This one is the regur chap.

  Ludwig opened his eyes the moment his eyelids opened up. The golden morning sunshine sifted through the window while the usual scenery of Ashfrost Mountain could instantly be seen even without him sitting up.

  He quickly cycled through his morning routine, drinking water and exercised before he went to the bathroom to freshen up.

  Once he’s done, a simple t-shirt and long pants covered his body. All of his scars on his arms could be seen. Fortunately, only the restaurant could see him now, no one else was present.

  In the dining hall, he stopped before walking to the kitchen. It was still as broken as the night before. Tables standing with missing legs, chairs with no legs at all, broken pilrs, floor being carved open…

  If only someone from the Harry Potter world has walked into this restaurant… Ludwig sighed. His time ability could of course fix them. But the Reparo charm would do a better job with less fuel needed.

  The reason he hadn’t fixed anything yet was because he believed Hiruzen would send his best craftsman today. Yes, believed. No, not because he thought the man was trustworthy, but because the contract he had signed was just that iron-cd.

  If no builder came from Konoha today, the enforcement would take pce. They would get their first punishment before the trade even started.

  And he was sure Hiruzen didn’t want that.

  Ludwig flicked the switch in his mind and let the restaurant open. Of course not because he was ready to serve people but because there would be people returning in a few hours at most.

  The first thing he needed to do before preparing for today’s menu was fixing things that were absolutely needed in the day to day business of the restaurant.

  Ludwig exhaled slowly and extended his hand. Mana bled out of him in a thin, disciplined stream. Not the indulgent excess he once wielded on battlefields, but a careful allocation.

  He chose a single table first. Not the worst-damaged one nor the least. It was a table split diagonally down its center, one leg reduced to splinters, the surface scarred with kunai grooves and scorch marks.

  With a flick of his fingers, the time obeyed.

  The space around the table hummed, like a breath being drawn in reverse. Splinters twitched, dust lifted from the floor, grains reversing their zy descent.

  The broken leg crawled back first. Fragments slid across the restaurant first with a soft, unsettling scrape before they snapped into alignment, making the cracks as if they had never existed.

  The tabletop followed. The diagonal split closed from the inside out, the grain knitting together with a muted creak. The scorch mark faded st, heat retreating backward into nothing, until the surface returned to its familiar warmth beneath his mana.

  The table finally stood whole again and Ludwig released the flow.

  “Onto the next one.” He said quietly and reached again.

  This time, he worked in sequence. One chair’s backrest reversed from a pile of snapped sts, wood jerking upward as if yanked by invisible strings. Another regrew its legs in the wrong order—third leg first, then second, then first—time unspooling unevenly where the damage had been chaotic. Ludwig corrected it with a subtle twist of will, forcing the timeline to behave.

  He did not rush. Each chair demanded attention and precision. Too much reversal and the wood would remember older states, warp back into raw lumber, or worse, into the tree it once was. Too little, and the fractures would persist beneath the surface, waiting to fail under a guest’s weight.

  By the time the fourth chair clicked softly into completeness, Ludwig let out a satisfied breath.

  One table and four chairs were ready for service. Around them, the dining hall remained a ruin. Though, the Checkpoint seemed to approve of what he had done.

  Ludwig turned to his next target and did the same as before, sending the tables and chairs into their pristine condition before Konoha attacked. When quite a chunk of his mana was drained, he had finally finished repairing some of the table of four.

  He wouldn’t repair everything, the rest was Konoha’s responsibility. It would serve as a reminder that choice had consequences. Both for himself and them.

  Ludwig moved away from the dining hall and entered the kitchen. He just missed one day of morning preparation, yet he felt like he had finally returned to a pce he could call home. It was truly comfortable and assuring, like a snug piece of gloves.

  Every burden and incoming trouble felt insignificant here. No thought about politics or conflicts was rge enough here. What mattered now was only ingredients and what to serve for his faithful customers.

  He first opened the Stasis Cabinet. Inside, he could see pre-cooked chicken piled up in one metal tray, ingredients for the assorted tempura like carrots, eggpnts, shrimp, and squid pced in separate bowls. At the same time, he could also see the skewers sitting inside, ready to be pulled out and put into the grill.

  The quantity was adequate, not too much but would still assure them they wouldn’t run out of stock mid service. In other words, he could hand in the preparation for adding more stock to his employees.

  What he needed to do now was the soup like always.

  First, he looked around to see what kind of ingredients were ready for him to use, of course beside all that would be used for the other dishes. After rummaging for sometime more, he found quite an amount of ground beef, some vegetables like chili, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, and kidney beans.

  Shifting through a list of dishes in his head, Ludwig found one that would pair up well with the rest of today's menu. Beef Chili soup. A soup which had quite sourness and spiciness but also quite banced.

  Ludwig didn’t waste time thinking about it. Beef Chili was a dish created through honest work, heat, salt, and patience. And today, patience was overflowing in the building.

  He set the biggest stockpot on the prep table first, not the stove, not yet. Before spices, before anything that smelled like comfort, there was the part most people pretended didn’t exist.

  The work.

  Ludwig pulled a small sack of dried kidney beans from the Stasis Cabinet and put it on the counter.

  He untied it, poured the beans into a wide basin, and ran cold water over them. Dust and tiny broken bits floated up in an instant. Then, he used his eyes and hands coordination to sort them out. Bad ones out, stones out, anything that didn’t belong in a bowl out.

  Once he was done, he filled the basin again and let the beans soak themselves there. But this time, it was because dried beans demanded respect or they would punish you ter.

  While they drank the water, he turned to the vegetables.

  Onions, bell peppers, fresh chilies, tomatoes, garlic.

  He id them out in a line and grabbed his knife and peeled them.

  He took the onions first. His knife sliced through the end before it halved them, and pulled the papery skin away in clean sheets. Of course, he didn’t leave scraps on the counter. Every waste was deposited into a bowl at his side.

  After all, cleanliness was what mattered the most inside the kitchen. Moreover, a messy station turned into a messy mind, and a messy mind got people hurt.

  Garlic was the next stop. He smashed each clove with the ft of the bde, skin splitting with a soft crack, then peeled it and piled the naked cloves into a small dish.

  Bell peppers were easier. Stem and core out, membranes scraped away, seeds shaken free. Chilies got the same treatment, though he kept a second pile for the ‘dangerous’ ones, the kind that would turn the whole pot into a challenge instead of a meal.

  Tomatoes waited at the end of the line like they knew they were going to be the most annoying.

  He first washed them, dried them, then cut shallow crosses into the bottoms. Only after everything that needed peeling was peeled, everything that needed trimming was trimmed, did he allow himself to turn toward the heat.

  He drained the soaked beans and moved them into a clean pot, covering them with fresh water. No salt yet. Salt too early could make skins tough enough for the customer to start feeling the resistance.

  He set the pot on the runic stove and fed the circle a thin stream of mana. With the use of his time ability, the water warmed, trembled, then began to roll in a second.

  Ludwig watched the first foam rise and skimmed it off with a dle. He kept doing that for a time until the surface looked clean again. It was something he could do all day. Here, time was an abundant commodity.

  Once that was done, he lowered the heat to a steady simmer and left the beans alone. Only check every so often to offer a gentle stir. Or maybe adding water if needed.

  In the meantime, he moved to the tomatoes.

  He set another wide pot of water to boil, then dropped the scored tomatoes in for only a brief moment. Just long enough for the skins to loosen and curl at the cuts. Then, he fished them out into cool water and peeled them cleanly,one after another.

  Skin off. Stem scar cut away. Flesh chopped.

  It was an honest work that didn’t rely on cans or shortcuts. Not just because he didn’t had a cheap access to them, but because the taste differed when it was made in his own kitchen.

  Once the tomatoes were ready, Ludwig finally put the main stockpot on the stove.

  Fat first. Ground beef went in next, portion by portion, pressed down so it browned instead of steamed. He waited for the crust, then broke it apart and let it brown again. The smell changed from raw to rich, filling the kitchen with something that felt like an answer to stress.

  Onions followed, soaking in the beef fat. Bell peppers went in after. Garlic only at the end, stirred just until fragrant.

  Then the modern-world powders: Chili powder, cumin, and smoked paprika. Their aroma bloomed briefly in the hot fat, turning from ‘spices’ into part of the base. The peeled tomatoes went in st, colpsing into the pot as he stirred, their brightness cutting through the richness until the simmer began to unify it all.

  He then checked the kidney beans with the edge of a spoon. It had become tender, not mush. It had enough structure to survive another simmer.

  He drained them, saving a little cooking liquid just in case he needed to loosen the chili ter, and folded the beans into the main pot gently. He tasted the mix before long, adjusted the salt level, and let the chili thicken.

  As the soup bubbled, the kitchen smelled like heat and work and something that would hold through a long service.

  Ludwig set the dle down and looked at his station. Peeled, trimmed, cleaned, controlled.

  “Alright.” He said quietly. “Now we can cook.”

  The words left his mouth, but Ludwig didn’t move away from the pot.

  He stayed there, hand resting on the dle, listening.

  The runes under the stockpot held a steady heat. The surface of the chili answered with slow bubbles that rose, swelled, and colpsed back into the red like the dish was breathing through its own weight. Not a rolling boil. Not yet. Just enough motion to keep everything alive.

  He stirred once slowly while making sure he was scraping the bottom.

  Nothing get caught. A good sign.

  The scent that rose with the steam had changed from ‘ingredients’ to ‘food.’ The cumin sat deeper now, no longer a sharp spike. The paprika’s smoke had stopped hovering on top and sunk into the beef. The tomatoes still spoke, bright and insistent, but they were starting to lose the edge that made them feel raw.

  He tasted again.

  Yet, the soup was still too eager.

  It wasn’t bad per say. It just wasn’t finished.

  Ludwig clicked his tongue softly and nudged the heat down a fraction. This was the part impatient cooks skipped. This and only this, the stretch of time where fvor stopped arguing and started agreeing.

  He set a small timer inside his mind, a simple pulse that would nudge his awareness every few minutes. Not because he couldn’t keep track, but because today he refused to let distraction burn his work.

  The dining hall’s ruin existed. Konoha’s promised craftsmen might exist. Punishment might need to exist.

  But the chili soup only needed him to do one thing.

  Attention.

  He stirred again after the next pulse. Then again.

  Each time he did, the surface sheen grew more even, fat no longer floating in separate orange isnds but threading itself through the base. The bubbles became heavier, zier. The pot was thickening the right way, not by reducing into paste, but by binding.

  Ludwig reached for the bowl of bean-cooking liquid he’d saved and held it near the steam. He didn’t add it. Not yet. The chili didn’t need thinning. Instead, he let it continue uncovered, letting excess water escape while the tomatoes surrendered sweetness.

  He tasted again after ten more minutes.

  This time the heat arrived slower. The tomato tang didn’t stab. The beef stayed present even after the spice hit, not swallowed by it. The beans were soft but intact, little anchors in the thick red.

  It’s better now.

  He added salt in two small pinches instead of one big one before tasting in between. After all, salt was something that could ruin as easily as it could fix.

  Then, because he knew the truth of chili soup, he made one st adjustment.

  A half spoon of chili powder from his Shop Window, not enough to change the color, only enough to deepen the base note. He bloomed it in a small dle of hot fat from the surface first, stirred it into a paste, then folded it back into the pot so it wouldn’t taste like raw dust.

  He watched the pot for a full minute afterward, as if expecting it to protest.

  But, It didn’t. The simmer just resumed.

  Ludwig set the dle down, wiped the rim of the stockpot clean, then lowered the runic heat to a holding warmth. It’s not ‘cooking’ anymore. Just ‘Ready.’

  He pulled a deep bowl from the shelf and dled himself a small portion, careful to get beef, bean, and liquid together. Steam curled up, fogging his vision for an instant, carrying smoke and spice into his nose.

  He tasted it at once. And this time, there was no argument left in the fvor.

  It was a single thing. Banced heat, grounded beef, tomatoes mellowed into the body, beans tender enough to be comforting without dissolving into mush.

  Ludwig exhaled, the tension in his shoulders loosening a fraction. Amidst the chaos of troubles that had come into his doors, he finally felt at peace.

  Cooking was not just an escape for him. It was a therapy.

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