Alira, carefully pinching Johny's nose shut, dumped the contents of a potion bottle down his throat.
Johny sputtered and choked.
and then groaned, "Mom why does everything taste like regret… it's so cold." His voice cracked into tears and fainted again.
Kaelen wiped sweat from his brow. "He'll be fine. Just dizzy. He will wake up soon."
"Lucky," Neal muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "I really thought of burning the house down as an accident." He had thought of blaming Johny's death on an accidental house fire.
Alira's eyes widened and started sweating but for different reasons. Unable to believe what Neal had just said.
More or less Kaelen didn't hear or didn't care.
A Few Monts Later.
Johny sat on his bed, now bundled in a blanket, sipping warm water.
His face was pale. His eyes still wide. But alive.
"…so, just to be clear," he said hoarsely, "you fed poison."
"It was purified," Kaelen countered, crossing his arms.
"Mostly," Alira muttered under her breath.
Neal sighed. "We needed a test subject."
Kaelen slapped Neal in the head and placing a hand on his chest denied. "What test subject? Pure nonsense that's blasphemy to my divine cooking. We chose a pioneer, the first to ever taste the birth of new royal culinary. Not a test subject. Mind your words, others might think of it wrong."
Johny glared. "Why I'm poor? I'm fourteen. I don't know how to judge."
Kaelen kneeled dramatically, clutching Johny's hand. "But wise beyond your years! Loyal. Brave. You are the perfect culinary pioneer. This is your chance to shine, to change your fate."
"But… I passed out eating your dish."
"A price for greatness."
Johny narrowed his eyes. " No, I'm not doing this. This is too dangerous."
Kaelen the shaless one as ever lied through his teeth. "Co on Johny we will be rich and you will never have to be hungry ever again, think about Mita you don't want her to starve do you?"
Johny drooped his head low in thoughts, then he gritted his teeth and agreed "Ok for Mita I'll do it but what's in it for ?"
Kaelen's eyes glead. "Ah. Now we're talking."
He drew a pouch from his cloak and spilled a handful of glowing XP orbs onto the floor. " Oops I think my pocket is too full."
The orbs shimred softly, each one worth a tidy sum for a young adventurer.
"Ten thousand XP," Kaelen said. "'Per dish'. You try."
Johny's jaw dropped.
Alira raised an eyebrow.
Neal crossed his arms.
"Ten?" Johny echoed.
"Yup ten no more no less," Kaelen repeated with a noble nod. "You're risking life and stomach lining for our culinary future. It's only fair."
Johny's eyes sparkled.
Then Kaelen leaned back, stretching his arms. "...unless you think two thousand's fairer. After all, you only passed out for a minute."
"Wait…. WHAT?" Johny nearly toppled off the bed.
Kaelen grinned. "Five thousand."
"Kaelen," Neal warned.
Instead he lowered the price again. "Fine. Three and no more negotiations."
Johny sputtered. "You said ten! And I almost died!"
"You just fainted," Alira corrected, stifling a chuckle.
"Four thousand final offer," Kaelen said.
"FIVE!"
"…Deal."
They shook hands.
Neal rubbed his forehead and rembered the early days of academy life in Dawn and finally understood how and why so many kids fell victim to Kaelen. "I feel like I just watched a market haggle between a con artist and a desperate carrot."
Kaelen smiled. "Welco to the Ashen Boar's secret R&D team (Research and Developnt team)."
Johny slumped against his pillow, wondering for the hundredth ti how his life had turned so weird.
The following days beca… chaotic, to say the least.
The Ashen Boar's kitchen, once the domain of quiet sizzles and Derek's gruff scolding, had transford into a war zone. Flasks clinked, spices flew, and more than one pan had ended up embedded in the wall.
Each morning began with Kaelen's over-the-top confidence and ended in mild digestive warfare.
Day One
"We roast the Wyrmleaf this ti," Kaelen declared, flipping his apron like a cape.
"Last ti we roasted it," Neal replied flatly. "Johny nearly foad at the mouth." The latest chapters are always available first on *.
"That's because we didn't baste it with mana-infused garlic butter!"
"…That's not how poison works."
"It's how flavor works!"
That day, Johny glowed faint green for three hours and burped small sparks. Mita, his sister, was horrified.
Day Three
"Okay," Alira sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let's try boiling it. Simred, strained, twice purified, then re-seasoned."
Neal nodded. "Add cleansing dew from the Frahein basin. That should break the poison chains."
Kaelen grinned, already setting up a complex, tiered cooking circle with far too much confidence. "This ti, we're making magic."
They did. Magical flatulence. Johny reported feeling like he was floating. Mita found him upside down, halfway stuck in the ceiling beams. Now every ti she saw her brother her skin crawled and she beca full alert. Johny had been acting differently everyday this made her think he was possessed.
One day as the wooden door creaked open slowly as Johny stumbled in, pale as a sheet, still recovering from his latest "testing session" with Kaelen, Neal, and Alira. His legs wobbled slightly. His face looked like it had been drained of all joy, and his eyes had the dazed, distant glaze of soone who'd walked into a divine hallucination and barely made it out.
"Mita… I'm ho…"
Before he could say another word..
POMF!
A little fistful of salt smacked him square in the forehead.
"Wahhh!! Begone, evil ghost!!" cried Mita, her tiny voice wobbling with determination.
She stood at the end of the hallway, barely four feet tall due to lack of nourishnt and proper diet, her small fists balled and her eyes full of tears and wide with fear, but not enough fear to stop her from being the brave guardian of their ho.
"Uwuwwu go away you evil spirit, leave my brother alone."
She was wrapped in an oversized sweater that dragged on the floor, one of Johny's old ones, and in her other hand was the kitchen salt pouch, already halfway emptied on the floor in a protective ring.
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