The Valdris inn had a common room with two windows facing the main road and a fireplace Kai had lit twice since they arrived — the first time because it was cold, and the second because Serah said she liked the sound it made.

Today he lit it for both reasons.

Serah was in the largest armchair, staring at the fire with the expression of someone actively trying to do nothing.

"Since I met you," she said, "there’s never been time to do nothing."

Kai was on the floor with his back against the armchair, staring at the ceiling.

"I know."

"How did you do it in your world?"

Kai considered.

"Videos, mostly." Pause. "And food I wasn’t allowed to eat during training."

"What kind of food?"

"The kind that tastes good but does nothing useful for the body."

Serah processed this.

"And that worked?"

"For resting, yes." Kai looked at the ceiling. "The brain needs to do something that doesn’t matter. If everything you do matters, the brain doesn’t rest."

Serah considered it for a moment.

Then she let her shoulders drop.

Then she let drop the shoulder tension that remained after the shoulders.

Then she closed her eyes.

---

The silver markings began to pulse differently.

Kai noticed — the rhythm slower, deeper.

Then the armchair creaked.

Then it was bigger. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Kai turned.

Serah in her full primordial wolf form occupied the armchair and part of the floor around it — silver hair, eyes completely silver.

She looked at him.

"Sorry." Her ears were slightly back. "It had been a while since I’d done it. I got too relaxed."

"Don’t apologize."

"It’s just—"

"Serah."

She looked at him.

"You look good."

Her ears stopped being back.

Kai sat up, extended his hand, and scratched her snout with his knuckles.

He kissed her nose.

"Don’t move. I’m going to cook something."

Serah watched him head toward the inn’s kitchen.

’Cooking.’

’Kai cooking.’

’What will he make with Aethon ingredients? Something similar to what he described from his world? The forbidden food from training — what form will that take here. It could be something with the spices from the north market, which have an aromatic profile that the ingredients from his world might...’

The markings pulsed.

’I’m thinking about food.’

’About his food.’

’This is what resting feels like.’

Serah rested her head on her front paws and watched the fire.

---

"Hey."

Kai was in the kitchen with the inn’s ingredients in front of him — roots from the northern sector, game protein the innkeeper kept in salt, spices that had names in Aethon that didn’t correspond to anything from his world but that smelled like things that did.

He looked at the stream camera.

"Are you ready for a cooking stream?"

---

[DraconicLegacy: COOKING? KAI COOKING?]

[Udo_Ehmen: it’s 2am here and I stayed for this. worth it.]

[Per_sudin: viewers: 890,000. the ones who really follow Kai. the loyal ones.]

[Jack_Moore: 🍳🍳🍳]

[Warwolf: 🔪🍖🔥 LET’S GO KAI 🔥🍖🔪]

[Drakeking: Serah in wolf form in the background looking toward the kitchen. that image.]

---

Kai looked at the ingredients.

Reorganized them.

Looked at them again.

"The salt-cured game protein from Aethon has a texture similar to cured meat from my world." He picked up the piece. "If I leave it in cold water for half an hour to draw out the excess salt and then sear it over high heat..."

[Dr_snow: HE’S EXPLAINING THE TECHNIQUE]

[Chris_Murray: it’s Shokugeki but in isekai]

[DraconicLegacy: 🍖🔥🍖🔥🍖 SEAR IT]

"The northern sector roots." Kai examined them. "Dense. If I slice them thin and sauté them in the fat from the seared meat, they turn into something similar to what in my world we called..."

[Udo_Ehmen: what? what did you call them?]

[Per_sudin: KAI DON’T LEAVE THE SENTENCE UNFINISHED]

"It doesn’t matter what it’s called. What matters is how it turns out."

[Jack_Moore: THIS MAN]

[Warwolf: 😤😤😤]

[Drakeking: 😤😤😤🔥]

Kai lit the inn’s kitchen fire — flint stone, the system they used in Valdris, which took four attempts to light because it wasn’t the technology Kai was familiar with.

[Dr_snow: four attempts to light the fire. the man who defeated an SS vampire with a window.]

[Chris_Murray: combat skills: 10/10. cooking skills level 1: in progress.]

"Serah," Kai called from the kitchen.

The wolf’s head appeared in the doorframe.

"Do you have any preference?"

Serah looked at him.

That you make it.

She said: "Whatever."

Kai smiled and went back to the fire.

---

[DraconicLegacy: "whatever" said with the face of someone who has a very specific preference]

[Udo_Ehmen: Serah in wolf form watching Kai cook is the content I needed]

[Per_sudin: 🐺❤️🍳]

[Jack_Moore: 🔥🔥🔥 DOES IT SMELL GOOD? can anyone smell it? no? just me?]

The process took twenty minutes.

Kai narrated every step — not with the drama of the competition cooks from his world, but with the calm tone of someone explaining something they find interesting. Why temperature matters. Why the order of ingredients changes the result. Why Aethon salt is different from his world’s salt in texture but similar in function.

[Warwolf: this is the calmest stream there’s been and I’m completely hypnotized]

[Drakeking: 890k viewers in silence watching Kai cook. no creatures. no combat. no A_D_M. just the pan.]

[Dr_snow: this is what happens when you have real followers and not just curious ones.]

---

The result smelled good.

It looked approximately like food — the kind of approximately that happens when the ingredients are right but the technique isn’t perfect and the technique isn’t perfect because the ingredients aren’t the ones the technique knows.

Kai served two plates.

He brought them to the common room.

Serah had returned to semi-human form — not completely, her ears still wolf-like, her markings at the maximum intensity of rest — and was in the armchair staring at the plate Kai set in front of her.

She smelled it.

Took a bite.

Didn’t say anything.

Kai looked at her.

"Is it good?"

Serah took another bite without responding.

Kai interpreted that correctly and ate too.

---

Aldric appeared.

He didn’t come through the door — he was at the door, which was already open, coffee in hand and the expression of someone passing by who noticed the smell.

"May I?"

Kai pointed at the available chair.

Aldric sat down. Served himself a plate. Ate.

"It’s good," he said.

[Chris_Murray: ALDRIC APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE AGAIN]

[DraconicLegacy: "may I?" / points at chair / eats / "it’s good" — Aldric in four moves]

[Udo_Ehmen: WHY DON’T KAI AND SERAH REACT TO ALDRIC APPEARING OUT OF NOWHERE]

[Per_sudin: because it’s normal now. Aldric always appears.]

[Jack_Moore: 😂😂😂 ALDRIC THE ETERNAL 😂😂😂]

[Warwolf: the chat is more surprised than Kai and Serah combined. that says everything about how long they’ve known Aldric.]

---

The gifts began materializing.

Today’s viewers weren’t the thirty million from the battle. They were the nine hundred thousand who stayed when there was no action, watching and talking with Kai about cooking techniques at two in the morning their world’s time.

A bag of chips from his world. A bottle of hot sauce. A box of something the system classified as "processed corn snack" that Serah took before Kai could explain what it was.

She smelled it.

Ate it.

Her ears moved forward.

"What is this?"

"Corn with salt and something my world calls artificial flavoring."

"Artificial?"

"Made in a lab. Not in a field."

Serah processed this and took another.

[Drakeking: SERAH EATING CHIPS WITH WOLF EARS IS THE BEST CONTENT ON THE STREAM]

[Dr_snow: 🐺🌽🐺🌽]

[Chris_Murray: she doesn’t know what she’s eating and she loves it. the universal human experience.]

Aldric received the hot sauce. Examined it. Opened it. Smelled it.

He drank his coffee.

He returned the bottle without comment.

---

Lira entered when the fire was already lower.

Without the administrator’s face. Without the labyrinth creatures. Without the Grimvast event behind her.

Just Lira — leather jacket, sunglasses she took off upon entering because it was already nighttime, her shoulder still responding slightly differently from the other since the battle.

She sat in the chair she now considered hers.

With the weight of someone who isn’t tired from combat.

She was tired from thinking.

"How did it go?" Kai said.

"Boring."

Aldric asked if she wanted something to eat.

"No."

Aldric left her a plate anyway — the game protein with the sautéed roots, a portion he’d set aside when he saw Lira’s shadow through the window before she reached the door.

Lira looked at the plate.

"Kai added something to the seasoning," Aldric said, and got up to get more coffee.

Lira looked at Kai.

Kai was looking at the fire.

"A little blood," he said, without taking his eyes off the flames. "For flavor. I don’t know if it works in cooked food, but I thought it might."

Lira looked at the plate.

A gesture.

A gesture without being asked.

Without a tactical reason to do it.

Just because...

She stopped herself.

No. That’s not it.

It’s practical consideration. He knows I need to feed and that normal food isn’t enough. It’s logical.

It’s logical.

She looked at the plate again.

The protein with the seasoning that smelled like the inn’s kitchen and like something she recognized immediately — the same frequency she’d detected on Kai’s neck, here processed by the heat and mixed with the ingredients but present.

Without deciding to, the fork reached the plate.

A small bite.

The flavor arrived before she could prepare to receive it.

Oh.

Out loud she said: "It’s good."

---

[DraconicLegacy: "IT’S GOOD" WITH THAT FACE]

[Udo_Ehmen: Lira said she didn’t want to eat and she’s had three bites]

[Per_sudin: "a little blood for flavor. I don’t know if it works" — Kai thought of Lira while cooking. without anyone asking.]

[Jack_Moore: Lira processing Kai’s gesture and actively denying it in her mind while eating]

[Warwolf: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) "it’s good" said with the face of someone having a transformative culinary experience ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

[Drakeking: the plate is empty. Lira says it’s good. the plate is empty.]

---

Aldric returned with the coffee.

He looked at Lira’s plate.

Looked at Lira.

Drank.

"Three new quests came in this afternoon." He pulled the papers from the inner pocket of his jacket. "Two are standard. The third..." He looked at them. "The third, no hunter in the southern sector wants to take."

"Why?" Kai said.

"Annual migration." Aldric read the paper. "Of Crystal Oxen."

Kai looked at him.

"What’s a Crystal Ox?"

Aldric drank his coffee before answering.

"Something the hunters in the southern sector prefer to wait until it passes."

Serah, still with her wolf ears, tilted her head.

Lira set her fork down on the empty plate.

All three looked at Aldric.

Aldric drank.

"They’re harmless," he said. "Individually."