What's the next step? Alternative routes. Strengthen patrols. Verify intel from Hearthlight. Prepare the Sanctuary for possible scarcity. The tactical logistical chain groaned in Mara's mind, a task list growing faster than Nightshade Berries in the Twilight Garden. Each decision birthed two new questions, each question demanded a backup plan. The exhaustion was different from physical exhaustion; this was mental exhaustion, a sense of saturation with the eternal strategy game where the pieces were the lives of people now her responsibility.
"My Lord." Lazarus's voice cut through her train of thought. The necromancer stood at the balcony doorway in a dramatically hunched position, a parchment scroll clutched in his hand like a ceremonial sword. "The evaluation meeting awaits your presence in the library. Points regarding potential logistical routes proposed by... ah, our new trading partners, require your unmatched wisdom."
Nyxaria didn't turn. Her eyes remained fixed on the plaza below, where two refugee children were running around chasing a small stone lizard darting between floor cracks. Their laughter, light and unburdened, sounded foreign to her ears. They don't know. They don't need to know about blockades and politics. "Postpone it," she said, her voice flatter than she intended.
"My Lord?" Lazarus sounded confused. "But... the schedule..."
"Not today," Nyxaria cut him off. She turned her face, and for a moment, her ruby red eyes that usually radiated cold authority, looked empty—an emptiness that didn't belong to a Demon Queen, but to a tired human. "I'm sick of parchments and calculations."
Lazarus fell silent, his dramatic expression shifting to genuine bewilderment. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, he bowed deeper. "As... My Lord commands."
Yes, I'm sick of it. As Nyxaria turned and walked along the empty corridor, Mara's mind chafed. Eight thousand hours managing cooldowns, optimizing skill rotations, calculating damage. Now I have to manage supply routes and assess market risks. It feels like office work with a fantasy skin. What's the difference?
She arrived at the inner courtyard, a small open space with stone benches and a water pool fed by stalactite drips. Lumi was there, sitting at the pool's edge, her thin fingers touching the water surface that distorted the reflection of her pale face. She wore Nyxaria's cloak dragging, its ends wet. She wasn't playing. Just staring.
Something about the way the child sat—head bowed, shoulders slightly raised—halted Mara's steps. This wasn't Lumi's usual pose, which was usually full of attention to something invisible. This was the pose of a child who was... hungry. Or sad. Or both.
She hasn't eaten lunch. The realization came late. I was busy with Torin, with contracts, with economic threats. Who fed her?
Nyxaria approached, her shadow falling to cover Lumi's small body. The child turned, her heterochromic eyes—one gold, one dead gray—lifting toward her. No expression. But her wet hand reached for the edge of Nyxaria's cloak and pulled it gently, once.
"My stomach is making noise," Lumi said, her voice plain and small.
That sentence, so simple, sliced through all strategic thought chains in Mara's head like a sword cutting thread.
She's hungry. She just said she's hungry.
Lazarus with his complicated food rituals. Seris with patrol schedules. The refugee NPCs with the communal kitchen system still in chaos. And she, Nyxaria, level 999 Demon Queen, who could annihilate armies with a single thought, didn't know what the child she protected ate for lunch.
"You're hungry," Nyxaria said, and it sounded like the stupidest statement in the world.
Lumi nodded. She didn't cry. Didn't complain. Just stared with eyes that said everything and nothing.
And that's when the decision came. Not from logic. Not from a ruler's obligation. But from something deeper, more primal, and completely irrational.
Today, no meetings. No strategy. No Church blockades.
Today, we cook.
"Alright," Nyxaria said, her voice suddenly sounding strange to her own ears. "Let's... make something."
Taking Lumi to the communal kitchen was an experience that made her feel like an intruder in foreign territory. The room was long, with a large hearth at the end and rough wooden tables covered in knife marks. Several NPC women from Willow's End were busy slicing tubers, their conversation stopping abruptly when the black-red figure with elegant horns appeared at the door.
The atmosphere froze. Knives stilled. Breath caught.
Nyxaria ignored the fear. She turned her attention to the shelves containing food ingredients: sacks of Underworld Tubers from Hearthlight's delivery, several pieces of hanging smoked meat, small purple onions, packets of coarse salt. Okay. Cooking. What do people cook? Soup. Soup is... liquid. With contents.
"You," she said to the frozen NPCs, and they almost jumped. "I need... a pan. Or pot. And water."
One woman, face pale, nodded quickly and hurriedly fetched a large copper cauldron. Another poured water from a bucket into it.
Good. Step one: container and liquid. Mara felt like she was following a crafting tutorial that had no UI. Step two: ingredients.
She took some tubers, cleaned them with a brief [Phase Shift]—the layer of soil immediately vanished, making the NPCs gasp—then threw them into the cauldron. Cut? Ah, later. She grabbed a piece of smoked meat, tried to tear it with her hands. STR 9,999. The meat shattered into pieces, some of which flew to the wall.
"...My Lord, perhaps... Need a knife?" one woman whispered, her voice trembling.
"No need," Nyxaria replied, now focused. She crushed an onion with her fingers, and the onion burst into watery pulp. The aroma was strong. That's good, right?
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She poured everything—whole tubers, meat fragments, onion pulp—into the cauldron of cold water. Lumi observed from close by, her wide eyes blinking.
Fire. She turned to the hearth. Firewood was already stacked. She pointed her index finger, intending to ignite a small flame. A sliver of thin darkness energy, controlled with wrong intent, shot out.
[Void Severance] on micro scale—a beam of reality-severing energy—struck the pile of wood.
KRRAK!
The wood didn't burn. It split into perfect pieces of the same size, each piece having a surface as smooth as polished stone, before then—due to the residual nature of the skill—began to smoke and finally ignited with an unnatural blackish-purple fire.
The purple fire hissed, emitting heat that felt more piercing than ordinary fire.
Okay. Purple fire. That's... exotic.
She placed the cauldron over the purple fire. The water began to boil rapidly, producing bubbles that were also purple for a moment.
Now... seasoning. Coarse salt. She took a full handful and sprinkled it.
From her side, Lumi pulled her cloak again. The child pointed to the rack in the corner. "Yellow thing. Usually used."
Yellow thing? Mara walked closer. It was a chunk of dried animal fat, maybe butter. She took it and threw it into the soup. The fat melted instantly, creating an oily layer on the surface that began to bubble.
Bread! Soup needs bread. She saw several loaves of hard bread on a board. She took one, intending to divide it. Her hand, without thinking, applied the pressure usually used to crush rocks.
The bread shattered into dust and hard fragments the size of pebbles. Some scattered to the floor, some—due to LUK 3—fell precisely into the soup cauldron.
...No problem. Crackers. That's homemade crackers.
After about fifteen minutes where she occasionally stirred with a wooden stick (which broke twice due to her strength), an aroma began to rise from the cauldron. It wasn't the aroma of food. It was the aroma of wet earth after rain mixed with the smoke of burnt meat and something metallic, like heated iron.
The soup itself was a panorama of disaster. The broth was brownish-gray with a purple oily sheen. Uncut tuber chunks floated like boulders. Meat shards drifted aimlessly. The hard bread "crackers" formed sediment at the bottom. And above it, the purple fire from the wood still gave a strange tint to the bursting bubbles.
Nyxaria stood upright, staring at her work. This... is a culinary experiment.
Lumi approached, sniffing the aroma. Her small nose wrinkled. But she didn't step back.
That's when Seris and Lazarus entered the kitchen, probably hearing the sound of small explosions or smelling the strange aroma beginning to spread. They stopped at the door.
Lazarus looked at the cauldron, then looked at Nyxaria, then back at the cauldron. His dark gray face turned greenish pale. "My Lord... is that... a new biological weapon? I can feel... my will to live diminishing just by smelling it."
Seris, beside him, froze. Then, something rare happened: the corner of the elf's usually tight lips twitched. She pressed her lips, her shoulders shook once. A suppressed sound similar to a snort came from her nose.
"Is there a problem?" Nyxaria asked, her voice flat, challenging.
"No, My Lord," Seris answered quickly, but her eyes sparkled with an unusual light—the light of pure amusement. "Just... surprised by... My Lord's innovative culinary methods."
Mara, inside her head, wanted to protest. She's laughing. She must be laughing. I'm level 999 and can't make soup that doesn't look like toxic waste.
But the next action belonged to Lumi. The child took a small wooden bowl from the shelf, approached Nyxaria, and stared at her.
Nyxaria, with a heart that was strangely pounding (a physiological sensation unrelated to combat), ladled the soup with a large spoon. Some stone "crackers" came up too. She poured it into Lumi's bowl, then handed it over.
Lumi sat on the bench, staring at her bowl. She blew on the surface of the soup still boiling with small purple flames (the flames extinguished when touched by the wooden spoon). Then, with full attention, she scooped up a piece of still-hard tuber and a bit of broth.
She put it in her mouth.
Time seemed to stop. Lazarus turned his face away, preparing for drama. Seris stopped smiling, her eyes watching. Nyxaria—Mara—just remained silent, waiting.
Lumi chewed. And chewed. And chewed. Her usually flat face grimaced slightly. She stopped, swallowed with difficulty. Then, she stared at Nyxaria. Those gold and gray eyes looked straight into the ruby red eyes.
"It tastes strange," Lumi said, honest and unfiltered. Then, she added, "But... warm."
She took another spoonful. And another. She didn't eat all the hard tubers. She avoided the burnt meat fragments. But she drank the broth, and ate the softer tuber parts. She finished about a third of the bowl, then stopped, placing the spoon carefully.
"Already full?" Nyxaria asked, her voice sounding strange to her own ears—soft, almost uncertain.
Lumi nodded. Then, something extraordinary happened. The child's thin lips curved. Only a little. Very small. But that was a smile. A small light on her pale face full of secrets. "Ghost Mama tried," she said.
That sentence, and that small smile, struck Mara harder than any [Void Severance] attack.
She smiled. Because of this terrible soup. Because I wanted to try.
She looked at the bowl, then at Lumi's face, then at the grayish-purple soup in the cauldron still hissing with remnants of magical fire. A deep, simple, humbling realization descended like water droplets from stalactites, penetrating all layers of Demon Queen and veteran gamer.
Level 999. STR 9,999. INT 12,500. Can erase armies from the map.
Can't make decent soup for a hungry child. And that... didn't matter to her.
Absolute power turned out to be meaningless compared to warmth in a child's stomach. Reputation as Catastrophic Disaster turned out to be useless in the face of a small genuine smile from clumsy effort. The world might want to blame her, fight her, besiege her. But in this messy kitchen, with strange aromas filling the air, there was a small victory not recorded by any system.
Lazarus, seeing Lumi's smile and Nyxaria's silent expression, finally approached. With courage born from devotion and perhaps a bit of pity, he took a spoon and tried the soup himself.
He immediately grimaced, his eyes squinting. "Ah! It tastes like... graveyard soil seasoned with sorrow and life's mistakes!" he exclaimed, dramatic as usual. But then, he saw Lumi, and saw Nyxaria still silent. His voice softened. "But... warm. There's... intention in it."
Seris couldn't hold back anymore. The laughter she'd been suppressing erupted—not mocking laughter, but free, surprised, and warm laughter. Her usually cold voice, now light and alive. "I can't believe it. I truly can't believe it." She approached the cauldron, sniffed. "You used [Void Severance] to light a fire? That's... efficient, I suppose."
Nyxaria finally moved. She took Lumi's bowl still half full. "You don't have to force yourself," she said to Lumi.
"Not forcing," Lumi answered. She held the edge of Nyxaria's cloak again. "Ghost Mama made this."
Those words were so sincere, so simple, that they changed the atmosphere in the kitchen. The initial tension from Nyxaria's presence slowly melted, replaced by bewilderment, then by a strange intimacy created from shared failure. The NPC women who were initially frightened, now looked at each other with confusion and slight amusement. One of them, carefully, stepped forward.
"Your Majesty," she said politely. "If you permit... maybe tomorrow, we could show... how to slice tubers with a knife. And ordinary fire is also quite good."
That wasn't criticism. That was an offer of help. An acknowledgment that they, ordinary NPCs, had something they could teach their ruler.
Nyxaria looked at the woman. Then she nodded, once. "Tomorrow," she agreed.
[System Feedback]
Non-Combat Activity Recorded: Sovereign Engaged in Subsistence Crafting.Efficiency Rating: Catastrophic.Morale Impact on Non-Combatants: Marginally Positive.
No experience. No reward. Only administrative notes about failure. But to Mara, that feedback was actually funny.
Efficiency Rating: Catastrophic. Yes, of course.
She left the kitchen, letting the other NPCs clean up the mess (with Lazarus's help who kept gagging). Seris walked beside her, a small smile still lingering on her lips. In the empty corridor, the elf sighed, the sound of her laughter already subsided.
"Lazarus was right," Seris said, her voice low and full of warm bewilderment. "I'm starting to forget you're a raid boss." She turned to Nyxaria, her sharp eyes now soft. "You're more like... a clumsy mother trying too hard."
That statement should have felt like an insult to the Demon Queen's reputation. But Nyxaria didn't respond. She just walked, processing those words. Clumsy mother. A title that never existed in any raid scenario. A title that felt... strangely more human than all the titles the system gave.