Chapter 27

  Ren didn’t sleep.

  He tried. Got as far as lying down on the narrow cot in his assigned quarters, staring up at the ceiling where root-vines snuck through the old stonework. But his thoughts kept circling like hungry dogs. The whispers. The Church. The Collapse. And underneath it all, a question that had been slowly fermenting ever since he’d joined the Order.

  Why him?

  Eventually, with the moon hanging pale and crooked beyond the broken windows, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.

  Ethan’s quarters weren’t far. Ren hesitated only a second before knocking.

  “Not dead yet,” came the dry voice inside. “So it’d better be good.”

  Ren opened the door.

  Ethan was still awake, unsurprisingly, seated at a small desk lit by a hovering shardlamp. He looked up, one eyebrow raised.

  Ren stepped in. “I know it’s late.”

  “You think?” Ethan leaned back, folding his arms. “Nightmares, or that whisper you pretended not to hear?”

  Ren flinched. “You heard it too?”

  “I hear a lot more than I say.” Ethan’s expression didn’t shift. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”

  Ren rubbed the back of his neck. “I… have a question. One I’ve been avoiding.”

  Ethan waited.

  “Why me?” Ren asked. “I’m a chef. I didn’t have combat training, or magic, or military experience. I’ve been here over a month and I’m just now figuring out how to no stab myself with a sword.

  So why was I chosen? Why drag me into a dungeon exploration mission.

  when I can barely win a knife fight with a stubborn turnip?”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Then Ethan stood, stepped over to a shelf, and pulled out a battered ceramic mug. He poured himself a bit of something amber and sharp-smelling from a bottle that probably didn’t come from this world.

  “You ever heard of Larna the Scribe?”

  Ren frowned. “No?”

  “She was a cartographer. Back before the last Era. No weapon skills, no combat record. Just… a pen and a need to understand.” Ethan took a sip. “She saved three cities by mapping leyline fractures no one else saw. The people who changed history aren’t always the ones swinging swords.”

  Ren crossed his arms. “That’s not really an answer.”

  “No,” Ethan agreed. “It’s not.”

  He turned, setting the mug down.

  “You want the truth? Fine. We didn’t choose you. Not at first. You slipped in. Your arrival was unregistered, unexpected. And yes—at first, we considered you a liability. A well-meaning cook with no battlefield value.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But.” Ethan’s gaze hardened. “You adapted. You learned. You didn’t beg for shortcuts or fancy skills—you worked. You studied. You cooked for others when you barely had enough for yourself. You survived, and your food is damn good.

  Ren hesitated. “So what—you’re saying I’m useful because I make soup?”

  Ethan snorted. “I’m saying you pay attention to the world. You observe. That’s rarer than you think. And maybe—” he held Ren’s gaze, “—when everything starts falling apart, someone who knows how to keep people fed, grounded, and alive might just be more valuable than another sword.”

  Ren looked down, his thoughts churning with more weight than he knew how to hold.

  Then Ethan added, almost offhandedly, “Oh. Also—the trip north? It’ll take about two months.”

  Ren looked up. “Two months?”

  “Travel to the outer ruin zones isn’t quick. And it’s a survey mission. We’ll be stopping to investigate several known points of instability.”

  “You said I was going to learn more.”

  “You will,” Ethan said. “Whether you want to or not. Nothing teaches like surviving in the field.”

  Ren exhaled slowly, already mentally packing his gear. “So… no kitchen?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “There’ll be fire. And ingredients. You’ll make do.” Ethan’s mouth quirked. “Besides—some of the older dungeons? They’ve got very interesting flavors. Just don’t eat anything that whispers back.”

  Ren raised a brow. “That a joke or actual advice?”

  “Yes,” Ethan said, and turned back to his desk.

  Ren lingered a moment longer. “So… I’ve got a month before we leave?”

  “Roughly,” Ethan said without looking up. “Could be more, could be less. Depends on how fast the scouts finish their initial sweeps.”

  Ren nodded slowly, trying to process the timeline.

  Ethan glanced over his shoulder. “Which means if there’s anything you want to wrap up—projects, supplies, awkward emotional reunions—you’ve got time. Once we’re out there, we’re out. The old roads are half-collapsed and the leylines are unstable. No popping back for forgotten spices.”

  Ren gave a faint smirk. “Tragic.”

  “Oh, and you’ve got a new instructor starting tomorrow.” Ethan pulled a slip of parchment from under a pile and flicked it toward Ren. “Sinclair.”

  Ren blinked. “Wait—Sinclair? Tall guy, looks like someone chiseled a knight out of a guilt complex?”

  “That’s the one. You know him?”

  “We’ve crossed paths. He’s… intense.”

  “He’s a specialist in precision combat. Bow and knife. Both fit your current stat spread—dexterity, perception, light-step build. You’ll be running drills before breakfast. Don’t be late.”

  Ren raised an eyebrow. “Why do I feel like he’d make me do pushups for blinking wrong?”

  “Because he would,” Ethan said. “But he’ll make sure you don’t get turned into cultist confetti the moment things go sideways.”

  “Encouraging.”

  Ethan leaned back in his chair again. “Also, we’ve got someone arriving from the Dragonkin Confederate Base, It’s called The Tooth by the way, He’ll be teaching you more about magic.

  Ethan waved him off. “Go. Sleep. Eat. Pack. Savor whatever peace is left. Once Sinclair gets hold of you, you’ll be too sore to blink, and after that—well.” His expression darkened just a touch. “After that, you’ll understand why we don’t send green recruits into the ruins unless we have to.”

  Ren turned to leave, pausing at the door. “Ethan?”

  “Hmm?”

  Ren hesitated, then said, “Thanks. For being honest. Even when it’s not comforting.”

  Ethan shrugged. “I’m too old for lies. And you’re too far in for soft truths.”

  The door shut behind Ren with a soft click, and the corridor stretched empty and quiet ahead of him. The ruins around him creaked with old life, half-asleep stone and tangled roots whispering their own slow language.

  A month.

  One month to train, prepare, and get ready to hopefully not die when the time came.

  ___________________

  The forest seemed different when he went exploring the next day.

  It wasn’t obvious at first. The winding deer paths still meandered through the brush, moss still clung to the tree roots like sleeping cats, and the tall-needled canopy still filtered the sunlight in soft, dappled hues. But the deeper Ren walked, the more he noticed the difference.

  Fungi with soft bioluminescent caps peeked from the underbrush—none of which he remembered cataloging. A lichen-covered willow pulsed faintly with mana, and the air carried a subtle tension, like a storm was watching him but hadn’t yet decided to break.

  Still, this was the best time to forage—post-rain and pre-harvest, when mana-rich growths reached their peak. With his basket slung over one shoulder and a knife tucked in his boot, Ren picked his way through thickets of dusk-cress and crystal-veined basil, marking each new ingredient in a worn leather notebook Ethan had grudgingly given him.

  It wasn’t until he followed a flicker of silvery light through a thicket that he found the cave.

  At first glance, it barely registered as more than a cleft in the rock, overgrown with creeping vines and framed by two dead trees. But when he stepped closer, the air shifted. Warm, dry, tinged with something… old. Not in the rotting sense. Preserved. Like an antique cellar that remembered its owner.

  Curiosity got the better of him.

  The entrance was narrow, but opened into a wide chamber no more than thirty feet deep. Shelves of natural stone held mushrooms with delicate stems, glowing softly in shades of azure and rose. A patch of night-root clustered around what looked like a toppled pedestal, half-buried in moss and time.

  Ren crouched, brushing aside leaves. No runes. No traps. Just… plants. More mana-rich ingredients in one place than he’d seen in the rest of the forest combined.

  “Alright,” he murmured. “Either this is a gift from the universe or I just stepped into a plot hook to advance the book.”

  Still, it wasn’t cursed, he reasoned—his [Flavor Sense] didn’t recoil or sense, and the pulse of the place was steady, welcoming even. He harvested only a few samples—he knew better than to take too much from a wild mana field—then slipped back out as quietly as he’d entered.

  ___________

  Back in the kitchens, Ren laid out the haul on a long stone counter. It shimmered faintly under the ambient mana lamps—just enough light to work by without interfering with the flow of magic in the ingredients.

  Tonight, he kept it simple: a risotto with cave mushrooms, dusk-cress, and slices of the iridescent tuber he’d found coiled around the old pedestal. As he cooked, he expected the usual pushback from the mana—a tug of resistance when folding heat through the starch, a mild flare from the herbs when cut too quickly.

  But this time… nothing. Or rather, it wasn’t passive—it was cooperative. The mana in the ingredients moved with him, anticipating, almost playful. Stirring the pot felt less like work and more like collaboration, as if the food wanted to be made.

  When the risotto was done, it gleamed faintly, warm and fragrant with just a whisper of something nostalgic. He took a cautious bite.

  It was good.

  Too good.

  Balanced, rich, complex—every flavor perfectly aligned without him needing to micro-adjust. The mana settled in his chest like a lullaby.

  He stared at the bowl.

  This… wasn’t normal. This wasn’t just good ingredients. Something about that cave had changed things.

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Definitely a plot hook.”

  Still, he finished the meal. Carefully stored the leftovers. Wrote down every single detail of the cooking process. And just before bed, he made a note in his foraging journal:

  Cave with weird ingredients. Should check it out. Ask Ethan about it after exploring a bit more. Bring offerings.

  He paused. Then underlined “offerings” twice.

  Outside his window, the trees rustled gently, and somewhere deep beneath the forest floor, an old slumber remained undisturbed.

  For now.