Chapter 115 – Interlude: Avelyn

Avelyn felt warm.

Not just from the bath, though plenty of that still lingered beneath her skin, leaving her muscles loose and her thoughts pleasantly slow.

Instead, the warmth was everywhere.

In the soft black shirt hanging loosely around her, the hem still a little long despite the fabric fitting more snugly across her chest. In the sleeves of Lyn’s hoodie, hanging just a little too short on her wrists. In the small pouch of berries tucked away within one of the pockets, already noticeably lighter than it had been when they bought it.

And, most of all, in the white-haired Foxkin walking beside her.

Lyn moved across the rooftops with the same effortless grace she seemed to bring to everything, soft blue skirt fluttering around her legs as she stepped from one narrow ledge to the next. Her tail had recovered nearly all of its usual fluff after the bath, swaying behind her in slow, contented arcs.

She looked relaxed.

Actually relaxed.

Avelyn found herself watching for several seconds before hurriedly directing her attention toward the street below.

It was difficult not to check. Only a few hours ago, Lyn had been lying broken and bloodied inside a crystal geode while Avelyn desperately tried to keep her from slipping away.

Now she was clean, walking without pain, and occasionally slipping a hand into the berry pouch whenever she thought Avelyn wasn’t paying attention.

Avelyn noticed the movement anyway.

Lyn’s fingers disappeared into the pouch, and a moment later a blueberry somehow ended up balanced between them innocently.

Before Lyn could bring it to her mouth, Avelyn leaned over and stole it directly from her fingers.

Lyn’s ears perked in surprise.

Avelyn smiled and popped the blueberry into her own mouth.

She had noticed, of course.

Lyn was far too brilliant to truly believe otherwise. She simply seemed to enjoy pretending the theft had gone undetected, and Avelyn was more than happy to cooperate with such important work.

Sylrae glided a few meters to their left, wings catching the evening air as the three of them followed the others toward the restaurant Arlo had recommended. Marek and Zeke had chosen the streets, while Rin seemed to be using every awning, railing, and windowsill except the ones originally intended to support a person.

The whole party was together.

Safe and hungry.

Avelyn’s chest tightened softly at the thought.

She glanced back toward Lyn.

The last golden light of evening caught in her white hair, turning the silver shimmer along her ears and tail almost luminous. Her face remained composed, but the occasional swish of her tail gave away how excited she was about dinner.

Or perhaps about cooking.

Lyn had been strangely pleased when she mentioned showing them what “Earthly food science” looked like.

Avelyn had no idea what that meant.

She was looking forward to finding out.

More than that, she was looking forward to watching Lyn explain it.

Lyn always changed a little when she spoke about something she was interested in. Her voice became quicker. Her posture loosened. Her careful elegance stopped feeling like armor and became something lighter, something playful.

Avelyn liked those moments. She liked being trusted enough to see them.

Only an hour ago, Lyn had called her a friend.

Avelyn still wasn’t sure what to do with how happy that made her.

Her tail gave an energetic swish behind her.

Lyn looked over.

Avelyn immediately attempted to calm it.

It ignored her.

Lyn’s gaze lingered for a moment before the faintest smile touched her lips.

Avelyn’s heart stumbled.

Warm.

Yes.

That was definitely the bath.

Definitely.

Eventually, their path across the rooftops brought them to the restaurant Arlo had recommended.

Avelyn hopped down first, landing lightly in the street and adding what she hoped was a suitably dramatic flourish at the end.

Lyn descended beside her a heartbeat later.

She did not pose.

She did not need to.

The white-haired Foxkin simply landed with such effortless grace that the movement looked deliberate from beginning to end, her skirt settling around her legs while her hair drifted back into place as though even the wind understood it had a role to perform.

Avelyn pouted.

It was extremely unfair.

Lyn seemed capable of making nearly everything she did look elegant, dramatic, and aesthetically perfect with roughly the same amount of effort most people dedicated to breathing.

The victorious swish of her tail suggested she had noticed Avelyn’s reaction.

Of course she had.

Lyn pushed open the door of the plain, almost unremarkable building before them.

Avelyn smiled and followed immediately, the rest of the party filing in behind her. Marek had to turn sideways and duck slightly to fit through the entrance, but even villages unaccustomed to the larger Beastkin races seemed to possess enough foresight to build their doors a little taller than strictly necessary.

Inside was exactly the kind of atmosphere Avelyn loved.

Warm firelight filled the room, soft and golden rather than the sharper glow produced by mana-core lamps in Bramblegate. The air carried the rich scent of cooking meat and roasted vegetables, with salt, pepper, and unfamiliar spices lingering beneath it.

Her ears twitched happily as laughter and conversation overlapped around them. Meat hissed against hot metal. Someone at one of the occupied tables cheered as another patron successfully flipped something without dropping it into the fire.

The restaurant was far smaller than the places Avelyn had grown up visiting.

It was also much cozier.

She found herself smiling wider.

Several Dogkin moved briskly between the two occupied tables, collecting empty plates and carrying fresh ingredients from a door near the rear of the room. Avelyn caught brief glimpses of a Catkin stationed inside the storeroom whenever it opened.

A thin layer of mist curled beneath the door, while condensation glistened across the wood.

An Ice aspect, most likely.

The Catkin was probably keeping the ingredients fresh until they were needed.

One of the Dogkin noticed their party almost immediately and hurried over with a broad smile.

“Welcome! Got plenty of room tonight.”

He greeted them enthusiastically, asked where they had come from, and somehow transitioned into a one-sided account of an incredible stew someone had prepared a few days earlier. By the time Marek managed to pay the fee, Avelyn knew the stew had contained boar meat, a ton of potato, and apparently tasted good enough to make several people rethink the art of cooking.

They were quickly seated around a broad wooden table with a solid stone firepit set beside it. Avelyn immediately claimed the best seat available. Which meant perching on the edge of the table rather than using one of the perfectly serviceable chairs.

Lyn settled beside her without hesitation.

High places were simply better.

A neat stack of split logs rested nearby, along with iron tongs, pots, pans, cooking utensils, and several empty plates.

The Dogkin placed a few logs into the pit.

A quick pulse of magic followed, and flame spread through the wood with a warm rush of light.

He settled a metal grate over the fire before handing each of them a menu.

Avelyn looked down.

Then she giggled.

The menus she knew from Bramblegate were usually polished, carefully printed, and decorated with crests or elegant borders. This one was little more than a flat wooden board with words carved into the surface.

Beside each item sat a tiny illustration.

A round loaf of bread wore what appeared to be a cheerful smile.

A cut of meat had been given enormous eyes.

One of the vegetables looked deeply concerned about its future.

Avelyn immediately loved it.

Before Avelyn could finish reading the menu, Lyn placed an order for carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and several of the little loaves of bread.

Avelyn blinked and looked over at her.

“You aren’t ordering any meat?”

Lyn answered with nothing more than a mysterious smile.

Her tail was far less secretive. It gave an eager swish behind her, while both ears stood a little taller than usual.

Whatever Lyn planned to cook, she was looking forward to it.

Avelyn’s own tail immediately joined in.

Marek and Zeke ordered some venison from a local deer monster, while Sylrae excitedly added several ears of corn. Rin glanced between Lyn and the empty portion of the order slip where the rest of the meat should have been, but apparently decided he trusted her enough not to question it.

The rest of the party seemed to reach the same conclusion.

Let the Foxkin cook.

Once the orders had been placed, everyone settled in to wait.

The conversation wandered so freely that Avelyn occasionally lost track of what they were even talking about. A discussion about Zeke’s hometown somehow became an argument over whether Rin could balance on the rope of a moving cart, which drifted into Sylrae recounting the time Marek had walked into a tree because he was too busy watching for monsters. The tree unfortunately did not survive.

It was all wonderfully pointless.

They were talking simply because they wanted to talk.

Nobody mentioned the dungeon. Skills, monsters, and the System all felt far away beneath the soft firelight and the sounds of food sizzling around them.

Warmth gathered in Avelyn’s chest as she listened to her new friends.

Marek covered a small yawn with one hand, his shoulders finally beginning to lose some of their usual tension. Sylrae’s confident smile occasionally softened into something quieter whenever Rin said something particularly ridiculous. Rin acted only half-interested in the conversation, but the slight turns of his ears gave away how closely he followed every word.

Zeke’s tail thumped once against his chair when an attendant carried a plate of meat past their table.

Then there was Lyn.

Her posture remained as lovely and composed as ever, but her ears had begun to droop at the tips. She was more tired than she wanted anyone to realize.

Avelyn wondered whether the others had noticed.

She hoped Lyn would let herself rest tonight.

These were the little things Avelyn loved most.

The tiny signs people gave without meaning to. The smiles that appeared when they thought nobody was watching. The way tired shoulders slowly relaxed once someone finally felt safe.

This was why she had wanted to become an adventurer.

She wanted to travel and see places she had only ever heard about. She wanted to meet people she never would have known otherwise and collect memories that could not be found inside Bramblegate’s walls.

More than anything, she had wanted friends beside her while she did it.

Now she had them.

Avelyn looked around the table once more, her heart feeling wonderfully full as her tail swayed behind her in a slow, contented rhythm.

A few minutes later, one of the attendants returned carrying several large bowls filled with everything they had ordered.

Sylrae immediately claimed a small section of the fire for her corn. Marek and Zeke took another corner, setting a little iron pan over the flames and frying thin strips of venison while they waited to see what Lyn was planning.

Avelyn barely noticed them.

Her attention had already settled on the white-haired Foxkin beside her.

The moment the attendant moved out of sight, four vines slipped from beneath Lyn’s skirt and went to work.

Avelyn watched with equal parts fascination and concern.

One vine peeled and diced some of the potatoes into neat cubes at a speed that made the knife little more than a silver blur. Another shredded the cabbage into thin strips. A third sliced the carrots lengthwise into thick sticks, each one nearly identical to the last.

The final vine arranged pans and utensils while Lyn reached into her spatial storage and withdrew a large amount of ground meat.

“A purification, please,” Lyn said.

Avelyn nodded and sent a soft pulse of Holy mana over the meat as well as Lyn's hands.

As the light faded, she leaned forward and sniffed.

The scent was unfamiliar.

Whatever creature it had come from, Avelyn had never encountered anything like it before.

Lyn began shaping the meat into round balls, her movements calm and practiced despite controlling four vines at the same time.

Avelyn had long since accepted that watching Lyn do anything complicated would make her feel as though she had somehow missed several years of education.

Once the last of the raw meat had left her hands, Lyn requested another purification for both her hands and the utensils she had used.

Afterwards, Lyn placed the diced potatoes into a pan and moved it over the edge of the fire, away from the hottest flames. She added water from a canteen, followed by salt, and a cloud of steam rose around her hands.

A lid formed from kaleidoscopic Starlight and settled neatly over the pan.

Avelyn’s eyes followed it.

Lyn still occasionally created things that looked far too beautiful to be used for something as ordinary as cooking.

The white-haired Foxkin repeated the process, this time with a pot and a few whole potatoes.

The carrots went onto the grate next. Lyn seasoned them with salt and pepper, then left one vine to turn them as the edges began to darken.

The smell grew sweeter as they cooked.

Once the surfaces had charred slightly, the vine moved them away from the center of the flame and arranged them along the edge of the grate to keep warm.

Then Lyn retrieved three thick iron pans and arranged them across the hottest portion of the grate. 

She left them there.

Avelyn waited.

And continued waiting.

The pans grew hotter and hotter until faint waves of heat shimmered above them.

Lyn flicked a tiny drop of water onto the surface of one.

It struck the iron, gathered into a bright bead, and skittered rapidly across the surface before finally vanishing into steam. 

Lyn gave a small, satisfied nod.

Avelyn’s ears perked.

Whatever came next was apparently important.

Lyn removed the potatoes from the fire and poured them through a shallow Starlight strainer she formed in midair, then set them aside.

After that, she did something that made Avelyn question everything she had ever been taught about cooking meat.

Lyn dropped one of the meatballs directly onto one of the scorching pans.

It hissed so loudly that Avelyn flinched.

Before she could ask whether that was supposed to happen, Lyn pressed a flat spatula against the meat and used one of her vines to bear down on it.

The ball flattened against the iron with a sharp burst of sizzling.

The smell arrived almost immediately.

Rich. Slightly gamey.

Far stronger than venison.

Avelyn glanced at Lyn, half expecting her to look worried.

She did not.

Lyn seasoned the meat with quick, practiced movements, then placed another ball on the pan and repeated the process.

Then another.

Avelyn’s concern slowly gave way to hunger.

Barely a minute and a half later, one of Lyn’s vines used a spatula to slide beneath the first piece and flip it.

The scent became almost impossibly better.

Avelyn’s head tipped back before she could stop herself, her nose lifting toward the air as she breathed it in.

Her ears stood tall.

Her tail began swishing rapidly behind her.

Whatever Lyn was cooking, Avelyn had already decided she wanted far more than one serving.

Lyn eventually finished cooking thirty of the meat patties using all three pans and transferred them onto another Starlight construct beside the fire.

She sliced the small loaves in half next, pressing the cut sides into the juices left behind in one of the pans until the bread turned golden and crisp around the edges.

Then she retrieved a small, pale lump of fat from her storage and let it melt across the hot iron.

Avelyn watched as Lyn took the drained potatoes and shook them roughly inside the strainer, knocking the cubes against one another until their edges became uneven and scuffed.

She had no idea why anyone would deliberately make potatoes look worse before cooking them.

Lyn’s fully perked ears stopped her from asking.

Whatever she was doing, she clearly knew what came next, and she was having far too much fun for Avelyn to interrupt.

The potatoes went into the thin layer of melted fat with a sharp sizzle. Lyn scattered salt over them, then left them untouched long enough that Avelyn began wondering whether she had forgotten them.

When Lyn finally turned them in broad sections, deep golden crusts covered their undersides.

Avelyn’s doubts vanished immediately.

After crisping the other sides, Lyn moved the potatoes into a waiting bowl.

Just when Avelyn thought the meal was finished, Lyn retrieved the whole potatoes she had been boiling since the start. She mashed them before adding them to the fat and meat juices still coating the pan.

Salt and pepper followed, along with a small splash of water. Lyn stirred quickly, scraping every browned piece from the bottom until the mixture softened and thickened into a smooth sauce. She repeated with the other two pans, before collecting all the sauce into a single one, placed on the edge of the fire to stay warm.

Avelyn swallowed.

Her tail picked up speed behind her.

Lyn tossed the shredded cabbage through a second hot pan with a trace of fat, letting its edges wilt and brown while the center retained its crunch. 

Then she began to assemble plates. Each small loaf received two meat patties, a small layer of crisp potatoes, and a drizzle of sauce. More potatoes were piled alongside the sandwiches with the cabbage and charred carrot sticks.

Marek, Zeke, and Rin each received three of the strange little sandwiches. Sylrae, Lyn, and Avelyn received two.

Under normal circumstances, Avelyn would have struggled to finish that much food alongside all the vegetables.

Looking at the juicy patties, golden potatoes, and sauce soaking gently into the toasted bread, however, she found herself strangely confident.

Her mouth watered.

She leaned closer and gave the meal one last hopeful sniff.

Lyn placed her hands on her hips, her ears standing proudly upright.

“This is one of the most popular achievements of my world’s food science.” She gestured toward the plates before them. “The smashburger.”

Any remaining composure around the table had long since disappeared.

Sylrae’s wings twitched excitedly every few heartbeats, while Rin openly stared at the food in front of him, the tip of his tail flicking back and forth.

Marek and Zeke had stopped paying attention to their own venison some time ago. Both were now watching Lyn’s cooking with the same hungry focus as everyone else.

Avelyn could feel her own heartbeat beginning to quicken.

Everything smelled so good.

She picked up her fork.

Then Lyn sat down, lifted one of the smashburgers with both hands, and took a bite.

Her ears shot even higher.

Her tail swept behind her with more enthusiasm than Avelyn had ever seen from it, and a soft sound of pure delight escaped before Lyn could hide it.

Avelyn blinked.

That was very cute.

She looked down at her fork, set it aside, and picked up one of her own smashburgers instead.

Everyone else quickly followed her example.

Before any of them could take a bite, Lyn spoke.

“Zeke.”

He paused with his food halfway to his mouth and looked up.

“Might I ask how you believe I acquired my title?”

Zeke tilted his head.

“You said you earned it by doing really well in your Tutorial, right?”

Lyn nodded.

A strange little smile appeared on her face, while her tail swished with barely contained amusement.

“That is broadly correct. However, there is slightly more to the matter.” Her smile grew. “I possessed another title before my current one. The title I have now is its evolved form.”

Avelyn froze.

The rest of the table went still with her.

An evolved title?

Rin was the first to find his voice.

“Gods above, Little Miss. You have an evolved title?” His eyes widened as he looked her over again, as though the answer to several mysteries had suddenly appeared before him. “No wonder your stats are so ridiculous.”

He leaned forward.

“Well? Are you going to tell us what it was? You can’t get everyone curious and then stop there.”

Lyn’s smile widened by the smallest amount.

Rather than answer, she gestured toward the smashburgers and calmly took another bite.

Everyone looked down at their food.

Then, almost as one, they took a bite.

The table went quiet.

The bread was crisp at the edges and soft inside, soaked through with rich juices and the warm, peppery sauce. The meat itself was tender beneath the browned crust, fuller and deeper in flavor than anything Avelyn had tasted before, and the potatoes added a soft, salty bite between the patties.

Avelyn’s ears shot upright.

Her tail began swishing hard enough to tap against the table behind her.

“Oh.”

It was the only sound she managed.

Across from her, Marek closed his eyes and leaned back slightly, chewing with the careful attention of someone experiencing something important. Zeke stared down at the smashburger in his hands as though it had personally betrayed every meal he had eaten before that moment.

Rin took another bite before he had even finished swallowing the first.

Sylrae’s wings flared behind her.

Lyn watched them all over the edge of her own burger, her ears standing tall and her tail swaying with quiet pride.

Avelyn took a second bite.

Then a third.

Whatever title Lyn had once possessed could wait a few more seconds.

Before Avelyn could take her fourth bite, the System interrupted her. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Initial Consumption of Tier 1 True Dragon Meat Confirmed

Stat increase has reduced due to tier disparity.

All base stats increased by +75

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Avelyn froze.

Her eyes remained fixed on the fading message as the words repeated themselves in her mind.

True Dragon meat.

Around the table, everyone had gone completely still.

The silence lasted nearly ten seconds before Rin broke it with a loud wheeze and slapped one hand against the table.

“Ahahahahaha! Little Miss really got you!” He clapped Zeke on the back. “What was it you said earlier? Something about her not comparing her flames to a True Dragon’s?”

Rin dissolved into laughter again, striking the table hard enough to rattle the plates.

Zeke’s ears angled so far outward in embarrassment that Avelyn briefly worried they might somehow fall from his head.

Sylrae and Marek soon joined in, both chuckling as Zeke’s earlier lecture returned to haunt him in the most dramatic way it possibly could.

Even Avelyn let out a small giggle.

Then she looked toward Lyn.

The white-haired Foxkin continued eating as though nothing unusual had happened. Her expression remained calm, but her ears stood fully upright and angled toward the party, while her tail swept across the edge of the table with unmistakable delight.

Avelyn shifted a little closer until their shoulders touched.

Lyn glanced at her, faint confusion crossing her face, but said nothing.

Avelyn smiled down at her food and took another bite.

The smile did not feel quite as light as before.

Everyone else was focused on the result. The dragon meat, the increase to their stats, and just how badly Zeke had underestimated the newest member of their party.

Avelyn could not stop thinking about what had come before it.

Lyn, small and alone, standing before a creature large and dangerous enough that even the Archive explicitly warns people about it.

How badly had that fight hurt?

Lyn had told them that one of her traits prevented scars, but that did not mean there had been no wounds to erase. Had she bled? Had she broken bones? Had she been burned? Had she been frightened, with no healer beside her and no one to catch her if she fell?

It seemed unlikely.

She couldn't imagine the ever composed Foxkin every being afraid of anything.

Still, Avelyn’s chest tightened.

She could not bring herself to join the teasing again.

The smashburger, however, she made sure to enjoy.

That was what mattered to Lyn.

The small Foxkin was watching their ears, their tails, and every hand that reached for another bite. Each time someone did, her ears lifted just a little higher.

Avelyn ate slowly enough to appreciate every mouthful.

Somewhere before she finished the first burger, her tail curled around behind Lyn.

It did not quite touch her.

It simply rested there, warm and close.

Just in case Lyn needed it.