glare all the while he closed the door, approached slowly, placed the dish he just cooked on the low table in front of her, and kneeled on a cushion similar to the one Erina was using, on the opposite side of her.

Then he lowered his head, obviously feeling the pressure of her silence and her violet eyes, and murmured: "G-Good morning..."

Erina answered immediately in a stern tone, making him flinch "Good morning to you. I hope this is not going to be a waste of my time as always. So, what did you bring to me?" 

The poor boy was having a hard time responding "I-I...  This is... I mean..." so Erina sighed, and said "Relax, it's not like i'm going to eat you", without softening the tone however.

She didn't say it on purpose, it's a pretty common phrase to say in these situations, but the thought made her lick her lips and a corner of her mouth curved up in a smirk for just a second, but then immediately resumed her composure. He didn't notice of course, as he was too busy staring holes into his own knees.

He answered "Y-Yes of course, it's a french dish i tried to modify a-and add my own t-touch to it..." and then fell silent, too scared to add anything else.

She looked at him for a second, then thought "Well whatever, it's not like i'm judging his talking skills. Let's get this over with"

"Very well. Thanks for the food" she said, with no anticipation in her voice whatsoever, and took the plate in front of her along with her fork.

Erina scooped up a mouthful from the surprisingly elaborated composition that was her meal, and tasted it, closing her eyes.

Not bad, a bit rough around the edges, some ingredients needed a more precise handling, but the idea behind it was pretty original and it worked well in its entirety. 
In short, it had potential.

She opened her eyes, noticing the younger boy was getting redder by the second. She didn't dislike the feeling of power she was getting from this, so she decided to have a bit of fun.

After having swallowed the mouthful, she slowly put down her fork, looked intensely at the boy (which seemed to sense her gaze because he winched, even if he had closed his eyes shut) and said slowly "That's enough. This dish you have brought me is positively, absolutely, DISGUSTING" 

The boy, in surprise looked at her with eyes full of horror, and started to tremble visibly.
He was fully aware of what happened to the ones that the God's Tongue judged without talent: their reputation would be stained forever and their social standing in the culinary world would drop significantly. In other words, a complete catastrophe for both the chef and the family that supported him.

Erina was a bit surprised as well, she didn't mean to be THIS harsh. Well, comparatively to her newest discovery, the dish was definitely disappointing, but still. "Too late to back out now, i guess" she thought, enjoying it more than she anticipated.

Then, she started to list the entirety of the errors he had made, which all in all weren't many since most of the dishes she deemed acceptable had no less than 25 imperfections, but she enjoyed the look of terror that was twisting the face of the poor boy.

During the verbal torment, she stood up, and as she talked she raised her voice more and more until she was basically snarling. When she was finished, she was standing at his side, her hands on her hips and looking down on him as he whimpered and held his head, trembling. Oh yes, she was definitely getting turned on.

"I-I'm sorry Erina-sam..." He started but was immediately cut short by her "You're sorry of WHAT, exactly? The fact that you have brought an inadequate dish that disrespected to this degree the God's Tongue? Or that you're wasting my time? Or maybe you're sorry you were even born?" she lashed out, getting into it more and more.

"I-I'm sorry..." he whimpered, overwhelmed and not sure about what to respond. He kept facing the ground, his hands still wrapped around his head, his eyes closed shut, until he felt something grab him by the collar, and was yanked up.

Erina was by no means a strong girl, but she made no effort to raise the boy to face her, as he was much shorter and skinnier than her. He felt the strength in her grip overwhelming for his middle-school frame, as she was easily manhandling him. Then she shouted "Face me when i'm talking to you, worm!" so he opened his eyes.

He was facing her alright. He was at eye-level with her ample chest, within inches from her beautiful face. She looked definitely angry, but there was a hint of redness that was kinda out of place, almost as if she was... aroused.

The thought, if possible, made him even more scared.

Then her features softened for a second "I know what you're thinking. You know that any chef that was deemed unadequate by me was definitely met by ruin sooner or later. Your family, or your company, or whatever, are going to fail and disappear to nothingness." As she talked, she got even nearer to his face, her breath getting a bit heavier. 

Usually having a bombshell in kissing distance would have completely made the boy's day but now he was nothing but terrified, as he struggled to escape her iron grip.

"Unless... you do something for me. Then i might think about it..."

"Unless... you do something for me. Then i might think about it..."

The boy was terrified beyond belief, but saw something similar to hope between those words. Maybe it wasn't the end for him?

"Y-yes! Please! I-I will d-do anything! Anything!" he whimpered, still held at the collar by the older girl.

Erina smiled, and let him go, and he lost his balance and fell on his butt.

"Then, why don't you start by kissing the bottom of my foot like the worm you are..." She said, almost seductively, slowly walking to his side and raising her leg, positioning her foot directly in front of his face.

The boy gulped. It certainly wasn't something he expected, or liked. He was the firstborn of a prestigious family, with a solid standing in the culinary world, so why would he lower himself like this?
However, defying the God's Tongue right now was the absolutely out of the question.

He hesitated for a second, studying the appendice waiting in front of him: her nylon-clad foot had barely any hints of dust or lint that stuck to it, but otherwise was perfectly clean. The shape was elegant and thin, her toes unusually long but perfectly suited to the rest of the foot; the smell was faint but noticeable, and kinda pleasant. 

He slowly lunged forward to obey, trembling, but instead of waiting for him, the foot shot forward, colliding with his face, and pushing him down until the back of his head hit the floor.

"That's a more fitting position for a worm like you" Erina said smiling, rubbing her foot on his face, her hands on her hips "You can begin now".

Silently crying for the terror and the humiliation, he started to kiss her soft sole.

Erina, above, was having a blast. Smiling, her cheeks slightly flushed, she watched as the kid pathetically struggled to kiss the bottom of her foot, the same foot that not long ago had crushed to a red paste so many of the tiny people.

The feeling of having at her mercy someone of her size was quite different from what she felt with the tinies, but it was amazing nonetheless.

"I'm sure you're not aware, since you've never done it, worm, but you're supposed to use your tongue when you kiss" she giggled, and the boy started to lap at her sole, whimpering.

After a while, Erina started to feel bored. Sure it felt good to have someone lick her feet, but she preferred the power play. 

She started to roughly grid her foot on his face, and said "How pathetic! Is this supposed to be even human? All i see is just a worm, an ant, a BUG, beneath my foot, that is just begging not to be crushed under me".

"Now do tell me, what are you?" She asked bending down, waiting for a response.
"I-I'm a bug..." he answered, whispering, tears rolling down his cheeks
"And why would i spare you and not squish you under this foot?"
"I-i don't know... please... please give me another chance! I'll do anything! I'll serve you forever!"

Those words hit Erina, for some reason. She didn't need another attendant, or a slave for that matter, but the fact that another human was submitting himself to her was... tantalizing to say the least.

She smiled, and removed her foot from his face, instead lunging with her open hand towards his face, whispering "Very well then..."
The movement was instinctive, without much meaning besides obeying what her body was telling her to do.

The terrified boy could only watch as her soft pale hand slowly approached his face, and got seemed to get bigger for the perspective, making her look like she was actually enormous compared to him and he was actually ant-sized.

When her hand eventually gripped his face, Erina felt warmth building up in her palm, and than saw, much to her surprise, that the middle-schooler's frame, which was already pretty modest, was shrinking even further.

After the initial surprise, she smiled and kept doing whatever she was doing.

The boy at first thought that the growing hand gripping his face was just a stress-induced illusion or something, but when he realized what was happening he started to scream, which was immeadiately cut short by the grip of her hand which was already big enough to cover his whole face.

He stopped shrinking at around one inch, and at which point he was completely engulfed in her giant fist. She raised it to face level, and slowly unfolded her fingers, letting the terrified tiny boy see the light and, more importantly, her enormous face.

He was way too scared to say or do anything, like a mouse in front of a tiger, so she said: "Congratulations, i decided to spare your family from going bankrupt. You should be grateful".

The boy started to bawl and prostated himself, repeating "Thank you, Erina-sama, thank you!". Erina let him continue for a bit, then added "You know, i'm not doing this for free... i still need to rinse my mouth from that pathetic excuse of a dish."

At that point, it dawned on the boy that he was extremely near her face. He could feel her hot breath on his face. He started to feel true terror, and freezed.

"I see you understand. The price of your failure... is your life" Erina giggled, pinching his body between her fingers, and raising him high up in the air, directly above her face.
He started struggling and crying, however he could do nothing but watch as her gigantic mouth opened and revealed the wet inside.

"Goodbye, little ant, enjoy the trip to my belly!" She said, and let him fall down towards the abyss of her dark throat.

The boy screamed and cried during the whole descent, until he was silenced by the jaws of the high school girl shutting right after he zoomed past her teeth.

Erina savored the taste, finding him different but equally delicious as the other tinies. To think that human meat had this flavor! 

In the end, she decided to put an end to his suffering, and swallowed him whole, banishing him to her digestive system "Gulp.. ahhhh, so good"

After a couple of seconds, Erina realized she had just killed a human being.
She didn't plan to, she only went with the flow, then she discovered her new power, then he became so tiny and looked so yummy she just couldn't help herself... 
"Whatever" she thought

The events of the last days contributed to alter her perception of other living beings.  
If they couldn't defend themselves, they deserved to die. Nature worked like this, the strong survives, the weak perishes. Big fish eats small fish.

And she was the one deserving to stand at the top of the food chain. Other living things were beneath her and existed simply to be eaten by her and be her food. 

What other reason could explain the 137 tiny bodies that were currently being digested in the depths of her belly? 

Erina pulled out her phone, and sent a text to Hisako:
"Send in the next"