After the dark cat’s failed ambush, Leo and Taylor reached the intended rift without any further incident, and Leo stared at the crack hovering in the fabric of reality. Ideally, the Planar Lords’ agents would have reported his unfortunate demise at the hands of the acidic waters, but there was still a chance that a sketch of him was floating around. He’d have to be careful once they found a plane that was actually inhabited, but they probably had some time before then.

  “Haven’t done this in a long time,” Taylor muttered, staring at the motionless crack in the world right beside him. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be,” Leo said, motioning for Taylor to take the lead. “After y-”

  Taylor had already vanished, having touched the rift and stepped straight on through to the other side. Rolling his eyes, Leo followed immediately after, thankful that rifts weren’t teleportation so much as doorways between planes. There wasn’t any chance of him appearing directly inside the space Taylor inhabited, for example, as he would instead simply knock her out of the way. Rifts themselves couldn’t actually be blocked, as solid objects weren’t able to be placed over them.

  Stepping out in a new world, which appeared at first glance to be a vast, grassy plain, Leo held his sword at the ready, his eyes darting around to go through the standard Cartographer checklist. Was he in any sort of immediate danger?

  He wasn’t. The same couldn’t be said about the poor animals off in the distance.

  He stepped through into this new plane just in time to see Taylor sprinting across the plain, using her Natural Weapons skill to launch herself the last few dozen feet in a single bound. There were a few four-legged creatures peacefully grazing that reminded him almost of the cows back home, other than the fact that they were incredibly hairy and had four sets of curly horns.

  “Taylor! I don’t think…”

  Leo sighed as Taylor landed on the first poor cow, ripping its jugular out with her own teeth before kicking off its collapsing body and slamming into the next one. Utterly eviscerating it with her claws, she turned to go after the next member of the herd, before pausing as she realized they were already sprinting away, mooing at the top of their lungs. The feral woman simply stood there, staring with her head tilted in confusion at the fleeing creatures.

  “...They are running?” she asked, as though it was the strangest thing in the world. As she turned toward him, Leo tried to ignore the bright red blood dripping from her mouth. “Why did they not attack? Were they not monsters?”

  “Magical beasts,” he sighed, jogging over to her. “And no, they aren’t. I told you before, that poison plane was weird because it was pretty much all magical beasts, other than the tiny fish in some of the toxic pools. Most planes have a mixture of magical beasts and actual animals. You just viciously tore apart two cows that were just minding their own business.”

  “Ah,” Taylor said, gazing down at the fallen bovines. “...so no monster gem?”

  “Again, magical beast,” Leo said, shaking his head. “And no, no beast gems. What skill would these things even give? The ability to produce milk? They’re cows.”

  “Never seen a cow before,” Taylor argued, licking the fresh blood covering the bottom of her face and raising her eyebrows at the unexpected flavor. “Tastes good. Fresher, almost.”

  “That’s because for the last ten years you’ve been eating not just magical beast meat, but poisoned magical beast meat,” Leo drawled, sitting down and pulling out his new knives. “Let’s hold up here for a bit. The plains are open enough that we should be able to see any threats coming from a mile away, and after eating nothing but magical beast jerky for two weeks, I would literally kill for a steak right now. Let me make us some actual food.”

  “Okay… what should I do?”

  “If you see any fruits or vegetables roaming the fields, go brutally kill them next,” Leo instructed, already carving into the downed cows.

  “Got it!”

  With his ever-vigilant companion keeping an eye out for threats, Leo let himself get lost in the familiar act of cooking. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed the comforting steps that came with preparing and cooking a meal, and he realized after a moment he had a small smile on his face as he seasoned the meat and started a fire using some of the chunks of charcoal he had in his pack. It wasn’t long before the meat was sizzling away, and Leo felt his mouth watering as the smell of something actually palatable hit his nose for the first time in weeks.

  “...What are you doing?”

  Leo nearly screamed as he turned to find Taylor’s face inches from his own, her eyes locked on the grilling meat as her nose twitched like a wild animal.

  “Don’t do that!” he snapped, flicking her in the forehead before he even realized what he was doing. His father had always thought it was hilarious to try and surprise him whenever he got distracted, and Leo had fallen into the habit of flicking him to show annoyance. Leo held his breath as he waited to see what Taylor’s reaction would be, but the feral woman didn’t even seem to notice he’d done anything. Her attention was focused solely on the grilling steaks.

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  “That does not smell like my jerky,” she finally said, not having moved an inch from his personal space.

  “That’s because your jerky is an affront to the Planar Lords,” Leo said before he could stop himself. He was still determined to stop mentioning the Planar Lords in anything resembling a good light, but old habits died hard. “Look, give me a few minutes to finish cooking this, and then you can eat. I don’t have my usual spice blend I like to use, and I wasn’t really able to tenderize the meat properly, but it will still be leagues better than your jerky.”

  Leo rolled his eyes as Taylor gave up on keeping watch entirely, instead choosing to sit beside him and stare at the meat like a sprinter waiting for the starter signal. He was pretty certain that the moment he declared it done, she would grab the burning-hot steak and shove the entire thing in her face without hesitation.

  “You know you had all these untouched spices in your cave,” he reminded her as he kept a careful eye on the meat. “Even if your pieces of meat weren’t great to begin with, you could have experimented with them.”

  “Not supposed to touch the spices,” Taylor replied robotically, frowning as she tilted her head in confusion. “I… don’t remember who told me that. But I know that was a rule I had to follow. Don’t touch the spices.”

  “Huh… Maybe your family were chefs? Or you accidentally spilled all the spices when you were little,” Leo offered, peering curiously at his companion. Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to learn a single thing about Taylor’s past over the last two weeks. Not because she was trying to hide anything from him, but simply because after the effects of having her soul mutated, combined with a decade of isolation, she didn’t seem to remember much of anything.

  “Mhm,” Taylor hummed, seeming to put the thought out of her mind. “Is it done?”

  “It’ll be another minute every time you ask,” Leo said, grinning as he found himself repeating the line he’d used so frequently with his own parents.

  Though unlike his father, Taylor actually seemed to believe that was true, and she immediately stopped talking. It wasn’t long before the steak actually was done, and without any actual plates, Leo simply removed the pan from the fire, holding it out to her.

  “It’s going to be hot, so-”

  Claws erupted from Taylor’s hands and she stabbed them into the steak, plucking it off the sizzling pan and bringing it to her mouth. Like a savage beast, she tore into the meat with a look of utter bliss on her face, cramming piece after piece into her mouth and ignoring the juices that trickled down her chin. Leo watched the display of unexpected gluttony with a mixture of both revulsion and pride, as it was both one of the grossest things he’d ever seen, yet also the first time his cooking had caused anyone to groan in pleasure while eating.

  “I want more!” Taylor demanded after finally running out of steak, her pupils dilating as she turned and actually grabbed Leo by the collar. “More of that!”

  “Alright, why don’t we take things down a notch,” Leo said slowly, realizing he might actually be in danger here. It was easy to forget that Taylor’s soul was technically half magical beast, or at the very least not exactly human. He liked to joke about her being some feral creature, but the fact of the matter was that she sort of was a feral beast wearing human clothing after everything she’d been through. Carefully putting the pan down, he gently put his hands on top of Taylor’s, easing himself free from her grasp with a bit more of a struggle than he’d expected. “Sorry, I didn’t realize what effect an actual, decent meal would have on you after all this time. Don’t worry, you killed two entire cows before I could stop you, there’s plenty more meat where that came from. I’m more than happy to cook some more steaks for you, but you need to calm down.”

  Leo winced as he remembered what happened the last time he’d told a girl she needed to calm down-a mistake he swore he’d never make again after Francy refused to talk to him for a week. But rather than get even angrier, Taylor actually sat back, her eyes gradually returning to normal as she blinked and nodded.

  “Sorry,” she managed after a second, sounding as though she’d almost forgotten how to pronounce the word. “It’s… been a long time since I ate anything like that. It reminded me… of before.”

  “I’m starting to think the theory that at least one of your parents was a chef is sounding more and more sound,” Leo said, realizing he was still holding her hands in his own. Thankfully, her claws had already vanished once more, else she probably would have shredded the collar of his shirt. “Though that raises the question of how they managed to get their hands on the magical beast gem that they gave you before sending you off through that rift.”

  “I don’t know,” Taylor shrugged, her eyes darting over to the abandoned pan.

  “Alright, give me a few minutes to prepare another one,” Leo chuckled, letting her hands go as he went to carve off another chunk of meat. “Though I get dibs on the third one. I’m hungry too, you know!”

  “You can have the next,” Taylor said, surprising him as she got to her feet. “I’m going to scout a little. See what magical beasts I can find and move around. The more distance I cover, the less time it takes for my soul to find all the rifts.”

  “You’re doing the open-soul thing? Right now?”

  “Didn’t see the point in waiting,” Taylor shrugged. “I won’t go far, but be careful.”

  “Unlike you, I’m capable of cooking a steak without my eyes getting glued to the meat the entire time,” Leo found himself teasing.

  With a nod, Taylor took off, sprinting across the plain far faster than any rank 11 soul should be capable of moving. Even with his physical evolution being based on speed, Leo was pretty certain he’d be hard pressed to match her.

  “That is so not fair,” he muttered, shaking his head as he went back to selecting the next slice of meat. Glancing between his small frying pan and the two entire cow carcasses he had to work with, he sighed, mentally wishing he was back in his familiar kitchen with all his favorite tools.

  “Damn Planar Lords,” he said, shaking a fist up at the sky before getting back to work. “After I take you all down, I’m stealing your kitchen!”

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