Zarian handed the dallion to Naomi, the item shining under the faint sconce lights. Its seven gems and intricate engravings drew the eye. Its solid weight ant it was real and worth more than anyone could imagine.
It was a divine item, after all.
“Have it joined with your soul,” Zarian ordered. “With this, you get a second shot. Once a week.”
Naomi looked hard into Zarian’s eyes. “Sir, no.”
“Naomi, you’re my friend and the closest to other than Ariana. And you already know I don’t have many people in my life who care for . So shut up and take this into your soul.”
“Wow, that would be so romantic if you didn’t call her a friend,” Bianca said.
Everyone ignored her, Zarian especially. He was a ss of a human being. He’d been through a lot.
Yet, he could still care about others anyway. So he wanted Naomi safer, because she was risking her life being the upfront warrior while helping him.
He was strong enough to protect himself, and he could always get stronger. He shouldn’t need the dallion. And if he died, then that was his own fault for either being too dumb or too weak.
Naomi accepted the dallion. She frowned at her side, where she’d taken a deadly hit. The wound had mostly healed except for a fleshy scar.
She mumbled thanks to Zarian, then she turned to thank Gilbert once again.
Everyone was gathered in the middle of the massacre. The Slave Cook was around the corner, but Zarian wanted to look through the goblin gear before they finally settled down.
Everyone was tired. Bianca and Hannah looked toward the Slave Cook’s location like miserable children. Gilbert distracted himself by piling together so decent stuff on a clean enough spot. Ten goblin skeletons helped him.
“I think this is the best of the stuff, chief,” Gilbert said, wiping his brow free of sweat with his muscled forearm.
Zarian nodded before looking at the skeletons. “I’m dismissing you for now. See you next ti, Loner and everyone.”
Loner and the skeletons rattled around as their way of saying farewell. Then Zarian closed the Grimoire of Black Magic 101.
The skeletons fell into neat piles that Para swept up and stored inside her pocket dinsion. The spectral chains wrapped the grimoire up and drew it into his soul for safekeeping.
Zarian felt relieved. His ragged aura could use the reprieve from staying on constantly. He’d really stretched himself thin. But that ca with benefits he wanted to ponder on later.
First, he examined the spoils of war.
There were a few swords that could use so sharpening. There were a few wooden shields that only had a couple chips and dents in them. There were even axes, war hamrs, maces, and even spiked gauntlets.
Only one was uncommon:
“Bianca, congrats. You get to have a magic sword,” Zarian said, giving it to Para, who handed it off directly.
“Oh, yay, gracias. I’ll need to shop for a matching bag.”
Zarian shook his head at her. She was so ridiculous. She took the sword without asking about the freaking magic.
“What’s the magic on it?” Hannah asked for Bianca.
“Here, try it on . Activate it. I’ll be fine.”
Bianca turned the falchion this way and that before looking in confusion at Zarian. He told her to push her will on it to turn it on.
Behold, the sword flickered brightly, and Zarian felt distracted and annoyed.
“Woo, a rave sword! Party with the Slave Cook!” Bianca cheered.
This girl is a real wild card, Zarian thought, gobsmacked by Bianca’s flippy, ditzy attitude.
“Chief, we’re losing it,” Gilbert said. “If she’s cracked, maybe I’ll crack, too.”
Zarian wanted to call them weak. He’d gone hungry and thirsty plenty of tis. He turned back to sifting through the best junk and handed stuff off.
A shield and mace pair went to Gilbert. Hannah received a buckler shield and short spear. Naomi took a backup sword in case any of the dark blades failed.
Then Zarian selected a few more spares as backup for Para to store in her pocket dinsion. She still had room because of her level ups.
She was full to the brim with at, too. She wouldn’t partake in whatever the Slave Cook offered, for now.
“So, what if the Slave Cook is dicing up humans and serving them piping hot?” Zarian gave the group a ragged grin. “That’ll suck, won’t it?”
“Can I stick you with my new shiny sword?” Bianca returned a tight smile.
Zarian chuckled and turned to Naomi for her to co to his defense. She was looking elsewhere, pretending that she hadn’t heard a thing.
“You can only push won so far, Senor Zarian. We have a secret girly cabal for a reason.” Bianca waved her sword at him while it remained off.
“First one there gets first dibs,” Zarian said.
“Oh, !” Bianca dashed off.
“You sure she shouldn’t get the dallion? She just volunteered to be the taste tester.” Naomi sighed as everyone strode over at a calr pace behind Bianca.
Para had already scouted the way forward and deed things safe enough. She was truly the best parasite a man could ask for.
As for Naomi’s question…
“Mm, nah. She’s the type that kinda has that funny plot armor vibe. Maybe the System might favor her, especially if Wonder is her highest stat,” Zarian said.
“Um, co again? Funny plot armor? The System favoring? The hell’s all that supposed to an in this godless place?” Gilbert asked.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“I’m curious as well,” Hannah added softly.
Zarian chuckled dryly. “Just random stuff I think up. Sotis it hits from sowhere so far out of pocket it’s unbelievable. Don’t think too hard about it. I’m a certified weirdo, y’know?”
“Whatever you say, chief,” Gilbert replied.
“That’s the spirit!”
Zarian was undoubtedly delirious from weariness, thirst, and hunger. Thankfully, he was good at acting functional during tis like these. Or so he hoped.
When he stumbled a little on the last length to the Slave Cook, Para assisted him, like he was a puppet getting held up by strings. A little creepy, sure, but Para ant well.
“Bianca stopped at the doorway,” Naomi pointed out. “Either she’s not entirely dumb or there’s sothing worth… whoa.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gilbert said.
“Not the best phrasing, but yes,” Hannah murmured.
Zarian straightened up and moved ahead of everyone. He stopped a few inches in front of Bianca, the toes of his taped-up sneakers hanging over the edge of the first step.
From here, he had a wide view of the entire room. It was far different from anything he’d seen so far in the Infinita Star System.
It was the biggest kitchen Zarian had ever co across, almost as wide-open as an entire apartnt. It also had plenty of height where several people could stand on each other’s shoulders before touching the ceiling.
The magic sconces on the walls emitted a soft bluish green light, brighter than the weak light sources Zarian had seen in the halls while feeling less botherso to his Dark Affinity. The light gave the entire kitchen an enchanting, ethereal vibe. Like sothing from a painted fantasy picture book.
The walls were neat, clean, and covered in hanging pots, pans, and utensils. They had spaces carved into the stone that served as shelves.
Glancing around, even up high, Zarian saw even more pots, jars, sacks, and other objects containing an overflow of ingredients. Spices, herbs, roots, mushrooms, and more stuff he didn’t recognize.
On the furthest walls were wooden chests. Each one had glowing bluish-white engravings. Beside that was a basin filled with flowing water from a pipe in the wall. The basin had a lip where the overflow entered another basin built with a drainage.
The water looked crystal clear like it ca from a fresh underground spring, almost perfect for drinking.
Seeing all that beautiful water was triggering. Sothing primal crawled up from Zarian’s throat and ca out as a croak. He heard similar sounds from the others.
Still, Zarian waited to take in more of the kitchen. He examined the massive cauldron set against the leftmost wall. It was beside what looked like a dieval oven that also worked as a furnace and had a stovetop compartnt attached to the oven’s side. More ingredients glead under the magic sconce lights, set on stone shelves above the boiling stew and sizzling at in a wide pan.
There were tables and chairs at the center of the room for dining. And between the dining area and the main cooking implents was a long stone island with cooking boards, more utensils, a hand-pump faucet with a sink, and more runic engravings with glowing symbols.
There were plenty more little things to see. Zarian could learn a lot about a place that soone cared for and filled with little knick knacks over the years.
He’d never had much to claim in his life. So looking at other people’s stuff was always interesting.
Staying put to examine it all grew difficult for Zarian while enduring the onslaught of delicious slls slamming at him repeatedly. He felt like he was going to fall into a stupor or go into a ravenous rampage to get sothing to drink or eat.
A heavy knife slamd down into a cooking board with a final thunk. A weary sigh reached out to Zarian and his group over the sound of crackling flas and hissing steam rising into the glowing air vents in the ceiling.
Then a pair of little feet plodded from the kitchen island to a spot a few feet away from the steps leading down onto the kitchen floor.
A goblin stood in the way between Zarian and salvation.
This one looked female based on the slight difference in ratio between her hips and her shoulders. But even those proportions were slightly off since goblins had a more unique anatomy compared to humans.
She also seed more sturdy than prior goblins. She was more well-kept, too. Her big, purple-white bush of hair was straightened into a mohawk up front before it transitioned into a long braid that reached down to the back of her knees.
Her skin was green like a sumr leaf. Her eyes were wide, yellow, and cat-like with almond-shaped irises. Her ears were even bigger than the past goblins, like baby palm leaves, and they shifted up and down at curious angles.
She was wearing a stained apron and so cloth wraps underneath. Still primal-looking, but at least she was more put together.
Zarian couldn’t criticize. He was bare chested and covered in gri. In the looks departnt, the goblin was interesting. More importantly, she didn’t fly into a murderous rage against them.
Though there was one concerning detail. When Zarian tried to use Identify on her, this happened:
That could only an one thing. The goblin was way higher in level than any other goblin they’d faced. Or she was more powerful than Zarian.
“Using Identify without asking can be rude in many places,” the goblin woman said in English, her scratchy voice matching the crooning Zarian had heard earlier. “So can feel it as an invasive scan through their aura. Others look for how your eyes squint if they can’t feel it. I do both.”
“Oh, uh, my bad,” Zarian said.
“It could speak,” Gilbert mumbled.
“She,” Bianca corrected.
“Sir, do we fight?” Naomi asked.
“Fighting would be a bad idea, newbies,” said the goblin.
Zarian could feel Naomi getting into an aggressive stance without even looking at her. She was the only one with high enough physical stats to shrug off the thirst and hunger.
Zarian felt so rising annoyance.
Without looking, he reached behind him and grabbed Naomi by the back of her neck. He squeezed like he was dealing with a temperantal dog.
He scolded her: “Chill out, Naomi. Don’t waste what I just gave you, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re being rude, aren’t we?” Hannah piped up with careful boldness. “Please forgive us. We’re thirsty, hungry, and have been attacked constantly since we’ve co here. And this is our first ti finding anyone who’ll speak to us civilly despite … obvious differences.”
“That would make sense for you to be attacked. This is an evil territory. Other than the human with the strange cloak, the rest of you don’t feel evil.” The goblin looked them up and down like a wide-eyed cat. “That’s okay. The kitchen is mostly a neutral sanctuary. And I’m not that evil to turn you away, anyway.”
She turned back and plodded over to the kitchen island. “Take a seat at the tables. Let clean my hands. I’ll serve you drinks and food.”
“How much?” Zarian asked, slowly releasing Naomi once he felt she was calr.
For so reason, she didn’t seem to mind the handsy treatnt. At least from him.
“Let know if my food tastes good, and that’s paynt enough. I also have bedrolls so you can rest. I heard you fighting the others, and since you’re alive, it looks like you worked hard to get here.”
Zarian didn’t take a step down just yet. He watched the little four-foot goblin use a step stool to reach the hand-pump and sink. She was much tinier than the other goblins, even if she seed strangely sturdy or more rocksteady. Was that how they were supposed to look without corruption?
She pumped a few tis to pour water from the faucet and wash her hands. She even used a bar of soap.
“I’m going to have … a lot of questions,” Zarian said. “I apologize ahead of ti if that annoys you.”
Her big ears tilted up.
Yeah, she was very, very cat-like.
“Hm, well, I may or may not answer all of your questions. It depends. For now, I’ll tell you this. My na is Foodie. I’m a Level 37 Strong Cook Prodigy. I’m the daughter of a goblin champion, one of the few to make it past Level 200. I like to cook. And I like to read about new places with different ways to cook. Let cook for you.”
Level 200?! If Zarian didn’t respect the asure of Foodie before, he certainly did now. He barely registered her request to cook for him and the others, his mind racing to other points of interest.
“Why aren’t you corrupted like the others?” Zarian blurted out, ignoring the urge to run down to the dining table. He could hear Bianca whining and Gilbert groaning.
Foodie stopped and blinked up at them slowly, once again, very much like a cat. Then she turned back to rinsing her hands thoroughly before she said, “Because they are weak and I am strong.”
Seriously, was it that simple? Zarian still hesitated.
Foodie didn’t look up again. “Ah, I think I know why you’re not moving. Guests should have ti to wash their hands. I’ve nearly forgotten. Co here to the sink and wash your hands first. I’ll pump the water for you.”
Finally, Zarian gave in.
He took the first step down into the picturesque kitchen and diner. He felt a strange shift in the air. He felt safer sohow.
Smiling, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)